Virgil,
One of the aspects of CW that I really enjoy is the network side of it, making optimal connections, shorter paths, increasing network speed and capacity and so on.
I was wondering if you have given thought to (perhaps in a future game or different version) give that aspect of gameplay a more prominent role?
I am thinking of things like transmission lines with different capacities; selectable node connections; preferential scheduling of certain packets over certain links; node congestion; and so forth. Something that perhaps are nearer to a version of the Internet?
Clearly that doesn't all fit into a game that one can play and finish in 20 minutes, but still, a person can dream. Perhaps some of this can be implemented in a bigger, more complex version of CW2/3
Interesting - maybe something along the lines of friction in the lines that either slows packets down the further they travel or reduces their potency; in either case, a new unit akin to a pumping station could come into play to do locally what speed does globally... Something like this might also make moving Odin City once a network is built a key part of some maps to reduce line losses.
Indeed.... in a bigger map version of CW (CW2 likely) more advanced 'network' control makes perfect sense. Everything from the staging areas, to independent networks make sense.
In CW I originally experimented with upgrades on individual collectors/relays that would improve the speed for any connections going through them. Ultimately this was too much micromanagement for the scale of the game and this concept got replaced with the speed structures (which act globally). The same logic resulted in the storage nodes.
But if the map got bigger with a scroll or zoom hop option to get around.... the the network or highway system becomes something you need more flexibility with.
You could use that for a CW spinoff where you're some sort of Infomorph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infomorph) entity trying to build a defense against an infection or something.
Imo it's to much Micro to be used in CW style gameplay.
could simply just add a version of the relay that when a packet runs between two of them it travels at a much faster rate, therefore giving a way to build a backbone to the networking system without have to build tons of speed on the entire network. Ex. would be cost twice as much as a relay, but packets travel twice as fast between the two