I have a weird theory for how to make energy something more than spamming plants. It will also balance play and make interplanetary play more interesting. Okay, so there's energy production, but then also transmission. Plants transmit energy wirelessly (tesla like) to a certain radius. Early in game, as long as structures are reasonably close to energy they'll get full power no problem. But after you build a couple rows of advanced energy, you might want to get that power out to the other side of the planet. Simple, build a transmission tower. These towers have a t1 and t2 type, and take about as long as turrets to build, but have a limited radius and capacity. Therefore, you can't just build 9 factories (my preferred way to win, lag permitting), you have to build transmission towers. If these are destroyed, structures lose power. Maybe these will only affect factories, but you get the gist. Now, you can build very very expensive interplanetary transmission sites. This allows your undisturbed super energy world to share power with other worlds. These sites can be destroyed to. The energy sources aren't destroyed, just local access to them. This dynamic does two things: balances play by making base expansion a more deliberate decision (can't just spam factories, have to build a little infrastructure), but also enhance the strategic element by focusing battles on certain worlds and transmission sites. See, if energy is totally global across all planets, then a last-ditch offensive might take out some resources along the way. But if there are choke points, that makes the battles more significant. Also, if the player has unbalanced their resources planet by planet, on destroyed transmission site can totally overturn the balance of power. Etc. I feel that transmission towers are 'too easy'. Just another hassle, a small thing to quickly build. So, preferably you have to string them along, or something. Let's say your total energy economy requires the capacity of 5 towers. The towers' radii are 1/5 the distance to your expansion. So you have to build 5 towers, 5 times with overlapping circles to get full energy access at the outpost. Now, you might not need full energy. But this is exactly what I mean about turning energy into a more strategic thing. The disadvantage is that it might be too cumbersome, but if it is not cumbersome at all it might as well not exist. Also, how do you show the player their energy access? That part of the UI would be tough especially for beginners. Well, it's an idea. I like how now metal is more scarce and compels the player to be more strategic. I'd like energy to have a special restriction too, but a different type.
I doubt Uber will do this, but color me interested. I've always liked the idea of cutting supply lines, being a subversive faggot and whatnot, so I'll look into doing a testmod when Uber releases the server.
Okay, having thought about it here's a specific way this could work. Two tiers of energy access: interplanetary, planetary. If the planet zoomed in on has interplanetary access, you energy bar is highlighted and there's a space icon or something. There is only one interplanetary pool of power, and a planet is either connected into it or not. Locally, buildings are either obviously powered (green) unpowered (red) or there is power but it's not enough (yellow). Red means it can't function, yellow means it functions like when the energy bar is empty. Most buildings require an energy source to function, even defensive structures. Some, like radars and maybe basic turrets, don't require outside energy. This is just to hedge against completely uselessness of infrastructure if power is knocked out. Energy plants have a radius, and transmit energy freely to whatever is in that radius. There's a bar, or better yet a graphical feature that shows the approximate level of energy being consumed by that one plant. The game is smart, if lots plants and structures overlap, it will distribute evenly. Still, there's that power feature in the side menu. Transmission towers are cheap, cheaper than towers, but they're a pain. They have a radius (red) which turns green when it touches the radius of an energy plant or powered tower. The towers, like the plants, have energy bars representing capacity. If they're at full capacity, but connected plants aren't, and connected structures on the other side are partially powered: build more towers. Your top energy bar, whether planetary or interplanetary is segmented into little bars. These, either way, represent only the power networks on that planet. You can build unconnected sites of power plants. But, if they are connected, it's just one bar. They deplete independently, and clicking on them brings you to an approximate geographic center. This would help in team games where you want to know who is hogging power and why. If a network is linked by towers, then situations where partial power limits are reached but the cause is transmission capacity not total output will be represented by the bar stalling where it is and turning yellow. Thus energy is easily represented graphically for good management. Yes, this wouldn't be precise, but that's not the point of this game is it? You'll know where bottlenecks are and it's only a matter of building a tower, or more plants, or a building on or off to fix. And, while we're at it, let's have these towers 'teleport' metals too.
Power is transmitted both ways, and flows evenly. If you build energy plants on the far end of the transmission path, and you have the capacity, it will get transmitted back the other way if necessary. Only two factors come into play: physical connection of having good radii and good tower placement (it's yes or no, connected or not, and based on radius so it's not linear it's area based, so a network is more of a blob), the second is capacity. The capacity thing is interesting because if you have a 4x4 block of big energy, you might need 20 towers in a clump just to get it one radius over, and then from there you could split it. It's unlikely you'd need towers just within the proximity to plants themselves for nearby factories, because the plant radii are much larger than the towers'.
I doubt they will change the entire structure of the game to adapt to this when they already have as much as they do planned out but I would love to see a specific gamemode/type implementing these structures.
No. Just... no. While the idea of localized energy is interesting, the solution to energy transfer is to simply build it where you need it.
We are going to start off with a simply global economy. Only if it proves not sufficient will we change that. I originally liked the idea of economies being local to each planet but was convinced otherwise. Perhaps in time my opinion will swing back the other way.
Let me try and swing your opinion. Instead of transfer towers, energy is transferred inbetween planets with high-energy artificially created directional Quasars. Which double as giant accretion disc-powered laser beams. That melt planets. My job is done.
This is something that shouldn't be considered for release and this is coming from someone who generally is against having global economies. There are multiple reasons for this train of though and one of them is that it is counter productive to have a limited range on your power generators, to need to make more power generators to increase your production, and to have the need to build transmitters to broadcast power. You see this does add a large amount of depth for would be a fair amount of complexity but only when you take it out of the context of the game. In context however one player would not be able to concentrate on maintaining those supply lines, to concentrate on expanding his power/mass and expanding your presence when one bomber could break your supply chain at any moment. Another reason I'm not for this being in the release is that it takes away from time spent in combat because you can either spend that mass on a tank or you can spend it on a transmitter. In most cases people will be forced to produce less units so they can expand the same amount which is just counter productive to the destructive feel. In reality I'm for a Eco that is separated by planetary bodies but I'm not for localisation to the point were you have a area of effect on power generators, they have two entirely different effects on gameplay. The priors effect can be positive for the attacker, giving him a objective in each planetary invasion (Check my thread) and the later means that you will be having to micro manage individual power grids on multiple planets. Your ideas would work amazing in a smaller scale game/game mode.
I was originally a supporter of localised economies, until I came to the realisation that it is actually counter productive to the goal of offering players meaningful choices. Simply put, a connected economy is always strictly better than an isolated one. Try as I might, I cannot conceive of a situation where I would NOT want to connect an outlying economy to my main industrial capacity. With this in mind, the most sensible thing to do in all circumstances is build a transmission tower as soon as it is affordable. This is a poor choice to offer players and it doesn't even lead to good opportunities of enemy action. Given that your opponent is always strictly better with a connected economy, it is logical that your major target of opportunity should be the economy connection buildings. In all circumstances it creates a single point of failure that is far easier to remove than diversely spread resource generators. I would rather not add this mechanic than add it in a way which forces players to interact with it in such a fixed manner.
I actually like the idea of global econ for a solar system for a few reasons, but I'm more interested in how units will move between planets (other than the unit cannon, which from the ks vid I take as more of an army reinforcement structure) before totally disregarding a local model, or even considering things like transmission towers for power and such. I think that unit planetary movement will play a key as to which econ model works best.
do you think if you do local econ, could it be an expansion? since a lot of people (me too) don't want it
Localized metal income is deeply troubling on many levels. For starters, it places units away from the front. Invading asteroids lose their ability to reinforce, unable to use factories or build artillery weapons to siege the enemy world. That's a bad thing. It creates a heavy burden to move metal around to where it's needed, detracting from the battle at large. Localized energy income is exciting. For starters, it places delicious targets right on the front. Energy plants become a staple of any invading force, creating opportunities for both sides to disable the other and secure a planetary advantage. It also ties down energy hungry units (like bombers, stealth, and arty), preventing them from steamrolling the cosmos. Players will rely on more standard tanks and more traditional ground assaults instead of abusing power units across planets. And no, "trade port" buildings are a bad idea. If resources can be shared across worlds, it's better to simply have them shared all the way. There's no point in creating a local economy only to undo it with global trade ports. That is why energy is suitable for being local, because there is no frustration with placing it directly where a player needs it. If there's room for a base, there's room for a base with energy. Local resources is definitely one of those things that deserves a testing round. It creates a very different dynamic that may or may not be superior to the simpler sector economy.
We have all seen how devastating it can be when your core energy productions is decimated by a good attack. non localized resource production is the best strategy anyway. That simply makes the need for transmission towers moot.
