Economy management

Competitive games like 1v1's or 2v2's are very fun. But they get boring real fast. It's not because of the speed, but because of the lack of variance.

The core of the competitive concept right now is to take out the enemies metal. Now how does that have anything to do with strategy. This limits the type of units produced, t2 is impossible in high level play.

This game should not be focused on economy so heavily that it's the only thing people focus on, ever.

Fellow forum members have tried to solve this by balancing actual units, but that has never really worked out so well. The dox are still supreme early game.

I have considered two solutions to deal with economy:

1. Make metal and energy gens more efficient, removing focus on economy and adding much more emphasis on army composition and actual strategy. I've always wanted to build an orbital factory and orbital radar to spy on my enemy.

2. Add another resource besides metal/mass. This can be anything, hell it could even be dongers, just something that deals with the repetitive and boring nature of 2 resources strictly limiting the entire army size.

Do you really want to be managing economy the entire time?

I dont know how good this will work, but what if you would try to make a map where the only metal-spots are at the spawns, and people have much increased eco? I guess that could work somewhat, but i think that economy is one of the core mechanisms to the gameplay.

Being a core element is fine. But being pretty much the only core element is another thing.

You could play games with a 2x resource bonus or something. That might give you what you want, but then that would require you to make custom games. Symmetrical maps might help out with this a little bit... possibly.

2x resources is good idea but i doubt people would want to play with 2x eco on a competitive match unless it's official or comes default with a new patch.

And yes, symmetrical metal has always been something I've wanted but that does not remove the intense focus on resources.

Isn't raiding a strategy?

Also, 5v5 games play very, very differently, especially with shared forces.

And, logistics is important, as important as managing an army in a macro rts.

Raiding is a strategy but this game is so focused on the destruction of the enemy's metal that it's a very standard strategy.

It's the only strategy.

I cant think of any other way to defeat the opponent.

Cheesy snipes are something that works but that **** is gay.
It's pretty sad how shallow this game really is. I never noticed until now.

Other then attacking them?

Uhhhhhh you could steam roll?

Or...... you could just stop them from raiding?

Why wouldn't it be? Destroying your opponents resources is paramount.

1v1 on a small moon might be shallow, but on anything else, you get to use more toys.

Only the hyper competitive side of the game is so shallow, and that's called meta.

I'm wondering, what are the other core elements you are alluding too? Isn't an RTS fundamentally all about resources?

Formations, (more complex) army compositions, t2, orbital, all of the stuff that you can do in team games should be able to be used in 1v1's.

Right now that's impossible with the economy restrictions. Unless of course you play on multiplanet.

I don't think formations were ever really a practical thing in any RTS. Seems like more of a TBS thing. Although I'd really like to see more T2 or orbital units instead of people just spamming endless T1.

It should?

Depends on the map size doesn't it?

Like you won't even need T2 if you are having a knife fight in a cupboard.

Formations can be practical in ensuring proper allocation of dps and such.

More use of orbital in smaller games would be cool, as it is supposed to be the ultimate support tool, even more then air.

But you say spamming endless T1, what's wrong with having large army's? More diversity I can get wanting, but T1 spamming, that doesn't make any sense.

yeah the formations was mostly a random idea, but I did download a mod that enables the old formations and it's pretty useful in team games/ FFA.

Uhm... What? You might want to rework that a bit.

How so?

You point out that spamming T1 isn't bad and then afterwards you say "More diversity I can get wanting, but T1 spamming, that doesn't make any sense."

I can get people wanting more diversity, But I can't get why people having large armys (T1 spam) is a problem in this kind of game.

Dox and bolos are boring.