Two small fixes for the next patch perhaps

[Buttons840]

I've really taken a liking to Starcraft 2, which is quite micro intensive.  The thing is every player is playing at the same speed so mastering the interface is just part of the game.  It takes "skill" to manage all those units in real time.

The same would apply to AI War, except you can pause the game at any time, so it's not a matter of skill, it's just a matter of managing a whole bunch of tiny things by hand.  If the players were empowered with some kind of moding abilities, then this would already be done.

If "power management" was your job in real life, some high school student would probably replace you with a 7 line bash script, and rightfully so.

My opinion is that reactors should just be on all the time.  But no matter.

[keith.lamothe]

My opinion is that reactors should just be on all the time.  But no matter.

Then some people would probably micro by scrapping and rebuilding   Though there is the cost of actually building the reactor which gives a much higher cost to that, hmm.

[Cyborg]

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.

You want to raise the cost of the reactors? That only extends the amount of time you have to wait for power, and reduces production by a factor of time. I would not want to see a game turn into folks leaving the game running for an hour to build up resources because they are waiting for a reactor. Occasionally, this happens to a smaller degree waiting for production, which really doesn't need to be encouraged. You do not want to bring emphasis on the reactor game, and neither do I. because it's not a game ! let's just remove the hassle. On one hand you want to make it easier for yourself to build multiple reactors, and on the other I want it to be easier to use. How is it you expect me to sympathize with your perspective when yours is exploiting multiplayer and mine is a constant even in single play ?

and I do like your suggestion overall about building reactors automatically on allied planets. I just wish you could see that it's not fun at all to add up to a one dollar bill. Hasn't been fun since first grade. Whenever my power drops to negative, I instantly pause the game. If you don't, you can lose within less than 10 seconds. Maybe this just affects folks who are playing on a higher difficulty setting after about 10 hours. Trading planets and fighting off huge waves is really not that uncommon. Likewise, leaving reactors on and having extra energies sitting around just isn't done by players who optimize. If it's a feature you don't want to use, just don't use it. Why affect other types of gamers?

[keith.lamothe]

Previously I had thought the "no low power mode for reactors" approach wouldn't work due to people just replacing "put in low power" with "scrap" and "take out of low power when I need more power" with "flash build with lots of engies"... but on reflection I see that the build costs (and the need to devote significant engies) could be sufficient costs there.

What are the objections to simply removing the ability to put reactors in low-power-mode?

This is entirely aside from the issue of auto-building controls working on allied planets, etc.

[Hearteater]

I find flipping reactors on-and-off a little silly and a pointless activity (there is an obvious perfect choice) in an excellent game with tons of much more interesting stuff for me to be investing my time in.  So nearly anything that eliminates that is a big plus in my book.

As for no low-power mode as a specific option, I think I do actually favor that provided scrapping isn't the new low power.  If reactors are more of an investment I need to make strategically, I think that is a positive.  If this were on Mantis I'd be torn between inclined and strongly agree.

[Cyborg]

Previously I had thought the "no low power mode for reactors" approach wouldn't work due to people just replacing "put in low power" with "scrap" and "take out of low power when I need more power" with "flash build with lots of engies"... but on reflection I see that the build costs (and the need to devote significant engies) could be sufficient costs there.

What are the objections to simply removing the ability to put reactors in low-power-mode?

This is entirely aside from the issue of auto-building controls working on allied planets, etc.

Strong objections. I think it should be said what you are trying to fix exactly. It's true I don't want to be flipping around power buttons in a manner fit for small children, but at the same time, it could be devastating to lose a planet that has reactors on it if it costs a lot to replace them. Most of my games have low resources because I am constantly spending and attacking/defending.  If you lose that power, you still would have to pause the game and make sure that your home planet force Field is still working, and then you would have to start pruning your fleet or your defenses to get enough power to do the necessary. This could be a huge disadvantage that doesn't really add a lot of fun or choice. In effect, you would have to have a few extra reactors running in all times to guard against this, which would drain your resources and slow down the production metagame. Which is already slow enough, especially in multiplayer.

edit: I should emphasize, doing this would change the 'switch to low power' game to the unit level, and it would not change the fact there is still an optimum reactor to build.

[Buttons840]

The build time of reactors is more of a concern.  If you have to build a new reactor to get out of low power mode then your going to have to wait a few seconds.

Aside: It's be nice if command stations and colony ships didn't take power.  It's annoying to be at your power cap and be unable to expand, even though you have a planet cleared and ready to go.

[Cyborg]

The build time of reactors is more of a concern.  If you have to build a new reactor to get out of low power mode then your going to have to wait a few seconds.

Or minutes! game over. I want to know exactly what the reactor's job is, from a game design perspective and then see if it's doing the job. I wonder if it is fulfilling the same role that it did two years ago, or if it's different with the abundance of ships and technology trees. Especially as the turret game has changed as well. It may need to be tweaked. If we cannot tweak it, let's at least make it less miserable with a option that can only be accessed by hopping on 1 foot and speaking Latin.

[Hearteater]

I should emphasize, doing this would change the 'switch to low power' game to the unit level, and it would not change the fact there is still an optimum reactor to build.

This only applies if you are at the bleeding edge of what your energy production can handle.  If you build reactors in a vulnerable system and expand your fleet to use that power, it certainly will hurt to lose the system.  So there is risk/reward working there.  Do you play it safe and keep a smaller energy footprint to protect against losing a system or two, or do you go for broke and bring a bigger fleet to crush the AI.

That being said, I think smarter emergency power management would be nice.  Force Shields should power down last, for example.  Systems with no enemy ships could have their units power down first.  But defenses like tractors, gravity turrets and such should always be last to power down.  Obviously this is much more complex to do automatically than managing reactors and no algorithm will do it perfectly, but at least you have the option to keep your energy use at a safe enough level to not have it invoked often if at all.

[Philo]

A big no from me to having no low power mode on the reactors. This would just increase microing which is the opposite of what we're trying to do right?

I dunno, what exactly are we trying to fix? Pausing the game and bringing more reactors online when you go into low energy/brownout is the consequence of the enemy destroying your reactors, it's pretty much the exact same deal with the AI destroying your base. You have to use Colony Ships and manually go there and rebuild the Command Station. If you don't wanna micro so much, you got two choices.

1. Have excess energy available but waste resources (yeah I know, I wouldn't do that either)
2. Don't let the AI waste your planets (duh). It's a penalty that you incur if they destroy your planets.

Extra choice. Have the energy auto-controlled. Which is in case the same as removing energy altogether from the game.

I mean what does it even do anymore? There are certain strategic points with how the system works now. For example. I usually keep my most well protected planets (usually means, far away from frontline) energy reactors on, and always keep my Main base reactors on low power as backup since that's something I can always rely on to be intact, or else, I already lost.

Now if the power was automated, who cares what power plants you even have on, frontline, middle, whatever. Since if they get destroyed you just get insta backup power from your other plants. And you'd always maximize income too with this, so there'd no reason for anyone to ever not leave it off. Since most likely the game would also be rebalanced around it. Or rather, it would have to be.

[keith.lamothe]

I think it should be said what you are trying to fix exactly.

The exact thing I'm trying to fix is:

Currently it is almost always an optimal choice in the mid-late game to build tons of backup energy reactors and keep them in low power mode because:
- It gives you effectively instantaneous ability to recover from loss of energy production.
- It has a minimal in-game cost (just the m+c cost of the initial reactor builds, which can be paid at any time rather than at the time of crisis).
- Normally there would also be the ongoing cost of running the reactors, but this can be negated by the player putting the extras in low-power and accepting the non-in-game cost of just pausing and fiddling whenever there's a need to take reactors out of low power.

Removing the ability to put them in low-power would make it so that you could still have that resilience to sudden energy production loss (without the non-in-game cost), but the degree of redundancy would become a strategic choice: how much ongoing m+c are you willing to spend on that safety margin?  That in turn pushes the broader strategic question: how much territory are you willing to take to provide the m+c needed by your energy production and your ship production?

It's true I don't want to be flipping around power buttons in a manner fit for small children, but at the same time, it could be devastating to lose a planet that has reactors on it if it costs a lot to replace them.

I'm not suggesting increasing their cost, if that's what you mean.  If the upfront costs are imposing I'd be willing to decrease them, but I don't think they're currently a problem.

If you lose that power, you still would have to pause the game and make sure that your home planet force Field is still working, and then you would have to start pruning your fleet or your defenses to get enough power to do the necessary. This could be a huge disadvantage that doesn't really add a lot of fun or choice. In effect, you would have to have a few extra reactors running in all times to guard against this,

Correct, you'd have to make the choice that best balanced your desire to have maximum resources devoted to ship production (and thus military progress) and your desire to not be vulnerable to a quick-kill (or at least serious setback) from an AI raid on your energy production.

which would drain your resources and slow down the production metagame. Which is already slow enough, especially in multiplayer.

It is certainly a valid concern to avoid situations where you don't have much choice but to sit there and wait for your resources to catch up; that's why we've increased the startup resource base so much over the years (you should have seen it in 1.0, heh).  On the other hand, it is valid for that ability-to-produce-all-you-want to be dependent on other choices you make (otherwise we should just take m+c out of the design).  Specifically: if you need more m+c (and/or energy) to maintain ship production, you have the choice to take more territory (this choice is not as available in the very early game).  You can also choose to increase that income via research (econ command station II/III, m harvester II/III, c harvester II/III).  Those also have costs, so they're non-obvious choice, but that's the kind of choice we're going for.  If the m+c situation _in general_ is too slow, that would be something we'd need to address apart from this issue of energy.

edit: I should emphasize, doing this would change the 'switch to low power' game to the unit level, and it would not change the fact there is still an optimum reactor to build.

This was exactly the reason I was against the idea of removing the low-power option months ago when it came up, but I've realized that it is a very different situation: with low-power you have a guaranteed no-cost ability to just switch them back on.  It's trivial and child's play, like you've said, and only has the non-in-game cost of pause-and-fiddle.  But building fresh reactors costs m+c, and some combination of game-time and engineer-seconds, which are quite valid in-game costs.  There's still the pause-and-fiddle of having to build those reactors, but any time the AI has you on the ropes in a sense like energy-grid-brownouts you're going to have to deal with it personally; to avoid that don't get knocked onto the ropes.

[Cyborg]

I think it should be said what you are trying to fix exactly.

The exact thing I'm trying to fix is:

Currently it is almost always an optimal choice in the mid-late game to build tons of backup energy reactors and keep them in low power mode because:
- It gives you effectively instantaneous ability to recover from loss of energy production.
- It has a minimal in-game cost (just the m+c cost of the initial reactor builds, which can be paid at any time rather than at the time of crisis).
- Normally there would also be the ongoing cost of running the reactors, but this can be negated by the player putting the extras in low-power and accepting the non-in-game cost of just pausing and fiddling whenever there's a need to take reactors out of low power.

Okay. Can you refine it a little bit further as to the risk/reward? What I was looking for is something like: "Power is meant to control the amount of units you can have in a galaxy, including infrastructure. By taking planets, you can increase your infrastructure, and this is directly affected by reactors."

With your proposal, that would be changed to, "Reactors are VIP infrastructure that must be guarded at all cost and made redundant, at the risk of losing a portion of your fleet and/or your defenses shutting down. They become important guard points for the player, placed by the player. They also drain your resources."

If you make reactors more punishing, does that add to the gameplay/fun factor? Is AI war a better game with VIP reactors? If you were to make such a change, it would be a nerf to the player from a topic that started as a convenience for the player.

There's still the pause-and-fiddle of having to build those reactors, but any time the AI has you on the ropes in a sense like energy-grid-brownouts you're going to have to deal with it personally; to avoid that don't get knocked onto the ropes.

Back to the pause and fiddle to do busy work, which was my original complaint. In this case, I would be pausing to build a reactor. And the reactor I am going to build is a mark 2. And I'm going to build it as deep in my territory as possible. In addition, I'm going to have to go around the galaxy turning off units power supplies in order to deal with some present threat. Sounds like a lot of busy work. I don't think anyone would appreciate that. in addition, in the spire campaign, it's not that unusual to have a beeline for your home base with a wrecking crew. Such an event would not only decimate your infrastructure, it would force you to turn off a lot of your existing surviving infrastructure/army.

To defend against such a thing, you would have to build extra reactors all the time, and these reactors would slow your resource collection. This would slow the game down, which I also think is a negative outcome. There are a lot of risk reward scenarios that are really nice in this game, I think that reactors would just be loathsome in such a hypothetical scenario.

==

Random ideas that might be fun, but I haven't thought much about:

1. Allowing the player to use reactors as they are now but have them supply a lot less power. Encourage the player to create some kind of energy planet, where they can construct a facility much like the foldouts from the spire campaign. These would have natural defenses of some sort, but create a tactical area for the AI to focus on or eye from a distance. It would give a linear equation power multiplier to all existing reactors. This would also be a nice goal for the player in the early to middle game.

2. Energy brownouts would have a "meltdown" time amount before losing power to existing infrastructure.

3. Losing reactors would trigger something akin to a lightning warhead. Auto power optimization included.

[Philo]

Keith, I think you're forgetting the longer the game goes on the bigger fleet you also have and the more turrets and especially fortresses you will get and need. Fortresses will take sooooooooooo much of your power. I think power maintenance is actually more of a mid-and late game problem rather than the beginning.

[keith.lamothe]

Keith, I think you're forgetting the longer the game goes on the bigger fleet you also have and the more turrets and especially fortresses you will get and need. Fortresses will take sooooooooooo much of your power. I think power maintenance is actually more of a mid-and late game problem rather than the beginning.

Yea, I wasn't saying that energy was more of an early-game problem, the comments about the early game were that you have fewer choices for expanding m+c production until you've ramped up your military to the point where "take more territory" is something you can do fairly quickly if you want to (unless you're bottlenecked by some mkIVs and/or particularly tough AI type/bonus-ship combos, etc).

Anyway, the point would not be to nerf humans; if it worked out to a big nerf (and I can see where that would be the case) we would rebalance something else like energy production amount or whatever to balance it out.  What I want "nerfed" is the number of always-optimal choices; and currently "build all 3 energy reactors on every single planet I own" looks like it's (very nearly) an always-optimal choice in the mid-late game, because you can maintain them with no cost (in low power) and there are significant benefits to having them around.

And I'm not talking about doing this very soon because all that would be something of a rework of the game balance/structure, which we're deliberately abstaining from during AVWW work partly for our sanity and partly for yours

[Cyborg]

And I'm not talking about doing this very soon because all that would be something of a rework of the game balance/structure, which we're deliberately abstaining from during AVWW work partly for our sanity and partly for yours

I would be very amenable to at least revisiting the topic several months from now when AI war is something you're working on. There is so much to do. It's at least encouraging that you recognize there is a optimization/busywork problem here. I hope you can create something interesting out of reactors. Maybe something to attach to the next expansion.