[GCL] GCL - Circumventing the "cap" is ridiculously easy
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I like the idea about the "root" controller.
As I read it now:
- All rooms, except 1 room still have a hard 15 CP/tick limit, but upgrade can be above 15 RCL/tick
- The "root room" will have the unlimited energy per tick.
This solves the issue people dealing with the limit right now, and creates a nice incentive to haul energy to this room. It will automatically put an artificial limit to the amount of energy you can get to that room without a loss, the further away the more it will cost to get it there, balancing the old versus new players.
On a complete other note:
I think it might also be a good idea to get other things to dump large sums of energy in. Since I’ve switched to processing power my energy reserves have dwindled quite a bit. I think a building of some sorts which you could process energy in would be a fun way to spend energy to (upgrading walls/ramparts is just boring!). Something in the way of a super-weapon which you can charge infinitely with energy.
Even if the building is only for prestige purposes ( looks cool, customizable etc). It heightens the fun factor.
There are more than enough energy sinks in the game after you reach RCL 8, just not very "fun" ones.
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Artem: thanks for the reply. I thought so about using the market too.
Realistically speaking, I can envision both case where the mechanic works out or fails. I don't think there is any way to know for sure except having it in place -- success or failure would depend on how the players adapt to it. The main risk is that being a big change affecting everyone, you really don't have much place to test it much (of course you already knew that).
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All rooms, except 1 room still have a hard 15 CP/tick limit, but upgrade can be above 15 RCL/tick
No, non-root rooms simply don’t contribute to GCL at all, i.e. the limit is zero.
Something in the way of a super-weapon which you can charge infinitely with energy.
Power creeps are supposed to be such a weapon and en energy sink (with an exponential cost of course, with the same dynamic as GCL). Not just a simple and brutal weapon though, but a tool to implement some new interesting strategies.
Even if the building is only for prestige purposes ( looks cool, customizable etc). It heightens the fun factor.
Nobody will spend their energy just for fun when they can spend it for GCL and CPU.
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> Nobody will spend their energy just for fun when they can spend it for GCL and CPU
I know I will
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I mean, a lot of energy, the amounts that matter.
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Depends on how cool it looks per tick of wasted energy, but yeah I wont undermine the power processing to keep things realisticly
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> It’s not like that. This limit is more about the fact that RCL8 room is considered “completed”, and you’re supposed to shift your focus to other rooms. It has very little to do with the overall GCL of the player.
I think this is the main assumption that deserves to be looked at. Everyone seems to be discussing this cap as a way to limit large player growth (it doesn't, it limits everyone's growth), and the actual reason is something different. However, controller upgrading doesn't just increase RCL but GCL, so there is still a reason to spend resources upgrading a controller. It should be a player decision whether they decide to route energy to a new room or sink it into a fully upgraded controller, and a lot of the time routing will make a lot more sense, so the problem naturally works itself out.
That being said, the root controller sounds like a really interesting idea. It avoids what I see as the main problem with the current system, everyone eventually upgrading at the same rate. It will take some ingenuity to make the most of a controller root. As someone who has been bypassing the cap for a while now, it definitely is an interesting logistics puzzle. It definitely isn't the simplest solution, but one that might be worth doing just for the sake of it the new strategies it will inspire.
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To be honest, I don't think a root controller is gonna do much if its just an unlimited cap. Rooms under RCL8 also don't have a cap, so why would I transport all that energy to a room far away, when I can just claim the room next to it and dump the energy in that room? When it reaches lvl 8 just dump that energy into a storage/terminal, unclaim the room and start drawing from the storage/terminal. If you reserve one room in your GCL to do this you can cycle through your rooms to do this. I don't see the benefit of transporting that energy to a room further away. Unless it has other benefits, like being more efficient.
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>>> "No, non-root rooms simply don’t contribute to GCL at all, i.e. the limit is zero."
While I think the root controller idea is interesting, this seems very prohibitive to me. I'd be curious to see how the root controller idea works without imposing this restriction on other rooms. This allows the player to choose whether they want to live with the limit or choose to route energy to the root. Otherwise you force everyone to route energy to the root. I assume the root will usually be the newest room your are building up.
At the very least I'd request that this change would be rolled out in two updates where the first adds the root controller and the second later removes the GCL contribution of other rooms.
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@heggico you wont get GCL point anymore for those rooms, only room upgrade points. Only the root controller will increase GCL for your empire.
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@Dissi I missed that, yes then it would work as intended
It would limit me quite a bit since I have a few rooms spread out, but I'd be able to figure something out (I hope).
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I like the idea of the root controller, but I'm not a big fan of making no GCL progress from any other room.
What if the "Root Controller" was a structure you built, limited 1 per player, buildable at RCL 8 for 1 million energy. Upgrade points put into a normal controller give half a point to GCL (in addition to upgrading the RCL at a normal amount), and points in the root controller give double.
You could even put in a danger aspect to it - If the root controller structure in a room is destroyed in any manner, you instantly lose claim in that room. That would also act as an impediment to players changing their root controller locations.
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Not being able to easily move the root controller around would definitely hurt players who are more distributed (like me), but I understand that most people don't choose to spread themselves out that much.Other than that, it sounds like an interesting idea! You'd still be able to pour lots of energy into GCL, but you have to choose how you balance your empire's energy carefully, and there's more than one viable strategy for using it.
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I'm not a fan of this change as is. It is going to affect the lower level players far more than the high level ones. A high level player gets a new room (GCL increase) very rarely, while the lower level players get them more often- if you look at the lower level players they tend to have more than one room below RCL8. The way this change works would only allow one of those rooms to "count" towards GCL.
I think a universal "cap" at 15/e/t combined with this "root controller" that does not have any limits would be a bit more fair.
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That will result in never overtaking high GCL players.. They will always have a higher gcl, thus a higher GCL/tick ratio.
I can easily see smaller players be more efficient at moving energy to this room than me and taking me over at some point.
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@ScottyC I don't think this root controller should be build able, or special for room level 8. I think it should apply to everyone. I also think that 0 GCL progress without a root controller but normal RCL progress is a good thing.
Right now I have one goal in every room. Push RCL to 8. Screw everything else. All other decisions depend on pushing RCL to 8. The truth is after RCL 4 or 5 I really don't do anything in a room. That's not to say that the higher RCLs are not nice, they are, but one room isn't going to cut it. I need boosts, or remote mining, or something else to keep forward progress and not get killed by a wondering creep.
By making this change (root controller) I now can choose to either stop at 4 and push GCL, keep going slowly to 8 while pushing GCL, or seed to 8, ignoring GCL on a per room basis. I can see a lot of potential here.
For example I could see at GCL 5, 1 root room, 4 rooms to RCL4 and dumping all energy to the root room, even though it means a lot of turn over on the 4 "satellite" rooms.
I could also see 1 root room, 1 "blocker" room that creates a choke,point, and 2 rooms that are barely RCL 3
I can see a "far flung" empire that has 5 rooms so far apart the claimer almost didn't make the trip, that rapidly push to RCL 6 for the terminal, and then use it to push all rooms to 8 in a sequence almost totally ignoring GCL.
I like that there are a lot of options and configurations, and I like that it add an easy, but important layer to logistics.
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@Artem from Screeps
I would prefer one root per player.
I means that one way or another a room has more value and is a better target.
If I attack Dissi's root room, and make it though all the outer rooms to do it, that should cause a major disruption. It adds a different tactic. Ignore the satilite rooms and go for the heart.
It also makes dead end one source rooms have a lot of value. Where better to put your root room. It also allows for some interesting tactics.
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if you look at the lower level players they tend to have more than one room below RCL8. The way this change works would only allow one of those rooms to “count” towards GCL.
It seems to be a strategic misstep of such a player then. He should do his rooms one by one - get one room, upgrade it to RCL8, get another room, move the root, repeat. However it has its downside - you always will have your root in the most exposed and unprotected room with this strategy, however it is the most efficient way to use your energy. Decisions, decisions.
It is going to affect the lower level players far more than the high level ones.
High level players will have more transfer expenses than lower level players.
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An excellent discussion. Makes me glad to see such ideas flying around.
I always struggle between the effects changes might have to my own play style and the effects they have to the health of the community.
My first instinct is always to analyze the consequences on myself. From that perspective, the root controller sounds like a really cool change. It would fit quite well with my own distribution and management. It would be a net benefit to my overall development and would allow a nice optimization in terms of CPU/GCL.
However, when looking at the suggestion of a root controller from the other angle, I believe the effect will be negative. It would add complexity to early game style without any clear added benefit. Gaining access to your second room is already a very confusing experience. Having to then differentiate between GCL/RCL growth makes it worse.
Overall, I do get the feeling that the devs are trying to "direct" the strategies and development plans employed by players. This is fundamentally wrong. Focus on simple mechanics and allow the game to evolve freely. Ensure balance by tweaking mechanics, not by introducing artificial limits or complex rules on top of the existing mechanics.
In short, I suggest just applying the terminal adjustment proposed in the PTR. If people want to keep an open room slot to perform this sort of "high growth" strategy, I find it an acceptable trade off.
The optimum solution imho is to remove the RCL 8 cap all together. The market and in the future the power creeps already present alternative energy sinks.
