Exploring Storage Options

Discussion in 'Backers Lounge (Read-only)' started by ooshr32, February 14, 2013.

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Storage

  1. None - Eco lives or dies on in/out rates without any buffer

    6 vote(s)
    4.4%
  2. Fixed - Start with a certain capacity and it cannot be changed

    2 vote(s)
    1.5%
  3. Integrated - Each production building increases storage as well

    35 vote(s)
    25.7%
  4. Separated - Access to storage buildings like SupCom

    81 vote(s)
    59.6%
  5. Other - Please explain your idea

    4 vote(s)
    2.9%
  6. Candy! - For those who just like voting in polls

    8 vote(s)
    5.9%
  1. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    What If I build a bunch of storage and super charge my production of units instead?

    Using any resources stored to quickly build anything I would have built normally?

    and by using a "disproportional amount of build power" isn't really a problem if I can get 50 gunships in a mins and then rush your defences before you ge the chance to scout.

    But if I am wrong them please say why I cant just do this?
  2. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    Energy did a great deal to mitigate that in both TA and Supcom, as it was not feasible to store the huge amounts of E needed to rush-buy.

    For example, a single metal storage could store enough metal for about 19 Peewees. However, one energy storage could only store enough to rush-buy 4 of them. Extra generators were needed to provide the peak power needed for a rush-buy, which became expensive and wasteful pretty fast.

    Rush buying is more of a reactionary tactic. If the enemy force is scouted out, then you can respond by rush-buying the best counters for the job. It could be something as simple as getting defense turrets up. On the offense, stashed resources could be waiting for a scout mission before being invested into the best weapon for the task. Weak hillside defense may prompt a strong investment in jump tanks, for example. The better the rush-buy power is, the stronger the response can be.

    Building the most things possible is always a good idea, of course. Storage simply adds a time buffer on when it can be spent.

    Just go f#@$ kill him.
  3. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    That's what I am trying to get at, if I can just react and build an army within a few seconds then what prevent's me from just wining right then and there?
  4. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    Wasting half of your money on storage, excessive factories, and too many constructors? You're just going to get rolled by tanks.
  5. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    That's not what I have read from this idea, from what I can gather it allows you to quickly rush your production if you have the stored resources to do it.

    What you are describing bob is just having a large amount of normal production (Build power).

    And you know that even them building normally, and not rushing that having more factorys then your opponent is usually better, even having more factorys then your economy allows just means that you are running 100% of your resources into production.

    Then that just comes down to who managed to get more resources on the map.
  6. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

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    The whole idea is to have more build power than you can use normally, and to build as few units as possible to save up the excess build power. The idea is not that you see what your opponent does and rush out an army 3 times as big, the idea is that you rush out an army half as big and 3 times as effective, so you'll still win using a cheaper army.

    And the reason your army is cheaper but more effective, is because you have a lot more builders and a lot of money spent on storage, which leaves you weaker in raw power but far more flexible to respond to things happening.
  7. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    You have confused me.

    So you need more production power to build faster because you have more resources to spend?

    How is that any different to normal?

    And how you you build more effective troops by doing this? Becuse you scouted?


    To me it just sounds like normal.
  8. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

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    I'm not really sure how to make this any simpler...
  9. Timevans999

    Timevans999 Active Member

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    don't worry chap i had the same problem with him on another thread.
  10. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    I voted Other:

    i would simply like both: storage capacity grows with production buildings, AND there is access to storage buildings.

    (i do believe TA did this too).

    My main problem is that storage buildings in TA and supcom did not really add much storage, and it took huge huge farms of em to make any significant dent.


    I would prefer that storage buildins would be a bigger, more expensive but also much more powerful type of building, so building even a couple of them has a significant impact. (who ever builds just 2 or 3 for that extra 1% storage?)
  11. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    But storage doesn't really need to be large. The nature of a streaming economy means that any type of project can be started, which is more than adequate.

    Storage only serves to absorb hiccups in the economy. This happens when metal is reclaimed on the field, giving an excess of mass, or from energy using units, which drain spare energy.
  12. acey195

    acey195 Member

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    I think a hybrid (separated and integrated) would be cool. It would make the game more accessible, if the economy doesn't break down at the slightest mistake, and I guess as the amount of generator increases it would make sense for your economy to get more stable.

    I think dedicated storage is still needed, both for people who resent change at all cost from Supcom :p and for people that have a really hard time to master the economy, as the storage buildings helps translate the economy better to the more common economy systems.

    In other words, each generator would have a small storage, but for more storage you could build dedicated storage buildings.
  13. joe4324

    joe4324 New Member

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    I think the hybrid model is best. I tend to play defensively and turtle aggressively at the start of a game. The idea is pretty simple, fend off the first few waves of attack with good defense and try to get a larger economy going faster than my opponent.

    I Like the idea of static weapons using metal/energy along with your units using it too for every shot fired and shield-deflected hit. But that every structure you build has a static benefit/cost to economy as well. So you need at least a basic level economy to support a fighting army and more to support a static defense grid.

    I also think that TA in its prime just about nailed it. It seemed that every unit or structure slightly improved your economy at least enough to promote forward growth. But if you wanted to do some fancy stuff you needed to build extra storage.

    I think the more flexibility the better. Some of my fondest memories gaming came from LAN games of TA, in which you've been beaten down and you are trying to keep your stealth reactors hidden, and radar jammers and I am bouncing between a few attack units and several constructors trying to keep my limping economy alive and stable enough to keep the cloaked units hidden and get a new base off the ground half way across the map.

    I love the idea that you could be economy strong, and hard to kill, or be aggressive with a fragile economy. Anything that supports more play types I love. Much of my attraction to the Galactic war is having enough space (literally) and time to let any hair-brained scheme try to play out. You could have a completely narrow-minded focus and if you chose some backwater planet you could spend an hour and a half without being discovered while you built your armada of asteroid weapons platforms, and then spent another hour flying them around the back side of the enemy's control-zone and park them above a dozen planets and watch the havoc play out for the next 3 hours.
  14. toorvis

    toorvis Member

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    I liked it in SupCom because it also rewarded you for doing it, for those that haven't played it, you increased the production if you placed storage buildings right besides the production buildings.

    ยจ~ Chris
  15. gaflar

    gaflar New Member

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    I agree with the hybrid idea, but to me it seems like everyone would end up building generators for storage anyway and seperate storage buildings would become the least-built structures. There has to be a way to scale the integrated storage so that separate storage becomes necessary.
  16. thundercleez

    thundercleez Member

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    I never liked the idea of having to build those fields of storage units. I voted for none but integrated wouldn't be too bad either.

    Has there been any mention of which way the devs plan to go with this yet?
  17. arkadyrenko

    arkadyrenko New Member

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    Quick point on this topic: in the scale phone released by Uber entertainment, there is an 8 sided building, which connects to a construction building and an extractor by a series of sheds.

    That appears to be their mockup for a storage building and the storage adjacency bonus.

    In the picture there are two such buildings, one with what appears to be 4 layers and one with 2 layers.

    I suspect that those represent a mockup storage and they also show Uber's ideas for the storage functions. First, storage gives adjacency bonuses to both construction and extraction units. Second, storage buildings can be expanded.

    This means that resources are stored in external buildings and that storage can be expanded by building more in those buildings.

    As I only know SupCom, I think this is an improvement. Storage now can be built in a base without requiring a huge amount of space. That allows players to invest more in storage without requiring massive bases, which would otherwise make the strategy stupid.
  18. superubernova

    superubernova New Member

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    I'm siding with the "hybrid" model people- even in the far future, your resources will take up space and require somewhere to be, and it makes sense for the mining yard to have some place to put the good stuff they pull up, but afterwards it needs to go somewhere else.

    The same is true of energy- fun fact for you all is that in the USA there are distributed energy storage stations to smooth out demand spikes to make it easier on generation stations so they don't have to ramp up and down as much. These typically take the form of gigantic liquid-salt batteries or magnetically levitated flywheels that are spinning in a vacuum at high speeds. Check out Beaconpower.com if you think I'm kidding.

    Even in the far-flung distant future, there will be need for the valuable mass to sit somewhere until the engineers can allocate the energy needed to process it into something destructive.

    Supply chains are also a good game mechanic, because it gives players a tactical decision when dealing with an enemy, and there is value in sneak-attacks and raids on bases, even suicide raids.

    If I can take out someone's economy, then it doesn't matter if he's got eight giant tanks rolling around on the map- I'll have more units to wipe those tanks out before they can get new units online to replace them.
  19. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    Supply chains are a chore that has nothing to do with robots fighting. The only purpose of one is to slow down attacking and make defense easier. That's not needed when every uncontested world can be a potential fortress. An attacker needs as much opportunity as possible to stage a successful invasion.

    The one place where supply might be useful is for high speed aircraft. If previous games are any indication, some types of aircraft will operate at a completely different magnitude of speed compared to ground units. Limiting the power they can wield(as well as having effective defense tools) is essential to keep games from falling into air spam.
  20. branly

    branly New Member

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    I vote for the hybrid option. If i remember it well enough it was also implemented abit in TA, but the mainstream gameplay was to build storage.

    In my opinion i would like to see that i don't need to worry about storage at the start of the game but when you use more advanced units/buildings (like the old school Sentinel and Gaat Gun) it requires separate storage for energy or mass.

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