Gameplay, Units & Balance

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I cannot follow you at all. Energy was meaningless in most SupCom2 games.
In PA/FA/TA it adds a lot stuff to the game.

Energy was only meaningless if you weren't using ability's.

Which was 90% of the Cybrans land game.

I think following system for teleportation cost would be nice:

Teleporter has it's own set of batteries, which charge is used to transport units. Once teleport is built, it starts to consume energy at a fixed rate, until full, similar to how bombers and artillery do it. You can transport units almost immediately - the only requirement is some charge, it doesn't have to be full. You can unplug the teleporter - it will stop charging up, but you will still be able to transport units, until charge is completely drained. When transporting units, the charge from the batteries is drained per unit (relatively fast) and replenished at a fixed rate (relatively slow).

I think this mechanic will work well. It is not as micro intensive as on/off switch and it won't tank your economy like transporting a huge army with individual costs. It kinda limits the size of an army you can transport at once (after charge is drained, units can only go one by one, with a slight cooldown), but hey, it can be used as a balancing instrument and if you still want fast mass transportation, you can build multiple teleporters together.

Since this seems like the best place for it, here's today's playtest, sadly with it's life cut short due to a server crash.

Love how no one used nukes... seemed like meta was preparing to though. He was readying quite a few there at the end.

Since I only ever played Cybran that might be why I feel the way I do about SupCom2. I can remember a lot of serious 1v1 that I won having maybe build 3 or 4 pgens over the whole game.

Good for early game, but during mid and late game its never enough.

Those phases probably mattered in SupCom2 1v1 as much as moving asteroids currently in PA 1v1: Not at all.

Was it cold in your office?

Well If you are going to be bitter about it.

Then there is nothing I can say.

Seems like mobile artillery is really strong in that playtest. Maybe a bit too strong.

As a turtle, no such thing.

You just defined game design. It's a dance between what can be possible and what should be possible.
For a game as large and complex as PA, I really want to keep the micro-managey stuff to a minimum.

I am not bitter about it. I only played "big" SupCom2 games a very bit, but I acknowledge that energy for energy to mass converts was probably a big thing in them. In 1v1 the economy was just completely f**ed up by not even having to care about how much energy I need.

I really wanted to see how Scathis was going to establish a beach head...

I'm surprised no one was using interplanetary nukes to gain entrance.

Could you out-line your thinking behind the linking mechanism then?
Because surely the least micro approach would be to have all gates connected to each other and units automatically go through them because it's the shortest path.

Exactly

The "cost per unit" camp is essentially that the teleport only turns on and costs energy when units WANT to go through it.

If the teleport costs 50 energy per second to run, and you're not using it, you may as well just turn it off.

Because if it's sitting there for an hour not doing anything at all, that's a huge amount of energy you've wasted

While stormingkiwi is absolutely correct about the argument from the "cost per unit" camp, an opinion which I definitely agree with, the detail is not overly significant as long as the cost is suitably high to encourage making local factories. And the per-unit camp isn't inconsistent with an on/offable approach either.

For example, a teleporter might be on/offable and also have a cost per unit to actually send. The only issue here is the teleport mechanic is a bit more complicated.

I think a cost per unit is the simplest method, and it could easily be made to be comparable in actual effective energy cost compared to a pure steady-drain on/offable teleport. The advantage is that the player doesn't need to toggle it on and off in order to only activate the teleporter when it is necessary- it can be "on" all the time.

And what if I want to send a huge army through it? What if I just attacked one flank of the enemy and want to send my massive army through? what if I dont have the energy for that?

I want the choice that offers more options. A flat cost does that well.

Yeah. I was just generalising the argument, because in my opinion it should cost energy when its turned on, not cost energy when its turned off, and have an automated on-off based on need.

I don't think it should necessarily cost 50 energy per dox you send. But 50 energy for every tick the teleport is open. And so cost is entirely determined by how much time it takes units to move through the teleport.