Did you guys make it harder to activate golems?

[Volatar]

I'm finding it very difficult to activate golems now. I seem to remember activating them with maybe one or two full reserves of resources but now I'm trying to activate a single botnet golem and I've spent hours on it and it's barely over 50%

You may want to consider banking resources (purchase expensive items and sell them later on). I think it should be prohibitive to repair, but maybe it's too much.

It would be very interesting to see an expensive unit that has a scrap return of like, 50%. Banking at the scrap percentage right now is like wasting resources that could be used on something useful now, like mercs.

[Diazo]

That's not how they've said they want the economy to work however, scrapping is supposed to not give a significant amount of resources. I assume this is specifically to avoid games with the economy like you are talking about.

Having said that, right now even the basic Engineer Mark I consumes 6x more resources per second to repair so I'm hoping we will see further changes to how repair works.

And I did the math, to negate the attrition damage to an Armored Golem will cost 1042 metal and crystal per second.

Having said that, Golems are supposed to be super-weapons. I don't think running around the galaxy with 4 active golems was part of the original design mechanic.

Rather then weakening golems so their repair costs don't cripple your economy, leave them somewhat as is with the intention that you don't have multiple golems active at once? (With appropriate stat balancing.)

Disclaimer: I generally play with golems off so other people need to speak up here.

D.

[TechSY730]

Okay, here's how I currently understand repair to work. (Patch 5.050)

Construction cost is as listed in the ship description.

Repair Cost is 25% as listed, including Repair Time being 25% also.

The repair time is why repair is currently destroying economies.

Because repair time is also 25%, while repair is underway the costs per second are exactly the same during construction as during repair.

Except the rates are not the same on engineers, a Mark I engineer has Construction Rate 1, Repair Rate 6 so a Mark I engineer consumes six times more resources per second when repairing then when building the exact same unit.

Only showing metal to keep things simple but crystal works the same way.

Assuming an engineer could build a Light Starship without requiring a starship constructor:

Mark I Engineer building a light starship: 40,000 Metal Total over 05:34 for 120 metal/second. (Construction rate 1)

Mark I engineer repairing a light starship from 0 to 100% health: 10,000 Metal Total over 14 seconds for 714 metal per second (Repair Rate 6)

This just gets more extreme with higher Mark engineers. A mark III engineer at repair rate 12 would be:

Mark III Engineer building a light starship: 40,000 Metal Total over 01:51 for 360 metal/second. (Construction rate 3)

Mark III engineer repairing a light starship from 0 to 100% health: 10,000 Metal Total over 7 seconds for 1,428 metal per second (Repair Rate 12)

Effectively, the Repair Rate of a unit is the multiplier for how much more expensive things are to repair (both absolutely and per second) so the Mark I engineer consumes six time more resources to repair and the Mark III engineer consumes twelve times more resources to repair now.

A single Mark III engineer repairing an Armored golem now costs 8,333 metal and crystal per second. Let's not even talk about a swarm of engineers now.

D.

There is something else apparently modifying total repair costs, as Kieth's earlier statement that total repair costs is 100% is wrong, as this shows (assuming you reproduced this in game).

And how are Mk. III engineers absolutely more expensive? Sure they drain 2x more per second when repairing, but add to the HP at 2x the rate, thus exactly evening each other out.
So with higher mark engineers, you get the same work done, for the same total cost, but faster. Now whether this is worth paying knowledge for is questionable (and dependent on playstyle) but your total costs are the same.

[Eternaly_Lost]

That's not how they've said they want the economy to work however, scrapping is supposed to not give a significant amount of resources. I assume this is specifically to avoid games with the economy like you are talking about.

Having said that, right now even the basic Engineer Mark I consumes 6x more resources per second to repair so I'm hoping we will see further changes to how repair works.

And I did the math, to negate the attrition damage to an Armored Golem will cost 1042 metal and crystal per second.

Having said that, Golems are supposed to be super-weapons. I don't think running around the galaxy with 4 active golems was part of the original design mechanic.

Rather then weakening golems so their repair costs don't cripple your economy, leave them somewhat as is with the intention that you don't have multiple golems active at once? (With appropriate stat balancing.)

Disclaimer: I generally play with golems off so other people need to speak up here.

D.

1042 metal and crystal per second is insane. Fallen Spire Habitation Centers produce 300 metal and crystal a second, as you need them to fuel the high costs of all those Spire ships. A single Armored Golem will take up almost all of four cities production, and when you get 4 cities, you are basically in full out war. I don't see a normal game. I just started a game with a single homeworld and threw up mk3 harvesters and had 820 metal and 560 crystal a second. Not even close to enough to keep a single golem up. Golems are not currently strong enough for this cost to be reasonable.

Either they need some massive buff to make them worth it, or they need to have their repair costs dropped down. We talking a very decent chunk of resources to just run one right now and they (outside of the botnet) don't really feel that superweapony to me.

[TechSY730]

Well, in the yet to be released 5.051, Kieth is halfing all repair costs, so that should help out some.

[Diazo]

Oops.

Correct that line to read:

Effectively, the Repair Rate of a unit is the multiplier for how much more expensive things are to repair (both absolutely and per second) so the Mark I engineer consumes six time more resources per second to repair and the Mark III engineer consumes twelve times more resources per second to repair now.


The most important thing to realize that is screwing this up, the effective base repair rate of the game is that of the Mark I engineer because that is the basic unit everyone compared their repair rates too.

That means that before this patch, the effective repair of the Mark I engineer was 4% of the build time and 4% of the build cost.

Because of the change in this patch, the effective repair of the Mark I engineer is still 4% of the build time but it is now 25% of the build cost, 6 times more expensive.

So players look at their economy and go "wow, repair in general is now 6 times more expensive" and freak out.

For interests sake, before this change, Mk III engineers were 2% the build time and 2% the build costs, now Mk III's are 2% the build time but also 25% the build costs.

This has seriously wrecked repairing and a change of some sort is needed.

D.

edit: Oh, I need to check out the patch notes it seems.

edit the 2nd: So base repair is now 12.5% of build cost, that will take the Mk I engineer to 4% the build time and 12.5% of the build costs to repair a unit from 0 to 100% health.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, if repair cost is currently 25% in the next version it will be 12.5%, I made that change a bit ago but most of the AIW effort since 5.050 has been on the expansion.

For the golems I'll probably just drop their base m+c "construction" cost (they're never built, only repaired, so that's something of a misnomer) by 2.5x or so and see how that feels in 5.051.

[Minotaar]

Yea, if repair cost is currently 25% in the next version it will be 12.5%, I made that change a bit ago but most of the AIW effort since 5.050 has been on the expansion.

For the golems I'll probably just drop their base m+c "construction" cost (they're never built, only repaired, so that's something of a misnomer) by 2.5x or so and see how that feels in 5.051.

I think it will not be enough, right now economy is pretty much a complete disaster even with no superweapons. 12.5% means all repair is still at least 3x as expensive as pre-5.050. Wonder what others who played 5.050 have to say on this.

[keith.lamothe]

I think it will not be enough, right now economy is pretty much a complete disaster even with no superweapons. 12.5% means all repair is still at least 3x as expensive as pre-5.050. Wonder what others who played 5.050 have to say on this.

I'm curious how it compares to 5.039;  compared to then energy is basically free if you have enough territory.

If repairing at 12.5% breaks the bank, how did people refleet (at 100%) at all before?

[Minotaar]

I think it will not be enough, right now economy is pretty much a complete disaster even with no superweapons. 12.5% means all repair is still at least 3x as expensive as pre-5.050. Wonder what others who played 5.050 have to say on this.

I'm curious how it compares to 5.039;  compared to then energy is basically free if you have enough territory.

If repairing at 12.5% breaks the bank, how did people refleet (at 100%) at all before?

I'm baffled by that too, so that's why I want to hear from others  My perception might just be wrong, since I'm on my first real... bug report attempt right now.

[Diazo]

There's a perception problem here.

Rebuilding a fleet (refleeting) costs more in absolute terms but the resources per second were significantly lower (like 10% of repair costs) so people did not see a problem. It took longer but resource flow stayed positive.

After the changes, a fleet of twenty engineers repairing could tank your economy at -15,000 of each resource per second easily. This is seen as a problem because players see resources sitting at 0 with a negative resource flow as a problem even though it would ultimately get that unit back to 100% faster and cheaper then building it from scratch.

D.

[TechSY730]

I think repairing be more expensive that it was before is fine. Before, expected repair total cost multiplier could easily hit 4%, which is WAY too low.

Most RTSs I have seen have a total repair cost rate between .10 and .25.
We were just "spoiled" before due to the bug. The goal is to come to a sane repair system, nit necessarily one that emulates the overall, ridiculously low costs of the previous system.

[Diazo]

There has to be a cap on the costs of structures then.

You can only store 999,999 of each resource. An armored golem's construction cost is 30,000,000.

That means you can only store 3% of the golems construction cost in advance. I know Keith has already said he's going to change this for the next patch (golem health) but it illustrates the issue with the fact that construction costs ballooned because repair costs were effectively free so super-expensive construction costs did not break the game.

The Fallen Spire and Trader stuff is probably going to need a look in terms of construction/repair costs before everything is said and done as well.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Rebuilding a fleet (refleeting) costs more in absolute terms but the resources per second were significantly lower (like 10% of repair costs) so people did not see a problem. It took longer but resource flow stayed positive.

After the changes, a fleet of twenty engineers repairing could tank your economy at -15,000 of each resource per second easily. This is seen as a problem because players see resources sitting at 0 with a negative resource flow as a problem even though it would ultimately get that unit back to 100% faster and cheaper then building it from scratch.

Ironically, that makes it sound like nerfing the repair-rate on engineers would help

Anyway, I don't mind taking repair costs all the way down to 4% (slightly better than engie Is got before the fix) if that's what it takes, because my intent wasn't to make repairing more expensive but rather to fix a problem where microing to make sure that only engie IIIs repaired anything remotely expensive (let alone golems, where it was a night-and-day difference) was highly desirable.  But I'm just not sure that 4% is a proportional response in light of how much the energy changes in 5.040 helped econ.

[Diazo]

I would actually not be opposed to nerfing repair rates, in my tests a single Mk I engineer was repairing a Light Starship from 50% hp to full in 8 seconds.

If golems do get their costs reduced, that would remove what I think is the biggest objection to nerfing repair rates.

On the costs to repair, I'm not sure. A Mk I engy used to be 4% costs so that's a starting point but with more resources available from the energy change? Hmm...

D.