Spring RTS Engine

The following discussion concerns resources in TA-based mods.

When I look at a unit's cost, it's relatively easy to comprehend the metal. "Oh look," I say to myself, "this unit costs 100 metal. That's about the same as a flash tank." Similarly, "This unit costs 2,000 metal - that's a LOT of metal!" But I find that the same ease of comprehension does not hold for energy costs. "Hmm," I say to myself, "this building costs 10,000 energy. Is that alot?" I just don't know! Energy numbers are huge, with many structures costing tens of thousands of energy. Some relatively common tech 2 units cost more than 100k energy!

Conversion ratios vary depending on the mod (and structures used), but in general we can say that 1 metal = 60 energy. Is there any reason, other than adherence to historical TA economy, that the conversion ratio should be so huge? I propose that the economy would be much more intuitive if energy costs were scaled way down. Preferably, they would be scaled down so that 1 metal = 1 energy. Just divide all energy costs (and productions) by 60!

Consider the Big Bertha. It currently costs 4,700 metal (BA) and 140,000 energy. How big is that 140,000 compared to the 4,700? It's certainly a big number, so it must be expensive... but just how expensive is it? If the costs were scaled down so that 1 metal = 1 energy, then the energy cost would be 2,300. That's much more intuitive - know we know that the energy cost is roughly half the metal cost (quite a lot).

I believe that these numbers are high because modders are trying to avoid values smaller than one. For example: If 1 energy was = to 1 metal, one solar would generate something like 0,3 energy, and that would kill minds more than anything :)

Also, the fact that people dont have much idea of energy prices is not that much because the numbers are high, but because energy is a very abundant resource that you rarely need to save.

higher metal values reduce the effects of impulse.

smoth wrote:higher metal values reduce the effects of impulse.

Wait-what?

smoth wrote:higher metal values reduce the effects of impulse.

Can't you provide a manual mass-value in the place of the automatic (metal-based) one?

Personally, I've always hated TA's costs. I never have a good grasp of how many peewees a single mex will get me for a minute's operation, or the relative values of various things. It feels like 90% of a Spring-BA game is based on gut feelings.

1 metal = 60 energy, because OTA metal makers made 1 metal from 60 energy.
and thats why the unit cost value is calcualted with metal+energy/60 formula, even if the mod metal makers arent same as in OTA.

I agree that those unit energy cost makes no sense, and i dont even look at those much. I agree they should matter more, maybe we need third resource for weapon energy usage, or something weird, to make that building energy more important thing...

Yeah, it doesn't matter, it's just 'wait nanos until you stop stalling and build more E plants', more or less.

I do agree this needs and improvement. Currently unit costs feel detached from gameplay.

After you played like 500 games, you will have a good feeling about E-Costs imo.

Oh? How much E does your intuition tell you a Juno should take to build there, NOiZErs? ~~

As for the huge numbers, that's as much a DBZ modder's convention as anything - hit point values for a lot of units in OTA were much lower. Doesn't really matter if the numbers are big or small, though - just their scaling and interaction. If you can't handle multiples of 10 then you're in the wrong game.

Mr.Frumious wrote:

smoth wrote:higher metal values reduce the effects of impulse.

Can't you provide a manual mass-value in the place of the automatic (metal-based) one?

yes you can but that tag was not always available and if the metal has a secondary effect like setting mass why would they go and change things?


Sure they CAN apply the tag and sure there are tools to batch reduce the values but frankly most of the ta based stuff(with a few exceptions) take a most vexing minimalist stance on changes.

It's a holdover from OTA. Energy numbers are high and metal numbers are low.


Simple.

the mass tag value defaults to the metal cost of the unit.

Also... energy isn't scaled on just building, things need energy to work to. it would look daft having a gun take 0.01 energy to fire wouldn't it.

aGorm

In nearly all games where values seens bigger than needed, they are to avoid having decimal numbers. Game makers prefer something to cost 25gp instead of 2,5gp... :)

Isn't another part of it that energy is generally a more common resource than metal?

aGorm wrote:energy isn't scaled on just building, things need energy to work to. it would look daft having a gun take 0.01 energy to fire wouldn't it.

Epsilon wrote:energy is generally a more common resource than metal

Setting a seperate Mass tag to reduce the sometimes ridiculous effects of impulse is sometimes necessary. Importing Zwzyg and Co.'s TrueWalkScript Monkeylord required setting Mass=1000000; to prevent it from flipping off of the map and getting trapped under a corner when hit by a nuke.

Two things would make resources much easier to work with:
1) Tell us what the energy and metal drain per tick would be right next to the unit cost when we go to build a unit or building.
2) If the metal or energy cost is very large, shorten it by using "k" or "m" for thousand and million respectively. S44 uses large costs for units as part of our game design, and it's difficult to gauge the relative costs of things because all of the numbers are very big. Easier to judge 7.23m vs 3.11m than 7234000 vs 3110000. When numbers get that big it's tough to quickly see what the value is, if the cost is 18500000 you can't tell at a glance that it's 18.5 million (as opposed to 1.85 million or 185 million).