Energy and metal storage?

There may already be a post for this already out there, but here is what I've been brainstorming. I think garat, or some dev, made a post about the economy system in PA. It was made of two parts metal and energy. I'm not going to explain too many details but here is what I thought. If you needed more energy or metal at one time ( to not waste unused energy or metal) you could construct a storage pod to hold it. If the pod was destroyed, all the metal or energy would spill out on the ground and you would need to send in units to reclaim it before the enemy did.

Ever played Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander? Resource storage is a staple of both games. It is a necessary feature to use the streaming economy, so it'll be included in some form.

I uh... I don't think energy works that way.

well, what does storing energy mean? it's pretty easy to come up with an energy storing solution which would "spill out on the ground".

Ever heard of a battery?

Energy Storage in Total Annihilation, SupCom and Planetary Annihilation are like a big one of those.

When you break a battery the energy doesn't "spill".

What I forgot to mentoin was that the energy would be in a state much like chemical energy. It could be converted to mechanical energy when needed.

Off topic pedantry but it kind of does since the energy is contained in the chemical solution. The spill is quite potent too you don't want battery acid on you.

Sounds like a horrible micro managing gameplay idea to me.

I'm sorry, but when an enemy attacks my base, I DO NOT want my primary thought to be, oh I need to clean up all the metal and energy from the destroyed containers. I would much rather work on devising a counter-attack and simply rebuild what was destroyed.

Well, since your energy storage was destroyed your units would automatically go to collect the spilled energy and metal, defend the position, and fight off invaders. If you had to tell your units every step to take, you wouldn't last long at all. Were this concept were to be implemented, hopefully the AI in the game wouldn't be that stupid to not try and get your supplies back, right?

Yay... more CPU cycles devoted to pointlessness. :|

^^ This.

It's not that hard to do really. Clash of Clans made an AI in giants where if they were hit they could react and destroy what was hitting them. This game is on MOBILE DEVICES. It shouldn't be very hard to have a scenario where if a building or storage container was destroyed, units in an area near the container or building, could react to that, and rebuild or clean up. How this is similar to the game I mentioned earlier, well, if your giant unit was hit it, would go and destroy what was hitting it. If your container or building was destroyed, your units could go and destroy the enemy doing this. This adds just a small portion of uniqueness to the old "attack and defend" AI. They're not going sit down and say, "Hey Frank, our supplies are being stolen, yay!"

What he means if that it the issue of metal and energy spilling out is automatically dealt with by an AI.....why have it to being with?

Mike

Exactly. Completely pointless.

It's not pointless because the enemy could get your supplies if your defending units can't hold the position. Or if you're concerned about it eating through your computer you could turn it off.

If it's not vital to gameplay and can be turned off why have it to begin with?

Mike

Okay. Seriously. The energy explodes. There's nothing to clean up.

Or I could Capture your buildings instead of blowing them up. Or I can blow them up and rebuild in less time that it would take to "clear up" the gunk.

Hence, pointless and eating CPU cycles for no appreciable benefit.

Ta sturd energy as antimatter

If it works like supcom the energy could be "spilled" in an explosion by making it volatile. An empty storage could have no explosion. A full one a rather potent explosion.

And the metal storage wreck could simply be worth what was stored inside. Or at least a percentage.

It doesn't need to be complicated.

Why are you complaining so much?
This is exactly what construction units on patrol did in SupCom.
If you stall on energy they reclaim trees automatically.
If you stall on mass they reclaim wrecks(and trees aswell because they also contain mass).
Nothing complex about it.