Metal Planets - Should Metal Extractors Be Buildable Anywhere?

If a map can have a metal planet, it's relevant. You can't just ignore the situations where it's broken.

As far as map design goes they do exactly the same thing, giving an economic advantage to whoever gets there first. Forcing a fight over it.

Would you be happy with a pregame option allowing you to place metal extractors anywhere on specific planet/s?

To me this solves the problem. It doesn't remove the unique and fun biome of metal planets for players not in favor of this suggestion, and it allows TA style metal maps on other biomes.

If there is a situation where it's broken blame the map designer. If there is a situation where a random map is broken because of it, blame the algorithm. Additionally you cannot realistically expect random maps to be balanced.

This causes a massive incongruency between the visuals and the mechanics and is not desirable. Which is a big part of the reason why metal planets that don't provide metal needs to go, it looks like it does something that it doesn't do.

Reclaim is a different topic, but I never liked that either. It always seemed like the player that knew exactly what to reclaim in what order would win. There's skill to that, but it's mostly just memorization and APM.

Metal planets the way bmb is demanding are similar, but much worse. You just need to memorize the build order to rush orbital, then build optimally for a while to balance increasing your eco and build power. Then you just win.

It's perfectly acceptable to break the tie between them if failing to do so results in broken game mechanics. You are suggesting mechanics that will break the gameplay, thus I oppose it.

Always me demanding to you isn't it? I'm just recognizing the different roles that such a planet would serve in the design of a map. I'm sorry you can't appreciate the gameplay of maps with a gold rush type layout for everyone to fight over, but that doesn't make that kind of map invalid.

So rather then having an option to allow everything, we should force your suggestion on everyone for the sake of visuals?!

It isn't broken, it's a natural extension of the base mechanics of TA.

For the sake of solid design. Which involves mechanics explaining themselves visually.

I've previously advocated the idea of actually letting other planets have metal regions for the same reason.

TA wasn't perfect. Metal maps were a prime example of this fact. Following blindly the mistakes made in the past are not conducive to evolving the genre in a positive direction.

With my suggestion you could still have that, that's the beauty of many options. Tick the metal planet to have free placement of metal extractors and then mark a different planet as a spawn.

TA had a lot of problems, metal maps weren't one of them. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't a valid part of the game.

A deathstar type mechanic sounds pretty unique to me. I am all in favor of having both ways available but to say limitless metal extractors is the only way to go and that I should just go play on some other world because I disagree is making me want to vote no. Darn these ridiculous polls!

Metal maps in TA removed all limitations and just had the players throw units at each other. They broke the core gameplay of expansion and protection of vulnerable resources. They broke TA into a mindless spamfest that had the player with the better build order winning almost constantly. They broke TA's fundamental gameplay tenants and reduced it to absurdity.

You can emulate such behaviour with resource multipliers and optional 'shits-and-giggles' modes. You should not FORCE this into the standard game.

As I said in an earlier post, everyone started on a metal map in TA. The fact that you don't in PA is even more broken than TA.

There's a difference between "Economic Advantage" and "I've won because I now have unlimited metal and you don't, and I can very easily defend it, too"

Again, that's any map with a metal planet. You're actually advocating for something completely and utterly broken. First to build an Astraeus wins.

Metal maps were a mildly entertaining diversion in TA for the odd one or two games every fifty.

They were NEVER a central part of the TA experience, otherwise they would have been played as the standard game type. Likewise, infinite money-maps should not be a central part PA.

The core gameplay of TA is infinite resources and variable construction. Nothing more and nothing less. How you distribute those resources changes how those mechanics affect the gameplay. You are advocating to restrict the gameplay to only one type of map.

I've already explained how multipliers are different, don't ignore that.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't valid. I can easily think of the type of player who would appreciate a metal planet vs metal planet scenario, because it essentially is a high resource no rush type setup. Some people like that. I can enjoy it, but not as the only thing. But apparently you can only enjoy one type of map. Not my fault.