negative income

[soMe_RandoM]

well i don't really understand the effects of having negative income. all i see is that stuff takes longer. so i got limited crystal and i have 76 thousand metal. it at -200 per second. is there any more penalty in doing something like this where i have like 25 crystal left. with -600? will it cause wastage of metal or is that not wastage? i just want to clarify when having negative income> what does it do when u run out. as building takes longer. but does it cause wastage as building it longer means more usage of my income>?

[RCIX]

Negative income is only bad when you're banks are at (almost) 0: your production is split evenly between the projects underway to build them all at a slower rate. As far as metal wastage when you're running out of crystal and vice versa, i'm fairly sure it scales back consumption of those due to reduced build rate.

[x4000]

Yeah, there is no wasteage, it's just a matter of things building too slowly (and some not at all, if your net is too negative). That seems like penalty enough!

[Diazo]

Heh.

I am very familiar with this and no, there's no wastage.

That number is just your change in the amount of resources you have stored assuming non-zero resources.

If you hit zero resources, all building projects slow down enough so that your effective resource consumption is +0. Whatever you are building ultimately takes the same amount of resources, it just takes longer to build because your engineers can't work at 100%.

That does raise a question though. Say you are getting into mid game and have a decent sized economy which you then strain by bringing a golem online so you only have +10 metal after your power generators take their cut. You then get raided somewhere losing a bunch of metal harvesters, but no power generators, so you don't have enough metal for your power generators, what happens?

Note that this isn't you not having enough power generators, this is not having enough metal to feed the power generators you have built. Does this shutdown power generators until you get the metal harvesters back? No effect? Everything shut down?

Actually, this sounds like an experiment worth trying.

D.

[x4000]

That does raise a question though. Say you are getting into mid game and have a decent sized economy which you then strain by bringing a golem online so you only have +10 metal after your power generators take their cut. You then get raided somewhere losing a bunch of metal harvesters, but no power generators, so you don't have enough metal for your power generators, what happens?

Note that this isn't you not having enough power generators, this is not having enough metal to feed the power generators you have built. Does this shutdown power generators until you get the metal harvesters back? No effect? Everything shut down?

No effect on the power generators (or anything else that consumes metal/crystal over time for not the purposes of building stuff), you just won't be able to build anything or do anything useful until you shut them off or do something else to reduce your metal/crystal output.

[Diazo]

Oh, K.

I suppose that makes sense.

D.

[Spikey00]

So let me clear this up; if you have 200 metal and no crystal (nor income of either) and are in the process of building a unit that costs 100 of both, it will stall at 50%?

:shock: SDM in the AI War forums

[x4000]

So let me clear this up; if you have 200 metal and no crystal (nor income of either) and are in the process of building a unit that costs 100 of both, it will stall at 50%?

Yes, that is true.  It adds a little bit to the construction of the unit 20 times per second.  At each loop if it is unable to add BOTH the metal and crystal that it needs to the unit, then the unit won't get anything added to its build points, and no metal OR crystal will be spent.  When multiple things are being built, and some cost both metal and crystal while others cost just one or the other, that's why you might see one build for a bit, then another one take over, etc.  If everything in the build list had the same costs of the same type, you wouldn't see that.

[Diazo]

That's the best way (only way really) to do it I think.

Otherwise you'd be microing your build queues something fierce.

And I don't just say that because I spend the first couple hours of a game with both metal and crystal bottomed out either.  

Those 10 manufactories of each type at the start are great, save me the time of building them myself, they always went up in the first 5 minutes for me anyway.

Why yes, even the SDM plays AI war!

D.

[x4000]

That's the best way (only way really) to do it I think.

Otherwise you'd be microing your build queues something fierce.

My thoughts exactly.

Those 10 manufactories of each type at the start are great, save me the time of building them myself, they always went up in the first 5 minutes for me anyway.

Glad to help!  I figured that would get things off to a faster start with less repetitive building at the start.  Though by the end of a game, I usually have 45+ metal or crystal manufactories, no joke, heh.

[triggerman602]

I typically get a couple hundred of each. I just wish they would turn on and off faster. On one extreme occasion i built 4000 manufactories. I'm not sure why though.

[x4000]

Whoa, holy cow.  I'd never expect to need so many manufactories!  Well, hopefully the new mark II/III harvesters will actually be a help in balancing metal vs crystal needs, potentially.  That's another use for them that I forgot to mention before.

[keith.lamothe]

1000s of manufacturies?  Sounds like a job for arc-place and construction templates!

[Spikey00]

Why yes, even the SDM plays AI war!

^ This is what I look like right now.

[soMe_RandoM]

thnx for help. it help huge as now i turn off energy as best i can (min ussage) then pay off stuff so far using these technequie i was able to fund super fortress 3-5 hrs in.