Power Creeps update
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@artch Well it would require another high level power creep at the same time, since it requires constant usage of DISRUPT_TOWER combined with a massive amount of ops and an additional healer to keep it alive.
The original statement was that the useful powers have infinite range. Both of the other two powers almost require the two useful powers to even function, and since they cannot be on the same power creep, it requires two power creeps to actually work.
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@gankdalf there are only a few rooms where a player can cluster all of the towers immediately at the only entrances to the room, so in most cases the damage for that first tick will be lower than those worst case scenarios.
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@tedivm I didn't mean for the first tick, DISRUPT_TOWER and DISRUPT_TERMINAL are pretty safe to use. DISRUPT_SPAWN could be questionable in some rooms due to 20 range and some towers will most definitely be between you and the spawns, while DISRUPT_SOURCE will very likely require going some place dangerous or inaccessible.
and regardless of how much damage the tower is doing, the DISRUPT_TOWER user will need a healer beside them.
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OPERATE_STORAGEis intended to work only on storage, I don't see any reason why it should work with other structures.Well currently I see no use for this power. The one thing that I have trouble with on capacity is the Container structure. Because of a container's 2k capacity it creates a hard limit on how much a hauler is allowed to carry in a single trip. I have been trying to find an excuse (even if it is wildly inefficient) to use carry or harvest boosts in my harvest code, but the containers keep being a limiting factor. Even if I attempted using two high level power creeps with Lv 5 EXTEND_SOURCE on a single source, it still doesn't make these boosts viable due to container limits. I have to use some other transfer method (like links).
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I mean, the problem is that if you buff up a storage to have 8 million capacity but the duration of the power expires, the resources just disappear.
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OPERATE_STORAGE: to get energy sinks/praising rooms back to RCL6 it could be very useful. But of course this is pretty special. Perhaps it would be more useful to allow any "store"-structures (storage, terminal, container) as a target and change it to a percentage effect.
@Crusher48: I don't think the resources will disappaer. Resources also won't disappear when you downgrade your room (storeCapacity is set to 0). So I bet this will be implemented like this. Resources stay and you can withdraw them, you just can not transfer to it beyond the current limit.
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@demawi Oh wow, I could actually use that if that's how it works
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@artch Okay questions round 2
Will EXTEND_MINERAL reset an existing mineral cooldown and just assume those 100 minerals have always been there, will it delay the cooldown instead? Does it even do anything to the cooldown?
If it doesn't affect the cooldown, will EXTEND_MINERAL amounts survive through a regeneration. In other words, can I stockpile minerals in an extractor while it is regenerating?
Will OPERATE_STORAGE drop all excess resources on the ground when it expires?
Can a power creep use more than one power in the same tick?
Will there be any type of upper limit to how many times I can EXTEND_SOURCE on the same source before it regenerates? This currently looks like the best defense against DISRUPT_TERMINAL, since it could allow you to generate a large amount of energy locally by using boosted harvesters.
EDIT - Will we be able to select the order that OPERATE_EXTENSIONS fills extensions?
EDIT2 - If I see an operator in my room that hasn't used DISRUPT_TERMINAL yet, and I know it will use DISRUPT_TERMINAL on this next tick, will DISRUPT_TERMINAL stop a
.send()to my terminal if I send it this tick, or will the DISRUPT_TERMINAL stop it?EDIT3 - Do power creeps die to nukes landing in the same room?
Why is the cooldown on SHIELD so long? I feel like it might be more interesting to use if the cooldown were much shorter, but required even more energy to use. No I definitely have no plans for destroying energy shoveled out by dismantlers
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I'd rather have shield be a shorter cd too. What about having it have a small range? I'd love to be able to use it like a protoss sentry force field (https://imgur.com/r/starcraft/liOHcSr)
Anything that gives more battlefield control would be very cool, I think it could make fights much more interesting.
Ideally, I'd like to see more temporary terrain effects.
Like giving a location a wall, or making it swamp for a few ticks, or placing a temporary road that decays over 10 ticks. Might be better suited for the Commander class, but I think that neutral room fights (along with arena and other types) could really do with more interesting interaction.
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Will EXTEND_MINERAL reset an existing mineral cooldown and just assume those 100 minerals have always been there, will it delay the cooldown instead? Does it even do anything to the cooldown?
It has nothing to do with the cooldown.
If it doesn't affect the cooldown, will EXTEND_MINERAL amounts survive through a regeneration. In other words, can I stockpile minerals in an extractor while it is regenerating?
Yes you can.
Will OPERATE_STORAGE drop all excess resources on the ground when it expires?
No, of course not.
Can a power creep use more than one power in the same tick?
No,
PowerCreep.usePower()call will override the previous one.Will there be any type of upper limit to how many times I can EXTEND_SOURCE on the same source before it regenerates?
No limits.
Will we be able to select the order that OPERATE_EXTENSIONS fills extensions?
Most probably not, since
usePowerdoesn't accept any additional parameters.If I see an operator in my room that hasn't used DISRUPT_TERMINAL yet, and I know it will use DISRUPT_TERMINAL on this next tick, will DISRUPT_TERMINAL stop a .send() to my terminal if I send it this tick, or will the DISRUPT_TERMINAL stop it?
This is implementation details, not ready to answer yet.
Do power creeps die to nukes landing in the same room?
I think so. The only exception might be an Executor with active
REINFORCE, but it's too soon to decide.Why is the cooldown on SHIELD so long?
Because we don't want to give a single Operator ability to easily build lines of ramparts.
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@artch Quick thought: What if you had the operator only able to make one rampart at a time on a lower cd. Placing a new one would remove the old one. This allows you to have a great uptime at a higher cost, and makes it a more iconic ability for operators on assaults to be generating defensive bunkers. Although I still think a wall version of it (without the defensive capability like ramaprts) like https://youtu.be/ZA_z6lAomno?t=23s would be a very interesting tool.
If two operators place a rampart on the same location, or one places it after another, does it stack the health? Increase the duration? Override it? Error?
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Will EXTEND_MINERAL reset an existing mineral cooldown and just assume those 100 minerals have always been there, will it delay the cooldown instead? Does it even do anything to the cooldown?
It has nothing to do with the cooldown.
If it doesn't affect the cooldown, will EXTEND_MINERAL amounts survive through a regeneration. In other words, can I stockpile minerals in an extractor while it is regenerating?
Yes you can.
That's actually pretty crazy. That is probably one of the most powerful operator powers in the document then. It will require some interesting changes to my mineral mining code, and I am still not 100% sure how I will get my power creep around to all his tasks without burning a ton of CPU, but this power still seems pretty amazing.
According to an initial estimate, a constantly managed mineral deposit could output just short of double the average amount by a Lv5 EXTEND_MINERAL being used on if off-cooldown. So instead of ~1.04 minerals per tick, it would output ~2.04 minerals per tick.
Will we be able to select the order that OPERATE_EXTENSIONS fills extensions?
Most probably not, since usePower doesn't accept any additional parameters.
I wouldn't mind if it were set on the room.
Game.rooms["sim"].extensionFillOrder... could also move the energy structure usage order there and I wouldn't mindJust wanted to say that I am overall fairly pleased with what power creeps look like now. I think the enable power in a room mechanic could still use some work, but besides that I really like the general concept on everything now. I think I have figured out ways to use the operators in combat, and I think that EXTEND_SOURCE and EXTEND_MINERAL are powerful enough to properly defend against DISRUPT_TERMINAL. Super excited.
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Is there going to be an easy way to recognize when a room enables power creeps other than an API check? I feel like such a mechanic should be visible in the room's controller or through a map view.
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Why is the cooldown on SHIELD so long?
Because we don't want to give a single Operator ability to easily build lines of ramparts.
It might be more interesting if it just added shield hits directly to the power creep, depending on what the design concept was behind it. Currently it is only really useful once you reach your target location, since it doesn't move with the operator.
Another idea might be that it can only be used in specific locations, for example only on tiles beside walls.
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@gankdalf There are other uses for a temporary rampart than just protecting the creep that created it.
Plug a hole in a wall? (Keep in mind that you can place and protect a wall within ramparts while you build it)
Drop a boosted something in an inconvenient (but outside a hive) place?
Troll source keepers?
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@pundemonium I mean... at best it only has 25k hits
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It'd be nice if power creeps had some way to heal. One of the cool aspects to them is the infinite life, which means you can do things much further from home than normal.
If there was a power creep ability that could heal (maybe the aoe repair also grants some healing), or if they had some weak passive regeneration (heal 5% max health every 100 ticks) it would free up some interesting if sub-optimal power creep ideas.
That plus something like a long cd power "Conduit: Sends creeps carry contents to a terminal" could allow for some long range raiding that was more than just destructive in its aim.
I do think the strongest form for power creeps is going to be spending almost all on eco, just given the numbers and % of time its making an impact.
EDIT: As a side note, on the power creep leveler, I'd add the type to the top bar when selecting skills
Creep: 0 level -> Commander: 0 level
EDIT2: Small error on reinforce, extra 10 on cooldown. REINFORCE LEVEL 1 Make the creep itself invulnerable for attacks on the next tick. Cooldown 20/18/16/14/12 10 ticks.
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As a general thought: It might be worth considering combining some of the weak mirrored abilities.
Disrupt Spawn and Operate Spawn (or Encourage and Exhaust) are both fairly situational, and you'd probably not want them in most cases. But if it was one ability that let you do either much more flexible. Also, it will allow more powers to be added.
The other benefit of combining offensive and defense is that users won't take as huge a penalty for the 99% of the time they aren't on offense. Sure, it won't be fully optimized, but at least it's not useless that you sunk most of your levels into an attack power thats worthless. Similar to how a work part can be used for repair or dismantle, if you only got one creep and had to pick to do one or the other.
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To be honest, the impact of having an overly situational ability depends on the cost for switching powersets. If it's a free thing you can do once every 10000 ticks, you can just switch on your situational offensive power right before the offensive operation where you want to use that power.
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Whats the benefit then? Spend all your power purely on eco, then suicide a couple of creeps half a day before you go offensive? I feel like its not a system that encourages interesting gameplay, its just a slowdown mechanic on an already slow gameplay experience.
