I'm ashamed to admit how slow I've been in regards to this and how little I've been paying attention to raw economy numbers instead of feeling it out, but thought I should check that I understand it now. All factories and fabbers have a fixed metal and energy output. The time something takes to build is a sum of the number of ticks the output of the factory or fabber takes to equal the metal cost of the thing it's producing. There are no fixed energy costs for building anything. At least it's going to be easier to do the maths now.
Wait... Did the economy change? Crap! I thought I had it sorted out in my head I thought the last game I played went weirdly.
Your metal economy is a big water tank. Water flowing into the tank is your metal income. If the tank is full and you have net flow in then the tank will overflow, wasting water. Every active constructor (one working on a project) that you own is a hose attached to the bottom of your tank. Hoses can vary in size, we tend to call their size Build Power. Construction projects are buckets. Each bucket can take an amount of water. When the bucket is full the project is complete. Every hose is placed in a bucket, the water flowing through this hose from your tank helps fill the bucket. The volume of a particular bucket is fixed, it will always take the same amount of water to fill it. Clearly the size of the bucket is independent pf the number or type of hoses which are being used to fill it. The stated Cost of a unit is the size of it's bucket. If your tank is empty and the hoses attached are able to drain more water than is flowing in then each hose will work at less than full capacity. This is called a Metal Stall. A hose drains a fixed amount of energy (particular to each hose). If you energy income is not enough to upkeep the energy drain of your hoses then you have an Energy Stall. In an energy stall each of your hoses are constricted such that they all lose some equal percentage of their flow. For example if the energy drain of your hoses is 100 and you only have 75 energy income then each hose is constricted to 75% capacity.
(Disclaimer: figures used are from the wiki, which may be outdated, but the gist is all correct even if the exact numbers are off.) All construction costs are in metal. Each fabricator spends X energy per 1 metal. So a bot factory costs 600 metal. Your commander can output 30 metal per second at 50 energy per metal, so he would use 30,000 energy @ 1500/second to build the bot factory. A fabrication bot can output 10 metal per second at 100 energy per metal, so he would use 60,000 energy @ 1000/second to build the bot factory -- he doesn't tax your economy as much per second but ultimately he spends more. A fabrication aircraft can output 6 metal per second at 200 energy per metal, so he would use 120,000 energy @ 1200/second to build the bot factory. So the bot factory costs 600 metal ...and somewhere between 30,000 and 120,000 total energy depending on who is building it. Some things (namely radar) consume energy while running but all construction costs are in pure metal; the energy cost is incidental and dependent on the unit doing the work. Usually the quickest way to screw your economy is by building too many fabrication units and having them all try to work at the same time. Ideally you want metal extractors to be built rapidly which means you need your metal consumption not too negative and your energy consumption in the green. Advanced fabrication bots consume 3000 energy per second so building too many of them too quickly can actually slow your economic growth. As of the last patch, energy consumption in the red is extra bad because it can also shut off your radar. This is also why it's good to have your commander always working. Late game he should be assisting a factory somewhere. He's always your most efficient unit in terms of energy consumption. If you need energy, shut down fabrication aircraft first, advanced fabbers second and never shut off the commander. (Advanced and basic fabbers are equally efficient but advanced have triple the output and therefore use triple the energy-per-second.) Side note: Factories are more efficient than fabrication units when it comes to energy consumption. It's far more energy efficient to have multiple factories than it is to have 1 factory being assisted (unless the assisting unit is your commander, which is the only unit that's more efficient than a factory).
I'm not sure why Slamz phrased it that way. Energy cost is per tick and the rate is fixed, though different depending on the unit.
Hmm... Slamz phrased it correctly. There was another thread .. I should find that and update it. Ok. Say you have 10 basic fabbers with an income of 100 metal per tick. You're spending 100 metal per tick, and 10000 energy. But you only have 5000 energy income. Each fabber is only allowed to spend 5 metal per tick on a particular project Your metal income is still 100, so you actually gain +50 metal income. That's what I have observed from careful observation. As soon as I go into an energy deficit, my metal income increases. That basically means that metal spending is both metal per second AND metal per energy. Whereas energy is only per second, it isn't affected by a metal shortage.
More info on the topic: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pa-economy-factsheet-for-new-improving-players.52514/ https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...energy-is-drained-when-mass-is-stalled.52517/ https://forums.uberent.com/threads/a-short-psa-about-the-cost-of-energy.52958/
Yeah, depends on how you want to look at it. The fabrication aircraft always uses 1200 energy per second. But you could also say that he's using 200 energy per metal at 6 metal per second. I mostly like the distinction because it highlights how much less efficient the aircraft is. The relevance really comes into play in a situation like this: You're presently at +0 energy flow. You want to rush build an advanced energy plant, which costs 2700 metal. If you use bots to build it, you'll need 270,000 energy in storage to avoid running dry. If you use aircraft to build it, you'll need 540,000 energy in storage to avoid running dry. The "energy per metal" can matter when you start thinking about how energy storage factors into the economy.
its funny though, because this is not technically true. The air fabricator uses 1200 energy per second, even if it can only apply ZERO metal (its a problem with the current system).
I always find the math hard to do in my head, especially when the numbers are in the thousands and fluctuating like crazy. Im wondering if all the numbers to do with income and production could be reduced by a factor of 7 or so without any loss of balance? i.e. t1 mex = 1 income t2 = 4 t1 bot factory cost about 90 metal etc Energy could be divided by about 100, not too sure why we need the extra 0's on the end....
it doesnt actually matter about the numbers themselves, only the ratio of income/unit cost. Other factors like damage and health can be thought of afterwards.
