I feelt like its nessesary to discuss the mass points a bit (Sorry in advance if its been discussed before, but i still felt it nessesary to get this out of my system). I am fully aware that this is a alpha (soon to be beta), but it is one of the fundamentals and should in my opinion be close to the final implementation when we go into beta (The final implementation being different then currently, hopefully). The following text is not made up of pure information, but rather is my own personal opinion, so feel free to debate (Just be polite, please). Currently most games looks like this for me: Both sides scouts the enemy, both sides starts building and sending armies, while spreading the economy in the other direction, before long one player gets the advantage and wins. Thats it. It is getting kinda old and its all becuse of the way mass points are currently implemented. Explanation: In the current version they are way to common and way to clustered, one of the things i realy loved in supcom (yes im aware that this is based on TA not supcom, but still) was that you hade to fight over the mass points from early to late game, in my experiance you do not need to do so in the current version of PA (at least not as much). Theres such a huge amount of mass points that you dont realy need to fight over them until very late game (you still raid your enemy off course, but its not realy the same, you dont get armys fighting over mass points anymore, just raiding parties). Mass points are also very heavily clustered, sometimes, making it a valid strategy to turtle if you can build a base at a "mega cluster". So the mass point distribution needs to be worked on. Possible solutions: They should be much more rare then currently (I want us to be forced to fight over them, not just raiding parties, not just spread out in different directions while sending armies into a meat grinder in the middle). Normaly (As in the norm, but not allways) mass points should be extremly spread out and not clustered. One possible way to do this is simply to add a bit of code that checks the distance and replaces them if its to close. Another way to do it would be to use a cost map simular to the path finding, so that placing a randomized mass points close to another mass point has a higher cost and thereby less a chance to happen. There should also be a small cluster of (random number) at every starting location (half scripted*, you could also add some very rare small clusters on maps outside of the spawn zones, again half scripted*). *Half scripted = Scripted so that the game clusters [small placeholder number] near each other and at the same place as all the "possible spawn zones" a player can choose, but the exact placement is randomized within a small area. (They could also make it so that said small cluster spawns after a player choose a spawn location, so that the other "possible" sites dont get any).
Could be cool to have them spawn in correlation to the terrain, like making mountains and deep oceans spawn them in greater concentrations in exchange for the terrain being a bit more rough or in the case of the ocean, out in the open. As it is, I feel like they spawn in too great numbers for normal worlds, along with that deposits all produce a lot of metal each, and all the same metal amounts (TA had each deposit produce a different amount of metal each, making the most common ones being relatively poor, and as TA could let you mine anywhere on some lava worlds the normal ground had a metal value of 0.5 metal a second that could make it profitable to even build them just anywhere in large fields.) Currently even securing a single island or small continent gives you enough resources to fuel massive empires and battles....and for the standard game that might be bad.
Well the next patch should have a metal slider to control how much there is which addresses the issue of too much metal. After generating dozens upon dozens of planets to create fair planets for tournament games the biggest issue I have found is that planets are primarily unbalanced due to one or more places where several metal concentrations spawn directly ontop of each other, creating pockets of incredibly dense mex concentrations that result in spawn location disadvantages or areas of un-natural strategic importance. It feels to me that if mex couldn't spawn too close to each other then a lot of the mex distribution issues might be solved.
A clustered to spread out meter could be cool, controlling how a planet spreads its metal points out, could create cool instances of fortresses in clustered maps and sprawling complexes in spread out maps.
Good points - for your guidance Neutrino has advised that the mex spawning algorithm is being revised fairly soon.
I'm hoping for a metal slider in the planet generation screen. I'd like to be able to play on both metal scarce and abundant planets. Making for very different objectives during the course of a battle depending on the available metal to each side.
I just want the metal spots to never span too near to each other, in crevasses, on montains or clipping with rocks and plateaus. so much metal wasted :'(
The metal spot placement is why I tend to stray away from larger maps and try to play on smaller maps. The problem with that is then the spawns become extremely unbalanced... Definitely something that should be worked on soon, if you look at some of the pro games, even they have trouble maximizing their economy since there is just so much.
I'm glad to see so much agreement. Since Neutrino has mentioned revising the algorimth (according to cwarner7264) il put my hope in Uber (That they have these things under consideration allredy). Off course a offical comment on the subject would be nice *Holds thumbs*. Other then that, keep posting your agreement or dissagrements, i would prefear if this topic stays active for a while so that anyone that cares can post there opinion.
It takes a lot of resources to get your first base up and basically get the game started. Those resources should be coming from wreckage/ore/surface stuff, not from piles of extractors. TA typically had every little in the way of ore deposits. Most of your game start came from the Comm's bank, nearby rocks, and metal junk. This made the high cost of factories easily manageable, and still allowed armies of robots to roam the map.
dude you can generate your own custom planets with whatever amout of ressource on the slider, you can even have 0
Metal points have already had some pretty massive adjustments in the current build. We're really liking it. Fighting for territory matters, and metal is much less common. Still enough to play a full game, but just making a massive turtle spot around the 20 - 30 metal spots within a 1 minute drive range isn't really an option. It will be possible for people to make planets with higher densities, but I think most MP players will appreciate the lower densities.
Looking forward to it, it will really change the dynamic of the game. No? The slider was in the game briefly but didn't work.
imo the huge number of metal deposits is done to deliberately avoid the type of expand type game that TA multiplayer was. expansion is important, but there is so much metal around you can have a perfectly winnable game by having a base on say, 1/4 of the planet. more time can be dedicated to tactics, unit choices etc rather than a rush to get over 50% of the metal deposits.
Getting a single deposit with more metal vs having two with half as much creates different strategies for different people. It was also a thing about using the resources to make two extractors instead of one, but then if the area was raided, they had to destroy two, not just one. Normally you could get away with having multiple weaker deposits vs your opponent having fewer but larger deposits, in turn giving you a slight advantage. This is something I truly loved. The metal income was extremely miniscule at best, and even the moho extractors didn't get much, but it really paved a balance between the maps that had exceptionally low metal deposits. I'm actually hoping to see both of these later in PA. If not implemented officially, at least a mod that does this.
Variable extractor points don't do much beyond affecting game pacing. They do have a secondary purpose of affecting the order that extractor points get upgraded to T2. Naturally you want to only upgrade the best spots first, then work your way down to average and eventually crappy spots. A map designer could conceivably use lots of weak ore spots to discourage upgrades (such as near spawns), and place rich points where he wants the hardest fighting to be. The more efficient reclaim gets to be, the more important it is to fight over it. Reclaim wars are cool and keep players at each other's throats.
