Creeper World 3

[Grauniad]

I'm imagining "shield tunneling" now; a three building wide "tunnel" of structures, with the center being alternating relays and shields, and the sides of these tunnels being lined with blasters or alternating blasters/mortars, terps hopping along the front of the line to make sure it stays paved, and creeper piled hundreds of meters high on either side of the shields.  The pressure from the creeper is massive, but since there's another shield every six cells, none of them has too much weight on it.  Not exactly energy efficient, but it's kind of an epic image for me.

You'd be able to do it with a "tunnel" a single shield wide. I've done that.

[4xC]

Even with 6 cells inbetween, that still sounds like a lot of energy consumption and by extension, starvation/deficit/debt/whatever-the-term-is-for-CW3. And even though the numbers have yet to be finalized as I understand it, what I don't get is why the shield is so much more substantially expensive compared to everything else than the repulsors were compared to everything else there.

And doesn't the range of the particle beam look a little over-wide compared to its predecessors, the SAM and P. Coil? I know CW3 specifics are not typically deriving from the past 2 games' specifics, but I somehow think there is small, yet seriously significant influence coming from the past 2 games' specifics to the specifics of 3.

And are there any ideas for speed upgrades for units movement, including the flying units' speeds as well?

[J]

Currently there are idea's for some upgrades. But there is no upgrade system yet. Currently V is focusing on bugs, performance and experimenting with key futures. I think upgrades are coming soon, but I don't have any idea when.

[Shrike30]

Even with 6 cells inbetween, that still sounds like a lot of energy consumption and by extension, starvation/deficit/debt/whatever-the-term-is-for-CW3. And even though the numbers have yet to be finalized as I uderstand it, what I don't get is why the shield is so much more substantially expensive compared to everything else than the repulsors were compared to everything else there.

Well, you could always go shield-generator-relay-generator-repeat, you might need a single extra shield to leapfrog that push, but it'd (hopefully) be self powering at that point :)

[lurkily]

I'm imagining "shield tunneling" now; a three building wide "tunnel" of structures, with the center being alternating relays and shields, and the sides of these tunnels being lined with blasters or alternating blasters/mortars, terps hopping along the front of the line to make sure it stays paved, and creeper piled hundreds of meters high on either side of the shields.  The pressure from the creeper is massive, but since there's another shield every six cells, none of them has too much weight on it.  Not exactly energy efficient, but it's kind of an epic image for me.

Okay, done. 

This use would not be invalidated by an increased energy use per creeper affected, though.  Just the fact that there's another shield nearby would limit the exertion by individual shields.

[4xC]

Why limit the excursion when overlapping shields would mean extra pushing power?

[Nemoricus]

Because if the force each shield exerts is proportional to the amount of Creeper impinging on it, the presence of a second shield nearby would allow the shields to distribute the load between each other. The net result is only a slightly increased use in energy due to the increased area they are protecting (since you can't one shield on top of another.

[Chawe800]

But Shrike I don't want a single shield to hold back massive amounts of creeper and rather slowly collapse in on itself (well instead we use terps to created tunnel walls and bomb the creeper with mortars to make the pressure a lot lighter.)

[4xC]

Because if the force each shield exerts is proportional to the amount of Creeper impinging on it, the presence of a second shield nearby would allow the shields to distribute the load between each other. The net result is only a slightly increased use in energy due to the increased area they are protecting (since you can't one shield on top of another.

The shield force exerted on a spot by any number of shields would be proportinal to how many shield circles would cover that 1 spot. The amount of energy used by each shield would be no different as well. So overall, a stronger push requires more shields to cover the same point and the energy used by each shield would always remain the same unless you could manually alter the value of the shield diameter like the CW2 repulsor's beam length and if doing so actually DID require extra energy. But you can't change the size of the shield's AOI courtesy of the PZ. And while one shield GENERATOR cannot be placed on another, the effective areas can overlap.

[Nemoricus]

My response was based on the suggestion that shields should have their force and energy use be proportional to the amount of Creeper they have to repel.

[Shrike30]

Man, I hadn't even thought of "reinforcing" the tunnel with terps.  Slowly start swapping out those shields for mortars with a 10-high wall on either side, sounds brutal :)

[lurkily]

Man, I hadn't even thought of "reinforcing" the tunnel with terps.  Slowly start swapping out those shields for mortars with a 10-high wall on either side, sounds brutal :)

Better to use the shields to clear creeper so you can build a platform for them to rest on top of.

Either way, terribly wasteful.  Easier to just relay through the creep, with a shield and a mortar to protect key relays under threat, until you can get a nullifier in range.

I actually like the idea of shields consuming more, but requesting at the same rate no matter what.  Their consumption is close to their resupply at the moment.  This means that shields under heavy pressure would eventually fail unless you took the pressure off. (Perhaps with a second shield.)  This would also mean failures would be more catastrophic.

It would also be helpful I think, if a shield had to be fully charged to activate - thus a shield that failed wouldn't still hold back creeper as long as it had sufficient intermittent supply.

It's just my opinion and all, but I'd like shield failures to be significant events.

[Chawe800]

Even if it is incredibly wasteful it might be fun to try it  :)

We're aren't here to discuss whether or not strategies will work :-\

I just want the shields to consume an appropriate amount of energy and not end up OP.

Also I feel it would be simple and effective to have 1 shield take up 2.5 energy or something like that.

Maybe a solution would be to have shields stay permanently in place. I feel this would work a lot better since shields might be op in a push.  :P

[lurkily]

Shields are already very energy-consumptive, particularly because they never stop.

Personally, this is what I'd like to see:

1: Shields increase energy consumption (but not necessarily the force of their push) based on the amount of creeper in their proximity.  Overlapping shields distribute the burden between the overlapped area.

2: Shields consumption stays rigid - that is, it's possible for the creeper's pressure to require more energy per second than it is possible to supply.

3: Shields can only be activated at full power.

Due to 1, shields are powerful, we accept them that way. 

Due to 2, shields also are prone to failure under high pressure.  This can be alleviated by adding more shields.  Adding a shield to the same area increases the total request rate of packets to that area's protection, without vastly increasing the area covered by the two shields, which now share the load.

Due to 3, shield failure is catastrophic.  When a shield fails, it's useless, and you cannot simply recover by restoring energy supply.  You must move in additional units to support the failed front, or lose assets.  The shield cannot be used again until it's fully recharged.

Also due to 3, if you use grouped shields to hold back large amounts of creeper, then shield failures are likely to chain.  If one shield dies, it increases the stress on the remaining shields, which are more likely to also die in turn.  It adds risk to the reward of a powerful unit.

[Chawe800]

YES YES SO MUCH YES!

That is exactly the stuff I want in CW3 Lurkily.
;D ;D ;D
I Love it!