Mass replicator 2.0

[IvanX]

There are two suggestion, first is to make replicator used in games with low quantity of one of the minerals, second is to make it much more efficient in long-term, plus making it able to use during fights:

I. Mass replicator atm is not used enough imo, because time conversion is too high - 12 mins late-game makes the game, but the most important reason is that it costs all 4 minerals, thus one can only get replicator when he has all resources in excess, thus i propose making replicator price vary: like having 5 construction options for same replicator:
1. same price as now 120 120 120 60
2. no veldite: 0 160 160 80
3. no char : 150 0 150 70
4. no pyro 180 180 0 80
5. no kerm 200 200 200 0

II. Another idea is to make mass replicator a little more useful by making it work similar to power console stability attribute control.
And by that i mean, each mineral can be increased or decreased in output, default output is 0, which does nothing, when you increase it, mat replicator used energy up every second and produces some kind of mineral, the higher you put this value, the less ratio you get for making resources, so if you use it slowly - and get less resources you use less energy to produce minerals, and make it have opposite function, refining resources to gain energy - working same way.
If you put it to -10% you lose one of resources slowly by getting energy, if you put it to like -50%, you lose that resource much faster but gain energy faster (not as efficient as low percentage rate thou).

Basic loss ratio should be 50% or so, that means that not to lose any energy you have to put 1 mineral to -10% (refining into power) and another one into +5% (power to mineral). Also, obviously Pyro, Veldite and Char shouldn't be same in price.

Also you can make additional upgrade to increase that ratio, 3 upgrades 10% each, to make it 80% in the end.

Kerm will be much more useful, since at the moment having 300+ of it late game is useless as it is, not much to use it on, and now it can be used to increase power output.

That would allow to put a good use to unrequired minerals and make long-term games more dynamic, plus power management would be at a great pressure for deciding how to use replicator - fast rate or slow, creating minerals or refining them.


While you may find it reasonable to ignore first suggestion, the second one sounds very fascinating to me *spok*, and should not be taken lightly. All conservative players that want cruiser command to stay the way it is now should not bother posting, cause constant improvement of the game leads us all to a better future.

[Karl913]

Interesting.. l have a theory of my own.. Anyone who's played Mineralz Evolution would probably know a casino is a very good thing to have, although it takes a) a lot of resources to make, and b) takes a lot of resources to make it actually worth it for one mineral out of 5. If you choose to get the casino asap, it can set you back on tech a bit and has cost me a fair bit of games trying to get it early.

l don't know how it would work entirely.. But it's a concept. You could have it cost whatever type of resource (About 600 of whatever resources for max efficiency (about 70 minerals on use instead of 10.)) @Red-Rocket: It would have a cost of 30 of whatever resource to increase efficiency increasing the amount gained by 2, max eff being hard to get, and unlikely if you already have a large amount of that resource

l haven't done any complex math to calculate the amount of resources you'd get with max energy in core.. So the cost of upgrading each resource by 30 might be to much. But l feel it could pay itself off and then more.

[Red-Rocket]

i say reduce energy of red, yellow, blue
Y = 750 energy
B = 1000 energy
R = 1000 energy

and for green there is no reason whatsoever to get it even if you are starved for green, 15K energy is not worth it
i would like this reduced to 7500 energy that way you can take 10 out wile not completely getting screwed over (and the fact that you need alot more then just 10, probably 50 would be needed and that takes 75K energy, rediculas)

[IvanX]

Okay, I've made some math and calculation, to present this idea in some real numbers, just like tempest suggested, so here it is, considering veldite and pyro have same price (only calculated for them so far)


| output | sec/mineral | GW/mineral (theory) | GW/s | GW/mineral (practice) |
|___10%__|______9______|__________100________|__11__|___________99__________|
|___20%__|______8______|__________125________|__15__|__________120__________|
|___30%__|______7______|__________150________|__22__|__________155__________|
|___40%__|______6______|__________175________|__29__|__________174__________|
|___50%__|______5______|__________200________|__40__|__________100__________|
|___60%__|______4______|__________225________|__56__|__________224__________|
|___70%__|______3______|__________250________|__83__|__________252__________|
|___80%__|______2______|__________275________|_138__|__________276__________|
|___90%__|______1______|__________300________|_300__|__________300__________|
|__100%__|____0,5______|__________325________|_650__|__________325__________|


output is the value you setup on mass replicator for the required mineral

sec/mineral - is how many seconds does it take to produce 1 mineral (9, means u get 1 mineral every 9th second, 0.5 means u get 2 mineral per second)

GW/mineral (theory/practice) is the GW required to produce 1 mineral of that type by setting the mass replicator on current % ouput, first one are perfect values that were put out at the base of calculation, and practical value is what we got as a result, to make it easier to trigger.

GW/sec is how much GW we give away each mineral for this % ouput to function
so, looking at the last row, we see the efficiency going down the further we push replicator,
at 10%, we can produce 10 by the price of 1000 GW, but it will take 90 seconds,
at 50% we got same price for 10 as it was till now - 2000 GW, but it will take 50 seconds
at 100% we got 55% increased price, so for 10 we pay 3250 GW, but we get them for 5 seconds

The another suggestion about this, is there should be a negative output, from -5% to -100%, and that one will do opposite, turn minerals into energy, but the efficiency ratings should be about 20-40% from this, so that we can give away 1 mineral per second at -90% output and gaining back around 100 gw per second, the efficiency ratings of getting energy from minerals should be upgradable, e.g. 4 upgrades each give 5%

[IvanX]

Could also add a turn on/off button on it to make the controls over mass rep easier.

[DumbMarine]

I would suggest either vastly increasing the speed, or vastly reducing the energy cost. Right now, the mass rep can produce veldite instantly for 150 GW per mineral. Producing it at a 500 energy discount but with an additional 90 second build time is just no contest as to which one to pick.

btw pyromantite is not the price as veldite

[IvanX]

I would suggest either vastly increasing the speed, or vastly reducing the energy cost. Right now, the mass rep can produce veldite instantly for 150 GW per mineral. Producing it at a 500 energy discount but with an additional 90 second build time is just no contest as to which one to pick.

btw pyromantite is not the price as veldite

ye, i've thought about that, should increase speed vastly, at so that 50% would do at least 4 times faster then 10% and 100% nearly instantly like 5-10 mat per second

wait, do you mean veldite is now cheapest one? i thought charcolum, since veldite is most commonly used mineral, and it's required in huge amounts

[IvanX]

, just came up with another idea, mass replicator should be also have a "hull transformation" option, which will work same as any mineral transformation, except it will work with hull, any positive percentage would fix hull over time at a price of energy (actual amount of hull, not percentage). While opposite percentage would refine it backwards - hull into energy!

Although while speaking about refining hull into energy, we should be really careful, not to make it overpowered, so it should really be nerfed quiet a bit.

Btw, correct me if i'm wrong, but if i were to give values of each mineral, i wouldn't say veldite is cheapest, it should be smthng like this:

Veldite - 150%,
charcolum - 60%
Pyro - 100%
Kerm - (early game i'd call it 600-700%, but later game it's not that expensive, since it doesn't REALLY have a good use, so 300%)

I'd rather have 400 veldite, then 200 kerm when i got important bc ups done, which only takes 200-250 kerm. And since you can only afford construction mass replicator at mid-late game, i do not think that we should be relying on the early game price.

How do you guys feel about this?

[Tempest]

Hull is a nice idea but hull tanking already has enough elements to it, and is balanced well. We could think up a conversion formula for converting minerals back into energy.

I do like the idea of minerals over time, if reworked however the mass rep should have a less steep energy to reward ratio

[IvanX]

Hull is a nice idea but hull tanking already has enough elements to it, and is balanced well. We could think up a conversion formula for converting minerals back into energy.

I do like the idea of minerals over time, if reworked however the mass rep should have a less steep energy to reward ratio

Hull tanking enough elements? o.O Uhm.... well repair drones are still not too good, and there is how many.. 1 skill that helps you hull-tank? :p doesn't seem right.

Plus what i meant was an emergency hull repairs, which takes resourses, pretty legit, just another way of fixing yourself fast when the game gotten into long-term fight.

The energy ratios in my math were correct, the incorrect thing was time it takes to produce, with such big energy losses, time should increment binary. Because i totally agree that losing 50% energy just to produce twice as fast is not worth it, should be to produce at least like 4-8 times faster, while 100% would produce at a very high speed like 10 minerals per second.

So,
..% : m / s ____ actual value
10% : 1 / 10 ___ 1*1,5^0
20% : 3 / 20 ___ 1*1,5^1
30% : 9 / 40 ___ 1*1,5^2
40% : 3 / 10 ___ 1*1,5^3
50% : 1 / 2 ____ 1*1,5^4
60% : 3 / 4 ____ 1*1,5^5
70% : 5 / 4 ____ 1*1,5^6~
80% : 2 / 1 ____ 1*1,5^7~~
90% : 3 / 1 ____ 1*1,5^8~~~
100% : 5 / 1 ___ 1*1,5^9~~~~