Early game modular armor rebalance

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thereaverofdarkness
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by thereaverofdarkness »

Jap2.0 wrote:
PacifyerGrey wrote:I do agree on following changes:
  • Make Modular Armor available with only red circuits (no blue)
  • Buff PSP to 25
Also the game really needs a connector to main base power grid so that you could consider an option to use batteries for your suit on short travels instead of relying on built-in power generation.
I agree with the first too; the third has previously been dismissed as fairly OP.
No, it simply needs a limiting factor. It would be OP if you could fill batteries as fast as your nuclear power source could output power. But, say, it's a module you put in your equipment grid which has a rate of draw from your power network, and you have to put in more modules to draw it in faster.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

I don't see it as much of a problem. Currently we rush Fusion Reactors, because they're required to get personal robots running with any sort of efficiency, but really they require quite a lot of material. Perhaps allowing a modest draw from power networks would alleviate some of that rush, but it wouldn't completely phase out personal power supplies - even if you ensure the majority of your base is covered in power poles, you're still going to run into problems when laying rails and building outposts, not to mention just being a general inconvenience. Also if it allows only a draw equal to say 1 or 1.5 reactors then either way when you start going for the MK2 Roboports you're going to hit power issues.

IMO combined with the earlier MK1 Power Armour (and ideally building each armour into the next) it strikes a good balance, allowing an early-mid game construction boost that could really take the edge off midgame building for experienced players.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Jap2.0 »

bobucles wrote:
I agree with the first too; the third has previously been dismissed as fairly OP.
But that's completely wrong. The only energy production attribute that really matters is energy/tile. Modular solar is awful, generating 7kW/tile over time (including night). Pocket fusion generates an overwhelming 47kW/tile, easy enough for 1 or 2 to satisfy even the most demanding things. It's not a tall order to find a convenient middle ground. A 2x2 induction unit that generates 80kW is producing 20kW per tile, which is a very strong number for that stage of the game.

A low cost charging unit that connects to the grid is an excellent idea. It not only helps fill in the GIGANTIC gap between pocket solar and pocket fusion, but it creates a useful defense mechanic that plays well in PvE or PvP. You can charge a suit on defense but not on offense, or take advantage of exo suits on friendly turf without REQUIRING end game tech. That's all good stuff.
I suppose I wasn't really looking at that, I was more looking at the fact that 1 steam engine generates 900 kw. I concede that with proper size, cost, and rate limitations it would work well.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Engimage »

I see no problem in having unlimited power connector. In PvE it looks natural that you could use base power for your needs. Even in PvP defense should provide more capabilities than offense. Anyways you are limited to certain modules throughput and capabilities and do not get a real benefit from those "900 KW of power" from steam engines.

We do rush personal fusion for a reason - you can't really get enough autonomic capabilities before that. Due to weaknes of PSP you can't even rely on a big set of batteries cause you put them in uncharged and they charge for infinity with PSPs.
It would be absolutely natural if you could charge from base grid and rely on batteries while traveling with slight benefit from PSP to make it last longer. Think of PowerBanks now in comparison. Their main goal is to provide you with autonomic power and some of them are also equipped by a small solar cells not to provide you with full power but to charge the power bank slowly while you still do nothing. But the main charging for power bank is still your home power supply unit.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobingabout »

Jap2.0 wrote:
bobucles wrote:
I agree with the first too; the third has previously been dismissed as fairly OP.
But that's completely wrong. The only energy production attribute that really matters is energy/tile. Modular solar is awful, generating 7kW/tile over time (including night). Pocket fusion generates an overwhelming 47kW/tile, easy enough for 1 or 2 to satisfy even the most demanding things. It's not a tall order to find a convenient middle ground. A 2x2 induction unit that generates 80kW is producing 20kW per tile, which is a very strong number for that stage of the game.

A low cost charging unit that connects to the grid is an excellent idea. It not only helps fill in the GIGANTIC gap between pocket solar and pocket fusion, but it creates a useful defense mechanic that plays well in PvE or PvP. You can charge a suit on defense but not on offense, or take advantage of exo suits on friendly turf without REQUIRING end game tech. That's all good stuff.
I suppose I wasn't really looking at that, I was more looking at the fact that 1 steam engine generates 900 kw. I concede that with proper size, cost, and rate limitations it would work well.
Although I like the idea... there is one problem.

The devs have stated (in private conversation, but fuck it, it's not a secret) that Electric trains that draw power from a grid when the train is on a tile with a grid won't happen because the train would constantly need to check "Am I powered?" every time it moved (which is every tick the train isn't stopped at a station or signal, so might as well be every tick), which is an expensive operation. you don't notice it for buildings because it only happens once when the building is placed, then again when you place/remove a power pole. all manual operations. And a believe there's some sort of grid connection (like wires, just invisible) so that even if you chop down a power pole that cuts power to half your base, it still doesn't check again.

So, the player doing that, because he has some grid equipment installed is... unlikely. However, some kind of "Dock", so you have to go and stand on a specific tile of a new type of entity MIGHT be acceptable.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by BlakeMW »

I find Modular armor with 2x Roboport and everything else solar panel to be perfectly acceptable for standard game settings. Roboports have large built-in batteries so no need for separate batteries.

I do have a couple of gripes: the first is a lack of charge indicator for roboports (without opening the power armor to check), this makes it look like the solar panels aren't achieving anything. The second is that personal solar panels cost 5 solar panels, it's not a problem from a game balance perspective because the cost is still trifling (I mean to say, a PSP loadout is like 1 stack of solar panels, who cares), but it's kind of insulting from a logic perspective. Since the panels aren't great, they can at least be perceived as cheap to make it more tempting for players to invest in enough of them to provide a meaningful amount of power. Whether that's 1 solar panel -> 1 PSP, or 1 solar panel -> 2 PSP, it really doesn't matter. The things have negligible cost anyway and it doesn't really make a balance difference if the cost is more negligible, even if they cost literally nothing they still take up armor slots which is the greater cost to using them than their material cost.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

which is an expensive operation.
An expensive operation against 1 player isn't expensive. 50 clock cycles a tick isn't a big deal, and it's easily cut in half by checking every other tick.
I see no problem in having unlimited power connector
Unlimited suit power breaks the suit system. I shouldn't even have to explain why.
Solar panels have negligible cost anyway
Uh. No? A single PSP costs 150 copper and over 200 iron per tile. Every other module costs 60'ish iron and 25 copper for 4 tiles. PSPs cost over 15 times more resources per tile than anything else. Suit energy is stupidly over priced.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Zavian »

bobucles wrote:An expensive operation against 1 player isn't expensive. 50 clock cycles a tick isn't a big deal, and it's easily cut in half by checking every other tick.
What about on a multiplayer server with 50 or 200 players? Also I suspect it would be a lot more than just 50 clock cycles. If I recall correctly getting anything from L3 cache is around 40 cycles, and each cache miss is around 100 ns (which is 400 cycles on a 4 GHz processor).
PSPs cost over 15 times more resources per tile than anything else. Suit energy is stupidly over priced.

They are also something you basically discard an hour or two later when you upgrade to fusion. Pretty much everything else you might still use to end game. (Whilst you probably won't use battery Mk1s, you will be able to recycle them into Mk2s).

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

They are also something you basically discard an hour or two later when you upgrade to fusion.
It's not unusual to skip them entirely.

A fusion reactor costs 250 blue circuits, which is 16000 iron/copper for 750kW of suit power. PSPs cost almost 370 iron/copper for 7kW (including night time).

You pay 21 resources per kW of pocket fusion.
You pay 53 resources per kW of pocket solar.

Have you ever seen a higher tech recipe that is more resource efficient than a low tech recipe? With pocket solar you can. They absolutely 100% need a balance fix.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by BlakeMW »

bobucles wrote:
Solar panels have negligible cost anyway
Uh. No? A single PSP costs 150 copper and over 200 iron per tile. Every other module costs 60'ish iron and 25 copper for 4 tiles. PSPs cost over 15 times more resources per tile than anything else. Suit energy is stupidly over priced.
By the time you can make them the cost is negligible compared with the output of the factory. Things which cost a comparable amount to 10 PSPs include a stack of flamethrower fuel or a stack of electric mining drills. The cost isn't quite unnoticeable, but it's a drop in the bucket compared with the factory output to produce advanced or military science which is needed to make anything worth powering. A full load of panels costs significantly less than the research cost of Energy Shield so if you can afford to research the equipment you can easily afford the cost of powering the equipment. For most equipment, you'll spend more on the research than the equipment itself, often much more.

The cost of a load of PSPs is also minuscule compared with the cost of researching Personal Fusion Reactor. So even if you only get it as a stopgap while waiting for PFR you've only increased your spending on equipment by 5% or so, much less if also taking into account the research to get Power Armor II.

Basically if you can't effortlessly afford the cost of a loadout of PSPs you're doing something badly wrong and would be making extremely slow progress towards better equipment.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

By the time you can make them the cost is negligible compared with the output of the factory.
No it's not. PSPs are mid green tier, or 2-3 yellow belts of ore at best. They're VERY expensive compared to the output of the factory. They're very expensive compared to other modules. They're very expensive compared to FUSION power. PSPs are simply over priced.
The cost of a load of PSPs is also minuscule compared with the cost of researching Personal Fusion Reactor. S
The cost of a healthy number of PSPs (say, 20 for power armor mk1) covers the entire cost of Fusion Reactor military science. that is not insignificant. Skipping PSPs entirely will get you significantly deep into fusion reactors. Is it any surprise that players skip them? It shouldn't be.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Koub »

I would gladly invest into PSP at their actual price if only they delivered sufficent output to power a modular armor's needs (let's say 1-2 personal roboport MK1, one shield MK1 or night vision, maybe a pair of batteries for night time buffer). This is a reasonable setup, and I shouldn't need a fusion reactor for that. Well I dare you to power that modest setup with PSPs (by power, I mean power it up AND use it AND not use the "mine construction bots while in mid-air for them to refill magically instead of recharging them with your roboport".
Go around, expand your walls with blueprints, ... wait 5 minutes for your roboports to refill, plonk down a few blueprints, wait for another 5 minutes, ...
Obviously, when you're at the megabase level, PSPs are irrelevant. But when you are at red circuit tech level, PSPs are very much expensive, and deliver awfully little value for their cost.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by thereaverofdarkness »

I think the distance between PSP and fusion in terms of power per square is fine, the real problem is that the consumption needs to be fixed. Shields should be a high consumer--you can use batteries to save for the occasional combat until you get enough power generation to charge the shields directly. Roboports should be a mid-consumer (I retract this statement)--might take a fair amount of your grid to keep it powered at first, but you should be able to run at least one roboport nonstop in modular armor. Exoskeletons should be a low consumer--costing a significant amount of power but mostly just taking up space in your grid. Night vision should also be a low consumer.

The problem, really, is that exoskeletons are a mid-consumer and roboports are a high-consumer. Shields and night vision are already about right for what power generation options you have available.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

Roboports should be a mid-consumer--
Roboports are already a non consumer, and I don't mean hand cranking bots with the pickaxe. Just carry a handful of roboports on you. You now have a roboport that can go anywhere a big power pole can go, and not a single suit module was needed.

Personal roboports are a luxury. They are absolutely not needed at any point in the game and having a high tech requirement suits them just fine.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Frightning »

bobucles wrote:
Roboports should be a mid-consumer--
Roboports are already a non consumer, and I don't mean hand cranking bots with the pickaxe. Just carry a handful of roboports on you. You now have a roboport that can go anywhere a big power pole can go, and not a single suit module was needed.

Personal roboports are a luxury. They are absolutely not needed at any point in the game and having a high tech requirement suits them just fine.
Then why have a mk1 and mk2 personal roboport if the former is effectively unusable until the latter has already long been researched? PSPs need a buff, I can say that from experience of having used them, 5 of them in modular armor could barely keep up with recharging power in my batteries after each time I cleared a biter expansion that had popped up inside my pollution. This was during medium biter stage of the game, once big biters started to show, it wasn't even managing to keep up (thankfully I got around to researching the tank and solved that problem for myself by letting the Tank take the damage instead of my shields). This was a default settings game, btw. If they were 2-3 times stronger in power generation it would've been fine, though using legs and/or personal roboports would still be out of the question until fusion. It's worth mentioning that back in 0.14 and before, the fusion reactor was same tech level as Power armor MK1, unlike now, where it's Power armor MK2 tier. Lowering the fusion reactor to just RGB science (even if gated behind Power armor MK1 tech, and still requiring lots of processing units to make), would probably also be good. That way MK1 personal roboport and exoskeletons are actually usable at the tech level they can be researched at. Power Armor MK2 is still a significant upgrade because unlike it's MK1 counterpart, the MK2's equipment grid is big enough to support multiple fusion reactors, allowing for very power hungry equipment setups to be used... and it also still has superior damage resistances as well.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by thereaverofdarkness »

Frightning wrote:It's worth mentioning that back in 0.14 and before, the fusion reactor was same tech level as Power armor MK1, unlike now, where it's Power armor MK2 tier. Lowering the fusion reactor to just RGB science (even if gated behind Power armor MK1 tech, and still requiring lots of processing units to make), would probably also be good.
The problem with that is that it will make PSPs useless for anything other than night vision for, like, 1 night maybe. It would make more sense to buff PSPs and/or add some other method of generating power, and it would also make more sense to push personal roboports further up the tech tree to better explain their high consumption rate. I agree with bobucles on this one, and I retract my previous statement that they should be a mid-consumer. I think they should consume less than shields, but they already do consume less. Also, in my experience they haven't been as big a power drain as you guys are saying. Maybe my mods are reducing the cost, but I find it more likely that you're stuffing several ports in your armor and trying to run them all at once.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

What about on a multiplayer server with 50 or 200 players?
That's not only an insane requirement (most games are 20 or less players) but it is still a very straight forward check thing being done 50-200 times. Is a player in power? Then their charging is active. Sounds pretty close to O(1) to me, which in the CPU world is a drop in the bucket.

The difficulty is much higher with trains because they A) gofast and B) have a large hit box with multiple places to check every tick. Players are one tile that moves fairly slow, or a 2x2 if you want to be comfy.

Honestly arguing over CPU cycles that you can count on your fingers is like counting penny shavings. It doesn't matter and the gameplay benefit of a mid range suit module vastly outweighs it.
I find it more likely that you're stuffing several ports in your armor and trying to run them all at once.
Running around in exo suits and half a dozen busy roboports will vaporize your battery storage, but that's perfectly normal. Personal robos are for personal use. There's no part of the game that says they HAVE to be able to build huge bases. That's what regular roboports are for.

If anything the biggest energy drain on the personal roboport is the range scaling. The robo range gets too large too quickly and your batteries get MURDERED by the constant 50-100 tile journeys that you have no way of avoiding. Shrink the range scaling by half and roboport energy consumption will go down with it.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Ranakastrasz »

bobucles wrote:
If anything the biggest energy drain on the personal roboport is the range scaling. The robo range gets too large too quickly and your batteries get MURDERED by the constant 50-100 tile journeys that you have no way of avoiding. Shrink the range scaling by half and roboport energy consumption will go down with it.
That, and/or get rid of the massive energy reserve in the roboports. They do not need that much capacity. At all.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Frightning »

thereaverofdarkness wrote:
Frightning wrote:It's worth mentioning that back in 0.14 and before, the fusion reactor was same tech level as Power armor MK1, unlike now, where it's Power armor MK2 tier. Lowering the fusion reactor to just RGB science (even if gated behind Power armor MK1 tech, and still requiring lots of processing units to make), would probably also be good.
The problem with that is that it will make PSPs useless for anything other than night vision for, like, 1 night maybe. It would make more sense to buff PSPs and/or add some other method of generating power, and it would also make more sense to push personal roboports further up the tech tree to better explain their high consumption rate. I agree with bobucles on this one, and I retract my previous statement that they should be a mid-consumer. I think they should consume less than shields, but they already do consume less. Also, in my experience they haven't been as big a power drain as you guys are saying. Maybe my mods are reducing the cost, but I find it more likely that you're stuffing several ports in your armor and trying to run them all at once.
Well, I wasn't suggesting that lowering tech requirements of fusion was an alternative to buffing PSPs, but rather that doing so as well would probably be wise because even with a reasonable buff, PSPs aren't likely to be productive enough to facilitate use of exoskeletons and personal roboports.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by thereaverofdarkness »

bobucles wrote:If anything the biggest energy drain on the personal roboport is the range scaling. The robo range gets too large too quickly and your batteries get MURDERED by the constant 50-100 tile journeys that you have no way of avoiding. Shrink the range scaling by half and roboport energy consumption will go down with it.
Or make them stop purposely trying to go as far and as random as possible, and have them prefer to hit up things closer to you.

Ranakastrasz wrote:That, and/or get rid of the massive energy reserve in the roboports. They do not need that much capacity. At all.
They should have about enough power storage to charge 2 robots. You should be able/required to put the robots in the module and its power storage should increase with the robots put in it, to represent them being powered up before launch. They should be able to dock without charging, and just not launch until the roboport has enough power to launch them, and leftover charge they carry when they get back should be delivered back into the roboport.

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