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storage

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9 years ago
A breakdown of an idea that knorke recently suggested regarding newbies hoarding metal in storages: remove the mex income share for teammates who have current metal above the base storage (ie. 500 currently) as long as there are people who don't have the base storage filled. Reclaim, refunds from cancelled projects, share and passive income from cons can all fill the storage added by Storage buildings without change.

Why:
* clueless people won't clog most resources, but will still be allowed some (from Comm)
* 1v1 and FFAs unaffected
* promotes aggressive play (main way to fill additional Storages is reclaim)
* Storage becomes mostly for mitigating team excess, can no longer be used to drain team income
* Still useful for sudden influx (eg. cancel a heavy, or reclaim a wreck field)

Why not:
* Storage building is already underused as is
* Makes a part of the storage "special" and different (though in a way it already is since this base storage is not given by any unit unlike the storage added by Storages)
* Newbies would likely learn to spend M to get more and would suck at it (HLT simbase, or evergrowing storage farms etc.) which would be just as wasteful
* Storage becomes a noobtrap
* Inelegant, trying to fix a social issue with a technical solution (proper one is to talk to newbies and teach them to play properly - though on the other hand many of them have problems communicating)

The cons seem to massively outweigh the pros (especially the last con), but I'm putting this up because storage farms made by newbies keep causing rage, so maybe people can find more good points or somehow counter the bad ones. Alternatively, someone with power can come and simply say that the shortcomings are beyond salvation and this won't work for whatever reason.
If this makes it in I can code it because it's a one-liner.
+2 / -0
I don't see it having much of a impact since I can easily have 3k storage and need it because in 10 seconds it fills up from reclaiming, also it perfectly usable for good con mass def spam and not to mention it nice to have some metal on the side to quickly counter stuff.

My honest opinion. I really don't see it making a difference to me. Lastly a newbie could be spamming dirt-boxes and he could get more income.

I really don't see this as a solution. The solution is to tell them to use it up. Then again you can't punish people for playing differently in games where people try to play on a competitive level when the developers try to promote a casual environment for the game.
+0 / -0
quote:
* Storage becomes a noobtrap
* Inelegant, trying to fix a social issue with a technical solution

I'd argue it's an interface and teaching issue. The most obvious indication of economic strength is the storage bar, which is one of the reasons I massively reduced its prominence in the Economy Panel. New players storing up resources is nothing new in RTS (which I think is because RTS interfaces in general give players bigger numbers for storing resources, so it looks like it is correct play when it isn't), but since Zero-K cares about high values for gross income and spending, making those things prominent means making them bigger is good.

CZrankAdminLicho said they like the Economy Panel more than the Resource Bars, and I'd be interested to see if new players make the numbers that should be bigger (i.e. gross income and spending) bigger, and thus play well without having to learn the unintuitive lesson that big numbers are bad.

Note that I'm operating under the assumption that people in general like to see numbers get bigger, at least when in doubt about what to do.
+1 / -0
9 years ago
TL;DR:
+ no income share for players with metal>=500
+ no reclaim share (current)
? 5% private mex income (current)
? no other units' income share (current)
+ no OD investment payback
+ better energy share before team OD


PLrankAdminSprung's, actually @knorke's idea is generally good. Still it would not be the best overall ressource distribution yet.

AFAIK currently metal extractors' income is 95% shared and 5% private. If a player has metal income that exceeds his storage, his metal net income contributes to the shared metal income while he is excluded from shared income (Is this currently really correctly implemented?). If a player's energy net income (=sum of the players units' energy rates) is positive, it is used for team overdrive as much as possible and overdrive metal is shared proportionally to the players' overdrive energy investment among the players whos metal storage is not full (not sure about the proportionality, but if it was so, then high energy investment would be rewarded, but not good linking).

What if all team members have >500 metal stored? Then the income should be distributed among those who don't have full storage instead of nobody getting income share. Imo there should be storage states of players: 1. metal<500, 2. metal>=500 but not full, 3. metal=metal storage. All mexes' metal income (or 95% of it) and overdrive except reclaim should be shared equally among the players of the best state. Of course the discretization of states is a bit arbitrary, but easy to understand. Additionally people of state 3 would also give the rest of their metal net income (reclaim + other units' incomes like coms, facs, cons...) to the players of the best state.

Generally the only argument for any kind of share reduction, for example no reclaim share, 5% private mex income, no other units' income share, OD investment payback,..., that comes to my mind, is preventing waste/rewarding good play. But OD investment payback rewards noobs for spamming fusions even though only connected to 1 mex. Excluding reclaim from share on the other hand rewards good play, while it keeps the only purpose of storage. Current 5% mex metal income private share also rewards good play. 5% private share and not sharing reclaim only causes uneven income in no noob games though.

Excluding other units' incomes from shared income is actually arbitrary. Even if their income is meant to keep their building ability without other income, this is not an argument to exclude them from sharing. The best reason to not share other units' income is propably 2nd coms for uneven teams. If the 2 coms player didn't get both coms' income, income would be very imbalanced within the smaller team. Not sharing coms' income also punishes com loss. But should other units than mexes/coms' income not be shared? Those other units' income is correlated to a player's BP, so not forcing him to share it seems reasonable. However it rewards nano spam a bit even though not enough res for BP..

AFAIK energy is currently not shared, but energy excess only used for OD. So when my enegy production is destroyed, I still get metal share, but have not enough energy to spend it. Also if I have a well connected energy production, but need the energy for building already, and another player has badly connected energy production with energy excess, it would be better if his energy excess would power my building while my energy excess is used for OD, where the other player would get his share from, too. (Of course only connected energy can be used for OD, but any energy for building.) In no noob games it would be good if all players' energy gross income rate would be shared equally. (But while a player has at least his energy reserve, his shared energy income rate should be limited to his energy need while the rest is used for OD and if there is still excess, the rest distributed to the emptiest player storages first. Maybe even do automatic transfer of stored energy additionally to OD.) The problem would be that bad players could drain the team's energy by building without own energy production or by spamming cloaking field. So good players would have to build energy productions to also power bad players who don't build power plants by themselves, instead of bad players being punished for not having energy productions. So the best solution for mixed skill games would be that every player uses his energy for own units first. Excess is then given to players with energy deficit first giving all players with energy=0 equal energy rate, then filling energy reserve of lowest player storage first (maybe the minimum of player reserve and 200 instead), and only the rest goes to OD. While the players' energy rates calculated by those principles except OD are held constant, the teams' remaining energy rate would have to be redistributed to all power plants for ideal OD, no matter who owns them.

And of course afk or resigning players should give all their res to the team (/players with best state) (not sure if implemented yet).
+0 / -0
FIrankFFC
9 years ago
so i cant spam 40 nanos and enough storages to make singu whit no stall?
+1 / -0

9 years ago
just remove it.
+2 / -0


9 years ago
storage or no storage, if each player is shared the same amount of metals through the game I dont really see the issue here. Noobs are going to be atrocious and useless whether they can make storages or not. Removing storage would be crap as they have application lategame for reclaiming, and breaking storages this way would be unintuitive.
+0 / -0
9 years ago
My expression about the storaege is taht its simply too expensive. It should be 50 not 100 metal. Why would u spend 100 metal to storage 500 more? Its 600, u could make (almost) 3 nanos for it, and balance your 4-6 reclaiming cons.
+0 / -0


9 years ago
The storage idea looks ok but I think it will end up unintuitive and break some cases.

The only conditions mentioned are 1v1, FFA and large teamgames. What if 6 new players play a private 3v3? These things happen from time to time. They won't be aware of this rule and it is not something they would expect. If someone suddenly loses most of their metal income it will look like a bug.

It is not obvious how to handle the case where everyone has over 500 metal stored. What if one person only has 400? What if someone has a lot more than 500? Nobody is going to remember how this is handled.

Storing metal also has legitimate uses. Store some metal to plop a turret. Instead of building an antinuke you may store 2k metal and trust that you have enough nanos to boost out an anti if the other antis are somehow disabled.

DErankBrackman there is currently no private mex income. Also there is some sort of energy share between OD. In general you need more research on the problems you are trying to fix.

I hope that people can get a good working knowledge of the economy but in large teamgames the complicated social engineering is too much for them to completely understand. This has to be understood to change things though.
+5 / -0
Long story short: We need more teaching tools. Suggested: mumble integration (and moderation), newbie teaching channel, and modifying UI elements to assist in learning rates.


I've been using that eco widget @shadowfury333 made and I believe if we made it default and made "Make Workers" flash when income outpaces expenses (>=+9 net income, regardless of metal stored) it may teach newbies what to do instead of storage spam. While this is a more passive solution to the problem instead of actively limiting resources, I believe it may have a higher impact on learning rates of newbies.

I'd also suggest the formation of a teaching channel (#ZKtrain) that autojoins newbies to. We as experienced players of zero-k should stop our complaining and start doing something about the growing issues of player inexperience on a social level. We should also start developing tools to teach instead of tools to correct behaviour (it simply won't work for some things and drains valuable development resources).

Thirdly, I highly recommend development of mumble integration (as well as making a moderation system for those who are abusive (eg: speccheat/verbally abusive) on mumble) for reducing the demand that teaching in-game puts on the teacher.

However at the end of the day, its up to the newbie to decide if he/she wants to learn or not. Those who simply wish to not learn are simply lost causes, don't waste resources developing silly game mechanics like this on them. Let them play horribly in peace. No amount of resources poured into development of good tutorials, proper teaching channels, or other methods will pay off if the person is unwilling to learn.
+4 / -0
9 years ago
I didn't know that 5% private mex share has been removed. I had the info from the polls. They are old, I know, but I didn't receive any update on it. I even reread the website manual, but there is no exact info about res share. How should you know it? I didn't check the source code nor most parts of googlecode/github though.

Is there no OD investment payback currently? Or which of my assumptions other than 5% private share were false? Is there any energy share additionally to team OD then AUrankAdminGoogleFrog? Current energy share (if even existent) seems to be far from perfect.
+0 / -0
by executor: we must construct additional pylons! see from 0:12 executor is right!
+1 / -0

9 years ago
Protip : add &t=X to the link to start a YouTube video from X seconds :
+0 / -0
quote:

EErankAdminAnarchid :
Solution to storage/flow importance debate:

Remove storage as a phenomenon.

Bump for great justice!

quote:

FRrankBlueTemplar :
2.) What does having limited storage bring to Zero-K?

quote:

CArankPxtl :
I don't think punishing excess is a big deal - having metal locked up storage instead of deployed on the map is its own punishment.

I think funneling unspent metal into teammates is the most important feature of limited storage.


I'm going to throw an idea here :

Why not follow the Zero-K designs of 1 energy = 1 metal and Overdrive to their logical conclusion?
- No arbitrary 500m cutoff as in OP.
- Remove the storage building.
- Make both Energy and Metal storage unlimited.
- Make Overdrive Energy cutoff = your current stored metal
- Make metal (and energy?) share ratio depend on how much metal you have compared to the team (weighted?) average.
(- Make teams pool energy for Overdrive?)

Additional idea for Overdrive to be more easily understandable by new players :
- Make so that when the energy bar reaches its maximum, you see some kind of glowing animation at the tip or yellow nanoparticles or something... going faster when energy flow to overdrive increases. At the same time make a small GUI widget (probably separate from the resource bar) displaying a Mex spinning where you would see the same animation of glow/nanoparticles/something incoming on that mex and it spinning faster.
+0 / -0
Skasi
9 years ago
FFA games are different. Stored metal

hidden power. Caretaker spam

instant counter. Did I just hear a nuke launch? Pff I'll just rush two antis that will be completed before the missile arrives.
+0 / -0
9 years ago
I find your lack of faith in storages disturbing.
In fact storages are so OP I was once banned for building them
+4 / -0
Storage : cost 100, footprint 3x3=9, stores 500 m&e.
Protector : cost 3000, footprint 5x8=40
Caretaker : cost 220, footprint 3x3=9, builds at 10/s

Let's say you have 30 seconds before the nukes hit.

So for those 2 Protectors (cost 6000, footprint 80) you currently need 12 storages at a cost of 1200 with a footprint of 9*12=108 and 3000*2/10/30 = 20 caretakers with a cost of 4400 and footprint of 9*22=198 to do this.

Looks like the storages are relatively negligible as an investment compared to the caretakers... (depends on how soon you see/hear the missile and how fast you can react, 30 seconds IMHO is the higher bound, especially considering that in order to stop the full 2 missiles the protector will have to be built even earlier... and with less time you would need even more caretakers)

So, looks like to me that you can do this strategy even now. Consider also that if you can afford to do this, the 12 storages at 1200 metal aren't probably a big deal to you.
+0 / -0

9 years ago
quote:
Storage : cost 100

50 if you're efficient
+0 / -0
FRrankBlueTemplar

If we're neonstorming some storageless economy system, you could easily simulate the "I want to be able to rush-out an anti" with some crazy 100%-efficient self-reclaiming building.

So give everybody unlimited M storage (but anything over 500 gets shared if you have teammates) and effectively zero E storage (all surplus E automatically goes into sharing/overdrive).

And if somebody needs to "bank" energy, you build a specific-purpose building that does nothing but self-destruct. When it self-destructs, it puts out 10 M and E for 10 seconds, giving you back its cost.

I might be overcomplicating things, though.
+0 / -0

9 years ago
Why would you want to make rushing antinukes easier to players?

If you have zero energy storage then as soon as you e-stall, all the very important things that use energy to function like shields, sensors, big fixed weapons (including defensive ones), cloak, jammer would shut down. This seems WAY too harsh as a penalty to me.

And you probably won't have time to react to self-destruct that building. Unless it's programmed to self-destruct automatically when you E-stall? That might actually work... and even give a weakness to exploit against porcupine strategies.
+0 / -0