Ideas:
As Fungiform said, the current power system is weird. Here are ideas:
Flag is no longer used to distribute energy. Instead, there is the tesla coil (or whatever). It will take energy from power sources and transfer it to consumers in range (only shoot energy in straight lines?) or other tesla coils.
A bit like in this thread, but there are no meters and no HUD like displays of energy at all - because it is not needed: Your workshop isn't producing? Better build another generator! That's the only indication you need. Build Fungiforms power storage construction, and you will even have some kind of power overview.
Also, you can append a power producer to any building (the same way snapping two elevators together works) -> power for single buildings without building a tesla coil! The attached producer will still be able to transfer energy to tesla coils.
By the way, it should be more obvious whether a structure needs energy or not. For example, the chemlab doesn't at all look like it would be consuming power. Fungiform had the idea to give any building which is a power producer/consumer a special graphic part.
Further things would have to be discussed if we want this system.
Flag is no longer used to buy/sell. Instead, there is the marketplace (or whatever). From time to time, a merchant will come by (explained below). Advantages:
-more logical than buying at a flag
-the merchant could come with a balloon or an airship from directly above the marketplace, so the player needs to build the marketplace at an accessible position
-special things could be requested for trading in something which is harder to acquire than gold
Zapper said something about the Reibachtal merchant system. Could you explain how it works?
So what is the flag good for than? Abandon it completely?
PS:
Sorry for this low quality write-up, it wrote it in a short time.
Energy distribution
As Fungiform said, the current power system is weird. Here are ideas:
Flag is no longer used to distribute energy. Instead, there is the tesla coil (or whatever). It will take energy from power sources and transfer it to consumers in range (only shoot energy in straight lines?) or other tesla coils.
A bit like in this thread, but there are no meters and no HUD like displays of energy at all - because it is not needed: Your workshop isn't producing? Better build another generator! That's the only indication you need. Build Fungiforms power storage construction, and you will even have some kind of power overview.
Also, you can append a power producer to any building (the same way snapping two elevators together works) -> power for single buildings without building a tesla coil! The attached producer will still be able to transfer energy to tesla coils.
By the way, it should be more obvious whether a structure needs energy or not. For example, the chemlab doesn't at all look like it would be consuming power. Fungiform had the idea to give any building which is a power producer/consumer a special graphic part.
Further things would have to be discussed if we want this system.
Buying/Selling
Flag is no longer used to buy/sell. Instead, there is the marketplace (or whatever). From time to time, a merchant will come by (explained below). Advantages:
-more logical than buying at a flag
-the merchant could come with a balloon or an airship from directly above the marketplace, so the player needs to build the marketplace at an accessible position
-special things could be requested for trading in something which is harder to acquire than gold
Zapper said something about the Reibachtal merchant system. Could you explain how it works?
So what is the flag good for than? Abandon it completely?
PS:
Sorry for this low quality write-up, it wrote it in a short time.
![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
These are gameplay considerations. Why did you post them into the internal artist board?
It's related. You can't design a structure (graphically) without knowing its function.
Also, I think this board should go public. What is the advantage of such a board being invisible?
Also, I think this board should go public. What is the advantage of such a board being invisible?
But indeed, we shouldn't discuss such things here. This is exactly what people were fearing when they heard about a hidden forum.For the art part: We shouldn't make an graphical effort on matter that is not settled yet or settle it in the open and then start.
>Zapper said something about the Reibachtal merchant system. Could you explain how it works?
As Sven implied: I am also not really intending to discuss anything gameplay related in a hidden forum - or even anything in the arts subforum where only the artists should have write-access and I only happen to see it for other reasons than being a part of the artist group
>Zapper said something about the Reibachtal merchant system. Could you explain how it works?
In Reibachtal/Profit Valley I did some prototyping for OC - not only does the material come in big chunks and sproutberries populate the surface, but you also do not have a base where you can buy. Instead you have a marketplace or "trading outpost". To this marketplace, traders of four factions (Knights/Clonks/Assassins/Sorcerers) will frequently travel (aka "teleport to") and offer you their specific goods.
However, not your gold are they after but, hear, your produced goods (and possibly gems you found underground)! For a successful trade you will not only have to make an appropriate offer in terms of value, but also the weight of the goods counts in - it is pretty hard to get rid of own, produced material blocks. A lightweight gem instead is pure heavens for all the merchants (and their backs)!
When the traders are pleased with the bargain, they might return with more and more valuable items the next time and be a bit more lenient when it comes to the terms of a "fair offer" - to your advantage! When they are not pleased, they will come less frequently and turn into pure cheapskates. Good for you that there is not only one trading relationship to ruin, but four!
In Reibachtal, when very, very unpleased (for example because you kill their merchants..), the factions will also reach out for vengeance. The assassins might send trained killers, the knights might besiege you (with tent and campfire!) etc.
What I like most about that whole dynamic trading stuff is, that it makes some production lines which are, to say the least, underrepresented in settlement scenarios (for example the whole weaponary) useful. You can still trade swords and shields - especially when the trader's faction is heading for a war!
It also makes good production infrastructure more rewarding - in Clonk Rage at some point you had enough metal. No need to be able to produce it 24/7 because you were such a great miner. Another story, however, if you would be able to sell the surplus that you don't need!
I want to clear up some misconceptions about the flag:The flag is mostly what defines your base area - your home. That is where your enemies can not build structures and can not use your own buildings! The main purpose is making the concept of "ownership" easier.
The buying/selling at a flag has been there as a "temporary solution" for quite some time now - afaik it is not meant to stay.
To the energy distribution: let's say we had a tesla coil. What happens when one of your tesla coils is in range of an enemy building? It won't power it, right? Woops, and now again did the base area define what the tesla coil could power. Why have an additional building then?
Energy currently can be thought of as some sort of "global" resource - similar to gold/money. The only difference that it is bound to a base (the area inside your flags). The flags do not "distribute" the power - they only define what belongs to your base. And everything in your base has access to the base's "global" power.
>Your workshop isn't producing? Better build another generator!
That is not that easy.
"Your workshop isn't producing? Well, would one wind generator suffice - I believe the wind is not that strong here, or is it? Maybe I better build a pump generator. But that one is not so efficient. Should I probably just build a new steam engine? That would be enough - I think. But it's so expensive! Maybe I should just build the wind generator AND the pump?"
Once you have power producers with different efficiencies and power consumers which need a different amount of power, it all becomes very blurry unless you have at least SOME indication of how much power you currently have (even if it is just in terms of "need more!!! / little bit too less / just enough / good reserve / a lot of additional power". You wouldn't need actual numbers per se.
> What happens when one of your tesla coils is in range of an enemy building? It won't power it, right?
Maybe it should! If your electricity is transmitted wirelessly, everyone in range should be able to steal it. If this isn't supposed to happen, I propose (purely decorational (because doing your own wiring is not a very fun mechanic imo)) wires that extend from your distribution buildings.
Current role of the flag buying
Yes, buying/selling at the flag is an emergency solution because in many rounds you just needed goods that you cannot produce. That includes Clonks and bread (because you cannot build those at the moment), but also some materials for which the scenario designer wants to add easy-to-get extra supply without the need of building up the production line, such as e.g. loam in the Skylands scenario.
The flag buying has the side effect that you can buy stuff pretty much anywhere in your base if it got larger and that is very convenient. For some scenarios (like Golden Mountain) I'd say it's even too convenient; a marketplace building would be a good thing there.
If the system is replaced buy something more elaborate - which is probably a good thing for many settlement scenarios - then we should keep in mind that quick and simple buying is still something that is absolutely crucial for some scenarios. For instance, imagine a castle siege team melee where there is some resource (e.g. gems) in the middle between two castles. Your goal is then to mine the gems (or steal them from the mining enemy), bring them home, sell them, buy weapons and nuke the other castle. In such a scenario, going through bargaining with a merchant to buy your weapons would be stupid and hinder gameplay a lot. I already dislike how in most melees, you don't know what will spawn in which chest so it's pretty much luck whether you find the weapon you want.
The trader in Reibachtal
Concerning Reibachtal, I hate the merchant. If you need something specific, waiting for a trader to deliver something useful is a chore. Just imagine the tools workshop couldn't produce every tool all the time, but only axes on Monday and buckets on Tuesday. And sometimes you'd need one piece of wood for a barrel and sometimes you'd need ten, because elaborate wood carvings on barrels just got trendy.
The idea of a foreign trader who brings exotic goods sounds like a nice charm and it certainly is something that could be added to both melee and settlement scenarios. But it does not fulfill the role of filling the gap of stuff that cannot be produced in scenarios (e.g. Clonks) and certainly doesn't fill the role of providing materials quickly (e.g. Weapons in a siege melee). Both roles are important - much more important than the guy who comes every full moon and delivers exotic spices imo - and must be considered before buying at the flag can be abolished.
Peter once made the proposal that aditionally to producing items by using raw material, you could always buy them instead right in the production building. For settlement scenarios, you would usually want to produce them - because you wouldn't want to spend your money on something you could easily produce yourself (remember: you can't just sell everything for money). Only in emergency situations or when you just can't produce something you would want to use that fallback and buy something.So in your melee scenario, after selling the gems the players would just head for the armory and buy some weapons there.
The trader is something additional and not meant to, for example, solve the problem that you lack some material in the beginning of the game and would need to wait for a merchant to arrive (like it can happen in Reibachtal)
> Peter once made the proposal that aditionally to producing items by using raw material, you could always buy them instead right in the production building.
I don't know if I like this. I can see several issues that would need to be addressed:
a) Where do you buy Clonks? I guess the obvious answer would be the flagpole. Since it marks your property, you would "recruit" Clonks there. But then we're back where we were.
b) What if the scenario designer does not want the player to have to build up the production line, but provide another challenge (like mining gold in a volcano, etc.)? You'd still always need all the different buildings to get your items. The scenario designer could pre-place the village, but then the player can no longer decide where he wants to set up his base. I basically had that problem in Golden Mountain, which is why I ended up adding some stuff like tools and explosives to the buy menu.
c) It needs an extra interaction for each building, which might be a problem for gamepad controls
d) How do you control what can be bought and what can not?
Option 1: You can buy anything that you can produce. Then the scenario designer has no control over what is available easily. E.g. you'll often want to make Clonks available for sale immediately, but never give the player the option to shortcut buying his tools. This would be very hard to control.
Option 2: There's separate lists of what can be bought (like it is now). This might be hard to convey to the player, since it's hard to know in advance whether you should build a certain building. E.g. if I need loam but don't see any water, I would still build a foundry just to find out if loam is available?
Generally, the list of things the scenario designer wants for sale is pretty small for settlement scenarios. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any settlement. But then you'd end up with empty buy lists in almost every building, and if you can buy stuff it actually comes as a surprise to the player.
> So in your melee scenario, after selling the gems the players would just head for the armory and buy some weapons there.
What exactly is the advantage of this compared to buying everything at one place like a flag or marketplace? For the marketplace, at least the player would instantly know that he is supposed to just buy stuff and not produce it. With the armory, the player would basically be required to use the secondary function of the building.
Also, what if I want to make Clonks, bread and loam available as well? Instead of just adding one more entry to the menu, there would have to be three more buildings. Plus one extra building for selling the gems.
If we really want to spread out availability of different items to different buildings, I'd rather suggest we go for traders as an auxiliary method. For example, a scenario might add a trader to some remote place as the only source of loam or some advanced construction plans.
For special scenarios that need instant buying for some reason, I would say that the scenario designer should set the goods to be always available at the trading outpost. That would imo also feel best for the player.>E.g. you'll often want to make Clonks available for sale immediately, but never give the player the option to shortcut buying his tools. This would be very hard to control.
Are you sure? I mean, that was the case in CR. But I hope we will be able to balance that well enough so that you would not need to disable buying products in the production site. In extreme cases, the scenario designer could always go the trading outpost way.
>Otherwise, there wouldn't be any settlement.
I do not agree there. Don't forget that gold is not as readily available as it was in CR. You can not just sell 40 barrels of oil and be done with it. The only way to get gold is the same way like you would get metal - mine gold and melt it to bars. IMO gold should be a very rare ressource so that you will think twice about which tools you buy - you might not be able to afford your second Clonk!
>With the armory, the player would basically be required to use the secondary function of the building.
It's not a secondary function :< It's as primary as just producing the stuff.
>What exactly is the advantage of this compared to buying everything at one place like a flag or marketplace?
Even in CR some of the better-designed scenarios have the different items in different places just for the good feeling - in CoFuT you have your weapons spread all over the castle instead of them starting in the office. In some western scenarios you will respawn weapons in the armory.
I don't think it's too wrong to assume that getting your weapons in the armory might not be what the scenario designer hates most.
IMO the advantage lies mostly in the standard settlement scenarios where, in some rare cases you need items quickly because of some emergency or because you just ran out of the required raw material. And buying the stuff in the buildings would in my opinion feel a lot better than having one trading outpost building or base like in CR where you can buy all the stuff from a giant list straight from the start or after some arbitrary time - this is imo what leads to less settlement.
>Also, what if I want to make Clonks, bread and loam available as well?
Your scenarios can always add some special stuff to the trading outpost (f.e. Clonks)
>a) Where do you buy Clonks?
I don't know. Probably also the trading outpost?
> For special scenarios [...] available at the trading outpost.
> In extreme cases, the scenario designer could always go the trading outpost way.
> in the standard settlement scenarios [...]
> always add some special stuff to the trading outpost
> Probably also the trading outpost?
So everything important gets added to the trading outpost (or flag or marketplace). Why do we need to complicate things by also buying stuff in the buildings again?
> It's not a secondary function :< It's as primary as just producing the stuff.
There would have to be two menus. Or two ways to click at the stuff in the menus. Or twice as many menu items. Either way, one of the two options would be the "primary" way and this would eat up buttons and go against our philosophy of "one button and function per building". Otherwise, we'll do things like in CR in the end and you'll have to press Double-Special2 for some operation in the building.
I'm not completely against having the option of buying stuff in the buildings and I'm sure if people really want it, a solution can be found (e.g.: carrying a sack of gold to the site and activating it in front of the building to buy stuff?). The number of scenarios in which the scenario designer would have to turn it off would probably be relatively small. I just think it's not really needed at the moment and it's not a replacement for a fast, general trading building tuned to the needs of the scenario.
> Even in CR some of the better-designed scenarios have the different items in different places just for the good feeling - in CoFuT you have your weapons spread all over the castle instead of them starting in the office. In some western scenarios you will respawn weapons in the armory.
> And buying the stuff in the buildings would in my opinion feel a lot better than having one trading outpost
"feelings" are subjective and they may change quickly when you switch from just designing and looking at things to playing them (links unrelated). I played CoFuT and other castle siege melees a lot, and the weapons being spread out arbitrarily in buildings is something I hated (while at the same time, I loved doing it when I designed such scenarios!). Whenever you're new in a scenario you have to find all the weapons first and then memorize which weapon is in which room. If you play e.g. Hammerfest against a seasoned player, he'll immediately rush you, run to that one building which contains ten superflints for some arbitrary reason and nuke your castle. Even in the Western melees, you had to play them a couple of times or to understand what was being produced in which building.
Things would be a bit better in OC because there is no hidden stuff in rooms and you can guess which building might provide what. But you'd still need to check out every building first to see what's on the list this time. You'd still need to find out whether you're supposed to buy or produce stuff this time (because we broke with our philosophy and added two functions to each building).
It would be an improvement to our current system, which consists of having chests that spawn random, arbitrary weapons. That's just horrible. But still I believe having a single buying place is the more playable option by far. The player shouldn't suffer because the game designer had "good feelings" about spreading things out.
I usually think that well designed scenarios don't need a full buy menu. But if your scenario needs everything and you really want to split things up, how about this: You add two "trading ouposts" that sell e.g. "weapons" and "misc stuff", and then you just put an armory and a chemical lab besides the weapons trader and a workshop besides the misc trader to show the player what to get where. It would be a bit like the "buying stuff at the production building" solution.
> There would have to be two menus. Or two ways to click at the stuff in the menus.
It was once suggested that these would be left click for regular production and right click for money based production.
![[gb]](/mwf/flags/gb.png "United Kingdom")
> a) Where do you buy Clonks?
Still of the opinion that you shouldn't be able to buy Clonks. Scenarios should be designed with x Clonks per player in mind, and arrange for suitable respawns.
> The scenario designer could pre-place the village, but then the player can no longer decide where he wants to set up his base.
Well, you could make pre-paid construction kits. But I suppose the problem is more that you might want the flexibility to quickly move base?
> d) How do you control what can be bought and what can not?
As Zapper said, you seem to assume that something being for sale means that it will automatically become the default option. The idea behind this system was actually that gold should be so scarce that buying things just doesn't scale.
> With the armory, the player would basically be required to use the secondary function of the building.
From my point of view, it's the other way around: If we can get rid of the buying stuff on the flag completely, buying is just a secondary production mode. Use production menu, press that other button, done. In the end we can completely skip having a "buying" menu in the first place.
Don't mind whatever solution we get, just wanted to reiterate what my idea here was :)
> Still of the opinion that you shouldn't be able to buy Clonks. Scenarios should be designed with x Clonks per player in mind, and arrange for suitable respawns.
I tried that in the dark castle scenario (you have one Clonk and just respawn at the flag). The result was that everyone would just rush into the castle and doesn't care for dying.
I understood Peter the way that the respawns per player / team are limited. So no endless sacrifices.
>quick and simple buying is still something that is absolutely crucial for some scenarios.
Simple solution: Set the merchant to "always there" for these scenarios.
So what's the conclusion here?
For me, after reading all the comments again, the best solution seems to be:
-Have some kind of marketplace/trading outpost thing.
-Buying will be possible permanently for scenarios which require it, settlement scenarios could specify certain periods where the merchant is present/away.
-Buying works like in CR, there is no advanced bargaining/trading system.
-You can sell gold/other stuff at the merchant (?)
Objections?
For me, after reading all the comments again, the best solution seems to be:
-Have some kind of marketplace/trading outpost thing.
-Buying will be possible permanently for scenarios which require it, settlement scenarios could specify certain periods where the merchant is present/away.
-Buying works like in CR, there is no advanced bargaining/trading system.
-You can sell gold/other stuff at the merchant (?)
Objections?
Well, I guess the only conclusion for now was that we need some sort of marketplace building anyway (in both versions).. :)
Hm, mind if I add another idea to this colorful set? :)
Ignoring the "where do you buy stuff" question for a moment, here's irks me most about the flag currently:
* It looks kind of alien inside of settlements. It should be something that is the natural center of your settlement - this would be a given in CR as flags would be an attachment to buildings
* At the same time, flags look too static for something that should be able to be exchanged easily ("change owner")
* The whole problem with energy distribution being tacked on.
So here's an idea: How about we make the flag a big round crystal (tesla-coil shaped?) in the color of the player, that can be slotted into energy production buildings - or optionally also constructed locally as "beacon". An unoccupied "slot" on an energy producer would look like an antenna, to show that even without it, it can transmit power, and if only to other local crystals
Some angles:
* It becomes a natural part of the settlement. If we have it unicolor and large enough it will naturally stand out of the very detail-busy graphics we have so far.
* Maybe add some glow for good measure, possibly linked to the amount of power available. Have it flicker once there's not enough energy available.
* Once we have a light system (!) it can act as a light source.
* The energy transmission function should be more intuitive due to the slotting - you could think of it as a transmission boost. I still think that energy should be transmitted even without it, but we could otherwise limit it massively (say, buildings nearly touching? That's as roughly that "append" idea)
* We can make the crystal detachable just like flags were collectable in CR. How exactly that should work depends on what we want tactically.
* The question of what "flags" are made of can be answered naturally.
Ignoring the "where do you buy stuff" question for a moment, here's irks me most about the flag currently:
* It looks kind of alien inside of settlements. It should be something that is the natural center of your settlement - this would be a given in CR as flags would be an attachment to buildings
* At the same time, flags look too static for something that should be able to be exchanged easily ("change owner")
* The whole problem with energy distribution being tacked on.
So here's an idea: How about we make the flag a big round crystal (tesla-coil shaped?) in the color of the player, that can be slotted into energy production buildings - or optionally also constructed locally as "beacon". An unoccupied "slot" on an energy producer would look like an antenna, to show that even without it, it can transmit power, and if only to other local crystals
Some angles:
* It becomes a natural part of the settlement. If we have it unicolor and large enough it will naturally stand out of the very detail-busy graphics we have so far.
* Maybe add some glow for good measure, possibly linked to the amount of power available. Have it flicker once there's not enough energy available.
* Once we have a light system (!) it can act as a light source.
* The energy transmission function should be more intuitive due to the slotting - you could think of it as a transmission boost. I still think that energy should be transmitted even without it, but we could otherwise limit it massively (say, buildings nearly touching? That's as roughly that "append" idea)
* We can make the crystal detachable just like flags were collectable in CR. How exactly that should work depends on what we want tactically.
* The question of what "flags" are made of can be answered naturally.
Sounds really interesting, but I'm not sure I got it all.- Like it is now, "ownership" and "power transmitter" areas would be, in definition, the same?
- Every energy producing building has such an area per default, even if not equipped with a tesla crystal. However, it is small, so it can only power buildings directly next to it?
- Attaching a tesla crystal increases the range of power transmission?
Yes, basically. I would think of an unowned power producer as not actually having an "area" - after all, it doesn't exert control. We'd just have the exception that buildings might take energy from producers right next to it. I know this has been discussed before, but personally I dislike two buildings sitting right next to each other not doing the obvious more than the design inconsistency...
then?
Well, no, that's exactly what I did not mean. Talking about "boosting" might have been a bad choice of words :)
The idea (which is completely optional to the whole "slot" concept, btw) was basically that energy producers without a "flag" never get fed into the whole "area" system. Areas should be all about control, and what "control" is an unclaimed power station? I think it might also have tricky edge cases, like a neutral power producer right outside a flag radius.
Instead, a power consumer in this model would just first do a
The idea (which is completely optional to the whole "slot" concept, btw) was basically that energy producers without a "flag" never get fed into the whole "area" system. Areas should be all about control, and what "control" is an unclaimed power station? I think it might also have tricky edge cases, like a neutral power producer right outside a flag radius.
Instead, a power consumer in this model would just first do a
FindObject(Find_OnRect(x+wdt/2, y-hgt/2, 10, hgt), Find_IsPowerProducer()) (e.g. check directly to its left & right) and then check the grid. Might get a bit messier for the code. On the plus side we might get something like a basic priority system out of it.
How would ownership and taking over bases work when buildings are "equipped" with "flags"?
Ownership should work like before. The idea here is that an energy producer is sort-of the center of the settlement, therefore pairing it up seems intuitive with me.
I guess the question is what happens with bases that don't have an energy producer? That's sort of what the "beacon" idea was about, even though I'm not really sure on the exact modalities. If we want it like the flag is currently, we would it have construct some sort of pillar automatically. In case we want to go more fancy, we could have it cost something (a few rocks, or gold?) and leave a pillar behind, like Nachtfalter suggested.
I guess the question is what happens with bases that don't have an energy producer? That's sort of what the "beacon" idea was about, even though I'm not really sure on the exact modalities. If we want it like the flag is currently, we would it have construct some sort of pillar automatically. In case we want to go more fancy, we could have it cost something (a few rocks, or gold?) and leave a pillar behind, like Nachtfalter suggested.
Okay, I might misunderstand you.You want producers to have some sort of range where they transport power to other buildings (regardless of friend or foe). Aditionally, you could equip those buildings with a "flag" (crystal) and then they would be linked (only?) to the power of the base?
I dunno... If you have to attach an energy crystal to every power consumer, we could just go back to attaching a linekit to every power consumer?If you use the crystals only to enlarge the covered area, it would be enough to just have them as "beacons", since placing it next to them would have the same effect as putting them into the slot?
I'd go for every power consumer and producer has it's own, big enough, area of delivery/consuming energy. To connect remote objects you'd have to build the beacons, or another building between it and a building that's already connected.
OT(?):
Uhm yeah, there's another thing about energy. I have never liked to build steam engines in CR, because of the way they waste resources. This is what happend way too often: I have one coal left in the energy plant. I use the elevator for one second. The power plant burns the whole coal and I have energy for one minute, even though I only needed it 10 seconds. So the whole piece of coal is gone for nothing.
Is this still how it is in OC?
If so, I'd suggest having the energy producers an internal energy storage. The steam engine should have at least enough storage for the energy of one coal (like 10000 CJ (ClonkJoule :D)), so it's not wasted when it starts burning the coal and you don't consume energy while it does so.
Considering light:
it would be cool to have buildings glow at night when they are connected to the energy field. Even though they are not really power consumers they could still glow for a very small amount of energy. (1 CJ every 10 frames or so)
>Is this still how it is in OC?
No.
Once you are on low power, the steam engine turns one coal into 100(+/-) fuel and while you are still low one power that fuel is turned/burned into energy
> I dunno... If you have to attach an energy crystal to every power consumer, we could just go back to attaching a linekit to every power consumer?
No, you have to only slot one crystal to connect all producers and consumers in the radius. Otherwise see the answer to Matthias.
Yet another idea for energy:What if you can grab the Windmill (or other energy producer) and every building you click gets connected to energy by a line?
Could also cost some resources that have to be placed in the Windmill. The further away the building is from the next connected building the more cost. Could be that two metal give you 20m of energy line or something.
Pros that I see in that:
- Energy related information is connected to energy buildings. Information which building is connected is only visible when grabbing the energy buildings.
- Connecting buildings near your infrastructure is cheaper
- If clicking buildings is to tedious there could be a "connect all buildings in range"-button
Mockup of the energy concept
Attachment: EnergyConcept.png - FungiformEnergyMockupo (22k)
The pathfinding code behind this idea would be of mediocre horror. Keep in mind that often enough you can't draw a straight line between two buildings, but need to retrace whatever horrible shape the player made out of the earth. Granted, we do have the pathfinder code lying around and this might just do the job but still this is big effort for just a visual gimmick.Also, I don't think that players really would do the task of clicking all the buildings and just use the "connect anything" button all the time because why bother? And then it's just another click you have to do before you can use your buildings. You just made up a tedious task for the sake of it being tedious and because it is tedious you also provide the player the opportunity to get around this boredom which then becomes the default way of doing it.
Moreover, in case you do need material for power lines, this is just masked extra cost. Just another 3 metal for connecting my building. If your goal is to make the game harder ( / longer lasting) why not simply increase the metal cost for the buildings and be done with it.
Last but not least, I'd vote against any kind of electric infrastructure in the shape of power lines. I was extremely happy when we finally disposed of this rather ugly, boring and confusing mechanism. And it's not uncommon for games that power "floats" around between your buildings without any visual concept of it being transferred. Many real time strategy games don't bother with power lines:
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/14/13056/NodBase1.png
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/10/9970/MOTY06.jpg
>I was extremely happy when we finally disposed of this rather ugly, boring and confusing mechanism.
Thats because someone made them "intentional" ugly. I really like the pipe-systems in Vessel.
Not sure why I deserve the angry tone...For my part I think power lines were quite fun.
Sure we can say energy management is tedious so make it automatic. Mining is quite tedious too, so don't include it! All the running and building is also annoying...
The line kits pathfinding seemed to work quite fine. This is nothing different but the clonk does not run the distance.
Automatic connection is just for short distances with straight lies. For elaborate connections let the player do it and let him make corners when clicking in air...
I don't think the idea is too horrible, but seriously I don't care if we don't want it..
> Not sure why I deserve the angry tone...
Sorry if you got it the wrong way. It surely wasn't intended to sound aggressive.
> Sure we can say energy management is tedious so make it automatic. Mining is quite tedious too, so don't include it! All the running and building is also annoying...
Energy lines and mining are two different things imho. For mining I need preparation, thinking and strategy. I can approach the material from different angles, place my explosive the right way and need to think about transporting the material chunks effectively. You can't say that about energy lines. There's point A (producer) and Point B (receiver) and your task is to just run from B to A and back from A to B after your work on the building B is done. No thinking, no variation, no way of perfecting your way of gaming. With your clicking approach, you save the way back and replace it by grabbing A and clicking B.
> The line kits pathfinding seemed to work quite fine. This is nothing different but the clonk does not run the distance.
The line pathfinding is designed to redraw the path the clonk has taken by inserting more and more edges into the line. This is something completely different from real pathfinding (as in 'find a new path from A to B'). You have to scan the landscape for holes and see if we can get to the destination and afterwards check again for best line placement (still, there certainly would be plenty of corner cases when the line would simply go through solid material which was unaccounted for). With the pipes Nachtfalter suggested I'd be even more horrible because now you'd have to find a new way that's accessible in horizontal and vertical routes.
>No thinking, no variation, no way of perfecting your way of gaming.
...as long as there are no threats to your buildings. If you're connecting everything to the same energy producer, you'll get big problems when that building gets destroyed. Better strategies include a decentralized net or a well-protected hub.
![[us]](/mwf/flags/us.png "United States")
I liked the old power lines because it gave you more to do in the game, but Clonkonaut is right if you don't want to bother with power lines then we could have instant energy transfer from energy producers to energy users.Hmm... I just thought of another idea.
I hereby license the file power.png under the CC-BY license
I'm with Clonkonaut here. I'm happy that we got rid of power lines as they added no real value to the game. If there were stuff like switches and transistors, then maybe I could understand the need of a wiring system. But just having it as a chore is useless.What happened to the idea of keeping automatic distribution by flags (or some other building) for short range energy transfer, but adding more interesting stuff like long range wires or tesla coils for the long range transfer?
I always thought such a mess of wires looked awesome! :)@Pathfinding: Why not make them go through material in straight lines?
I think it's really ok to remove the burden of connecting everything to everything manually from the player. But I wouldn't like to have it replaced with another unintuitive wireless energy system. Unintuitive because "Hey I've built a windgenerator right next to an elevator, why the hell doesn't the elevator have energy now?!?! Oh wait I'll have to build an extra tesla coil for it to work, wat??". I don't see some wireless energy distributors in the command and conquer screenshot, so I suppose you just build a producer next to a distributor and that's it?
I'd favor a solution like this the most atm. And have tesla coils/energy crystals/whatever only there for extending the radius of the energy field, so you can go without them if you want.
Here's a pic how the straight lines could look like ingame. I'm actually not sure if it's possible to have stuff behinds materials, but in front of tunnels:
That would be similar to the similar to the current system, except "flags" are called "energy crystals" and every power generator also provides an energy distribution radius.Energy producers providing a small radius for energy transmission would be a good change we could try out very easily. It would also allow you to start your settlement with just wind generator + sawmill instead of also having to add the flag.
Yes, that is what I thought, but if we get rid of the flag then we will need a place to buy clonks or a place to "produce" them.
>That would be similar to the similar to the current system
Sort of. But I'd split energy radius and ownership radius to two different buildings. Maybe have a fortress handle the ownership.
Or abduct the whole ownership radius thing completely. Why is it there anyways? It just draws weird triangles into the landscape. (wich I think are even uglier than powerlines :x) Just never let enemies use a building you have build.
+Maybe don't let enemies build near a hostile fortress?
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