Expandable Multi-Level Storage

Does it look like the group of 6 'circular' building between the 3 factories at about 0:20 - 0:21 are expandable storages. I find the concept of being able to upgrade/expand the storage units would help a lot in PA. Storage always bothered me in TA and SupCom and I like how it was 1 building in Zero-K.

Imagine just building a basic hub(the glowing circular bit in the center in the video) then making the 'spokes' as extra storage. Then just building an new hub for the next level to repeat. It would become a larger target but would gain more hp and armor(if that is something that is implemented otherwise just more hp) as it grows.

This might seem more micro oriented but I don't see how it would be more than just building a crapload of the general buildings in the first place, heck theoretically you could queue up a whole level at a time and the hub for the next level. The only limit would be needing the hub for the level to start building the 'spokes' but that could be just something that keeps you from just queuing up the maxed out building, though I could see the use in that if it didn't build using too much resources and the storage bits weren't ridiculous expensive.

Heck I think the ability to have the storage's set to auto expand when the overall storage is about 3/4 and there is positive gain.

Let me know what everyone thinks as my idea is just a simple rough one that could definitely use a lot of smoothing out.

The implementation of storage will depend a great deal on the fundamentals of the economy. For example, storage may become significant if economy is localized to some extent. I think localizing the economy to each planet/moon/asteroid/etc is a good idea. This will mean each planet will have its own storage count depending on how many storages are present on that planet.

Using the typical TA paradigm, however, storage is not really that useful. You should generally be using all your metal as you acquire it. Storage is most useful for dealing with fluctuations, such as massive amounts of reclaim temporarily resulting in income exceeding your industrial capacity. Once again, depending on how the economy works, this may not remain the case. Some storage might be a good idea.

There should definitely be a simple storage structure, that simply increases your metal/energy maximum reserves. Even if they are rarely used, due to the nature of the flow economy, it should be available. Whether metal and energy are together or in two different structures is not that important. However I think it is important to include a higher capacity storage structure as well, to cut down on the actual number of structures that need to be built in order to obtain a lot of storage. Dozens or hundreds of little storages is silly, when simply having a second type of structure that is much larger is much simpler.

I'd be in favour of limited expansion of Metal and Energy Storage -- great idea -- but not to the degree that the OP suggested. "Eggs and baskets." 'Nuff said.

I'd be in favour of stacking three or four storage modules on top of each, which would be an efficient use of real estate, and reasonable in terms of both risk and reward. Then you could spread your storage towers around your base, just in case.

As for the circular buildings in the KS trailer at 20-21 seconds, they are almost certainly Power Generators, not storage units, because from 17-19 you can see that they are one of the earliest buildings, and more are added as the base expands. Storage isn't essential in the early game -- you need to focus on generating Energy before you can worry about wasting it from lack of storage. The circular buildings are also the only ones that glow, implying power generation.

Presuming they are Power Generators, it's great that they're vertically expandable. That's exactly what I wanted, because it was annoying having countless low-tech PGs, and eventually having to reclaim them to make room for high-tech PGs. However, I hope there are high-tech PGs in PA -- or at least the ability to build a multi-stack PG from scratch instead of building the basic PG, and having to upgrade it. (I absolutely hated having to upgrade the Cybran's shield generator 5 times in SupCom.)

How does ZK's storage mechanism work?

It is one building that added, I believe, 500 to the max storage of both energy and metal. As far as I could tell there were also no adjacency bonus' either, I'm no expert so I can't say for certain.

The 'best' storage paradigm depends a lot on the rest of the economy. But I can say these two things:

• I dislike adjacency bonuses from supcomm.
• Storage does not need complicated mechanics such as hubs. What does it add?

I liked the adjacency bonus in Supreme Commander but not having higher tech level/ bigger ones available was frustrating, I think expandable storage would be a good way to solve this but not as a singular ever expanding building.

I disliked how SupCom's adjacency bonuses affected how I designed my bases. I know it was optional obviously, but I felt that if I didn't take advantage of the bonuses and my opponents did, I was handicapping myself. But it was a double-edged sword, because doing so left my base vulnerable if an enemy cracked my defences. If an attack breached by base shields and destroyed a Fusion Plant or T3 Mass Fab, my entire grid could go up, like a self-inflicted nuke strike.

So I agree that PA would be better off without adjacency bonuses, so we're free to design our bases the way we want.

It's almost like that was an intentional drawback to massfab farms. God forbid a strategy having any weaknesses, that would require players to make decisions, and we can't have that.

In order for there to be designs, there must be bad designs. If putting buildings wherever you want works, then it's not really design, it's finger painting.

I like adjacency bonuses in principle. Not the SupCom "let's make everything a grid" style though (is that some subconscious American preference? Just realised US cities look pretty similar...)

I prefer the ZK version where economy buildings connect via link radii of various sizes. I don't see why adjacency bonuses should be necessary for storages however.

More on topic, I like multi-storage that raises both metal and energy limits. I don't particularly like stacking storage but I'm not against it either.

I personally don't like the idea of adjacency bonuses.

But how about the idea of placement bonuses where if factory's are placed over mass deposits, they can act as both for a space saving measure?

The only thing I don't really like about the SupCom Adjacency was who little real choice it offered, yes you could build a Fac along side an Extractor, but the bonus was notable inferior to placing the 4th Mass Storage instead.

Basically I liked the Mechanics, I liked that the bonus was easy to understand and easy to implement, there jest wasn't enough actual options available.

Mike

I also thought it silly that mass storage couldn't help factories, and how 4 T1 plants was the same for a factory as a single T4. All it had to do with was % of sides being adjacent, not what was being connected, which is simple and easier to balance, but makes me wonder what's going on.

Long-range adjacency bonus sounds quite interesting. In ZK, they are only used for power grid/overdrive (and nano-towers, in a way), though. I like the principle of adjacency buildings, but I'd still be wary of it needlessly complicating things if it was used as much as in SupCom (even if better done and with long range). Would the additional layer of complexity be worth it?

is it really that bad to not have any storage what so ever just do away with it really is there a point other than capping resources to how much storage you have i really think we could do with out it.

holmebrian, I think you meant to post in this thread;

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=37378

Mike

nope having a resource limit and having storage that limits your collection of said resource are 2 different things

cause if they do actually have an overall resource limit that would be another reason not to have storage buildings
or it could be a way for the overall limit to be implemented so i am just saying i am sortive against having any resource collection/storage buildings

You'll have to explain how they are different(and what they are) then because I have no idea what you're talking about.

Mike

the difference is an overall limit compared to having a building be the limit
meaning that buildings will limit how much resources you can collect also.
and that is what i am against having to limit resource collection based off of building buildings
so why not give the option of not having any resource buildings what so ever

A hard limit is stupid, with the way your economy will continue to grow larger as the game progresses would make that limit tiny in comparison to your income and output(build power).

A storage based limit is much more intuitive, giving the correct units/structures a degree of storage allows the limit to grow in proportion to your economy.

Mike