Decoupling Mexes from Energy

There has been a lot of discussion in some places about the possible merits of a priority system for the expenditure of energy and other complicated thoughts. The thoughts that because of the many drains on energy and the large downsides of running out, the loss of extractors metal was needless compounding of loss on top of this.

The thought got into my head that metal extractors just sit there without consuming energy and produce metal and i absolutely hated it. Unfortunately it stuck around making me feel dirty because it could be something that technically improves the gameplay... I am torn.

So I present it to y'all should metal extractors be decoupled from energy?

I thought about making this thread.

In my opinion mexes should either drain a substantial amount of energy or none at all.

If they drain a substantial amount you might get some tactical choices to make by turning of mexes to power the Ubercannon, saving up resources to build a unit before it is scouted, using energy for more production when you find reclaim or powering defenses.

If the drain is tiny like in SupCom or TA then it has little effect on the gameplay except that it reduces your metal when you stall on energy.
Then you are forced to avoid stalling on energy because it means you lose metal production.
Then it would be better if the mexes drained no energy in my opinion.

I feel like they should use a minimal amount of energy. Enough so that it matters in the early game but when larger power structures are up you don't need to worry about them.

If they used zero energy you could start off a metal map by building 10 to 20, would feel kinda strange.

However if they required to much maintenance switching on and off the end result could be more about micro-management and less about smashing planets.

I had forgotten about the option of increasing the drain. that shod be included in the poll. sorry for spelling im on a phone.

I think you're confusing COSTING Energy and NEEDING Energy to Work.

You can't start a "metal map" by just building Extractors because eventually the unit building it would drain your entire energy store, not leaving enough energy to even build a Pgen to recover.

Also worth considering that if all you're building are Extractors.......you have no way to spend all that metal either.

Mike

You also forgot 'needs energy but production is not prorated'.

i suppose that is a possible thing that i've missed however the only difference from that needing energy is that it implies there is a priority system that this isn't a part of which doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

Increase energy consumption for fun and profit

I would honestly rather see no energy drain - if you have no energy, the problem solves itself in that you'll max out on mass and be unable to spend it, you don't need to choke to death on a lack of mass gathering as well.

If mexes drained no power, power sniping would be a much less valid tactic, and therefore the game would be more shallow.

Mexes should drain power, my initial feeling is a fairly minimal amount like TA/Supcom, but there may be arguments for higher drain that I haven't considered. I don't think a mex should ever use more than half the energy output of a single basic pgen though.

Why? Especially given that mass input into projects is scaled with available energy. I just don't see the point of kicking a player that's already down by constraining them from generating mass for after they fix their energy problem.

The reason i went through making this topic is because lack of power already hurts everything that lack of metal hurts and much more.

the energy cost on metal extractors essentially comes out as a metal fine to running out of energy in addition to the loss of build speed from fabricators shutting down. this goes in a couple of directions after that:

with no energy cost, you continue to accrue metal in storage.

with trivial energy cost, you continue to accrue limited metal until you rebalance your energy.

With high energy cost, you need to weigh your reconstruction effort with the rest of your empire because you will have almost no metal and very limited energy until rebuilt.

from listing them out like this i realize that with no energy cost, you will probably quickly recoup any lost build time by overspending your metal.

You should be punished for running out of energy, PUNISHED I SAY!

So for first level metal extractors (or if there's only one level), I think they shouldn't require energy to run; just like units, their power should be built-in. This saves uber the trouble of having to create some kind of priority system and keeps players from being double-punished for being energy drained.

If there are second level extractors, they should cost a moderate-high amount of energy (depending on how much metal they provide). Basically, you're giving up energy independence to get more metal.

Oh, and there shouldn't be metal makers in this case. If your extractors are free, the ability to put that energy into more metal makes the energy-free extractors pointless.

I agree with this. You shouldn't be able to keep up with people that do not run out energy.

The entire point of the game is to kick the other player until he goes down and stays down. Why shouldn't I be rewarded for successfully knocking out half my opponent's power?

Um. You are being rewarded. Big time.

Getting your power knocked out will already be a big deal. The question is, do we want to multiply that effect big time or not by eating the metal of the energy-short player.

It'd be like.. every power gen that you lose that puts you in the red should create a fountain of exploding tanks - because that's what's going to happen to your economy.

Yeah^

As an opponent destroys your power, power that you require to run stuff (So excess power plants won't hurt) it reduces your ability to do a certain amount of % then say supcom where if a mass extractor loses power it turns from 100% on to 0% off.

Here it would go to something like 60% on, so really the gradient of power rather then the binary running costs of the past games will actually much ,much more forgiving.

Knocking out your opponents powers already puts them on the slope to defeat. Having metal require energy just makes that slope steeper. They're already suffering from decreased production and defense, there's no reason to saddle them with a long term metal deficit.

Well it won't really be a deficit if you couldn't spend that metal anyway.