The Computer Player's Handicap
One thing the difficulty setting changes for a computer player is its income. On the lower settings it earns less from everything it owns.
The Rule
Everything a computer player earns is multiplied by a factor that depends on the difficulty:
| Difficulty | The computer's income |
|---|---|
| Easy | × 0.5 |
| Medium | × 0.7 |
| Hard | × 1.0 |
The factor applies to every resource that reaches its stores at the settle: the output of its Commander, extractors, generators and metal makers, the metal and energy it reclaims, and resources sent to it by allies.
It does not apply to costs. The computer pays the full price for every unit, the full energy use of its extractors and metal makers and the full cost of each shot. Its starting resources and its storage are not reduced either.
Human players are never scaled. On Hard, the computer earns exactly what you would earn from the same buildings, and its income gets no bonus at any difficulty.
Worked Example
Income per second from the same sources:
| Source | Hard | Medium | Easy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commander | 25 energy, 1 metal | 17.5 energy, 0.7 metal | 12.5 energy, 0.5 metal |
| Solar Collector | 20 energy | 14 energy | 10 energy |
| Fusion Reactor | 1000 energy | 700 energy | 500 energy |
| Metal Extractor on a full 112 deposit | 1.017 metal | 0.712 metal | 0.509 metal |
| Reclaiming a Peewee wreck | 42 metal | 29.4 metal | 21 metal |
A Bulldog costs 467 metal and 2994 energy on every difficulty, so on Easy the computer needs twice as many extractors to build one as fast. Its Metal Makers are hit hardest: each still uses 60 energy a second but makes only half a metal, so on Easy every metal costs it 120 energy.
Other Differences
The game's code gives computer players two other freedoms:
- Your Commander fires its D-gun only when you order it. A computer-controlled Commander picks D-gun targets by itself (see the Commander).
- On fire at will, your units pick targets on their own only among unit types marked as worth shooting. 91 of the 278 unit types are not marked, mostly buildings without weapons: factories, extractors, generators, storage, radar and sonar, walls and mines. Your units fire at them only when you give an attack order. Computer-controlled units have no such limit. The
+shootallcommand on the cheats page gives your units the same freedom.