Possibilities for Collectors

[FluppyGuppy]

Just had a look at the latest blog post which showed us some collectors in action. It gave me a few ideas as to how they could work. I like the idea of their collection area growing similar to mire. Perhaps it can get destroyed by creeper and have to slowly grow again?

I've seen people talking about replacing panels with something else but why? I think having more diverse options for players is always better so long as they aren't totally redundant.

Depending on their growth speed I'd imagine collectors would be a bit slow to start with. In this case maybe the panels can serve as a less effective but instant power boost for the very beginning of the game, until the collectors reach a point where they can effectively take over. What if there is a type of ground that cannot be turned into soylent area?

[kajacx]

When I saw the 3d rendering of creeper, I hot an idea to build a dam with water power plant (there was a custom map exactly liek that in CW3 btw), but while cool for custom/mission map, I don't think it could be universally used, since it requres a height difference in creaper, and also it would needs to be constructed in creeper?

A less crazy idea would be a mor epassive approach: a power plant that only generated electricity when under creeper. The more creeper on top of it, the more electricity. I imagine it would take some effort to secure a safe pool of creeper to build such power plant.

[Ninja]

Or, perhaps, make collectors more expensive, slow down their area growth rate, but make the area that they'll eventually cover VERY large (possibly infinite) and VERY effective (well, more effective than it is now anyway). Then, add panels in as well, but any area covered by a panel cannot be used by collectors for soylent. In addition, an area covered with panels will not make as much energy as an area covered with collector soylent. Panels would be cheap— perhaps 5 or 10, like the current collectors— to offset the expense (50+) of the collectors, but in the long run you'll want collectors. Sort of like reactors, but done in a different way.

Thoughts?

[Tojot]

I like that. Far in the game it's easy and cheap to add collector in missing spots, but it's tedious. Slow, but continued expansion would make that simpler.