Necron Generators

[simanos]

The Necron generators have increasing power cost, exponential build time cost and are affected by decay handicapping the entirety of Necron economy.
I feel like one aspect could be removed. Obviously not the increasing power cost. Is the exponential build time cost really needed though? Could it at least be removed or lessened or capped (at like 300%). Or make Obelisks affect generator build speed in some way. Otherwise we have to deal with decay and that's ugly. I proposed paying for flashing decayed gens instead of rebuilding them to avoid some absurdities, but some people would oppose even that. Personally I think Necrons should not have decay at all. It is unfluffy (they are awakening not going to sleep, they are untiring) and they already are paying increased costs (time and money) for each gen so they are like doubly penalized. But that's just me.

[Avatar 720]

Could they make it so that it un-decays with each monolith upgrade? It may handicap you at the start but it would be more fluffy.

[Gannadene]

Rumor is that the build time function is bugged anyway, and increases far more than intended.

In any case, yes, the build time needs a reduction, as it's absolutely ridiculous. It can take upwards of about five minutes to build one of the later generators. If you don't want to do that, you start to get into the business of blowing up your own economy just to get it back to an adequate state.

[steel_tomatoes]

its really annoying when you are shooting for a high economy and a gen gets destroyed. Instead of having to replace the cheap and fast to build gen, you have to replace the expensive and slowest to build gen. They could consider reversing this (or at least putting some kind of cost/build time limit on replaced gens). I mean its not like it takes a lot of skill on opponents part to take down a measily gen, why should it be harder to replace than the Greater Summoning Core? Though personally I like the un-decay idea.

[Wraith_Lord]

I think that removing the generator decay and having Obelisk build time reduction affect power generators would be enough.

The decay idea was stupid in the first place, but it REALLY hampers Necrons much more than any other race in the game, since all they depend on is power. Removing it for Necrons would make a whole lot of sense and would prevent you from having to delete and rebuild generators over and over again with their super long build time.

The Obelisk's 66% total build speed reduction being applied to power generators would really speed up the build process once you approach 10+ generators. This would make it MUCH easier for Necrons to build power generators later in the game and to rebuild their economy after being attacked.

I'm not for removing the build time increase function, though. It's a very good balancing tool and makes Necrons unique. Removing it would really buff up the Necrons economy and make them almost unstoppable. No, I think those other two suggestions are enough to make it much more bearable.

[PandaMine]

Meh no comment

Either they fix the gen building equation to how it was before or reduce the % increase or make obelisks decrease gen building time

[ImmortalChaos]

I've always hated the decay thing and I never really felt like any race should suffer it for any resource.

As for nec gen build times, I wouldn't mind capping it at a certain percent, so long as the first 7 or 8 gens were untouched by it.

[alisbin]

on some level i like decay, it makes turtling a less attractive game style since you HAVE to move out and cap points to keep your econ going. i like the idea of nec LPs decreasing gen build time, not the full 66% but some. maybe giving necron a 3rd econ bonus upgrade with the ability to renew existing gens would be a better way out.

[Rotlung]

I'm not for removing the build time increase function, though. It's a very good balancing tool and makes Necrons unique. Removing it would really buff up the Necrons economy and make them almost unstoppable. No, I think those other two suggestions are enough to make it much more bearable.

Agreed. That's the big problem with balancing a game mechanic that is vastly different from the usual. That being said, if the time were to increase linearly with more generators built and then trail off to approach an asymptope, it would be ideal, ie increase build time proportionally, then cause the increase to be reduced with each generator. No more generator-build-time-counted-in-minutes.

However, refreshing seems to be the easier option.

[simanos]

A crazy idea I had was to make each Obelisk count as -1 gen (for built time only).
Personally of the propositions so far in this thread I like the simplest one. Remove decay from Necron gens.
"Personally I think Necrons should not have decay at all. It is unfluffy (they are awakening not going to sleep, they are untiring) and they already are paying increased costs (time and money) for each gen so they are like doubly penalized. But that's just me."
It doesn't affect 1v1 or early game much so it's not imba.
I prefer this to my idea of flashing gens (pay pow to remove decay), even though flashing is probably more balanced and fair in the long run. No decay seems simply more in keeping with the Necron concept (game-wise and story-wise) to me.

Keep the comments coming...

[Orgad_E]

im all for removing decay for necrons.

[Latias418]

I'm for completely removing decay ._. It doesn't really have a point. You can it discourages turtling, but it affects both players the same, and if you're turtling anyways you've probably already lost cause the opponent has map control (unless you're playing a shitty map like breach where map control is nonexistant...).

[ImmortalChaos]

Decay doesn't discourage turtling at all- by the time decay kicks in, most races can be long into T4 with a massive army anyways. All it does is crash your econ anticlimactically in a longer game. In fact it can almost discourage harassment because destroying a LP and decapping can actually allow your enemy to increase their income...


Turtling is already pointless due to the very nature of the game- fast paced and based on map control not located within the base. Decay simply doesn't fit in anywhere.


Again, on the gens, just make the gens stop taking longer at the 9th one (up untill they have +100 they're unaffected)- Really not a big deal either way IMO.

[_McGr3g_]

make all gens after 10th have same build time as the 10th one.

[Gannadene]

Decay probably needs its own topic, but does any one consider that function successful?

It's supposed to discourage turtling, but if you're actually to the point that your LPs are decaying AND you've been turtling, you have a very large pool of resources to work with. With the time it would take to build back up a large assault force from a failed attack on a turtler, that's more enough time to make up the cost of repairs and reinforcements before the next wave. More even, even from a decayed LP2.

Necron generators decay just because everyone else's does. It's not like having them decay prevents turtling. The generators HAVE to be inside your base. By that logic, Necrons by nature are a turtling race. Of course, that's the very opposite of what's true.

I think Necrons were pretty poorly executed in DoW1. Hopefully they'll pull them off better in DoW2, if they actually release an expansion.

[PandaMine]

Thats a good point there Gannadene, crons are basically forced to turtle since their whole econ is in their base and not scattered around the map.

When there is a game mechanic that completely stops what a race is designed to do (even if it is fairly late into the game), thats pretty god damn stupid

[ImmortalChaos]

Necrons are designed to be a turling race- stalling you with tough soldiers who can reanimate themselves and powerful spells until they can get their ultimate unit, the monolith, activated.

It's in the way they tech- the mono gradually ascends from the depths and unleashes some whupass. This whole playstyle is what was intended for the race.



Though, the race barely accomplishes that, considering the Monolith isn't all that powerful anyways (a baneblade is way freaking better ) and none of the races can really tech to T4 and call it a strategy.




Anyways, I'm not calling for a redesign here, just saying that the race plays closer to the intention than you guys are implying- Necs are not actually supposed to be an offensive race in this game.

[Gannadene]

That's the opposite of a turtling race. Turtles sit in their bases behind long range firepower and heavy defenses. Necrons have very low range and low health defenses that are only meant to supplement infantry.

Necrons are a pressure race. You have to bleed out opponents' resources or weather fire. You have to push across the map for control, and slowly work into the enemy base while building an advantage. That's pressure. Not turtling.

[ImmortalChaos]

Did I say at any point that the best strat for necs is to turtle in your base and tech to the monolith?

[PandaMine]

Necrons are a turtling race, you can't just turtle forever otherwise you won't kill anything and you would never win the game.

Turtling is being less aggressive at the start of the game in favor of getting a stronger economy (if possible, this is the reason why turtling generally does not work because in order to get a good economy you have to be aggressive) and teching as fast as possible, so in later tiers you just rape the race with your superior echo and tech. This is what IG and Orks do to a certain extent (at least before DC)

Necrons are the same, you basically cannot play that aggressively with them otherwise you will fall behind in econ or tech (thats the same reason why its almost impossible to rush with crons now, and the only viable aggressive tactic is wraith spam which only works against Eldar, IG and Tau).

That is why, when they got a mono, they slowly but surely push steadily towards an enemy base and never fall back. They need the econ or tech to do that first though

[Dexter099]

What exactly does decay do and what is the rate of decay for strat points and generators?

[PandaMine]

At a certain point in time after a point is captured or a generator is built (the time is different between generators and strategic points), that point/gen will only produce 70% of its normal income. After another certain amount of time, it will only produce 45% of its normal income.

Destroying generators (and rebuilding them) resets the decay time, and uncapturing/recapturing the strategic points.

For strategic points (does not effect necrons) the first decay (70%) is at 15 minutes, and if it is still owned by the player then second decay penalty comes in at 18 minutes and 20 seconds

I think generators are the same

[Pseudonymn]

I don't know. Necrons are neither good at turtling nor rushing and stalling against long range, shooty races like the Tau is just sheer failsauce. Their only real option, as I see it, is slow and methodical expansion, holding ground as they go. Base turtling is just a recipe for fail against any human opponent. The only exceptions I can think of are, of course, on smaller maps where gen spam will quickly overshadow available strategic points and the req income they provide - if one can hold the enemies at bay for long enough.

I'd like to tie this in somewhat to our other discussions elsewhere about Necron's T3-T4, which one will encounter mostly in large FFA/Team maps only, wherein I don't see how turtling tactics can turn out very well. Turtling in those environments is a stupid thing to do as the advantage that gen spam would have conferred in smaller maps no longer applies.

It's also worth noting that Necrons are the only race whose economic growth follows a fixed curve from one game to the next. IMO, Necrons are clearly a case where design intentions failed to meet with practical application - especially after the nerfs.

I have another thought that I've been mulling over: at what point does the cost + the time to build a generator outweigh its usefulness?

I don't know about you lot, but whenever I play the Necrons, I feel compelled to have scarabs working on generators at all times. But I've been thinking recently about the diminishing returns that later generators provide and whether or not building that 15th (or whatever) generator is actually going to provide any real benefit for its cost before decay makes it useless.

It's a lot of power to have tied up in something for so long in the first place and, considering that my (n+10th) generator may not have an equal return value, and I find myself asking if it couldn't have been more productively spent on other things or even just left in float. I'd never really considered deleting my decayed gens until recently, that's why I ask (Scrooge McNecron here).

[PandaMine]

You have a good point there, you should really stop building gens after you're tenth one, your gonna be spending something like 400 power which will pay itself off in like half an hour

[Gannadene]

The investment return isn't really the point. It's the advantage of having a steady income rather than floating resources. It's not the return you're after, but the security. I find that 15 gens is more than enough for that sort of security. Any beyond that is a waste, really.

At the point that you can actually start building generators like that, you're better off spamming Summoning Cores all over the place, to clog up attackers. Other races can take advantage (abuse) the Annihilate gametype in that sort of situation by spamming production buildings. Necrons only have one (max 3) targets in that gametype, so all you can really do is body-block. There's nothing to really invest energy in during Necron T4. Generators won't give back a worthy return, you can't increase your production buildings across the map to make yourself unkillable, you can't spam mines (no mines) and you can't switch out upgrades or research. Once you have your 25/20 infantry and 20/20 vehicles, that's it.

Late-game economy worries are mainly limited to situations in which you're taking huge losses, barely hanging on, and have been under attack since T3 and have very few resources to work with.

Add T4 economy to the list of things DoW didn't do quite right, across any race.

[White_Pointer]

You have a good point there, you should really stop building gens after you're tenth one, your gonna be spending something like 400 power which will pay itself off in like half an hour

By that point you're better off building another monolith and getting the +10 power benefit from that. And as far as I know the monolith's power rate doesn't decay.

White_Pointer

[PandaMine]

Yeah monoliths don't decay, the only buildings that do decay are generators (and LP's)

Problem is the 3rd Monolith is like 900 power iirc

[Gannadene]

By that point you're better off building another monolith and getting the +10 power benefit from that. And as far as I know the monolith's power rate doesn't decay.

White_Pointer

Well, you don't much choice in the matter. You can't build more than 10 generators without building another Monolith anyway.

[simanos]

GameData["resource_ext"] = Reference([[ebpextensions\resource_ext.lua]])
GameData["resource_ext"]["decay_delay_time"] = 900.00000
GameData["resource_ext"]["decay_lower_limit_percentage"] = 0.45000
GameData["resource_ext"]["decay_to_lower_limit_time"] = 800.00000
GameData["resource_ext"]["power_per_second"] = 1.00000

Weird thing is there's part of the code in the monolith.lua to make it decay too.
EDIT: I figured it out! Decay starts after 15 minutes (900 seconds) and goes on for 800-900=-100 (negative number stops it) seconds before it reaches 45% income. Normally (gens and points) it's 1100 not 800 so it gives 1100-900=200 secs or 3 minutes and 20 secs (total 18 mins and 20 secs) which matches the wiki description I linked below. I think decay is way too fast once it starts. At the very least Necron gens should have longer decay durarion than 200 secs, more like 900 seems fair.

What exactly does decay do and what is the rate of decay for strat points and generators?

http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Dawn_...c_Point_System
Decay

After a point has been held for 15 minutes, the amount of requisition it produces begins to decay. This feature reduces the effectiveness of "turtle" strategies, and is intended to keep points contested, as a decaptured point will return to full production.. The point continues to decay until it is only producing 45% of its full capacity, which happens after holding a point for 18 minutes, 20 seconds. Building Listening Posts does not affect the timer, and therefore a newly built Listening Post on a decayed point will never generate at its full potential.


I think decay is linear (with time). You can check a gen (or point) and see it drop over time from +10 to +9 (, +8, +7, +6, etc). Generators seem to have the same decay timers with points.


PS: Furthermore I want to add, in FFA games (or large team games) when a player beats another, he takes his territory and grows his income usually. What benefit is there for the Necron player? He's wasting his troops for nothing.


EDIT:
Pseudonymn:
If you have 10 gens the next one will cost 250 pow and 6 times the build time (270 secs). At 1 pow income per sec (+10 means 10 pow every 10 seconds) it will take 250+270= 520 secs to START making a profit (assuming you didn't get blown back to stone age from some raid). So basically Necrons are screwed. If you like to avoid a 2nd Monolith, then just get the first 10 gens fast (maybe even more than 1 scarab allocated to gen making at times) and forget about making more.
LOL and people in other threads were talking about +250 or even +300 incomes for Necrons being average in T3-4. Gen decay hits you at 15+ minute in the game and kills you in 3-5 more minutes...

[Pseudonymn]

Hmmm... The only time I've seen my power rated that high was when/if I've managed to cap a slag or two.

[simanos]

At +30 each, maybe if you had 2 or 3. Anyway after less than half an hour most of the Necron gens (at least the first 10) have become decayed completely and no slag is going to save you.

[Wraith_Lord]

Does anyone know if the upgrades in the power generator affect monoliths too?

[Pseudonymn]

You know, I've never checked... My gut tells me 'no'.

[Maktaka]

Yes they do. They're global resource increases (and so are the researches of the other races), so they affect your global income, not the rate of production from the sources. The same goes for resource rate modifiers defined during game setup or as part of the AI difficulty modifiers. Because they're player-specific modifiers, they also have no effect on the resources received by your teammates with resource sharing enabled.

[Pseudonymn]

I stand corrected. Thanks!

[simanos]

I think at some point the designers forgot how Necron eco is half that of the other races and just priced things wrong. By the time a Necron has +120 others will have like +146/+79 income. So I will write costs in a fancy format in the following:

1000/1000 for a Restored Monolith? Other Relic Uber Units cost 400/400! What gives?
Also it only has 7500 health and then you have to repair the base building to produce another Restored Monolith, while other players can just click on the Relic button and produce their relic unit again much faster than you. It moves at speed 3 (thank god for teleport) and its Gauss Flux Arc don't even have NW FotM bonus.

Everything is overpriced, from Tier upgrades (340/340 for Tier 2 wtf?!) to Vehicles (300/300 H.Destroyer, etc) and building costs (550/550 Power Core, etc) and researches (750/750 for Essences, etc). There's just no comparison with other races and yet for some stupid unfluffy reason Necron gens decay and are (because of increasing costs scheme) nearly impossible to replace as explained. Decay has to go in the next patch for sure.

[Slow_Runner]

Restored Monolith isn't 1000/1000, it's just 1000 power. You can't do a straight 1:1 comparison between req + power to just power alone because it just doesn't work like that. Please don't even try.

[PandaMine]

Restored Monolith isn't 1000/1000, it's just 1000 power. You can't do a straight 1:1 comparison between req + power to just power alone because it just doesn't work like that. Please don't even try.

Its probably much worse then that in reality

[corncobman]

Except it probably isn't.

[Slow_Runner]

Seriously guys, this is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. It's not 1200/800, it's not 1000/1000 and it's not 500/500. It's 1000 power, period. Stop trying to compare a purely power based cost to a requisition + power cost.

It. Won't. Work.

[PandaMine]

No but you can make comparisons of costs between the races, and 1000 power cost for a race that has to get something like 300-400 generators for its economy, as well as the most expensive tier'ing and the 3rd additional mono to tech, it comes down to a lot more.

Yess power is power, the question is how much power income do you get and how much power do you spend. As it stands, Necrons have very low power income and need to spend a shitload of power for more income.

[Akagi_Ryu]

You guys are also forgetting Necs are the only race than have the option of getting a lot of troops for F.R.E.E. When you're struggling for power there is no other friend like the Tomb Spider who can recycle your dead units and bring them back as pure new and shiny copies that can even go beyond your current unit cap.

Still, calculating the cost of every single such upgrade/unit/vech/tiering and comparing to races who have COMPLETELY different economy system is beyond my mathematical abilities. There are just too many things to be factored in for it to be even marginally possible.

On a side note I agree that the gen decay is a load of bull thought up by a cockroach with half a brain removed.

Just another reason for people to be whining how Necs supposedly "Suck in SS"...

[Gannadene]

The "free" argument gets thrown around a lot, but it's usually not very well thought out. By the point you have a Tomb Spyder, you're in T2.5. Your opponent will either be in T2 or T3, and will have a comparibly large army. Your own army should have used up at least 15 or so of your pop by this point. Those are fairly large armies. If you're hurting for energy at that point and being forced into collecting bodies, odds are, those three Warriors are going to have next to no affect on the battlefield. If you had a Tomb Spyder in T1.5, I'd support the claim. They're there to push you to your 25/20 cap, and not much else. There are very rare situatons in which Tomb Spyders do save you in T2.5, but it's quite uncommon for Tomb Spyders to work the way they're supposed to work.

You also occassionally got people that claimed that because initial Warriors are free, that early Necron economy was fine. "You get free troops, how can you have energy problems?" We all know how that turned out. One of many reasons why I wish Necrons didn't have "free" units. As most frugal shoppers will tell you about things that are given away, they're usually not worth having or come with serious downsides.

[Maktaka]

I use a Tomb Spyder to transition from a Necron Warrior focused army to an Immortal/Destroyer focused one. I stop reinforcing the Necron Warriors, letting them die off and using their bodies to fuel Immortal construction by the Tomb Spyder. My Monolith is meanwhile cranking out three or four Destroyers. This keeps costs down while I upgrade my forces for tier 2.5. This has the added bonus of improving my army's armor type variability.

[simanos]

Slow Runner, read my post again pls.
I said "So I will write costs in a fancy format in the following:"
I did that on purpose, I know it's not totally correct (call it sensationalism reporting), but since Necron Power income is usually 1/2 of the income of other races (Requistion+Power total) it is nearer to the truth than people think. Also you start with 300 power as Necron instead of 1000/100 to counteract all that "free" NW bs people are using. And it's not totally free, it costs time. An important valuable commodity, Necrons don't have much of.
In fact the more squads of NW you have the slower they are built at the Monolith. If you reinforce a squad it slows building the next one even more!

"The actual build time of Necron Warriors is a bit complicated. If S is the number of Necron Warrior squads on the field and U is the number of units in all of those squads, then the build time of a new squad of Necron Warriors before the time bonus is factored in is (10+0.5*U+S*3)*3*1.2S s."

The only good argument so far is the Tomb Spider. But even that fails to completely counteract the huge early weakness of Necrons and the imba-high costs later on. A few free infantry replacements don't totally counteract the high cost of underpowered vehicles and even higher tech costs and the 1 production building limitation.
There's a good reason Necrons are classed last by pros. They need buffs. Maybe they were too powerful in DC 1.0, but their units were nerfed a lot by DC 1.2. You can't nerf their units more AND nerf their eco badly in SS and not expect them to go from good to sucky worse now can you?

I just want to add that the initial cause of this thread is to remove decay from Necron Generators. The rest are just arguments about why it should be removed, not asking for other stuff to be buffed (or cost decreased).
Also making Obelisks affect Gen build speed is a great idea since the Gen time cost became multiplicative instead of additive. There's really no reason not to implement this too.


EDIT: LOL I just realised "spider" is spelled differently from Tomb Spyder

"A roadster, also known as a spyder or spider, is a two-seater car, traditionally without a roof (or with a detachable roof) and no side or rear windows. Modern day two-seaters commonly have windows and feature retractable roofs (and are thus convertibles). While retractable soft-tops are still marketed as roadsters/spyders, retractable hard-tops are commonly designated as coupe roadsters."

Heh, it seems those Necrons just want a cool ride

[KotCR]

You guys are also forgetting Necs are the only race than have the option of getting a lot of troops for F.R.E.E

Guess you never paid much attention to the Orks then?
They got this nifty little research called "Free Sluggas" in the (now very) late game.

It's epic.

[Akagi_Ryu]

I have been prooved to be a noob as it seems

Or at least someone who doesn't play orks, wich is closer to the truth (at least I'd like to think so xD)

AAAANYWAY, I'll just second what Matkata said about the awesome ability of the Tomb SpYder to save some cash by recycling used up scrap 'crons to new and shiny Immortals.
Another point is that construction of Warriors in the monolith takes up concideraly long, whereas a Tomb SpYder makes them almost instantly. It also makes for some funny sneak attacks when a single TS is suddenly sorounded by quite the army.

[PandaMine]

Orks are the only race you can properly say they get their troops for free, because they don't have to pay for time for it (in relative terms)

As for spyders, yes they do help. Problem is that the cron army has to rely on them, they cost 250 and for a walker have crappy HP that can't be improved and they are hard capped at 3. They also have this really annoying habit of reincarnating where they die, which piss's you off if a Spyder dies at an enemy base and you can't get it out because it gets insta gibbed by their army before they even get out

Crons actually rely on spiders now for their army, and like the main monolith they also take time to harvest bodies

[Pseudonymn]

Stop trying to compare a purely power based cost to a requisition + power cost.

You're right about that. But what we can compare is the relative time needed to acquire the resources necessary in order to build equivalent structures, research upgrades, purchase units, etc. We can also note that whereas all other factions' rate of economic growth is limited only by the number of units the use to cap with and have virtually no upper limit to their total income until the hard cap is reached; the rate of the Necrons' economic growth is fixed, being limited by their generator build times for up to five Builder Scarabs. Furthermore, the Necrons have a palpable upper limit to their total income rate whereby they cannot complete additional generators fast enough to noticeably improve their economy. Apart from DC's campaign, and thanks to base persistency there, I've never seen a fully maxed Necronomy in operation (~15 gens + slags to start, no decay in effect).

[KotCR]

They also have this really annoying habit of reincarnating where they die

It's both a blessing and a curse, depending on what the rest of your army is doing.

You already covered the curse side of it.

But for example, for the blessing side of it, if a fight is ongoing and a Tomb Spyder falls, then it's a great help indeed to be able to have it instantly back into the fight, instead of it having to travel over the map again. Especially on some of the really big maps.
Likewise with the Tomb Spyder's massive anti-building DPS, if one falls in your opponent's base, it's probably in his best interests to keep a squad or two around to watch the body (else he risk an instant de-tech to T1), which means he's going to have one or two less squads elsewhere on the map.
According to the wiki it appears it doesn't do as much DPS to building_high as it once did, but it still does alot to buildings in general.