Power Creeps with personality
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Introduction
So it's been forever since we heard anything about power, so I wanted to give my thoughts on how I think the power resource should get implemented into the game.I do not think that it should be a resource that infinitely increases without ever decreasing. A large part of the game, is that your strength is only as good as your supply and economy. With the way the original design document was worded, someone with a massive amount of power, could infinitely spawn devastating power creeps on their opponents. Cooldowns or not, they were "free".
That being said, I don't want to destroy the idea of "hero" creeps. That idea was great. I don't hold the same opinion as some other players, that power creeps shouldn't require specially coded defenses to counter it. It's expected. It would be like saying we needed a way to defend against boosts without boosts. I don't think they should break newbie code outright, but in general it would be fine if they added a few extra properties to check.
The final point of this is that I think this should have the capacity to be fully automated. Yes, it's a game, and obviously it would be best if we played it, but if I cannot make my bringer of death manage his own power creeps, I will be a bit disappointed.
Power Creeps and Personality
So what's in a power creep? A power creep is a hero of your nation. They are the units that everyone knows you by. They lead your charge, or sneak in the shadows. Either way, they need a unique feel, similar to what was described in the original design doc, but maybe with more personality and less "break all the things".What does personality look like? A good personality would be a unique effect or usage of a set of effects that is noticeably different from what other power creeps have or are used in a noticeably different way from what other players use the same powers for. This means that power creeps would need to be fairly dynamic. A good example of a dynamic system with personality is how players design their rooms. Different players have very unique personalities when it comes to room design. There are some similar patterns, but overall everyone who creates their own code has a fairly unique room design.
So how do you make a power creep that can be used in many different ways that can scale with power, isn't free to use, and is uniquely owned by a player. My idea would mean that the power creep would need to passively alter some part of your empire at a core level. If the economy power creeps from the design doc were implemented, they would have one of two uses (1) they would be completely ignored, or (2) they would be overpowered and everyone who could would use them. There is no middle ground because either they are efficient and effective, or they are useless and nobody wants them. There needs to be uncertainty, or at least be difficult to quantify the best option in order for them to be used uniquely. Similar to room designs, you cannot just use a purely static layout in every room because no room is the same. Similarly, the power creeps shouldn't be usable just because they are effective in any situation.
Your power creep shouldn't just be an isolated entity, they must be at the core of your nation or they won't feel like a hero unit. I don't want to see 25 power creeps in the mines because mine-boosting power creeps are the best thing to build either, but I also don't want to see economy ignored as a route for power creeps.
So with this super long intro out of the way, let me jump into how I actually think it should work.
Mechanics
Power
A resource more powerful than energy, but volatile. Can be refined into Experience, or utilized in its raw form.Power Creeps
The heroes of your nation or empire. They have the same parts as any other creep. They are given a body array when they are spawned, which can contain any of the normal body parts. Power creeps follow the same movement rules, and require the same number of move parts. Power creeps can be boosted, however, it costs 100 times the normal amount to boost power creep parts (that's 100% of a labs capacity for 1 part). Power creeps have no "ticks to live" property while in the room that spawned them. If they leave their home shard or their power spawn is destroyed, they have 4000 ticks to live. If a power creep returns to its home shard, its age is reset. If a power creep dies, its spawn goes on cooldown for a long duration, and it costs raw power, energy, and experience to get it back. It is important that these are not free to respawn.Power Spawn
The gateway to your heroes. Costs raw power and energy to spawn power creeps. Cannot have more than one power creep alive spawned by the same room. Power cost of spawning a power creep should be based on the number of masters mutations. The energy cost of spawning a power creep should be the same as spawning a normal creep with equal parts. Experience cost should simply be a flat value to give a sink to experience if you keep throwing away your power creeps.Power Refinery
Refines power into Experience. Functions as the Power Spawn does now. Experience is just account-level power.Experience
An account-wide resource similar to credits, but cannot be traded with players. It is generated by refining power at a refinery. You spend this resource to alter how your nation functions. This can effect all of your power creeps, or potentially all of your creeps and structures.Mutations
Changes to your nation or creeps. These take effect immediately when purchased. These cannot be refunded while you are spawned into the world. You can refund and move mutations around freely while you are respawning. Each mutation costs more than the last, similar to the original design doc. These mutations should never involve power creeps being used for hauling or mining tasks without a large amount of movement or interesting mechanics.Example Mutations
Here is a list of example mutations
ranges are given to indicate mutations that may have multiple levels. Please note that these are likely no more balanced than the ones described in the original doc. Some are likely completely broken, but in general they should be closer to what is easier to balance, or at least be easier on players who haven't coded against them.Volatile Towers
Power can be used in towers instead of energy to increase range by 25-50%. Towers take 100-5 hits of damage when using power as an energy source.
Volatile Spawns
Power can be used in spawns and extensions instead of energy to increase spawn rate by 50%. Creeps spawned in this way only live for 400-1200 ticks.
Volatile Labs
Power can be used in labs instead of energy to decrease reaction cooldowns by 50%. 3-1 of the labs involved in power based reactions take 5 hits of damage.
Volatile Nukers
Power can be used in nukes instead of energy to increase the damage dealt by 500%. There is a 20%-5% chance that the nuke will immediately detonate in your room when it is launched with power.
Volatile Construction
Creeps can use Power instead of energy to repair or build structures to increase effectiveness per tick by 25%. Creeps take 36-12 hits of damage each tick they repair or build a structure using power.
Swamp Masters
Your power creeps only generate 4-1 fatigue when walking on swamps.
Scavenger Masters
Creeps killed by your power creeps drop 30-50% of their creation costs.
Teleportation Masters
Your power creeps can teleport anywhere within the same room. This stuns (cannot act at all) the power creep for 100-40 ticks regardless of the distance traveled. Cannot be used in rooms with controllers owned by other players.
Stealth Masters
Your power creeps cannot be seen by enemy observers. This specifically relates to rooms scouted using the observer structure. This does not prevent them from being seen anywhere else normally.Upgrading this mutation causes everything to be invisible to observers in rooms containing your power creeps.
Ninja Masters
Your power creeps do not display on the world map. Has no effect on code or actual visibility.
Portal Masters
Your power creeps can enter portals without losing ticks to live. Note that power creeps do have a limited lifespan when not in their home shard.
Your power creeps can create portals from their current location to any bus/highway room within 10 rooms. This destroys the power creep. The portal remains stable for a short duration.
Doomsday Masters
Your power creeps do not die to nukes landing in their room, they instead take 95%-40% of their hits in damage when a nuke lands in their room.
Nomadic Masters
Your power creeps can move structures around by spending 80%-30% of the structure's cost over several ticks.
Defense Masters
Your power creeps take the damage directed at nearby units and structures, including hostile units and structures. acts as a 3x3 rampart block around the power creeps, using the creep's hits instead of individual ramparts.
Siege Masters
Your power creeps can suicide to create a 3x3 section of ramparts with 5,000-10,000 hits. This can be done in any room, even if you do not own it. These ramparts are owned by you. These ramparts will completely die after 3000 ticks regardless of how many hits are left on them.
Necromancy Masters
Your power creeps can reanimate allied creeps from nearby tombstones with ticks to live equal to the duration of the tombstone. Tombstones from reanimated creeps cannot be reanimated. Cannot reanimate creeps inside enemy ramparts.Upgrading this mutation allows reanimating enemy creeps.
Spy Masters
Your power creeps can identify the mutations of other power creeps. This takes multiple ticks to pull off.Upgrading this mutation gives more information when spying on enemy controllers and power creeps.
- Number of power creeps owned by player
- Number of shards inhabited by player
- Number of rooms owned by player
Spawn Energy Mutation
Your spawns generate energy each tick even if your energy available is above 300. Your reserved rooms do not give sources extra energy.
Mining Experts Mutation
Sources in your rooms give 6,000 energy, but take 600 ticks to regenerate.
Volatile Creeps Mutation
You can spawn creeps from your power spawn using power. These are not power creeps, they are volatile normal creeps. These volatile creeps take 5-1 hits of damage per part every tick.
Immortal Swamp Mutation
Your creeps live 3000 ticks, however, they take 10 hits of damage per part if they have not entered a swamp in the last 10 ticks.
Stable Energy Mutation
Energy dropped by your creeps does not decay. You cannot build containers. You cannot gain Stable Minerals Mutation.
Stable Minerals Mutation
Base Minerals dropped by your creeps do not decay. You cannot build containers. You cannot gain Stable Energy Mutation.
Universal Links Mutation
Links can transfer any resource. Links cannot transfer more than one resource at a time.Conclusion
So what I attempted to accomplish with this was to give ideas and feedback on a system we haven't heard about in over a year. I don't know how much of the design doc was set in stone, but I would hope that the idea is still in a fluid state, since we haven't heard anything in so long.TL;DR;
The main points I want to make are:- If I don't own or know about power creeps, my code shouldn't all disintegrate when I meet one. I can die miserably, but my code shouldn't throw thousands of errors, and in general should function the same.
- If I do implement power creeps, they should be able to be run fully autonomous, even if respeccing or refunding cannot be autonomous, the act of allocating points and spawning power creeps should be able to be fully automated.
- If power creeps are meant as heroes, my heroes need to feel different than your heroes.
- If power creeps are meant to be heroes, the most effective strategy shouldn't be to build hundreds of tiny units with one hero power. Even if it is swarm themed, that doesn't feel like a hero
- Heroes can't be free once you have them. Just like boosts, you need to run out of them if you keep squandering them in some conflict
- As a general rule, if the owner of a power creep requires a massive implementation to take advantage of by its owner, but requires little extra effort by their opponent to understand, it is better than a power that is easy for its owner to implement but a nightmare to counter.
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It has been noted that having 1 permanent boosted power creep per room might be able to just walk around a shard killing everything, since they don't have to worry about spawn times and stuff. It might be interesting to have both ideas included. The original design doc had many power creeps. It would maybe be interesting if each of those power creeps could only be spawned one per room, which would give them two limits.
The main issue I have with multiple power creeps in the original though is that they could benefit too highly from many low level power creeps, which just becomes another unit type instead of any type of unique hero unit.
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I love this idea, but one thing bugs me Mutations not being able to be removed from your empire when your spawned? This seams like a disaster to me. Like, what if you messed up your code bye miss clicking on the swamp master Mutations? You would be required to respawn just to get rid of a Mutations that you didn't even want in the first place. I think that instead that removing a Mutations should be free, but causes a massive penalty for getting new Mutations for a time.
There is also the proldom this giveing more advantages to older players who have lost of power. There should be some type of cost to keep your Mutations running, to stop players from just getting ever single one they can.
Other then that, I love this idea, but it looks like it could be a pain to put into the game. But I think it will add manny new options to this game overall. Lots of new thing to try.
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@alaricdragon Yeah the "can't be removed" may be a little harsh. It might make more sense to have them "researched" over time with a cancel button in case you messed up.
The proposed power creep design doc would also give existing players a huge advantage. Power has diminishing returns though, in that the more mutations you have, the more they cost. You can see the original design doc for an example of this. Even the most power hungry players on the server can't even reach max level with that chart. That being said, the old design doc had no way to remove power from the game. Once you obtained it, you always had it. This adds a cost in: respawning power creeps costs power. It's minor, but I don't really think it needs to be that excessive if the diminishing returns are setup properly.
Power creeps in general I think will be very hard to implement into the game, or at least time consuming. I don't know how much effort the devs have already put into the system, since they have been in total silence about it. I have been poking around in the open source server code though, and I am thinking it might be possible to implement as a mod on a private server.... but I think I need to finish the rewrite of my normal in-game codebase before I take on that one lol.
