How we Bring Back Expansion: Make Metal the Limiting Factor

I first struggled a little bit with metal and energy balance but once I found to properly prioritise energy I didn't really have that much problem with it.

In a pure growth scenario energy and metal blend into each other as each is limited by the other. However energy is the one that has other functions as well than production limitation. So if energy gains too big of share of the production cake that other role isn't particualry independent. As in you will not have radar exactly when you don't have production.

I do note that sometime I have barely won a ground fight to get my prize of access to the opponents mexes only to not really be able to do anything to them because of their high hp. If mexes would need defence that would more tension in spreading to defend mexes and keeping together to keep a strong fist. That is leaving a mex undefended would be way more edgy a decision.

In the TA family I have also found that the main cost of mexes is engineer travel time. If high enginner availability is provided mexes are regenerated without hassle and killing mexes becomes pointless.

And the proper 3rd resource is engineering power. If you have it you can just say MORE DAKKA and no amount of mass or energy is too much. Maybe the coupling is that economy structures and military units have unbalanced engineering power needs? Or that engineering power is too synonymous with power.

It wasnt exactly reverted though. Sure it was increased again, but not to the same heights. But i also have to agree with them that income from metal extractors (of both t1 and t2) are just too high compared to the costs of some units in the game (if not all). Being able to spam out a nuke in ~30seconds is pretty easy by the 15min mark when the incomes are above 800. Seems far too quick to me.

Well I don't mind T1 fabbers being so inefficient, what I do mind in the fact that a t1 fabber requires 2 pgens to cover it's expenditure (1200 metal) while in t2 a single t2 pgen (2700 metal) covers almost 2 T2/5 T1 fabbers. I think T1 pgens should generate 1k of power for 450 cost or what you suggested, but power consumption should stay the same.

Agree T1 P-Gen is to weak currently. A boost is desperately needed. I could see easily bumping them to 800 and then seeing how things work. 1k isn't out of the question, I'd also love to see limited metal resources on the map. That is to say some 1 time use metal that you can reclaim. TA had many maps that included these and they made for great game play as people tried to get them before someone else did.

Metal does not need to be balanced at all. In fact don't limit the economy. Not a good idea.

What if t2 mexes would be built on some unique bigger metal spots that are more rare, something like hydrocarbon points in supcom/TA?

I have a Lava map I made that has a high "water" level on it. When I did that, the Metal spots become far less frequent (because it cant spawn in lava lol). Fighting on the map, and expansion became what everyone here wants it to be. A game of fighting over and controlling "clumps" of Metal spots. The map literally is metal starved, as there are no single metal points in the middle of nowhere. Its all clumps of 5-6 metal spots across the little land there is.


To build this map, use Seed number 1 and a water level of about 45-55ish on a lava planet to get this kind of result. Makes what metal there is, at premium. I have tested this map several times with the other RLM guys, and some complaints about the map did surface, mostly about the metal being so scarce which is the point of the map. With fewer metal spots (once we get the slider) you can make anti rush based maps by just limiting the metal there is. By basically increasing the clumps of metal by reducing the spots but increasing the density of the metal. This makes large tracts of no metal, and the areas there are metal, becomes hotly contested.

Current expanding is pretty fine. Taking control over whole map is extremely important and that's how I win most of my games. The only problem is how efficient T2 economy is in comparison to T1 which makes expanding only important after 10 min mark when you already have your whole main base filled with T2 mexes. At first the key is to set up t1 factories all around the map and get mexes and then you set up crapload of t2 proxy vehicle factories. You can't build them in base you need them all around the map, that's pretty heavy expanding because you also invest a lot in these proxies. Later on making economy in 2-3 locations on the map is pretty common as well.
Current price of energy is also fine, it's just matter of learning how to produce enough energy.

I'd also like to add to this that nukes make expansions a big waste of resources. You either invest in them so hevily to keep them defended that they are a net drain on your eco or you don't defend them, reap a small reward and then lose them as soon as the enemy deems fit. Nukes make expanding on contested planets foolish unless you have no other choice.

^This soooo much this!

Nukes are the key to most games, so mostly you want to capture 10-15 mex and defend them well, rather then expand over the entire universe and expend time and resources (and fabbers) you could be using in your base. Once you roll out T2 you have no need for any more metal, and will have enough to keep you fed all game, meanwhile you can build your nuke and build up T2 defenses. Catapults and Holokins, T2 lasers and Flack cannons can keep everything out of your base while your nuke and anti nukes build.

Metal needs a bit of work anyway. Both the spawn logic and the role in eco. They should either be more clustered, or reduced in number per planetoid type/size so they're worth fighting and expanding over to, spawn logic needs more polish when multiple planet starts are a thing, and we need ways to place metal spots by hand in the planet editor to reduce randomness and create more viable competitive scenarios. That's in addition to their resource rate and T1/T2 efficiency.

Before that work gets done I don't think we should switch from Energy being the limiting factor else the game as it stands now might suffer.