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Author Topic: Power Plant  (Read 21516 times)

Offline Another Guy

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Power Plant
« on: June 15, 2009, 11:35:28 pm »
I see some realism in the logic that a base needs both power plant and a command centre to work, but its redundant in terms of gameplay.

Command Centre is important as a requirement for other buildings to work because it adds a 12 days cooldown for any new base to get operational. Very nice gameplay idea.

Power plant on the oher hand, gets built on same 12 days and is only required for command center to work (or for some buildings that require both) being simply redundant in terms of gameplay and spending an precious base construction slot.

Maybe Power Plant should be removed and command center get its upkeep costs raised a bit, freeing a base slot and eliminating a gameplay redundancy. At the moment, I don't see any gameplay reason for Power Plant to exist.




Obs: However, If powerplant gets any gameplay reason to exist, it starts to get interesting, for instance as a requirement for one particular building type like Missile Battery and supporting SAM sites around the base (they would require power from a nearby base as an adittional prerequisite to be operational).

Other suggestions would be good too, but for any of them, Power Plant function would have to be very specific for one kind of role only. This would add some tatical variety and make Power Plant useful again for gameplay porpouses.

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2009, 11:39:14 pm »
The power plant will be a strategic target during base invasions (this is not implemented yet).

Offline Another Guy

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2009, 11:45:59 pm »
That seems nice.

Adding an objective for a mission seems enough role for me :P

Can't wait to try it out.

Cheers!


Obs: On the other hand, couldn't this role be fulfilled by the Command Centre? Or there is a base defense objective for it too?

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2009, 11:54:52 pm »
It's a little more complicated than that, the player may choose to shut down the power plant when the base is attacked. The base will be out of commission for several days, but there is no risk of it exploding when attacked.

Anyway, the power plant and the command center will not be merged. It doesn't make sense for either of them not to be on the base grid.

Offline Another Guy

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2009, 12:27:04 am »
Quote
It's a little more complicated than that, the player may choose to shut down the power plant when the base is attacked. The base will be out of commission for several days, but there is no risk of it exploding when attacked.

Anyway, the power plant and the command center will not be merged. It doesn't make sense for either of them not to be on the base grid.

Although I still don't uderstand why not to merge it, I liked the power shutdown idea very much.

Is there an entry for it on wiki so I can read more about it?

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2009, 01:30:39 am »

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2009, 02:24:19 am »
Well, there is now: http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Gameplay_Proposals/Pre_Base_Attack_Options

I just read this myself, I like it so far, although shouldn't there also be an option (and related risk) for anti-matter as well if such a facility exists in a base?

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #7 on: June 16, 2009, 11:29:52 am »
What would you do with it though? Vent it? It'd just explode anyway.

Offline Another Guy

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #8 on: June 16, 2009, 03:03:28 pm »
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If an Alien Containment facility is present and in use in the base, the player may choose to terminate all specimens currently held. Should the player choose to do this, all aliens in Containment will die, and new specimens will have to be captured to replace them. If the player chooses to leave the aliens alive, the AI may attempt to rescue the confined specimens. Freed aliens will join the battle against PHALANX.

This seems very cool (and realistic), but some questions:
How would it work? Aliens would have to shoot down some mainframe at Alien Containment? And how would the freed aliens arm themselves?

ChunLing

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2009, 07:07:52 am »
I thought the whole point of these thorium based reactors is that they can't explode because they rely on active particle bombardment to trigger fission.  Even a regular Uranium reactor is pretty hard to blow up if it has normal passive safety systems.  And the shutdown time is unrealistic.  Fission reactors are generally pretty easy to restart after a shutdown, even one that used an active particle emission to accelerate nuclear decay.

The antimatter containment is another concern, since shutting down your power supply would drop the containment fields, and...well (or rather, the very opposite of well).  Venting is not actually all that unrealistic, if you used an anti-particle beam to shoot the stuff straight up into space.  It would be very nasty for anyone outside at the time due to the amount that would react with the atmosphere, but at least your base wouldn't explode.  Difficult to evacuate very large quantities of antimatter with a particle beam, though (maybe there should be off-base antimatter containment, and a 'safety limit' on in-base storage?).

Power plant takes a separate facility from Command Center for the same reason that the large hanger takes two tiles.  Just because it makes sense from a realism perspective.

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2009, 08:14:58 pm »
Perhaps Anti-matter, instead of being "vented" could be locked down with an emergency seal of some kind that makes it more difficult to access or damage, but at the cost of being un-accessible (can't get anything in or out of it) for a few days afterward.

Offline slothlord

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2009, 10:14:05 pm »
sorry, this has nothing really to do with the topic, but i just saw star trek the other week:

Phalanx base under attack

"Commander! Aliens have breached the base defences!"
"Quick, eject the warp core!"
"Sir?"
"Uh, I mean seal off the anti-matter containment facility!"

hmm, since this is a game and all, you could simply say the anti-matter containment emergency purge actually creates a tiny one-way dimensional rift to an anti-matter universe that sucks in the stored anti-matter. 

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2009, 10:24:07 pm »
We could say that, but it'd be bullshit.

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Power Plant
« Reply #13 on: June 19, 2009, 10:26:34 pm »
sorry, this has nothing really to do with the topic, but i just saw star trek the other week:

Phalanx base under attack

"Commander! Aliens have breached the base defences!"
"Quick, eject the warp core!"
"Sir?"
"Uh, I mean seal off the anti-matter containment facility!"

hmm, since this is a game and all, you could simply say the anti-matter containment emergency purge actually creates a tiny one-way dimensional rift to an anti-matter universe that sucks in the stored anti-matter. 

This sounds like soft/fantisy-ish sci-fi, no offense.

On the other hand, what I'm proposing is closer to how some emergency systems work on real reactors, storage for dangerous and sensitive materials, and such.  (No offense.)

odie

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Re: Facilities Lockdown
« Reply #14 on: June 20, 2009, 05:31:42 am »
This sounds like soft/fantisy-ish sci-fi, no offense.

On the other hand, what I'm proposing is closer to how some emergency systems work on real reactors, storage for dangerous and sensitive materials, and such.  (No offense.)

What do you guys think of this:

During base lockdown (during invasion / intrusions), all doors are shut immediately and locked down. Humans will have to open door (and may be surprised) to get to nx room. Same thing with aliens. But aliens perhaps have to 'blow down door' or we can keep it at open / close? (Same surprise elements should exist).

As for facilities like antimatter storage and storage - they should be totally locked down and should otherwise not be able to be 'damaged' (contents that is). If u wan the facilities damaged, maybe we can consider implementing a 'hull integrity' for each facilities? - Allows repair and see damage level. This can even be damage during the UFO att Base phase.