Energy Storage

[Veta]

Caveat: Yes, you need a minimal amount of estorage for acute energy demands (e.g. artillery, overcharge) but beyond that there is no real value to additional energy storage. This post discusses the value of additional energy storage.

Why does nobody build Estorage for the sake of energy storage? After all, delaying energy stalls and making use of power surplus should be valuable. Let's take a look at the numbers.

Energy Storage
-250m
-1200e
+5000 energy capacity
T3PGen
-3240m
-57600e
+2500e/tick

How do we relate energy storage capacity to energy generation? Well, we can make it easier on ourselves and assume storage is always full and ignore adjacency. T1 Estorage provides 5000 stored energy and is equivalent to 2 ticks of a T3PGen. That is to say, 5000estorage allows your economy to run for 2 "grace" ticks at -2500e. That doesn't seem like much but estorage is magnitudes cheaper. Still, let's take a closer look.

What is the estorage equivalent of a T3PGen?
3240m/250m *5000estorage = 64800estorage
EStorage Energy Cost = 15552e

Wow, so 68400estorage costs the same as another T3 PGen. Assuming full storage, how many "grace" ticks at -2500e is that?
64800e/(+2500e/tick) = 25.92 ticks
T3PGen Energy Cost = 57600e

OK. So 3240m of Estorage is only equal to 26 ticks of a T3PGen. Even if you had absolutely 0 energy waste, the difference in energy cost [(57600e-15552e)/(+2500e/tick)=16.82 ticks] is still negligible.


If you plan on keeping your PGen alive longer than 26 ticks it's smarter to make PGens. So how do we make energy storage capacity more useful? Well, we would have to make the number of "grace" ticks provided actually significant. How much is "significant" though? Well, assuming we had perfect knowledge, the average amount of time a T3 PGen is alive until it's destroyed (in rated, competitive games) in every game ever played would be the minimum value necessary for significant energy storage. If we want estorage to be useful in games though it must be more than the minimum, as that assumes full storage and no enemy sabotage.

If EStorage is to be useful it must provide more than 26 "grace" ticks of stall prevention. Whether that should be 50 ticks, 100 ticks or 250 ticks I'm not sure. I would like to hear what others think. For example, if we quadrupled estorage capacity then estorage would provide 104 ticks of stalling "grace" compared to the (until destroyed) unlimited "grace" of a T3 PGen. Even at 4x efficiency I'm not sure it's enough. If you have 104 "grace" ticks at full storage and are operating at +0 and lose a T3 PGen you have approximately 104 seconds before stalling. Assuming you immediately begin producing a T3 PGen you only have 81 seconds before you stall, which means you need the mass and about 80 build power to avoid energy stalling.

What do you guys think about buffing energy storage?

[BRNKoINSANITY]

Please read the rules. This is not an "open" balance season.