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I've doing a lot with this mod of mine recently, and I think I've got it perfect...except for the fact that I hate only being able to harvest resources within the base radius (so far in this mod, crawlers have been disabled because of how overpowering they are).
The problems with crawlers extend past the usual boost they give to production. They allow human players to instabuild SP's, using up the full mineral value of the crawler. No longer is there a sense of racing to certain SP's. You just have a bunch of crawlers laying around, doing work, and you cash them in when you need to.
Is there any way to disable the use of crawlers for advancing prototypes and SP's in alpha.txt or any other file? I suppose you could just exercise your own willpower and manually handicap yourself from using that.
Also, the computer is less apt to use crawlers, although I've heard that you can change this by adding crawlers into the #UNITS section of alpha.txt and also by adding crawlers as an option in the governor queue (how do you do that?)
Because, once you take away these factors, the problem with crawlers becomes more managable. It becomes simply a matter of increasing the cost until there comes a point when other things, in a lot of situations, are more worthwhile to build and give a greater return on investment than crawlers.
You also have to realize that, the longer it takes to build something, the more time-potential is lost it in and the more EC's it takes to rushbuild. For instance:
Let's say you have a city producing 24 energy: 12 to econ, and 12 to labs. You build an energy bank (7 min rows, right?) in, let's say 7 turns. From turn 8 and onwards, you get +5 energy at that base (+6 - 1 for maintenance). It could be even more if the base grows or terraforming around the base is further improved after that.
Now let's say there is a similar facility in existence which gives +100% energy, but which takes twice as long to build. At first, it seems like a no-brainer: build the more costly facility for its better effects in the long run. And, as we will see, this is the correct approach, but not to the extent that one might think at first because it will take 14 turns to build this facility, and what many people will not realize is that, at turn 8, when the facility is half complete, it will not be generating +50% energy. So by the time this facility gets completed, the less costly facility will have produced 35 energy, which itself could be used to rushbuild a rec tanks or something else in the meantime. Also, the more costly facility will be more costly to produce, not just linearly, but geometrically. Still, eventually, the more costly facility will produce greater benefits, but not more extremely greater than one would think at first, if one takes into account the time-potential of money. We must keep this in mind as we think of a price for supply crawlers.
What I want to be using crawlers for is not just crawler-whoring every single forest square. I would rather have harvesting +2 squares be sub-optimal. I would have harvesting +4 squares to be a good investment of money depending on the circumstances. I would especially like crawlers to be used strategically to harvest those +7 squares in your territory but outside of your base radius (and possibly away from the frontline, where these costly units can be picked off by enemy rovers/aircraft). It should be cheaper and preferable to build bases with these squares within the radius, but it should still be possible to harvest these squares (less) profitably if they fall outside of the base radius.
So this is what I'm thinking: what if supply crawlers cost 10 min rows (100 minerals with normal industry)? A 7 min row investment, with more time-potential, will get you a base with a rec commons, or a 4 min row investment with more time-potential will get you a base with a scout patrol (if you have suitable police settings), producing 2 mins. Therefore, a supply crawler, costing 10 min rows, would be rather disadvantageous to build if the best it could do is harvest a forest square. Now you start to have a strategic aspect coming into play with crawlers. Are they worth it for harvesting +3 minerals? Maybe, maybe not. Now you have some real decisions to make. What about +4? Probably, but not always. There could be better deals, such as building a rec commons, depending on the circumstance. Above +4, the supply crawlers are probably going to be the better deal almost always, but above +4, you need terraforming, so you need to take that into account as well. You see, what this does is open up many more tough decisions in your gameplay, which is what strategy games thrive on.
Actually, I'm also thinking about raising the cost of colony pods from 3 min rows to 4 min rows, in order to combat shameless ICS (city-whoring, I guess you could call it). There shouldn't be any one strategy that is always advantageous. There should always be tough decisions, depending heavily on analyzing specific circumstances.
So, would you still be tempted to crawler-whore if crawlers could not be cashed in, and if they cost 100 mins a piece (and likewise, would ICS look as enticing with colony pods costing 4 min rows (disregard situations involving Morgan--for Morgan, ICS will almost always make sense, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with certain strategies being suited to certain factions. It's bad when a strategy is suited to all factions in any conceivable circumstances, such as crawler-whoring as it is now)?
The problems with crawlers extend past the usual boost they give to production. They allow human players to instabuild SP's, using up the full mineral value of the crawler. No longer is there a sense of racing to certain SP's. You just have a bunch of crawlers laying around, doing work, and you cash them in when you need to.
Is there any way to disable the use of crawlers for advancing prototypes and SP's in alpha.txt or any other file? I suppose you could just exercise your own willpower and manually handicap yourself from using that.
Also, the computer is less apt to use crawlers, although I've heard that you can change this by adding crawlers into the #UNITS section of alpha.txt and also by adding crawlers as an option in the governor queue (how do you do that?)
Because, once you take away these factors, the problem with crawlers becomes more managable. It becomes simply a matter of increasing the cost until there comes a point when other things, in a lot of situations, are more worthwhile to build and give a greater return on investment than crawlers.
You also have to realize that, the longer it takes to build something, the more time-potential is lost it in and the more EC's it takes to rushbuild. For instance:
Let's say you have a city producing 24 energy: 12 to econ, and 12 to labs. You build an energy bank (7 min rows, right?) in, let's say 7 turns. From turn 8 and onwards, you get +5 energy at that base (+6 - 1 for maintenance). It could be even more if the base grows or terraforming around the base is further improved after that.
Now let's say there is a similar facility in existence which gives +100% energy, but which takes twice as long to build. At first, it seems like a no-brainer: build the more costly facility for its better effects in the long run. And, as we will see, this is the correct approach, but not to the extent that one might think at first because it will take 14 turns to build this facility, and what many people will not realize is that, at turn 8, when the facility is half complete, it will not be generating +50% energy. So by the time this facility gets completed, the less costly facility will have produced 35 energy, which itself could be used to rushbuild a rec tanks or something else in the meantime. Also, the more costly facility will be more costly to produce, not just linearly, but geometrically. Still, eventually, the more costly facility will produce greater benefits, but not more extremely greater than one would think at first, if one takes into account the time-potential of money. We must keep this in mind as we think of a price for supply crawlers.
What I want to be using crawlers for is not just crawler-whoring every single forest square. I would rather have harvesting +2 squares be sub-optimal. I would have harvesting +4 squares to be a good investment of money depending on the circumstances. I would especially like crawlers to be used strategically to harvest those +7 squares in your territory but outside of your base radius (and possibly away from the frontline, where these costly units can be picked off by enemy rovers/aircraft). It should be cheaper and preferable to build bases with these squares within the radius, but it should still be possible to harvest these squares (less) profitably if they fall outside of the base radius.
So this is what I'm thinking: what if supply crawlers cost 10 min rows (100 minerals with normal industry)? A 7 min row investment, with more time-potential, will get you a base with a rec commons, or a 4 min row investment with more time-potential will get you a base with a scout patrol (if you have suitable police settings), producing 2 mins. Therefore, a supply crawler, costing 10 min rows, would be rather disadvantageous to build if the best it could do is harvest a forest square. Now you start to have a strategic aspect coming into play with crawlers. Are they worth it for harvesting +3 minerals? Maybe, maybe not. Now you have some real decisions to make. What about +4? Probably, but not always. There could be better deals, such as building a rec commons, depending on the circumstance. Above +4, the supply crawlers are probably going to be the better deal almost always, but above +4, you need terraforming, so you need to take that into account as well. You see, what this does is open up many more tough decisions in your gameplay, which is what strategy games thrive on.
Actually, I'm also thinking about raising the cost of colony pods from 3 min rows to 4 min rows, in order to combat shameless ICS (city-whoring, I guess you could call it). There shouldn't be any one strategy that is always advantageous. There should always be tough decisions, depending heavily on analyzing specific circumstances.
So, would you still be tempted to crawler-whore if crawlers could not be cashed in, and if they cost 100 mins a piece (and likewise, would ICS look as enticing with colony pods costing 4 min rows (disregard situations involving Morgan--for Morgan, ICS will almost always make sense, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with certain strategies being suited to certain factions. It's bad when a strategy is suited to all factions in any conceivable circumstances, such as crawler-whoring as it is now)?
I guess that's what I'm mainly aiming for--faster games with less micromanagement, which are still balanced at the same time. But as it is right now, neither colony pods or crawlers are balanced, I guess.
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