Two small fixes for the next patch perhaps

[keith.lamothe]

1) Some units cost a lot of knowledge, some units cost a lot of energy (forts, etc), some units cost a lot of m+c, some both, etc.  The unit caps serve the separate purpose of bounding the choice of how many you build.

Okay, but not really a big deal if you can build reactors everywhere, including on your teammates' planets, and multiple reactors if you need it. It's a soft barrier, at best.

Well, the numbers might not be quite right, but basically the point is that if you take enough territory you don't have to worry much about your energy (though you still have to pay m+c for it, the slowdown of which may lead you to take more still more territory).  It's basically choice to spend AIP to satisfy that requirement, and AIP is a fairly big deal; knowledge is fairly similar in that.

2) Energy is one of the drivers for getting more territory.  So is knowledge, but it's a little "softer" due to k-raiding and a variety of ways of getting more units without spending knowledge (adv factories, fabricators, golems, mercenaries, etc).

Also a soft barrier. For the first two or three planets it might be important, but after a few hours goes by it's basically forgotten.

Exactly how many planets are you needing to take before you no longer have to worry about energy?  Two or three sounds too low, though it depends on your unit choices; using forts costs a lot.

3) Energy is one of the drivers for _keeping_ territory, whereas with knowledge you can let the planet go as soon as you have the k.

Depending on how many planets you lose I guess. During the spire campaign, maybe a bigger deal.

It tended to be a big deal for me when playing FS.  I could sustain my defenses during a rolling-burn up one side that led to my homeworld, but if they crashed through multiple fronts simultaneously I simply couldn't keep enough reactors running to keep my FFs up, which is death as you've said.

Could we incentivize/disincentive those factors in a more meaningful way?

Sure, I'm definitely looking for a way of making the choices here less straightforward and more interesting.  At the same time I'm not actually wanting to make the game any harder, and most of the ideas I've come up with thus far tend to make people nervous on that front

[Cyborg]

Exactly how many planets are you needing to take before you no longer have to worry about energy?  Two or three sounds too low, though it depends on your unit choices; using forts costs a lot.

I just fired up one of my games that I'm playing multiplayer. I have 7 reactors in low-power mode out of 31, and 16 possible reactors I didn't even bother to build. We have 17 planets.  

And if anyone needs to be able to see that what I'm talking about is a big deal, consider:

optimum:
17 planets * 40,000 + (17 planets * 5000) + (1 planet * 80,000)=  845,000 energy, -329 resource deduction

The wrong way(least amount of reactors to get 845,000 energy):
11 planets * 80,000 =  880,000 energy, -440 resource deduction


We are not talking about small potatoes here. That's about a 25% difference.

[keith.lamothe]

Exactly how many planets are you needing to take before you no longer have to worry about energy?  Two or three sounds too low, though it depends on your unit choices; using forts costs a lot.

I just fired up one of my games that I'm playing multiplayer. I have 7 reactors in low-power mode out of 31, and 16 possible reactors I didn't even bother to build. We have 17 planets.

Yea, if you've taken 17 planets you shouldn't need to max out the energy production, generally you should be able to win with that or fewer planets.

And if anyone needs to be able to see that what I'm talking about is a big deal, consider:

optimum:
17 planets * 40,000 + (17 planets * 5000) + (1 planet * 80,000)=  845,000 energy, -329 resource deduction

The wrong way(least amount of reactors to get 845,000 energy):
11 planets * 80,000 =  880,000 energy, -440 resource deduction


We are not talking about small potatoes here. That's about a 25% difference.

Yea, going full mkIIIs is definitely not optimal.  But the initial setup isn't the part that takes a lot of micro, it's responding to AI-caused outages, right?

Out of curiosity, what's your m and c income in that scenario?

[Philo]

Some amount of micro keeps the game interesting for me. If I didn't need to keep interested at all about the power tab, it being automated, why should it even exist? That's the biggest problem I have with your request for automation. Auto-building reactors, I still need to make sure to look I'm not spending too much money on excess power but still have a safety net to fall back on. Also, keeping my backup generators that are low powered somewhere safe.
Making all power automatic would totally remove the element of you having to worry where and what generators you have online and which are powered off.

And yes you CAN pause the game anytime you want, thus effectively removing the need to worry about what generators are on/off since you can just pause and turn anything on/off instantly. But not everybody does this. I pause the game very rarely. Usually our group pauses the game only in the case of a phone call or something else going on IRL.
In the event of losing the game sure we pause the game but if the enemy's just far away in frontline and someone has a brownout it's his problem 

Making auto-power management the norm would make this worse for some people, me at least. Then again, if auto-power management was buried somewhere in the CTRLS screen I wouldn't mind. Damn yeah, I guess I wouldn't mind after all. AI War is supposed to be played by your own rules and enjoyment anyway.

Hahha, I guess that's a twist.

[Cyborg]

Yea, if you've taken 17 planets you shouldn't need to max out the energy production, generally you should be able to win with that or fewer planets.

Yea, going full mkIIIs is definitely not optimal.  But the initial setup isn't the part that takes a lot of micro, it's responding to AI-caused outages, right?

Out of curiosity, what's your m and c income in that scenario?

I currently have 89,000 metal, and 600 Crystal at load time. Oh, and both categories are negative income right now.

[keith.lamothe]

Some amount of micro keeps the game interesting for me.

Well, to be fair, there's always productive micro you could be doing on the tactical side with ship positioning and such, no lack there

[keith.lamothe]

I currently have 89,000 metal, and 600 Crystal at load time. Oh, and both categories are negative income right now.

Ah, ok.  Mostly what I'm trying to figure out is what percent of your total income is going to energy.

[Cyborg]

metal,-1230/s
Crystal,-5500/s

[Philo]

Well, to be fair, there's always productive micro you could be doing on the tactical side with ship positioning and such, no lack there

Yeah I know. But that's the military side, some economic micro is fun too.

[keith.lamothe]

metal,-1230/s
Crystal,-5500/s

Ok, so the difference between worst case and best case energy there is 111, or a bit over 9% of your metal deficit, which is significant.  Though the numbers don't mean lot since obviously one can pile up huge deficits without respect to actual income.

[Cyborg]

Yeah I know. But that's the military side, some economic micro is fun too.

I have enough of that in real-life. No joke, I'm an optimizer, and it's not just with games. Works for real money, too.

I'm trying to find the information you want, but it's a little bit difficult because I'm in the middle of a war, fighting on multiple fronts, so everything costs money. Is there a section I can look in? My resource flows section is huge.

As an edit, if you take note of the fact I haven't even bothered to build 16 reactors (these would have been built with auto-building turned on), I could have improved this efficiency slightly. Also, to the point of taking territory or being driven to take territory because of power, you can see that it's really not the case after several hours. I'm 11 gametime hours in to this game.

[Philo]

I have enough of that in real-life. No joke, I'm an optimizer, and it's not just with games. Works for real money, too.

Haha, I'm guessing you want auto-power management for your house too so you don't have to go flipping lights on and off around the house all the time 

Cyborg the optimizer man. Mega man's worst adversary.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm trying to find the information you want, but it's a little bit difficult because I'm in the middle of a war, fighting on multiple fronts, so everything costs money. Is there a section I can look in? My resource flows section is huge.

Probably the best bet is to mouseover the m and c displays in the resource bar at the top, it will display one line per player with the net, the gross income, and the spending.

As an edit, if you take note of the fact I haven't even bothered to build 16 reactors (these would have been built with auto-building turned on), I could have improved this efficiency slightly. Also, to the point of taking territory or being driven to take territory because of power, you can see that it's really not the case after several hours. I'm 11 gametime hours in to this game.

Right, if you've got 17 planets then you're already past the point where energy is supposed to drive you to take more territory, unless it's for lack of m+c.

[Cyborg]

Haha, I'm guessing you want auto-power management for your house too so you don't have to go flipping lights on and off around the house all the time  

Cyborg the optimizer man. Mega man's worst adversary.

I do have a home automation system I set up myself for part of the house, actually. It's something I'm proud of, although it does have a few bugs I haven't bothered to fix yet. The most annoying one is one of my lights turns on in the middle of the night on rare occasions, and I can't figure out why!    When I turn the light off at night, I flip the automation switch just in case, so it's something I have to remember.

[Cyborg]

Right, if you've got 17 planets then you're already past the point where energy is supposed to drive you to take more territory, unless it's for lack of m+c.

Mousing over, we have:

metal 910-2296 = -1386
Crystal 1018 - 13936 = -12,918


We have 17 planets between us. I have about half of that. I don't feel it's that many. I'm force fields, and a couple turrets, and maybe a third of the starships. I have some factory produced triangles. Feels normal. But if we are supposed to be taking less than this, well, if I have 16 reactors I'm not making, should we have taken 11 planets for this to be more normal?

If there is no expectation, and we have reached the point where the power game is over, maybe auto-managing it would be for the best, as you seem disinterested at enforcing any penalty at this point.