Can someone help my theory crafting

What I need to know is how much time is saved per fabricator assisting another fabricator or assisting commander when constructing

And how much extra it costs to assist.

To help decide when is good to work together and when is good to work apart.

Well I can help on the cost side of things- assisting increases *energy cost* per unit of metal delivered. There aren't any other penalties that I am aware of- so if you are in a situation of being 'energy rich' then it makes sense to assist (assuming sufficient metal). In terms of outright efficiency- a factory uses much less energy per unit of metal than fabricators, so assisting a factory with a fab is *sub optimal* however you have to balance that against the cost of a second factory.

The building time depends on the build power: The amount of Metal the builder adds to the building per second. To be precise: The building cost divided by the build power. If one Fabber is making a building and then you add a second Fabber, you double the build power 10 M/s to 20 M/s) and thus half the building time. If you add the Commander instead, you quadrupole the build power (10 M/s to 40 M/s), thus decreasing the build time with 75%.

As for the extra cost:
- The Metal cost is zero. You always pay the same amount of Metal for the same building or unit.
- For Energy, it is not so easy. The Commander has a higher build efficiency, which it the amount of Energy is spends per Metal that is "builds" (higher is better). The Commander builds 30 M/s for 1.5 kE/s, thus has an efficiency of (30 M/s)/(1.5 kE/s) = 20 M/kE. The Fabber has an efficiency of (10 M/s)/(1 kE/s) = 10 M/kE, which is half of the Commander's.


If you are interested in assisting Factories, it becomes a bit more interesting. Then, the total unit build time consists of the unit fabbing time + the unit roll-off time, the time the unit takes to gtfo of the Factory so it can start producing the next unit. This roll-off time makes for diminishing returns: The more Fabbers are assisting the Factory, the less the building time is decreased relatively to the total build time. And in the limit of infinite Fabbers, that build time is not zero, but equal to the roll-off time.

take metal extractors for instance - 150 metal

1 bot fabber builds at 15 metal/sec so that takes 10 second each.

2 bots building the same metal extractor will do it at 30 metal/sec so thats 5 seconds each.

2 boths building separate metal extractors will take 10 seconds to build 2.

The main consideration aside from this is the walking distance between building. Generally I only send out fabbers together if there is a dense metal field that I want to claim quickly as you can get your eco up quickly without stalling, otherwise I just send them out solo.

The same sort of thinking applies to all other buildings but as the distances are usually quite small then it makes sense to group fabbers together to build factories/pgens etc

It costs the same amount of metal no matter what, but it does cost more energy. (Units have a flat energy usage over time rather than buildings and such having an energy cost)

The calculations all depend on how your economy is doing.

I don't think this is true...

Why? The Energy used per second increases, but the building time decreases as well, such that (Energy spending rate)*(fabbing time) = constant.

Nope, it is. Buildings do not have a set energy cost, fabs continuously use energy. In fact building something would cost quite a bit more if you built it while metal negative for instance.

Eh what have you done with those quotes?

If you *read* my post, assisting a factory will *reduce energy efficiency* as fabbers use *more energy* per unit of metal than a factory does. If you have excess energy this point is meaningless though- as it's metal rate that determines build speed.

Also another thought, storage makes this more complex. With energy storage you can effective build up a 'buffer' for assisting. Energy is only *ever* a concern when it runs out, essentially it is almost an 'on / off' resource. If you have sufficient storage and a small excess of energy, it gives you the ability to use mass fabbers for fast assistance of something important like a t2 factory, without having sufficient energy to sustain using that many construction units permanently.

Pretty sure genesis is right - using 2 engineers may drain twice as much power but it only drains power for half as much time... you still use the same total amount of power.

Thx for in depth responses guys, will be referencing this while tinkering with ideas =)

Right, yeah that is true- that is fabber assisting other fabbers though. The efficiency question comes in when comparing fabbers to other types of construction units. It is sub optimal to assist a factory with a fabber, as a factory requires less energy per unit metal than a fabber.

I apologize, I misread. You are correct in that it depends on the building efficiency. So that a Fabber assisting another Fabber does not increase the Energy cost, but a Fabber assisting a Factory does, because the Fabber has a lower efficiency than the Factory.

EDIT:

To be precise about it: The Power (which is Energy/second) is doubled, the total Energy spent is the same. Sorry about that, I blame my OCD.

However as I mention- due to how energy / metal work in PA- as long as you *have* a storage of energy that may not matter.

In very low metal situations (e.g. a map with only one mex spots per player) it may be *more efficient* to build 1 factory and assist, than to make 2 factories due to the high initial energy output of the comander + the cost of making more factories.

A factory is 600 metal, you get approx 13 dox for that.... once you have more metal however energy starts to become a limiting factor, at which point it becomes more efficient to make more factories...

Edit: however thinking about it roll off time + low per unit cost prevent this being useful at t1 I think...

I think with only 1 mex spot commander + 2 factories might be a better use of resources than 3 factories though?

In principle you are right in saying that in certain situations it is "better" to build only 1 Factory.

But you are redefining "Efficiency" from "the amount of Metal built per amount of Energy spent" to "The number of Dox you can build per unit of Metal", or "The number of Dox you can create per second". (I'm not quite sure actually.) We should be precise in our choice of words, as it can already become complex even if we are not.

Well I guess what is 'efficient' for PA is producing as many units (dox or otherwise) for your metal income. Energy is almost a side issue as all it does is provide you with the means to spend your metal income. Energy is only a problem *when it runs out* as it isn't directly involved in the production of units.

A good example- say you gave a player an *energy only boost* so they start the game with 10k energy income but equal metal to their opponent. If the map has very little metal on it, that additional energy is no use to them at all. It's not like in TA where a high energy income could counterbalance a low metal income. What the large energy income *does* facilitate however- is the ability to deploy very high bursts of build (or reclaim) power to an area that you cannot achieve without it. So provided the player survived long enough, they could for example save up their metal, get lots of fabbers than quickly place a very expensive structure / set of structures that the other player could not.

This is why I say storage is important- as it can effectively allow you to run more build power than you can technically sustain, given that most buildings or assisting aren't a constant drain (e.g. building metal extractors that are spread out- with storage you could possibly run 2 fabbers for the same energy income due to the build up during the walking time between buildings).

Metal is the main limiting factor, and the key to being efficient is to ensure your *spending all your metal income*- which requires sufficient energy to do so.

If you have enough mex nearby double up the fabbers, you save 50 metal per mex you build. if you need to walk far consider one expanding fabber on mex.

How much energy and metal does the commander produce just by being alive?

The ACU produces 30 M/s (as much as he spends when building) and 3 kE/s (floating 1.5 kE/s if he's building, or roughly 1 Fabber and 1 Factory).

Sorry prob dumb question but: if commander only makes the metal enough to build how are multiple factory openings able to churn out units while 1st metals are being built and com is actively building?