Fabricators need a mental rework

I only make this thread because something is apparent with fabricators that I find rather boring and limiting to the diversication that can be offered in this game.

The different build efficiencies and "usefulness" of a fabricator.


It can be seen, heard, smelled that bot fabricators are the best fabricators and all other fabbers are irrelevant. Bot fabricators are cheaper, faster, and have a fairly good efficiency for building thing. Which means air fabbers and land fabbers get the shaft. (Boat and sub fabbers are pretty decent but metal hogs as well). If you build these other crappy fabbers you are setting yourself up to be behind in the game and eventually lose to the guy with the cheaper better fabricators.

It shouldn't be like this!!

Anybody should be able to start with a different factory and have the same build advantage as the next guy over. I'm not saying let's make the unit fabrication stats the same across the board. Let's diversify it so that each fabricator has pros and con's that don't associate to it being the most efficient spammed engineer but a valuable macro choice.

For one, I'd like it if the prices were equalized across the board for each fabricator as a start. At the moment, I'm to tired to think of what stats each builder should define themselves as.

Can be balanced. However, if equal, air would be all that is used. Why use any fabbers that cannot instantly be anywhere they want?

The only reason they aren't used now, is fighter commonness.

I would say all the only fabricator that could use a reworking is the vehicle fab. The air fab can get to location that others can not, boat fabers OK they could stand to have their fabrication cost brought more in line with its land counter part, Subs will be awesome ounce they can submerge and hide from other stuff.

So lets talk about vehicle fabs they cost more to build, have less health and have a much slower acceleration. I would be happy if they just doubled the health of the Veh fab to make them different and worth using.

If they simply lowered the speed of the bot fabber, solved. That would limit expansion speed only using bot fabs. You could get farther ones using air or veh, at a higher rate. Which is kind of supposed to be the point or so i thought.

Anyway, i know for fact the rates favoring bots is intentional. It is by design. And for a fact, the air is most expensive, because of travel ability. This was discussed little before alpha release. It can theoretically work that way if balanced where bots are cheap but cripple, and air is very useful but costly, as far as fabrication. Naval, it isn't terribly bad for navals power, it is just bad by scale, so as far as structure fabricating efficiency maybe it should be cheaper. Not as good as bots, perhaps slightly worse than veh fabber.

So what you're saying is that they could be equal, and current units can take care of any issues with air constructor spam?

I don't mind that air constructors should cost more to give less, but using 100% more energy is a bit absurd when construction is already the biggest energy drain in the game. Try making them use an extra 20-50% instead.

Umm that would not bring them in line with vehicle fabs because you pay more for them and they have less hit points.

Make vechile fabbers better at reclaiming, by which i mean more efficient, less energy to grab same amount of mass. ditto for repairing.

Then they keep their downsides of more expensive and slower, and have these new reasons to be built.

I think that fabs are fine as they are now, except for ship fabs. Ship fabs can only build on water anyway, so I'd make them a bit more efficient than they are now.

The one advantage to vehicles right now is that your first advanced vehicle factory actually produces a deadly unit (incredibly useful if the enemy commander is rushing you -- 3 levelers will clean his clock pretty quick), whereas advanced bot factories are a bit crap, because advanced bots are a bit crap.

I doubt that's an intended trade-off, but it is one, currently.

Incidentally, subs are more efficient than ships, but with a smaller build list. I usually build subs to assist my ships for that reason. But then advanced ships are more efficient than subs, which just seems odd and doesn't follow the land model at all.


I do think it's a problem that none of this is represented in-game. There should really be some kind of built-in stat display, like whenever you mouseover a unit in the build list, a window pops up with a quick overview of all relevant stats. New players have no obvious indication that there are difference. They would have to mouseover the units while they're working and work it out.

Considering how quickly air engineers die to fighter raids I don't think it is a good idea to use them as the main engineering force anyway.

I know lowering the speed of bot fabricators sounds like a good plan, but I think the best way to trim the advantage is to tweak build rates and efficiencies.
Current build rates (from PA DB.com
Bot
Cost 180 /Build rate 10Metal 1000 energy
Land
Cost 225 /Build rate 10Metal 1000 energy
Air
Cost 270 /Build rate 6Metal 1200 energy
Boat
Cost 450 /Build rate 12Metal 1900 energy

Judging from these stats. its easy to ascertain that the bot fabricators are the most efficient cost wise with their medium speed and cheap cost.

What I recommend doing to balance the playing field of engineers is to
-increase health and build power of land fabricators
-lower build power of bots slightly in scale to their cost with land fabricators
-air fabricators have the same build power as bot fabricators
-Boat fabricators have build efficiency reworked towards more metal consumption and less energy drain. With the sub's being reversed.


If any build efficiency is to be worked out, it needs to scale with the cost of the engineer and not because of (factory) type.

Sure, increasing air build power might be OP but the trade off is the shear weakness to any fighters that can easily destroy it.

Wow, why are boats getting the shaft? That's completely stupid, there's no reason to hate navy that much.

Let's tone down the stupid, make a little tweak, and there! Not horrendous.

Code:

Cost 180 /Build rate 10Metal 1000 energy  w/gen 930 metal
Land
Cost 250 /Build rate 10 Metal 800 energy  w/gen 850 metal
Air
Cost 300 /Build rate 6 Metal 1000 energy  w/gen 1050 metal
Boat
Cost 400 /Build rate 18 Metal 2000 energy  w/gen 1900 metal

I mean, they're only the exact same unit with the exact same role. It's still a bit dumb that the necessary generators cost 3-5x more than the constructor itself.

Fabs are fine as is!!! Aside from vehicle, but like slamz said they open the door for the most powerful ground units atm ...... pretty beneficial.

However I don't understand why they have fewer hp , if anything they should have more. I say buff the health and leave all else as is.

Fab's are not fine. The choice to build a fabricator is more about efficient decision then a choice with risks attached to it.

Bots are cheaper then land fabbers and more efficient then all other fabbers (even T2 if you multiply price) throughout the course of the game. Why should 1 fabber be arbitrarily the strongest fabber for all cases? It can be argued that bots can't navigate tough terrain or cross oceans, but there has not been significant land barriers to prevent such proliferation of the Bots.


land factory units are subject to change, and with that change, effects the need to buy land fabricators. If levelers get re balanced and are marginally useful, then land fabricator production are detrimentally lowered.

Buff health of vehicle fabs. Problem solved.

A couple of inaccuracies in these two posts.

Boats and Air are intended this way.
Look at the factories - Bot and Land cost 12 metal per second, 15 metal per second respectively
Air and Naval cost 9, 18, respectively.

The total (27) for the two is the same. Air and Naval are partners, like bots and vehicles are partners.

@bobucles
Look at the build time of fabricators by their factories - Vehicles and Bots both take 15 seconds. Naval takes 25 seconds. Air takes 30 seconds. Bots and Vehicles are roughly equal. Naval and Air is roughly equal.

You have to remember that metal cost is totally irrelevant unless you compare it to the amount of metal that the builders are using and the amount of metal you are producing.

Early game, bot factories are more efficient than vehicle factories because they are cost 43% of 1 mex less to run. Which is pretty significant in the early game. If you've built 3 mexes, 3 metal per second represents 10% of your economy.

The advanced vehicle factory is quite a bit more expensive in metal cost, and slightly cheaper in terms of power usage, than an advanced bot factory.

Bots are not faster than Vehicle fabbers. If your vehicle fabber is closer to the objective, you should build with your vehicle fabber, because bot fabbers only accelerate faster.

How much closer?

I assume that the PA distance measurement is consistent. e.g. the bot fabber can see 100 units, and moves at 12 units per second. I assume that the units of distance are consistent.

Bots accelerates to full speed in 0.1 units. It can see 100 units, so to put that in perspective, it accelerates to full speed in 0.1% of its vision range.

Vehicles accelerates to full speed in 0.2 units. I.e. 0.2% of its vision range.

Basically, unless the bots/vehicles are right on top of each other, you can safely assume that the vehicle fabber will get there first, if the vehicle fabber is closer to begin with.

The only caveat to this is that bots are faster on the corners. As long as there are no corners, you are fine and dandy using your vehicle fabbers.

In a perfect world, vehicle fabricators and bot fabricators would be reskinned versions of each other.


Bot fabbers are NOT more efficient than vehicle fabbers. They are cheaper than vehicle fabbers. Advanced Vehicle Fabbers and Advanced Bot Fabbers build faster than 3 vehicles/bots, and are the same efficiency as those.

When you build a T2 fabricator, you pay for T2. And yes, you can build t2 fab bots faster than t2 vehicle fabs. Unless you are going to capitalize on that and build slammers, you may as well have built a vehicle factory.

And this is one of the huge reasons I dislike the disparity in build efficiency Example:: If I spawn in the middle of the ocean and my opponent spawns on land and we have equal mass extractors... he will be able to build more then me in less time due to his bots costing significantly less material and energy generation to maintain the thirst for expansion around his base. The land opponent has now gained an economic advantage by spawning on land compared to the ocean.

Should Engineers unnecessarily limit the user in build capacity since they spawned in the ocean?

It can also be argued that spawning in the sea gives you stronger naval units that offset the engineer... but with keeping pace in economy, will the naval units compete with an opponent with a stronger economy.

Early game, bot factories are more efficient than vehicle factories because they are cost 43% of 1 mex less to run. Which is pretty significant in the early game. If you've built 3 mexes, 3 metal per second represents 10% of your economy.

Actually.. if you compare the costs of the advanced fabbers... the bot fabber wins incredibly.

Bot
hp=150 Cost 180 /Build rate 10 Metal 1000 energy
Land
hp=100 Cost 225 /Build rate 10 Metal 1000 energy

Adv. Bot
hp=500 Cost 1000 /Build rate 30 Metal 3000 energy
Land
hp=500 Cost 1350/Build rate 30 Metal 3000 energy

5 bot fabbers to 1 adv Bot fabber in price.

So if you want to spam a unit throughout Advanced build stages.. the bot wins hands down.

I don't fully have a problem with Basic fabricators being more cost efficient to build equipment compared to their advanced counterparts. It gives more incentive to keep building basic units for their inherent good build power and availability of basic structures in construction.

However, i don't like the current trend in the game where the bot is spammed.. and land/air/naval are not worth building... when it can be fixed where it's anyone's game.

It's iffy.

I do think that fab air should build faster for 1200 power. Not as fast as bots/vehicles. Both air, vehicles and bots need the same amount of powergens to operate (2 t1 powergens).

If you land in the sea, you kind of have to go for air first (much cheaper than a naval factory to operate).. but that isn't really viable.

In a perfect world, your slower expansion is balanced that way.

We don't live in a perfect world.

Cost isn't efficiency.

Through the advanced build stages (i.e. your economy income is +600) the difference between a bot and a vehicle represents a 0.5% difference in build efficiency per tick.

If you want to build T2 vehicles, you have to have vehicle fabbers as well.

I get the point, but it's not as great.

Are you high? Metal cost is everything for a fabber. Why? Because the best fabber is the one that gives the most construction for the least cost. Other attributes are nice (like being fast or floating or survive 2 hits instead of 1), but for the most part are irrelevant. The victor is the guy who builds the most stuff for the least cost.

Constructors don't only cost one unit's price tag, nor is their production time that special. They also draw huge amounts of energy. You can spend 3-5x of a fabber's cost on the generators necessary to use it! It's pretty stupid. That's also why current boats are bullshit. They cost more metal, have less production power, and require an absurd amount of energy to function. It's simply awful.

When your economy income is 600 metal, the difference between running a vehicle factory and a bot factory is 0.5% of your metal income.

Both bot fabs and vehicle fabs take 15 seconds to build.

Time is much more important than metal.

That difference only matters in the early game. Once you can afford the extra 3 metal per tick, they aren't more efficienct,



Bobucles, check the wiki. The boat fab has a build power of 12 metal per second. Compared to the build power of both bots and vehicles of 10 metal per second.

12 is greater than 10.