• Reduced energy sources capacity in neutral rooms from 1500 to 500.
• Reduced energy sources capacity in reserved non-claimed rooms from 3000 to 2000.

(UPD: These two points are cancelled until power creeps are released, see the discussion below.)

• Reduced energy sources capacity in source keepers rooms from 4500 to 4000.
• Introduced new StructureExtractor.cooldown property. It is triggered on each harvest action, your harvesters have to wait for 5 ticks until the next harvest call is possible (it will return ERR_TIRED result code).
• Reduced mineral deposit regeneration amounts from 70-140K to 35-70K. Now all minerals (including hydrogen and oxygen) have the same amounts.
• New NPC market order prices:

Resource	Sell order price	Buy order price
	3.00 Cr	1.00 Cr
	6.00 Cr	1.00 Cr
	18.00 Cr	1.00 Cr
Energy	1.00 Cr	—

1) Energy reduction

2) Extractor cooldown

3) Mineral reduction of Z/K/U/L/X

4) Mineral reduction of O/H

To me, this feels like a *really* bad change to implement all at once.  It will have major impact on the economy with no time to adjust.  I'd much rather see things go in one by one and have them tweaked individually based on feedback and changes in how the game is played.

Fundamental constants (like how much minerals are needed to boost one body part) are not changed. This update affects only economy metrics, it doesn't require any technical testing period, and in fact they (metrics) are impossible to test on PTR as well, since there is no market activity.

The suggestion that a technical testing period isn't necessary only feels half true - a lot of logic around logistics is built around the way the economy functions today.  A lot of rewriting will be required to adjust, which *does* require technical testing.  I feel like this assumption is based on the idea that everyone is spawning creep bodies and roles based on dynamic calculations.  I know you know that isn't the case.

I actually like the mineral changes. Now that market is live, it's otherwise too easy to get the minerals you want, and thus the highest level of boosts.

Novice areas that are 'manually' placed in empty regions typically don't have access to SK rooms, with the new setup they're even more disadvantaged compared to the existing/set up players that they will be thrown in near. (Much slower development + harder for them to get a good mineral stockpile going before the walls drop, etc). It'll be a hard ask for a new player to be RCL7 before the walls drop, so any defenders will be poorly equipped to deal with any issues.

What about starting out by just cutting the amount of X present? That would prevent the highest tier of boosts. You could even change how boosts are made in order to make the higher tiers take more of the base mineral (eg it takes 3 L (plus the rest) to make a tier 3 mineral). This would increase the cost of making minerals (more reactions and more base minerals). Or what about just making the mineral cuts -- it's the energy change that I'm mostly worried about from a startup perspective.

A lot of rewriting will be required to adjust, which does require technical testing.

What exactly you’d want to test using the PTR server? You would need to precisely replicate your entire empire to test these metrics if you want to use them on the main server. It’s just unrealistic.

The only viable strategy will be “control all the SK rooms” (in effect, by adding this much “evolutionary pressure” for the sake of the “economy”, I’m worried we’re greatly reducing the number of different play-styles that are viable – not every game needs a ‘healthy’ in game economy as its most important feature)

We’ll simply reduce SK sources to 3500 or 3000 then. 4000 is not final, we’ll be watching how it goes.

I think reading up to this point is where I realized that this game has no future with development decisions being made in such a reactive fashion.  How about you just tell everyone how you want them to play if you are going to punish them for not playing in whatever arbitrary fashion you dictate?

I think reading up to this point is where I realized that this game has no future with development decisions being made in such a reactive fashion. How about you just tell everyone how you want them to play if you are going to punish them for not playing in whatever arbitrary fashion you dictate?

Every game should polish its game balance from time to time, even when these changes are painful unfortunately. It will have no future otherwise. I'm sorry if it looks like a sudden decision to you, but I can assure you that we've been watching and calculating them carefully for weeks already.

You’re right, it is unrealistic to test, which is why I don’t think pushing a change that will potentially break multiple different areas of people’s code simultaneously is a good idea. Having this pushed out in increments allows people to adjust.

Not all people like to adjust something all the time. For many it is easier to sit, create a spreadsheet and fix all the things at once.

not every game needs a ‘healthy’ in game economy as its most important feature

I completely disagree. Healthy economy (not just player-to-player market, but economy in general) is vital for every game where economy is present.

I am currently uncertain whether these changes are good or bad, but would like to understand the motivation behind them.

The safe room change was made ok by adjusting that it only be possible one at a time. This allowed warfare between multi room empires to proceed without too much of an issue. It might be that some of these changes can be adjusted to manage their impact in a constructive way.

1) GCL growth will be significantly slower after this change as less energy and minerals are available. This means that new players will have to catch up on older players with a significant handicap.

2) At low GCL the CPU / Claimable Rooms  ratio is much higher, meaning that also the maintainable number of remote mines / claimed rooms ratio is much higher. Therefore I'd expect low GCL players to take a much harder hit to their energy income from this change than high GCL players (who get a higher % of their energy from fully claimed rooms).

DP’s point is valid. Not much has been said for the purpose of these changes.

I am currently uncertain whether these changes are good or bad, but would like to understand the motivation behind them.

The safe room change was made ok by adjusting that it only be possible one at a time. This allowed warfare between multi room empires to proceed without too much of an issue. It might be that some of these changes can be adjusted to manage their impact in a constructive way.Yes,

Yes, and we love to discuss features with the community. But these are balance changes. Numbers based on statistics. Unfortunately, we can’t really discuss this being on the same page if we are unable to refer to the same numbers. I could probably summarize it like this: there are too many easy resources in the game world, which affects the game balance too much to leave it unattended anymore.

In terms of balance – what’s the solution to the power problem? With minerals harder to come by and energy now more scarce too, those with large power reserves (a year’s worth of power) will be able to afford a great number of power creeps (and as they’re “ageless”, they can just flood their rooms with them and they’ll stay flooded) and those without the power reserves will have a harder time getting power and a harder time combating the bonuses it provides.

But what makes you think that power creeps will be like regular creeps? You will not be able to flood a single room with them having even billions of power. They are exponential mechanics, like GCL, creating each new power creep and activating each new “Power” for each power creep will require exponentially increasing amount of power resource.

But, of course, when balance changes are made, it is inevitable that some people who made profit of its unbalanced state before will be in benefit. It is never a reason to not implement such changes anyway.

Therefore I’d expect low GCL players to take a much harder hit to their energy income from this change than high GCL players (who get a higher % of their energy from fully claimed rooms).

Exactly the opposite. High GCL players receive most of their energy income from remote rooms, and this change will affect them in the first place.