Virgil, in an older thread you said
Quote
Each reactor produces a little energy. When you build a reactor another number will appear next to the collection rate. This number represents the energy produced by reactors. So if your collection rate reads '5.5 +1.5' it means you have a total energy production rate of 5.5. And 1.5 of that is coming from reactors.
I have never seen those two numbers appear in the energy bar? Is this something you took out on a revision? It is something that I'd like to know, how much energy does a reactor produce?
Oh, and I didn't post on that thread since it's golden and not yet spoiled by the compulsive posters on this site. that thread has retained its very high signal-to-noise that many of the newer threads don't have.
I remove that extra number in updates to the game. It seemed really confusing to people.
Now as for how much energy a single reactor produces, let see... (looking through code, hmmm that's weird, wow I didn't remember that... why did I do it that way, oh read the comment, ahhh there it is...)
0.3 each. Note that the collection display rounds values so you don't always see it increase by 0.3 (you could see a 0.2 or a 0.4 increase). I'm going to fix that in the next update. It's super minor, but it bugs me.
That's great, thanks, but now the obvious question, an optimal collector collects how much energy?
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).
So:
Reactor cost: 40
Reactor production: 0.3
Collector Cost: 10
Collector production (optimal): 0.18
Odin City optimally will project coverage over 69 sqaures. 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).
I was supposed to put all of this in the wiki somewhere and I got so busy I forgot to do it.... maybe somebody can update the wiki with his info...
Virgil, thank you so much for this info. Now I have more. (yea, even I can hear you groan! ;))
When a weapons unit is built, it has an ammo demand to fully charge up. It also has a discharge (or firing) rate. Do you have the numbers for those?
More questions on supply/demand:
Is my understanding correct.
Does each unit/building have a demand rate for supply of packets? So even if Odin City can produce 32 units/second, if I want to build a 20 unit mortar, Odin City will not dispatch 20 units in one burst?
If, OTOH, I build many different units, then Odin city will dispatch up to 32 units/second but if the demand is more, then stored units willl not be dispatched even if they are available?
So there is an upper cap on production/storage whereafter it makes no sense to produce more or store more?
Blasters fire up to 6 times per second. They hold up to 10 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 0.2 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded blaster will fire 50 times total on a full charge.
Mortars fire up to 1 time per second. They hold up to 30 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 3.4 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded mortar will fire 8 times on a full charge (with a little bit of energy left over in the tank, but not enough to fire a new round).
SAMS fire up to 1 time per second. They hold up to 8 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 4 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded SAM will fire 2 times on a full charge.
Drones fire up to 0.9 times per second. They hold 24 ammo packets. Each time it fires (drops a bomb), 1.6 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded drone will drop 15 bombs.
Thor is just ridiculous and makes its own energy... it doesn't consume anything when it fires.
As for the build rate;
Every structure has a minimum build time. Within the context of the game mythology you can think of it as the nano-construction bots that build a structure can only build it so fast. So they request construction packets on a schedule. Kinda like I request ice cream on a regular schedule so I can get fat.... but regardless of how much ice cream exists in the world I can only process it so fast.
If you build structures in parallel, then Odin City will issue packets to each in on its own schedule and in parallel. But, Odin City will never produce more that 32 packets per second. This is a limitation of the 'packet factory' in Odin City.
It never makes much sense to have a Collection rate greater than 32. Your total energy reserve can be as large as you want it, though. There is usually a practical limit, but it depends on the map.
How often can a weapon receive packets? As fast as they are produced?
Weapons request ammo packets once they drop below a threshold (around 1/3 1/4th full). They will request packets at twice the rate that structures build (about once every half second).
I've added all the info for the buildings that you've just said.
Cool... thanks.
Quote from: virgilw on December 31, 2009, 11:45:15 AM
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).
So:
Reactor cost: 40
Reactor production: 0.3
Collector Cost: 10
Collector production (optimal): 0.18
So for the price of one reactor, if one can find the space, one can build 4 collectors and get 0.72 energy? Even allowing for some inefficiencies, collectors seem to be way better. But I can somehow do better when I construct a lot of reactors, I don't understand how?
There is no delay in transporting the energy back to Odin City, is there? There does seem to be a small lag from when a production unit is competed until it's contribution is reflected in the gauges.
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.
Yes, collectors are usually the better deal.... especially in an early game. They give you a better return on investment in the short term and they also form the backbone of your necessary base expansion.
But, note that collectors almost always overlap with each other (sometime 50% or so). So building a chain of collectors doesn't get you the ideal production for each, but rather just the total green area production.
The little bar graphs update every second or two so there can appear to be a small lag between production coming online and when you see it.
As hapes said, reactors are very useful for tight spaces or when you need more energy than the land can produce. I almost always expand to cover as much land as I can and defer reactor building until necessary. If the map allows, I don't build reactors. Many maps, though, pressure you to build reactors since they limit the amount of usable land.
Quote from: virgilw on January 01, 2010, 05:06:32 PM
Many maps, though, pressure you to build reactors since they limit the amount of usable land.
And then you get evil map designers (curse you Fenris I), that withhold nuclear tech. It took me a lot longer than otherwise to beat and most of the time I was operating at 180+ starvation level. :(
OK, so I beat it, so I'm not too upset.
brain overload o.o
lot of info there and suprisingly some of it is useful, jk it's all useful :P
personally i spread out with as many collectors as i can, when i have excess energy i also like to make sure i fill up as much space as i can even if it means building a collector just to cover a couple of squares xP
Quote from: virgilw on December 31, 2009, 11:45:15 AM
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)
optimal is if all the squares are covered, what you've given is the in-practice figures
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 )
you do realise that you've gone completely off your own topic right?
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!
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
Quotenor 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?
Quote from: nic nac on January 10, 2010, 04:08:11 PM
Quotenor 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?
Quote from: Karsten75 on January 10, 2010, 05:48:26 PM
Quote from: nic nac on January 10, 2010, 04:08:11 PM
Quotenor 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
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.
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.
Quote from: hapes on January 01, 2010, 04:10:57 PM
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?
Quote from: virgilw on December 31, 2009, 11:45:15 AM
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....
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.
Great, thanks!
I always put the city 2 blocks away from walls and the border of the map, so I can protect expensive reactors and drones, but now I know it has another advantage. :)
Quote from: virgilw on December 31, 2009, 10:54:15 PM
Weapons request ammo packets once they drop below a threshold (around 1/3 1/4th full). They will request packets at twice the rate that structures build (about once every half second).
Sorry to exhume an old thread from the grave, but are you sure about this? I've seen a blaster fire once and then I see Odin City dispense a new energy packet to it. If what you say holds true, then it should fire several times before Odin City dispatches 3 or 4 packets to it.
Or else, more likely, I'm misunderstanding you.
Probably that ammo packet was requested before. As far as I have seen a packet is sent after a few shots. You can test this by building a disarmed blaster (so it doesn't fire before it's completely charged) and then let it fire once before you disarm it again. I predict it will not get a new ammo packet.
I *did* test this. (I should have been doing something else!)
Here is the results: As per Virgil earlier in thsi thread, each blaster shot takes .2 packets. Thus after 5 shots from a blaster, one packet has been used. A blaster holds 10 ammo packets. It should start requesting packets (again, as per Virgil in this thread) when it is 1/3 to 1/4 empty, - after it consumed 3-4 packets or 15-20 shots.
Check out this example map.
Checked it and it appears to request a new packet after 5 shots, so when 1 packet has been used completely, allowing the new packet to be stored.
Isn't that just what I said? And that it does not correspond to what Virgil indicated earlier in this thread? Not that it is critically important.
Well, it doesn't request for new ammo after one shot, but you are right that the threshold apparently isn't 67% or 75%, but just 1 packet (which is 90% for a blaster).
Quote from: Karsten75 on April 17, 2010, 11:02:46 AM
I *did* test this. (I should have been doing something else!)
Here is the results: As per Virgil earlier in thsi thread, each blaster shot takes .2 packets. Thus after 5 shots from a blaster, one packet has been used. A blaster holds 10 ammo packets. It should start requesting packets (again, as per Virgil in this thread) when it is 1/3 to 1/4 empty, - after it consumed 3-4 packets or 15-20 shots.
Check out this example map.
odin city sends packets as they are needed but if the energy drops to 1/3 to 1/4, blaster/mortar/sam/drone/(me) requests twice as much energy/(food). If a blaster is connected to the network by a new collector with 0 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per .5 seconds. If a blaster is connected.... with 1/2 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per second. You're both right.
(aww... shoot. I just realized last post was a month ago :-\ well, no use wasting this much of my life to hit the X. :P
Quote from: different55 on June 01, 2010, 01:39:49 PM
(aww... shoot. I just realized last post was a month ago
When there's something new to add to a topic, that's no problem at all. Karsten's first post at this page is almost 3 months after the previous, so I'm sure he's just kidding.
Quote from: different55 on June 01, 2010, 01:39:49 PM
odin city sends packets as they are needed but if the energy drops to 1/3 to 1/4, blaster/mortar/sam/drone/(me) requests twice as much energy/(food). If a blaster is connected to the network by a new collector with 0 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per .5 seconds. If a blaster is connected.... with 1/2 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per second. You're both right.
I think you are right. Thanks for opening my eyes!
Quote from: virgilw on December 31, 2009, 03:30:41 PM
Blasters fire up to 6 times per second. They hold up to 10 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 0.2 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded blaster will fire 50 times total on a full charge.
Mortars fire up to 1 time per second. They hold up to 30 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 3.4 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded mortar will fire 8 times on a full charge (with a little bit of energy left over in the tank, but not enough to fire a new round).
SAMS fire up to 1 time per second. They hold up to 8 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 4 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded SAM will fire 2 times on a full charge.
Drones fire up to 0.9 times per second. They hold 24 ammo packets. Each time it fires (drops a bomb), 1.6 ammo packets are consumed. So a fully loaded drone will drop 15 bombs.
This is probably the post that I revisited most over the past 9 months. I am reviving this topic because it does not only provide a lot of useful information, but also a lot of wrong information (just like the wikipedia topic for this game). It's one of the most read topics of this forum, so I figured I better correct it as well as possible with my limited CW knowledge. Please correct me when I'm wrong; my data is just from testing a lot, combined with info from other topics.
Blasters don't fire up to 6 times per second. They fire once per 7 frames, which is 36/7 = 5.14 times per second (with the +15% firing rate upgrade once per 6 frames, which is 36/6 = 6 times per second), see
here (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=4695.msg27163#msg27163)).
Mortars don't fire up to 1 time per second. They fire once per 105 frames, which is 36/105 = 0.34 times per second = once per 2.92 seconds (with the firing rate upgrade 36/90 = 0.4 times per second = once per 2.5 seconds, but
this does not work (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=5394.msg29476#msg29476)!). Mortars don't hold 30 packets, but actually have a capacity of 30.6 packets, see
here (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=5102.0).
I am not sure why the data wasn't correct. Maybe the specifications changed since December 31, 2009?
Edit: Adjusted some data (again)
umm you do realise you just said that with the firing rate increase the mortars fire slower?
once per 2.92 seconds
once per 3.33 second
isnt it supposed to be 0.4 times per second
Sharp eye, thanks! Corrected. :)