3. Community design: commander portal abilities

Community design: commander portal abilities


  • I have become fascinated with strategies surrounding portals.

    Large established players tend to spread out and select choice rooms useful for maximizing their control progress or farming power. Portal control is an endgame requirement to make this possible.

    My first goal in designing commander portal abilities was to provide mid-stage players with access to power creeps some ability to defensively accelerate portal decay. This is disruptive of larger military invasions.

    This also opens the window for players with access to fewer portals to invest their power creep in facilitating portal exploration. Of course endgame players will have the ability to shop for additional portals by expending resources.

    A complimentary ability to stabilize a portal might provide a compelling tug-of-war between an attacker and a defender.

    My second goal in this design is to provide a new Mineral compound sink which is complementary to the uses of existing base-Minerals: minerals used for offense should also be required for disruptive play, minerals used for defense should also be required for stabilizing play. Minerals with the greatest power escalation should be consumed by a trump.

    Adding these abilities to the Commander would bring them up to a maximum level of 23, perhaps a lower level if some redundant ability ranks (EDIT: not abilities but single ranks) were eliminated.

    The abilities:

    DISABLE_PORTAL

    Consumes OH in order to make a portal inactive. Disabled portals are eventually activated by other portal abilities. At high levels massive resources can be invested to seal off many portals.

    Level 1:
      Mineral: OH
      Cost: 10
      Duration added: 10 ticks
      Cooldown: 10 ticks

    Level 2:
      Mineral: OH
      Cost: 250
      Duration added: 50 ticks
      Cooldown: 10 ticks

    Level 3:
      Mineral: OH
      Cost: 2000
      Duration added: 200 ticks
      Cooldown: 10 ticks

    EXTEND_PORTAL

    Atavus labeled this dangerous, but I hope the exponential cost mitigates this.

    Consumes any oxide or alkalide in order to increase the lifespan of an unstable portal. Simultaneously decreases an active disabled timer on a portal.

    Level 1:
      Mineral: UO/KO/LO/ZO (first available in stores)
      Cost: Math.ceil(Math.pow(portalAge / 20000, 1.2)) // 11 per use after 7 days, 150 per use after 60 days
      Stability Effect: +1 tick if unstable
      Disabled Timer Effect: -2 ticks
      Cooldown: 1 tick

    Level 2:

      Mineral: UHO2/KHO2/LHO2/ZHO2 (first available in stores)
      Cost: 2 * Math.ceil(Math.pow(portalAge / 20000, 1.2)) // 22 per use after 7 days, 300 per use after 60 days
      Stability Effect: +2 ticks if unstable
      Disabled Timer Effect: -5 ticks
      Cooldown: 1 tick

    Level 3:

      Mineral: XUHO2/XKHO2/XLHO2/XZHO2 (first available in stores)
      Cost: 3 * Math.ceil(Math.pow(portalAge / 20000, 1.2)) // 33 per use after 7 days, 450 per use after 60 days
      Stability Effect: +3 ticks if unstable
      Disabled Timer Effect: -10 ticks
      Cooldown: 1 tick

    CORRUPT_PORTAL

    Consumes any hydride or acid in order to decrease the lifespan of an unstable portal. Simultaneously decreases an active disabled timer on a portal. Has twice the efficiency of EXTEND_PORTAL

    Level 1:
      Mineral: UH/KH/LH/ZH (first available in stores)
      Cost: Math.ceil(Math.pow(portalAge / 20000, 1.2)) // 11 per use after 7 days, 150 per use after 60 days
      Stability Effect: -2 ticks if unstable
      Disabled Timer Effect: -2 ticks
      Cooldown: 1 tick

    Level 2:

      Mineral: UH2O/KH2O/LH2O/ZH2O (first available in stores)
      Cost: 2 * Math.ceil(Math.pow(portalAge / 20000, 1.2)) // 22 per use after 7 days, 300 per use after 60 days
      Stability Effect: -4 ticks if unstable
      Disabled Timer Effect: -5 ticks
      Cooldown: 1 tick

    Level 3:

      Mineral: XUH2O/XKH2O/XLH2O/XZH2O (first available in stores)
      Cost: 3 * Math.ceil(Math.pow(portalAge / 20000, 1.2)) // 33 per use after 7 days, 450 per use after 60 days
      Stability Effect: -6 ticks if unstable
      Disabled Timer Effect: -10 ticks
      Cooldown: 1 tick

    There's some interesting effects when it comes to old portals: they are costly to maintain but also costly to attack. Productive Commanders might be able to travel a circuit to disable or extend multiple portals with accompanying support crews.

    Apologies for being very brief and lazy in my balance analysis. I decided these numbers using basic intuition and they need a proper analysis of time & resources invested in order to achieve a compelling tug-of-war balance: fewer resources can defend a trivial attack, but a focused attack with a large investment should be capable of reversing the defense.


  • Also note that portalAge means the absolute age since the portal was created, so there is a fairly high minimum cost for EXTEND / CORRUPT.