Construct additional pylons!

[Yogzototh]

logarithmic diminishing-returns function.

Ffs, its not logarithmic, its just a fucking square root. And theres a huuge difference between the two. And actually i would prefer if it was logarithmic.

[Tribulex]

basically its a function that increases at a decreasing rate. thats all i need to know.

[Google_Frog]

basically its a function that increases at a decreasing rate. thats all i need to know.

The function has not changed. It is exactly the same as the old overdrive except that now overdrive is only enabled on mexes attached to the grid.

[Tribulex]

oh cool. now thats actually a good idea. Solves the "magical energy and metal transportation" issue.

I thought I indicated my understanding? Let me restate:

I am not a fan of the art and many gameplay aspects of CA but I think this vastly improves the economy. Good job, TSOA, yada yada...

[luckywaldo7]

Actually after playing a bit, I would say that at least during the game start, your economy needs more babying than even other *A mods. Particularly because there is nowhere for excess energy to go until you invest 500 resources into an overdrive pylon, so you generally want to build energy structures just fast enough to keep up with your metal income.

Also this really forces you to be even more aggressive at game start than ever. There is no option for a more overdrive-dependent economy start. Overdrive pylons could be made cheaper so that they are more build-able sooner, but I think the importance of the overdrive pylon would be diminished if the cost was reduced much. Some alternate solutions:

1) Pylon plop! To go along with factory plop. (I don't really like this idea, except how funny "pylon plop" sounds when said aloud)

2) Give the commander pylon ability, so he is basically a walking overdrive pylon. This would definitely give an alternative to compush, keeping your com to overdrive starting mexes and assist lab, although maybe would discourage compush too much? (Technically with some defensive solars and mexes on the front line could still be used to compush and overdrive)

3) Morph commander for pylon ability for a cost much smaller than an actual overdrive pylon would cost. Basically same as 2 but you would have to invest some resources, and maybe than be unable to morph to dgun also.

[Google_Frog]

I don't think it's that bad. It is not hard to keep your energy reasonably level with your metal during the start of the game.

[luckywaldo7]

You don't find it hard, but you are also ranked #1 on springie elo. I noticed a lot of time my allies and enemies were building far too much energy (I generally only had about 4 or 5 solars myself as they were excessing).

Also its not entirely about difficulty, but also to allow an overdrive-based economy start. Also overdrive in general feels rather underpowered, as it takes 500 metal before you can even start to invest in overdrive, so its quite a while before overdrive pays back for itself (cba to run test to get exact numbers atm)

[luckywaldo7]

As a second thought, geos are probably underpowered now as well, as they are usually quite a distance from your main base. At 25 energy / 500 cost it is better than fusions at 35 energy / 1000 cost, but it usually requires a couple transfer pylons which adds additional cost and is vulnerable to attack.

Although I suppose you don't need to link energy that is used for construction costs / weapon costs.

[Google_Frog]

Half sized resource bars probably contribute to the difficulty

With the old system and 1000 storage I noticed that overdrive didn't really kick in until 8 minutes into the game. You would have to excess 16e for a whole minute to fill the storage.

As for payback it takes about 200 seconds for 3 +2 mexes, 5 solars and an OD pylon to pay back.

I think people are too used to spamming energy carelessly.

My trick is not to make energy in teamgames .

Algorithm:
Mex Mult = -1 + sqrt(1 + OD energy * 0.2)

5 solars:
extra metal = 6 * (-1 + sqrt(3))

[JohannesH]

Actually after playing a bit, I would say that at least during the game start, your economy needs more babying than even other *A mods. Particularly because there is nowhere for excess energy to go until you invest 500 resources into an overdrive pylon, so you generally want to build energy structures just fast enough to keep up with your metal income.

How is it more demanding than other *A games, when you now do the exact same thing as in those? If you dont want to invest to pylon/mm and cant use e you can make storage.

But pylon does seem expensive for what it does, takes so long to make cost (counting in the energy structures), that why not just reclaim some solars and go get some wrecks instead usually

[luckywaldo7]

How is it more demanding than other *A games, when you now do the exact same thing as in those? If you dont want to invest to pylon/mm and cant use e you can make storage.

Stalling energy and excessing metal is far less forgiving in CA because solars cost energy like they cost metal.

And stalling metal and excessing energy, sure you can reclaim solars but that is generally not an idea solution. Metal makers cost basically all energy, are super cheap and with a widget just one or two will keep your resources always flowing efficiently.

So in CA, especially with the smaller storage that Google Frog mentioned, there is a tighter margin between stalling and excessing and the differences are less forgiving. Not that it is super-difficult to manage, just more so than other mods. And of course there is storage, but that is less helpful because overdrive only takes excessing energy, so storing energy does nothing to help overdrive later.

I think people are too used to spamming energy carelessly.

Yeah that could be it, its hard to tell sometimes if people aren't doing it right just because if they are unused to it, rather than it being particularly difficult.

Algorithm:
Mex Mult = -1 + sqrt(1 + OD energy * 0.2)

5 solars:
extra metal = 6 * (-1 + sqrt(3))

When I tested on a common map (dsd) I overdrived three 2.1 mexes. The overdrive pylon took 10 energy for an overdrive income of 1.8. Each of the three mexes reported using 3.34 energy for a metal income of 2.04 + 29% overdrive, for a new metal income of 2.7.

edit: probably a communism bug when starting right from the spring executable

[jK]

When I tested on a common map (dsd) I overdrived three 2.1 mexes. The overdrive pylon took 10 energy for an overdrive income of 1.8. Each of the three mexes reported using 3.34 energy for a metal income of 2.04 + 29% overdrive, for a new metal income of 2.7. So I dunno, the code might different or something is buggy, but according your metal mult the overdrive would have been at 73%, but it was only at 29%.

edit: might be a communism bug when starting with the spring executable and having no teammates

Those formulas are defined per-mex.
And it's obvious that overdriving 3 mexes with 29% is more eff. than overdriving 1 mex with 73%.

[luckywaldo7]

Ah, so its -1 + sqrt(1 + (10 energy / 3 mexes) * 0.2) which is 29% overdrive in each mex. Mkay that makes sense, although it means 5 solars and 1 overdrive pylon take 500 seconds to pay back time.

[Pxtl]

The problem is that running out of E leaves you catastrophucked. E-stall is an end-of-the-world scenario, since it means you have to go through your facilities and shut down everything... while your shields, jammers, and radar go down.

So surplussing E is the default strategy, since maintaining a perfect balancing act is crazy.

Personally, I agree with the "plop" idea. More "plop" would generally be a good thing. Personally (although this is off-topic) I'd support removing the boost altogether and just starting with more M/E and getting to plop a nanotower or two (thus giving you the buildpower-boost that plop gets you).

Although either way, a better visual cue for how my overdrive is going would be nice - am I just barely overdriving, and will start losing E the moment I build a shield? Or am I ramming so much E into the overdrive system that it's a complete waste of time to build more E-sources?

[Kenku]

Yea I agree, a better visual cue is needed. My suggestion would be a "overdrive bar" much like the one with the old system, possibly with an additional listing of excessing e.

[Pxtl]

Yea I agree, a better visual cue is needed. My suggestion would be a "overdrive bar" much like the one with the old system, possibly with an additional listing of excessing e.

The problem is that Overdrive is now local. So while you can get an absolute amount of how much is going into and out of your overdrive, it won't really be a good indicator of efficiency if you have multiple detached overdrive networks.

[Kenku]

Yea I agree, a better visual cue is needed. My suggestion would be a "overdrive bar" much like the one with the old system, possibly with an additional listing of excessing e.

The problem is that Overdrive is now local. So while you can get an absolute amount of how much is going into and out of your overdrive, it won't really be a good indicator of efficiency if you have multiple detached overdrive networks.

Hmm...this is true, on top of which, trying to make a bar with gives out the information listed of each of the MEs ODs(which are currently listed if you click a ME(with "CONTSTRUCT MORE ENERGY!" warnings) would be too disorganized. Well, it was an idea, and at the very least a indicator of amount of excessing E might be a good idea.

[SirMaverick]

You don't find it hard, but you are also ranked #1 on springie elo.

I think people are too used to spamming energy carelessly.

Because you either needed e or it was used for overdrive.

My trick is not to make energy in teamgames .

Imo everyone should do that!

Stalling energy and excessing metal is far less forgiving in CA because solars cost energy like they cost metal.

Ack.

The problem is that running out of E leaves you catastrophucked. E-stall is an end-of-the-world scenario, since it means you have to go through your facilities and shut down everything... while your shields, jammers, and radar go down.

So surplussing E is the default strategy, since maintaining a perfect balancing act is crazy.

Ack.
Since overdrive works with pylons I tend to build less e (because e excess must be handled!). This mostly resulted in hard e-stall at some point.

[luckywaldo7]

No other thoughts, agreement or disagreement?

To recap, my opinion (short version):
Overdrive should be accessible earlier/is generally underpowered.



Something else about the pylon system, is that its no longer possible to hide fusions in the corners of maps like throne and get huge hidden overdrive boost. I didn't mention that earlier because I consider that to be a Good Thing .

[Kenku]

No other thoughts, agreement or disagreement?

To recap, my opinion (short version):
Overdrive should be accessible earlier/is generally underpowered.



Something else about the pylon system, is that its no longer possible to hide fusions in the corners of maps like throne and get huge hidden overdrive boost. I didn't mention that earlier because I consider that to be a Good Thing .

In truth its a challenge to hide anyway due to ghost radar, although in my opinion they revealing effect isn't that strong in my opinion as the connection lines aren't that visible, and to me a smart player probably can either hide the transfer pylon well enough as well.