Communism

Based on what's been publicly posted (i.e. I haven't tested this and haven't checked the source code):

quote: [Licho] mexes now start 50%private and go to 0% over 5 mins.

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/2260 13 days ago

I'm pretty sure that Licho here is referring to base mex production, not overdrive. As far as overdrive goes:

quote: [KingRaptor] More overdrive metal is given to team members who contribute their energy. 50% of the overdrive distribution is weighted by how much energy a player contributes. The other 50% is distributed evenly between all players.

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/2170 25 days ago

mexes now start 50%private and go to 0% over 5 mins.

^ why do this?

It does not encourage porc porc porc. It encourages "FRIKKIN NUBS SPAWN AT FOCKIN FRONT!!!!", which already a golden rule anyway. In truth, both special exceptions suck in any (un)imaginable way.

You didn't read what I wrote carefully. Let me quote:

quote: It encourages "FRIKKIN NUBS SPAWN AT FOCKIN FRONT!!!!"

>I'd honestly rather the overdrive system ramped down to 0% extra income too, so players get fixed amount of compensation for the metal spent upping the team's overdrive, instead of a game long bonus for porc'ing in a corner.

This really makes sense. It gives metal back to those who invest, but still benefits the whole team better in the long run vs individual players.

Eddie, building offensive units, capping mex or even defensive structures (heh, within reason) all benefit the team too.

Having one player in the back pushing out nothing but overdrive E is a terrible strategy, especially with the current overdrive model. Do that currently and the player getting the most metal is also the player contributing nothing to your team's offensive abilities, that extra eco in the future won't offset the massive losses you'll take for not being able to actually defend yourself in the present. Plus overdrive gets stupidly inefficient fast if you spend -all- your metal on it, and that's compounded with the fact your team will lose mid-map mex, making the fewer mex left to overdrive even less efficient. Overall the team's economy would nosedive doing that. It's far better done in moderation, with investments in combat capable units alongside to protect your economy/hurt theirs.

Even if the money was split evenly it would still be a nub strat since even with all of ZK's automation, player micro is a valuable comodity, and even the worst player in the world doesn't need all their attention to play farmvile with fusions and could afford to babysit some skirmishers/raiders or send out an occasional scout at least, might as well use that free fac you get.

>But that's not a workable strategy if the econ player only gets an equal share of base income (after a five-minute delay) and an equal share of overdrive.

Even though it's a terrible strat anyway, that's a moot point. Since you ignored the part where I endorsed a bonus that ramped down over time, which would actually pay back the metal spent on overdrive energy with a little interest. Provided they're not pumping metal into a idiot-trap-already-superoverdriven e-grid that is.

I think you're confusing me with someone else, DroopyTheDog.

I'd also like more details on how communism works, summarized in one place.

1: The rules for how mex income is split
2: The rules for how reclaim income is split
3: The rules for how overdrive income is split
4: The rules for how non-excess energy is split
4: The rules for how excess energy is split (tied with overdrive)

I know some of these already but I would like to see all the rules all at once.

>1: The rules for how mex income is split

When first built, the base income of a mex goes 50% to to the owner and 50% evenly split among the team. Over the next five minutes, the split goes to 0% to the owner and 100% split evenly among the team.

>2: The rules for how reclaim income is split

Reclaim is given 100% to the owner of the reclaiming units.

>3: The rules for how overdrive income is split

50% of overdrive income is split evenly among the team. The other 50% is split among the team based on each person's energy contribution. I'm not certain whether it's based on (a) how much energy each person produces, (b) how much energy each person sends to overdrive, or (c) how much overdrive energy each person delivers to mexes, since those three things are not necessarily the same. For the sake of simplicity I would hope it's (b).

To clarify: (a) and (b) could be different if someone has a high energy production but their storage is mostly empty, since how much energy you send to overdrive is based on how full your storage is. Likewise, (b) and (c) could be different if their storage is mostly full but very little of their energy production is tied into the grids, since the amount of energy reaching a mex to overdrive it is limited by the capacity of the power plants that it is connected to.

Also, you didn't ask about this, but it's also important to know how excess metal is handled. If a player is excessing metal, his excess is split evenly among the team. If the entire team is excessing metal, the excess is wasted - or so I assume. There's a "waste" stat in the team metal breakdown when you hover over the resource bars, so I assume that's what that's for; I haven't seen this explicitly stated anywhere.

>4: The rules for how non-excess energy is split

According to GoogleFrog (see http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=514306&sid=902a0752e054298e02f67d84c236851d#p514306 ):

"No one is quite sure how energy sharing works in ZK [..] Energy income is mostly shared"

>5: The rules for how excess energy is split (tied with overdrive)

This I'm not sure about. I assume it works like excess metal - if a player is excessing E it gets split among the rest of the team (this would be nice for someone to confirm). If everyone is excessing E, it will go to overdrive.

Overdrive works like this, in GoogleFrog's words: "the fill proportion of the ally team's total energy storage is the proportion of the ally team's energy income sent to overdrive." So even if nobody on the team is excessing energy, there will still be some energy going to overdrive. If your storage is 25% full, then 25% of your current energy production will be sent to overdrive.

This is just what I've learned by reading public postings. If someone could confirm or correct this (and expand on the open questions) that would be much appreciated.

I've done tests on overdrive after finding a bug some months ago.

Energy WILL be split perfectly among them when..
.. there are several metal extractors anywhere on the map with sufficient energy connected to them and they are not linked to a single grid.
.. there are several metal extractors anywhere on the map and some of them do not have sufficient energy.
... all metal extractors in a grid have the same metal output.

Energy WILL NO be split perfectly among them when there are two or more metal extractors with different base output connected to the same grid. This is a little bug (Issue 671) and only plays very SMALL role. It does not massively decrease income, numbers tend to be pretty small.

A general rule:
Make sure all your grid colors are similar. Grid color is based on efficiency which is defined as METAL PER UNIT OF ENERGY. When you see purple or blue grids, either connect them to green, yellow or red ones or build additional energy next to it. For further information on overdrive check out the "OD Efficiency" thread.