Cold Fusion and Patent Functionality Control

from Offworld Forums

The Patent Lab contains one of the aspects of the game where the rules of play are significantly changed for an individual player. That being said, it brings up some good questions, the answers to which might be in terms of intended game design, or possible revisions...

  • Energy Vault: Can store up to 100 units of Power (which starts full). Should the player be able to sell from / buy to their stockpile?
  • Water Engine: Units use Water instead of Fuel. Does your colony revert to normal power generation / Fuel use per tick, should water not cover the difference? Could this be something that is toggleable or perhaps automatic?
  • Carbon Scrubbing: Buildings which require Carbon harvest it from the atmosphere. If the atmosphere of Mars is mostly (95.3%) carbon dioxide, should the scrubbing patent also provide a steady oxygen supply?
  • Slant Drilling: Buildings can access best resource deposit in adjacent tile. How does the game calculate which adjacent deposit is "best"?
  • Cold Fusion: Buildings use Water instead of Power. Does your colony revert to normal power generation per tick, should water not cover the difference? Could this be something that is toggleable or perhaps automatic?
  • Teleportation: All buildings and HQs are considered connected. For the purposes of resource transportation only? Does it apply to sabotage somehow?
The Water Engine / Cold Fusion question is something that occurred in a game this afternoon where a player deliberately bought patents at auction to deny them to another player who would benefit more effectively from them. I had not considered "patent trolling" to be a strategy, but there you go! :grin:
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Reply #1 from Offworld Forums Top
    • Slant Drilling: Buildings can access best resource deposit in adjacent tile. How does the game calculate which adjacent deposit is "best"?

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Since a building can only mine one specific resource, that'd be the highest yield one.

 

    • Teleportation: All buildings and HQs are considered connected. For the purposes of resource transportation only? Does it apply to sabotage somehow?
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It clearly states that resources can teleport, the buildings aren't connected. This saves you fuel, allows for instant T1 resource allocation to your T2 factories, and in terms of sabotation - pirates no longer have transport ships to shoot down and loot.

 

The Water Engine / Cold Fusion question is something that occurred in a game this afternoon where a player deliberately bought patents at auction to deny them to another player who would benefit more effectively from them
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I wouldn't call it trolling, it's more of a business strategy. If you control all carbon on the map, and the carbon patent comes up, you want to win that bid, even though you have zero use for it, the value is in denying it to the other players. I believe the Water Engine one to be one of the worse patents, energy becomes pretty much a free resource as the game progresses, and water becomes scarce, as all the mid/lategame things such as food and fuel need it. The patent is supposed to make your life easier as the game progresses, not harder.

If there is a game where energy costs are way too high, that means you're doing something wrong, and a patent won't save you from your failure. If energy prices are high, you can be sure someone is making good money out of it. Any prolonged period of time that energy prices are above 20 (except for starting period) you are feeding someone free money. 

Reply #2 from Offworld Forums Top

Quoting Sir-Rogers, reply 1


Quoting ,
quoting post




      • Slant Drilling: Buildings can access best resource deposit in adjacent tile. How does the game calculate which adjacent deposit is "best"?






Since a building can only mine one specific resource, that'd be the highest yield one.

 

End of Sir-Rogers's quote

That's not exactly right. Metal mines gather iron and aluminium, quarries gather carbon and silicon. If you have a metal mine on a low iron and there is a high iron in an adjacent tile and a high aluminum in a different adjacent tile, that mine will produce both iron and aluminum at high rates.

It's kinda tricky to figure out.

Thanks!

-Scott-

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Offworld Forums Top

Quoting DeftMunky, reply 2
That's not exactly right. Metal mines gather iron and aluminium, quarries gather carbon and silicon. If you have a metal mine on a low iron and there is a high iron in an adjacent tile and a high aluminum in a different adjacent tile, that mine will produce both iron and aluminum at high rates.
End of DeftMunky's quote

Ah, so it sounds like the effect is "Extraction buildings will now extract resources at the rate of the highest deposit adjacent to it," which can mean two different deposits (Iron / Aluminum, or Silicon / Carbon) if the building matches.

It would behoove me to then place the new buildings adjacent to the high deposits, if volume (rather than mere redundancy) is my goal.

Would Slant Drilling apply to the Scientific factories also?

Reply #4 from Offworld Forums Top

Quoting bigheadzach, reply 3
Would Slant Drilling apply to the Scientific factories also?
End of bigheadzach's quote

Yes! Slant drilling is great with scientific!

-Scott-