Starvation

[IdealIdeas]

Wtf is staruation?

[Kamron3]

Read the guide, it tells you.

Besides its not Staruation its STARVATION.

Means that the buildings you are supplying packets to are requesting more than they can be given. That tells you that you need to slow down your building or consumption of packets.

_k

[djcian]

actually it is starvation and here is a thread about it http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=137.0  the description is in there close to the bottom of the page

[Kamron3]

Yeah, sorry, Its all the people that call it saturation that makes me think of that. ._.

_k

[Karsten75]

That tells you that you need to slow down your building or consumption of packets.

Not necessarily. It is a legitimate strategy to operate in starvation mode. All that it means is that things get done slower and that your weapons may not achieve their intended firing rate because Odin City cannot supply them with ammo packets as fast as they need it.

[Siccles]

starvation is legitimate as long as you arenot building any energy-producing building while in starvation. As soon as a energy-producing buildings arenot built at full speed you lose alot of time.

[Karsten75]

Yes, I know there is a topic on Starvation, so when the mods remane that from "Staruation" to Starvation" feel free to merge this one. ;)

I'm not sure I fully understand how the starvation numbers are calculated.

Let's say I'm building a new mortar that costs 20 packets. I have only 1 packet/sec production. If the mortar's building request rate is 1/second, I'm good with 0 starvation. if the building request rate is 1.5/sec, then I have a .5  starvation, right?  If the mortar start firing and requests 15 packets to fill up its ammo reserve, then I think the ammo request rate is higher than the building request rate, so my starvation will go up. Still on the right track?

What I don't understand, is that I sometimes see the starvation level go down, almost as if every packet dispatched serves to reduce the starvation by 1. Is this just an imaginary occurrence based on a number of other factors and not on a causal relationship?

[Bovius]

I could be wrong with my understanding of starvation, so if someone wants to correct me that's fine. The short answer: starvation number represents the number of pending packets that haven't been sent yet because demand exceeds available supply. In other words, if you had enough energy to supply all of the buildings asking for packets, you would have sent that many more packets than you've already sent.

Here's some scenarios:

Production = 1 packet/sec
Consumption = 1 packet/sec
Result: Your starvation number and your energy reserve will not go up or down.

Production = 1 packet/sec
Consumption = 1.5 packet/sec
Result: If you have any energy in reserve, you will lose reserve at about 0.5 per second. If your reserve is empty, your starvation number will go up by about 0.5 per second. You can drive your starvation number pretty high if you keep this up, but generally no higher than the number of packets it would take to build/reload whatever you're feeding.

Production = 3 packets/sec
Consumption = 1 packet/sec
Result: If you have any starvation, your starvation number will go down by about 2 per second. If not, your energy reserve will start charging by 2 per second until it reaches max.

Basically you get a double whammy with starvation. In addition to not supplying as much as you need, thus slowing down building and reloading:
* As long as you are in starvation, packet speed seems to take a significant hit. I'm not sure exactly how much.
* You have to pay all of that starvation back down before you can build energy reserve again and packets speed up.

There does seem to be some weird edge-case behavior where you can have a starvation number and an energy reserve, like when demand exceeds Odin City's mac output (16 or 32, depending on what version you're playing), or having a weapon that needs ammo lift off and detach from the network while the city is supplying packets to it during starvation.

Any other ill side-effects I've missed? Like weight loss and malnutrition?

[Aurzel]

the packets dont slow down on the network with or without starvation, other than that pretty much nailed it

[Aurzel]

topic purpose fulfilled, go to the other one if you have more questions
~LOCKED~

[Karsten75]

Well, how about this one? All buildings and weapons have a packet request rate during construction and for ammo afterwards.

Now suppose I'm in starvation and the building does not get the packets it requests. Since time is passing, can it issue additional packet requests in accordance with its 'request rate?"  That would explain the sometime increasing starvation number that I observe.

[Bovius]

the packets dont slow down on the network with or without starvation, other than that pretty much nailed it

Really? Man, it sure seems like it. I'm going to have go back and observe more closely.

[nic nac]

Maybe theres more going on when the tubes are tingling with packets, effectively lagging your game...

[Bovius]

the packets dont slow down on the network with or without starvation, other than that pretty much nailed it

Really? Man, it sure seems like it. I'm going to have go back and observe more closely.

Yep, you're right. I think having fewer packets going down the line provides the illusion of a slowdown because there's less movement on that part of the screen.

[jem]

in the bar with the energy there is also something called, starvation. what is that?