An idea for anyone to pick up...

[Xindaris]

Well, I don't have time to figure out how to program this myself, but I think it's a pretty neat concept, so maybe someone else will pick it up.

What if you had a unit that allowed you to send energy (or even ore/AC) back in time? Basically, you turn it on to request energy from the future, and get a temporary boost for a while, similar to what you would get from siphoning an energy reserve. You can turn it off whenever you want, but it automatically turns off after reaching some limit of used energy (which the mapmaker could of course set up). And as soon as it's turned off, it starts demanding energy from the network to make up however much was just used. The advantage of this over something that just stores energy is that you never put energy into it before activating it, only after. The main issue I could see with this is an exploit where the player disconnects the network from the device right after using it so they don't have to pay up. You'd have to somehow make it always right next to a command node or something so the player can't do that, I guess.

[J]

Why not drain the energy directly from a command node? Or if you can't supply it, it will send you a lot of spores. If you disable the forge and reactors, you might be able to force the player to use the device succesfully nullify an emitter. (or another device that requires 1000 energy to be sent within one minute to win the map). Idea's enough, now find someone to create it. I'm busy with my own series.

If at any time you need a brainstorm, chat is always a good place to start.

[pawel345]

A simple problem with this is that I don't think there are CPRL functions to add/send packets, only to request.

They can add ammo to existing units so you can make a "charging pad" sort of structure which will add ammo/ammoAC to a unit/units at set coordinates. And that unit can be a guppy which will allow to send both packets and ore. You can add AC to a sprayer and then it can send it back to CN. I couldn't find a way to add energy/AC directly to CN.

[teknotiss]

personally i want a chargeable resource pack! t
hat would be very useful for missions with peak high demands and time to charge the "nilling D sink" (real concept, very cool idea too!) in between
i'd like an infinite (or close) storage and the ability to be charged fast, by all three CN's i guess.
it should dispatch packets only when the network goes into deficit and should dispatch at a really fast rate to all units requesting packets

so if a code monkey could just magic that up i'd be grateful!  ;)

[Xindaris]

Well, an infinite or super-high-capacity storage unit might make things too "easy", or at least break the whole purpose of having upgradeable storage in the command nodes. I was thinking of something that would come at sort of a price/disadvantage that would need to be mitigated somehow. The sort of thing that a map would be built to require the player to use wisely to survive.

I'm pretty sure you could make a charge-pad unit work pretty well, since a CRPL core is able to be "intangible"/"build-on-top-able", which would allow you to put a very visible graphic down on the map that the player can build or place a unit on top of. Otherwise, you might be able to just create a resource pack, since cores can create units last time I checked. Maybe even pre-load it with a siphon.

Is it possible to lock down a command node to a single spot like you could odin city in CW1 maps? If so, you could make such a chargepad directly under the locked command node, and have another unit the player can click on and push menu buttons or particular keys to manage the temporal energy sending stuff.

[teknotiss]

i only want it for a few maps with tons of spores every few mins, it would act a a reserve that's all. it wouldn't really assit in an attack since you'll run out and overdemand will reapply.
but your idea is good to, a locked CN is a good idea (i dunno if it can be done, but i'd guess so, CRPL is powerful) and a way of expanding the storage without needing a forge would be cool

[thepenguin]

There is no command to add energy directly to a CN.  If you can do that, the rest is easy.

[Annonymus]

To dispense the energy you could place a ressource crystal directly under the CRPL tower and a siphon on top of it while covering it all with the image of the CRPL tower.

[Kingo]

To dispense the energy you could place a ressource crystal directly under the CRPL tower and a siphon on top of it while covering it all with the image of the CRPL tower.

All you'd need is a CPRL command to enable/disable units (is there one?) and a script to spawn crystals when the current one runs out and it would work.

[Annonymus]

Why do you want to disable units?