Energy Effeciency Programming Challenge (CANCELED)

[TechSY730]

Hmm, the roles of the current system:

1. Serves as a pacing tool for mobile military
   a. Gives an incentive to get more planets so you can build more mobile military
   b. Gives an incentive to keep planets so you can continue to rebuild military
2. Serves as a pacing tool for stationary defenses
   a. Gives an incentive to get more planets so you can build more defenses
   b. Gives an incentive to keep planets so you can continue to rebuild defenses
   c. Gives an incentive to keep planets so your certain, vital existing defenses (even on different planets) continue to work (brownouts disabling forcefields and such) (This makes it such that losing power on planet A could have a major impact on the defensibility of completely distant and otherwise unrelated planet B)
3. Gives a ongoing cost to provide for this energy, thus discouraging having a huge "buffer" of energy

Hearteater makes a good point that the current m+c resource system covers 1a and 1b pretty well.
Presumably, under Hearteater's system, reactors would still have an ongoing cost, thus preserving 3.
And finally, under his proposed system (energy is local to the planet, and is for non-mobile military (and possibly fortresses)) it makes 2a irrelevant, and strengthens 2b. If you lose all energy output facilities on that planet, all the defenses on that planet that require power go down.
However, that system fails to cover 2c. Under that system, planet B no longer cares if planet A (or even all other planets) is lost, as it does not impact the defense on its planet.


Now, of course, you can make an argument that 2c is not needed, that whether you can hold planet A should have no bearing on the defensibility of otherwise unrelated planet B. (though I would not, I think its good, but others may disagree).

[Diazo]

It is interesting to see the suggestions being tossed around. Here's my initial thoughts after 2 seconds of thought on the subject.

First, reactors changing to a per system supply? Bad idea, this change is so massive I would make a case you are making a whole new game at this point. At the very least the method of claiming systems would have to change are you are going to command stations, no if and or buts, with this sort of change. The wave mechanic, if it stays, means waves would eventually get so big they would overwhelm what one system of reactors could support.

Second, keith's changes generally sound good, they make the system less fiddely overall. I don't like the 30 second delay however, reasonably often in the early game I'm riding the edge of  the energy curve and I will lose a reactor putting me in negative energy, I need to get other reactors online ASAP, adding 30 second to that would hurt. (Of course, if it is intended for this to be a challenge caused by the 30 second delay I suppose that is another issue.)

Keith's #4  is really just balancing based on how reactors operate, I could also make a case that #4 is all that is needed to tweak the numbers of the current system and things would be fine.

Maybe it is the fact that I am so used to it by this point but I don't really see the energy system as an issue that really needs attention. Can it be improved? Yes, but I don't feel like it is bad or broken at this point.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, the roles of the current system:

Those are basically accurate, yes, but the more general purpose of it (and all the other systems) is: "make the game more fun".

In this genre that generally means: "give the player more choices" and "give the player more challenges that make them think to survive".  On the other side it means "don't give the player trivial busywork" and "don't make the player wait around doing nothing".

The current system does fulfill both of the positive purposes, but playing it "well" (not necessarily 100% optimally, but without obvious waste) involves trivial busywork (the hamsters obscure that, for which I am thankful, but they don't change it) and further exacerbate the waiting-game problem that tends to come up due to m+c scarcity.

We've stuck with it because all the alternatives we've tried or thought about (and there have been many) seemed worse.  But if there's another model that's more fun without these problems, that would be great.  Perhaps the current system can be changed like I was describing so that there's no more busywork and it at least causes less m+c scarcity. 

Or perhaps something more radical like Hearteater's idea is better; I find the local-power idea really intriguing but there are some issues like how to handle requirements for golems and whatnot that remind me that the current energy system is a "load bearing wall" in that simply removing it or remaking it into something totally other may cause large sections of the rest of the game to "collapse" in the sense that other choices may become less interesting or completely trivial, etc.

Anyway, just thinking out loud

[Hearteater]

Mobile units that use energy could just pulled surplus power from any system (just like they do now).  This would actually give a purpose to back systems that otherwise don't need any defenses and so normally would have few, if any, Reactors.

Also, it might make more sense for Reactors to increase their M+C cost when additional are built, instead of decreasing their energy output.  This would mean you don't need an energy floor, and it would logically make sense with the "first Reactor of each Mark costs no resources".

As a bonus, since Mines don't cost energy, they become much better on heavily defended systems because they don't take up any of your "energy cap".

[keith.lamothe]

On further thought: the local-power idea, cool as it is, seems like it's better as a separate mechanic for static defenses (or offenses, as a beachhead) rather than a replacement for the energy system.  The former is interesting, and probably deserves a new thread ("fire control"? Wouldn't cover the non-attacking ones.  "static control"?  Sounds weird.  Anyway) 

As the latter I think it would be a lot more change to the core of the game than the situation warrants

But if there's a sense that the energy changes I mentioned could improve things, that's worth thinking through more.

[Toranth]

Or perhaps something more radical like Hearteater's idea is better; I find the local-power idea really intriguing but there are some issues like how to handle requirements for golems and whatnot that remind me that the current energy system is a "load bearing wall" in that simply removing it or remaking it into something totally other may cause large sections of the rest of the game to "collapse" in the sense that other choices may become less interesting or completely trivial, etc.

Capacitor ships?  "Need to charge it with 1,000,000 energy before the Broken Golem can be activated" type of thing, but you can import the energy instead of just generating it locally.  Similar to engineer build assistance, but for energy.

Of course, the current energy system doesn't bother me much, since we've got the Hamster slaves to do the tedious part for us.

[Diazo]

Alright, since we are throwing things out there, let's get radical. Rip out the current energy system and replace it with "On-Demand" energy.

Get rid of energy reactors and replace them with a single structure called "Energy Processor".

How this would work is that you would always only convert as many resources as you need for energy on that game tick so you never have any overhead energy. To keep the need for systems you would build "Energy Processors" which increase your "Energy Processing Efficiency".

All numbers pulled out of thin air to explain this, would have to look at current numbers in game before this goes any farther.

So with one system and the single Energy Processor you start with, the first 100,000 energy costs 1m+c per 1000 energy then starts going up exponentially.

Capture a system so you can build a second Energy Processor, you now have 200,000 energy at 1m+c per 1000 energy before it starts going up exponentially.

Alternatively, it's a flat cost. 1 processor = 1m+c/1000nrg, 2 processor = 0.9m+c/1000nrg, etc.

Really not sure how the actual numbers would work, the concept is that you only convert as much M+C to Energy as you need on that game tick and you can affect the efficiency of that conversion through structures.

You would probably allow a 2nd or 3rd energy processor per system, maybe at quite a high cost and reduced effect if you are going to be running high energy ships like golems.

This needs more though but it is a way to re-work energy without going to a per planet system.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Alright, since we are throwing things out there, let's get radical. Rip out the current energy system and replace it with "On-Demand" energy.

Yea, good to think about various alternate approaches.  This one reminds me a lot of one idea that came up during the threadnought that led to the hamsters.  Basically:

1) Remove energy reactors.
2) Energy is generated on-demand.
3) Instead of energy processors, each command station provides a certain amount of "this is how much energy you can generate efficiently".
4) Rather than the m+c cost of e going up exponentially for each point after the total efficient-generation total, it just doubles.  Each point after 2*efficient_generation_total costs 4x as much, each point after 3*efficient_generation_total costs 8x as much, etc.  This also removes the need for multiple energy-processor buildings per planet: there's no hard cap, and the "you can get more, just less efficiently" functionality is built-in.

Nowadays, if I were to make a real go of that plan, I would add:

5) All e below the efficient_generation_total is free (it's just part of the benefit of taking and keeping the planet) ; the second "block"'s worth costs the normal rate, the third block costs 2x the normal rate, the fourth block costs 4x the normal rate, etc.

[Cyborg]

Doesn't that interfere with Chris's master plan to punish noobs for losing a reactor, force fields going down, game over (save scum)?

[Hearteater]

Well, if we get "Defensive Grid Stations" that keep up turrets and force fields, that problem still exists.  So if we end up getting something like that, then I think the on-demand power option with no reactors is very reasonable.

However, I'd recommend a pass over bonus ship types so we get some better variety in energy/m+c costs.  Specifically we want some high energy and low resource cost and the reverse.

[keith.lamothe]

Doesn't that interfere with Chris's master plan to punish noobs for losing a reactor, force fields going down, game over (save scum)?

Probably, but the forcefield-shutdown thing is not an immutable design goal, just a nice plus

With the on-demand thing, what would happen instead (potentially) is a raid starship(s) slipping through and killing some of your command stations, causing your actual m+c "spent on energy" going through the roof and grinding your reinforcement production to a halt.

[Volatar]

I don't really know. While the current system may not be perfect, it is completely intuitive to new players.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't really know. While the current system may not be perfect, it is completely intuitive to new players.

Except for the part where mkII is more efficient than mkI, but mkIII is less efficient than mkII, at least

[Volatar]

I don't really know. While the current system may not be perfect, it is completely intuitive to new players.

Except for the part where mkII is more efficient than mkI, but mkIII is less efficient than mkII, at least

TIL. Yeah, you should fix that.