Making Power Generator free

[Zarel]

What do the devs think of the "Power cost" slider idea? Not good?

It's kind of exactly the same thing as the current power slider.

[Olrox]

What? the power levels settings, you mean?

[Zarel]

Yes.

[Olrox]

Yes.

Hmm, I didn't mean something exactly the same, I really wouldn't, and you know me well... Did you read my suggestions carefully?

A good option, however, would be to let the players set the structures cost, from 50% to 150%, along with the structure limits. Even individually, I think it would be great because players could encourage the use of a determined type of unit, or disencourage the use of another.

Also, implementing changeable handicaps (individual power generating rate settings) for players would be great as well, I think. Those kind of things that stay out of the way if you want a simple game, but can be changed for players who know each other and want to even the odds.

The first one is about making a slider along with the structures limits, so that you can set different cost percentages for different structures, so that some type of factory could be cheaper than the usual, for example.

The second one is about making individual handicaps, that can be selected for each individual player. Take Dylan Hsu and put him on a 1x1 game together with that guy I've wiped out with 2 heavy gunners, for instance: You could leave Dylan with 30% power generation rate and him with 140%, to try and even the odds. Like on some fighting games, where you can set each player's HP percentage.

[Zarel]

Hmm, I didn't mean something exactly the same, I really wouldn't, and you know me well... Did you read my suggestions carefully?

I did, but I guess I didn't mean it clearly enough.

Prices are one of the things that are balanced/counterbalanced carefully. If you think there's something wrong with a structure's price, the best thing to do is to submit a rebalance request, or write a mod that changes the prices. Allowing relative structure prices to be changed on the limits screen makes no sense; it's adding too much complexity for little reason.

Adjusting absolute power changes simulates changes to the availability of oil on a map, and isn't that big of a deal. Adjusting relative power is messing with game balance too much, and that's what mods are for. We want all players of Warzone to be playing roughly the same game, and not have to adjust to different kinds of game balance depending on a game host's whim.

The second one is about making individual handicaps, that can be selected for each individual player. Take Dylan Hsu and put him on a 1x1 game together with that guy I've wiped out with 2 heavy gunners, for instance: You could leave Dylan with 30% power generation rate and him with 140%, to try and even the odds. Like on some fighting games, where you can set each player's HP percentage.

Individual handicaps, now I did miss that. It's indeed a good idea... perhaps one day we'll implement it.

[Olrox]

Yeah, thinking about it more carefully, if the host wants to encourgae use of a determined type of unit, he can already reduce the structure number limit :rolleyes:

[Saberuneko]

Yeah, thinking about it more carefully, if the host wants to encourgae use of a determined type of unit, he can already reduce the structure number limit :rolleyes:

That's true.

[3drts]

I think the appeal is that as long as a player has one truck left, he can rebuild a base if he finds an oil source - it would have to be a huge map (250 by 250), with lots of nooks and crannies (and multiple enemies) to have any hope of setting up a base again before being finished off though....

But then there is the case of having one factory, and not trucks or pgen- you cannt rebuild then either.

In multiplayer for Homeworld, you would get "free" Resource Units when your resources dropped underneath 200 - they accumulated very slowly, like 15 RUs at a time, but if you had a carrier that escaped an enemy, used up all your resources jumping out, and didn't have enough to pop out a collector... in a few minutes you would be able to.

The "free" RU rate was pitiful, some players tried to milk it by keeping their RUs between 0-200 by a prodigious building program, but the % of RU mined vs "generated" was really small, and having such a low RU stockpile ensured their ships would never be able to make a hyperspace jump - and due to the games "production lines" you could build 5 different types of fighters at the same time from one carrier/mothership, but you couldn't build 5 fighters of the same type from 1 mothership, thus their attempt to "milk the RU flow" skewed their force composition.... it was not a viable strategy/exploit, but it did ensure that as long as you had a carrier or mothership, you were not out of the fight just yet..... (only really matters on FFA games, anything else and you are just prolonging death with no hope of resurgence)

[Olrox]

I think the appeal is that as long as a player has one truck left, he can rebuild a base if he finds an oil source - it would have to be a huge map (250 by 250), with lots of nooks and crannies (and multiple enemies) to have any hope of setting up a base again before being finished off though....

But then there is the case of having one factory, and not trucks or pgen- you cannt rebuild then either.

In multiplayer for Homeworld, you would get "free" Resource Units when your resources dropped underneath 200 - they accumulated very slowly, like 15 RUs at a time, but if you had a carrier that escaped an enemy, used up all your resources jumping out, and didn't have enough to pop out a collector... in a few minutes you would be able to.

The "free" RU rate was pitiful, some players tried to milk it by keeping their RUs between 0-200 by a prodigious building program, but the % of RU mined vs "generated" was really small, and having such a low RU stockpile ensured their ships would never be able to make a hyperspace jump - and due to the games "production lines" you could build 5 different types of fighters at the same time from one carrier/mothership, but you couldn't build 5 fighters of the same type from 1 mothership, thus their attempt to "milk the RU flow" skewed their force composition.... it was not a viable strategy/exploit, but it did ensure that as long as you had a carrier or mothership, you were not out of the fight just yet..... (only really matters on FFA games, anything else and you are just prolonging death with no hope of resurgence)

Well, but in Homeworld the mothership (or flagship) had multiple functions, like generating RUs from collected resources and producting ships. In Warzone there aren't multi-function units (the closest you can get is sensors, which can be used for scouting and assigning targets for artillery, I think), each structure/unit has its own purpose.

I think that making this spontaneous power-generating kind of "backup" would encourage chiken tactics, where a player has a small group of units constantly running out from the possible "final battles", and never-ending games.

Making an analogy, If you loose your factory, power generator, and oil derricks, it's the same as loosing most parts from the mothership or carrier. And if you are loosing health from your mothership or carrier in HW, you are getting actually destroyed and won't last another 15 seconds probably.

And without mentioning the odds of a player loosing the whole base, oil derricks and defenses, but have only one or a few trucks left, but not enough power to even build a power generator. Those are really little.

And when you loose every building in the map, but have an almighty army, you can still win. But if you are stuck with a single offensive unit, or even a repair tank, what is the point on going on? If you are stuck with a single truck and no power, you won't be able to get up on your feet, unless your opponent is a blind dog or something like that. Just like you won't be able to win with 2 repair tanks and a MG viper wheels (that's at least not likely).

The closest I've got to defeat an opponent in an unlikely situation was with 2 heavy gunners against his base, but it was the beggining of the game and he didn't build MG bunkers or towers, just a mg viper wheels and then another one soon before I've destroyed his trucks and factory, but the heavy gunners quickly destroyed those. He wasn't a dog and wasn't blind, but was really lame. Glad it was not a 1x1, so I could play an almost decent game later on.

But I surely wouldn't win if it was after more than 1 hour of game and I was stuck with a single truck against bases and no power to even build a power generator. Really.

[Zarel]

The reasoning for allowing someone to rebound from anything, is that there's not a "pressure-less" moment until the game ends.

If an opponent destroyed "most" of you, then leaves you alone, you should be able to rebuild. Because, otherwise, what do you do? Sit around for an hour, doing nothing? That's not fun at all.

[Olrox]

The reasoning for allowing someone to rebound from anything, is that there's not a "pressure-less" moment until the game ends.

If an opponent destroyed "most" of you, then leaves you alone, you should be able to rebuild. Because, otherwise, what do you do? Sit around for an hour, doing nothing? That's not fun at all.

Ok, but how come you end with so little power?

[Zarel]

Ok, but how come you end with so little power?

I dunno, because of a lot of enemy attacks?

[Olrox]

In a hypotetical situation, we keep playing until someone ends with only trucks and not enough power to build a power generator or something that could recycle some trucks so that you can get enough. I bet that it would require many hundreds of games.

but anyway

Maybe a good idea would be to make the Oil Derricks produce a maximum of (necessary power to build a power generator), in any circumstances. That would be acceptable, IMHO. It wouldn't make sense to make power simply *sprout* even if you don't have oil derricks.
What do you think? is it feasible/reasonable/adequate?

[TVR]

Chris Taylor solved this problem long ago in Total Annihilation, where every engineering unit generated a small amount of metal and energy.

Combined with reclaiming directly from the environment, this meant players were not defeated until they were totally annihilated.

I believe implementing this would be in-line with the theme of resurrection, the axiom of the single-player game, and this project.

[Olrox]

I believe implementing this would be in-line with the theme of resurrection, the axiom of the single-player game, and this project.

Well, this changes would be for multiplayer only I think. Since in single-player (campaign), if you've got only a truck and not enough power even to build a generator, you're dead by the clock anyway :rolleyes:
You can save and load the game if you fail that hard, in this case, anyway.
Also, the project is now called only "The Warzone 2100 Project", if I'm not mistaken.

But don't get mad at me because I'm saying this, by your general behavior I believe that this kind of details suit your personal taste. Please don't comment on those here, send a PM so you can write whatever you want without the scary feeling of "off-topicness". I may be wrong

I don't see why an individual construction unit would produce power by itself, even if you don't have oil derricks. If you have derricks and have an engineering unit, then it can make sense due to those mysterious beams the trucks use to project buildings...