Supply crawlers, need some opinions

[Buster's Uncle]

The target base would produce max 1 thing a turn, and the contributors nothing.  Great for loading up SPs in a megabase, but not for much else and a bad idea during not-yet-decided vendettas.  I'm just spitballing.

[Yitzi]

The target base would produce max 1 thing a turn, and the contributors nothing.  Great for loading up SPs in a megabase, but not for much else and a bad idea during not-yet-decided vendettas.  I'm just spitballing.

Point; I was thinking, though, of the effects if it's combined with the multibuild feature, which does allow a base to produce more than one thing per turn.  I also think megabases shouldn't be so easy to pull off.

[Buster's Uncle]

I agree.

[Yitzi]

It occurred to me: Rather than the exemption/reduction system for efficiency I described earlier, maybe it would be better to just multiply the penalty itself by 4/(4+EFFIC).  Of course, that means that with negative EFFIC you'd be capped at sending 75%/50%/25%/0 of your total production (for -1/-2/-3/-4 respectively), as past that more than 100% of the increase would go to the penalty.

[TarMinyatur]

How about this idea...

Convoy potential is based upon infrastructure.

If Sparta Command is connected to Bunker 357 by a road, a convoy can move up to 3x the default amount of stuff.
If these bases are connected by mag-tubes, a convoy can transfer up to 6x the default quantity of materials.

If, however, these bases are connected by forests, the convoy will take a very long time to deliver the goods.

Even harder to program? Probably. But I like the concept. Maybe the length of the road is figured...

Strategic bombardment of roads would become more significant. I have not yet built a mag-tube in SMAX.

[Yitzi]

How about this idea...

Convoy potential is based upon infrastructure.

If Sparta Command is connected to Bunker 357 by a road, a convoy can move up to 3x the default amount of stuff.
If these bases are connected by mag-tubes, a convoy can transfer up to 6x the default quantity of materials.

If, however, these bases are connected by forests, the convoy will take a very long time to deliver the goods.

Even harder to program? Probably. But I like the concept. Maybe the length of the road is figured...

Strategic bombardment of roads would become more significant. I have not yet built a mag-tube in SMAX.

It's an interesting idea, and should be programmable, but in order for it to make sense it would need to apply to square-to-base convoys as well, and balancing that might get tricky.  I don't think I'll include it with the other stuff, but once I start taking requests it's definitely a valid request.

[TarMinyatur]

...in order for it to make sense it would need to apply to square-to-base convoys as well, and balancing that might get tricky...

I was thinking about that too. It always seemed a little odd to me that an isolated mine with a road stub receives a production bonus. If the road, however, were to connect to a city, then the mineral harvest should increase.

As for food and energy resources...I wonder if a road should boost the convoy potential of those as well.

If so, the importance of creating and maintaining your roads and mag-tubes would be important (without excessive micro-management).  The AI loves to build roads, so it would benefit from some sort of bonus.

[Yitzi]

...in order for it to make sense it would need to apply to square-to-base convoys as well, and balancing that might get tricky...

I was thinking about that too. It always seemed a little odd to me that an isolated mine with a road stub receives a production bonus. If the road, however, were to connect to a city, then the mineral harvest should increase.

As for food and energy resources...I wonder if a road should boost the convoy potential of those as well.

If so, the importance of creating and maintaining your roads and mag-tubes would be important (without excessive micro-management).  The AI loves to build roads, so it would benefit from some sort of bonus.

You have a proposal for the formula to use?

[Nexii]

Interesting idea.  Would certainly make going down the Maglev tree more tempting

A simple formula might be just to apply a -/+ penalty/bonus on convoyed resources depending on how it is linked (if at all) with a road path to the homed city. Or a % based penalty/bonus.  The penalty reduction or bonus could be increased at Maglev over Road.  Currently I'm playing at -1 resource crawled.  Might be more interesting if it was -2 with no path, -1 with road, and penalty negated at Maglev, as an example.

Crawlers don't need a huge tonedown, relative to formers they are weaker.  But at the same time, they are a strong mineral-dump alternative once you have enough formers to terraform.  Also rushing to IA every game isn't very strategic.  I think having a min base size to crawl, and +1 crawler per x pop subsequent would be good.

[Yitzi]

Interesting idea.  Would certainly make going down the Maglev tree more tempting

True, though maglevs are pretty good anyway; it's the earlier part of what goes up to there that's the issue.  What I'm currently leaning toward is moving the hab complex to silksteel (also makes rushing to Ind Auto not quite such an obvious choice), and switching the 7/14 pop caps to 10/20.

A simple formula might be just to apply a -/+ penalty/bonus on convoyed resources depending on how it is linked (if at all) with a road path to the homed city. Or a % based penalty/bonus.  The penalty reduction or bonus could be increased at Maglev over Road.  Currently I'm playing at -1 resource crawled.  Might be more interesting if it was -2 with no path, -1 with road, and penalty negated at Maglev, as an example.

There's an idea.  I like it, I'll add it to the list, though near the bottom.

Crawlers don't need a huge tonedown, relative to formers they are weaker.  But at the same time, they are a strong mineral-dump alternative once you have enough formers to terraform.  Also rushing to IA every game isn't very strategic.  I think having a min base size to crawl, and +1 crawler per x pop subsequent would be good.

Maybe have 1 per x pop, and a choice of rounding up or rounding down...so then the min population to crawl has to be the same as the amount extra per crawler, but I don't think that's such a problem.

[TarMinyatur]

...A simple formula might be just to apply a -/+ penalty/bonus on convoyed resources depending on how it is linked (if at all) with a road path to the homed city...

That could work...

Hmm, what if a crawler is next to its home base, but not on a road? I don't think a convoy penalty should be imposed in that case.

How about this?

1. A crawler calculates its fastest path back to its home base (by using mag-tubes, roads, rivers, etc.).

2. It will therefore need to expend a certain amount of movement points to get home (i.e. 1 point for a 3-tile-length road).

3. The convoy resource penalty is proportional to these movement points. (Or a bonus is inversely proportional.)

I don't think I've ever built a Supply Rover. It should convoy more stuff than an infantry-based crawler. <Insert Morgan's voice here> Greater investment leads to greater returns (and greater risk). Imagine Supply Rovers hurtling along highways, or flowing within cooperative fungus, or zipping inside mag-tubes. They should deliver abundantly.   

[Yitzi]

...A simple formula might be just to apply a -/+ penalty/bonus on convoyed resources depending on how it is linked (if at all) with a road path to the homed city...

That could work...

Hmm, what if a crawler is next to its home base, but not on a road? I don't think a convoy penalty should be imposed in that case.

How about this?

1. A crawler calculates its fastest path back to its home base (by using mag-tubes, roads, rivers, etc.).

2. It will therefore need to expend a certain amount of movement points to get home (i.e. 1 point for a 3-tile-length road).

3. The convoy resource penalty is proportional to these movement points. (Or a bonus is inversely proportional.)

I don't think I've ever built a Supply Rover. It should convoy more stuff than an infantry-based crawler. <Insert Morgan's voice here> Greater investment leads to greater returns (and greater risk). Imagine Supply Rovers hurtling along highways, or flowing within cooperative fungus, or zipping inside mag-tubes. They should deliver abundantly.

More abundantly than actually working the square?

I think the real problem with any approach of this sort is that it doesn't make sense in terms of the in-game logic.  If convoys have negligible travel time and it's just extraction that's the issue then the distance shouldn't matter, and if the travel time is not negligible then there should be an actual turn delay.

So instead, what I think would make the most sense is to say that when a convoy starts convoying, it does not give those resources directly to the base in question.  Instead, it loads them up (using a system similar to terraforming; each turn that it's harvesting resources, it adds to its cargo instead of moving), and when full it automatically heads to its home base (although it could be redirected to a different base), unloads them, and returns.  During the travel time, it's not gathering resources (though I suppose it could harvest on the way at the cost of part of its movement), but another convoy could gather from the same square when it isn't.  Once it reached the base, it would start unloading at a rate proportional to the base's population, possibly substantially boosting the base's production of that resource for the duration.  It would have maximum cargo proportional to its reactor, with both ratios (unloading rate and max cargo) set in alphax.txt (with 0 for max cargo meaning "use the old system", and 0 for unloading rate meaning no maximum).

This is something I think I could code, though it'd be a fairly major project and isn't getting high on the priority list;  also, there are two limitations to what I could code in this regard.  Firstly, cargo over 65000 and change is not feasible, so the cargo ratio would have to be set low enough that it will never be above that.  Secondly, it's not feasible for it to hold more than one type of cargo, so switching resource types would destroy its cargo and multiresource harvesting could not be used with this feature (however, the multiresource crawling tech setting would still affect the needed tech to have multiple convoys harvest the same square for different resources.)

[Geo]

It would add to the micro-management burden of the game though. OTOH, rebasing crawlers wouldn't be an issue anymore.

[Yitzi]

It would add to the micro-management burden of the game though.

Not if a convoy automatically returned to its homebase and unloaded there when full and automatically returned to the location it had been harvesting when empty (unless it was given other go-to orders in between).

It also occurred to me that in order for cargo to not be lost when given a "sentry" or "hold" order or the like, I'd need to cut down the max cargo from 65k+ to 16k+.  Should still be plenty, though.

OTOH, rebasing crawlers wouldn't be an issue anymore.

Well, after the crawler first reaches the base it's working for you'd want to rebase to there simply in order that in the future it'll automate...but it wouldn't be required.

[TarMinyatur]

If convoys have negligible travel time and it's just extraction that's the issue then the distance shouldn't matter, and if the travel time is not negligible then there should be an actual turn delay.

Yes, I suppose a crawler that is working a tile represents continuous transport. We don't see the trucks going back and forth -- which makes the screen less busy, less like Command & Conquer's crystal harvesters.

The tiles worked by citizens in SMAX surely contain transport equipment. We don't see them shuttling resources. This is good, if you prefer less movement on your screen.

But we do see a direct transfer of minerals when a crawler is cashed in towards a Secret Project or Prototype. So SMAX has a hybrid system for transferring minerals (and 1 unit of production for base-to-base convoys).

In the end, what changes to convoys would make the game more fun and interesting to play?

Well, if you can program crawlers to automatically harvest and return to base when full, that would be great. A fully loaded crawler would be a high priority target, which you must protect with an AAA Squad.

But for now, I'd like to see the base-to-base convoy be more useful. If Sparta Command is thriving and Bunker 357 is suffering, I want to do something about it! <Santiago cares deeply.> Sure, I can send a terraformer to plant a forest or use credits to hurry production, but sending 4 minerals per turn (instead of the current limit of 1) would be worth the investment in a supply crawler.

A simple transfer limit could be this: no more than 50% of a city's production can be convoyed. More sophisticated limits--as are being discussed here-- would be welcome, too.