Two small fixes for the next patch perhaps

[Cyborg]

I don't think you understand bleek. Automatic power management means powering on or off extra reactors. This means that you are not paying the resource penalty for reactors you don't need to use until the AI kills one of them. When the AI destroys a reactor, a player has to pause the game and turn on enough reactors to power their fleet. This process is mindnumbing, extra clicks, requires no skill, ruins immersion by virtue of pausing, and is otherwise a robotic process. A mistake here can cause someone to lose the game prematurely, cheaply, and purely because of a lack of simple math.

I explained the algorithm, and it's extremely simple. When you make change of a dollar at the bank, it's the same process that the teller uses. It's not skill, is not strategy, it's not the game playing itself, it's basic math that needs to be repeated. Is no more game breaking than manufactories, which one could argue is a lot more automation than the simple algorithm I've explained.

[zebramatt]

I don't think you understand bleek. Automatic power management means powering on or off extra reactors. This means that you are not paying the resource penalty for reactors you don't need to use until the AI kills one of them. When the AI destroys a reactor, a player has to pause the game and turn on enough reactors to power their fleet. This process is mindnumbing, extra clicks, requires no skill, ruins immersion by virtue of pausing, and is otherwise a robotic process. A mistake here can cause someone to lose the game prematurely, cheaply, and purely because of a lack of simple math.

I explained the algorithm, and it's extremely simple. When you make change of a dollar at the bank, it's the same process that the teller uses. It's not skill, is not strategy, it's not the game playing itself, it's basic math that needs to be repeated. Is no more game breaking than manufactories, which one could argue is a lot more automation than the simple algorithm I've explained.

Did you actually read Chris's response to this issue?

[Cyborg]

Yes, I read the response. And yet he included automatic resource management, so that invalidates half of his argument. The other half includes things like stacking force fields and scouts, which are actually situational and tactical. Making change of a dollar so that you have enough money to pay the toll is not strategic.

You have to understand, micromanagement needs to add to the game. It needs to be worthwhile and require thought. If you just want to go around clicking things, why don't we extend this all the way and remove manufactory automanagement? Why not go all the way and remove build queues? Why not go all the way and remove rebuilding the modular parts on a riot ship?  To say that Chris doesn't allow micromanagement automation is just wrong. And I think that he's combined completely different arguments like stacking force fields (which is situational) and something like turning reactors on and off( not situational).

It may be that he is not persuaded at this time, but it doesn't mean the argument is invalid. It doesn't mean that it might not be changed at a later date. There have been many features which have been changed because of meaty discussion.  You seem to forget that we used to have an entire section of control nodes. Having something count up to the total economy bill is just basic algebra, not game breaking at all, and I think it's very possible it could be something in the future.

In another sense, as an edit, I kind of consider this macro management.

[keith.lamothe]

It may be that he is not persuaded at this time, but it doesn't mean the argument is invalid. It doesn't mean that it might not be changed at a later date. There have been many features which have been changed because of meaty discussion.  You seem to forget that we used to have an entire section of control nodes.

Please remember that we also stopped talking about control nodes for many months before the change was eventually made, because all the arguments had already been hashed out and nothing new was being put on the table.  If y'all would have fun to keep hashing it out that's fine, but Chris and I aren't really going to spend our time talking or thinking about the issue; so if your goal is to persuade us you're basically wasting your time

But one thing to ponder for you: there's a slope between "minimal micromanagement reduction" to "no micromanagement at all" and finding the desirable point along that slope is not really a "right-answer" proposition.  Going with either direction of "the logical progression is to..." results in a significant reduction of fun.  We therefore have to pick a point we think is good and then stick to it.  Occasionally it moves.

[Cyborg]

It may be that he is not persuaded at this time, but it doesn't mean the argument is invalid. It doesn't mean that it might not be changed at a later date. There have been many features which have been changed because of meaty discussion.  You seem to forget that we used to have an entire section of control nodes.

Please remember that we also stopped talking about control nodes for many months before the change was eventually made, because all the arguments had already been hashed out and nothing new was being put on the table.  If y'all would have fun to keep hashing it out that's fine, but Chris and I aren't really going to spend our time talking or thinking about the issue; so if your goal is to persuade us you're basically wasting your time

I know. Occasionally you guys come down the mountain like Moses with 10 Commandments in hand, and so it shall stay for many years. I was more hoping to generate discussion among thinking individuals about why this might or might not be useful, perhaps go with a community suggestion type thing (which is the accepted way of making suggestions). If we can't have discussion, if we can't talk about design or why things are fun or are not fun, we wouldn't have a forum.

[zebramatt]

I happen to agree with Chris: nothing about turning reactors on and off all the time is essential to winning the game. If you're low on power, your first thought should always be to go in search of new planets. If you can't or won't then you have other options, this among them. It is, as Chris says, a superfluous additional element which can benefit players who want to invest time and effort into it. Which I do, incidentally, when it suits me. But to make it automated means firstly implying that it is necessary and secondly giving every player that benefit. Which means rebalancing the game.

Is that what you're suggesting?

[keith.lamothe]

I know. Occasionally you guys come down the mountain like Moses with 10 Commandments in hand, and so it shall stay for many years. I was more hoping to generate discussion among thinking individuals about why this might or might not be useful, perhaps go with a community suggestion type thing (which is the accepted way of making suggestions). If we can't have discussion, if we can't talk about design or why things are fun or are not fun, we wouldn't have a forum.

I'm not sure what you're getting at there, but we're definitely not isolated from the community for long periods of time on design discussions: it's just cases like these where no one is coming up with any new arguments, and there's nothing more to be gained from continuing to repeat the same arguments over and over.  Yes, energy management can be handled optimally (or near-enough-so) via an algorithm that can be easily implemented via automation.  I know because I developed such an algorithm and was ready to implement it, but Chris thinks it would be taking the playing-the-game-for you line too far.  Nothing anyone has said has changed his mind.  Iirc I think he said if it found its way to the top of the vote tallies he'd be willing for it to happen.  On the other hand, if a significant part of the player base specifically does _not_ want it, then...?

So feel free to try to persuade others, but I honestly don't see that there's much "meat" left to the debate: yes, it's algorithmic, but no, a significant number of people don't want the game to do everything for them that can be done via algorithm.

[Cyborg]

I happen to agree with Chris: nothing about turning reactors on and off all the time is essential to winning the game. If you're low on power, your first thought should always be to go in search of new planets. If you can't or won't then you have other options, this among them. It is, as Chris says, a superfluous additional element which can benefit players who want to invest time and effort into it. Which I do, incidentally, when it suits me. But to make it automated means firstly implying that it is necessary and secondly giving every player that benefit. Which means rebalancing the game.

Is that what you're suggesting?

No, that's not what I'm suggesting. Consider that you have five planets. The AI has struck one of them. The AI has taken all three of your reactors off-line because that planet has been destroyed. You happen to have four other planets with five reactors that are powered off, however, your power balance is -100,000. Your home planet force field is now off-line (for some reason, every time the power goes out this always seems to happen first). The AI is now making a beeline for your main base (if it's not there already), wherein less than 10 seconds your home-base can die, and you lose the game.

What do you do?

The same thing everyone does! They pause the game and try to rebalance the power bill. Balancing the power bill means turning on and off reactors. The order in which you turn them on and off is, as I have described, first-grade simple. Any first grader can make change of a dollar to add up to their bill. Do you vaguely remember your teacher asking you to take a certain number of coins to add up to a dollar? Is the exact same thing. There's no thought, nothing but pausing the game and going through the process. My strong objection comes from having to pause and in the time where you lose power (and you have enough reactors already built that you could restore power), you could lose other important buildings because you didn't pause the game fast enough. Cheap. And it's lame. It's not fun. Not many more ways I can phrase it.


Does that make sense now? I'm not talking about magically creating reactors when you lose reactors. I'm just talking about toggling reactors you already have built, much like the game toggles manufactories for you. And it would be an option that you could turn on and off, if for some reason you think you could do better than the algorithm (impossible. What makes this such a no-brainer, is that the algorithm is 100% one choice solution).

So feel free to try to persuade others, but I honestly don't see that there's much "meat" left to the debate: yes, it's algorithmic, but no, a significant number of people don't want the game to do everything for them that can be done via algorithm.

Yes, that's what I'm hoping for. A suggestion to be submitted, voted on. You do not need to chime in unless you feel you want to. I'm not directing this at you at all. And what I meant by Moses was merely that coming up with rules that can appear arbitrary and sticking to them mainly because they have been repeated so often that they are written in stone, not HTML.

[Philo]

What I think the reactor micromanagement adds to the game is a risk/reward game.

You can try to play with having always close to zero energy where you'll generate a little more money but if an reactor goes down you'll have a brownout on your hands. Otoh you can always have 100 000 excess energy so you can afford to lose a reactor or two, but generating a little less money.

If the reactors were automatic, I'd say the next step would be just to remove them altogether.

I quite like the situation now, except the allied planet thingy, which I now know is going to be fixed one day.

[keith.lamothe]

(impossible. What makes this such a no-brainer, is that the algorithm is 100% one choice solution)

And one of the issues we have with the current situation (and would simply become more evident with, not caused by, automating this) is that it's basically an obvious-choice solution to build tons of backup energy reactors and keep the ones you don't need in low power mode.  There's a small upfront resource cost to build them, but it's really quite minor past a certain point in the game.

Where possible, we try to avoid obvious-choice solutions in favor of "if xyz is the case I want to do abc, otherwise def" or further conditional situations.  Right now there is some small tradeoff and some circumstances (snake maps, other easily-chokepointed maps) where building the redundant power grid is just simply unnecessary... but other than that it's very straightforward and by far the major component of the decision is "do I, in real-world-time terms, want to deal with the hassle of building and managing all those reactors?", which is also something we want to avoid.

Sure, just making it automated would be more consistent, but it wouldn't solve that underlying problem, and would only make it more plain-as-day and negative to the experiences of a wider base of players.

What I'm thinking is that if reactors couldn't be put in low-power-mode or still cost 1/2 of the resources to maintain even in low-power-mode, there'd be more of an actual decision (and then we could have auto-management, I think).  But the problem there is that it just shifts the management problem from "turn them on/off" to "scrap-them/rebuild-them" because destroyed reactors don't cost anything  So then we could get into various disincentives to destroying reactors or crash-building them, like a minimum-construction-time so you absolutely positively cannot get a new reactor online in less than 60 seconds or something like that, or an AIP cost for losing a reactor (oh boy, I bet _that_ would be popular), and so on...

In the end, my personal feeling is that the current set of non-ideal-circumstances is the least non-ideal  But perhaps there are better ways of making those decisions more meaningful.

If the reactors were automatic, I'd say the next step would be just to remove them altogether.

Yea, that's been my feeling too; just make energy generation only come from command stations or something like that so it's a straight-up function of territorial control.  That would be simpler, but I don't think it would be more fun.

[Ranakastrasz]

I'm pretty sure you are, or at least were INTENDED to keep all your reactors on, and have enough to cover your power needs. Also, I think that playing without pausing adds the the game, aside from pausing when you have to go AFK. Actually, I think a better idea would be that power generator would take 10 seconds to start up, from low power mode, (and from construction) explained by 'warming up', so that the resource bonus from micromanaging them will be counterbalanced by the need for them to restart, while your shields are not active. All those people who use the Minimum power levels, me including, will have to think twice about keeping all but the bare minimum active, and make sure those are on their core worlds.

[zebramatt]

The same thing everyone does!

I think this is the fundamental issue you're having seeing Chris's point. Not everyone does this, nor is it desirable that everyone start doing it. The game is not balanced on the premise that everyone does it. It's balanced on the premise that most people don't; or that those who do don't always do it.

[Cyborg]

The same thing everyone does!

I think this is the fundamental issue you're having seeing Chris's point. Not everyone does this, nor is it desirable that everyone start doing it. The game is not balanced on the premise that everyone does it. It's balanced on the premise that most people don't; or that those who do don't always do it.

it's not desirable? The option I have been given so far is to have 100,000 extra energy sitting there doing nothing wasting resources, slowing down my production. This is clearly the wrong solution due to the presence of the pause button, so I won't address it further.

Keith is a little bit closer to the problem in the sense that energy management when you play multiplayer is cheapened by the fact you can have a ton of extra reactors sitting around in a way that doesn't happen in single player. and this thread suggests making that gamebreaker even easier by automating it. My suggestion only asks the computer to count to a one dollar bill, which is far less of a gamebreaker, but I think you have a problem with that for other reasons.

I think you need to look at energy creation as affecting a different meta-game, and that's production. How much can you produce and what tech trees are you going to produce with your given energy resources? if all energy is or has become years later is just busy work of basic math, you're right, we should scrap it. But I think that we could make it more intelligent or make it a fact that part of the meta-game that it was originally supposed to affect. I find it hard to believe that the game part of it is asking me, the user, to optimize my power grid. Because it's clearly child's play to do.

I'm all in favor of diversity, having multiple ways to do things, but when it's so completely simple and just annoying to do repeatedly, it's time to rethink or provide a way for those of us that are a little more hard-core to get the job done. In a game that allowed mods, this would have been solved, but with the absence of that, it's really up to the developer to show mercy on those of us who see it as a problem the computer should solve because it's unworthy of a human.

[jordot42]

I'm just talking about toggling reactors you already have built, much like the game toggles manufactories for you.

That's actually a good idea.  Build extra reactors, then turn them off until they're needed.  I'll do that in my current game.

I'm pretty sure you are, or at least were INTENDED to keep all your reactors on, and have enough to cover your power needs. Also, I think that playing without pausing adds the the game, aside from pausing when you have to go AFK (more power to you on that one.  I pause frequently and without remorse). Actually, I think a better idea would be that power generator would take 10 seconds to start up, from low power mode, (and from construction) explained by 'warming up', so that the resource bonus from micromanaging them will be counterbalanced by the need for them to restart, while your shields are not active. All those people who use the Minimum power levels, me including, will have to think twice about keeping all but the bare minimum active, and make sure those are on their core worlds.

This is brilliant!  I too play with just enough reactors to keep things going.  Using Cyborg's strategy above, however, would remove some tension from the game.  "Oh heck, a raid starship killed my mk 3 reactor and now he and his friends can now pound my station?  No prob. I'll just turn on one of my backups, problem solved. (now hopefully I can kill the starship)."  Less tension = less fun.

A "warm-up" period would keep my on my toes when I'm in danger of brownout.  "Come on, come on.  I need those shields now!"  More tension = more fun!! .

I'm fine with the way things are now, but all I ever play is single-player.

[Philo]

Well, having more reactors is a very small benefit. A bigger benefit is the starting Knowledge and all the Knowledge you get from your allies planets. You saying we should tweak that too? I think it's fine how it is.

One thing to avoid putting lots of low powered reactors everywhere is to just increase the initial cost of the reactors. I wouldn't personally mind. But then again, is this really necessary? Is this gonna bring too much emphasis on the reactor game, which I think is about fine now.

The warmup reactor thing sounds fun, but tbh unnecessary. When are you ever gonna react at the first second the reactor gets destroyed and your shilelds drop to pause the game? For me at least, never. So there's enough tension as it is already. And, many times, the enemy has destroyed enough of your planets for you to not have enough energy reactors availabe to power on in case of emergency.