# Solar Apoc Expanded 2 Balancing Document

### Bro what do you mean by balancing? Why should it even matter when blockland is half-ded?
To make sure game progression is fun, consistant, and lengthy, we need to make sure game content is balanced so players can not get stuck at a certain point, but also not simply AFK for an hour to have enough materials to last them for a long time. Being able to slow players from flying through content allows them to enjoy its features more, and thus be more likely to hang around in the server. We have very few people left on blockland, so player retention is more important than ever. That being said, if said content is space, then there is no point of slowing down gameplay.

## Resource gathering
In SA EX2, the progression line for gathering materials will be different from the previous iteration of solar apoc expanded.

### Ore Growers?
To get this out of the way, the original version suffered from some issues. It effectively allowed players to gain effectively an infinite amount of material by just AFKing. While having huge amounts of materials may be nice and fun to play around with, it led to a few issues amplified in SA EX2. The huge amount of resources allowed players to make extreme amounts of solar panels, generators, and batteries. This led to a rediculous amount of lag from the machines processing. I tried optimizng as best as I could, but I could only do so much. The huge amount of resources also breaks the progression in SA EX2. There will be an alloying and chemical crafting system that uses raw materials. This new system along with making new tools, weapons, and machines creates a resource management challenge/puzzle. If players can just have materials whenever they need for a small price of freely generated power, any issue of resource scarcity goes out the window. Lastly, people just get lazy and stay inside thier houses all day wanding ore growers. This removes the point of the gathering mechanic, which was supposed to be the main way to obtain resources. Being inside all the time is also kinda boring.

#### Alternate ore grower: Void Drill

One option to fill in the gap/niche of a metal synthesizer (while still being balanced) was the void drill. It can be powered and selected to slowly generate a metal type, but it will need "beast essense" fuel to function. This essense will come from megafauna and/or rare enemy drops. This makes megafauna loot more personalizable and prevents the infinite material issue.

### Accelerating Resource Gathering

The player will still need a decent amount of resources to be able to make higher tier machines and tools. The main way to get more resources should be to **accelerate gathering expeditions**. There will be a few options for doing this.

#### Pickaxes

This function effectively the same way as Solar Apoc Expanded's original hand drills, but used actively. Simply hold it in your hand and click a resource node to gather and get a gathering boost. Having to hold it in hand for the boost is a bit more immersive than a magical mining haste buff.

#### Autodrill

An important step to increasing the rate of gathering materials. It can be equipped and used on a resource node and it will deploy and automatically gather the material. This gives you "extra hands" to gather resources. While it is automatic, it still needs to be moved to brick to brick to continue mining. Thus the autodrill is moreso "semi-automatic". The drill will require power and have variants, including one that can pump from crude oil wells or use sulfuric acid to mine uranium/fluorine. Drills may need a powered server to function.

#### Mining Drones
May conflict with the whole ore grower issue, but this idea adds "drones" which basically act as drills with legs and propellers. They target nearby resource nodes based off a config and flys over then mines it. Will need a powered server to function. Also comes with combat drones.

#### C4
A fun explosive mining option. A deployable remote explosive that has a large AoE and will automatically mine any blown up resource node instantly.

## New player retention

Another important focus should be getting new players to stay. If there is no "hook" or tutorial, new players will become bored and confused, then leave and not come back. This is a big issue as discussed earlier due to the very small population Blockland has. Furthermore, a new player can be put off by spawnkilling caused by the sun and/or monsters.

### Tutorial

While seasoned players will probably understand how SA EX 2 mostly works from the start, many newer players will be confused when first spawning, and wonder why they can't build. A tutorial should be in place to guide them through collecting materials, building, etc. Players should be protected from the sun during this time.

#### Solution 1: Safe spaceship spawn zone

Players without a checkpoint will spawn in an enclosed spaceship. From here players can either start the tutorial within the spaceship or go to the navigation room to drop somewhere. There should be some fun little games so players can wait out the day.

#### Solution 2: Protected tutorial

Players will spawn on the map as normal, but will recieve a longer invul time to sun and monsters. This will be indefinately legthened for players doing the tutorial.

## Power system: Machines and more

SA EX 2 will have a more robust power system than solar apoc expanded 1.

### Power generation

Due to power's much more important role in SA EX 2, power should be more difficult to obtain. More specifically, power should be supplied by consuming physical resources. Even the solar panel should need to be "repaired" for extensive usage. In SA EX 1, power was really only a matter of generator and solar panel spam, would end up creating a lot of lag. To counteract this, each power generator should be able to hold well by itself (generate a good amount of power).

### Moving power and matter

For machines to recive power and recieve automated material input we need a system to transfer it. In SA EX 1 machines just did a radius search to see any machines it can add to its list of connections. This ended up being laggy and not very controllable. Some options for a new version include:

#### Solution 1: Cables and pipes

A tool called the cable layer will allow a player to select two machines and connect them with a physical rope cable. This can be either matter (pipe) or power (cable). These ropes will have different transfer rates depending on their material. Cost to build one scales with distance, and can't extend past a certain point. Power/Matter accepting or dispensing machines can only have up to 4 ropes at once. **This is the currently implemented method of power/matter transfer.**

#### Solution 2: Brick based power movers and conveyer belts

In this option power and matter is tranfered through a network of 1x1f sized bricks. Arrows will point in the direction for the desired power/matter to flow, and can also come with splitter blocks and more. This one offers a more condensed and horizontal build style. While potentially more immersive and designable (if that is even a word) than solution 1, it is not at all implemented and as of writing solution 1 is almost completely done (still needs matter transfer). There are many things to work on and I would rather not waste time completely redoing something that works fine.

## Monsters and the creepy crawlies

In SA EX 1 monsters functioned as a large hurdle for gathering, and only dropped a minor reward on death. In SA EX 2 however they serve a much more vital role as they supply materials required for decently paced progression. They will also not be as agressive (unless provoked) and scale to a player's progression in the game.

### Keeping monsters balanced

An issue in SA EX 1 was that monsters could easily overwhelm newer players, especially in later days. A solution to this is to have monster agression scale depending on who the target is. Factors that could change this scale could include amount of machine power used, research progression, and recent PvM. This should make it so new players don't get trampled on but still give more experienced players a challenge.

### Fighting and gathering

In SA EX 2, your progression on gathering materials is saved to the resource node. This will make is so if a player gets interrupted while gathering they can continue from where they left off and not have to wait the full duration again.

### Monster loot

As stated earlier, monsters will have a few drops this is vital for progression. Previously in SA EX 1, monsters did not really have a use other than being annoying and preventing you from gathering resources. Three of these drops include Gold (still spawns rarely as a resource node), Gibs, and Leather. Gold is used for many alloys, Gibs can be refined into ethanol for potions and ethylene production, and leather is used as a base for armors. Monsters can also be killed to reach research requirements.

### Megafauna

Megafauna are simply various bosses that can be defeated for special loot, such as beast essence or special tools/weapons. Megafauna spawn seperately and away from players, and are inactive until disturbed, afterwhich they will relentlessly hunt down their attackers.

## Research and Development

This replaces the original blueprint system in SA EX 1. The primary goal of this system is to give more interesting and fun tasks to gain access to new tools and machines rather than randomly killing enemies and opening chests in hopes for a blueprint.

### Research Tree

Many tools, weapons, and machines require research to be unlocked and crafted. Unlike in SA EX 1 where unlocks are relatively random, unlocks in SA EX 2 follow a strict unlock tree, where new things can be unlocked after a previous one is unlocked. This will allow players to be able to prioritize reserch they want to get instead of unlocks being RNG based.

### Doing research

To unlock research, a set of tasks need to be completed. This research can be done with a resarch computer, that is cheap and requires no power. Basic tasks could be to just input materials into the computer and kill specific monsters. Later tasks could include building a specific amount of machines, producing a set amount of material (via machines) in the last time frame, or slaying megafauna. Unique tasks should be prioritized over simple fetch tasks, especially for later research.