Proposal: Paragon Innate Energy Storage

Dear Team,

The title makes my subject obvious, but I would like to propose that the Paragon carries an innately large energy storage, as rapid bursts of energy usage beyond your current storage causes rather large issues with power stalling (largely in shields going down and radar/sonar functions, just to illustrate).

I would not presume to tell the Balancing team what the numbers here ought to look like, and would simply like to bring this minor issue to attention.

I feel that this is a useful quality of life change, and more importantly a very simple one. I do not believe anyone who has actually bothered to build a Paragon should be energy stalling under any circumstance simply by the nature of its purpose, though the advice "just build energy storages" is well received in its current state.

I hope you consider this simple proposal.

Thank you.

this is somthing i do not see geting changes any time soon but if this is somthing you wanted its not hard to add this as a mod your self

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Spock

One of the downsides of the Paragon is it takes a lot of prep and game knowledge to use effectively. Making it easier to use would make it even more op.

Also I've stalled out a para on both mass and energy before due to an insane amount of build power in a regular Seton's 4v4. It does have its limits. Hell I'm pretty sure I've stalled out two paragons before, but that was a modded survival game.

I think it would be one thing to cap out the 10k mass / 1 million power, another thing to be power stalling while using 150k power.

It's just an idea that I don't think hurts anyone.

Correct, but that's kind of my point. If you're stalling using 150k power with a paragon you didn't set up for it correctly. My point is that it does hurt the game balance to make the paragon easier to use than what it currently is, because that difficulty is one of the few things that balance it out.

I understand your point, but I do not believe not building enough energy storage to account for a 1 second delay in energy production is a function of "setting up correctly" for a Paragon.

Having enough build power, defenses (shields / air cover), leveraging space to expand upon other t4s, et al could all fit in what you're saying, but energy storage is just an unintuitive and (to my knowledge) unlabeled piece of hidden information that has no real impact on "difficulty of use." Really, energy storage is just taking a couple engies and drawing a line, at its heart.

But in the end, this is my opinion and that is yours. I just want to propose the idea anyway.

A thing that would make the paragon easier to use is if it would also generate mass and energy for teammates of the paragon-owner. Then you don't have to do stuff like gift units to get the unit cap down, or gift mexes because they stop working when you have a paragon, or gift factories so the paragon-owner can produce out of them. It would make having a paragon more useful and make it easier for players to cooperate to spend the mass.

This would also mean that a paragon is more useful if you have more teammates alive. So there would be a benefit to staying alive.

So.....how does a para work then?

@veteranashe It generates mass and energy for the owner only.

There is an upper limit as to how much mass it can generate, it won't generate more than that. (So if you have enough engineers, you can actually mass stall while you have a paragon.) The amount of mass generated is also limited by the owner's need for mass. It won't generate extra mass to fill up your mass storage and overflow to teammates. So if you're not spending all of the potential mass, it is lost forever.

Energy works the same way: There is an upper limit as to how much energy it can generate, it won't generate more than that. The amount of energy generated is also limited by the owner's need for energy. It won't generate energy to fill up the e bar or to overflow it to teammates. It only generates enough to cover what you're attempting to spend (up to the aforementioned upper limit).

If we allowed paragons to always generate up to the limit regardless of whether the owner's mass bar was full/empty, the owner would almost always be overflowing lots of mass and energy to teammates which would give the teammates the chance to spend it.

That's the impression I got that it gives you as much mass/e as you are spending

OP makes his point very clearly. What are you guys arguing about? Paragon description clearly states it generates "infinite resources". Both energy and mass production have their limits at 1 million and 10k respectively. It's very clearly not a "gameplay mechanic" for Paragon to not keep up with energy expenditure as long as the expenditure is within its production limits. What good is 1 million energy production for if your energy immediately spikes from a meager 50k expenditure to 0, flipping all your shields offline (perhaps even under mavor fire), because the production doesn't respond quickly enough? Energy storages alleviate the issue or very nearly eliminate it, but I've had experiences when paragon lets even a 350k storage deplete entirely before catching up. Game devs are notorious casuals when it comes to playtesting, and I believe its plausible to imagine they simply assumed it works fast enough as they clicked 100 engineers with their boomer fingers to build random buildings. It's a relatively minor issue but nonetheless an issue. It's not a "gameplay mechanic" for Paragon to require copious building space for rows of energy storages, especially in some rare 1v4 tower defense situations.

I also don’t think pre-building energy storages to deal with an unworking game system is an intended game mechanic. I would support some extra storage to compensate.

As a reminder do rememeber as Paragon was initially envision engineers, factories and such gave innate energy storage. So Paragon having inbuilt storage was less needed

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

Made a PR, will be considered for the next patch.
https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/3409

I don't get what's wrong with just building some more energy storages, you have infinite resources, what is stopping you?

cptant said in Proposal: Paragon Innate Energy Storage:

I don't get what's wrong with just building some more energy storages, you have infinite resources, what is stopping you?

I don't get what's wrong with just adding storage to the Paragon, you have infinite resources, why should you have to build a separate building only because of the game engine's limitation?

@cptant

I’d imagine engie pathing and build range would be an annoyance in a late game base capable of even attempting to construct a Paragon. This is purely a qol change.

put the xbox units in the game pls u_u

if you build a paragon you can find a mass for 20-30 energy storage

Sorry for my English. I use translator

Alternative proposal. Have paragon permanently output its maximum generation. There will be no spike, teammates will benefit, the storage issue will be solved and everyone will be happy.

That would be a huge buff to the Paragon, rejected.