I believe he stated it's taking absolute values so entering a -10 is the same as entering a 10. Later, it will not let you input negatives. The real "-10" would be to put yourself at 11 and the other guy at 1.
Is this how the TA economy worked, or is this a side effect of PA running its own "simplified" version? Because it's starting to look that like many simplification efforts it simply makes things looks simpler, while actually making them more complicated.
They only appear to be cheaper. They still take 15 seconds to build. You can still support them with 1 mex and your commander.
The handicap number is a multiplier. Putting it at 1 means 100% income. 0 means 0% income (dead in the water). If you want to handicap the AI, use fractional values. "0.5" means 50% income. A negative number would, if it were supported, be an incredibly bad thing, unless you're undead.
lol ok thanks guys for explaining it a little bit for me.. so setting it at 0 means the AI cant build anything, is that right?
Not only that, but obviously the commander himself would not gain metal, meaning he would not build anything initially really.
On a side note the AI is recently really taking a liking to spinners, so much so that it has been rushing with mixes of spinners and ants but with double the spinners even when I have no air but the requisite scout or two. It is getting more 'clever' and quicker to take advantage of me if I don't expand early and aggressively. It seems that it is building more laser turrets too which I don't remember it doing at all before this patch. It just seems that tanks are unbalanced in the T1 phase of the battle and if I rush to build tons of ants, the AI can get 'surprised' and lose hard. I've rushed in at about 7 or 8 minute mark with 30 or so ants and the AI com is still building resource buildings and air plants with maybe one or two tank plants and its pretty much a sweep every time. I actually tried the above because the AI did it to me and caught me with my pants down.
Sorian mentioned in another topic this is because the Spinners aren't correctly labelled as air defence yet, so the AI thinks it's building tanks.
SORIAN, YOU EVIL *&@ OF A *&@)#!!!! Just played my first game in a month (due to technical difficulties with my OS) and couldn't believe how well it's coming together since the last time I played it. Even with my launch of a nuke, the AI not only defended against it, but sent a huge army storming right into my base with such ferocity that it caught my commander off guard and it went nova. WELL DONE, GENTS! Awesome work; everything is taking shape very very well! The unit movement is looking great, the graphics are looking great, the music, the sound effects... THIS IS WHAT PA WAS MEANT TO BE!
What excites me is that, now that the engine is working so properly, with optimization possibly fixing every remaining problem... ...we might soon be looking at a patch that adds so many units, its like another game worth of units collapsed in unto itself. Roles blended with other roles and then practical armies will be made with 3-4 units rather than 1-2 units. I see the worry over game blandness flying out the window already. I am surprised the engine and AI are working so well, when I thought AI would be way later and unit cannon would be pre-beta. I am also guestimating a some effort applied UI revision is really close.
