The T2 eco is broken. We all know it. T2 power plants are more efficient than T1 and T2 MEX are a huge and safe eco boost that don't require you to risk taking additional territory. T2 eco is one of two reasons (turrets being the other) why you rush T2, because your economy will soar and if you don't hit this eco when your opponent does you are well and truly fucked. But what's the fix? The game has orbital solar panels and gas giants are on the way with big energy bonuses. In a game where these exist does T2 power on the ground even make any sense? So long as T2 ground power exists it seems unlikely that energy sources in orbital will see use. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I dislike the T2 mex because it discourages conflict. PA doesn't have the energy-to-metal converter because it used to cause the same issue, you'd boom your energy in an easily defensive spot and then have all the metal you needed to. Metal should be the conflict driver, I shouldn't be able to sit back and boom, I should need to get out there and fight for it. I see a need for some kind of T2 metal if there were less metal spots by default, but there aren't. Definitely a big issue is that T2 MEX pay off as fast as T1 MEX, so there's no reason not to get them. However, maybe a scaling back of the numbers will fix things? I guess my concern is most of the top players don't play multi-planet and a scaled back solution (which is what I think would be their favourite) will not allow for meaningful orbital energy sources. So, fixes to my mind: 1. Ditch T2 eco. 2. Scale back T2 eco so that MEX take much longer to pay off and power plants are less efficient but more easily defended (but this makes nuking energy a lot harder). 3. Change the nature of T2 eco such that they're simply alternatives to T1 eco, for example the T2 MEX is armoured and armed (though T1 MEX right now pay off way too quick for this to work). I don't think 3 is workable.
Agreed. I think it's best to ditch the T2 mex (not sure about T2 power). It might be possible to have an alternative elsewhere (e.g. special resource nodes with more resources on, say, a lava planet), but i think that so far, it's best if T1 metal is all. T1 mexes all over a planet already allows a significant boost of economy (a victory over a planet or even 1 opponent will cause a significant eco boost)
T2 power should be replaced by orbital solar panels. End of story. T2 mexes should be removed and T1 mexes buffed if needed for T2 to still be viable, ala Progressive Annihilation.
I am against orbital solutions as long as controlling orbital units is so damn hard. I think t2 mex should be nerfed by maybe 30% more. (Or scathis usual 50% ) So basically people should only ever want to start t2 mex once they absolutely cannot get more t1 mex. That worked good back in FA. With energy I am not quite sure. t1 pgens are a horrible to use because they are just so damn ineffective. Maybe make t1 pgens as effective as t2 pgens are now and t2 pgens even more effective? t2 pgens just have to be > t1 pgens or they will be pointless to use, since energy has not a concept of limited available spots. Or maybe add some other nice little extra to t2 pgens, so i.e. have them maybe only 1 to 5% more effective than t1 but also have a little extra energy storage build in. Some extras that make them a bit more unique compared to the t1 pgen. Or make them a bit worse than t1 pgens, BUT let them have a lot more HP so they can survive a nuke.
Yea i think it's better if T2 is a more robust, raid-resistant form of T1 with (potentially) a bit of a boost.
I don't think there's much of an issue with t2 power. However I think mex should be the same as supcom - t1 mex took something like 18 seconds to pay off and t2 mex took something like 2.5 minutes. This meant you had to fight for every last scrap of map control for t1 mex before you went for t2 eco and it worked really well.
Considering how T2 eco is a direct upgrade to T1 (which I absolutely hate), removing T2 mexes altogether should be the right direction. As for T2 power, I like the suggestion to remove the T2 power plants aswell, but moving T2 to orbital is not a wise choice. Controlling orbital units is simply just bad at this moment, and you can too easily shut down an opponent from gaining more energy by relying on orbital superiority. It would still be a T2 rush. In the end my opinion is this: Completely remove T2 eco, balance accordingly.
I'd like to remind some people, that Uber has stated(multiple times) that some things WILL BE a direct upgrade. Now how much of an upgrade, who knows(it debatable). But simply saying "Adv should not be an upgrade" is not really a useful answer. That's like saying, "The Devs need to just remove orbital and then figure out/balance getting to another planet." In other words: "The devs should scrap a bunch of their work in favor of wasting time on a different conceptual design that I may or my not agree with later on." But please, stop the "Get rid of Adv and do something completely different(if we were 3-6 months into dev, maybe, not gamma)." That's all I have to say.
I still want metal veins with limited amounts of metal. So you can deplete it after a while. Because T2 extracts metal much faster, your mex deplete much faster. So you DO need to expand and keep taking metal. Goodbye turtlers. T2 power... Yeah that needs quite some rebalancing. Remove the T2 plant, replace it with other options (geothermal on geysers, tidal in water, orbital solar & gas plants,...) T1 power could be replaced with ground-based solar, wind & small tidal plants. I hate the 'power out of nowhere' thing, like how pgens work now. They need to require something to operate.
People were of the same opinion back then, but Uber was like "Ah screw this lets make the tiered supcom system again." and now we have the problem right in front of us. I'd like to say "We told you so.".
Well we were promised that once the basics were in, that we would get a huge overhaul to everything to make PA unique from the nom of a RTS. And that didn't really happen........we just stuck with the basics they introduced in alpha.
And you'd be right to call "I told you so" on that if the obvious alternative had been tried and found unsuccessful. It has not. There are no need for rash reactions or complex solutions. A simple nerf to the T2 mex extraction rate will do absolute wonders. The rest of the econ can be balanced around that. Scathis hasn't touched the economy balance yet, so lets see how things go before crowing about how terrible things are.
I think that T2 power should stay, it's much more space-effective (better to defend 3 generators instead field of T1's) solution vs regular power gens but I think that they should had same price/efficiency like small generators, so it's producing hell a lot more of energy but you could buy N regular generators for this price and still had same output. As for T2 metal... I think that each spot should had limited amount of resources... T1 Metal extractor would give you small output, but it would be very efficient, allowing harvesting one spot for long time. T2 extractor would provide large output from one spot, but it would be very inefficient and deplete spot (it would still generate tiny amount when depleted) quickly, allowing for quick, yet, short-term profit (also T2 mex could be more expensive). My only concern is that you could use scorched earth tactics to burn the spots using T2 mexes even if you are not able to use all the metal from them - just open portal to unoccupied planet in system and send horde of fabricators to take all spots with T2 extractors so you will get massive boost of metal for <10 minutes per extractor and then turn entire planet into economic wasteland... Also I would not mind having energy/metal storage with better capacity (same price/capacity, but you need less buildings to build), even if it would mean increasing it's price a bit.
Metal cost of T2 mexes could be increased if they still need to be massrate superior. That way the transition has atleast some tension making the payback times bigger.
I would like to see T2 only buildable on more rare locations that you can only find once you've got t2 units (of some sort) Rather than just be larger versions of T1 metal, have them be something different.
Hate to say it, but don't combine balance arguements. Same reason you don't test multiple variables in experiments. Stuff starts getting complicated and you don't know what causes what. However, t2 eco should definitely have a negative payoff to begin with, that way it gives a moment of vunerability. Best thing about that concept, is the earlier you do it, the weaker it makes you. Rushing t2 eco means you could have your walls kicked down by t1 army spam and then you couldn't get back on your feet when it sinks your economy. Getting t2 later means you have well-established t1 which is self sufficient while t2 can succeed or fail with no great consequence to your current base. I still think turrets power is fine if walls were more expensive and were adjusted in balanced.
Simple solution to this would to give T2 mex a extream power drain, so you cant just spam up 100's of them without hurting your power reserves. So then you require a large amount of build space and time for the econ to be effective. And since power is so abundant it would kinda make sense and fitting to the type of game it is. Need crap tones of power to fuel an army of machines.
this is a fair idea or addition to other t2 weakspots. If they had longer build time (cost more) and a power drain, they would be a weakness to target and thus people could benefit not t2ing.
