energy storage gameplay suggestion

Indeed, I was playing devil's advocate on uncapped storage (it works for starcraft but probably not TA). I agree with you that storage as a concept has merit but storage structures are redundant from a design perspective at the moment. I think it would be interesting if it was either free on resource producing structures and/or anything with build power or it was cheap and designed to assist with irregular resource burdens as bobucles pointed out. Irregular energy burdens could be a function of solar panels closing when an enemy is near (TA) or effective unit repair that costs purely energy (Zero-K), or combat increasing power demand (Evo-RTS). The decision process should be simple and transparent for players though. "I'm going heavy air, I better build some storages." "I'm setting up a nano-tower to repair my armies after battle, I better build some storages." Otherwise storage ends up in an awkward support role instead of being instrinsically useful.

Additional mass storage is a little more tricky to make important, as was noted in previous posts. Zero-K avoids the problem of different purposes for mass storage by combing energy storage and mass storage into a single structure. I believe this is done in the Black-Ops Supreme Commander mod as well for T3 storage.

ya it looks like you beat me to posting, I just now saw your post

ZeroK avoids the problem entirely by turning both mass and energy into a single blobby resource. That's not a good direction to go for PA.

Most players could probably get away with using default storage. Typical structures and units have a bit of extra that keeps storage from getting too tight. Standard game practice is to spend resources, therefore no one wants to store them. It'll be rare to invest in a dedicated storage even if it's extremely effective and cheap.

Its not prevented no, but it is limited till they build said resource storage building, very difficult on near defeat retreat unless there was an underwater version/s.

I don't mind storage being on generators and production units / buildings. But I would like the option of expanding my storage further without having to build more. This also depends on what weapons and stuff will be in the game to chew through mass/energy. If there is not big resource hogs (such as lots of overcharge) then larger storage wouldn't really be as necessary.

As to infinite resource storage, no.

Wow, I expected this thread to catastrophically derail at page 3, but it didn't happen. Let me inject some tactico-logistical mumbo-jumbo.

The logistical pros of Storage:
-Rapid (read: efficient) Expansion. Instead of having a high enough mass income to support gradual expansion into enemy territory, it is often more feasible to save up an "assault budget" if you will. That way, once an area is secured it can be quickly and efficiently fortified by a strong engineering force. The reason this is more efficient is because you are exploiting the area as soon as possible; if you fortified and exploited on a slow drip of resources, you would be vulnerable for a long period of time AND you are not getting the full benefit of holding the new area until you set up your mass extractors; which most players only do after fortifying.

-A buffer zone for blackouts: A "blackout" in in my opinion isn't only when you screw up and your eco dies, but more importantly, when your enemy takes out your eco surgically and initiates an attack. This wasn't too terribly dangerous in Supreme Commander, but in TA, if you ran out of power, ALLLL of your defenses would come grinding to a stop. Storage provides a certain redundancy to your economy. A good redundancy, that is; if your storage gets taken out, you can always reclaim it with little loss. If your extractors/gens get taken out, you have time to rebuild before your warmachine coughs its last breath and shuffles off to the morgue. This buffer zone also works in reverse, for example, if you reclaim a butt-ton of stuff at once.

The cons:
-That **** costs money brommander!

I honestly think the best storage is one where you can decide how survivable it is. Either you pay for a cheap storage with no armor that stores a lot, or more for some extra armor. Otherwise storage ends up being useless because you can't always use the right unit for the right situation.

While you're there storing mass before building defences I'm building units to control the map and starting defences immediately. Intentionally waiting is not an advantage. It doesn't matter you get your defences up without stalling I already started and finished and moved on to further expansion and harassment.

Just to feed this fire. Lets say I get crafty and launch to a few asteroids and build storage facilities. Some nut blows up the planet you and I have our main bases on and we both escape. What you going to build up with?

Whatever you have left, just like how you built up when you ported in. Sure if the storage guy gets an advantage then he deserves it for building off-planet storage.

It depends on the effectiveness of static units really. I agree that resources should be used as quickly as possible, because that's just how resources work, but there are a few very obscure strategic advantages to storing resources. The most important one is feigning weakness.

Energy and metal isn't a blobby resource in Zero-K. Building stuff only take 1 energy to 1 metal while repair, cloak, radar and shields only drain energy. It is very easy to manage the economy in Zero-K. One reason is how much energy storage you start with compared to TA and SupCom.
If you would decrease energy storage by 5 or 10 times in Zero-K you would make it harder to manage like in TA and SupCom. Of course if you build extra powerplants for peak demands it is quite easy to manage as overcharging mexes will eat up you surplus much like automated metal makers.