Power and Massing

[Spaceman]

The AI may have a problem with what I am about to request.

Power is required to manafacture at the moment. That is all. This enables people to mass defenses and tanks and cyborg. It would be a nice idea if units consumed power as well according to how their designed. So different designs take different amounts of power. Powerful weapons/utilities take more and less powerful weapons/utilities take less. Same for defenses.

But we would also make it so this feature could be disabled easily, some people may not like this and warzone needs to be configurable.

It would certainly put a bit strategy in the game, and this part the current AI may struggle with.

[Kayiaxo]

It's very interesting but would also be hard.
How much energy should defense and attacking units take ?
You can't give a bunker machine gun and viper machine gun the same energy consumption since we all know in this case, turtling out would be winning again.

It would make balancing harder, but they idea is interesting and could be applied to powerfull weapons or some parts of the mechanics to stop abuse of certain cheap tactics.
The implementation however would open up a whole debate I think.

[doom3r]

To do this, you should have to increase energy production of oil derricks a lot, since if you send a big army to a fight it would take a lot of energy, even if it is for example 1 power per medium weapon shot.

And if you want to, you can think you already paid for mantainance cost when you produced your unit, as the mantainance cost was included with production costs.

[Kayiaxo]

He probably wants to keep existing oil derricks income to increase resource complexity and management.
Each drop of oil counts then.

[EvilGuru]

In the official version of Warzone: don't get your hopes up.

One day it might be possible to do this kind of thing with a mod. This would be done with pre-projectile-fire script function that would be called just before a unit is about to fire. The return value of this script value would affect if the projectile is fired or not. In the function one could check the power level and reduce it if necessary.

Using functionality like this you would be able to pervert Warzone to your liking. No promises about when such functionality will be available mind you.

Regards, Freddie.

[Rman Virgil]

-------->

* In RL military parlance this is called Lines of Supply or Supply Lines

* Currently Wz has none. Even the HOW of Oil Pumping dericks is a "Magical Transition"...

* Many are the ways of achieving "Lines of Supply" in WZ - some more elegant than others.

* Within a sub-set of these various schema the postulated SKI A.I. "difficulty" is no more than a "Strawman".

* With ALL the schema I'm familiar with.......

* In order to implement "Lines of Supply" in WZ it also essential to create New GFX otherwise your merely invoking the same "Magical Transition" that has existed since day one.

* That this should be a Player Option feature at Start-of-Game is also essential.

* Implementing ANY of the  schema for "Lines of Supply" takes WZ further along the continuum in the direction of a "Grognard Battle Simulation" and there are many fans who prefer GPMs to be weighted more in favor of an "Arcade" style. With "Options" both camp's tastes can be satisfied / accommodated.

- RV

[Spaceman]

The same value that the turret version would take to fire. Making this even more complex, which was part of the original idea, but how difficult this would be.
Medium Cannon: 1 power per shot
Medium Cannon Hardpoint: 1 power per shot

This theory can also be applied to movement (tracks etc.) and auto-repair. But I don't think even paid for games have become quite that advanced yet. Like auto repair station takes power.

We already have magical transition and nobody seems to care, oil derrick to power plant. The way other games solve this is supply vessels and fuel (or in this case power), give each body a certain amount of power it can carry. Add a body that has a huge power carrying capacity and a turret that can transfer power to other tanks. Make sure this turret can be applied to all bodies. Maintaining costomizibility. Which is one of warzones best features. And a refueling station which uses magical transition, just to make easier for developers

This really would make every power count, and I do know you would have to increase power output, thats the easier bit. The harder part would be developing a system to manage power.
Kayiaxo, that is exactly what I am getting at. Lots of people like the idea of just waging war without thinking (reason why it should be able to be disabled), I like that. But I wouldn't mind a game that made me think, i.e. strategy

[Rman Virgil]

The same value that the turret version would take to fire. Making this even more complex, which was part of the original idea, but how difficult this would be.
Medium Cannon: 1 power per shot
Medium Cannon Hardpoint: 1 power per shot

This theory can also be applied to movement (tracks etc.) and auto-repair. But I don't think even paid for games have become quite that advanced yet. Like auto repair station takes power.

We already have magical transition and nobody seems to care, oil derrick to power plant. The way other games solve this is supply vessels and fuel (or in this case power), give each body a certain amount of power it can carry. Add a body that has a huge power carrying capacity and a turret that can transfer power to other tanks. Make sure this turret can be applied to all bodies. Maintaining costomizibility. Which is one of warzones best features. And a refueling station which uses magical transition, just to make easier for developers

This really would make every power count, and I do know you would have to increase power output, thats the easier bit. The harder part would be developing a system to manage power.
Kayiaxo, that is exactly what I am getting at. Lots of people like the idea of just waging war without thinking (reason why it should be able to be disabled), I like that. But I would mind a game that made me think, i.e. strategy

* Good ideas, IMO

* On a related note-

* In the 2200 campaign we're introducing a GPM called "Power Black-outs"-

* It is based on the "Nexus Intruder Virus" whose vast promise in adding more strategy into WZ has gone unexplores up to now.

* Back to "Supply Lines"

* There was an old Sierra strat game (think it was called "Colony", but i'm not sure) that dealt with this in a beautiful, elegant, way.... the GPM was called "Umbilicals"- you had to build them or you had no power. Once built your enemies could target them and disrupt-destroy your "Power Supply Lines"

- RV

[Rman Virgil]

-------->

* K... the game I was thinking of is actually called -

* Moonbase.... while considered "old", it's still a fun game, IMHO.

* As far Game Design to account for "Lines of Supply" Moonbase is masterfully elegant & is still well worth studying from that angle.

* Do a Google Search & you'll easily find all the places where you can download it legitimately according to most legal international copyright governing bodies ...

* (This boards policy forbids me from providing info were there is any remote possibility that their free server & services providors may have an unfavorable interpretation or question the legitimacy of the link & thus revoke their freebie priviledges or peer reviewed status..)

- Regards, RV

[themousemaster]

* Currently Wz has none. Even the HOW of Oil Pumping dericks is a "Magical Transition"...

If you want some sort of lore-esque point of view to this, I think it would go along the liens of...

The Project (or whoever you are in MP) Has all the raw materials necessary to make whatever they want, at any time.  As the whole world is covered with the destroyed remains of vehicles and machinery, there is no shortage of raw parts, literally, in your own backyard.

That said, the ability to operate any machinery to re-manufacture all this scrap metal requires electricity.  The oil derricks provide the constant electricity necessary to run your factories, et. al. (note:  I am not commenting ont he Repair facilities, as my analogy only goes so far ;p).

As far as static sources of fuel that you may find, say, in the burnt out husk of a destroyed car or something, that is what is used to to actually supply the vehicles once they leave the factory.

Games in WZ tend to be so short in RL-terms that I'm not sure needing to qualify "long term operational resources" as necessary.  It can be assumed that as you take over opposing bases, the liquid fuel, ammo, etc. found there is suitable for maintaining vehicles and cyborgs, while not being in a useable state to operate their electrical generators (with the exception of the oil barrels you find scattered around, but if you believe that what's in those barrels is chemically identical to what the derricks drill up, that can explain them as well)

Also, assuming power plants also have large-capacity batteries in them, that can explain how one can "save up" the power generated by the derricks.



Granted, all this ignores 2 things:

1)  How does the oil get from the derricks to the power plants, and
2)  If power is used on a constant basis, why does building a vehicle first cost the power, and THEN begin the construction, as opposed to C&C's "pay as you produce" method...

But beyond some point, one has to sacrifice realism for playability, no?  I'd hate to have a slider whereby I allocate how much of a derrick's output is funneled into power, how much to fuel, how much for ammo...

There are games where supply lines can make useful additions, but they generally fall more into the Turn Based Strategy games than the RTS ones.  WZ in particular, with so many different types of units, expects your attention to micro-management to be focused up front, not on your base.

[psychopompos]

Granted, all this ignores 2 things:

1)  How does the oil get from the derricks to the power plants, and
2)  If power is used on a constant basis, why does building a vehicle first cost the power, and THEN begin the construction, as opposed to C&C's "pay as you produce" method...

But beyond some point, one has to sacrifice realism for playability, no?  I'd hate to have a slider whereby I allocate how much of a derrick's output is funneled into power, how much to fuel, how much for ammo...

sea turtles mate! sea turtles...

in all seriousness, you could just presume all buildings are connected via underground pipes/cables.
and presumably, a truck would need all the resources/materials first, cause it has to take them with it.
though for the sake of gameplay, trucks don't need to go to a supply depot to pick up the supplies before construction
if details like that are wanted, whats to stop someone comeing up with a mod themselves if they are that desperate.

[Spaceman]

See your point, maybe one does have to draw a line between realism and playability. But the question is where do you draw this line. I have seen some other RTS games use supply lines, not quite in as much detail as I have put here. But more like circles around supply depots where tanks/ships can refuel. This maybe more up the RTS street, than proper lines of supply.

At the moment I am just questioning why we only use power for manafacture. Not making tanks move/fire and whether this would stop the massing of armies, and introduce a bit more strategy on how you fight (targeting supply depots and supply ships/tanks).

I don't mind the magical transition, I would not want to be bothered with that either.

[psychopompos]

why dont you make a mod to do what you want?
adding supply depots, trucks and tankers to the game on top of whats there.
adding a maximum unit range would (by my guess) be the hard part
or a remaining ammo bar.
vtols already have code to tell um to go get re-armed, so it could be applying that to ground units
there may even be people here willing to help

supply trucks could work like repair turrets, but refill said munitions bar.
id love to help, but 3d design doesnt come naturally to me, and i know jack about coding:(

---------------------

is there an index of WRP compatible mods anywhere?

[Rman Virgil]

* Many more RL Military tactical & strategic opportunities can be added to Warzone WITHOUT increasing micromanagment.

* Same can be done with "Power Supply Lines" - NO additional micro-management but greater tactical opportunities.

* Just have to use your noggin & come up with KISS elegant GPM designs.

* Agree that "Power" is the only resource needed (plenty of scrap metal to recycle).... but Oil alone will not suffice to carry foward the story of humanity from 2100.

- RV

[Spaceman]

Wait a minute, we seemed to have moved on. Oil is the only resource which is converted into power at the power plant. Then I put that tanks should require this to move/fire. I did not mention ammo in that at all, cause that adds a whole new idea to this. I would want to keep it simple, power is used both to move the vessel and as ammo (drawing the line between reality and playability), so if you don't have power your defenses won't work, nor will your tanks/cyborg work.

The next issue with this is the increase in power consumption, which in turn demands that we raise the amount of power output. Research, will then become extremely cheap and the game will move along too fast, which I think it does anyways but that is another matter. This gives rise to the idea of turtiling because if research is cheap and defenses (see next paragraph) are cheap, well is the any better way to win.

Turtiling, this would also cause a problem as defenses under the current system will take less power than tanks, which is were all the parts (turrets, Propulsion, Auto repair) of the tank/object have different power requirement giving a total power requirement for that design (which if required could mean that moving or firing or both could take different levels of power, but this opens up the arguement of playability vs. reality). Defenses by nature have less parts to power, thereby giving an advantage to the defender (unless you can think of any). To solve this you would have to make the defender move so he can't build himself up. Whats the only thing a defender would need in this situation? Resource. Make him move to get his resource. But I don't know how.

This would also be extremely hard to implement, but seeing as there are over 4000 designs in warzone it is the only way to do it.

As a previous post said this idea would be interesting but would be extremely hard to put in place effectively