4. UO Boost Change

UO Boost Change

  • AYCE

    There currently is a very limited use case for the UO boost chain. But what if it was tweaked slightly. The repair and build boost currently has an effect where it increases the effectiveness without requiring more resources.

    What if the UO boost provided +50% +100% and +150% effectiveness (A work part would extract 3,4,5 energy respectively) when harvesting energy. It would do this without additional depletion to the energy source.

    This would introduce an interesting use case for UO and create a market for it. There would also be an incentive for early-stage players to develop boosting code for the additional energy gathering.

    👍

  • disagree. some are using it (and the corresponding t2, t3 boost) to harvest deposits. I think the function of speeding up deposit harvesting should be maintain


  • UO is an unfortunate boost. The more of it is used the less effective it is. Sources need to mined out multiple times during a creeps lifetime. Last time we brought up revamping the UO boost it was decided that we should wait to see how UO shakes out with the soon to land Operator and REGEN_SOURCE.

    Consider using the boost for Optimal energy: for simplicity let's assume each mineral consumes 1 energy to harvest and react:

    • 5 WORK unboosted parts give 5/25 energy per tick.
    • 2 UO boosted WORK parts 2 * (100 + 20 + 2*30) = 360 = 6/25 energy per tick.
    • One UHO2 boosted WORK part: 100 + 20 + 4*30 = 240 = 4/25 energy per tick.
    • One XUHO2 boosted WORK part: 100 + 20 + 5*30 = 270 = 4.5/25 energy per tick

    None of these are a clear improvement. I was tremendously lenient on the costs of extra move parts and optimal boosting setup. The realistic version will be worse than this. You can see boosting only saved energy.

    Adding in REGEN_SOURCE makes the boosts a little more useful.

    • 14 WORK = 1400 = 23/25
    • 5 UO = 900 = 15/25
    • 3 UHO2 = 720 = 12/25
    • 2 XUHO2 = 540 = 9/25

    The boosts look like they'd cut energy costs of mining in half, but the difference between tier1 and tier3 is too tiny. And again I point out that cutting the cost in half is extremely optimistic.

    Now let's consider the more common late game strategy of optimizing for intents per tick.

    • 5 WORK = 3000/10 * 5 = 1500 = 1 per tick
    • 50 WORK = 3000/100 * 5 = 150 = 0.1 per tick
    • 50 UO = 3000/300 * 5 + (50 * 6) = 50 + 300 = 0.23 per tick
    • 20 UO = 0.16 per tick
    • 50 UHO2 = 3000/500 * 5 + (50 * 3*6) = 30 + 900 = 0.62 per tick
    • 10 UHO2 = 0.22 per tick
    • 50 XUHO2 = 3000/700 * 5 + (50 * 4*6) = 25 + 1200 = 0.82 per tick.
    • 7 XUHO2 = .22 per tick

    Well that sucks! The intent cost to produce a boost quickly overcomes any harvest savings. I'm not even counting all the intents just the ones to create the boost and harvest the source. Consider adding REGEN_SOURCE into the mix:

    • 50 WORK = 8000/100 * 5 = 400 = 0.27 per tick
    • 30 UO = 405 = 0.27 per tick
    • 16 UHO2 = 538 = 0.36 per tick
    • 11 XUHO2 = 524 = 0.35 per tick

    It's pretty clear that the UO boosts don't help optimize intents. The only clear win is they reduce the number or WORK parts needed to mineout a source which alleviates spawn pressure. I think spawn pressure is rarely optimized for and there are many other ways to do it.


  • I disagree with this, I use UO/UHO2/XUHO2 probably the most in terms of boosting. I do not see a need to improve these boosts.

    "What if the UO boost provided +50% +100% and +150% effectiveness" - It currently gives 300%/500%/700% increase in effectiveness. "(A work part would extract 3,4,5 energy respectively)" - Right now it gives 2/6/10/14... With the math it looks like what you're suggesting is a nerf(2,3,4,5), not a boost in power.

    Most of you're argument is leaving out mineral and deposit harvesting which benefit the most from UO boosting. If we do what you suggest for mineral harvesters.Instead of 1/3/5/7 you get 1/1.5/2/2.5.

    Comparable harvester is 7w/4m/1carry = 950 Energy + 36 spawn timer vs 1/1/1 = 220 energy + 12 spawn timer and 30 XUHO2.
    These two will have the same number of intents clearing out the same energy source, but the energy cost and spawn time is reduced immensely.

    Sense you are focused on intents, I do not know what you're doing with you're numbers, they are a bit complicated, so we can do some quick math there to:

    5*Work = 3000/10 = 300 intents to clear out a source

    4*Work@tier1 = 3000/12 = 250 intents to clear out.

    2*work@Tier2 = 3000/10 = 300 intents.

    1*Work@Tier3 = 3000/14 = 214 intents;

    3*Work@tier2 = 3000/15 = 200 intents;


  • My dislike for the UO boosts ignores mineral and deposit harvesting. I can see that it would be more effective there.

    Atanner wasn't suggesting a nerf. He was suggesting that the boost should give extra resources rather than mineout the deposit faster.


  • "He was suggesting that the boost should give extra resources rather than mineout the deposit faster." - Did not understand this is what he desired.

    This would go against the developers wishes, by creating 1 best solution. Currently there's different ways to maximize UO boost some cases would be better than others to use due to repair or other intents. By increasing the output would create 1 best outcome, and no reason not ot use it.