Reactors - Question for Virgil

[Kalistos]

Each green square produces a whopping 0.004 energy!  (Doesn't sound like much does it)
An optimal collector will cover 45 squares for a total of 0.18 energy. (Those little squares add up fast).

Collector Cost: 10
Collector production (optimal): 0.18

Collectors overlap each other, and in practice collectors will cover 39 less squares maximum, optimal 35-39. But collectorls linked with Odin City will cover 28-33 squares only.

So in practice:
Collector Cost: 10
Collector production (optimal): 0.12-0.15 (0.1-0.12 linked with Odin City)

[Aurzel]

optimal is if all the squares are covered, what you've given is the in-practice figures

[Kalistos]

No! If you wanna take good position in high score, you shouldnt building collectors covering a few squares, if collector cover 10-15 squares only, it produce 0.04-0.06 energy only, it's 3 packets for 1 minute, we lost 10 packets for building, and return them in 3 minutes 20 seconds, but almost maps are playing 3-6 minutes (for high score), and why I should build them? We lost time, and dont gain a profit. I m building collectors if i realy need them, if i will win maps with only one blaster, why i need a lot energy collections? I will build 2-4 collectors for 1 blaster, and then will build some building for taking totems (relays are better for covering distantion when you dont need more energy collections). Finaly, in the end if collector give me a profit for 1-3 packets, i wont build its too )
I dont know your aim in the game ^^) But i play for high score board ) I wanna publish my Walkthroughs in Story maps in 1-2 mounths. High score Walkthroughs )

[Aurzel]

you do realise that you've gone completely off your own topic right?

[nic nac]

Question regarding Collectors. I have fallen back on a stacking strategy that allows me to push forward rapidly and at a good return value, but I don't know if I reduce the power generation of collectors if I build on greens.

I've never seen a sign anywhere telling me to keep of the lawn!

[Kamron3]

If you mean building on greens as in building on a green area, you do not lose any kind of power, nor do you gain any power from green areas. Only power you can get is converting the grey areas to green.

_k

[nic nac]

nor do you gain any power from green areas.

leaves me just as confused as before.

Is the efficiency of a collector lowered or not when I build other stuff in its range of influence?

[Karsten75]

nor do you gain any power from green areas.

leaves me just as confused as before.

Is the efficiency of a collector lowered or not when I build other stuff in its range of influence?

A collector collects from the green area it creates. If you build other stuff within that area, it does not affect the efficiency of the collector. However, if you build another collector adjacent to the first, then the 2nd collector will only collect energy from the new green area it creates and not from the green area created by the first collector.

Capice?

[Kamron3]

nor do you gain any power from green areas.

leaves me just as confused as before.

Is the efficiency of a collector lowered or not when I build other stuff in its range of influence?

A collector collects from the green area it creates. If you build other stuff within that area, it does not affect the efficiency of the collector. However, if you build another collector adjacent to the first, then the 2nd collector will only collect energy from the new green area it creates and not from the green area created by the first collector.

Capice?

Hit the nail on the head right there :)

_k

[nic nac]

Capice?

I think so.

[TheWesson]

It sure looks in the game like a collector can only cover 32 squares (a 6x6 area minus the four corners) assuming that the towers are all 2x2 squares.  Either Virgil's 45 squares (7x7 minus four) is wrong, or the graphics in the game are misleading.

Going on the above 6x6 assumption ...

A collector built on a horizontal or vertical chain will lose 8 squares to the collector it is connected to, leaving you with 24 squares active, or 0.96 energy units, assuming 0.004 energy per square.

A collector built on a diagonal chain will lose 7 squares to the connected collector, leaving 25 squares active, giving 0.1 energy.

Assuming Virgil's correct about 0.3 units from a reactor, you need 0.075 from a collector for it to equal a reactor in cost efficiency - it needs 18.75 rounded to 19 squares active - it can afford to lose 13 squares to the connected reactor or to cliffs or to the edge of the board or whatever.  Put another way, it can afford to lose another 5 or 6 squares to cliffs or additional overlap before it's less cost effective than a reactor.

There are of course the additional considerations that you need to connect things anyhow and that the collector will be giving you the energy sooner ... but reactors are easier to protect ...

And, building on a diagonal gives you approximately 0.004 extra energy per collector! w00t.

[TheWesson]

Oh wait, the extent of the collection area is 2.5 units on each side from the edge of the collector, therefore you do get 7x7 squares less 4 = 45 squares.

My mistake, sorry.  I assumed the 'radius' would be a whole number.

That means that if you're a collector, you can lose 19 squares before you're as uneconomical as a reactor, or you can lose *11* more squares (to cliffs etc) after the overlap factor, before being as bad as a reactor.

[jem]

On reactors vs. Collectors:  A collector generates the energy from the ground around it (green squares).  The reactor generates energy inside itself.  Thus, it's cheaper to create collectors, but there's only so much space.  Reactors generate more power per area (4 green squares per, I believe), but take more energy to build in the first place.

The key point here is this:  A reactor can sit on the ground a collector is harvesting.  They don't pull from the same source.  Once you have the energy to build reactors, it's my strategy to spam the crap out of them.  I just finished Loki (without building Thor) and had probably 30 or 40 reactors running.

i other question, about this quote: what was the text saying? was it the old text that you would have if you had thor?

[UpperKEES]

An optimal collector will cover 45 squares for a total of 0.18 energy.

[...]

Odin City optimally will project coverage over 69 squares.  It also has two reactors at its heart (bet you didn't know that) which produce 0.6 when it is on the ground.  This is why you start the game with 0.8 energy production (0.6 plus the area projected).

Two questions:
1. Why doesn't Odin City produce 0.876 (2 x 0.3 from reactors + 69 x 0.004) energy when you start?
2. When I place Odin City in the corner of a map or against a wall for instance (and because of this not optimally covering the projected area), does this reduce the amount of energy it produces like collectors in the same situation? As far as I remember I always see the same starting value....

[knucracker]

1:  It does, the display just truncates it to 0.8
2: Yes, but it is difficult to make much difference since it is difficult to put the city in a place that significantly reduces the green area around it.  You can place the city in an illegal location using the map editor and observe a drop off, however.