If MadScientist doesn't beat me too it, I may try to explore some alternative power sources and how they might be balanced in a future post. At the moment though I'm knee-deep into a thread trying to justify the removal of tiered power-creep. It's an uphill struggle.
Something like this would be cool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere Already planned to go to different planets, why leave the central star out? Also, to comment on solar, what if you build one at the north/south pole? Would it always/never receive light? What if I built a ring of solar plants around the pole, then I'd always have power? What if the planets rotational speed equals its orbital speed (like the moon IRL), then one side is always facing the sun, making one side of the planet better. Not saying solar is good or bad, but these are some other things to consider.
I always enjoy reading your long posts MadSci. Thanks for taking the time to write and post all that; as with your orbital analysis that has given me plenty of food for thought.
Another lore-compatible route is an "Energy Transporter" which is a receiver for some sort of instantaneous energy transfer system, ostensibly linked to a massive power source (such as some kind of solar fusion scoop or somesuch)
We had some topics in the beginning about different energy sources. Now, I don't disagree with you at all about alternative t2 energy plants instead of just the big fusion one. My objection came to the proposed solar collector as I assumed through the numbers given (1000 energy) would make it a t1 building. Having much more energy at t1 is critical as economic expansion at the start of the game is non-linear, meaning that having an early boost gives a much bigger economy a bit later in the game. And I don't agree with the argument about starting positions, as having starting positions near the day terminator (for full efficiency for solar) would be critical given their much higher efficiency. Also once you add too many resources for t1 the balancing of starting spots gets much harder as there are higher chances of spots that are useless and spots that just have too much of everything. And you quickly run into issues having to give every player a possible spawn location near that area. If those additionaly energy options are t2 though, I've no objection as at that point players had some time to expand and diversify and to overcome problematic start positions.
I doff my hat to you MadSci. I too am of the "gimme all you got" mentality for energy generation. Maybe a workaround for the problem of competitive people wanting symmetry is to have a toggle for competitive games. Switch it on and you get your simple energy generators. Switch it off and you get a plethora of options instead for more interesting, situational economic gameplay.
Fundamental rule of game design: You don't make options willy-nilly. Its a basic cop-out that doesn't work as it ignores all the cost of those option and the additional resources they use to implement. Basically, make it right or don't add it. Anything else is bad design.
Granted. That's why I mentioned a few posts back that if such a thing was to be added, I was fully aware that it would require a lot of careful thought and balancing.
Best idea ever! I recon these super advanced robots would have a much better energy source then wind or tidal, what about dark matter reactors or antimatter, they have a massive energy start up cost to start the reaction but then it's all based on a chain reaction the reactors use the fuel to produce energy then a small amount of energy is used to produce more fuel. This part wouldn't have to be Ingame more of a back story to how the generators work. I don't see why the generators need to be anything in particular, they are build by super adaptive robots why can't the generators be just as adaptable and use a mixture of all of these sources, and the t2 have a fusion core to boost there production. I think too much into this might make this game all sim city like.
I'd argue that we already have this, but for the other resource. After all, once reclaimation is completed you'll be able to reclaim wrecks and even enemy units in order to extract the metal.
Grind them up for a good source of metal, but add in a harvesting mechanism for the robot tears, so we can run the T3 experimental salt reactor off them :mrgreen: Regarding power sources, a mix of stable output (current pgens) and variable output does give more depth to build options. I liked the way TA did it, having solar (fixed), wind (variable from worse to better than solar) and tidal. However I always ended up just using solar in TA due to never being sure about the benefits of trying the (cheaper) wind ones, preferring the guaranteed output option. From a balancing perspective I'd expect something along the lines of: Stable, guaranteed output as a baseline (current technomagic energy makers) Fluctuating output with obvious and observable cause (i.e. solar, tidal based on moon orbit) Stable, high output but limited by location (e.g. geothermal, high-yield fissile deposit etc.) Fluctuating output that follows a psuedorandom pattern (e.g. wind) Costs would need to be based on a combination of output / utility, and outputs would need to be considered to ensure that while none are objectively the "best" option, each has enough utility to cost to encourage experimentation, or provide a tactical use. Exempli gratia (numbers pulled from thin air): base pgen: +1000, 100 metal solar (5 min cycle): +2000 when lit, 100 metal (should average to a similar total output to base pgen) geothermal: +2000, 100 metal, location limited wind: +50 to +1500, 50 metal, output fluctuates at (pseudo)random So in theory, you could time building a solar unit to take advantage of 2m30 of double the base pgen output for the same cost, but would need to use that time to capitalise on the output before it disappears. Geothermal is just plain better, but like metal is location limited. Wind is the gamble; it would depend entirely on the pseudorandom algorithm used as to whether it would be considered worth building (there being enough high-generation periods to make it worthwhile) or not. Each of these can have a T2 equivalent, or the decision could be made to restrict certain options to only 1 tier/tech e.g. T1 geothermal, T2 high-yield fission reactor (+10000, 500 metal), both location restricted, and having no T2 wind or solar options. The actual numbers are all part of the balancing and playtesting phases, these are only intended to be examples of how I think they should relate. Also, while I would like to think that more always equals better, PA is being built on a budget, so I'll completely understand if none of the above appear until quite late in the development process, or even at all.
