Gameplay, Units & Balance

Its a flow based economy, you might not even notice the cost most of the time.

Teleporters are either on or off. They have a cost of being on and that's it. Units don't cost anything individually to go through.

Sorry, don't want to be pesky or something. But for anyone who's still uncertain about what proxy factories are, here's a 2:30 minute video showing the strategy in action:

www.dailymotion.com/video/x19o2h2_proxy-factories-in-pa_videogames

It's a game in quick motion, showing how I use the concept of proxy factories.
I don't mean to lecture anyone, just trying to be helpful.

I point the proxy factories out with my mouse.

Have fun
Greetings

I don't think a flat energy cost for teleportation of units would work that well to counteract that. A flat energy cost is equivalent to an increase in infrastructure cost.
Lets say you have a vehicle plant feeding a teleporter. Lets say that teleporting an Ant costs twice the amount of energy as it costs to produce the Ant.
So the total average energy drain of the vehicle plant feeding a teleporter would be 675 for the factory + 675 * 2 equalling 2025 energy drain versus only the 675 drain if you build the vehicle plant on location.
Yes, local production would require less infrastructure but on the other hand you can build the additional power plants offworld in a safe location without having to build up factories on the target world.
So you could view this as a choice if you build up additional power plants to support more teleportation or build the factories on-world requiring less powerplants.
An expensive teleportation cost would prohibit a buildup where you save up hundreds of tanks and send them all in 1 go as that would require a lot of storage or additional excess power plants.

Is there any cost in enabling them? Like this you basically seem to prefer heavy micro play (turn teleporters only on when you need them, or even better: write a mod that automatically disables them unless they are used).
I agree that "pay per unit" isnt a cool thing, but "pay per time activated" has issues as well.
Maybe make teleporters automatically activate/deactivate whenever they are used by default?

Is there a cooldown for the off/on thing?

If not, could we add one?

While it is easier to snipe a lonely target with advanced bombers or laser satellites it is also easier to defend 1 target against nukes, laser satellites and creeping artillery.
Also if the teleporter is cheap enough you can just rebuild it if destroyed or make some extra teleporters just in case.

A teleporter allows you to chose where you send your army regardless of where it is produced. Local factories doesn't allow you to do that. You just need to control one orbital body and produce units on that planet.

Power plants are likely to be located on safe locations making them the strongest link in the chain.

Depending on how fast and easily units trickle through the teleporter, it might take a while before an army can regroup on the other side. However if there is already a front line established, teleported re-enforcement can drive straight out of the teleporter to the front line like units produced from the factory would.

Yes, if air units can't be teleported then you obviously have to make air factories if you want to use air on target planet.

Hey Godde, I know you know this already, but i just want remind everyone:

No matter how many defenses you have, or how many units you have defending them, your power is never safe.

Ever.

Yes mered it may not be 100% save but at some point it isnt reasonable to attack it. Instead it is better to attack other targets that are less protected.

About a cooldown for activate/deactivate on teleporters:
I think this is no solution. It only makes it harder to decide when to turn off/on.

My energy production is safe if I build redundant power plants on places where they are easy to defend. If my enemy keep losing more metal in units than power plants he destroys I can just rebuild the power plants somewhere else.

You must be fluid, like water.

Just like you said

Yeah this isn't doing any good for my concerns on what effect teleporters will have on other elements of the game to be honest. I guess at this point it's still mostly a waiting game so we can try it alongside things like the unit cannon and the revamped orbital.

Mike

I agree. I think we should hold off judgement on how tele's work until the unit cannon and fully revamped orbital are added.

There are some pretty good reasons to have the teleporter on/off instead of charging per unit.

In this game transportation is everything. Many of the threads have been about things like cracking well defended planets and being able to move a mobile force around the system.

Originally I had thought that charging a per-unit cost of some kind (both energy and possibly time) would make for the best gameplay. However, my vision there wasn't of grand enough scale.

The idea that we could have a stargate style teleporter where an army literally FLOWS through the hole hadn't occurred to me. Well now that's reality and it really does open up some interesting strategic options that the game didn't have before.

This is just one example of the many places that my initial vision for something has turned into something else through the process of making the game.

I agree it opens up that possibility, I'm just worried that it simultaneously shuts out a bunch other possibilities at the same time.

Mike

But I guess we shouldn't worry so much. Like you have said yourself, it's a waiting game.
And I also think that we expressed our concerns pretty clearly by now

If that's the case, will there be a startup cost for activating the teleporter? If not, will there be a feature to turn it on automatically when units start streaming in, and off when they stop? I wouldn't want it sucking up energy constantly when I don't use it constantly, but if I want to send units through regularly from a little ways away I'd rather not have to check on them constantly, turn it on when they get there and then off when they're done each time.

Yeah. That is the point. It makes microing by turning on and off the teleporter ineffective and also makes it harder to automate. You could plan it carefully by gathering units, activating the teleporter and marching through but this might not be desired as it might slow down your re-enforcements arrival. It does have strategical implications so it is isn't clear what the optimal choice is. Also the portal might still drain energy while activating meaning you are saving even less energy.
Another micro technique you could do with radars which is similar is to only have the radars activated for a fraction of a second thereby saving a large amount energy. You could check if any enemies are in range of the radar and leave it on if they are.
By having an activation time on the radar or even a drain when the radar is powering up, would basically make such micro futile even if it were automated.

Activation time, deactivation time and energy drain while the unit is turning on can be real effective gamemechanics that can make energy demand and supply more strategical.

Would you mind linking to some possibilities you wanted teleporters to have? or thoughts on the matter?

I'm just spitballing here but honestly I don't even like how energy works or how it's implemented at all. It's basically makework.

From the stratosphere, there would be little difference to the game if you removed energy plants and increased metal costs commensurately. For example: Energy-free transportation + Increasing the cost of the teleporter structure to reflect the metal cost of those energy plants.

One of the nice things about Supcom2 is that energy actually meant something in that game.