Problems With Economy

Happy New Year to you too!!!

Energy stalling was still more difficult because the TA economy was simply more robust. Constructors also did not waste energy that they did not have or could not build with.

Try as you might, screwing up the TA economy was pretty damn difficult. More importantly, the stalling was immediately obvious as a thing that had to be fixed. Stalling in both Supcom and PA is dangerously invisible, and was horrendous in the former due to its economy breaking bugs.

TA no matter how you did the math you never knew without having played 200 games worth of experience what would stall your economy and what wouldn't. In PA, your fabbers always consume the same amount of energy to build whatever.

Anyway, it kills economy double dip in any of the games. It is less noticeable here unless you "know" (again, an experience thing), or have a mod installed (which usually only "experienced" players install mods). If anyone could see their builders were building at 72% speed due to power shortage, and it go down to 41%, they would stop some builders and build energy ASAP. They would realize how servere economy affects build speed.

I always have a bit of the feeling that we went from "You dont know what will stall your economy in what way" to "Everything stalls your energy"

Yet for some reason, PA stalling is still more frequent and severe despite it supposedly being easier on paper. The constructors that produced energy, the much larger energy bank and the vastly more stable production more than makes up for the slightly awkward resource drain in TA.

I must insist on placing emphasis on slightly, because it was Supcom that screwed up build power and created the economy that was impossible to predict. The TA economy was tricky at points, but it never went out of line and was forgiving in most circumstances.

TA was the only game that made this blatantly visible. The sequels failed to realize its importance.

^ idk what TA you played?? But it definitely had quite the curve to it online. Despite the fact that fabs provided surplus energy and metal when idle. Everything required different amounts of economy depending on building being constructed. If you stall you are eons, light years behind your opponent. Metal was a scarce commodity fought harshly for in every second of a match. Energy was plentiful provided you knew which supply unit was best for the map. T2 was something made at the right moment, not lets **** it out with or third engineer and the next four as I commonly see In replays. . A game where economic numbers were small but EXTREMELY meaningful. You couldn't just jump into a ffa and win by hiding in the corner, your only choice was expand and MOVE FORWARD!!!!! As your battle cry. That is the TA I remember. TA was a gentlemen's game sir. A game for the dedicated

PA you see more stalls because atm it doesn't really matter. Its so forgiving that going straight to t2 is the largest strategy I see in play and actually pay great dividends, the game is a race to T2 instead of a fight for the ability to get there before your opponent. Economically PA is very forgivingin IMO.

everything is very simple as thetrophysytem said. always a set limit on what each kind of fab wil do economically. as well as the economic buildings where you are guaranteed the same amount every time.Not that im in disagreeance with the current system i thoroughly enjoy the simplicity. However when i watch replays it just doesnt seem that im rewarded all that much over my opponent for keeping my eco to the good,.....

Isn't PA about expanding and moving forward also? If you hide until you're on the moon, that's pretty solid. If you hide until you have a superior nuclear armament, that's pretty solid too.

Personally I like it, because it means that little independent nations can still pack a large punch.

Just remember - WW2 was won by a turtler.

That's not true at all. There is no way you could get that from the in-game UI either.

If your energy is negative, your metal income is still whatever it is, your mexes don't use power.

Let's say your metal income is 600, your powerstall is 67%, and you're trying to spend 700 metal.

The way it works is that it divides metal up between your fabbers based on your power. You can only spend 67% of 700 metal, which is 469 metal. Your metal output is then forced to 469. Which means that your metal income is bumped from -100 to +131.

Yes, you "waste metal" now. But not because your extractors are crippled. Let me explain further.

It means that power is actually the limiting factor in the game. It removes your freedom to always be in control of what has the most priority in your economy, and actually slows down the economy game, so that it is controlled at the rate that you can spend power.

12 fabbers vs 10 fabbers is a good thing. If you have two T2 factories, you can put 7 fabbers on one, and 5 on the other. Which means that Levellers from the first factory have more priority to build than Levellers from the second factory. But that costs more power.

Let's take nukes as an example. If you have 300 metal, and power wasn't a controlling factor, you could just put 99% of your build power on the nuke. Each vehicle factory would take 1500 seconds to build an Ant. The nuke would finish in 110 seconds.

Because of that mechanic, it prevents new players from overprioritising stuff at the expense of the rest of their game. I agree that it's a good thing.

Yes! TA was much harder but a lot more fun, especially with the lower economic numbers. Also a lot of the units contributed to the economy, which is absent in PA and SupCom, like an idle aircraft carrier gives you 500 energy (amazing). T2 in TA wasn't just about getting there in the right time but you didn't need to tech-up fast when you see your opponent with a t2 factory - you could survive by building up your t1 forces and survive strong attacks early on. PA would be better if three main things were done imo:

1. Cut down mass sites - seriously, I can have a fully functioning economy with my base mexs at t2 and the rest as t1 since they are everywhere. 3 t1 = t2 :/

2. T2 to be harder to reach, allowing for 'game winning' buildings/units to not crop up after 15 minutes of playtime - reducing the average game time.

3. Harsher penalty on a negative economy. I don't like how the fact that if my eco is seriously in deficit and my factories aren't pushing out units but I could just assist with fabs and get those units out in seconds.

The issue with T2 is that units don'g do what they are supposed to do. It's not "basic and specialized", it's "basic and better". With the exception of T2 fighters.

Take the Leveller.

Assuming Leveller is stationary, it takes 7 Ants 2.85 seconds to move into range to fire on a Leveller. On a flat playing field, that means the Leveller has 2 free kills.

At 2.85 seconds, 5 Ants do 210 damage to a Leveller. At 3 seconds, 1 Ant is killed.
At 3.85 seconds, 4 Ants do 168 damage, 4 seconds 1 Ant is killed.
At 4.85 seconds 3 Ants do 126, 5 seconds 1 Ant is killed.
5.85 seconds: 2 Ants do 84, 6 seconds 1 Ant is killed
6.85 seconds: 1 Ant does 42 damage.

Assuming everything goes perfectly, the Leveller is killed with 1 Ant remaining.

In reality, that doesn't happen. You can only afford to produce 6 Ants in the same time it takes 1 Leveller to be produced, assuming unassisted factories. 6 Ants won't kill 1 Leveller. And if the Leveller is retreating, it gets 7 free kills, while if the Leveller is charging into battle it dies sooner.

That completely goes against what a Leveller actually is. 7 Ants have a dps of 294. 1 Leveller has a DPS of 500. So your Leveller is better suited to attacking single targets with lots of health. 7 Ants are better suited to attacking multiple targets with a little health each.

Otherwise the Leveller really is the superior Ant. And Levellers can't really be used as a damage magnet in a group of Ants, because Pelters/Holkins will kill all the units nearby, and without splash a Pelter would kill the Leveller before it gets anywhere close, Catapults will kill the Leveller straight away. It works for laser towers, but those aren't common.

Slightly off topic - I may post that in one of the related threads.

It's really obvious that T2 vs T1 isn't balanced right really. The Bumblebee is very much weaker than the Bumblebee, while Peregrines are pretty inferior to Hummingbirds, unless you are actively microing the Peregrines away. Slammers and Doxen are closer to what their intended role seems like it should be, but both units are quite inferior to Ants. Naval seems more balanced, if only because while the Bluebottle/Leviathan dynamic is close to Ants/Levellers, the Leviathan is so much less mobile and it can quite easily go in the Bluebottles favor.

If you have a negative economy, what you prioritize building is actually important. You probably have a negative economy because your opponent is eating you, or because prioritizing something is really important.

Whoa in my experience t2 air smashes T1 air. You just see T1 win more air battles because it's much cheaper to have superior numbers of them. Yea the battle cry is still move forward for most of us, but the conflict and struggle to move forward is a little lax due to the easily obtainable vast economy that taxman mentioned. But I guess pa differs from them all in this aspect since turtle mode before wouldn't eventually pay off with a nice New fresh piece of land/ planet to claim entirely as your own. I do wish economic punishment was a bit more harsh here myself as well.

But the fact is that Uber hasn't done any 'real' balancing work yet, we can't say for certain yet if what we have now is actually indicative of what Uber has planned.

Mike

WW2 was won by the biggest industrial power, and it was nearly won by the second biggest industrial power. There's a reason that murrika was called the "sleeping giant" of WW2.

The best course of action is to assume "this is what you're going to get" until proven otherwise.
But this is something that should have been on the drawing board months ago. It's not something that can be dumped out weeks before release.

Exactly what is fortifying, as a winning strategy?

It's holding the line and withstanding the siege UNTIL you can win.

By the end of the war, Germany's industrial strength had waned. They could never "nearly win" WW2. They had the Russians at their back, and Japan always intended to attack the US.

The American's entered the war in '41, fought in the Pacific, fought in North Africa in '42 but didn't get boots on the ground until D-Day, turtling up in the UK, same as the rest of the Allied forces.

Whichever way you look at it, the Allies turtled in the UK.

My reasoning is that T1 is cheaper than T2, so superior numbers of T1 are able to be produced instead of T2. the ratio (same amount of time) is 12 T1 fighters to 3 T2 fighters, which smash T2 fighters.

Unless you can fight where the T2 fighters just run away from the T1 fighters indefinitely. If either fighters are an escort for bombers, that's not really feasible.

If you think destroying someones econ doesn't put them at a disadvantage you are very, very wrong. I was playing with my friends and had all my econ destroyed with many unit producing structures/turrets still active(still using energy) and it took more then 10 minutes to build a BASIC energy plant and having 50 adv fabs definitely didn't help hah.

Destroying someones econ is very effective and pretty much completely shuts down their ability to produce anything.