Poll: Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (IV)

[TechSY730]

The harvesters seem over the top. I believe that this is what parity looks like, but like you say, Econ stations take up the "slot" of the command station which really is a big deal and they should therefore be a bit better. So harvesters should probably be a bit under parity with Econs,  for example 36/90.

Anybody object to 36/90?

If a K cost reduction (maybe a small one, due to their new collection rate magnitude) could come with that, that would be fine.

[keith.lamothe]

Anybody object to 36/90?

To put it in perspective:

With 38/105, upgrading a either metal or crystal harvesters becomes roughy equal to upgrading econ stations at 26 resource spots of that type.  Generally speaking, how many planets do you have to capture to get 26 spots of that type?  In a really good situation you might be able to do that with 6 planets (8 spots on your HW, 4 each on 5 captured planets, for a total of 28 spots) and in that situation I think it would be cool to realize "wow, this particular map/position makes (insert resource here) harvesters a great choice" and go for that.  In a more average situation I'm guessing you would have to somewhat cherry-pick planets to even get an average of 2 spots of that resource type, and with something like +4 or +8 from the homeworld that means 10 or 12 captured worlds.

In other words, even with 38/105, the early-game choice is still strongly in favor of econ station upgrades (in exchange for the command station "slots" on up to 12 worlds).  The difference is that later in the game depending on your map's seeding and how much territory you plan to take harvesters will eventually pull ahead.

So, I realize 105 sounds like an absolutely huge number, but I think that going much lower just keeps the situation where you're only rarely (with a single homeworld) going to want to pick harvesters.

But I could be wrong

And yea, could just cut down the K costs on the harvesters and the magnitudes to match, if that's what folks prefer.

[TechSY730]

For 14500 ((3250 + 4000) * 2) knowledge to unlock both harvesters Mk. III, I would be hard pressed to see a situation where I would be willing to unlock them, unless I am in a late game, "large number of planets" situation. Even if they now output a good amount of resources to make them worth the knowledge.

Even getting both Mk. IIs for 6500 (3250 * 2) knowledge seems a bit much, even for the amount of resources I get out of it.

Maybe a moderate decrease in collection rate and knowledge costs, but keep the resource/knowledge costs ratio about the same as econ stations (maybe a little smaller ratio, as harvesters do not have an opportunity cost like econ stations do)

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, thanks for the feedback, that's why I asked before the release actually went out   Revised harvester changes:

*** Harvester II:
**** Knowledge cost from 3250 => 2000.
**** Production from 28 => 31 (so +8 => +11).
*** Harvester III:
**** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 2500 (so 4500 total).
**** Production from 36 => 73 (so +16 => +53).

Still aiming for numerical similarity with the econ stations in that econ stations are the stronger early-game pick (and definitely stronger if you don't plan to take 10+ planets ever), which I think is sufficient counterbalance to the command-station-slot cost.  In other words, I really doubt that harvesters being this good will make people never take econ station upgrades, but I do think that harvesters being significantly worse than this would cause harvester upgrades to be rarely taken.

[Nodor]

Ok, thanks for the feedback, that's why I asked before the release actually went out   Revised harvester changes:

*** Harvester II:
**** Knowledge cost from 3250 => 2000.
**** Production from 28 => 31 (so +8 => +11).
*** Harvester III:
**** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 2500 (so 4500 total).
**** Production from 36 => 73 (so +16 => +53).

Still aiming for numerical similarity with the econ stations in that econ stations are the stronger early-game pick (and definitely stronger if you don't plan to take 10+ planets ever), which I think is sufficient counterbalance to the command-station-slot cost.  In other words, I really doubt that harvesters being this good will make people never take econ station upgrades, but I do think that harvesters being significantly worse than this would cause harvester upgrades to be rarely taken.

I can't tell without doing a lot of math, but does this measurement take into consideration the energy output from the economic 2/3 as a passive "m & c" income?  Especially when you compare them with the energy cost of military or logistic stations, that's a bit of a gap - and can be ruled as the "advantage" of command stations or as an excuse to round up on the harvesters.  I'm just curious as to the thinking. 

Also,  I fear for my current game vs. the mine enthusiast.   The new model looks mean.   I'm going to need t budget the 8 planets so I can toss spare fleets into enemy mines and have enough resources to rebuild them instantly.

[Kittens]

Ok, thanks for the feedback, that's why I asked before the release actually went out   Revised harvester changes:

*** Harvester II:
**** Knowledge cost from 3250 => 2000.
**** Production from 28 => 31 (so +8 => +11).
*** Harvester III:
**** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 2500 (so 4500 total).
**** Production from 36 => 73 (so +16 => +53).

Still aiming for numerical similarity with the econ stations in that econ stations are the stronger early-game pick (and definitely stronger if you don't plan to take 10+ planets ever), which I think is sufficient counterbalance to the command-station-slot cost.  In other words, I really doubt that harvesters being this good will make people never take econ station upgrades, but I do think that harvesters being significantly worse than this would cause harvester upgrades to be rarely taken.

I had not considered the bigger "up front" boost econ stations give when you have fewer planets. That is indeed an advantage. Anyway, I was mostly concerned because... I was remembering a fallen spire game where I had around 20 planets, MkIII Logistics, MkIII Econs, and upgraded harvesters. With +105 per harvester, the resources in that game would go from "no worries, just make sure the spire fleet doesn't blow up" to absolutely trivial. But maybe that's fine if players sink that much knowledge into it. (It was a multiplayer game and I was basically supplying half my ally's economy as well.)

I like the adjustment though, lower rate for less knowledge looks better.

[keith.lamothe]

I can't tell without doing a lot of math, but does this measurement take into consideration the energy output from the economic 2/3 as a passive "m & c" income?  Especially when you compare them with the energy cost of military or logistic stations, that's a bit of a gap - and can be ruled as the "advantage" of command stations or as an excuse to round up on the harvesters.  I'm just curious as to the thinking.

I had not actually considered that at all, thank you for bringing it up.  For now I'll leave it as-is; it's ok for the econs to be somewhat better, I just want there to be solid reasons for picking each, in not-too-rare circumstances.

[Commiesalami]

The harvesters seem over the top. I believe that this is what parity looks like, but like you say, Econ stations take up the "slot" of the command station which really is a big deal and they should therefore be a bit better. So harvesters should probably be a bit under parity with Econs,  for example 36/90.

Anybody object to 36/90?

I'm alright to the lower value.  It looks to be about right if you consider the resource gains of the command stations you do get (military/logistical)

[Toranth]

I can't tell without doing a lot of math, but does this measurement take into consideration the energy output from the economic 2/3 as a passive "m & c" income?  Especially when you compare them with the energy cost of military or logistic stations, that's a bit of a gap - and can be ruled as the "advantage" of command stations or as an excuse to round up on the harvesters.  I'm just curious as to the thinking.

I had not actually considered that at all, thank you for bringing it up.  For now I'll leave it as-is; it's ok for the econs to be somewhat better, I just want there to be solid reasons for picking each, in not-too-rare circumstances.

So, I did a little math (I'm sure everyone is shocked), and the proposed new numbers (20/31/73) produce some peculiar results.
First off, by increasing the value of the harvesters, you've also increased the value of the Exoshield.  A quick set of calculations shows that, for the Mk I harvesters, it becomes worth protecting them if they get destroyed more often than every 750 seconds - about 66% more value out of the shield than before.
However, I'm not sure of my results, because from what I see, it's actually more valuable to protect the Mk I harvesters than the Mk IIIs!  Odd result.  I think it's because the build time for each tier of harvesters is halved, while the income is not doubled.  Now that the resource/sec cost is fixed for all three tiers, the shield's value is not linear.

Edit:  Just for you, Cyborg, I did the calculations in resources and tried to figure out the effect of engineers.  After reading several years worth of release notes and forum threads, I'm now more confused about how engineers work, but if I'm correct, the best efficiency assist you can use is three Mk III engineers, which produce a build time of 1/10th the basic time.  That basically results in:  It's only worth protecting your harvesters if they are destroyed every 46 (old values) or 75 (new values) seconds.

[Wanderer]

I'm of a mixed opinion about the harvester upgrade.  The lower K cost version is definately better to my personal taste, but I'm still debating.

I know where you're trying to go with this Keith, but it's not what I'd expected.  See, I always pictured harvester upgrades as the 'first' upgrade you'd want, and eventually in mid/late game want to get Econ II/IIIs once you had secure borders.  As this stands, it's still inverted. No, I don't have a fix in mind but I'll think on it. Edit: After going through the rest of this, because of Homeworld overload on harvesters, this is now true.

The ratio also seems off, even though I know you're comparing to Econ II/III.  It's 4000 K to get a 150% econ boost.  It's another 4500 K to get another 220% (roughly) econ boost.   If you're not going to III, I can't see buying II.  Econ IIs for 3000 give you roughly 100% on 6 planets.

Also, I wanted to confirm your '2 harvester' math, so I understand where you're coming from.  So at 12 planets with an average of 1 metal and 1 crystal each, these should roughly compare to 12 Econ II/III stations in bonus, correct? 

So with Econ III producing 320/s and Econ II producting 160/s, over the base of 80/s, that's 80/s*6 + 240/s*6 = 1920/s worth of boost for 9000 K (and 12 planets to drop them on).  That equates to .213 (1920/9000) of income/K for both types.

Now, taking the new values, with 2 harvest nodes (1 metal/1 crystal) on average, you'll go from 20*2*12 m+c (480/s) to 73*2*12 m+c (1752/s).  That's 1272/s increase.  That's 4000 K for tech II and another 4500 K for tech III, coming in at 8500 K.  That's 0.149 worth of income/K if you bring both types of harvesters up.  Where's my math gone wrong?  Only by adding in the 12 resources nodes on the homeworld do you get this function: ( (53*2*12) + (12*53) )  / 8500 = .224. 

Does it seem odd to anyone else that homeworld owns at least 1/3 of your harvesting resources after taking 12 planets?

Take this to a more common scenario where economy is more of an issue, particularly heading into the midgame.  You've usually taken your wrapper planets (or wrapping threats, pick your poison) for 3 planets and another 3 staging/ARS planets.  That's 6.  That gives you a mere set of Econ IIIs. 

6*Econ III + Homeworld Station + Homeworld Harvesters + Captured Harvesters = Net Econ

( 320*6 ) + 600 + (12 * 20) + (24 * 20) = 3240/s

Comparison to 8500 K on both sets of Harvster MK IIIs, assuming using only Econ Is:

(80*6) + 600 + (12*73) + (24*73) = 3708/s

Use Mil/Log Is on those other planets and you merely remove 480 in income (and some power), bringing it to 3228.

These ARE now equivalent, even in midgame, and perhaps even slightly more powerful, if the average holds true.  But again, it's mostly because the homeworld forces it up.  Taking a look at the 9 through 10 map, resources (9.6 game, I've *'d the worlds I controlled at end of game):

*Sushi	6/6
*Janeway	1/1
Fraggle Rock	1/3
Shawshank	1/1
Roulette	2/0
*Huge	1/1
*Twycross	0/2
*Macross	1/3
Dyson (hmmm..)	3/3
Craps	0/4
SuperTerminal	4/3
*Cyborg	3/2
Blackjack	0/1
*SolarMoon	4/1
*Camel (Fact IV)	4/2
Green Lantern	2/2
Pai Gow	3/0
*Argyle	3/1
*Jumping Jax	0/1
Ceasar (Fact IV)	3/1
Arrakkis	0/1
Solaris VII	0/2
Pox Aurelia	0/3
Canopus	2/1
Confederation	2/2
Eridani	0/1
Kirk (Coreworld)	0/0
Desperado	1/1
Earth (Homeworld)	8/4
Llama	3/4
Hacker	0/1
Davion	3/0
Liao	2/1
Blackstone	4/0
*Batman	3/4
Hotstar	1/4
Krupp	4/2
Tau	1/2
Three Kings (Coreworld)	2/0
Riker (AI HW)	4/8

The reason I bring this up is to illustrate how the deviation is kind of wonky, and can lean a little heavier towards preferred targets.  This is a completed game.  Assuming noone without a significant strategy will setup an econ system ON one of the AI Homeworlds, my actual harvester count with 11 planets (including the homeworld) was 26/24, for a total of 50 harvesters. Take out the 12 on homeworld and that's 38 harvesters on controlled planets, averaging to 3.8/planet.  However 2 worlds (Batman and Camel) are doing a LOT of that heavy lifting (13 harvesters alone on those), and weren't picked up until mid-late game.

Assuming they were 'average' I ended up at 25 + 4, 29 harvesters.  Even then it's 2.9/planet average.

That might be why the numbers seem a bit high.  However, any lower and I wouldn't bother.  I certainly will ignore Harvester IIs, they're just not worth the K by themselves.

For those curious, an 8*HW game will be disgusting economically with these things.  8*12*73 = 7008/s, and is only 3 HW worth of research to bring online.  Though it's somewhat compensated for by the fact that you *usually* don't take many more planets in a multi-HW game and thus won't be seeing much other economy, it's still an intense value.  These will break 10/10 for multi-HW.  Even triple-HW (a much easier scenario to setup defensively and about the 'best choice' for what I've seen so far for unit caps) is monsterous, at 1752/s income off the homeworlds (+600*3 for the cmd stations) for ~3500/s. 

Answer: Change mineral distrubution.  Homeworlds are overloaded with harvester sites.  Reduce homeworld harvesting and get MORE harvesters 'out in the wild' to encourage planet conquering.


Exo Shields - I'll still probably never open them.  Oh, they're a lot better, don't get me wrong.  I just don't care about harvester sites that much.  Your comment about whipping boy tactics makes some sense, but meh.  It's not enough.  It's all about the K baby.


Mines: Oh lord did they need a hand.  This looks tasty.  However, one of the 'boosts' for the AoE mines was they could hit mine immune things.  Does this still count? 

Is it possible to lower rebuild times without lowering build times?  In general you need a MASS of mines for them to have any significant effect.  Though with the health boost I'm not sure of the impact.

Can the same ship hit the same mine twice?  Is it a single collision detection?  How do they really work under the hood?  That might help them be more effective in our hands.


Warp Jammer stations: I might actually open one of these up now.  There's some power there.  Not as much as I'd like to see because you're still in significant danger from CPA floatillas, but a heck of a lot better.

[TechSY730]

@GUDare, very good observation.
Focusing so much of the resources on the home planet, although makes the early game faster, makes the resource rewards for getting new planets lower. Merely buffing the harvesters won't do, as even though overall economy goes up, the proportion of that economy that is provided by the homeworld doesn't change much, as the homeworlds get the buffs as well as "normal" planets. All this means that relative rewards don't change (much).
But sadly, fixing this would require messing with the map generation stuff, a very finicky operation.
Basically, harvesters will always be iffy in desirability (at least in single HW games) as long as the current homeworld vs. "normal" planets resource site ratio holds.

[Wanderer]

@GUDare, very good observation.
Focusing so much of the resources on the home planet, although makes the early game faster, makes the resource rewards for getting new planets lower.

Believe it or not, without serious harvester upgrades, it really doesn't.

Single HW original setup: 600 M+C off Cmd Center. +100 on 9+ games for the human protection nodes next to cmd center which are +25 each for 8k in power (a little strange, that).  That's a 700/s base.  Add your 12 harvesters +20 and you get another 240 m+c to 940/s.  Reduce that to 8 and you only add on 160 m+c, but your ratio isn't significantly different, it's now 860/s.  It's only when you toss in these upgrades that the ratio goes off the charts.  It's also why econ stations are so powerful compared to the 2/3 harvesters you get in other systems.  You want to upgrade harvesters for homeworld, econ stations for anything else.

But sadly, fixing this would require messing with the map generation stuff, a very finicky operation.

It needs to happen a bit anyway for certain things, particularly if my request to get AI Eyes off Raid Engine worlds ever goes through.  That probably can't happen until a full development cycle though due to the complexity of the component.  I'm waiting for one of those anyway because I'd really like certain map styles to be 'cleaner looking' on generation, like Trees.  I wouldn't even mind those so much if I could detangle on the map selection screen, but I can't, but that's on a wishlist somewhere.

[PokerChen]

Right now, I'm just thinking that the preservation wardens ought to have noticed your incoming extreme upgrades, Keith. On that note, they should also be attacking the Mining Golem, but I'm willing to let that one slide...

[TechSY730]

@GUDare, very good observation.
Focusing so much of the resources on the home planet, although makes the early game faster, makes the resource rewards for getting new planets lower.

Believe it or not, without serious harvester upgrades, it really doesn't.

Ah, I see what you are saying now. The more extreme the harvester upgrades are, the more the homeworld resource and "normal" planet resource disparity becomes, even though total resource income goes up.

But sadly, fixing this would require messing with the map generation stuff, a very finicky operation.

It needs to happen a bit anyway for certain things, particularly if my request to get AI Eyes off Raid Engine worlds ever goes through.  That probably can't happen until a full development cycle though due to the complexity of the component.  I'm waiting for one of those anyway because I'd really like certain map styles to be 'cleaner looking' on generation, like Trees.  I wouldn't even mind those so much if I could detangle on the map selection screen, but I can't, but that's on a wishlist somewhere.

Agreed on refactoring the older map types to have nicer replacement of planets (if the structure it tries to make guarantees planarity, if course).

What I'm trying to say is that because so much is not stored in the save file but assumes consistent behavior of the map generator, changes to the map generator can cause old saves to "break" (like moved wormholes and stuff)

Interestingly enough, making AI eyes and Raid engines mutually exclusive on the same planet would be, if I understand the unit seeding part of the map generator correctly, a rather easy thing to add, with little or no messing up existing save games. (Though, naturally, it won't be able to "fix" older save games)

[Wanderer]

@GUDare, very good observation.
Focusing so much of the resources on the home planet, although makes the early game faster, makes the resource rewards for getting new planets lower.

Believe it or not, without serious harvester upgrades, it really doesn't.

Ah, I see what you are saying now. The more extreme the harvester upgrades are, the more the homeworld resource and "normal" planet resource disparity becomes, even though total resource income goes up.

Ayup.  It's part of the reason the econ stations were so powerful in the first place comparitively.  Because of the disparity between homeworld/conquers, even though the ratio of harvesters made sense to game balance decisions, the actual results of conquering were, and still are, more powerful for stations than harvesting.  With these upgrades that balance may shift as high harvest systems can become strategic goals, but that leads me to a more complex subject, which is economy balancing.

Everyone who has their economy running at peak efficiency raise their hands please.  Ah, okay.  I'm not the only one.  Either I've got 1 million m+c in midgame, or I've got NOTHING.  There really isn't a balance.  Why?  Let's look back a bit to traditional RTS games.  In these games, you're constantly producing. Your income is much lower and you're micro-balancing production queues to income levels until endgame when you've maxxed off your army counts, and that's considered a HUGE force, FS exo-galactic levels of firepower.  Usually it's more a 'raider' mentality (particularly in PvPs), EDIT: or multi-front in PvE [/Edit], until one of you gain an obvious, exploitable advantage.

Here, though, to really get anything done, you need your fleet-ball.  Small tactical teams (other than raid starships and suicide transport drops) can't get much of anything done, particularly early-mid game.  You need full caps to really get things done well.  That means you're done producing roughly everything you can. Because each system operates independently raids done in one place have no effect on other locations.  You need to fully conquer/nerf/neuter to have a strategic effect.  That takes your full fleet.  Which means your resources sit there waiting for you (or you build mercenaries, purposely priced out of the market).

Then, when that force is destroyed, you don't go grab your next small 'raiding force', you watch as your umpteen hundred engineers pile on the constructors and you wait for your next fleet ball so you can go get some work done in the next target.  Until you're at MK III/IV, you can't signficantly raid, particularly MK III/IV worlds.  Guardians and defender fleets will eat you, and god help you if you free the planet or don't handle backwash.

No matter what we do to the econ, this pacing will not change.  It's a core mechanic for optimal play and would require more than a minor overhaul to adjust.  Raiding doesn't help you.  It alerts other planets unless your forces are too small to be effective and frees threat if it's large enough.

As long as that continues to be part of the process, the ONLY time strong (barring stupid insta-rebuild levels) econ is incredibly important is the early game when your construction to opportunity levels are in reasonable equality.  After that, it's how fast do you refill the coffers when you're done.  The more I think on it, the more the balance just shifted away from Econ Stations, because of how much the overload of harvesters on homeworlds will affect that balance during the early game.

What I'm trying to say is that because so much is not stored in the save file but assumes consistent behavior of the map generator, changes to the map generator can cause old saves to "break" (like moved wormholes and stuff)

I don't personally care about old games breaking.  Either I can finish it up before I do a Beta download or I can live with it.  I also don't play 3 month long games.  I finish up games in a week or two, so that's probably part of it.  That's part of being involved in the Beta testing.  It IS Beta...  *shrugs*