Over-renewing
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To add interesting gameplay dynamics, it should be possible to over-renew a creep, giving them a lifespan above 1500 ticks, up to a maximum of 7500 ticks. Doing so would enable a creep to have a longer lifespan that would allow it to cross a further distance or take advantage of its boosts for a longer period, but to counterbalance this, extra lifespan above 1500 ticks is divided by (1+(int)(lifespan/1500)). Thus, the lifespan gain is divided by 2 above 1500, divided by 3 above 3000, divided by 4 above 4500, and divided by 5 above 6000 ticks to live. Thus, it would cost the cost of 3 normal creeps to over-renew a creep up to 3000 energy, and boosting a creep lifespan up to 7500 ticks would require at least 15x the creep's normal cost, 3x more expensive than merely spawning 3 creeps for the same job. If necessary, boosting costs could also be increased for creeps with greater-than-normal lifespans to prevent imbalance in the mineral economy, but IMO the potential to trade a large amount of energy and spawn time for a reduced mineral/tick cost could pose an interesting trade-off.
Bonus: In addition, renewing could also be enabled for CLAIM creeps, pushing them up to a maximum lifespan of 3000 (enough to cross 60 rooms), at an incredibly high cost (doing this should be more expensive than building up a chain of rooms to claim at the destination, but in exchange for being faster and not consuming a GCL during the process).
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I can certainly think of some good uses for long range creeps - creating rooms further away, attacking players further away.
Biggest issue with giving creeps increased range is it would make the world smaller, and make everybody under threat from more players (and number of players in range increases by the square of distance). Is this what the game needs?
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It certainly feels like a nice addition, but I have mixed feelings.
I mean the portals are already range extender, even so very complicated ones.Wouldn't it be much more interesting to make those more frequent?
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This would fundementally alter the game. Screeps is very much about power projection and regional ownership. Increasing creep ranges by a factor of >4x would mean that players can attack from an incredibly vast distance around them, and from many bases as opposed to only the closest ones. While more combat isn't necessarily a bad thing, this would vastly favor older, more entrenched players with large sprawling empires.
I think the downsides of this are too much. We are already (probably) getting a power creep with the renew ability built in that should in a limited & controlled way extend ranges much further. Portals already provide windows of opportunity for extending ranges too.
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@davaned The problem is that renewing with the commander clears all boosts from a creep, so a commander is unlikely to be able to field more than a low-level harass force with renewing. Plus, depending on whether the hallway rooms are powers-enabled, it may need to find power-enabled rooms to pit stop in on the journey.