Creeper Vacuum

[knucracker]

I am implementing a "vacuum" mode on Creeper Makers.  It allows them to drive around and vacuum up anti-creeper.  This is a good way to pick up anti-creeper and put it back into service.  You can also use it as a way to move anti-creeper around.  That part is a good idea, I think.  For folks that don't want to waste any anti-creeper or like to keep a clean house, this is their new best friend.

But, what should happen to the anti-creeper that gets vacuumed up?  One option is to convert it back into ore.  This ore can then be used by any Maker to create new anti-creeper.  Pretty straight forward and easy to understand.

The other option is to store the anti-creeper in a 'tank'.  Lets call it a "Phasic" tank since it is a single tank but it is available to all Makers on the map.  Vacuumed creeper gets put into that tank and stored there.  The contents of this tank can be released through any Maker by clicking a "release" button on a Maker.  This option is more complex, but it does allow for "anti-creeper bombs".  You could, in theory, save up lots of anti-creeper and then release it all at once.

So option #1 is easy and clear to understand.  Option #2 is more complex but adds one more game play option.  Vote....

[Kithros]

One of the things that would seem a little off to me about being able to release it all at once, is that this would mean that you would always want the creeper maker to constantly be generating creeper - when you weren't in a fight, you would still constantly make more creeper only to vacuum it back up a few seconds later. This might not be inherently bad, but I'm not sure it's the way the maker was intended to work. I think I would rather have it convert it back to ore - this would also give some value to the ore storage upgrade also, which in my opinion is pretty worthless at the moment (and even more so if the second option goes through since you would always be spending ore as fast as you could).

[Grauniad]

... this would also give some value to the ore storage upgrade also, which in my opinion is pretty worthless at the moment

Oh snap!  My words almost exactly. :)

Virgil, a thought hit me that could put the kibosh on the "recycle idea. Doesn't the current "efficiency upgrade" for ore add a 10% factor in ore-to-Anti-Creeper conversion? If so, does it mean that I can make A-C, recycle it back into ore and make x% more, rinse, and repeat?

[Krell]

as long as the vacuum doesn't function while ore reserves are full.

[MadMag]

The release is pretty fun I must say :) and now I find myself moping up every last bit of A-C laying around in my "mines"

[knucracker]

Hmmm.  You raise an interesting point and give me another idea.
What if a vacuum converts back to ore (plain ore, not remnant ore) as you said.  I increase the ore storage amount that the upgrades give you.  I add a button to a maker called "burst".  If you click the burst button, that maker will convert all ore in the ore storage instantly into creeper.

So, vacuums would get to work in the simple way (option 1), there could still be a "creeper bomb" option, and the ore storage upgrade just became 'interesting'....

[MadMag]

Maybe you can make the release button activated when you hold down mouse button, and stop releasing when you let go of it?
that way you can control your burst.

[Krell]

Virgil, a thought hit me that could put the kibosh on the "recycle idea. Doesn't the current "efficiency upgrade" for ore add a 10% factor in ore-to-Anti-Creeper conversion? If so, does it mean that I can make A-C, recycle it back into ore and make x% more, rinse, and repeat?

is that a new upgrade? if not the I think that's just ore rig mining speed.

[knucracker]

Virgil, a thought hit me that could put the kibosh on the "recycle idea. Doesn't the current "efficiency upgrade" for ore add a 10% factor in ore-to-Anti-Creeper conversion? If so, does it mean that I can make A-C, recycle it back into ore and make x% more, rinse, and repeat?

Hmmm...  That's a tricky question.  Let me stare at the code and think about it.  The upgrade changes the conversion rate from ore to creeper.  I suppose when creeper is turned back into ore it needs to be done so in accordance with the current upgrade based ratio.

[Kithros]

Hmmm.  You raise an interesting point and give me another idea.
What if a vacuum converts back to ore (plain ore, not remnant ore) as you said.  I increase the ore storage amount that the upgrades give you.  I add a button to a maker called "burst".  If you click the burst button, that maker will convert all ore in the ore storage instantly into creeper.

So, vacuums would get to work in the simple way (option 1), there could still be a "creeper bomb" option, and the ore storage upgrade just became 'interesting'....

That would work pretty well, but one side effect of this would be that it would trivialize building multiple creeper makers when remnants aren't involved - unless it had a cooldown to the burst ability, or had some kind of efficiency decrease when using it, since you could always just burst on the same maker over and over again instead of using multiple makers. Not a huge point since I rarely use multiple makers at the same place anyway, but worth considering still. Other than that I think that idea would be perfect.

[Krell]

I use multiple makers to simply dump all my creeper out at once anyways.

[knucracker]

Virgil, a thought hit me that could put the kibosh on the "recycle idea. Doesn't the current "efficiency upgrade" for ore add a 10% factor in ore-to-Anti-Creeper conversion? If so, does it mean that I can make A-C, recycle it back into ore and make x% more, rinse, and repeat?

Hmmm...  That's a tricky question.  Let me stare at the code and think about it.  The upgrade changes the conversion rate from ore to creeper.  I suppose when creeper is turned back into ore it needs to be done so in accordance with the current upgrade based ratio.

Ok, I think this would not be a problem.  I got confused there for a minute.  The efficiency upgrade is a ore rig upgrade.  It increases the efficiency that rigs pull ore from the ground.  It effectively makes ore get mined faster _and_ increases the efficiency of the mining process (so you get more ore out of a deposit).

Makers operate at a fixed conversion ratio of 1 ore to 30000 creeper.  So reversing this process would yield 1 ore for every 30000 creeper vacuumed up.

[Grauniad]

Virgil, a thought hit me that could put the kibosh on the "recycle idea. Doesn't the current "efficiency upgrade" for ore add a 10% factor in ore-to-Anti-Creeper conversion? If so, does it mean that I can make A-C, recycle it back into ore and make x% more, rinse, and repeat?

Hmmm...  That's a tricky question.  Let me stare at the code and think about it.  The upgrade changes the conversion rate from ore to creeper.  I suppose when creeper is turned back into ore it needs to be done so in accordance with the current upgrade based ratio.

Ok, I think this would not be a problem.  I got confused there for a minute.  The efficiency upgrade is a ore rig upgrade.  It increases the efficiency that rigs pull ore from the ground.  It effectively makes ore get mined faster _and_ increases the efficiency of the mining process (so you get more ore out of a deposit).

Makers operate at a fixed conversion ratio of 1 ore to 30000 creeper.  So reversing this process would yield 1 ore for every 30000 creeper vacuumed up.

Now I'm confused: Link for Virgil only.

[knucracker]

That would work pretty well, but one side effect of this would be that it would trivialize building multiple creeper makers when remnants aren't involved - unless it had a cooldown to the burst ability, or had some kind of efficiency decrease when using it, since you could always just burst on the same maker over and over again instead of using multiple makers. Not a huge point since I rarely use multiple makers at the same place anyway, but worth considering still. Other than that I think that idea would be perfect.

Interesting observations... It would mean that one viable strategy, some of the time, would be to build only one Maker and upgade ore storage to the max.  Wait and then burst all ore as necessary from that single Maker.  But as you say, often I essentially operate this way anyway (just a single Maker).

You might find yourself building more than one Maker primarily as mop-up units to collect any surviving anti-creeper.

[UpperKEES]

I chose for the second option: store it in a phasic tank (with a large capacity) to be able to release it later, thus allowing to produce a powerful anti-Creeper bomb without the use of shields and such.

I prefer this above the conversion back into ore for 4 reasons:

1. Converting ore again into anti-Creeper is very time consuming, especially because the mopping up already costs some time.

2. The maker doesn't have much fire power (only 120K of anti-creeper per second at 4x) and being able to release the phasic tank would make it a much better weapon against stronger enemies. Just compare 120K to the 11.5M of damage a launcher missile can do. Releasing a Creeper bomb can be very useful when trying to build a nullifier close to a very strong emitter or to slow down very fast and heavy drones.

3. Multiple makers are still needed for the initial conversion of ore and remnants into anti-Creeper (1), for fighting at multiple fronts (2), for mopping up anti-Creeper (3), to be able to release anti-Creeper bombs at different locations simultaneously (4) and to release more than the maximum size of the phasic tank at once (5).

4. Ore storage is still very useful, because you'll often collect most of your ore and remnants at the start of the map and it takes quite some time to convert all of it into anti-Creeper, while you probably will fight the toughest enemies in the end. I always have my ore storage filled up completely before I start my final assault (which merely applies to playing tough code maps and is less applicable to the current in-game maps).