Some notes about action economy. I'll only be discussing the features that directly impact efficiency here; stuff like unlocking new technologies is outside the scope of this post, even though in truth that would almost certainly include things that impact efficiency as well.
By default, each player gets on average 1 success on their action, assuming they are working within their specialty. Working outside their specialty cuts that in half, so it is usually inadvisable for obvious reasons.
By default, focus actions give 3 successes, which is on par with the combined abilities of 3 players.
Magnetic Tree (Magnetic) x4: Metallic threads wind their way through crystalline branches and leaves, allowing it to generate a magnetic field. The Forest may choose to greatly empower this field, allowing it to stop attacks from reaching the Forest in the first place. Unlocks the Shield action, and provides one automatic success to that action per Magnetic Tree. Requires 10 Growth successes per tree.
Our four magnetic trees each give +1 success to the Shield action.
+1 success to an action is not to be understated. 1 success is normally all that a single tree can manage on its own in the first place! So getting a +1 on an action literally doubles the impact there. Given that we have FOUR such trees, that means that our shield actions are massively easier than they would otherwise be; with each player pulling the weight of five.
As a particular note, I'd like to mention that this makes the Shield action especially accessible to players acting outside of their specialty. Normally, a tree deciding to do that loses 50% of it's effectiveness (1 -> 0.5 successes average), but here we only lose 10% effectiveness (5 -> 4.5 successes average). In other words, the Shield action basically doesn't care what kind of tree you are.
Corollary: if we really need defenses, having everyone dogpile Shield is remarkably reasonable. Well, as long as all we want to do is hide under a nice turtle-shell. Obviously there are many classes of problems that such an approach doesn't exactly solve.
Collector Tree (Crystal) x1: This tree serves to collect some small measure of the energy put out by the Sun, its leaves so dark they almost glow as they drink in the light. Every Focus action dedicated to Growth actions receives one additional automatic success per Collector Tree. Requires 10 Growth successes per tree.
This tree gives +1 success to Growth Focus actions. This means that:
- Right now, is is an extra 33% more efficient to spend Focus actions on Growth than anything else. Unless we have a compelling reason to do otherwise, I think that this serves as good motivation to typically keep focus actions within this category.
- Each Collector Tree itself takes 10 successes to grow, and then gives +1 success to each Growth focus action. If we spend 5/6ths of our focus actions on Growth, that means it would take us 4 turns after one is grown for a Collector Tree to fully pay for itself (12 focus actions, with 10 in the growth category), after which we start seeing an effective surplus.
Sharding Tree (Crystal) x1: This tree serves to protect other Trees by absorbing incoming damage first, protecting both trees newly grown and those still growing. If it is destroyed, it detonates, assaulting whomever attacking it with a new Defense roll, utilizing every Heart Tree in the Forest to provide the effect and an additional bonus success. Requires 10 Growth successes per tree.
This tree has the very nice effect of shielding other trees, but I won't go into that here. Instead I wanted to mention the efficiency of this tree when used for offensive purposes - that is, how good is this tree's detonation for turning growth successes into Defensive rolls?
I'm actually not sure how to read "utilizing every Heart Tree in the Forest to provide the effect and an additional bonus success".
@Raising Kittens - could you clarify here?
- Do the Heart Trees use one dice (the basics every tree gets), or two (since they are working within their specialty)?
- Is it one additional bonus success TOTAL, or one per Heart Tree?
Depending on the answers here, the average output can be as low as 17.5 successes, or as high as 66 successes. For an investment of 10 successes, this seems a pretty good payoff, ESPECIALLY if we are on the high end of this scale rather than the low end.
We don't have any other attacks to compare it to right now, but just based on dice this is a pretty damn good option.
[ ][Action] Research the Scoop Tree (Magnetic)
-An alternative application of magnetic fields, the Scoop Tree improves the efficacy of growth actions, by proactively adjusting magnetic fields to reach out and obtain charged particles.
-Requires 10 Research successes.
It is not entirely clear what "efficacy of growth actions" means; we would have to see the tree. But if it provides automatic successes like the Magnetic Tree, this could be extremely powerful. Especially while we don't have offensive options, basically all root trees are doing growth actions, which means we are looking at 20+ growth actions a turn.
[ ][Action] Research the Hoop Tree (Magnetic)
-Yet another application of magnetic fields, the Hoop Tree unlocks a Survival action, allowing for resources to be stored against future need. Automatically applies one die to that action each turn.
-Requires 10 Research successes.
While it may be worth building this for the tech unlock, I'd like to note that 1 free die a turn is not especially impressive. I don't see us wanting to build more of this tree after we get the first one and it's corresponding tech.
Recall that 1 die is 0.5 successes. But 0.5 successes really isn't much.
- Compare this to a Magnetic Tree, which gives 1 bonus success per each Growth Focus action; even with is only taking one Growth focus a turn, that ends up giving twice Hoop Tree's bonus.
- Think about it in terms of an investment. It takes 10 successes to get this tree built, then it will take 20 turns for this investment to recoup itself.
[ ][Action] Research the Shaping Tree (Crystal)
-Crystals aren't particularly fluid, but their interiors can be adjusted to mimic that of other trees as the need arises. This tree allows for other trees to take up arms in defense of the Forest. Up to one Defense Action per Forest Magnitude per turn gains one extra die per Shaping Tree.
If I'm reading this right, each Shaping Tree would currently produces up to +3 dice per turn, or +1.5 successes. I guess that is a better multiplier than the Hoop Tree, but keeping in mind that we presumably won't need defense actions EVERY turn, I don't know if I'm especially impressed.
