Metal Planets - Should Metal Extractors Be Buildable Anywhere?

no offence but this is pretty much the epitome of arrogance ... what you "think" is correct isnt automaticaly fact ...
if you dont count the opinion of others to the overall debate why then should we listen to you ... at all?
you are still but one person of the whole community ...
i personaly for instance had (still have) my gripes with the commander role in teamarmygames but i am open to listen to what the opposition has to say ... if something isnt good for gameplay then it needs to be changed...
gameplay < lore ... and a well ammount of people doesnt think that goldplanets are good for competitiv play

Neither does yours bmb. My post is an intentional illustration of your argument technique.

I used the observed properties of the game and made a valid logical conclusion based on it. Anyone can repeat this logic and will. The information that you presented is not in the game in any capacity, and is entirely of your own fabrication.

I'm using observed properties from the game and made a valid logical conclusion based upon it. Your observation is no more valid than mine. What proof have you that "metal" is a generic term for many different types of materials used in robots and not a specific reference to a form of unobtainium?

Why is it that you are allowed to condemn my viewpoint and not I, yours?
Neither of us can provide proof for our conclusions, yet for some reason you see yours as sacrosanct. Why?

I don't normally like to invoke the burden of proof, but I feel this is an instance that calls for it.

The resource is called metal, and looks like a common conception of metallic surfaces. We also know robots are usually made of metal. So with no other information presented, the simplest explanation jumps out at you, all kinds of metal is collected and used to create robots out of it. Are you denying that this is the intended message of the game mechanics and visuals?

as i mentionet earlier i am aware the incomplete roster ... but even then it is still the same problem imo ...
he who gets a foothold of the goldmine for a period of time will ultimately outproduce you in everything ... will that be different when using two goldplanets? i dont know ... what i simply want is having the possibility to use as much t1 units as possible without having to be forced to use nukes megabots or asteroids ... because to me as destructive as those things are they are actualy the least fun as they take just too much time to build up ...
i simply fear that wont be the case ... i fear lategame may devolve in using superweapons all the time ... and i dislike that ...
however having a deastartype planet is a different thing it is a countdowngame to who gets access to its planetbuster and this has a different tension to it that i like

The metal is concentrated in specific spots on the map, thus I conclude that it is not a generic resource that is available anywhere, but rather a specific one that is confined to specific locations. It can not be made, but must be extracted via a single building type that, regardless of the "spot" it is placed on, extracts metal in exactly the same way. This leads me to believe that the "metal" is specific. It is found only in specific places and is extracted in a specific way. The game mechanics speak to me of a specific resource that is not abundant regardless of whether the planet is made of rocks or what the robots would consider "lesser" metals. That the resource is called "metal" is probably because the developers thought having a resource called unobtainium (or similar) would sound comical.

I reject your concept of reality and substitute my own.

Metallic ore deposits are also found in specific locations in real life.

Metallic ore deposits are vastly different to processed metals. Why should the metal that makes up Metal planets (which is very obviously not raw metallic ore deposits) be extractable by the same process (the extractor does not change visuals when placed on a Metal planet) as regular deposits?

Currently the game mechanics support your summation only partially and support my summation just as validly as yours in my eyes. I see no reason why yours should be any more valid than mine.

Thus, altering the gameplay in the way you suggest is unwarranted. Unless you can prove that your interpretation is unassailably correct by backing it up with facts, rather than just your own interpretation, I see no reason to change to a system that is considered by many to be "broken" as soon as one person gains control of a qualitatively different resource source; one that is not limited by position.

Such a source of resources imbalances the gameplay that is set on all other planet types. It is very incongruous in terms of gameplay, which I remind you, is more important than your personal suspension of disbelief.

That is a fact by the way, when talking about PA; Jon Mavor says so.

Because it's a game that isn't completely realistic.

Again you have gone from the main point to nitpicking details. I can only assume as a defense because you are just really really biased against the idea. Correct me on that one.

i just could say the same for not reclaiming it ....

I am biased against poor gameplay resulting from an unhelpful adherence to the "Lore" or reality.

coffee stat, lots of coffee, quickly. Where's that coffee robot when u need it.

The correct answer is: it tells us nothing.
I personally prefer "unobtanium" because any annoying questions can be handwaved away, but really there's no telling whether it's specific or generic metal. Given that these are robots meant for war, i don't even see why'd they call different metals different things, as it's all either useful or not.

For that matter, it's a lot like SupCom's mass deposits, which, if you think about it, are BS since the planet is made of mass. Which implies that mass-deposits are really useful-mass-deposits. Similarly in PA, metal deposits are useful metal deposits, whether that's regular metal or unobtanium is simply not know.


But let's look back at why we're talking definitions here. The idea is that because a metal planet is metal, you need to be able to mine it.

Well, we don't know what lies beneath the surface. For all we know, it's just a thin metal shell around a regular asteroid. Or it really is a death star. Either way, it kind of depends on the surface quality whether you can mine it or not. Modern shell constructs use complex geometries and thin-wall constructs to make strong and light materials. It's no longer "tack whatever thick plate you can find onto it".

It also raises questions about the internal design of the planet. A structure that big can -unless it's solid- not withstand it's own weight. No material is that strong. Since it's said to be functional technology, it can't be solid, and so some kind of complex shell structure is more likely. attempting to drill through such a shell amounts to suicide, as a shell construct gets it's strength from geometry and puncturing that makes it as strong as the material it's made of (= not that strong). Smashing whatever internal machinery there is in an attempt to get metal from it is just a cry of self annihilation.


TLDR: destroying the very thing keeping the planet intact is a bad idea.
TLDR2; a non-solid planet made of metal is guaranteed to be unobtanium

Conclusion: just because it's metal doesn't mean it's a good idea to mine it.

To invalidate Iron's idea that we didn't address the mining issue before:

Just one quote among the entire thread that quote came from. Also, this entire discussion was also done back then .

Back then being July 2013.

wow this thread got big...

After reading just most of this page. Does it really matter what "metal" is? This game is not even trying to be realistic. Its trying to be awesome (have you even SEEN how small the planets are, or how unrealistic the orbits are? This is all intentional). So obviously reality be damned, Uber will do what makes the game more balanced, more fun, and more awesome. And they'd be fools not to.

Most of it is just an echo of a previous thread, making this at least 20 pages of bloat.

If you have geometric rings, or simply the ability to have a metal extractor anywhere; What about, maybe removing the ability to spawn on the metal planets completely?
Having the metal planets as moons, or separate planets that become more of a "prize", compared to an "advantage" to whomever gets the pleasure of spawning on the planet. Could that -in theory- remove or reduce
potential balance problems associated with spamming mexes?

Edit- Wow I did not spend all 24 pages reading everything. I'll just hope noones thought of my idea and stick to a notepad doc till i catch up on all the posts.............

One problem is though that due to the texture/terrain type a metal planet must be larger than radius 500.

Back when people could build MExs anywhere you could have this tiny little base and have unlimited metal. If you could even only put MExs on 1/5 of a Metal planet you'd still probably have more than enough metal to build hundreds(dare I say thousands?) of factories and have enough metal to run them.

In other words, it can't really be balanced unless MExs are nerfed only on metal planets. Which is something I'd really rather not see.

You're absolutely right, that it'd be hard to create balance when 2 people out of 10 have access to a metal planet where the is x5 more metal availability compared to everywhere else, especially say 1-2 guys stuck on a lava planet with 1/5 of the average metal availability on a planet.

However I need further convincing that it's such a problem if you create conditions on a metal map where there is a pattern to metal availability, rather than simply have the planet as 1 big metal deposit to spam extractors. More importantly, if you create conditions like metal deposits on planets and also remove spawn points from the metal, and say lava worlds. So that no person is at a distinct disadvantage or advantage, and everyone has an equal opportunity to grab the metal map, and it becomes a goldmine, or it becomes a target for asteroids/moons.

Lastly, a quote I found on page 5 of these posts.

If you make it so only advanced extractors can be built, as well as noone gets to spawn on the metal planets.
Would this be an acceptable compromise? Or at least a solid foundation for further discussion?

Edit- Okay so I sorta caught up, read up to about page 17 where i finally noticed the veiled snipefest between a couple of guys. at risk of defending bmb, I want to say that the poll is still significant in the context of everyone who did choose to vote, clearly there is a fairly balanced ratio there, and the people who didn't vote cannot be confirmed to either yes or no be aware of such a poll. Therefore they cannot be dismissed as deliberate abstainers.

Next, I said "balance", that is, at least for me anything less than 15-20% of a difference isn't significant enough to bother game devs to change the game, but it won't prevent custom modding later for those still eager to play on full metal maps with mexes everywhere.

After that, I'm pretty sure I didn't realise Uber had something clever in mind for gas giants and metal maps. I'm quite in favour of Darth Vaders' Death Star over a 100% metal planet.
For mainly a couple of reasons,

A) What people (seem) to have missed, as gathered by my original proposition, is if noone starts on the metal planet, the factor people miss is time. Just because you're the first to arrive, doesn't automatically mean you have full and instant income reflecting that whole planet. Therefore there's still plenty of opportunity to nuke the guy, or drop an asteroid on him if you haven't already denied the planet.

B) The point of epic metal is for an epic advantage to whoever controls it. I'd say a Death Star fills that "epic advantage" pretty thoroughly, without also giving a second simultaneous epic advantage in the form metal income. On that note, bmb if you read this, incase it was never cleared up. 10 people all spawning on a metal map in totala is fine, because all 10 people have 100% access to instant metal everywhere. This is very different from say 1 person spawning on a 100% metal planet, and his opponent spawning on a regular planet with access to optimistically 1/4 of the metal, or worse yet a lava planet, with a fraction of that 1/4 of a metal planet.

So provided you can work out a solution to give all 10 players an equal opportunity access to 100% metal planets, it hurts overall gameplay rather than helps it, in order to give it.
And the Death star really is something I'd happily trade 10,000 advanced extractors for.

But I can't help but think uber will have to bring in lots of orbital weaponry to defend against such technology, or something similar. Unless the death star is relatively difficult to obtain and use, where nuking it with an asteroid or moon is viable and also practical.

Edit 2- I'd also like to call bmb up on a couple of mistakes I think he's made.
Firstly, is his perfectly valid point that features of a game should work as they've been advertised. I agree completely, however I fail to understand where the Uber devs have 'advertised' with any degree of accuracy that the metal maps will function exactly like
the metal maps in Total Annihilation? Suppose for a moment, that it was not bmb's obligation to show some evidence for his opinions and claims, outside his own exclusive logic and reasoning. How about some common curtesy in helping us find where it is bmb has seen, that John Mavor or some other staff member has said something to the clear effect of "These metal planets will function like the metal maps in Total Annihilation, and you will be therefore able to construct metal extractors wherever you please."
Nevermind the fact you call for burden of proof, and submit only further points of your own logic, which you have consistently failed to display more clearly in a step by step coherent logical fashion so that we- the less enlightened may understand you better.

While people's statements of disapproval or hostility infact do not change the validity or truth of a statement. Neither can a statement, alone, of pure opinion can be verified as true.
Therefore, if you have done any highschool or university or TAFE or College or any other form of institutionalised learning, bmb should be familiar with the process known as
a bibliography, or references; where the student submits evidence and works of people other than himself, to help lend credibility to his claim.

Secondly, in actual fact bmb, it does appear that there is a purpose planned for these metal planets, where they infact are not designed as money planets, but as some other kind of
dormant metal planet that can be activated and employed as a purpose built space domination.... epic tool of distruction is the only thing I can think of at 3am.
With that purpose in mind, I think, (just supposing that extracting metal from a planet takes away from the planet and gives to you) that mining and recycling
metal you find in this great dormant machine, will in fact hurt it's function later. Say for example if your extracting metal next to a big laser looking thing.
Later on you discover it can be turned on, but fails to work because a big chunk of a fusion reactor is missing. Somewhere in a direct line under where 10 of your advanced
extractors are.

Lastly, and this is specifically for bmb. Failing everything else about the metal planet, death star or anything else. The game is still in it's beta stages, and therefore
nothing is final. So any criticism you make regarding the game, will be "taken under advisement" while the game devs sort out what they want to do, as they're doing it.

I hope I've contributed somewhere in my lengthy essay

Regards,
Matt