Proposal: T2 Storage Structures

Discussion in 'Balance Discussions' started by tohron, April 14, 2014.

  1. tohron

    tohron Active Member

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    Given the huge amount of resources a multi-planet T2 econ involves, it feels like the T1 storage structures come up short - specifically, it feels like you need to carpet a planet with them in order to notice any effect.

    Hence, I'd like to see some T2 storage structures that are slightly less metal-efficient, but much more compact. Here are some stat ideas:

    T2 Metal Storage:
    Mass Cost: 4000
    Storage: 10,000

    T2 Energy Storage:
    Mass Cost 4500
    Storage: 700,000

    With these stats, T1 storage would give better cost efficiency, but T2 storage would take up a lot less space. It would also come in handy if the Metal Planets require a large energy reserve in order to fire.

    Anyone else like this idea?
    tristanlorius likes this.
  2. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    I do not oppose it yet also do not see the point
  3. archmagecarn

    archmagecarn Active Member

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    If most or even all units are eventually converted to the energy as ammo system, I'd support this. However, in the status quo, I don't see problems with the current T1 storage.
  4. Shalkka

    Shalkka Active Member

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    I reguarly carpet planets with storage adn I think the issue is better adressed by a straight buff to T1
  5. aevs

    aevs Post Master General

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    I'd like to see T2 storage, because T1 storage takes up a lot of space for how much it can store. Hopefully a T2 option would make storage more compact.

    Also because I really want to see the T2 storage designed after the storage in the kickstarter:
    [​IMG]
    (Metal storage being the buildings around the commander, energy being back left)
    I really love the industrial look on them.
    ace63 likes this.
  6. spainardslayer

    spainardslayer Well-Known Member

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    How about T2 storage has the same capacity, has high enough health to withstand a nuke and is twice as expensive. This makes recovery much easier after a devastating attack on your base if you were properly prepared and the enemy didn't follow up with an attack.
  7. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    I would like it to have 2x the storage then. (especially because, if you can/have to "spam" it, the enemy just sends over 2 nukes at your storage).
  8. karolus10

    karolus10 Member

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    Other option would be buffing T1 storage in exchange of slightly increased cost (they fairly cheap now), especially energy storage as metal storage seems rather fine to me (I never build more than 2 metal storage). Energy buffer Is often useful if You use a lot of fabricators, especially "medic" ones.
  9. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    Ditto. They are small enough and build fast enough, that you can actually carpet an area with them if so desired.

    Few reasons to hardcore store things anyway.

    Really, it encourages incorrect play.

    Also, it is a direct upgrade.

    So, at any rate, it existing as a niche is barely a thing, but I don't see a purpose to expand it.
  10. tohron

    tohron Active Member

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    When you're mass building 10+ nukes, funneling additional fabbers into the projects out of a dozen air factories, while another group of air factories is pumping fabbers to support your orbital launchers, you can go from "large energy surplus" to "energy stall" very quickly. I've been in this scenario quite a bit - and bear in mind, this was while I had 50+ air fabbers building T2 power wherever space allowed.

    The T2 storage wouldn't be a direct upgrade because you would get more storage/metal with the T1 storage. The advantage of the T2 would be that it takes up less space. So it would be a tradeoff between space and metal cost. I imagine the value of T2 storage would become even more important once PA can support the fabber count needed to fully utilize a 5000+ metal income without slowing to a crawl.
  11. spainardslayer

    spainardslayer Well-Known Member

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    Have you ever thought that building ten nukes at once was the problem?

    Or maybe using fifty aircraft engineers, AKA the least energy efficient engy?
  12. aevs

    aevs Post Master General

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    The problem is that your build power goes up, but the number of projects you could possibly work on as a human is limited. So tons of fabbers are sent to build whatever needs building, which causes tons of economy flux.
    Your storage should be reasonably proportional to your income if you want to avoid stalling.

    "incorrect play"?

    Oh wow :rolleyes: Didn't know there's supposed to be a single optimal way to play the game. How dare anyone suggest a mechanic that could conceivably allow for an altered playstyle.
  13. Devak

    Devak Post Master General

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    I don't really see the problem. I also don't see the problem with a direct upgrade, as the T2 economy already is and it would need to be equally powerful to be of any meaningful use.

    I do see the applications. I just don't really see it's need.
  14. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Storage only makes sense if something more than build power interacts with your resources. Something needs to drain significant amounts of Metal intermittently if Metal Storage is ever to make sense.
  15. stormingkiwi

    stormingkiwi Post Master General

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    A comment on Incorrect Play in an RTS..

    Its incorrect resource management.

    It has a parallel in real world finance.

    Essentially the theory is that all the resources you make should be spent immediately.

    Think about a more traditional RTS economy, like Starcraft.

    The theory goes that at any point in time, you should have absolutely no resources sitting idle. All of your resources should either be spent on economy, spent on units to protect that economy, or 'allocated' towards some large project.

    It's only the latter case where you would be accumulating up your resources, and you'll empty the account as soon as you can afford to.


    There are many businesses and other such organisations (stock exchange, banks, etc.) that operate on that basic principal. Particularly banks. You give the bank your money, they invest it in some way. It's never actually stored, they owe you the money and spend it somewhere else.

    Does that make sense?

    I.e. correct practice in an RTS isn't to keep money under the mattress for a rainy day, but to keep investing money to build your wealth, to protect your investments, and to create as many rainy days as possible for your opponent.
  16. tohron

    tohron Active Member

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    That's why I used mass-building nukes as an example - once they finish, the energy drain from the 200+ fabbers building them stops, so they're an intermittent drain on your econ. In my other example, I'm constantly mass producing fabbers to try and spend my massive metal income, while mass producing T2 pgens. If at any point, the growth in fabber count overtakes the growth in power generation, I'm at risk of energy stall, and having adequate storage protects against this absolutely devastating possibility.

    However, since "adequate storage" would need to support 10-40 fabbers while I redirect buildpower to make pgens faster, I'd need a lot of T1 energy storage to pull that off (which would also deny space for pgens), and it would be much more effective to have a structure with larger amounts of energy storage. Sure, in the most technical sense, I'd gain the most by building pgens at a rate exactly proportional to the growth of my fabber count and ignoring storage, but the game doesn't really give tools for doing that, and given the devastating effects of an energy stall (loss of local AND deepspace radar), the game heavily pushes you to give yourself a safety margin.

    On a different note, the reason I use mostly air fabbers on worlds I control is twofold: first (and more importantly), when you're mass-building a series of structures with 50+ fabbers, non-air-fabbers will inevitably get in the way of each other, get blocked by buildings, etc. so air fabbers will apply their buildpower more reliably. In addition, they cover long distances faster.
  17. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    Most people use air fabbers for heavily assisted projects, but they have their drawbacks for a reason.

    Then again, power is infinite, who cares?

    Then again, ever think the game has a bit of an abundance problem if you can really use 10 storages or assist a nuke with 50 air fabbers? Just turn the metal availability down, if you had half the metal, you wouldn't need t2 storage or 50 air fabbers and you probably couldn't produce 30 second nukes either, but that might be best for nuke balance. Further adjust the metal extractors so they aren't more efficient than just getting another t1 metal spot instead, give them higher cost and lower gain and you can honestly leave t1 metal alone. To be fair, nukes could use a more efficient launcher with a higher natural fabrication rate. Also, to be fair, you could build 2 nuke launchers equally assisted if you want to cut down on unspent resources in-between because when 1 launcher is done the other is still working. Only shortcoming of that is having nukes stored, which you could just build 6 launchers and have 4 of them powered off until 2 are done and power them. If factories could assist other factories, even better, you could just queue 2 nukes at a time and have the nukes assist the main one.

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