Upgradeable Hydro

[Isen]

i agree with treble, why you want to change that amount of things?, if the most part of people deny all that changes you guys are proposing is just because the game is already really fine, its nice to debate that things and yes! auto-denied for me too.

[noobymcnoobcake]

I am against this. It will make T1 less usefull as people will be able to rush T2 pds, T2 air and T2 land+shields much quicker. you will see T2 gunships appear much quicker and also T3 land. for T3 land you genraly need at least one T2 pgen but with a T2 hydro you wont.

[Karottenrambo]

Hydrocarbons complicate the game. They are a secondary source of energy and new players dont know when to build it, or why. But it has a purpose, on most maps there will be a short fight, usually with LABs, over it. That is beneficial to gameplay.

Hydro is basically a T1.5 pgen that you get one, maybe two, options to build early game. Why cant we leave it as that? T1 pgens arent upgrade-able, you dont care if someone destroys it later in the game when you have T2 pgens, and you dont really care if someone destroys your T2 pgen when you have T3. It seems like it would just add more micro-management to the game. You have to, along with upgrading mexes, surrounding mexes with storage and building higher tech pgens, also upgrade your hydro at the right time.

So increasing complication that doesnt add any benefits doesnt make sense. I just dont see the need for upgrade-able hydrocarbons.

You should not compare the hydro with an usual pg, but with mexes as you can only built it on special positions. The increasing of micro-management would of course overstrain the most players and is a huge problem, as they must click on the hydro and push a button...

The hydro-effiency should largely decrease with higher tech, otherweise a t2 hydro would produce 2500e for the mass of 2,5 t2 pg's.
This will NOT make t1 less important and it will not make t2 air appear earlier.

Certainly this would be a critical change and should be precisely tested before implenting, as it can break the whole lategame with the wrong values and its not a "THIS MUST BE DONE IMMEDIATELY!"-change. But I definetly think the hydro should get more importance.

[Treble]

Hydrocarbons complicate the game. They are a secondary source of energy and new players dont know when to build it, or why. But it has a purpose, on most maps there will be a short fight, usually with LABs, over it. That is beneficial to gameplay.

Hydro is basically a T1.5 pgen that you get one, maybe two, options to build early game. Why cant we leave it as that? T1 pgens arent upgrade-able, you dont care if someone destroys it later in the game when you have T2 pgens, and you dont really care if someone destroys your T2 pgen when you have T3. It seems like it would just add more micro-management to the game. You have to, along with upgrading mexes, surrounding mexes with storage and building higher tech pgens, also upgrade your hydro at the right time.

So increasing complication that doesnt add any benefits doesnt make sense. I just dont see the need for upgrade-able hydrocarbons.

You should not compare the hydro with an usual pg, but with mexes as you can only built it on special positions. The increasing of micro-management would of course overstrain the most players and is a huge problem, as they must click on the hydro and push a button...

The hydro-effiency should largely decrease with higher tech, otherweise a t2 hydro would produce 2500e for the mass of 2,5 t2 pg's.
This will NOT make t1 less important and it will not make t2 air appear earlier.

Certainly this would be a critical change and should be precisely tested before implenting, as it can break the whole lategame with the wrong values and its not a "THIS MUST BE DONE IMMEDIATELY!"-change. But I definetly think the hydro should get more importance.

A hydrocarbon can be compared to a Mass Fabricator. It is a secondary source of resource allocation. Mass Fabs have been around since vanilla and people still cant figure out how to balance them. Why try to add more complexity with tedious upgrades when there is no benefit?

[Karottenrambo]

Yes, it is the secondary source for this resource, but thats the only thing these two building-types have in common.
You can build a massfab everywhere -> hydros not, massfabs are less efficient than mexes -> hydros are more efficient than pg's, massfabs are not very useful -> hydros are already useful implemented, just not on every tech-level.

Why is this no benefit? I think it is a benefit for the gameplay, if the hydro is still useful for yourself in the lategame, but also a valuable target for your enemy.

[TAG_ROCK]

I want a new unit, variable wind generators. A cheap but very weak energy generation unit. LONG LIVE TA !!!!!!!!
Oh a tidal generator too !!! wwooohoooo !!!!!

I am serious !

[Frozen_byte]

That would be awesome, Rock^^

But I have to agree with Karottenrambo:
If the HC becomes upgradeable, it will definitely become a awesome complementation to the gameplay!
Of course it will change the gameplay a bit, but if I mind to some other changes, discussed on this forum its not a major change to the game, just an improvement.
You may go a step further and add Stealth/Cloak for the Cybran HC, Shields for the Aeon HC, TMD for the UEF HC, and shield Aura for Sera HC?

[lebensnebel]

Upgr the HC would make it usefull for post-earlygame and another interesting target to snipe. On the other hand,
a) It's already usefull -> no need to fix it fast
b) It is not really needed (there is the t2 pgen) nor would it change gameplay that much
c) The number of changes the community (including me) tolerates is very limited, so we should FIRST only change/balance units that are really underused, as is Ze's agenda anyway.
If SCU's, Qgates, tempest... are all done and good and everybody is happy, lets revisit the HC again.

[BlackFish]

Would it be a crime give the hydrocarbon a buff to 250 and make it more expensive? (like TA's geothermals).

and yes I'd love a water base mod, would give me TA nostalgia and a desire to make navy maps.

[Ze_PilOt]

You should look at Experimental Wars threads

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=224