A Fix to the Power Problems - Batteries/Powercells

[ChrisPerson]

I have read many complaints of strategic issues with the power/resource system, and I believe I may have come up with a solution: Power cells/Battery structures that contain power, but limit how much power you can have.

What would these structures be? They store power, but a low amount, say 1,000 power, but they could be upgraded in a way similar to power generators to hold more, like 3,000 power, but this upgrade would be expensive - about half the cost of an uplink center maybe? They would be not too expensive, but not too cheap either, just enough to make them accessible but not cheap enough to be spammable.

These can be researched (again, for a high price) for upgrades, so they can hold more power in increments of 500, but it would take a while to research. To save beginning games, the HQ can hold 2,000 power, so the element of having power at the beginning is not lost.

But what's the strategic value to these structures? If they get destroyed, you loose the power stored in them. This would put a high strategic value on both protecting your own and destroying the enemy's.

To keep another strategic value (saving a truck or a cyborg in case your base gets destroyed), trucks and cyborgs could hold a small amount of power, but this amount would not register when it came to manufacturing units. When a truck or cyborg begins to build, it depletes this reserve. The reserve would have to be big enough to build a derrick and a power generator without the power module. By upgrading your trucks (engineering, advanced engineering, ect.) and cyborgs, you not only increase your build rate, but also the power capacity of your trucks as well. As a more advanced part of trucks, the larger the body the truck is using, the more power it can store.

Clicking on a powercell building would show the percentage of power storage used. By default, power is evenly spread throughout all your power cells, but it would be possible (?) to transfer power from one to another, in case one comes under attack. This increases strategic value of setting up a forward/backup base.

I sincerely hope this gets implemented, as it would not only solve the power problems, but it would also add a lot more strategy to the game. To anyone who is interested, please respond with a comment. I would very much like to hear any feedback from other fellow players of Warzone.

[Chojun]

Interesting...

[ChrisPerson]

Interesting...

Any other comment? Would this actually be a good solution?

[Chojun]

hehe, I like to let things sink in a bit

[Iluvalar]

If the enemy attack your base and you still have anything over one minute of power production YOU FAILED!!. Totally and definitively. That building would just encourage noobs to power fail even more. There is already an HEAVY price to pay for anyone who want to keep power and it's not having your power spent .

[ChrisPerson]

If the enemy attack your base and you still have anything over one minute of power production YOU FAILED!!. Totally and definitively. That building would just encourage noobs to power fail even more. There is already an HEAVY price to pay for anyone who want to keep power and it's not having your power spent .

What do you mean by "power fail even more"? I think the point of it is worth it. If the enemy attacks you in early game, regardless if you have powercell structures or not, and you're a noob, you're screwed. Like I said, the HQ building can hold around 2,500 power, so you still can store some power!

[Per]

I think a building that, if you build it, a competent opponent will laugh at your for building it, is not a very good idea.

You should never store much power. Power stored are opportunities lost.

[ChrisPerson]

I think a building that, if you build it, a competent opponent will laugh at your for building it, is not a very good idea.

You should never store much power. Power stored are opportunities lost.

So then limit the amount of power the HQ can store down to something like 300 power instead. That will make it required, because good units and research cost more than 200, and it's ridiculously slow to collect power for units when you don't have the power needed. That would suffice to make them necessary for even advanced players who want to have a chance of winning against someone who does have these structures.

[Iluvalar]

What do you mean by "power fail even more"? I think the point of it is worth it. If the enemy attacks you in early game, regardless if you have powercell structures or not, and you're a noob, you're screwed. Like I said, the HQ building can hold around 2,500 power, so you still can store some power!

I meant like per that having 2,500 unspent power in standard IS a failure.

On the other hand, your other idea is not better. If you keep the maximum power under the minimal power flow, we'll need a necessary amount of space for each power produced. In other word, building a capacitor beside each power generator. But at that point, it's not different from changing the amount of derrick/generator to 2 instead of 4. And that will just bug us into building more structures at start and in no way change whatever supposed power problems.

[ChrisPerson]

What do you mean by "power fail even more"? I think the point of it is worth it. If the enemy attacks you in early game, regardless if you have powercell structures or not, and you're a noob, you're screwed. Like I said, the HQ building can hold around 2,500 power, so you still can store some power!

I meant like per that having 2,500 unspent power in standard IS a failure.

On the other hand, your other idea is not better. If you keep the maximum power under the minimal power flow, we'll need a necessary amount of space for each power produced. In other word, building a capacitor beside each power generator. But at that point, it's not different from changing the amount of derrick/generator to 2 instead of 4. And that will just bug us into building more structures at start and in no way change whatever supposed power problems.

Not necessarily - remember, power cells don't hold much, and their upgrades are very expensive. What would happen is that if you have no more room to store power, your derricks/power plants all shut down until you have room. This does not mean that you need a capacitor for every generator. It just means that it limits the power you can have, and with good reason. It is indeed very different from changing derrick/generator output from 2 to 4, because one stores power, and the other gives more power. Factories and research facilities will take a long time to gather power if you don't have it available. This makes these capacitors, again, required for high-quality units and major research.

I am not proposing to add a limit on the takeup rate of power for these capacitors, so to go along with your idea of 2,500 power not used being a fail, it would be possible to have only one upgraded one that stores all your power. Or, to add an interesting twist to skirmish & multiplayer games, it could be one of the structures that can be limited.

You are, in a way, only seeing the classic Starcrafter's view of the game: if your amount of resources rises above a certain number, you're doing it wrong. The same is not true for warzone. It never hurts to have a lot of unused power, so long as you can keep manufacturing high quality units and can get constant research.

[cumandgetit]

you are proposing the same mechanic that Cavedog implemented in Total Annihillation back in 1997 which is what Pumpkin was avoiding in WZ's streamlined oil mechanic.

proof is in the pudding. make a mod to test your proposition and then test it in MP.

[Iluvalar]

what the hell are we talking about ?

"Utimate power" map with 50 generators per players ?

There is not situation in normal games were you can produce and research at full pace and still have money. There is no situation in warzone where you can have 3 factory producing instead of 4 and making a good move ! It hurts to have a lot of unused power.

[Chojun]

After thinking about it a bit, I think with WZ's unlimited power GPM the batteries would only be useful to guard against the situation where the enemy destroys many of the player's oil derricks. It would be useful in that case to continue to have guaranteed power input.

But on the grander scale, I doubt that batteries would fix the power problems. A nice idea none-the-less

[ChrisPerson]

After thinking about it a bit, I think with WZ's unlimited power GPM the batteries would only be useful to guard against the situation where the enemy destroys many of the player's oil derricks. It would be useful in that case to continue to have guaranteed power input.

But on the grander scale, I doubt that batteries would fix the power problems. A nice idea none-the-less

If the power levels are right, it will fix the issues. I am not suggesting to make the amount they can store over 9000, I am just proposing a way of limiting the amount of power you can have, while adding another strategic motive to the game.

what the hell are we talking about ?

"Utimate power" map with 50 generators per players ?

There is not situation in normal games were you can produce and research at full pace and still have money. There is no situation in warzone where you can have 3 factory producing instead of 4 and making a good move ! It hurts to have a lot of unused power.

It does not hurt to have extra power if you are doing alright! You are completely missing the point! This is not a forum post about the merits and risks of having too much power, this is a forum post about debating the addition of Powercells and batteries. You can go off and think whatever you want, so as far as I am concerned, my conversation with you is over.

[cumandgetit]

let me reword my first post and see if that makes a difference in its content being perceived.

all these mechanics proposed are 14 years old and were implemented in the classic RTS Total Annhillation. this means I know exactly how they played-out from MP experience not just conversational thought experiments.

please state exactly what you percieve as the power problems and issues that these 14 year old mechanics from TA are gonna solve.

honestly i'm not seeing how turning this aspect of WZ into TA, adding more layers of power resource microing, is gonna make for more fun tactical gaming rather than being the frustrating, annoying, nonsensical, constraint that it was in TA.