Started another thread to avoid OTing the other topic regarding the idea of 'fusioning' several structures into a single structure. My main though is: what is the purpose of the pylon? It is an expensive structure that, and if someone builds it the experienced players mock the player who built it. People even contemplate on its removal. This suggest that the structure is not what is should be, and that it could be improved. Why not make the pylon cheap and safe (it would not explode). To compensate lower price, make the radius a bit smaller. The main idea is to make the pylon a viable alternative for the windmill spam. Instead of building silly dense lines of windmills to add their mexes to the power grid, the players could actually use the improved, cheaper and safer pylons to do what the pylons are for and get rid of the windmill spam. Benefits: pylon can be finally used for something without the veterans getting berserk. It alleviates the windmill spam. Less dense energy transfer line makes land unit movement easier in the area. Less units on the map. Also the player would have true tactical options of building an energy park to the rear and then easily extend the power line using the cheap energy pylons to the mexes closer to the front line action. What say you?
+0 / -0
|
Windgen 'lines' are almost always bad, you want a bit of e next to each mex. Perhaps remove the pylon and give wind, solar and geo more grid radius. Enough so that units can pass through a wall of them. Honestly we should do this anyway, those wind 'walls' are annoying (strategically placed solar walls are great, christmas lights between your mexes is not). Really the only time to use a pylon is when you have an Anni/DDM to power, or when you're hiding a superfusion. It's narrow enough that I don't think we need it, but then if there is really no reason to remove it...
+0 / -0
|
pylon is fine imo, it optimally gets built at the stage of the game where a 200m unit can be pumped out in seconds. That being the case, you just want as higher radius as possible. Players who make it early are just nubs
+0 / -0
|
>Windgen 'lines' are almost always bad, you want a bit of e next to each mex. Eh, that's pretty much my entire energy production though. Some though on how I set up my energy grid: I need production to ramp up slowly with metal income (income counted as mex + reclaim). The longer the game, the greater the metal income, and the more energy I will need to spend this metal. I typically set a constructor to start linking mexes with long lines of wind gens. It is set to low priority so that it only builds when I'm excesing metal. This serves two purposes: Primary - Allows gradual increase of energy income over the course of game to power my units and prevent stalling Secondary - links mexes together. It's important to note that linking mexes together is not my primary goal, but as long as I'm building lots of winds, why shouldn't I?
+0 / -0
|
To me as it is, the two biggest uses I find for Pylons are. 1)Connecting grids between large differences in elevation(Ie. the DSD Cliffside Mexes) 2)Building a connection between two mexes without blocking(yes Solars are also able to do this with simple spreading, but it is useful. With thoes in mind although I would agree with Sotha's reasoning of increasing energy radii and making the pylon less explosive(the latter due to the reason it was originally is no longer true)
+0 / -0
|
I think it is fine as is. I use it to connect super-mexes and structures that require power. Sure this is not much of a use but it is still very useful in these situations.
+0 / -0
|
in my opinion pylon is rarely useful but sometimes really needed to get grid over sharp hills where you cannot do windgens. i tend not to use them often (but sometimes out of lazyness).
+0 / -0
|
Pylon explosion is good. When the enemy comes in with raiders they die when the pylon blows up.
+0 / -0
|
This is how I see pylon: -links together mexes with power -saves a lot of room -kind of expensive -explodes upon death -fragile This is how I see wind: -links together mexes and makes power itself -can block you own nits if placement isn't careful -cheap -chain exploads -VERY fragile I think I like pylon better when it comes to linking the grid together. but then, I think the way you link things together is up to your and/or the map. (DIVERSITY :))
+0 / -0
|
>can block you own [u]nits if placement isn't careful Shift + x/z for spacing. Space them 3 apart. Incredibly easy to do and doesn't block units. >chain exploads [sic] Only in grids. Next to each other, they don't chain unless the second one is already very damaged, in which case it still doesn't chain the third. >VERY fragile You can get 6 winds for the cost of 1 pylon. That's 780 health to kill vs 1000 health. Glaive does 110 DPS, so the pylon lasts about 2 seconds longer vs. Glaive. BUT! It takes time for the Glaive to target each wind and move in range. Build 6 winds in a straight line and I guarantee you that it will take a Glaive longer to kill the winds than the Pylon. Lastly: wind is fine on its own. Pylon is only as good as the structures that it is supporting. A single wind gen will make energy all game, even if what it's linking dies. If whatever the pylon is linking dies, it's just a big useless yellow brick.
+0 / -0
|
You probably never have a reason to build a pylon before 15 minutes into the game. You want pylons when you have built up a strong fusion economy in the back and you are looking to spread that fusion energy out to middle mexes quickly and efficiently. The pylon's advantage is in the speed and space efficiency with which you can propogate the energy grid; it's much faster than trying to link middle map mexes to your pylons in the back with solar or wind, safer than fusions, and it doesn't obstruct your supply lines. Truth be told, it is most useful in FFA games.
+0 / -0
|
>It takes time for the Glaive to target each wind and move in range. True, but wouldn't it also take extra time for a con to move into range and build it? >Build 6 winds in a straight line and I guarantee you that it will take a Glaive longer to kill the winds than the Pylon. If the glaive were to take out a single wind gen, then the grid would be disconected and it may take time for a con to rebuild it as it needs to get there. Now that I think about it, linking a grid with wind does make a good excuse to build it (wind gens) early game, but mid to late game, pylon may be better.
+0 / -0
|
Why not just link with solars? They take a beating and can be spread out further than wind.
+0 / -0
|
>True, but wouldn't it also take extra time for a con to move into range and build it? Your cons do not have unlimited resources to "shoot" with. A Glaive does. As described earlier in my post, my cons only build on low priority, so a huge percentage of time is spent building the wind, and a small percentage of time is spent walking. Anyways, you hit the nail on the head with your statement about winds being better in early game. You should be building them to provide energy anyways, so why not link while you're at it. By the time I've made enough energy to seriously consider linking, guess what? Everything is already linked with the winds I've built! I don't even need pylons because I've been slowly ramping up energy production all game, WHILE linking simultaneously.
+0 / -0
|
I like Skasi's idea of global pylons - they are all connected to other pylons allowing you to connect far away places with just one pylon.
+0 / -0
|
Since most people believe it's inefficient to build pylons in bases (I hold that blocking and even self-destructing friendly units with windmill lines due to bad pathing is what is worthy of mockery, but oh well), make them usable to expand energy grids to the more forward mexes. Allow them to shutter like solars, or add an LLT on top, or something more exotic: allow basic defensive structures to be built on top of the pylon like a platform, merging their hitpoints and giving the structure a variety of boosts (extra height for a radar, a pseudo range-malus for enemy raiders, extra health for a missile tower or nano). There has to be some reason to risk having a chain of these leading to clustered resource deposits including being placed in contested hotzones. Survivability or otherwise. Completely different idea: pylons generate energy in an identical manner to mexes - via reaching metal deposits with their effect, with no extra credit given for overlap. Balance the numbers to make them desirable to have, or at least subsidize the cost: if the pylons nearest the mexes are cost-effective, then at worst you have alleviated windspam within the vicinity of most bases, saving my poor hovers from exploding themselves. Alternative #483: get rid of the larger grid radii on non-geothermal energy structures.
+0 / -0
|
"There has to be some reason to risk having a chain of these leading to clustered resource deposits including being placed in contested hotzones." Energy grids aren't for hotzones. They're for bases. Go cap mexes in no-man's land, sure. That's territorial acquisition. But you can expect to lose them, too. Don't push your grid out to them to get the overdrive until you've actually secured the territory. I think that's a pretty reasonable game dynamic. Edit - never mind, I get what you were getting at. But still, if you think pylons need to be tougher so that they can be used closer to the front, why not just defend them like anything else rather than tinker with the unit?
+0 / -0
|
"Licho: I like Skasi's idea of global pylons - they are all connected to other pylons allowing you to connect far away places with just one pylon. " The more I think about this, the better it sounds. But isn't it TWO pylons? One next to the power plant (source) and one next to the remote mexes (drain)?
+0 / -0
|
@Sotha - you're overthinking it. No difference between source pylon and drain pylon. Every pylon is connected to every other pylon, creating a large network. I like it, but you'd have to raise the price on pylons.
+0 / -0
|
200m would probably be fine, since you need a minimum of 2 for them to do anything. And it's way more than enough to make people only use them for long distances and high overdrive; 400 metal just to connect 1-2 mexes isn't worth it. I love the idea.
+0 / -0
|
