The smart way to value the peices (fluctuating material value as opposed to static)

Knight: 3 point in the opening, 5 points in the middle game, 9 points in the endgame 

(As space increases knight scope increases)

Pawns: 9 points on their original squares, with a decrease of one point for every square they move

 (On the 7th rank, the pawns cover each other, the minor peices, as well as being inherent with various ways the pawn chain and thus the game could play out. This factor decreases the more they move)

Bishops and rooks: value depends on number of squares they are controlling that are not impeded by a pawn of their own colour 

(Surely it is obvious that the strength in the rooks and bishops lies in their range. And this range increases and decreases, and so their value ought to be correspondingly fluctuating. )

The queen: Same as the bishop and the rooks, but with an emphasis or cube root of power in the endgame when it pretty much dominates the entire board. 

That's the negative viewpoint, deepfunk. Always strive to the positive.

Chess engine programmers can know this better. Position defines value of pieces and it requires complex calculations. There is no easy way to do this I guess. or is there?

The OP goes a pretty easy table of sorts to calculate same

How much space would be necessary to count a knight as powerful? Like everything around the knight, or just space overall?

Also, if I have to bust out a calculator to play chess, I might just give it all up.

If you're wanting more than just the static, simple Reinfeld values, probably the best starting point is the article by Larry Kaufman. I used to have the link, but I'd have to search for it now. Dan Heisman used to link to it from his web page. Idk if Chess.com has an article about it.

Think of the answer as a sort of chart, progressively increasing in knight power as the moves roll on. Like carlsens rating graph on chess.com (well if he joined chess.com the day he started playing chess and then played on chess.com everytime he played a fide tournament, the way his rating graph would look as of today, and substitute rating for knight power on said graph y axis.) 

It's not a step by step increase but a smooth flow, but as a rule of the thumb, ten moves in and it's the middlegame, 20 moves in and it's the upper middle game and 30 moves the endgame. 

Then of course there's closed and open positions and each one factors in. 

The most simplest way to evaluate the worth of pieces is looking at their influence and job in a position. A powerful bishop on one of the centre squares is much stronger than a rook thats stuck behind a pawn in the middle game. in that scenario, u don't trade the bishop as it is much more advantageous to u as a piece rather than just material gain. 

The base number worth of each piece is very accurate i'd say tho. Rooks in general are about as strong as 2 minor pieces, a queen vs 2 rooks is pretty much evenly matched, 3 pawns evenly match a minor piece, etc. The only times this rule changes is again dependent on the position. in a closed position where all the pawns are locked up, a knight is still worth 3 points, same as a bishop, but in practicality has much more utility. If the game opens up however the bishop becomes marginally stronger again.

Kaufman has sign on komodo and rbyka, he has good source of materials to study. idk much about heisman but he has an account here on chess.com

https://www.chess.com/member/danheisman

But I simply assume a piece's power by looking at how many square it is controlling. if nothing else involved.

That's quite solid existing chess theory, but I explore a new one altogether in the OP. 

In the endgame, Stockfish values the knight at a little over 4 pawns (source: Reference 9 from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value

Which horse ya gonna bet on - the OP or Stockfish? ;-)

Maybe it's this:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman

Yeah, that's it. I also think Larry had a second followup article, but I can't remember the details.

Exactly what I've been thinking about for the last few months!

Knights are better in the opening. Pawns on the seventh rank are monsters.

I found the original (archived) links. The first one is (I think) about the same as the Chess.com article. The second article was about doubled pawns, so it's probably not applicable to this thread.

That's true 

Exactly the opposite of what Jesus states in his original post, lol.