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Please re-enable self-sufficient metal production

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4 years ago
from builders, caretakers, etc.
Because it was a really nice feature, especially in FFA games.
What was again the reason to remove it? I don't remember.
+5 / -0


4 years ago
What would be the reason to add it?
+2 / -0

4 years ago
if you want it for FFA, make it an option?
+0 / -0
It's necessary in FFAs with people that don't play to win (probably a majority of FFA players). Because those people usually don't realize that you have a hidden conch economy, so you can play seriously while they do whatever on the land :P
/s
+0 / -0

4 years ago
!setoptions tweakmode=blabla

{
staticcon = {
metalmake = 0.3
}, amphcon = {
metalmake = 0.225,
} ...
}
+2 / -0
4 years ago
hi made a tweak for enableing that option dont know exact numbers of old metal production so set all to +2 metal per con/fac

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/29427?postID=211514
+1 / -0
+2 metal cons that cost 120 pay back in one minute, making mexes obsolete. The only upside is that it almost makes Mason worth having... except Convict has the same income/cost plus energy-free shield, and Conjurer gets the (area) cloak.

Old numbers were something like income = 0.03 x buildPower.

If you want a metalmakor, why not make it a dedicated unit? Why slavishly revert the past if you could instead actually design something?
+3 / -0

4 years ago
economy doubles in like 12 minutes. This lead to the maximum power insta win sorta thing of getting like 45m/s then tossing yourself into some ponds of water for 50 mins until you can literally just walk 600 conches onto land and build a singu in the enemy base in 5 seconds for BIG STONKS. Any ground-based economy in a FFA environment is irrelevant because you can just go bonkers getting infinate metal in undefined time length games by just going off to a corner of the map and reproducing asexually, interacting with noone until you finally decide to win.
+8 / -1
4 years ago
So that we can finally make something like a metal fabricator from Supreme Commander? I like that idea, it will make games go faster but I think we should balance it by making it take a big abount of space, giving flat metal (not being affected by overdrive) eating a lot of energy (maybe 50?) and maybe make it explode like a fusion plant.
+0 / -0
USranknop
4 years ago
This would probably be an easier to understand economy scaling mechanic than overdrive.

Having both would be weird though. Do you still have overdrive when you can just build fabricators? When is it optimal to build one or the other? Many players can't even figure out when they should build wind vs. solar.

Anyway this is pretty easy to mod in with tweaks.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
You can make a self sufficient metal producer by putting a nano next to a swarm turret
+1 / -0
I like the idea of making it a larger plant, like a big mex drill that can dig deep enough to produce metal anywhere.
The other idea would be to add metal production capability to a strider. Athena maybe? But it must uncloak to produce metal.
+0 / -0
quote:
I like the idea of making it a larger plant

All factories produce +0.5 income and are fairly large; wish granted.

The doubling time of a factory-farm economy is around 26 minutes though, so ... it's not implausible for it to make cost, but it will be a slow takeoff.

However, with your +2 universal basic income you already have a portable metal farm worth ~10 of old metal-producing caretakers.
+1 / -0
4 years ago
Metal making was removed from the game deliberately to make it less porcy. Having overdrive instead of metal makers means your economy is always tied to territory control, even when you scale it with energy. Metal makers of any kind mean that, as the game progresses, the territory economy becomes exponentially less important compared to the energy economy, thus turning the game into a porcy-fest.

I think the base income is good enough for FFA dudes who got their ass destroyed. If you can't even control a few mexes, just roll over and die.
+0 / -0
Alternatively, i also think the recovery and offshore economy of the con-eco-ZK could be approximated via something that has about the same investment payback, but isn't self-defending, too cloakable, or mobile. So, flowing from that approach:

- The basic investment shouldn't be that huge to build on a +2 basic income
- It should be strictly worse than overdrive
- As a rule of thumb, it should not return more than (old caretaker: 0.3 / 220) = 0.00136363636 per metal invested

Let's say we want a device that produces +1 metal. At the desired efficiency, its total cost should be around 733 metal. Let's round this up for a full 800.

Let's assume the thing also consists of two modules - one that produces energy, and one that produces metal by converting energy, like the good old metalmakor. If we divide this in half, then we have 400m of an energy source, 400m of a +1 metalmakor, and a requirement that the metalmakor not be more efficient than overdrive in any practical situation.

We achieve the latter by assuming that the energy source has the maximum available efficiency - because in a non-intended scenario, this is what a thriving player would use to try to use it instead of overdrive anyway. The most cost-efficient energy source in ZK is the advanced geo, costing 1500 metal (accounting for morph) and producing +100 energy, for a ratio of 0.0666(6). A 400 metal share in an advgeo project will give us 26.666(6) energy to spend on the metal maker. We can round this down to 25 to compensate for having rounded up to 800 earlier and for a nice numerical match with basic geo.

So, in summary:
- 400 cost metal maker
- Drains 25 energy, which costs you ~400 metal to obtain
- Generates 1 metal
- Pays back under optimal conditions in 800 seconds = 13.3333333333 minutes
- Lower efficiency with less cheap energy
- energy component cost with 21 tidal generators: 735m, total project cost 1135m, payback time: 1135s (18.91 minutes)
- energy component cost with (25/35) share of a fusion: 714m, total project cost per makor: 1114m, payback time: 1114s ( 18.5666666667 minutes)
- energy component cost with (25/225) share of a singu: 445m, total project cost per makor: 885m, payback time: 885s ( 14.75m)
- Static, cannot be cloaked
- Large footprint
- Probably not worth having in the game anyway, tbh
- An energy-based makor means that players who had their singus shinied actually will be punished by higher energy costs, so maybe flat +1 for a 1000m is preferable
- do you really want it with those numbers, really?
+0 / -0

4 years ago
what about some randomly meteors, which give metal? they wont do much harm and metal income requires 'some' incentive as in controling land and reclaiming orders... i really dislike the idea of having income out of nowhere. there is no correlation/interaction to anything else in the game at all.
+1 / -0


4 years ago
Red Alert style crate drops could allow an interesting empty-space comeback mechanic.
+1 / -0
Meteors could be interesting but could also be annoying, apart from the visual distraction and constantly having to reclaim everywhere, they could make stuff be unexpectedly destroyed. Maybe for FFA only, and a small number of big meteors, with warnings before the storms.
+0 / -0
Hidden econ was terrible. Right now the come back is having energy + rez.
+3 / -0
Robots making metal out of nowhere... it doesn't make sense...
+4 / -0
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