Monday, January 31, 2011

"No More Vespene Gas"

Something I missed in my pre-incursions testing on Sisi of the Planetary Interaction changes was that the depletion mechanics had been put into operation. What this means is that the more you extract from a resource at a location the faster that hot spot turns into a cold spot.

For my two robotics extraction planets, the effect has not been too bad except for base metals on the plasma planet which is pretty remote from other hot spots and may require moving master extractors to increase its operation range. However, my two coolant planets, which are doing a single resource each, has been a lot more difficult as the hot spot depletes in less than three days.

On the upside, my extraction rates have been outstripping my production rates and I might go from 23 hour cycle to 47 hour cycle which has the benefit of being less depleting on the resource nodes.

On the manufacturing planet, in order to deal with the influx of more raw materials I added a fourth launch pad for storage. (Does anyone else think they got launch pad and storage facility stats mixed up?) I had to do an in-place command centre upgrade which is so easy; I love that change.

So overall a lot less double-clicking but a lot more thinking and planning has been required. I think once I find an equilibrium it will work out better in the long run.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:47 am

    Hey Kirith,

    I went to 2 day cycles without so much as a dint in production. It even allowed for about a 4-5 hour overlap since the extractors were still producing more than required.

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  2. I think the depletion is still planet dependent. I've got a gas planet where I haven't deplted anything and the hotspot hasn't moved an iota. Other worlds it moves a bit, but not badly so it's easy enough to chase it around now that I can move the heads. Even with it moving, if I don't have a lot of time and just "install program" without moving the heads I've not noticed any significant dropoff in the amount harvested. Then again... I haven't looked that closely either.

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