Two small fixes for the next patch perhaps

[Philo]

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.

Well, it's the optimal choice if you have the guts to micro them all down to low power mode after they're done. Usually in the early game I auto-build my energy reactor mark I/II's. But in the mid/late game when I'm taking lots of planets I usually just place a few reactors just behind the frontline planets when I need em'. Making sure I have some backup generators back in my home base and near the home somewhere safe in a likely case the frontline generator goes kaput.

So there still kinda is that "do you really wanna micro that much" aspect of having a reactor everywhere. And the system right now just seems logical to me.

But, you could do with a good sleek looking easy to use interface for power management. You know, kinda like the TAB screen that brings out the map but with the ability to turn on/off reactors. Cause a lot of the time you'll be confused which planets have powered down generators and which have working. From the map you could make sure you didn't place reactors on the frontline.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, it's the optimal choice if you have the guts to micro them all down to low power mode after they're done.

Yea, but that's not an in-game cost, that's just a busywork cost.  And let me be clear that busywork costs are not cool.  Cyborg has that point exactly right, I believe, but correctly identifying a symptom is not the same as correctly diagnosing the root cause, much less correctly identifying a solution that leads to a net improvement.

So there still kinda is that "do you really wanna micro that much" aspect of having a reactor everywhere. And the system right now just seems logical to me.

It's the least of the evils that's in range of the current design (i.e. doesn't involve major rebalancing and thus destabilizing the game; lots of people were getting really weary of us doing that a lot from 3.7 through 5.0), but it is a symptom of a problem that I want to fix.

But, you could do with a good sleek looking easy to use interface for power management. You know, kinda like the TAB screen that brings out the map but with the ability to turn on/off reactors.

That would be busywork for _me_, which is clearly unacceptable   More seriously, the quick-button-at-the-bottom approach is the best we can offer right now.

[superking]

personally I would welcome the option for auto-energy management, since 100% of the time I manage my energy in the same way (have the bare minimal excess required). reducing the amount of time I have to spend clicking the little play/pause sign on my reactos would increase the amount of time I am throwing ships around   

[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.

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.

Let me clarify: the game is supposed to be playable - winnable - without you doing this. The fact that you are able to do so is supposed to give you an over-and-above advantage. If the game requires that you do this in order to either (a) stand a decent chance or winning or (b) have fun, then there is something wrong with the game. And what is wrong is not that the supposed-to-be-a-fringe-strategy is too micro intensive, but that the supposed-to-be-a-fringe-strategy is too necessary.

Now, I'm not saying that the fact that one finds oneself micromanaging reactors as often as one does isn't indicative of just such a problem. Although personally I've never found it to be so much of a problem as implied by the various opinions above, it's possible that's just because of my own playstyle. Right now, it works for me.

[Cyborg]

Let me clarify: the game is supposed to be playable - winnable - without you doing this. The fact that you are able to do so is supposed to give you an over-and-above advantage.

Are you saying that I am gleaning some kind of fringe, overachiever advantage by managing my power resources? Have you ever played simcity or any management simulation? I don't consider myself cheating anything by using what the developers give me, especially in something as critical as this where you're actually losing resources constantly. I would say that if you do not manage your resources, you are giving yourself a disadvantage and playing in a way that gives you less of a chance to win. Maybe this is the difference between hard-core and not, but I never expected people to say they don't bother managing their resources. I really question that. It's not as if this game has some high rate of resource gathering; you spend most of the game broke.

If the game requires that you do this in order to either (a) stand a decent chance or winning or (b) have fun, then there is something wrong with the game. And what is wrong is not that the supposed-to-be-a-fringe-strategy is too micro intensive, but that the supposed-to-be-a-fringe-strategy is too necessary.

You could say this about the original post where you are auto building the reactors. It's not required, but it sure is annoying to go placing them around, isn't it? Especially when it is the default behavior you are repeating over and over again. That's all I'm asking, no more and no less than the original poster. Make default behavior less painful. I don't understand the outrage over making something that is only one right answer a default-and optional for those people that realize it(you don't have to turn it on, so why would it bother you?). There's really no gamesmanship here. I promise.

Although personally I've never found it to be so much of a problem as implied by the various opinions above, it's possible that's just because of my own playstyle. Right now, it works for me.

I play multiplayer, spire and vanilla campaigns. Losing planets is common, and everybody has to sit there and wait every time someone loses a planet. That's a problem, especially when the game mechanic we are talking about is-as acknowledged by the developer-child's play. I wouldn't mind pausing in situations that required careful maneuvering, such as in missile plays, but not with something like this.

[keith.lamothe]

Let me clarify: the game is supposed to be playable - winnable - without you doing this. The fact that you are able to do so is supposed to give you an over-and-above advantage.

Are you saying that I am gleaning some kind of fringe, overachiever advantage by managing my power resources? Have you ever played simcity or any management simulation? I don't consider myself cheating anything by using what the developers give me, especially in something as critical as this where you're actually losing resources constantly.

You're not cheating, I don't think zebramatt meant to imply that, but it is "fringe" micro and it is giving you an advantage we didn't really intend.  Kind of like how knowledge raiding used to be when you could k-raid any planet (not just those in supply): some players perceived that it was an optimal strategy to k-raid tons and tons of planets (and, mathematically, they had a point) so they felt compelled to do this to play well and it was really wearing them down because k-raiding that many planets is naturally a very repetitive activity.  But most players just didn't do (or perceive) the optimal thing, so it wasn't a bother to them.  After a while of thinking we fixed the situation by limiting the scope of k-raiding and giving it some additional tradeoff penalties to make it less of an optimal choice; we also sought to balance that "human nerf" by increasing the amount of knowledge gained from a planet, and I think in the end it worked out.

I would say that if you do not manage your resources, you are giving yourself a disadvantage and playing in a way that gives you less of a chance to win. Maybe this is the difference between hard-core and not, but I never expected people to say they don't bother managing their resources. I really question that. It's not as if this game has some high rate of resource gathering; you spend most of the game broke.

Yea, I don't spend most of the game broke.  Most of the players I know personally don't spend most of the game broke.  The early game, yes, but later on there tend to be resources coming in faster than production is burning them unless a spire city is under development or whatever.

Are we playing optimally? No.  That's not really the point.

Of course, as a game designer, I do want people who do go for optimal play to have fun too, so I try to identify and squash the micro-intensive fringe stuff where I can, either by making it easier (stuff like auto-kiting, though that never has worked out quite right in the general case) or by removing the incentive (like with k-raiding).

[Cyborg]

That's really interesting. I was under the impression that everyone knew how to toggle power supplies to increase their resource production. I was also under the impression that people knew how to burn resources, which is fairly common in RTS games. As a gamer, part of what keeps the pace for me is looking up at the resource levels. Okay then, I guess this is why half of this thread has no idea what I'm talking about.

[keith.lamothe]

That's really interesting. I was under the impression that everyone knew how to toggle power supplies to increase their resource production. I was also under the impression that people knew how to burn resources, which is fairly common in RTS games. As a gamer, part of what keeps the pace for me is looking up at the resource levels. Okay then, I guess this is why half of this thread has no idea what I'm talking about.

Yea, I think that's been one of the sources of confusion here.

And sometimes I do play more "aggressively" in that sense.  That's why I originally took the time to write out an optimal energy-management algorithm (it isn't _quite_ trivial, due to differing efficiencies between marks and multiple of a mark on the same planet, etc), though I then saw that it would just be treating a symptom.  So sometimes I really enjoy pushing my resources as far as they'll go; I know I frustrated my wife a fair bit while playing co-op Kohan by repeatedly reminding her to actually spend her resources so we could win, etc

[zebramatt]

Let me clarify: the game is supposed to be playable - winnable - without you doing this. The fact that you are able to do so is supposed to give you an over-and-above advantage.

I would say that if you do not manage your resources, you are giving yourself a disadvantage and playing in a way that gives you less of a chance to win.

Yes, I can see you would! That's what tells me that despite the fact that I have a great time playing the game, winning as often as the next man, and only occasionally feel it necessary to micromanage my power, that despite all that, there must be some problem here which has given you the impression that this activity is so essential, so core to playing the game, that I'm at some significant disadvantage in not having to worry about it constantly. Or not wanting to, for that matter.

And yes, I understand you're asking for a way to not worry about it constantly also. That's probably the hard time I'm having with your point of view, actually. You seem to think this is an aspect of the game which is fundamentally important to keep - the need to micromanage one's power - but at the same time want the computer to take care of it for you. Either it's a problem having to worry about doing it all the time, in which case we need to address the route cause of it being such a necessary tactic; or it's a fun micro mechanic which can help in fringe case scenarios and thus we needn't do anything. I can see no case where it's an occasional fun micro tactic which is so onerous due to its frequency that it needs to be automated.

I can see, however, that perhaps the CTRL to automatically build reactors has partly caused the perception that in order for one to have an effective economy one needs to build as many reactors as possible and then low-power those which are superfluous.

Bear in mind, I'm not suggesting for a moment that power management per se isn't an important aspect of the game. Simply that my decisions for power management revolve around building more reactors, capturing more planets or going after Zenith generators when I need more energy; and upgrading my mining facilities or capturing resource-rich planets when I need more crystal/metal. Occasionally I might low-power a bunch of reactors if I need to get some really expensive defenses up in a hurry. But most of the time if my energy output is hindering my resource intake I'll try to acquire more resources, not fiddle with my power plants. Honestly, I rarely find micromanaging my reactors necessary!

[Cyborg]

Yes, I can see you would! That's what tells me that despite the fact that I have a great time playing the game, winning as often as the next man, and only occasionally feel it necessary to micromanage my power, that despite all that, there must be some problem here which has given you the impression that this activity is so essential, so core to playing the game, that I'm at some significant disadvantage in not having to worry about it constantly. Or not wanting to, for that matter.

And yes, I understand you're asking for a way to not worry about it constantly also. That's probably the hard time I'm having with your point of view, actually. You seem to think this is an aspect of the game which is fundamentally important to keep - the need to micromanage one's power - but at the same time want the computer to take care of it for you. Either it's a problem having to worry about doing it all the time, in which case we need to address the route cause of it being such a necessary tactic; or it's a fun micro mechanic which can help in fringe case scenarios and thus we needn't do anything. I can see no case where it's an occasional fun micro tactic which is so onerous due to its frequency that it needs to be automated.

That's great for you. But how about putting yourself in my things on your feet for a moment, as the kind of gamer that optimizes? Every game I play I'm looking for the ultimate recipe to achieve victory. By not doing the optimal route, that would be less fun for me because I would feel silly for not trying my best. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that there's a group of you going around not broke playing this game. How is it even possible? You are only allowed to save 1 million of a single resource, which is far less than an actual fleet, let alone infrastructure, repairs, and attrition in keeping up war. I would have to be watching a movie for an hour to have that much resources. My gaming group actually does take breaks around this resource issue. Knowing that, is it any wonder we toggle our power supplies?

I totally get now that you don't have a problem because you do not play for the optimal route. Now the next step is, can we do that in reverse where you can understand folks that do try the best route known? If we can achieve that mutual understanding, you would be able to enjoy it and so would I, if we didn't deny each other what we need to make things less irritating. I'm really not breaking the game for you by automating a very simple algorithm. I swear.

[keith.lamothe]

Every game I play I'm looking for the ultimate recipe to achieve victory. By not doing the optimal route, that would be less fun for me because I would feel silly for not trying my best.

[...]

Now the next step is, can we do that in reverse where you can understand folks that do try the best route known?

On a higher level what I'm going for is that it not just be a case of one optimal path, even in this little subsection of the game.  I want you to have to think and consider at least two choices, like "Have a safety buffer at the cost of x, y, and/or z" or "Conserve x,y and z for other things and not have a safety buffer".  Right now you can have both, albeit at a non-game cost which you despise (pause-and-fiddle), and you feel compelled to do so.  I'd rather you not have the fiddling (if we change to a different system we'll find some way of making sure there's none of that) and have to choose.

[Hearteater]

Would a system with no low power mode for anything be workable?  Consider:

Power costs still exist, and you can still "pause" units to prevent them from firing, but that doesn't lower their power cost.  However, if your energy goes negative all your units start receiving some penalty.  Half damage from units, force fields take double damage, tractors hold only half as many targets, gravity turrets only slow half as much, docks and engineers build half as fast.

The exact penalties and numbers aren't important and could even stack up the longer you are at negative power to give a player the reasonable ability to react without pausing because the penalties start out softer.  But the effect would be a significant performance penalty for going negative, but not an instant death due to deactivated force fields.  You also wouldn't have a forced pause-and-massive-micro event.  Instead all you need to do is get an extra generator or so running or possibly scrape an power-expensive unit if that isn't feasible.

[keith.lamothe]

Would a system with no low power mode for anything be workable?

I've been thinking about that myself, actually, though there are some reasons I think it wouldn't work.

However, if your energy goes negative all your units start receiving some penalty.  Half damage from units, force fields take double damage, tractors hold only half as many targets, gravity turrets only slow half as much, docks and engineers build half as fast.

I don't think we'd be willing to go in for that kind of added complexity, both for the player and code-wise.

That said, it does seem to be at least somewhat problematic that you can go from "have enough energy" to "my forcefields are shutting down" in less than a second with no warning in some cases.  So there's been the suggestion of 10-second countdown from "energy below minimum thereshold" to "things actually shutting down".  I'm thinking that might not be a bad thing, because if you actually have extra reactors on "standby" presumably you can bring them back online before 10 seconds is up and avoid pausing the game; you might still have to if they really hit you, but hey.

possibly scrape an power-expensive unit if that isn't feasible.

This is the main problem I see with this approach: right now the pause-and-fiddle phase typically involves putting a bunch of stuff in low power mode.  If low-power-mode no longer decreases energy cost, then you actually have to _scrap_ stuff to get your energy cost down.  On one hand that's appealing because there's higher cost to the decision... but it's not sounding like a good thing for player fun.

Though I'm curious to hear what others think.

[zebramatt]

Yes, I can see you would! That's what tells me that despite the fact that I have a great time playing the game, winning as often as the next man, and only occasionally feel it necessary to micromanage my power, that despite all that, there must be some problem here which has given you the impression that this activity is so essential, so core to playing the game, that I'm at some significant disadvantage in not having to worry about it constantly. Or not wanting to, for that matter.

And yes, I understand you're asking for a way to not worry about it constantly also. That's probably the hard time I'm having with your point of view, actually. You seem to think this is an aspect of the game which is fundamentally important to keep - the need to micromanage one's power - but at the same time want the computer to take care of it for you. Either it's a problem having to worry about doing it all the time, in which case we need to address the route cause of it being such a necessary tactic; or it's a fun micro mechanic which can help in fringe case scenarios and thus we needn't do anything. I can see no case where it's an occasional fun micro tactic which is so onerous due to its frequency that it needs to be automated.

That's great for you. But how about putting yourself in my things on your feet for a moment, as the kind of gamer that optimizes? Every game I play I'm looking for the ultimate recipe to achieve victory. By not doing the optimal route, that would be less fun for me because I would feel silly for not trying my best. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that there's a group of you going around not broke playing this game. How is it even possible? You are only allowed to save 1 million of a single resource, which is far less than an actual fleet, let alone infrastructure, repairs, and attrition in keeping up war. I would have to be watching a movie for an hour to have that much resources. My gaming group actually does take breaks around this resource issue. Knowing that, is it any wonder we toggle our power supplies?

I totally get now that you don't have a problem because you do not play for the optimal route. Now the next step is, can we do that in reverse where you can understand folks that do try the best route known? If we can achieve that mutual understanding, you would be able to enjoy it and so would I, if we didn't deny each other what we need to make things less irritating. I'm really not breaking the game for you by automating a very simple algorithm. I swear.

We're talking at cross purposes! It's not that I don't understand why one might want always to run at the optimum. What I don't understand is why one would want a game which is supposed to be about there never being one single optimum path in any given situation, to enforce one such 'optimal' path upon everyone. With automated power management, why would anyone ever do anything other than just build half a dozen reactors at every planet and let the algorithm take care of it? And if everyone does that, why have to do it at all? Just make it all automatic. Roll it into a function of the Command Station. Slippery slope.

[keith.lamothe]

With automated power management, why would anyone ever do anything other than just build half a dozen reactors at every planet and let the algorithm take care of it? And if everyone does that, why have to do it at all? Just make it all automatic. Roll it into a function of the Command Station. Slippery slope.

Replace "half a dozen" with "3" and that's exactly what I've been thinking:

- Remove energy reactors.
- For all command stations add an amount to their energy output equal to the current energy reactor I + II + III.
- For each mkII's worth of energy actually used during a given tick, deduct a mkII's worth of metal and crystal from your income.

That would be simpler, but I don't think it would be more fun.