Uber, Please can we talk about the Energy System?

Generally speaking, this is true. However, I don't know how stable they become when things are fired at them. The dev often speak of believability vs reality. A nuclear reactor blowing up seems rather believable if shot at enough.

Why do we need consistent energy production? We have energy storage. If wind or solar happens to give you inconsistent energy, plan for it or don't use it. This would be an energy source I would put in the cheap but unreliable category. Cheap to produce and averaged out may even produce more energy than a standard plant, but again would likely require additional storage. Further, clouds blocking view, sure makes sense, that would suck. However I've seen games that remove the clouds based on zoom level.

If you build a solar plant and it produces zero energy while on the dark side of a planet, I think that follows WYSIWYG. That being said, solar plants no matter what type of planet or distance to the sun should produce the same amount of power while not on the dark side of the planet.

Except when you do it right. Are you on a planet where the collectors only work at 50%? Maybe they only open half way. Maybe something on them animates at half speed. Maybe an icon shows up in the UI showing the efficiency of all collectors on the planet. There are plenty of ways to do this other than just having it magically happen and I never imagined that they would do something like this without linking it to at least a basic visual indicator.

I'm all for WYSIWYG too, but I think sometimes we might be using that to discount an idea that we don't find very interesting or haven't fully thought through yet.

How are your suggestions any different than having range sizes based on planet size or adding an extra barrel when units level up? Or changing the strategic icon when they level up?

It isn't any different than those features that we don't have because of WYSIWYG.

Except that isn't balanced.

If the planet gives a bonus to certain forms of energy, I use it or lose the game.

Also, as I repeatedly say, it makes spawns unbalanced. If I spawn next to an ocean on a planet that has several moons so there's a huge bonus to energy production, then the person who spawns on a lava planet is screwed. Or if there's only spawns on that one planet, the person next to the ocean wins compared to the person who doesn't have an oceanside spawn.

It simply does not balance.

And if you force it to balance, you have to remove tons of big features. Like multi planet spawns or non-symmetrical planets.

I should clarify my previous post. I never said anything about 'bonuses' from different planets. Brian is right, WYSIWYG should be followed. By that I mean that solar should always produce the same amounts of energy on any planet (when active & in the light), and same goes for wind unless the devs want to implement a method wind indication to the player, I'm all for it. But going into the depths of seasons, distance to the sun and all other in depth realistic thought is probably too much for PA.

The alternative energy sources would have to be consistent between all planets. However, that doesn't mean that have to be consistent within the same planet. Solar is easy in that obviously only half the planet will be receiving sunlight and thus producing energy (inconsistent, but predictable). Wind, well someone else can figure out wind, but it needs to remain consistent planet to planet. Whether wind is consistent within one planet would be up to the devs.

My thought essentially is that alternative energy sources could be used as a potentially cheaper way of producing energy within PA that may require a little more attention (ie: building storage or spreading your solar out so that it's not all on one side of the planet) A lot can be done with balance, but I believe these can be implemented with success and without turning PA into SimCity.

Like I said before, solar being based on the day/night cycle really can't ever work in this game because one player will start off with a huge advantage. I guess you could make it a t2 structure to avoid this problem, but that seems a little silly too.

You're right, there's no way to work around this. Let's give up.

Think outside the box, brah

I think we might all be getting a little too into this for our own good right now. Let's try to keep the tone more polite so that we can stick to the discussion.

I did suggest that t2 energy could be tied to day/night cycles without giving any player such an advantage, but you still have problems with players that start near the poles. I'm always open to creative ideas though so please start making some suggestions.

Firstly, I think it's time people try to be a bit realistic about their suggestions. Uber still have the unit-cannon, asteroid belts, variable destruction for planet smashing, gas giants and submarines as big features they need to get working. Not to mention passes on various bits of art, galactic war, server perf, client perf, net perf, better path-finding and better target acquisition, just to name but a few things.

I think some folks need to realise that begging uber to listen to particular suggestions when the developers already have all the features that they have already committed to left to do is just asking for disappointment. I would be very surprised if this made it into the base game. At the very least, I wouldn't expect to see this kind of stuff for a long time.

Now that that is out of the way, alternate energy sources is a broad enough category that there are numerous ways it could be balanced. Myself and Nanolathe have discussed this multiple times, and we have have some ideas as to how to integrate solar, wind, tidal, fission, fusion, really big fusion and fossil fuels in ways which would be both balanced and unique. Suffice to say, that some of this would be a little different to the ideas proposed so far.

We decided in the end that solar working with a big day/night cycle is probably too unpredictable, and would likely just be frustrating when your power goes down for a long time. However, there are other interesting ways to differentiate solar power.

I doubt that different forms of energy will see vanilla PA. However, modding is a different story...

It might be complemented to design and balance. I'm not convinced it would be complicated to use - and it would be more fun than the current system because it interacts with combat.
TA didn't have a massive Economy-Metagame using a similar system, and I don't see why PA would. Yes we'd need to pay brief attention to windspeeds and number of moons, but the variation in Energy output for those T1 generators could be as little as -/+100.
All this would be more obvious in the Planet List UI in the Top-Right of the screen; a 1-3 number for Windspeed, and a 1-3 number for Tidal.
If a Wind-Turbine is spinning faster and the clouds are moving faster, that follows the what-you-see-is-what-you-get principle.

You say "just because you see moons that doesn't you know how much they produce".
If you see a tank fire, do you know how much damage it will do? No.
But if the projectile is bigger, or there are more projectiles, you expect a greater outcome.
Therefore more moons = more tides.

I agree that the focus of the game should be combat.
That's why I think an energy system which interacts with and rewards combat is better. If our raiding disrupts an enemy's eco-tanking by forcing their Solar Arrays to bunker down, that's a combat-focused game where the economy is part of combat, as opposed to a mere time restraint on how long it takes to build things. If our army secures a Geothermal spot, or sets off a chain reaction in closely packed Nuclear Generators that is combat-focused.

While we're talking about WYSIWYG, which is more WYSIWYG:
Solar Arrays powered by the sun, and Wind Turbines which turn faster when the clouds move faster?
Or Nuclear Fusion Generators, which (as we've discussed elsewhere) could be powered by nuclear trampoline hamsters for all we know.

Clouds would fade out as we zoomed in on the planet. Clouds slightly obscuring the surface would actually make it easier to see and select Orbital units in my opinion, but that's another topic.

Wind/Tidal/Solar do not force us to have symmetrical planets as they do not interact heavily with terrain, so I can only assume you are talking about Geothermal. Yes, if you want perfectly balanced maps then you are going to want mirrored hemispheres. But I wouldn't say we'd be forced to use them just if we had Geothermal spots.

The issues with whether people spawn on the bright side of the planet and Solar could be controlled somewhat by controlling Solar's cost so that it is more of a T1.5 and requires some Wind/Tidal before we can afford it. That does create issues for people on Lunar biomes without Winds and Tides, so those in Lunar biomes would need to build Geothermal before Solar. Which means T1 Geothermal would need to be instantly buildable.
Failing that, it could always be turned into a constant energy source, as others have suggested.

Our magic boxes are perfect WYSIWYG. It's a block of pixels that produces a fixed amount of power. It's exactly the same, always. That is the perfect definition of WYSIWYG.

When we're talking about WYSIWYG, we're talking about gameplay.

And even if we aren't talking about gameplay, "magic boxes" are perfectly realistic. There are lots of modern day power plants that are just simple structures that produce power and aren't tied into wind, currents, or the sun. Coal Power and Nuclear Power plants being easy examples. And if you are going to play that card, then by your logic your volatile nuclear power plants and even the geothermal power plants shouldn't be in the game.

I've asked this several times now and haven't gotten a response. So I shall bring it up again.

Uber has stated several times that they considered having unit ranges vary based on the size of the planet. But they haven't done that because it is not WYSIWYG. The units have different capabilities at different times. With that mechanic, I can't look at a Dox and know how much range it has. It's not WYSIWYG.

So how is your proposals any different? By your proposals, I can't look at a structure and know how much power it produces.

Um. Tidal power plants do require terrain. They require water.

And as I have stated, several times, with tidal plants, it completely invalidates multi planet spawns. If my opponent spawns on a tropical planet with a bunch of moons and I spawn on a metal planet, I might as well self destruct because they have crazy amounts of power.

Before we need to continue this debate, you need to explain how your suggestions are WYSIWYG while unit ranges based on planet size is not WYSIWYG. Because they're the same thing.

Also, you need to explain how your energy suggestions don't completely invalidate multi-planet spawns.

I don't understand some things:
First: what you mean w/ SupCom being a mult-faction game, while TA is not.
Second: SupCom energy not being volatile, and w/ out a "place specifc energy"
becuse TA was a multi-faction game, and SupCom used the same basis, only ading a T-3 stage, RAS, and removing non regular energy Gen (Wind/Tidal)

How would you feel about "honeypot" planets that, while randomly generated, are not allowed to have spawn points on them as part of their class' attributes? It could generate an interesting extra choice between "that planet is halleyable" and "that planet has a lot of mex" by adding something like "that planet has a giant glowing point on it that is streaming power out of it".

We'll eventually get gas giants that are likely to just be big planets with no ground at all. The general expectaion is that we can make orbital gas mines to suck up energy.

I'm sorry but a 'magic box' is not WYSIWYG. Anything could be going on in there, and it doesn't matter in the least what it looks like - it doesn't matter what we see if that 'block of pixels' simply produces energy. I'm not playing the realism card, I'm playing the WYSIWYG card. 'Magic boxes' are not WYSIWYG.

If a Tidal pump or Wind-Turbine is whirring faster and the clouds are moving faster and there are moons in the sky, that is WYSIWYG. By a similar token, if a Solar Array is folded up, that means it is not producing power. If our current Energy Plants produced no power when heavily damaged and output no light as a cue, that would be WYSIWYG. I am not a fan of variable ranges based on planet size because such cues are not possible or easily spotted with units. If a Pelter is on top of a Mesa, that's a different story. Do you see what I mean? On the ground level it needs to be obvious.
Having physical, mechanical energy generation in a robot game not only fits the aesthetic, it fits WYSIWYG.

I said 'interact heavily with terrain'. Requiring water isn't 'interacting heavily'. We're nitpicking here, Brian. Tidal Generators would not mean we'd be forced to play symmetrical planets for balance.

Whereeve you spawned, you would have a Geothermal Vent. The Tidal and Wind energy variation is not a core feature of the system. Uber need not include it. The variation would not be as huge an advantage as you suggest (-+/100) per T1 plant.
That said, I agree a constant T1 source is needed for biomes without Wind and Tides. I liked the Solar Collector idea. That or we could retain current T1 Nuclear Generators and make them volatile too.
That way all this guff we're talking about here could be implemented gradually without effing anything up.

Edit: I added T1 Nuclear Generators to that proposed system. Basically our T1 ones as voltile and +800.

Yes they are. "This box looks like this and will supply exactly that 5eva". The end. No ifs, no buts, no candy nuts.

Fine.
I'm just asking for TA's spirit to be in the energy system. If it's nuclear, it better go nuclear (even if it's only a lil bit).
I know it isn't strictly realistic, but it would be cool.

You're still not answering my questions.

And yes, magic boxes are WYSIWYG. It's a group of pixels that produce the same amount of power. Always. Period. You see a magic box, you get X power. Always. Perfect WYSIWYG.

Remember, we're talking about gameplay.

Answer my questions.

How are Magic Boxes not WYSIWYG, but Nuclear and geothermal not WYSIWYG?

How is your wind/tidal power generation WYSIWYG, but unit upgrades, unit veterancy, and unit ranges based on planet sizes not WYSIWYG?

Also, how does your proposals not completely invalidate multi-planet spawns and non-symetrical spawns?

I'm sorry burrito, but he's right. You see a power plant, you get power. With that said, I would like to see some diversity in the way of energy production within PA. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm all for wind, solar, and tidal energy sources, but they've got to be implemented in such a way that is feasible and easy to interpret. Keep it simple. Tidal should generate power regardless of how many moons (even if zero). That way, you see a tidal generator, you get tidal power. Along these same lines, PA does bend the rules when required, to benefit gameplay ie: not requiring satellites to actually orbit the planet, they should be falling out of the sky! In the spirit of the game they just let it slide, and it works. While it should follow basic rules, this is not a sim. Making alternative energy sources too complicated will just suppress their integration into PA. Luckily Mavor himself has said he would like to see some alternative power sources, so we'll eventually see something most likely.

Brain, do you really hate the idea of alternative energy sources? I see that their implementation ideas differ between you and burrito, but are you still against alternative energy? You seem to shoot everything down. If it doesn't balance out, sure I can imagine dumping the idea, but there are a lot of tools that can be used to balance such things.

I'm not necessarily against additional power planets.

However, I'm against alternate energy that is terrain based or produces different amounts of energy based on various factors (like wind, size of planet, or quantity of orbiting moons).

Unless someone comes up with some crazy idea, I don't see how terrain based energy production could do anything except for screw over multi-planet spawns and create more spawn inequality.

If there's multiple planet spawn options, or (in the future) if I'm forced to spawn on a moon and my opponent is forced to spawn on a tropical planet, I'm screwed since my opponent has cheap and easy power. Or, if we spawn on an earth planet and my opponent has a spawn next to a lake and I don't, I'm screwed.

We need to have energy production that is equal for all players, regardless of where they spawn. This is critical so we can have multi-planet spawning and non-symmetrical planets. This means energy plants need to produce the same amount of power, always.

I'm not opposed to power plants that are built on geothermal power spots or something. But, those won't be a quick and easy implementation as there needs to be a large amount of work put into making sure that they are placed evenly throughout the planet.

Ok Brian. I'll try and answer your questions more directly.

What we see matters in what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Therefore I'm willing to accept that if we see a 'Magic Box' Power Plant that we can expect to get power from it. What the block of pixels looks like matters.

Nuclear would be a bit more WYSIWYG if it behaved intuitively. I.e. it went nuclear and exploded.
It's not realistic, but in a game with 'Annihilation' in the title, concessions can be made for explosions.

The reason variable unit ranges and veterancy are not WYSIWYG is that there is no way for us to easily see them reflected in-game. (Also they suck because robots are robots but that's off-topic.) If we look at a Holkins, how do we know it will do more damage or fire at a lower range? We don't. That's why those things aren't WYSIWYG.

By way of contrast, if a Wind Turbine or Tidal Plant is spinning faster, we can see that it is behaving differently and running slightly harder.

If I was suggesting Tidal Power generate more power when there were more moons but wasn't suggesting this be reflected in the unit model, then it would not be WYSIWYG. That is because when we looked at that Tidal Power Plant, we'd have no way of knowing whether its output was low, average or high.
If the unit model shows this by some part (a turbine or something) moving faster or slower, then it's WYSIWYG.

As I said in my last post, if we kept current T1 gens on as volatile +800 T1 Nuclear, they would be buildable anywhere, so multi-planet spawns would be fine as everybody still has a constant power source.
Why do you believe we'd be forced to use symmetrical maps?