New Carriers EDIT:, salvage and stuff (rant)

[chemical_art]

Avoiding undue complexity is a fair point, but there are two reasons I think the complexity is helpful on the one hand and not harmful on the other:

1) It's helpful in that it allows salvage values to be toned down on superweapon-heavy games (where you're salvaging tons of units in the 100k+ cost range) while having a _much_ lower impact on how much salvage helps you in a non-superweapon game.  If you're facing 2000 ship waves of ships that all cost in the 1000 to 2000 range, then you're still getting at least 70% of the salvage you used to.  If, on the other hand, you're facing 2000-ship attacks where half of those are guardians and golems and whatnot because of superweapon exos, then you'll no longer be swimming in as much metal because the total salvage collected will be more like 20% of what it would have been before.

2) It's not harmful in that as a player you _do not have to know the math_.  All you have to know is "stuff that costs more leaves more scrap".  How much more isn't something the game asks you to reason about, except in the question of what command station to use and/or to tank on the homeworld (which I think are interesting decisions).

The only reason I gave you the specific numbers here is so we can have a discussion about it from the game _design_ perspective.

That said, I'm fine with just making it 20% of what it used to be, across the board.  Or 30% or whatever.  If folks think that would be better than the sub-linear approach.

For me, the whole point of the scrap was to accelerate games. If superweapons are causing too much scrap, make a special rule that superweapons cause less scrap. However, if superweapons are leaving a lot of scrap, is that really a problem? The only problems I see are that players are investing it in expensive defense rather then offensive mechanisms. Maybe, just maybe, scrap only can be consumed on the planet it is generated on the player side. That way, the player is forced to either provide its defenses on the planet it already defended or use it to manufacture its offense by building spacedocks on said planet. Risk/reward of moving factories to the front lines. Maybe, just maybe. Back to my point though, I see huge scrap windfalls as a problem if it is used on the player side for defense, not offense. The AI already ensures it is used for offense. I think the player should do that as well. Seems a bit more in line with the intent of the mechanism.

[keith.lamothe]

For me, the whole point of the scrap was to accelerate games.

Same here, with the addition that you had to earn the scrap in at least some sense (in this case, by destroying the ships that came to kill you).

If superweapons are causing too much scrap, make a special rule that superweapons cause less scrap.

What do you mean, specifically?  Having the superweapon units themselves (golems, spirecraft, spire capital ships, champ units) give reduced scrap would only address part of it.  Golems actually already give reduced scrap, because their metal costs have a different meaning.

But that still leaves H/Ks and core guardians and starships (which can come by the dozens or even hundreds in exos) giving tons and tons of scrap.  Would you reduce their scrap only when superweapons were turned on?  Or only when they were part of an exo?  Or all the time?

However, if superweapons are leaving a lot of scrap, is that really a problem?

I have no problem with it, as long as players find it fun.  But it's been getting to the point where for some period of time after a big attack the metal mechanic doesn't exist and it's just a matter of slamming enough engineers into something to get it built.  If you don't you just lose the excess to the cap, and if you do you're still going to be at cap at the end.  The message I believe I'm hearing from players is that this is way too much scrap.

A curious problem to have, yes.

Maybe, just maybe, scrap only can be consumed on the planet it is generated on the player side.

In theory, I suppose, but isn't it adding way more complexity (both for players and from a dev standpoint) to make a formerly galaxy-wide resource into a planet-specific one in this one particular case, compared to the sort of math we were discussing earlier?

Like you say, maybe just maybe.  But I think if avoiding complexity is a concern then we'd avoid that one.

Back to my point though, I see huge scrap windfalls as a problem if it is used on the player side for defense, not offense. The AI already ensures it is used for offense. I think the player should do that as well. Seems a bit more in line with the intent of the mechanism.

Now there I do agree: the point isn't for the mechanic to buy superforts for you, the point is for it to help you refleet faster.

In one sense, if it caused a player-side "reprisal wave" (a big chunk of free ships for the player) that would be far more to-the-point.  But that literal mechanic would be... well, more than a little weird.

So what kind of mechanic would accomplish that reasonably?

Maybe some kind of secondary metal account that's used to pay the costs of Space Docks, Starship Constructors, etc, but not turretry and other defensive things?  Still sounds kind of fiddly (and immediately begs the question "why can't I use this on turrets and trader toys instead?") but I figured it was worth mentioning.

(Edit: very ironically, the next thought was "Well, maybe immobile stuff could just be built from an entirely different resource than mobile stuff, and thus obviously scrap recovered from mobile units couldn't be used to build immobile units.  We could even call it... crystal. *facepalm*")

[Winge]

Splitting one resource into two isn't going to help things.  I guess, if you really wanted to, you could bring back crystal...but would anyone be happy about that?

So far, I've only used Military Command Centers, so I really haven't seen the effects of salvage much.  Aside from building one trader toy a bit easier, and refleeting faster, the recovery amounts are minimal (I've never seen more than 100/s, except for when Exo ships leek onto my homeworld).  That said, I don't have a lot of !science! to back my experiences up.  If salvage should be nerfed, the easiest way is to do it via the Command Center %s.  I think it's a bit early to look at a drastic change or removal.

One other possibility which came to mind:  if the problem is 'unlimited salvage,' then have a Command Center-based cap on the amount of salvageable metal in a system.  Limit AI salvage by the Mark of the Command Center there.

[keith.lamothe]

Splitting one resource into two isn't going to help things.  I guess, if you really wanted to, you could bring back crystal...but would anyone be happy about that?

Probably not very many

One other possibility which came to mind:  if the problem is 'unlimited salvage,' then have a Command Center-based cap on the amount of salvageable metal in a system.  Limit AI salvage by the Mark of the Command Center there.

That... could work very well, actually.  Will think about it.  Good chance I'll just do that and revert out the salvage nerf that's currently in for 7.025.  Further thoughts on that are welcome.

[chemical_art]

What do you mean, specifically?  Having the superweapon units themselves (golems, spirecraft, spire capital ships, champ units) give reduced scrap would only address part of it.  Golems actually already give reduced scrap, because their metal costs have a different meaning.

But that still leaves H/Ks and core guardians and starships (which can come by the dozens or even hundreds in exos) giving tons and tons of scrap.  Would you reduce their scrap only when superweapons were turned on?  Or only when they were part of an exo?  Or all the time?

For me, it would be anything triggered by super weapons. Either it be on a unit by unit basis (superweapons, H/K's, etc, that on any reasonable difficulty on seen as a result of superweapons), or on the waves themselves (exo-waves). Even then, it would have a uniform reclamation (This unit generates only X% scrap unlike most units)

I have no problem with it, as long as players find it fun.  But it's been getting to the point where for some period of time after a big attack the metal mechanic doesn't exist and it's just a matter of slamming enough engineers into something to get it built.  If you don't you just lose the excess to the cap, and if you do you're still going to be at cap at the end.  The message I believe I'm hearing from players is that this is way too much scrap.

A curious problem to have, yes.

Sounds to me that there is not enough counter attacks being done. That should be encouraged...somehow. The very concept of counter-attacks (on the player side) is alien I know, but actually would be worthy of a feature for future expansion.

In theory, I suppose, but isn't it adding way more complexity (both for players and from a dev standpoint) to make a formerly galaxy-wide resource into a planet-specific one in this one particular case, compared to the sort of math we were discussing earlier?

Like you say, maybe just maybe.  But I think if avoiding complexity is a concern then we'd avoid that one.

I agree it is only marginally better...but it is, because at least if focuses toward the goal of the mechanic (offense vs defense.) A slightly less complex mechanic would involve...making producing ships of any sort more efficient (No, that is not really much better) EDIT MID POST: A limit of salvage could work...i suppose, although I do not like it favors defense vs offense equally

Now there I do agree: the point isn't for the mechanic to buy superforts for you, the point is for it to help you refleet faster.

I understand it will be too much work mid-expansions, but if enough behind the scenes work was done to making ships (as opposed to defenses) was done, salvage would enhance offensive measures.

In one sense, if it caused a player-side "reprisal wave" (a big chunk of free ships for the player) that would be far more to-the-point.  But that literal mechanic would be... well, more than a little weird.

Maybe some kind of secondary metal account that's used to pay the costs of Space Docks, Starship Constructors, etc, but not turretry and other defensive things?  Still sounds kind of fiddly (and immediately begs the question "why can't I use this on turrets and trader toys instead?") but I figured it was worth mentioning.

I sympathize with your intent and agree... but i have no lore reason why ....crystal became a "stand-in" resource to assist the building of ships? One crystal provides free "metal"...but it only aids in offensive attacks?...

So what kind of mechanic would accomplish that reasonably?

I mean...unless we go the CIV 2 route and make all defensive buildings require an independent resource (they used ore) to limit the amount of defenses over time...but I'm sure that will not go over well...

(Edit: very ironically, the next thought was "Well, maybe immobile stuff could just be built from an entirely different resource than mobile stuff, and thus obviously scrap recovered from mobile units couldn't be used to build immobile units.  We could even call it... crystal. *facepalm*")

Indeed.

For me, if we cannot find a happy comprise, we should not inhibit the mechanic on the offensive side because the defensive side takes too much advantage of it. In other words, it is OK if it is a little OP on the player side rather then it just feel a complicated mechanic for the AI to hit players with. If a player finds it too easy, bump up the AI and/or handicaps and/or minor factions, etc. 

Do NOT let the few veteran players on the forum inhibit the fun of the vast majority of the non-forum members. We should be considerate to all members of AI Wars, not just the most devoted fans.

[Histidine]

It's like I'm being ignored here 

[TechSY730]

I like the salvage cap based on station type and mark. That seems like a much simpler thing to understand, especially for new players.

Heck, it could be a good buff for the econ station line. Have the econ station line keep its current middle of the road scrap efficiency, but give it the highest salvage cap of the three lines.

EDIT: Also, the salvage caps would have to be pretty high to make the salvage efficiency differences matter, as well as making sure players don't feel cheated out of salvage after only mid sized waves.

[Kahuna]

Idea from someone who has never played a game with salvage yet:

Make player salvage based on player losses, not AI ones. On one side, this helps you recover if you get badly hurt. On the other hand, this removes the issue of the AI basically sending you free distribution nodes.

Cleanup Drones could.. cleanup.. the remainings of your fleet when they die and then you would get the salvage. Cleanup Drones would need a huge survivability buff though. Maybe weapons. Maybe change their name to Combat Engineer. Actually having to cleanup the remainings would make more sense than "magically getting the salvage when ever an AI ship is destroyed".

[Kahuna]

Again, metal and energy were never the main reason to take planets. K and capturables were.

Then what the hell is the point of having planets with different amounts of Resource Asteroids if it doesn't matter how many you have? And why not just remove Energy from the game if it doesn't matter?

Metal and Energy have been a reason to capture planets and they should be.

Sometimes I don't understand what the hell people are talking about. What settings do people play with? "Oh but Metal and Energy don't matter herp a derp". Doesn't that imply a serious problem in the game if people keep saying stuff like that? It's like saying it doesn't matter which bonus ship you choose. All ships are the same. Or all AI types are the same. aka X feature of the game has no meaning. Salvage makes Metal and Energy even more meaningless.. which is what I said earlier. Apparently majority of people here think that's a good thing.

Then people started saying "oh but herp a derp wait a minute.. the game shouldn't be made harder just because you find 10/10 easy". I'm not talking about finding 10/10 easy nor making the game harder. I said Salvage makes capturing additional planets useless because I have enough resources to win the game with 1 planet vs 10/10 Raid Engine/One-Way Doormaster / Crafty Spire/Alarmist. It really breaks the game. Now that I've really tested the salvage mechanic myself I'm not surprised by this at all. If it's this broken on 10/10 difficulty I can't imagine how broken it is on lower difficulty levels. The point is not to make the game harder.. the point is to fix what's broken. I also said the AIs send too many Starships. Reducing the amount of Starships the AIs send is not making the game harder.

[keith.lamothe]

It's like I'm being ignored here 

Sorry, things were moving kind of quickly

It's a good alternative idea.  I still prefer it being based on AI units dying, though having it be based on player units dying would certainly be a good thing to try if something in the current pattern doesn't work.


Anyway, what I'm currently thinking is:

- Revert out the salvage nerf that's in for 7.025

- Instead put a limit on the amount of "orbiting scrap" a planet can have, probably equal to (or maybe 2x) your overall _galaxy-wide_ resource cap (rather than that specific command station.  So big exos will max your orbiting scrap, but not obliterate the metal mecahnic, and non-superweapon situations will probably not hit that cap nearly as often (and thus be less impacted by this change)
-- There's still a bonus from tanking with your homeworld
-- But there's also a bonus to taking attacks on multiple planets at once, though perhaps that's not something the player can usually control

- Possibly have that orbiting scrap be "processed" at a rate more like 0.75% per second instead of 1% per second.  That won't impact the total amount you get but will spread it out over a longer time.  Right now 90% of the total is processed in 4 minutes, then 90% of what's left over the next 4 minutes, etc.  Tends to put up some pretty insane per-second numbers.  But possibly the scrap-cap is enough without this change.


Further thoughts?

[chemical_art]

Anyway, what I'm currently thinking is:

- Revert out the salvage nerf that's in for 7.025

- Instead put a limit on the amount of "orbiting scrap" a planet can have, probably equal to (or maybe 2x) your overall _galaxy-wide_ resource cap (rather than that specific command station.  So big exos will max your orbiting scrap, but not obliterate the metal mecahnic, and non-superweapon situations will probably not hit that cap nearly as often (and thus be less impacted by this change)
-- There's still a bonus from tanking with your homeworld
-- But there's also a bonus to taking attacks on multiple planets at once, though perhaps that's not something the player can usually control

- Possibly have that orbiting scrap be "processed" at a rate more like 0.75% per second instead of 1% per second.  That won't impact the total amount you get but will spread it out over a longer time.  Right now 90% of the total is processed in 4 minutes, then 90% of what's left over the next 4 minutes, etc.  Tends to put up some pretty insane per-second numbers.  But possibly the scrap-cap is enough without this change.


Further thoughts?

I like it. It reduces the effectiveness of one planet defenses, but won't hurt larger empires.

[Faulty Logic]

Metal and Energy have been a reason to capture planets and they should be.

Sometimes I don't understand what the hell people are talking about. What settings do people play with? "Oh but Metal and Energy don't matter herp a derp". Doesn't that imply a serious problem in the game if people keep saying stuff like that?

I said it wasn't the main reason to capture planets. It's still a reason. Just because mechanic Y is more important than X doesn't mean X is useless. No, it doesn't follow that other things don't matter 

Salvage makes Metal and Energy even more meaningless.. which is what I said earlier. Apparently majority of people here think that's a good thing.

No, I think most here agree with you that metal is a problem, if not that the game is a mess

Possibly have that orbiting scrap be "processed" at a rate more like 0.75% per second instead of 1% per second.

That doesn't seem like much of a change. I think .5 or .25 percent per second could be better.

[Toranth]

Possibly have that orbiting scrap be "processed" at a rate more like 0.75% per second instead of 1% per second.

That doesn't seem like much of a change. I think .5 or .25 percent per second could be better.

Right now, the decay is 90% in 4 minutes.  A rate of 0.5% doubles that, and 0.25% quadruples.  This has some interesting effects.  Namely, because the rate is lower, the human player keeps the raised income level much longer. 
For example:  An Armored Golem gets killed on the player's Homeworld (50% efficient).  It drops ~4mil salvage by the new rules.
Under the 1% scheme, the player will get a +1,000/sec or better income for the first 5 minutes, but by 10 minutes, it is down to 50/sec.
Under a 0.25% scheme, the player starts at only 5,000/sec, but stays at 1,000/sec or higher for almost 11 minutes.  It doesn't drop to minimum 50/sec until over 30 minutes later.

That's a very long period.  For normal waves, that will drop ~250,000 to 500,000 under the new rules, you'll see above-minimum income for 5 minutes at 1%, but for 12 minutes at 0.25%.
Which means if you are playing with the 'Double Waves' option, especially against a Neinzul AI Type, you could make more salvage coming in before you manage to completely recover the previous batch.

[Histidine]

BTW I think salvage efficiency should be equal for all command stations except Home (and maybe Warp Jammer).

Reason:
-Wave comes, use Military station to fend off attack
-You now have a lot of scrap, switch to Logistics station to collect at highest efficiency
-Switch back to Military station when done (or new wave comes)
-A winner is you

[Faulty Logic]

-Wave comes, use Military station to fend off attack
-You now have a lot of scrap, switch to Logistics station to collect at highest efficiency
-Switch back to Military station when done (or new wave comes)

Sure, but that only matters if you've unlocked high-mark logistics stations (in which case, good, because they are usually less attractive unlocks) or you're not getting that much of a benefit out of it.