Solar Panels, Wind/Tidal, and Fusions

I do not like the SupCom inspired, generic "Power Generator" or "Energy Generator." I think it is weaker from a lore standpoint, but more importantly it destroys a fairly significant set of options regarding energy development.

First of all, energy generation in general is too cheap in PA. Disregarding the high numbers, the amount of metal required to build a specified amount of energy production means that rather obscene amounts of energy can be obtained without a suitably huge expenditure of time and resources.

In addition, in the early game it is necessary to spread energy generation across a larger number of separate structures. Raiders can kill one, or a few of them, to gain an advantage without having an overly decisive effect on the game. This requires smaller, cheaper generators be used in the early game, with a sizable quantity of small generators defining the early game energy economy.


Solar

Solar power is the "basic" power generation, and is most similar to the current PGen because it has a constant and predictable yield. However solars are very low-yield, and are not terribly efficient at producing power for their metal cost.

The most important property of the solar panel in TA and Zero K is that it is tough. They are very cheap, and have a lot of HP. An array of solar panels is actually so tough that it would take a prohibitive amount of time for raiders to destroy them. They would rather move on to squishier targets.

I have always (since TA) preferred to use solars instead of turrets in the early game. Even in Zero K, where my walls of solar panels are met with some degree of skepticism compared to the cheaper and more efficient wind generators. I also, unusually, never built an LLT in the early game; the two are related. A wall of solars generates energy and impedes enemy movement, where a useless turret is just wasted metal. Even dead solars are an impediment to raiders' movement into your base. And any turrets added later become much more effective with a solar panel wall between them and the enemy.

In PA, solar power might be changed into a constant yield that toggles on and off (or between high and low values) depending on whether that side of the planet has sunlight or not. And furthermore, it could be of varying yield depending on the brightness of the system's star, and the planet's distance from it.

Regardless of how solar might be worked into PA's multi-planet star system, the idea of a cheap energy generator that is sufficiently durable to be used as a wall is quite different from the current power generator.


Wind/Tidal

In TA wind and tidal were two different structures. Zero K has condensed the wind/tidal into a single structure in a very sensible way, since the two were functionally quite similar in TA. Both produce a randomly variable amount of power, but on the whole are more efficient than solar panels.

Wind is much cheaper than solar, and also much easier to destroy. Which means unlike solars, raiders will gleefully pop windgens almost immediately when they get into range.

Solar is much more predictable and less susceptible to raiding, to the extent that it is actually quite effective to use solar panels as a wall. Windgens, by contrast, are very fragile for their cost and should be protected inside the wall.

Different planets could have different atmospheres and winds, resulting in different wind power effectiveness, as well as different tidal strength. Procedural generation of planets with quite different economic properties becomes a real possibility with wind and solar.


Fusion

The fusion is one of the most defining structures in all of TA. Fusions decide games. Building the first one confers a considerable advantage, and destroying one is a very significant windfall at any point in the game.

The gameplay function of the fusion is to focus the late game on a smaller number of much more significant energy generators. The unstable early game benefits from distributing its energy generation across many discrete HP blocks to prevent the game from being decided by only a few kills. However once energy economies become large, using thousands of solar panels would be burdensome. And it would make destroying the enemy's energy industry an unfocused chore instead of a deliberate, surgical strike on a large producer. So a more efficient, larger generator is used instead once players have the resources to build them.

However a fusion really does function in the same fashion as a power generator, or an advanced power generator. It sits there and it generates energy; a big, juicy target.

The advanced power generator just needs its numbers tweaked. For early game purposes, one advanced energy generator should be all the power you could ever need. But for late game purposes, one fusion is only enough for very limited functionality.

There is a generic "fusion plant" in the game files. Not much is known about it though. http://pamatches.com/wiki/not-in-the-game/fusion-plant/

While I like some of your points, going over metal per energy cost is a little premature.

Things will change when defensive structures consume power and there are more units in the game and orbital is more key to success.

It may not be much change, but it may be a lot. We'll see.

Solar power working in the shade always seemed silly to me. It will be even more so in PA, as the planet rotates and night comes.

While the opportunity is available, perhaps the focus should be towards playing with the formula (i.e. solar being the fragile energy source, instead of wind) instead of outright copying TA. Potentially making storage a more important target for raiding might be a boon as well.

Solar not working in the shade would cause major balance issues, massive ones if that was the 1st energy building available. Start on the dark side of the planet and you lose.

Solar would not be the only type of power generation available at the very beginning of the game. And I also think that making solar totally unproductive when on the night side of a planet would be undesirable, but instead it should have significantly reduced but nonzero effectiveness.

Having a solar's yield modified by planet lighting both puts PA's star lighting to functional use, and also provides a gameplay incentive for players to sprawl their power over a large land area to normalize solar energy production. Hypothetically, a planet covered in solars (or equally distributed solars) would always generate the same amount of solar power regardless of its orientation to its host star. And having random variation by region for wind produces a similar result; players get more normalized energy production by production in disparate areas than building a large quantity in the same area.

In addition, planet motion and rotation is obviously much faster than real time, meaning even if you begin the game on the night side, over a few minutes you will experience multiple day/night cycles.

Fusions' stability and predictability is a cardinal advantage of the advanced generator. And while this means they can be consolidated into a small area, they also explode when destroyed, which makes them a liability.

storage would become more important.

Actually, at T1, energy is considerably more difficult to get hold of in PA than in SupCom. In SupCom you basically needed to spend mass on mass and energy with a 1:1 ratio to balance your economy. In PA that ratio is 1:1.75 for engineers, and that figure is itself inflated because T1 mexxes in PA are abnormally expensive. Not energy stalling at the start of the game is already pretty hard because you're mainly building buildings which have awful energy:mass ratios and energy is obtained by making buildings*, so putting more engineers on energy takes even more energy, and you want to make early game energy more scarce?

*And this can't be fixed because the mass:energy ratios of all buildings in the PA engine have to be the same.

Start on the dark side of a moon? Well I guess you're fucked then, aren't you. No wind, no solar, no tidal, no geo, can't tech up to fusion because you've got no energy. Sure, the day-night cycle is fast, but your opponent clearly knows that you're on the dark side and he's on the light side, so he'll know he's got the advantage and rush you before you can even get your first factory running. Air first, bombers heading straight for your engineers. He knows you can't build turrets because you've got no energy and buildings cost loads of energy. Your eco is ruined before the game even starts.

At the moment energy is fine, it's magic SF energy generators that work on undisclosed principles. Start naming them after renewables and you just raise questions of why these tiny solar panels are apparently putting out enough power to run the entire first world from a moon that's halfway to Pluto. There's no point in putting real-world names on something if it's going to basically run on magic anyway. They should explode when killed though. At the moment it's optimal to build all your T1 energy in a giant square so the wrecks of the outer ones shield the inner ones from fire, and that's just dumb.

Generally speaking there is very little that the existing energy generator creates in terms of decision making, or counterplay by the enemy. You build energy and you protect it. There aren't that many individual energy structures, it doesn't matter where you put them. They are seldom if ever raided, or placed with any thought process of any kind.

To be honest, it doesn't really matter to me how energy is made more interesting. But the "energy generators" which don't create any decisions or counterplay need to be expanded upon.

Regarding the cost of energy, a basic energy generator costs 65 mex ticks, which is comparable to a TA solar panel at 70 mex ticks, but with much less HP. However it produces FAR more power than a single TA solar panel. A solar panel in TA produces 20 energy, which won't even power an unassisted factory. A Kbot Lab has 100 build power, and a Peewee costs 700 energy and 1400 build time. At 100 build power it will take 14 seconds, or 50 energy per second, or two and a half solars continuously (about 195 mex ticks total). By contrast, a factory in PA costs 675 energy to run, and an energy plant makes 600. But the PA generator costs 450 metal, or 65 mex ticks, compared to the 195 mex ticks in metal investment in energy infrastructure needed to run one factory in TA.

Essentially, a single energy plant produces about 2.5 solars' worth of energy for the same metal cost.

I always liked the idea of having the current Basic generator stay(functionally) more or less as is and using the Solar/Wind/Tidal/Geothermal as Advanced.

Basic would be reliable but vulnerable long term if you wanted to use it for all your energy needs while the Advanced have thier own kinks you need to accommodate for.

Mike

If you place all your energy in a vulnerable spot it dies.

One of the best ways to stall an enemy's production(And therefore start to kill him) is to raid and destroy his energy and/or metal.

Nuking someone's energy(And killing a huge chunk of it all at once) is almost always the beginning of the end.

Most of what you post, Idarsi, just makes me think you don't actually play that often. >>

I personally love the idea.


I'm wondering on how to balance it but all I can come up with so far is force start points in similar longitudes (though the engine seems to already be fighting for space for these.)