What to do with Energy

[SanadaUjiosan]

So last night Snoop and I held a "meeting" in the #ct chat to discuss the current state of Energy in CT, and what we should do with it. Here are some highlights:

It was agreed upon that energy as it is now is more of a secondary resource, and kind of pointless. With so much emphasis on fighting for and obtaining metal through meteors, energy either gets forgotten, or addressed early on in the game and then forgotten.

Snoop and I thought of a few different ways to try and implement Energy, or a second resource, in a more interesting/useful way. The two that we came up with was to use a simple Ammo system, and to try and use energy as a form of population control.

For the ammo system idea, it was to simply have each weapon in the game require a certain amount of energy to be shot (1 energy per shell for example) and then to have some sort of "ammo dump" building/unit that would provide "ammo" for that. For example: want to make 20 tanks and go raid your enemy? Build x number of ammo dumps to support that. Numbers are of course not worked out at this moment, still in concept/mechanics phase. We think this would both make some sense (giant robots use ammo too) and would also provide a form of population control. You can only have so many attacking units as your ammo dumps can support.

As far as the more standard population control, the idea was more along the lines of each unit requiring x energy to run, and some sort of building providing that energy. A more straightforward idea.

For both of these ideas, energy would be renamed to a more appropriate term.

The ideas were not exactly welcomed with enthusiasm. It seemed people were more content to keep energy the way it is, and just properly balance it. To be honest I do not like that idea at all, as I for one think energy is a TAism and a TAism that I don't want. Every Hojo, tank, and plane doesn't need to be plugged into a big outlet on the side of the Flagship. It's goofy.

So, I figured I'd open the discussion up to the two other people who might care. Discuss!

[Pxtl]

I'd think a straighforward *craft-style "supply" system rather than the storage/generator approach would be better for energy if you want to go with the supply approach.

Although requiring energy to power actions instead of construction would be nice. It would also make resurrection far more interesting, if you keep that feature. For this, would the buildings be storage, generation, or both? Or some kind of ranged-support you must keep near your untis?

[knorke]

*craft supply system:
works in *craft games because building units works different. Does not fit with springs more "streamlined" repeat-on factories, unlimited build-que, no "paying up front" (which in turn does not work with other things like repeat or multiple factories)
I like how it defines the early buildorders in ie starcraft but for spring/ct i cant see it working for above reasons.

in a similiar way i think multiple types of resources to gather would not work. ie metal & gold meteorites:
what if a factory is gold-stalling on a 50% built gold-tank? it might block the whole build-que of metal-only tanks!

ammo: dont like at all, imo not strategic but just annoying to care for. seems tacked on.

imo it isnt true that meteorite gathering changed the way energy is handled: running mex was not excactly expensive anyway. the problem was present from the start
most energy is used for building buildings & making units in factories not mex.

ideas:
its stupid that you can easily build unit X but when making unit Y you suddendly estall. Also a TAism btw. (one gameplay reason please why some units cost more e/sec than other and why this cost is so random)
-> make units & buildings only cost metal
or:
-> make all units cost the same energy/sec

-instead of global energy, use per-unit mana for cloaking (i think AT mech is only unit that for whatever reason can cloak )

make not all units buildable from start
-> must build one (or several different) "tech center" that allows unlocking/upgrading of units.
energy is needed to do research.
if you want to tech faster, you must spend more metal on powerplants.

why must powerplants be small and cheap like *a windmills?
-> make them bigger

eco & gameplay is also influenced (imo:broken) alot by cruiser and the flagship:
-can not raid miners at start because the flagshipbase has such a strong cannon (making turrets useless as well)
-HP of cruisers is waaaay too big
-they drop wrecks worth 2.000 m but only cost 400m
-> if you could not relay on the flagship&cruisers to save you, players would need more factories to faster replace their armies. -> for these factories you would need more energy.

so as short term solution:
-fix all obvious broken stuff & costs
-weaken cruisers & make only buildable from beacon
-no energy use from combat units/turrets -> its not transparent for players (unit shows 0.0 energy use and in battle when it uses e to shot you are usually not looking at its energy use)
-remove energy production from whatever random units that also produce energy atm
-make powerplants the size of factories
-balance metal&energy cost of units so that a factory something always uses the same amount of energy / sec. I think CA does that too.
-> a factory could require ie 2 powerplants to produce units without estalling
->storage actually gets usefull: you might be able to produce from 2 factories for a while until you run out of energy. Atm its like *a, you must make some storage to stop the ebar from bouncing around too much.
(all this is doable with little work)
-eventually add a research system

[bobthedinosaur]

Energy could be a necessity to run certain units, like defenses and factories. So by destroying a power plant you cripple the factory/ defenses. You could even add a CnC style power manager so you can turn off various factories/ defenses to balance out remaining power.

Ammo idea isn't bad either. But it would probably work better making it's own resource and using some kind of supply system (similar to s44) so if your units are beyond supply line then they are not as effective (think Napoleon implosion).

I'd stay away from unit population resources. I personally only think the craft games started that is b/c they didn't have the design to allow for managing large armies like TA did. But I guess that depends on the scale you want CT to play as.

[knorke]

if your units are beyond supply line then they are not as effective (think Napoleon implosion).

that already happens on its own, naturally. On enemy terrain you have longer supply routes to replace lost units, are usually outnumbered, less radar coverage etc. Units retreating for repair have longer ways until they arrive at the front again etc.
Ammo just makes this more complicated.

For energy=ammo (without refuelling) its basically the same. The guy with more eco with wins because 100% of his tanks shot instead of 50% having no e to fire. Or with ammo system, the guy with better eco just has 50% more tanks. Its basically the same but its more fun to get outnumbered in a fight than to lose because your tanks wouldnt shot.

[FireStorm_]

make not all units buildable from start
-> must build one (or several different) "tech center" that allows unlocking/upgrading of units.
energy is needed to do research.
if you want to tech faster, you must spend more metal on powerplants.

I think this is a particularly good suggestion.

The possibility of how to exactly implement it and its implications on game play are big, and are worthy of consideration. Also many attractive combinations of game play are bound to be use in excising games already, and i think ct (as i would to) aims for some originality.

If buildingX's only purpose is to allow for unitY to be build by factoryZ, than in many cases buildingX might just as well be the factory for unitY.

It might be fun to try something extreme: buildingX allows for all the radar technology units to be build, or a building for all missile weapons units, or a building that allows for your mini-map like in good old duneII and a few rts games beyond.

In a game of ba, radar is one of the first things i build. Maybe in ct radar could be a rare accomplishment, and your tech-centre allowing it a very high priority target for your enemies.

(Other spring features that players have gotten used to could be implemented in mod specific game play. For instance, i think giving away a unit should involve a spray-paint unit that recolours the unit that changes owner. )

[KaiserJ]

"plants near factories" is how evorts rolls

[slogic]

Making ammo depend on energy is stupid because of this situation: you move your army towards the target then you understand there is not enough power to shoot with all of them. Thus any player have to try to shoot at empty place to test sufficient energy income criteria. This is idiocy & insulting a player.

Use may use energy for building/researching only.

From my point of view population limit is another "resource", so there is no need to combine it with energy.

[Pxtl]

Well, BA has units that drain energy to fire but you don't see people test-firing their Corvettes (or did TFC remove that?).

Either way, though - is energy itself really necessary? Sometimes I think that a lot of these features are added because the gamedevs love the idea of a large, sprawling base and they just tack on those parts to fill space.

That said, regarding Knorke's comment - obviously CT includes the concept of breaking from TA's econ, such as having builders that can't assist and now this new SpaceRocks thing. Are there other plans to change the building eco, such as moving away from continuous expenditure?

[SanadaUjiosan]

That said, regarding Knorke's comment - obviously CT includes the concept of breaking from TA's econ, such as having builders that can't assist and now this new SpaceRocks thing. Are there other plans to change the building eco, such as moving away from continuous expenditure?

We do indeed want to break away from the TA economy as much as we can. We wanted a "pay up front" gadget or whatever, but the one we found from Argh didn't work. Not sure on the details of that, snoop delt with it.

[oksnoop2]

Argh's payupfront.lua did nothing but crash the game. He wrote it, then told me i was on my own from there. So I abandoned it.

[Google_Frog]

Energy in CA initially limits the rate of expansion as to spend the extra metal income you have to build expensive energy. But once you have the energy subsequent re-expansion is cheaper. Hitting energy is often harder but more rewarding than raiding expansion. So in that respect energy is expansion escalation control and an important target. Energy can also go towards Overdrive for extra income (or mms in TA).

This expansion limiter is like supply in *craft. It costs more to build a large army initially but once you lose the army rebuilding is cheaper.

In CT you probably want something that acts as centralised investment. That is if you don't want your players to go nuts with expansion. If your factories and constructors are expensive enough they will be able to limit spending so that you don't need energy at all. The constructors have to be reasonably expensive too or people would spam them and turret crawl as a cheap way to spend their metal.

Also don't do pay-upfront, it's really annoying:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 2&#p393122

[Pxtl]

@Frog, there are ways pay-up-front could be made pleasant and macro-friendly. For example, if buildtimes are short or builds can occur in parallel (like a construction crane with 5 nanolathe towers, each can only build 1 structure at a time) then your real limit is resource income.

In that case, you have one massive mega-queue that determines your spending - every build order is tacked onto bottom of the expense queue, and construction begins as soon as you have the resources available. You'd still need to handle the event of "the thing that will work at the current top of the queue is occupied" with some way - like deferring it to a sidebar and pausing the queue pending user input. Or simply reserving the resources and allowing the queue to progress.

For repeats, you have a second section at the bottom of the mega-queue which are repeated when the main queue is empty.

[Johannes]

See SC2 for pay-up-front thats really easy to manage. Just don't make a single facility produce units too fast, then it might need too constant clicking. But well, needs to get coded too...
And also get rid of the bs of a factory adding any unit it produces to its group, which happens by default in Spring.

If you want energy just for ammo, storage size is often more important than the income rate, since you won't be constantly shooting w all your stuff. And it also can give an incentive to fight at a certain time, when your storage would excess otherwise.


Anyway having more than 1 resource for building units is good as far as I see, if you want an interesting economy. Otherwise it's very straightforward, get as much spacerocks as you can while matching your production facilities. Having another resource, allows to make units vary in cost ratios which gives another, interesting consideration into when to produce which unit.

Energy just for unit upkeep can work too probably. If some units have higher energy demand for staying functional compared to cost, gives somewhat similar effect to having sevaral resources+varying costs.

If energy cost is in using/having units instead of building them, the effect is that rebuilding your stuff is easier.

Also it's nice, if you can go for both low-energy and high-energy builds, ie. the amount of energy different strategies need varies - then it's more meaningful scouting info, and restricting your options, than just something you always make similarly.

[Wombat]

well, i can tell u how i see it in my project (lol, right)

energy is used mainly for advanced units, morphing (basic unit morphs into unit with heavy gun) and 'special abilities'

[Pxtl]

Imho, completely gut it out until you find a problem with the gameplay that demands the added complexity of energy.

[zwzsg]

You don't have to use energy. If you find no use for energy, don't use it. No need to stratch your head to force an use to it.

[Google_Frog]

You don't have to use energy. If you find no use for energy, don't use it. No need to stratch your head to force an use to it.

And who needs metal either .

But seriously, with a system where you cannot assist factories I agree that no energy could work. Try it and see! Then I'll spam turrets with relatively cheap constructor build power until constructors are sufficiently nerfed.

(Although you already nerfed my favourite turret . The one with the longest range now does ~0 damage against anything except ships)

[PicassoCT]

Making ammo depend on energy is stupid because of this situation: you move your army towards the target then you understand there is not enough power to shoot with all of them. Thus any player have to try to shoot at empty place to test sufficient energy income criteria. This is idiocy & insulting a player.

Use may use energy for building/researching only.

From my point of view population limit is another "resource", so there is no need to combine it with energy.

Hey, i feel insulted, the journeywar will use such a system with the journeyman using metall for ammo, and the CentrAIl energy. And it will work if you plan ahead, and avoid wars of attrition, means mods like that will be noob free zones.

I suggest a dangerous peaks energysystem. If you have to much, and dont get rid of it (firing, building), it beginns to damage your energy buildings, smoldering them into metall. That way, you are constantly on the lookout to avoid the max.

Another funny turn would be to entangle it with the metall ressource system, if you run low on e - you have to start burning m, or your workers stall.

Or how about a ueber-energy for special ability that charges up when you have spill-over? PerimeterShield? CometRain? Anything goes.

[SanadaUjiosan]

Eliminating energy all together is certainly still an option. And an easy one. But I still feel a single resource would be too simple. But who knows, maybe it would work alright. Sadly it's not something we can easily "try out", since all +100 units have some kind of energy cost.

Picasso, your suggestions sound cool, but also difficult to pull off, and not quite the direction I'd like to take the game (at least my half of it) They do sound interesting though, I like the "burning" metal for energy and energy spike ones.