There is a hard limit of 60 packets per second? coming out of the ship. Typically this is way more than would ever be needed, but there are some code maps with gigantic emitters where more packets would help.
So my idea is to let each packet do more work with upgrades, where each packet has a strength of one now, maybe an upgrade could move it to 1.2 or 1.5 or 2.
There is a way to get more than 60 packets/second out of the LS. If you have gem reserves in excess of 60, then for as long as you don't tap into the gem reserves, the LS can disperse as many packets as you have reserves. Needs fine manipulation, but it can be done.
Quote from: Grauniad on August 11, 2011, 12:18:21 PM
There is a way to get more than 60 packets/second out of the LS. If you have gem reserves in excess of 60, then for as long as you don't tap into the gem reserves, the LS can disperse as many packets as you have reserves. Needs fine manipulation, but it can be done.
You only need
1 unit of crystal energy to remove the limit and disperse as many packets as you can afford to, but should you ever overspend your production and reduce your reserves to 0, never again will you be able to disperse more than 2 packets in one frame. The amount of crystal energy matters not, only that you have it.
See here (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=7387.msg47889#msg47889) for more info.
Quote from: UpperKEES on August 11, 2011, 04:06:30 PM
See here (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=7387.msg47889#msg47889) for more info.
Thanks for the link. As far as I can tell, nobody has suggested increasing the power of each packet, however.
Quote from: Measure on August 11, 2011, 04:55:32 PM
As far as I can tell, nobody has suggested increasing the power of each packet, however.
That's actually an interesting thought....
Edit:Fractions aren't an option however, so an increase from 1 to 2 energy per packet would be quite a lot.
Quote from: UpperKEES on August 11, 2011, 05:08:48 PM
Quote from: Measure on August 11, 2011, 04:55:32 PM
As far as I can tell, nobody has suggested increasing the power of each packet, however.
That's actually an interesting thought....
Edit:
Fractions aren't an option however, so an increase from 1 to 2 energy per packet would be quite a lot.
increase from 1 to 3, and cut packets/sec in half
I never noticed a limit on the packets. But I am a big fan of upgrades so I think this would be interesting.
it costs 80 techs to upgrade from 1 to 2? ;)
well then lets suggest it now because ive ran into emiters with over 100k output and could have seriously used either more packet production or increased packet limit and as it stands without the crystal as said its pretty much almost impossible to finish that level as you can barely keep the emiter contained to an area
While this upgrade would be cool, I found the tip there more useful :)
(having crystals = infinite output, so long as you have the generation to support it. I didn't notice this. heh.)
Quote from: Mister_Andy on August 23, 2011, 11:16:28 AM
While this upgrade would be cool, I found the tip there more useful :)
(having crystals = infinite output, so long as you have the generation to support it. I didn't notice this. heh.)
That is extremely useful if you are good enough to not go into deficit (unlike me XD) or save crystal items until when you need them.
It also creates an interesting and unique tactic that could make for intersesting maps. 8)
Quote from: UpperKEES on August 11, 2011, 05:08:48 PM
Fractions aren't an option however, so an increase from 1 to 2 energy per packet would be quite a lot.
Sorry for picking you back up on this, but why exactly aren't fractions an option?
I know that some structures will then be 'overbuilt' by some fractional amount, but this is insignificant with respect to the gain (if say, a packet would contain 1.2 energy). However, in-game mechanics shouldn't suffer.
Quote from: Lord_Farin on August 23, 2011, 01:17:42 PM
Quote from: UpperKEES on August 11, 2011, 05:08:48 PM
Fractions aren't an option however, so an increase from 1 to 2 energy per packet would be quite a lot.
Sorry for picking you back up on this, but why exactly aren't fractions an option?
I know that some structures will then be 'overbuilt' by some fractional amount, but this is insignificant with respect to the gain (if say, a packet would contain 1.2 energy). However, in-game mechanics shouldn't suffer.
maybe because virgil stores the "builtness" of a unit as an INT? (at least that would make sense for him to do)
Quote from: thepenguin on August 23, 2011, 01:32:41 PM
maybe because virgil stores the "builtness" of a unit as an INT? (at least that would make sense for him to do)
Of course, how ignorant of me. However, the fix could be easy by shifting the comma one place to the right in the back-end, allowing for 'builtness' to have one place behind the comma (although this might not be possible for DB because of the internal integer type used here
(Addendum: because of overflow problems))
to get really geeky here, I would guess that virgil does not actually store the built values in INTs, but in BYTEs
Quote from: thepenguin on August 23, 2011, 05:52:08 PM
to get really geeky here, I would guess that virgil does not actually store the built values in INTs, but in BYTEs
I suspected that (my comment on DB referred to it); however, I didn't know enough about AS to assure me that byte existed, and was too lazy to look it up :)
Quote from: Lord_Farin on August 24, 2011, 02:52:52 AM
Quote from: thepenguin on August 23, 2011, 05:52:08 PM
to get really geeky here, I would guess that virgil does not actually store the built values in INTs, but in BYTEs
I suspected that (my comment on DB referred to it); however, I didn't know enough about AS to assure me that byte existed, and was too lazy to look it up :)
I just realized that virgil has to use SMALLs for the buildings (I got the tech dome price up to 300), and virgil also stores fields in SMALLs
BYTE and SMALL data types are both not available in AS3, see here (http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00000047.html).
This means Virgil has to handle everything with INTs, UINTs and the rather expensive NUMBERs.
Quote from: UpperKEES on August 24, 2011, 10:44:59 AM
BYTE and SMALL data types are both not available in AS3, see here (http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00000047.html).
This means Virgil has to handle everything with INTs, UINTs and the rather expensive NUMBERs.
If using ints/uints (what's with the caps?), my suggestion of the integer indicating tenths of 'builtness' would be feasible (although I'm not sure if I support the underlying suggestion of a different type of tech, but it could be interesting for certain custom maps of course).
I'd also like to be able to change the amount of energy the LS puts out
Quote from: thepenguin on August 24, 2011, 07:17:27 PM
I'd also like to be able to change the amount of energy the LS puts out
+1