The I will apologise for the misinterpretation. But I disagree that it encourages casual players to waste metal when otherwise all of the excess metal they would have produced anyway would have been wasted and not stored.
Metal storages give players the idea that it's good to store metal, the entire function of the structure is dedicated to it. While players shouldn't be storing metal in the first place, as it's better used being spent immediately. If you present a building to a player, that's like saying that you want them to build it, otherwise it wouldn't be there. So why disagree?
With large economies lategame, metal storage can be useful even now. If you have large amounts of workers doing a specific task like building something or assisting a fac, during downtime when a unit is walking out of the assisted fac or when this huge worker clump is repositioning to start building the next thing, you get a huge temporary spike in metal. Without a metal storage you will then waste metal. It's a building with very limited uses and there isn't really a point in making one for quite a long time, but it's wrong to say it is literally useles.
Because you cant always spend it all, all of the time. And with such large maps with action taking place across huge battlefields it can be especially hard to effectively manage such a huge economy without having economy spillage from say finishing off a nuke, or finishing engines on an asteroid. When such expensive stuff finishes building, and you haven't qued up stuff for other units to take up the economic capacity then that leaves you with spare resources that would have been wasted. So when you are not able to spend your metal income fully, it really does become a good idea to build metal storage, because otherwise you waste such a important resource.
Once the game is out, and the competitive scene starts growing. I'm pretty sure you'll see people to disprove that.
Well that is the problem isn't it, the competitive players demanding changes to the game based on how they play because what they want matters more then standard players like me. I cannot manage the economy that fast, and even the gameplay speed as a whole right now is sooo much faster then even FA, and so its hard to play. And because of that, people like you with your opinion of that the competitive scene will determine the balance will turn players like me to second class citizens because we can't play as well.
The thing about this is that they have said before that they are wanting to make this game competetive. Catering for casual players has always been secondary in competetive games.
I have never herd them say that they do not wish to cater for more casual players. Do you have a link to where this was said? Edit: And to be fair I defiantly wouldn't call myself a casual player, I draw the line at not calling myself a pro because I am not, but neither do I fit into the casual demographic. I am right in-between, the standard player, not pro and not casual.
Let's not forget that the subject of this thread is NOT about casual or competitive play. It's about metal storages and how the way they work poses some issues.
The reason we got onto that topic is because you claimed that the competitive scene will determine them pointless (It does most things) and for that reason alone they should be removed. And I disagree.
I did not say that they will not cater for casual players, but that competetive scene will always be the priority. Competition is what keeps games like this alive. Also, you dont have to be 'pro' to be competetive.
If composition is what keeps a game alive, the how are games like TA still played to this day? And if I am not playing at 'pro' like levels then surly that metal storage would come in handy, no? The is whole topic has made me really uneasy......I don't really like playing against people, I don't like competition and I REALLY don't like the idea that my games that I prefer against the AI will be altered by players who in all fairness are 'PROs' at the game, and thus want changes that would streamline that experience by cutting away tools that are useful to worse players like me. SO I really don't think you of all people can come in here and say to me that you don't need to be a pro to be competitive when that exactly what you are.
It poses a problem for both the casual and competitive scene, the problem just manifests itself a little bit differently depending on your skill level. If you think that means I wanted to discuss what crowd this game should be catered to, you'd be wrong. I also never said that they should be removed, just altered. So I'm not sure what you're on about.
I thought the whole reason that TA was still alive was because there is still a competetive scene. BTW, competetive means PVP, doesnt have to be high level. Casual players are people who play games for singleplayer, or cooperatively against AI. You cannot be telling me that TA is alive because of casual players. The reason FAF is growing as a community isbecause of an increasing competetive scene. Casual players are being drawn into it, but it is an inherently competetive game, like most multiplayer games. Fairness has everything to do with balance, and balance is what the competetive scene strives for. In this case, metal storage is under-powered. There is not enough of a reason to build it both physically in game and theoretically. BTW, i did not start this thread to get metal storage removed, i started it to get the concept changed.
Fair enough. From what I had always been told, TA was alive because of the modding scene. But I am going to stop here due to how you segregate players of Single player, Coopertive and against AI as being less important then PvP. We can never agree, and we both got into RTS games for the opposite reasons, neither are bad.
A modding scene is not really an explanation. Is it a modding scene that implements balance changes to the 'vanilla' gameplay? or does it just add random game mode such as tower defences or survival maps? Both of which are not competetive game modes. I consider casual gameplay against AI or in singleplayer less important simply because they are playing the game the same way as the competetive scene, but its almost impossible to balance a game against AI. If you are arguing that balance is bad, then you really are being mislead somewhere. Balance is good for both competetive and casual players alike.
Ok so it amazes me how so many people got their backs up to this met storage issue, its pretty simple how its massively useful. Seems all these "pro" players love to rush tanks and play the whole new game just like ta, except they will build oprbital just to get avengers and wind you up, but to see people say metal storage is useless is piffle, if i have a large economy and hhave just landed my advanced fabber on a moon/ celestial to halley it up, if i have a huge storage of metal and energy that has been kept properly safe by my team mate on the spawn planet, i can then build an advanced factory spam on that moon spam advanced bots out, then spam halleys and get halleys built in a flash without needing to worry too much about slowing down my main base production or deficiting my energy or metal. metal extractors dictate how fast your metal stores refill per second, and having storage gives you a lot more leeway mid game. spamming metal storage when your metal income is intact and quite high is a great way to increase the amount of expendable metal you have available when your maybe not in a position to expand mexes... this argument is really silly, look at most rts base building games, you have a resource extraction method and a storage increasing capacity. any one who played RA back in 95 will know what i mean when you would have people spamming silos instead of spamming extraction vehicles and factories. saying its pointless is like saying being prepared for the worst possible outcome is a bad move, it clearly isnt, iv had arrogant "pros" lol at my bases which they crippled as i wasnt even on that planet, yet they were so slow to go orbital they didnt see my comm land on every other celestial and make single bot factories that then gre to take over each moon, and the fastest way to do this expansion without hunting for extractors is to spam storage as soon as you land which will continue to fill from your extractors left behind. if anything metal storage should just have an increased added storage amount to make it more useful for its cost(which is stupidly cheap anyway) in conclusion, when i win games im usually running at a positive in metal of around 3-400 WITH around 100 normal and 50 advanced fabbers all doing different assists on base defence etc as well as a huge energy surplus, when i lose games i have usually hit a negative metal or energy deficit or worse both, i am hardly ever at 0 metal and even if that is "most efficient" you still dont have that added insurance as someone called it earlier. anything so valuable should be hoarded, hence why storage is a great idea ancd works just fine when i play using it
I have never played TA. Having a metal deficit throughout the whole game is good play. Saying that metal storage is a good way of keeping you from getting into a metal deficit is amazing, but silly. The only games i lose, are when i cannot keep myself in a metal deficit.
Just make metal like energy, make it so it messes with efficiency, and stalls you somewhat if you go into the red. This leads to a balancing act, you'll create metal storage because you want to float, not red. I always hated seeing people in the minus of metal. Just strikes me as sloppy. This solves both problems, those who build metal storage won't be gimping themselves because they are not -243 metal or some other crap.
Ok, so I have been thinking about it, how about we brainstorm a more useful metal storage? Ideas: Combo-storage: stores both metal and energy. Emergency missile defence pod: Stores metal, is able to be toggled between a expend metal system where it rapid fires cheap missiles as a kind of omni-defence but at the expense of current stored metal, but otherwise can be left off to prevent overuse. May think of more later.
