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How is power shared?

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2 years ago
I noticed you can build one power and get as much power as you want (almost) from the rest of the team. How is it shared?
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2 years ago
I'm not sure if this is entirely correct, but here is how I think it is: Everybody has a base energy rate from their own power plants. If your net rate is positive, your current energy divided by your maximum storage capacity determines the portion of your net energy rate that enters the teams' overdrive pool as far as the grid allows it. Metal from overdrive is shared but with a limited return of investment for those who built the power plants. Energy that goes above your storage capacity that cannot be used for OD is evenly distributed to your team.
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2 years ago
quote:
Energy that goes above your storage capacity that cannot be used for OD is evenly distributed to your team.

Team stall compensation takes place before overdrive. So a person who only spams cloakers can prevent you from overdriving with your singus.
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quote:
Team stall compensation takes place before overdrive. So a person who only spams cloakers can prevent you from overdriving with your singus.

This isn't how it works. Someone spamming cloakers does reduce team overdrive, but that is only because overdrive energy is
Team net income * Team current storage / Team storage capacity

There is some fiddling around for players with zero storage, but this is the basic idea. A situation where this much energy is not sent would be a bug.

The equation above is all we need as far as economy balance is concerned. See the design principal of player ownership being irrelevant to the simulation. But on a per-player level, the required energy is made up by having each player with positive net income contribute their energy in proportion to their net income. This works because the sum of the positive net incomes of the players on the team is always at least the net income of the team. Any energy they cannot store overflows to the rest of their team. I recall making the overflow proportional to how much free storage each player has, up to a maximum of 500.

The upshot is that if we have the following two person team:
  • Player A has a Singu, full storage, and no expenditure.
  • Player B has empty storage and no energy income or expenditure.
Then half of Player A's income will be sent to Player B. This isn't due to any innate sharing, rather, Player A is only sending half their income to overdrive because the total energy storage of the team is only half full. The extra energy flows to Player B because it has to go somewhere.

At least, this is what I recall from when I wrote the latest version, plus a quick glance at the code. I don't mind what the code does as long as
Team net income * Team current storage / Team storage capacity

holds on a team level, and the energy distribution within teams works on a social level. Someone looking closely at the code could probably find edge cases and bugs.
+3 / -0

2 years ago
There's also the effect of excess OD:
  • if there are unconnected generators, they are unable to contribute energy to any mex but they still contribute to the overall OD pool.
  • if one person has +5 net income he contributes some energy to the OD pool, but if another has -5, they cancel out in the scale of the team so nothing in the OD pool actually goes to OD.

In both of those cases the part of the OD energy pool that didn't actually get used for OD gets redistributed back to the people equally, regardless of how much they contributed, so those who contributed less are effectively subsidized by the others.
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quote:
if there are unconnected generators, they are unable to contribute energy to any mex but they still contribute to the overall OD pool.

Sort of. To clarify, whether their energy is connected or not doesn't change how much a player sends to overdrive. The grid only limits how much energy can be spent on metal extractors in the grid. Energy is refunded back to the team if, due to poor grid connections, more energy is sent to overdrive than can be spent an all the mexes of the team.

quote:
if one person has +5 net income he contributes some energy to the OD pool, but if another has -5, they cancel out in the scale of the team so nothing in the OD pool actually goes to OD.

I glanced at the code yesterday and couldn't see this part. I think it was removed in my most recent rework. If the team is making a net loss, and nobody is personally excessing, then I think everyone keeps their energy to themselves. I would want someone to run some tests to be sure though.

Older versions of overdrive had each player with positive net income contribute
net income * current storage / storage capacity

to overdrive. This created the opportunity for the collected energy to exceed
Team net income * Team current storage / Team storage capacity,

which caused the difference to be refunded. I think this is the mechanic you are referring to. I replaced this system with one that first figures out the whole team contribution to overdrive, then has each player with positive net income contribute energy in proportion to the required overdrive energy. Exactly as much energy as is required is sent to overdrive so there isn't any to refund to stallers (except in the case of grid limitations).

I replaced the old system because having each player send
net income * current storage / storage capacity

can result in insufficient energy. Consider these players:
  • Player A has 0/500 energy stored and a Singu.
  • Player B has 500/500 energy stored and nothing else.
Both players would send nothing to overdrive under the old system, which is incorrect, as the team should be sending half a Singu to overdrive. This may have been noticed and fixed with some fudge at some point. I replaced the system though as it was causing energy fluctuation issues and only really existed to make energy sharing kick in earlier in some edge cases.
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2 years ago
wait what.. O.o ???

if
player 1
builds an unconnected singu

and if
player 2
builds a mex connected to a solar

does the singu now overdrive the mex that is connected to its own separate grid?
+0 / -0

2 years ago
quote:
if
player 1
builds an unconnected singu

and if
player 2
builds a mex connected to a solar

does the singu now overdrive the mex that is connected to its own separate grid?


yes? 2 energy from the mex+solar grid goes to overdrive the mex, and the excess energy from the singu overflows into storage/excess.
if the singu did not exist then the energy/mex grid would contribute 0 energy to overdrive because there is no excess energy. Unconnected energy allows the connected grids to push more power into mexes. If unconnected energy production is greater than current energy expenditure there is the potential that that excess energy will excess into nothing instead of overdrive.

The teamshare of metal production has not been discussed in this thread yet.

Base metal income is the sum of the base values of metal income from team units like innate +2, commander +4 income, and the base metal income of mexes(commonly +2). reclaim metal is metal that is reclaimed, this unconditinally goes straight into the reclaiming player's income. overdrive metal income is the total metal income of mexes over base.
Every player gets an even piece of base metal income. Every player gets a portion of overdrive metal income based on a function. Over time, this function will distribute to every player an even piece and an investment refund, where the investment refund is 50% of the metal they spent on economy buildings.

For example, if player A built one singu for economy and player B built no economy, over time player B will recieve a net total of +2000 metal more than player A. You can learn current player metal overdrive income statistics "ROI tracker"(Return On Investment).
+1 / -0

2 years ago
Zero crack. And math? Not even once.

[...]on a per-player level, the required energy is made up by having each player with positive net income contribute their energy in proportion to their net income. [...]the sum of the positive net incomes of the players on the team is always at least the net income of the team. Any energy they cannot store overflows to the rest of their team.

Add to opening screen. Include the equations. Have them solve one case before allowing entrance to lobpot.
+0 / -0
2 years ago
If I understand well, when I reclaim Metal without having M storage (because I just lost my Com, by example), that metal is lost for everybody ?
+1 / -0
"is lost"

if this is true i have sent 100 detriments worth of metal into the void =P
i always felt that reclaiming would improve my storage build speed by providing income but i guess thats not actually true if i have no storage.

eg. 2 cons and a solar.. 1 con makes storage.. 1 con reclaims ~ makes me think im getting +E and +M so its improving my recovery.

on a semi unrelated note.. i often see players building 8 or so storage silos.. does this in any way improve there metal income?

sorry im sure its been covered somewhere before but i forget
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2 years ago
I forgot to be explicit with metal excess. But combining the ideas already posted in this thread: the sim acts like it doesn't care about ownership. If you excess, but you have a teammember with storage, what does the sim do?

the sim adds that metal to the team's storage.
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2 years ago
quote:
on a semi unrelated note.. i often see players building 8 or so storage silos.. does this in any way improve there metal income?

Storage is just that. Storage. It stores what you've got. If you have nothing to store, you've wasted your income building storage. If you have something to store, it gets stored, and, in team games, deprives the team of the income that would have been otherwise excessed by you and received by them. Which is why your teammates might ask in a less-than-polite manner why you're building them if it's more than one.
+1 / -0
2 years ago
Yes, but Isn't it said than reclaimed metal isn't shared ?

In that case, what become of the metal reclaimed you don't use fast enough and has not enough storage to put in ?
+0 / -0
2 years ago
As Mirtille asked, I think the answer is that reclaimed metal becomes 'metal income' and so would feed over into team storage past your limit.

That said, I do almost always build 1-3 storage units, so I have enough excess for producing units like crabs.
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2 years ago
Innate and extractor income is shared before it reaches player storage. The income is split and sent to each player. Reclaim is "not shared" in the sense that it all goes to the reclaiming player, and is only shared if their storage is full. All metal (and energy) that doesn't fit in storage is fully shared. Resources are only ever completely lost when the entire team has full storage.
+2 / -0
2 years ago
Ah. Thank you. Then I can reclaim even when I've no storage : It simply goes to allies (minus what I use).

It wasn't clear in my head until now.
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