Energy costing unit and building weapons

I don't recall the LLT in TA using energy to fire, but I never played it online so I'll take your word for it.

In my swarming tanks example I mentioned about, using Forged Alliance as the best example I have: it's quite plausible that 20 T1 tanks have made it into your base past your other defences and they are targeting your power. You have 2 T1 point defence in your base, and plenty of units halfway across the map. Now with no energy drain, your point defence will beat the tanks. It will be a setback to have to rebuild your power and may ultimately cost you the game.

But I think it is preferable that the turrets you erected specifically as a last line of defence should do their job regardless. Bigger guns should cost energy to fire, but not basic turrets. Nothing spoils my enjoyment of a win more than the opponent quitting when he could still fight, and if the turrets went offline due to lack of power I bet there a lot of people who would just quit.

Worry not, There will always be a basic and free to fire turret.

In terms of SupCom it would be like having T2 turrets costing power to fire, 100 power a tick will give them a normal firing rate, but 200 power a tick will let them fire twice as fast.

Giving advantages for a good economy, and flaws for not having a good economy (Or one the enemy destroyed) and overall making the use of these defenses a risk/reward kind of deal for the player. (At least in my mind).

The same could be said at power costing unit weapons, you guys remember the powerful mobile energy weapons like 'The Can' and the 'Zeus' bot? While they possessed very powerful weapons their drain on your economy made them very interesting choices if you could handle the out put.

Oh man I remember those well. Actually I believe that the LLT did cost energy to fire - but it was a tiny amount, so small that even if your energy economy was on the skids all you'd get was a reduced rate of fire. Gaat guns were awesome too, but I think making every damn T2 turret cost energy to fire would perhaps demand the player's attention a little too much, since you might build a lot of them in lots of different places (different planets!) over the course of a game. Better to save the firing costs for important weapons, like endgame artillery, unit cannons, and the like.

As for T1 point defences in supcom, I actually recall that it took odds of about 10:1 for T1 light tanks (Mantis etc.) to beat a point defense head on. But actually tier 1 point defences were a trap, because unless you were fighting a commander-headed assault, building them meant that you had surrendered the initiative, and that your opponent was busy consolidating their grip on the resource production of the rest of the map. Even on more chokepoint-ey maps like Finns Revenge.

I feel that there is an argument against power usage for basic defences. As long as you have power then they should fire. But actually going into the mechanic of calculating how much power they are using seems pretty pointless to me. Particularly if the amount is so small that you don't even notice it happening. Waste of processing power IMO.

So it doesn't impact the game until you get to the real big stuff? I think people have mentioned that it was used as a limiter to stop players turtling up too much. I can't say it ever stopped me. I used to love a bit of casual turtling. Building massive bases in TA and lining up the buzzsaw cannons, ready to smash wave after wave of incoming bots when they got too much for my point defence and short range arty. When you turned on the buzzsaw, then you knew about it!

I never understood why anyone would want to stop a turtle anyway. It's a valid strategy as far as I am concerned and in a multiplayer game you really need skill to play defensively. Offence is a much easier option. Not to mention that you can use mobile units offensively or defensively. They're a lot more flexible than point defence.

Heh. The reason you think you need skill to turtle, is because it's a bad strategy, and it's purely because of resources. A turtle will get crushed by an octopus every single time.


I'm all for energy being used for firing weapons / running units. Personally I prefer a resource system where each resource gives a distinct benefit. Mass = building blocks. Energy = make things go.

Yeah, maybe in previous games. However, if the whole planet is 'mine', what is there to stop me from owning all the resources and also turtling? Obviously we are then talking about how many worlds I own and how I distribute my resources between them. But I think this illustrates what I'm talking about well enough.

This is not how it worked in the previous games, as I am sure you are well aware. Mass and Energy are both required in order to construct anything. This is a simple mechanic and it works excellently. Furthermore, constructing different types of units requires different amounts of each resource. For example, air needed more energy than mass and land required more mass than energy (relatively as the units are the same but they are generated at much different rates). A careful consideration for the player when initially calculating his resource requirements early in the game. Also power generators require a much larger ratio of mass:energy to build compared to a mass extractor. Doing away with this mechanic would completely change the game and on this particular issue I disagree with you.

Perhaps now I am getting deeper than most casual players ever bother and couldn't give a monkey's about. But it's an important consideration. Particularly for the ladder players who will be analysing this and using it to play the game. A few people have talked about not dumbing down the game to cater to a wider audience. I whole heartedly agree.

This is a very interesting point. There seems to be a knee jerk reaction to slam anything in support of turtling strategies. I for one tend to octopus as much as possible in a map, but the idea that the playing field is now seperated into locations by interplanetary distance without any potential for combat in between (no space combat, although they may be Orbital warfare?) means that the concept of hardening defences will become more nessesary and valid as a tactic.

If a player owns a planet, either because it has not yet been contested or because the opposing player was booted off the planet, hardening up defences to resist invasion Normandy style ensures they maintain the resources and deny them to the enemy. The enemy will try to break in and failing that, escalate the conflict (KEWs and such).

Turtling up and staying within a fort will of course still fail in the face of an imperialistic expansion, but I think being able to 'turtle up' planets once won will be more useful than it has been in prior games.

I think it is important to get down to the gritty details. The details have to be dealt with at some point and I think a large part of these forums is to come up with concepts, then analyse them down to the nuts and bolts.

I am definitely for artillary/base defences and the like requiring energy to fire. Basic defences I am sure would have such a small power draw as to be negligable, but if you dont have a single power plant in operation or storage facility online then it only makes sense that your defences should fall.

In terms of increased strike/defence capability one should have to consider powering a given device (say artillary) in addition to considering the upfront material cost of constructing it. For example a full battery of Artillary should require a strong infrastructure in order to support them. Alternatively a player facing a strong defensive line should have the choice of attempting to exploiting a weakness to crash the infrastructure to shut down the defences, or meet the meat grinder head on.

As for units having power draw post construction, I am not sold on the idea. For one I would think units would require an independant internal power source much like any mobile weapons do today. Secondly I'm not sure this would improve things from a gameplay perspective (unless we are only talking about particularly large units of some kind) - However I remain open to hearing more about the idea from people who think it would work.

Post construction energy draw is surprisingly common. Such units would be shield, stealth and cloak generators or units that utilised these traits. For example the Aeon harbinger or the Cybren T3 strategic bomber Though these abilities could be toggled on or off after they were built. Some units also required resource to construct ammunition, like the tac missile launcher for the UEF ACU.

Generally speaking there is no explanation for this power draw actually works. Kind of like how there is no explanation about how a shield generator can be built on the opposite side of the map with no power generators in sight and still draw power. Where does it come from and how does it get there?! I think from that point of view it's just flexing realism in favour of gameplay. The abilities of these units have a trade off for the player in the form of energy draw and I can live with that if that is how the units must be balanced in the game.

As for a standard light unit or light point defence drawing energy just to fire it's main weapon? - I don't think it's worth the time it takes to write the code. Or the processing power it takes to calculate it for that matter.

Oh yes you are right of course. I should be clearer, my post was more refering to standard walkers/tanks/aircraft and the horror of having an army capped based on the volume of power a player could generate while said army were opening fire with standard weapons (not including things like cloak and shields). I dont think it is worthwhile for every unit to have a power draw for the reasons you suggest; but I am happy for specific unit types with an ability to draw on the global power pool with a toggle.

My comment about the internal powersources was admittedly very half baked and flawed. Like you say we dont need powerlines running from our powerplants (something I would hate). Feel free to ignore that comment hahaha.

I disagree that it was half baked or flawed. From a gameplay point of view, yeah maybe it's not how SC works, but it's not unreasonable to expect that a unit should have some kind of 'internal power source' to allow them to function like in many other games. A walker doesn't draw power from the grid every time it takes a step after all. So is it that far a stretch of the imagination that it should be able to power it's own weapons? I don't think so.

In fact I would argue that it's more believable that the unit should be able to power it's own cloaking device - but it all just boils down to gamplay mechanics and how the developer decides they will balance an ability they award to a unit. We're really just giving a plausible, real world explanation for a gameplay mechanic. Simply it is more important to have a game model that works well than anything else.

Thanks! yeah I guess it is a balance that needs to be struck between good gameplay and maintaining the suspension of disbelief. As long as PA is consistent in its own application of reality and remains fun to play then I'll be happy

On Turtling:

If you have multiple planets, a turtle would stay on one, and beef it up. An Octopus would occupy all the others, and crush the turtle due to an overwhelming economic advantage. This is true no matter what the scale is, as long as resource income is tied to territory control (eg, metal spots).

Arguing about Turtling / not turtling has nothing whatsoever to do with how many defensive options there are for the players. The octo may build as many or more defensive structures than the turtle in the end.


On Energy:

I do like the mass/energy system for construction. I just wonder if perhaps it's worth poking the old model a bit and differentiating the resources more than simply 'resource 1' and 'resource 2'. And at the very least mass = build, energy = go is a good simple concept to work with.

Ok if we are working with that definition then I agree with you. I always thought of it on a base by base case, but I guess that is blurring the definition with Octopus.

Which older model are you referring to? are you suggesting using energy as a running equipment resource alone and mass as the construction cost? Just trying to clarify your meaning

Agreed. The point I was making was not that turtling was a good or bad strategy, just that it would be different to turtling in the traditional sense.

Also in agreement here. We have somehow deviated from the original topic, which was defences costing power to run. I have already stated my opinion on that, so I am not going to repeat myself.

Regarding what you have suggested - Using the two resource types independently of one another (mass = build, energy = make things go. IMO it's a terrible idea and shows that you have not really thought about how the two resources are different from one another. At any rate, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I don't feel that it's fair for me to tell you it's a terrible idea without giving it some justification. So...

As we all know the primary difference between mass and energy is that you can only build mass on mass deposits. Energy can go anywhere there is room and requires mostly mass to build. This, as I already described, is the relationship between the two resources. It means that you need more of one in order to get more of the other. This is a fundamental game mechanic and basically defines how the game will be played as well as making the two resources completely separate.

We also know the income rates at which their relevant structures bring in the resource are different. A T1 power generator brings in +20 energy for instance. Where as a T1 mass extractor only brings in 3/s. Everything in the game requires a certain amount of each resource to produce. This means that depending on what we want to produce we may need more of one type of resource than the other (see my earlier examples). Don't forget that we can also create mass fabricators. Doing away with this and using only mass for construction would be disastrous. All of this is based on a balance that has been defined and carefully refined over time.

Not using the two resources in combination also becomes a problem if we consider simply using energy just to 'make things go'. If energy was used for nothing but making things go, then we are essentially introducing a population cap on the player based on how much energy they can build. Another reason why the game is already fine as it is. Using energy to fire powerful weapons and produce ammo for things like TMLs is important and the player should feel the effects of using such weapons. As for standard units and point defences using power to fire - I'm not convinced.

I believe your example said it best, as the player would have access to powerful point defense and normal point defense, the powerful one would cost power to fire but would be extremely powerful.

The same for power costing units, strong units with a powerful weapon.

So not really power for making things go, but attack, and only really a cap on units that would be otherwise easy to spam.

Wolfdogg that was a really interesting read on the relationship between the two resources. It is something that I guess I'd never really thought about. But yes I do think that Resources should be closely linked in gameplay. Additionally I would not like to see power plants become akin to supply depots are in Starcraft, where I couldn't get an army to operate without building a stack of power plants somewhere.

Traditionally, normal units provided their own power, the units i refer to would be few and far in-between.

Oh yeah I realise that, I was more referring to another suggestion of separating the two resources. The model you suggest is used by a fair few RTS's in my experience and it works well. Power for larger attack structures and like artillery and specialised units (also maybe having internal self recharging power sources for special units if global power draw was awkward for it), no global power draw for more regular units.

I would think energy consumption comes from buildings alone such as artillery, shields and the like. Units should always provide their own power so there more self sustained such as the case if you base was decimated but you still had an army.

Even the large hard hitting units should still not draw energy they should be capable of making their own. I don't know, I'd hate to be in a situation where I'm low on energy and the one unit I happen to have needs extra power to function, then again I'd love to see the idea's for units that need to draw extra power.

For metal being the only build requirement, the engineers would draw energy anyway to construct it, regardless if the structure had energy as a build requirement or not. So it is kinda a requirement still. That's how I felt anyway for TA and SC, the metal was to build it and the energy needed to construct it.

Haha! Thanks, it's surprising how much from the past games potentially apply to PA.

Either way, I think we can learn a lot from studying the previous games. Not just what worked, but also what didn't. I know I've said it before, but it's where I look for answers when I think about PA.

From my point of view, having basic units with power demands, that includes point defence and so on, draining your economy is something that shouldn't make a come back.