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Energy consumption and how it can be properly executed


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I'm going to dive into several topics here. In addition to organizing this post like a book. Use CTRL + F to find the topic you're interested in reading.

 

Note: Some carebears are going to complain about it but yes, this is going to go down the route of PVP and will touch a little on how this can help the markets in game so deal with it:

 

  1. Energy Management Concept, taking a page from another game (because this game took pages from multiple games already)
    • Armored Core
    • How energy management works on the fly
      • Parts
      • Weapons
      • Energy Consumption
      • The RedZone
      • Cooldowns, Boosters and backups
  2. How it can apply to PVP ship combat in DU
    • The Core
      • XS ships
      • Small Ships
      • Medium ships
      • Large Ships
      • XL ships when?
      • XXL ships... probably never at this rate.
    • Batteries
    • Generators
      • Magnetic
      • Nuclear
      • Advanced Magnetic (slightly made up)
      • Fusion
      • Fission
      • Cold Fusion
      • Gravatron (this is made up ... it's a game)
      • Thoramine (Finally a use for it??)
      • Tachyon
      • Zero Point Energy
    • Backup Generators
    • Overdrive Generators/Engines/Components
    • Coolant Elements
    • Auxiliary Coolant Elements
    • Weapon application
      • Instantaneous
      • Usage over time
  3. How it can be applied to Buildings in DU
    • The Core
    • The introduction of game built Power plants
      • Coal
      • Hydro
      • Nuclear
      • Fusion
      • Fission
      • Cold Fusion
      • Zero Point Energy
    • Backup Generators
    • Batteries/Power provisions for Base turrets
    • Tiles
  4. How it applies to the markets
    • The Starting Value
    • The Starting Price
    • How may change over time
  5. The limitations that would make ACTUAL sense
    • Usage over time
    • Instantaneous usage
    • Red Zone awareness
      • Coolant Mechanics
    • Regeneration mechanics
    • Auxiliary mechanics
  6. Additional elements to help balance energy management from the start
    • Generators
      • Primary and Auxiliary Generators
    • Backup Generators
    • Coolant pumps & Injectors
      • Water
      • Coolant Rods
    • Emergency kill/cutoff switches (lua)
  7. Other ways that basically will hurt/push DU to dwindling
    • Excessive limitation examples
    • Not listening until AFTER the fact
    • Pride
    • Listening to carebears (yes, I hate them because they kill games that have tons of potential)

=====================================================================================================================================================================

 

1. Energy Management Concept, taking a page from another game

            (because this game took pages from multiple games already)

             Out of all the games I've ever played, this one, Armored Core executed Energy Management and power consumption flawlessly on playerstation 1 and into future games on Playerstation 4, Xbox and CPU. Their approach should act as a halmark and in fact, flavors of it are seen in other games such as Halo and Mech Warrior just to name a few.

 

 

  • Armored Core
    • Description: The game Armored Core is multi-series multi-console game that started on PlayStation. Set way into the future where corporations control everything. You are called a Raven who will embark on your journey through various sorties (missions) to take down some evil corp or antagonist Raven pilot. It features a mechanised robot you control and manage and fully customize thus sending the player down a route of awareness for how they wish to build their AC (Armored Core).
  • How energy management works on the fly
     
    • Parts
      • As you've seen in the video the game features numerous parts for the AC which allows for full customization. Each part offers their own list of benefits and natural drawbacks that the player needs to consider in their playstyle.
      • All parts consume some sort of energy when in use or passively. For example Light arms for a quick sniper focused AC would consume a small amount of energy passively and have good accuracy for sniper/singleshot weapons. However, would be horrible when taking a direct hit or attempting to use rapid fire weapons like machine guns that are too heavy for it to manage or carry. 
         
    • Weapons
      • Similar to arms, legs, tank chassis, core/chests ect. Weapons also have the different types of energy consumption. Passive, Instantaneous and none. Passive would be for things like laser swords that are active and out. Or a high range/high sensitivity scanner to search for cloaked targets when active and in use. Instantaneous would be when a handheld laser cannon, or shoulder mounted laser/railgun is charging and/or fired. None would be for when a regular mechanical bolt-action rifle or machine gun (requiring NO energy) is fired. 
         
    • Energy Consumption
      image.png.7435c4c6a86b735ebfa27dd605747da9.png
      • For Armored Core Energy is typically indicated via your bar shown above. Where the green and red are your available energy but the red is known as your red zone.
         
    • The RedZone
      • The redzone, as previously mentioned, is your avialable energy remaining however when you exhaust all of it then you need to wait for your core and generators and coolant to all work together to regenerate your energy.
      • While your suit is regenerating energy your suit draws power from the auxillery generators to keep you moving, however you're unable to attack, fly/boost in any direction or do anything outside of walking around to avoid getting hit.
         
    • Cooldowns, Boosters and backups
      • The game features a number of boosters backups and cooldowns ect. or other ways to assist with your power management to ensure you're able to stay active in the fight for as long as possible.

 

2. How it can apply to PVP ship combat in DU
 

  • The Core - It should be known that the Core of a vessel is what provides the main source of power. With that the various sized ships can pull energy and use it to however it was designed.
    • XS ships
      • All ships should be able to produce enough power to allow them to function in a minimal capacity. For extra small ships they should be able to do more than enough work so that new players can still build themselves up on Alioth or even on Sanctuary. For the more experienced players and PVPers we should be able to add in batteries and even an XS generator to power the ship and have enough energy regeneration for the ship to do scouting, or long hauling runs or even dog-fight. However, they should also have a built in issue where sometimes the redzone may be just a bit to much on their meter and may sometimes require assitance in some way.
    • Small Ships
      • This is typically where the novice level solo player ends up. Small core ships should be able to produce a healthy supply of power for w/e the ship is built for. The use of backup generators or batteries should help aid the ship both passively and instantaneously when weapons or boosters are required to get out of hairy situations.
      • For PVPers these are typically known as gunboats, however since small sized ships cannot use medium sized weapons. This ship is practically pointless for PVP. Even with the silhouette  mechanics.
    • Medium ships... getting tired A more thorough outline is mentioned in the Part 2 for Energy Management. Just search for the respective section. It's been recently updated.
    • Large Ships ... getting tired A more thorough outline is mentioned in the Part 2 for Energy Management. Just search for the respective section. It's been recently updated.
    • XL ships when?... A more thorough outline is mentioned in the Part 2 for Energy Management. Just search for the respective section. It's been recently updated.
    • XXL ships... probably never at this rate.... I've given up hope...
       
  • Batteries
    • Batteries would be a way to store power for the ship meant as either for backups when all else fails or for temporary overdrive to fatten your ship's max energy.
    • The additional energy batteries would provide would be temporary and once used the canister can be widthdrawn from it's battery outlet (new element alert) and placed in a separate outlet to be recharged. 
      • One time use batteries should NOT be a thing because this is the freakin future... let's make it make sense here. Renewable energy sources SHOULD BE INVOLVED BY NOW.
    • If a Sink needs to be added then you can create T1 through T5 batteries. Each tier featuring a set number of recharges before needing to be recycled for parts used to make the batteries. The higher the Tier goes the higher their max energy storage. In addition the tier would also be able to be buffed by talents to increase their number of recharges and max storage.
    • Generators would be able to recharge batteries only when the ship is not being piloted so that way it creates an ability for the ship to somehow sustain itself.
       
  • Generators - There are a plethora of different kinds of generators real and fake that can be added to the game from T1 to T5
    • Magnetic - Generator that takes advantage of the Electromagnetic field to create motion and thus energy for the ship. It's much more advanced than your combustable coal engines used in powerplants but still for more efficient and better for the environment.
    • Nuclear - We already know about this... Extremely high amounts of energy, dangerous if pushed too deep into the redzone and can cause a meltdown destroying half the ship, has a decent energy regen rate.
    • Advanced Magnetic (slightly made up) - A more advanced version of Magnetic Gens. with a higher max energy cap but a slower regen. rate and a larger redzone
    • Fusion - Generator type that features a moderate energy cap., low red zone  but slow regen rate.
    • Fission - Cousin Gen. Type that features higher energy cap., slightly higher red zone but much better regen rate of energy.
    • Cold Fusion - The best of the Fusion/Fission style gens that has highest energy cap, lowest red zone, but fast yet fidgety regen. rate. (meaning there's times when it will stop recharging for 2 - 5 seconds)
    • Gravatron (this is made up ... it's a game) This Generator is a T3 and T4 generator that takes advantage of the gravitational field of nearby celestial bodies to boost its regenerative abilities. It features an insanely high energy cap. 15 times the cap of nuclear and a very small red zone. However it's regen. is extremely low. This feature would make the generator useful for really long voyages to new systems or hidden pockets of space. (Think Exploration cruisers)
    • Thoramine (Finally a use for it??) - T-5 level generator
    • Tachyon - T-5 level generator
    • Zero Point Energy - T-5 level generator that has almost infinite energy or the highest energy cap, Lowest red zone but no energy regeneration. The Zero Point Energy Gen would instead have a feature that allows the maintainer to "pull" energy from no-where. The maintainer would be able to do this X number of times per hour.
       
  • Backup Generators
    • As the name suggests these generators would be brought up online when something catastrophic goes wrong to maintain small amounts of power for the ship while it fixes it.
       
  • Overdrive Generators/Engines/Components
    • Overdrive generators would act as boosters for engines or to increase max energy cap temporarily. Using them would cause wear/damage to the engines but would result in the ship GTFO of a bad situation.
       
  • Coolant Elements
    • Coolant Pumps ... to cool the generators and the core
    • Coolant Rods... well you get it
       
  • Auxiliary Coolant Elements
    • For when you need to be more chilled
       
  • Weapon application
    • Instantaneous
      • All weapons would use a varying amount of instantaneous energy when in use. The cannons, being mostly mechanical, would use the least amount of energy. Missiles would be the 2nd least instantaneous use. Where as Railguns would use the most per volley. Enough for the usage to be noticable but not so much to where the ship can barely function.
      • When we get harpoons and Interdiction.... This would be where they'd get applied as well
    • Usage over time
      • This is mostly applied to lasers, and tractor beams. The larger the laser or tractor beam the larger the usage over time.
      • For tractor beams, the Longer the hold, the more energy is used. The more massive the tethered target, the more energy consumed. This can be slowed down by overdriving your system with your batteries and backup generators for greater output and better effect. However, doing so will severely hinder your ship for a while when you need to regen your energy stores for both the main and backup generators and batteries.
    • None
      • No energy is used when the ship is not being piloted

 

3. How it can be applied to Buildings in DU

  • The Core - Produces it's own baseline energy for the entire Construct
    • Requires other elements (generators) to boost it's max power for more elements on the construct
  • The introduction of game built Power plants - These power types can help offset the demand for the core on static and space constructs
    • Coal T - 1
    • Hydro T - 1 & T-2
    • Nuclear T-2 & T-3
    • Fusion T-2 & T-3
    • Fission T3 & T-4
    • Cold Fusion T4 -T5
    • Thoramine T5 only
    • Zero Point Energy T5 only
  • Backup Generators
    • For if you mess up somewhere and the power gets knocked out via your own stupidity or via PVP engagements
  • Batteries/Power provisions for Base turrets
    • Batteries can be used to help offset the base's already existing power consumption during combat/defense. Where the turrets will draw from the batteries or side- generators. When the turret's designated power supply is drained it will begin to drain from the primary core just to protect the construct.
  • Tiles
    • Tiles on a planet or moon or asteroid would affect the three basic characteristics of the static cores placed.
      • Max Energy (This would only be an addition)
        • Larger Increase for barren planets
        • Larger increase for Asteroids or moons
        • Smaller increase for Cold planets
        • Smaller Increase for Hotter Planets
      • Energy Regeneration (This could be a +/- to the energy regeneration)
        • Larger regeneration for Hotter planets (This gives hot planets like Sicarri, Sinnon or Madis an increase in land value)
        • Smaller Regeneration for Colder planets
      • Redzone
        • Larger redzones for hotter planets
        • Smaller redzones for colder planets (this gives ice planets an increase in interest value)

 

4. How it applies to the markets

  • The Starting Value
    • This will help add value to Coal, Hydrogen and Oxygen and create a solid use for Thoramine well before Warp gates are even on the drawing board.
    • Coal would have a relatively low value but it and Hydro and Oxy would begin to gain better uses as well.
    • Thoramine would be worth fighting over on asteroids and selling on the markets.
  • The Starting Price
    • Set the price for T-1 schematics lower but also allow for bots to buy coal to further stir the economy
  • How may change over time
    • People will see reason to engage the markets more on this front because you've created a sound way of doing so for PVE and PVPers

 

 

5. The limitations that would make ACTUAL sense

  • Usage over time
    • Start the balance off Low. Don't go setting it on holy shit mode then walking the numbers back because everyone hates the mechanic and claims it doesn't make sense. Start small and work your numbers up. Setting the consumption and limitations excessively high will only curb your community towards playing Starbase and StarCitizen more.
  • Instantaneous usage
    • Most of this has already been explained. but Again, start small. Then adjust from there.
  • Red Zone awareness
    • Coolant Mechanics allow your construct (static and dynamic) to slow the decent towards the redzone. The name of the game is the keep in the green. It's a simple yet complicated balancing act that the player has to manage. Because of this properly executed challenge the player has fun actually trying to balance stuff out on their own.
    • Being aware of your redzone's level will only help with immersion.
  • Regeneration mechanics
    • This literally adds a brand new job for someone on the ship. Where they'd hang out in the power room for most of the ship's trip to ensure everything stays running at the right levels. Think of Scottie on the Enterprise "I'm given her all she's Got Captain!"
  • Auxiliary mechanics
    • This would be on the "Scottie" of the ship to maintain and implement on the ship to ensure the ship can at least be marginally functional when it takes on catastrophic damage or experiences a catastrophic event from space. (Hint Hint: some random waves from a start that sucks out power from the ship or something ridiculous)

 

6. Additional elements to help balance energy management from the start

  • Generators
    • Primary and Auxiliary Generators
  • Backup Generators - While Generators can be used as backup, these units would be unique and have a considerable advantage over regular generators but will only work if Regular generators are down.
  • Coolant pumps & Injectors
    • Water
    • Coolant Rods
    • Air
  • Emergency kill/cutoff switches (lua)
    • Used through lua to kill the power to a ship

 

7. Other ways that basically will hurt/push DU to dwindling

 

  • Excessive limitation examples
    • 0.23 execution. Yes I'm bringing it up again. Because 0.23 should serve as a valuable lesson of what not do to or how NOT to do something... ever again.
    • Overdoing the power consumption - This will limit creativity and drive people away from the game. Again, start small with easy numbers people can work with so they can get used to the idea of power consumption.
    • Limiting the number of weapons on a ship - You've already limited the size of weapons on a ship by core size to curb cubes... which did and didn't work. Setting hard limits on the number of USABLE weapons on a ship through power management will only piss off your community more than needed. AGAIN, start small and work your way up to something that's balanced. Like for example, I'm going to only allow 5 weapons on a Large core ship or 3 weapons on a small or medium core... sorry but I will change my credit card number in a heartbeat if this game takes that route and say good luck. Then pick up Starbase or spend money needlessly on star citizen and encourage all of BOO and even the AC to jump ship. Just FYI, DSI is already hitting us up about playing other games and saying goodbye to DU. Let's not even talk about Youtube and Twitter ect.

 

  • Not listening until AFTER the fact 
    • ATV are full of very knowledgeable intellects. Their input is based on their perspective and from that of your community. Taking their word with a grain of salt will only hurt you vs. taking them seriously. You built the ATV for a reason. Pay attention to it to ensure your success.

 

  • Pride - "Pride commeth before the fall"
    • This one is mainly for JC. You are highly intelligent and very knowledgeable in many things and have garnered much respect from people, however being too prideful or too hardstanced (overzealous) in any one belief and unwilling to change WILL cause you to lose people. You have a team that have 2nd thoughts about the direction and a community with even more resentment about what you're building here. The question is, are you trying to build a simulator that will see 10-20k ACTIVE people after 10 years time? or one that will see that number 2 years after launch?

 

  • Listening to carebears (yes, I hate them because they kill games that have tons of potential)
    • The definition of a carebear varies from one PVPer to another. However, at it's core, a carebear is an individual who sees any one game mechanic that doesn't fit their personal narrative of a game (usually PVP focused) and does or says anything they can to cause devs to ruin it for the many.
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I'm looking forward to the powerpoint presentation on this topic. 

 

But no seriously, this is a good post and probably the most well thought out post on energy that anyone has put on the forums. 

 

Also you skipped solar power. The easiest form of passive power generation. 

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Im with Demlock and Noddles on this one, it may take time, and thats fine. Just please, don't put in hours of development into a system that limits players, we're not here to be limited, we're here to find solutions for problems and build cool ships. You may make it a challenge to build good ships, but please don't put caps/maximums and other limitations, anything should be possible as long as we put the work in. 

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Leader of DSI here, hes right about DSI tbh and even the AC is complaining a lot which remind you is compromised of the majority of the most active and largest orgs in the game aside from BOO. Ill point out that JC himself made it clear the driving factor for the stance NQ has taken was to encourage players (basically force them) to have to play with mega corporations or (large orgs) and create thriving player driven universe. Well sure i saw that working initially but what i also saw was most of the new players turning away and a lot of the veteran and solo players ive known since pre-alpha as well. Now even entire organizations and communities are! which left unchecked will end up killing off the very thing you wanted to build. How will this be a player driven universe if there are no players?

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17 hours ago, Firestorm said:

Leader of DSI here, hes right about DSI tbh and even the AC is complaining a lot which remind you is compromised of the majority of the most active and largest orgs in the game aside from BOO. Ill point out that JC himself made it clear the driving factor for the stance NQ has taken was to encourage players (basically force them) to have to play with mega corporations or (large orgs) and create thriving player driven universe. Well sure i saw that working initially but what i also saw was most of the new players turning away and a lot of the veteran and solo players ive known since pre-alpha as well. Now even entire organizations and communities are! which left unchecked will end up killing off the very thing you wanted to build. How will this be a player driven universe if there are no players?

Totally agree here.

 

I think ... or at least hope that NQ learn a valuable lesson that you can't really "force" something to happen.

A 360 world with unprecedented freedom but you're "forced" to join an org to get ahead... sorry that's a dichotomy that even my youngest brother can pick out.

You need to create a balanced world that allows civilizations to be built naturally. Building a universe that practically leaves no room for individuality defeats the purpose of a solo player joining solo all together. They need to come to the choice of joining groups on their own. Not feel like the only way to get ahead is to join a group.

 

When you remove the freedom of choice, you remove the will to play. Because no one.. I mean NO ONE likes the feeling of being forced to do anything.

 

Even providing large organizations with benefits of being large will further alienate solo players and turn large people away.

 

I feel that NQ will need to back peddle on much of their beliefs and stances if this game is to have even the slightest chance of making it to launch and beyond.

 

The game isn't fun

The game is too grindy

The game has too many sinks and not enough faucets

The game is heavily imbalanced

The game turns people's stomachs thinking about even logging on

 

NQ need to really look at other games and see the mechanics they've built and the UIs they've designed that draw in the crowds.

 

... There's a ton I could say they need but I honestly feel like they just look at these forum posts and think "This dumbass doesn't know what we need" ... and then they come out with some fudged up feature that just pisses off their whole community.

 

I'm holding out for hope but I don't know if my patience will be enough for me to stick around for a new system... and it sucks... terribly.

This next patch needs to be a shining beacon worth logging on for or they're going to be doing a "No Man's Sky" approach to this game.

 

 

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The positive response is overwhelming (you had your own org members like your post... lol)... Demanding of the devs to make the game like you imagine (so itll be "good" in your eyes), threatening them and bashing them for being too proud and hardstanced will certainly get your point across. Also bashing on the "carebears", probably around 5/6th of the playerbase, is not really a smart move when you want to convince the majority. This is not a PVP focused game. If you want dev time for one of the 6 pillars in the game be more considerate.

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On 1/28/2021 at 5:15 AM, carijay766 said:

The positive response is overwhelming (you had your own org members like your post... lol)... Demanding of the devs to make the game like you imagine (so itll be "good" in your eyes), threatening them and bashing them for being too proud and hardstanced will certainly get your point across. Also bashing on the "carebears", probably around 5/6th of the playerbase, is not really a smart move when you want to convince the majority. This is not a PVP focused game. If you want dev time for one of the 6 pillars in the game be more considerate.

Let me clarify

  • I did not "HAVE" or force or tell anyone "like" anything.
  • I DID share this on as many DU focused platforms as I could to ensure as much exposure as possible
  • I structured the entire post, and others in such a way where it made too much sense to engage in even a fraction of the idea
  • Regardless if you agree with me or not, the state of the game is proof that change for better systems, features, approaches and executions are needed from NQ because .23 and other events are proof that the game is in a problematic state.
  • If the game keeps this direction going, you and many others in the 5/6 pillars will find themselves alone in a game built to force team play where all you do is mine to do anything... hence why I even write posts to begin with. Because if you did infact want this game to succeed, you'd be writing up posts on what NQ could do to help the community.
  • Non-PVP orgs either are leaving without saying a word or are trying to tough it out while losing their members because the game is boring or too grindy (too many sinks and not enough faucets)
  • This post was not 100% about PVP but it did dive down the route of PVP because everything in this game is PVP in some form or another lol
  • This was mainly a core mechanic that would function on most of the pillars in the game and not just PVP
  • What I wrote is rough or can be easily taken as a threat... but it's more of a promise. DU has already lost the interest of about 258 BOO players and probably 350-475 players from the AC (yes, those are rough numbers but our intel suggests it's somewhere in that window). Those would be both Alpha and Beta Subscribed players. Which is a crapload of money that walk out the door from NQ. So from a business standpoint, it's important they pay attention to their community... and no not just me.
  • Also, I'll say to you like I said to another negative critic via a stream. This document takes on a multifaceted approach to a game feature from a design standpoint. The intellectuals at NQ more than likely took the time to read this from start to finish and by-passed the harsh negatives and pulled out the actual substance within. If you failed to grasp that, then this document just wasn't for you...
  • Finally, Firestorm, and several others who've liked, responded to or even read this and several other posts are not in BOO
     

image.thumb.png.83cad01ca26e2ad7f2c05193d5a10ac6.png

 

 

image.thumb.png.469dab0a9789e65bce04979db7430922.png

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