So, this whole crystal thing

[contingencyplan]

First of all, I'd say that as long as both M and C are essentially (as Diazo pointed out) limiters on how fast you can build stuff, attempting to split them further or modify the conversion rates is essentially just tweaking build times, albeit with a significant increase in tedium: having to double-check the available resources on a planet (not the easiest thing to see at a glance), having to cope with tendencies towards econ lopsidedness, having to be much more careful with build queues, etc.

As I noted in my megapost in the other thread:

First, I would suggest that we (i.e., Keith ) post a poll addressing the question of combining Metal and Crystal, regardless of what is done to replace Crystal, as the two questions are largely independent (they could always add another resource and keep M+C for instance). If we're generally in favor / nobody thinks of some way that it completely breaks the game, I'd say pull the trigger and do it, before we figure out what to do with Crystal --- that way, we can playtest that change without confusing balancing discussion with a new / modified mechanic. [1]

[1]: I understand that having the blank space is annoying, but the devs could always put Toranth's avatar in its place as a "there but for the grace of God" reminder.

As far as what to do about obtaining Crystal, I was reminded of how some games permit you to salvage enemy technology. Most of the time it's uber-tedious (needing a special ship and whatnot), but we could do something similar and in the same vein of "how far do you want to push the AI?" Basically, when the player destroys particular buildings (e.g., guard posts, though you could make a special building for this purpose), they receive a certain amount of "Salvage points," depending on the type of building and its mark. To discourage uber-neutering, you could make it where the CS must be destroyed to get the Salvage or something, but it would still be based on how well-fortified the AI's planet was.

This is similar to Knowledge (and to Champion XP), but there's room for some differences. First, this salvage is made available immediately, rather than having to be harvested via a science ship. Second, salvage can be obtained outside of supply. Third, this salvage is not used to unlock anything; you instead could use it to build one-off buildings (e.g., the uber-shield I proposed) or significant abilities (as proposed in this thread) to help tip the scales in your favor. Kind of a halfway marker between ZTrader and regular ships.

If making it based on the AI's power on a particular planet is not desired, you could perhaps repurpose the distribution nodes. I don't know how many people really use them (I don't really, but maybe I'm doing it wrong), but that way it would require minimal artwork and the like.

[keith.lamothe]

[1]: I understand that having the blank space is annoying, but the devs could always put Toranth's avatar in its place as a "there but for the grace of God" reminder.

That's now my favorite suggestion on what to do with crystal

[nas1m]

I'm not super thrilled about getting per-planet turrets through this mechanic honestly.  It seems tedious.  Dropping 2 Mini-Forts is fast and takes minimal time.  Dealing with placement of 6ish lines of turrets is just extra tedium, especially with a special builder we need to move around.  I'm ok with the mines acting more like energy.

Previously thoughts along these lines:

* Maybe Crystal could be used to active some generically useful ability, like a Starcraft Stim Pack for fleet ships.

* Maybe Crystal Mines could power special units/structures creating a continuous expenditure rather than a one-time up-front cost:
-- Crystal Force Shield: when it takes damage you lose crystal instead.  Advantage over a normal shield is crystal can be gained even while it is under attack.
-- Worm Hole Disrupter: While powered up, consumes crystal every second, but nothing can travel through any nearby worm hole in either direction.
-- Warp Space Burrower: Temporarily becomes a one-way worm hole leading to a target system.  Costs crystal for each of your ships that travels through it and increases the more hops away it is going.  Might require a target unit to warp too, so you can just cheaply shoot scouts everywhere.
-- Crystal Warhead: Stealthed Rams that spend 1 crystal to deal X damage to the target they hit, always spending just enough Crystal to destroy their target if possible.
-- Crystal Turret: A powerful HBC-like turret, possibly with a per-system cap instead of global.  However, every shot costs Crystal.
-- Crystal Supply Depo: Generates supply in a system even if supply can't be normally be generated there.  Costs crystal/second.  Run out of crystal and you lose supply in that system.

Now this sounds neat to me!

[_K_]

My first homeworld has decent resource nodes but heavily favor metal 7 to crystal 5 and I only have immediate access to 3 level 1 AI solar systems and they all each have 2-3 TOTAL of either crystal or metal but not both. Lucky although my bonus ship is equal in metal and crystal cost so it doesn't impact me too much.

If the ratio conversion were to changed to 5:1 then it would take forever to build anything that has more than double crystal over metal. Having a random pop up with gravity driller is not fun since I can't move my fleet around as quickly I would liked to. Not to mention I have a level 4 AI solar system next door to my HW.

7:5 ratio isnt "heavily favor". Thats just 2 harvester difference.

And anyway, you probably want to back up such bold statement with some solid mathematical proofing.

I have made the calculations. If you need to build a ship with 2:1 ratio while having 5:7 resource income (which in your case isnt true as you also get even income from command station and cities), then 5:1 conversion results in 22% increase in buildtime, compared to 1.5:1 conversion ratio.
22%. Does that really sound as "Take forever", as you said in your post? Too bad you cant do some simple mathematical calculations before posting.



I like how the the main argument against harsher ratios is "But harder ratios will nerf my economy if it gets skewed!". That statement is only true if you keep ignoring your income ratio when making strategic decisions. You wont lose any resources if your spending is matching your economy.

And you have tools to adjust both those things. You can research harvesters independently, you can research econ stations instead if you want 1:1 income ratio, you can research ships that cost more of the resource you have, leaning your composition towards your economy.

Have excess M at game start? Research bombers and M-heavy starships. Have excess C? Research frigates and C-heavy starships.


Oh, and also, i keep seeing people complaining about this whole "netflix" thing. What does the AI do during all that time your fleet is dead and you do nothing? Maybe instead of shortening the wait, we want the AI to make that time more fun, eh?

[Wingflier]

For the record, I rarely have to use "Netflix" with the current system. Champion scenarios especially have made it to where I'm usually always busy with something.

Granted, if I were to just try and play the game with MKI Harvesters, I would probably be spending a good 40% of it or so on Netflix, but I've already mentioned many times in other threads that the state of Harvesters and Econ Stations (one which you HAVE to upgrade, and the other which is obsolete) needs to be looked at.

[RCIX]

Haiyo, back again, hopefully on a more permanent basis. Depends on how engaging AI war remains to me.

First thought was "Noooooo i like metal and crystal, at least keep the harvesters and offer a few more ways to bleed off crystal". Thinking about it more, I'd mostly be fine with it, but would definitely like to see more than just one way to spend it.

Also, this emote looks new: >D

[Vyndicu]

7:5 ratio isnt "heavily favor". Thats just 2 harvester difference.

And anyway, you probably want to back up such bold statement with some solid mathematical proofing.

I have made the calculations. If you need to build a ship with 2:1 ratio while having 5:7 resource income (which in your case isnt true as you also get even income from command station and cities), then 5:1 conversion results in 22% increase in buildtime, compared to 1.5:1 conversion ratio.
22%. Does that really sound as "Take forever", as you said in your post? Too bad you cant do some simple mathematical calculations before posting.



I like how the the main argument against harsher ratios is "But harder ratios will nerf my economy if it gets skewed!". That statement is only true if you keep ignoring your income ratio when making strategic decisions. You wont lose any resources if your spending is matching your economy.

And you have tools to adjust both those things. You can research harvesters independently, you can research econ stations instead if you want 1:1 income ratio, you can research ships that cost more of the resource you have, leaning your composition towards your economy.

Have excess M at game start? Research bombers and M-heavy starships. Have excess C? Research frigates and C-heavy starships.


Oh, and also, i keep seeing people complaining about this whole "netflix" thing. What does the AI do during all that time your fleet is dead and you do nothing? Maybe instead of shortening the wait, we want the AI to make that time more fun, eh?

That was just an example with a c-heavy bonus fleetship which force me to burn even more crystal especially considering I was doing a spire campaign with lot of stuff that cost more than 150k of each metal and crystal. That is on top of maintaining a standing fleet/chokehold/loses and expanding.

I had some map where most of the early expand solar systems only had few mines which forced me to either upgrade econ command station or harvester. It is not simple as research a metal or crystal heavy something because fallen spire are inherently crystal heavy. So if I am building something crystal heavy plus expanding spire city hubs then I don't have a choice but to keep a large supply of metal before doing both at once for the conversion otherwise everything will stall.

In some of my fallen spire campaign I had some moment where I had 500k metal with -2k income and 500 crystal with zero income. That 22 percent just got a whole lot bigger at minus 2k doesn't it? Not the build time but conversion ratio. So any boost I could get from crystal income is pretty much mandatory at minus 2k metal conversion which is not fun.

Assuming I had zero crystal income (just pretend it could happen for now): I decide to start on a shard + city hub construction. Let ignore defending cost against chase and city build wave for now. Colony ship cost 300k M + C and the city hub cost 2 million M + C even split between metal and crystal. Lets use 5k metal income ignoring if I had stockpile of either metal or crystal.

Since both spire shard and city hub are split evenly I have to treat the metal 5k income as 2k metal income with remaining 3k metal conversion into 2k crystal.

It would take 75 second to complete the spire colony shard. Then it would take 8 min and 20 seconds to complete the spire city hub afterward.

Now lets try the above with 2.5k metal income and 2.5k crystal income. It would result in 15 second shorter construction time on spire colony shard. It would reduce spire city hub construction time down to 6 min and 40 seconds. That is 1 min 55 second faster using the same income amount. Sadly the former situation with huge stockpile of metal and max upgrades of crystal income is a typical normal fallen spire campaign economical situation.

I don't mention reactor/habitation/shipyard/"fallen spire crafts which are crystal heavy"/normal fleet and starship/turrets/other for sake of simplicity. I think and hope you see why I think crystal Mk 3 and mk 3 economical is mandatory to avoid netflix time when starting with a metal heavy homeworld without a good crystal income solar system to take over nearby. I use mk 2 economical almost always for systems that only have one mine to boost income for the long term game.

[RCIX]

So a lightbulb in my head went off, though I haven't really nailed down any specifics.

What if crystal was tied to/let you build (or came from) some sort of human space train network?

[keith.lamothe]

So a lightbulb in my head went off, though I haven't really nailed down any specifics.

What if crystal was tied to/let you build (or came from) some sort of human space train network?

To echo something we said earlier: it could be an interesting mechanic, but would it actually be a fit for crystal?

The two main requirements a replacement mechanic would have to meet would be:
1) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't sit unused in any game.
2) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't be any more complex (from the player's perspective) than the other core resources (metal, energy, knowledge, or AIP).  At least not significantly more complex.

[Hearteater]

I still wonder if using it as a universal health pool for player force fields might not work.  This way taking more crystal mines means stronger force fields where ever you put them.  Something would need to be done for layered force fields since with a single health pool it wouldn't make sense to stack force field generators.  Either FF's could have a base health like now, but whenever they take damage half of it is redirected against your crystal energy stockpile.  So as long as your crystal reserves hold, all your force fields are double strength.  Since Force Fields can't self-repair when under attack, even though you'd constantly be pulling in crystal energy, you'd still lose force fields no matter how how your resource gain.

[RCIX]

So a lightbulb in my head went off, though I haven't really nailed down any specifics.

What if crystal was tied to/let you build (or came from) some sort of human space train network?

To echo something we said earlier: it could be an interesting mechanic, but would it actually be a fit for crystal?

The two main requirements a replacement mechanic would have to meet would be:
1) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't sit unused in any game.
2) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't be any more complex (from the player's perspective) than the other core resources (metal, energy, knowledge, or AIP).  At least not significantly more complex.

That's why I think crystal shouldn't be used for any one mechanic (unless it's a super core mechanic). The quickest, arguably most bland way, is to make crystal a special resource and choose things that need it (a few bonus ship types, most starships, turrets, etc.) This should be supplemented by a toy or two that the player can play with.

And as for the human space trains network, I would bet players would use it if it offered them a viable way to repeatedly cull built up ships on worlds they wish to travel. Or maybe a limited means of AIP reduction (don't hit me *winces*).

[Kahuna]

Metal could be used for production and Crystal for technology and development.

All maps would have NumberOfPlanets/1,5 Crystal Asteroids. Planets that get Crystal Asteroids would have either 1, 2 or max 3 of them. Crystal Harvesters would be replaced with Crystal Mining Stations. Building (and rebuilding) these Mining Stations would be expensive and slow. Each Station would produce 100 Crystal/s.

Crystal Harvester upgrades would be replaced with different upgrades to the Crystal Mining Stations: Automated Crystal Mining Station which would increase the income by 50%, Mobile CMS which adds engines to the asteroid and it's stations so it can be moved and Armored CMS which would double the health and armor. All of these could be researched. They're upgrades to the normal Station, not replacements.

Everything would be built with metal. Some high tech buildings and/or units could use crystal too.


New stuff that would use crystal:
Advanced Science Laboratory. All technologies listed in this post would be unlocked from here. All technologies unlocked from Advanced Science Laboratory would use Crystal, Knowledge and time. Starting a research would be like building a Starship. It would consume resources and time. It could also be canceled at any point. Building the Advanced Science Laboratory would cost Metal AND Crystal and be slow and expensive. It could be moved around like other science labs. It would have high health and be heavily armored.

Warp Gate Command Station. Would use 100 Crystal/s.

Node Lines. Node Lines would basically be a new version of Redirector Rally Point that the player could order ships to by holding control and left clicking. The selected ships would then move to another Node with 10 times of their normal movement speed.

Metal Storage Unit would store up to 75000 Metal and use 5000 Energy.

Crystal Storage Unit would store up to 75000 Crystal and use 5000 Energy.

Plasma Shield. The maximum health of this Shield would be the amount of stored crystal. When turned on this shield would consume 1000 Crystal/second. This shield could be turned off and on by pressing K (like ships).

Fusion Reactor or Dyson Reactor? (with a small artificial sun inside) would produce 75000 Energy and consume 100 Crystal every second. This could make using Fortresses in high difficulty and/or low AIP games possible. At the moment Matter Converters kill the economy and thus the ability to rebuild fleet and defenses. Fusion Reactors would use Crystal so it wouldn't affect the ability to rebuild stuff. This would also make Starships.. which have quite high Energy costs.. more viable. Sure they're good already but it's not really possible to unlock a lot of them because they use so much Energy.

I'm sure we could come up with more cool technologies that could use crystal.

AI War actually has 4 resources: Metal, Crystal, Energy and Knowledge. This would also add more mechanics to Energy and Knowledge.

[Cinth]

The more this gets tossed around and the more ideas that get posted, them more and more I like Keith's idea in the op.  There is something there for every play style. It's simple. 

[RCIX]

The more this gets tossed around and the more ideas that get posted, them more and more I like Keith's idea in the op.  There is something there for every play style. It's simple.

To echo something we said earlier: it could be an interesting mechanic, but would it actually be a fit for crystal?

The two main requirements a replacement mechanic would have to meet would be:
1) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't sit unused in any game.
2) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't be any more complex (from the player's perspective) than the other core resources (metal, energy, knowledge, or AIP).  At least not significantly more complex.

[orzelek]

The original idea wasn't to complex.
Would need mentioning in tutorial to make sure that one can find the military builder - or better having one at start to easily discover it. You would find crystal deposits while scouting or capturing planets.

I think that it got derailed heavily by recurring discussion about potential availability of crystal and AI's ability to destroy it permanently or only disrupt it's mines.