[IDEA] Advanced Factory Size and Appearance Idea.

So, right now basic factories are small, and advanced factories are huge. Well, huge factories make tight spaces unuseable which adds and removes from gameplay. Well, some things I like some I dont but overall I don't like that. Just because its an advanced factory doesn't mean it needs to be bigger when it don't build bigger units nor should it necesarily be limited to location or quanity of factories.

So, with that being said, if they were smaller, they would look too similar if people forgot what zoom they were at.

How about, make the factories a very little bigger but almost same size as basic. Then, you notice how the bot factory has junk on one side and is flat on the other? What about, the advanced factory, has junk on both sides and maybe more/taller junk. So, you can tell a bot factory is the bot factory by the look of the junk, and same with air or vehicle, but you can tell t1 from t2 by the factory having just one side of junk or 2 sides of junk.

Pretty extensive model design required in some cases, but just an idea.

I agree with this sentiment. There isn't any bigger units that come from any of the advanced factories. Making them taller or have more nanolathe animations ( similar to the T1 & T2 bot factories have)

I wouldn't mind if advanced factories had less health, that is a different topic however.

Well, the T2 naval units are pretty huge in comparison to T1, but overall I agree, somewhat.

[silly rant begins]
I do like the idea of being able to place T2 factories on smaller planets, but at the same time if they were close to the same size I just wouldn't believe the higher price of the factory.

I still can't believe that an astraeus is made out of the same amount of metal as 4 T1 bot factories.
[silly rant ends]

granted I'm not a competitive player, but to my casual eye the factory sizes seem about right.... t1 factory size allows you to just spam the suckers all over the damn place, where the t2 factories require a bit of judicious planning (and present a larger target!)

Yeah, but the idea is, the advanced naval factory could be a little longer and have more rounded build arms (be like a set of ribs instead just a few arcs), the adv. vehicle factory could have a elongated space and still be believable for vanguards while making sense that it is a vehicle assembly area being how it is long and narrow, and the bot factory can be the opposite having a stubby pad for building but complicated looking parts and pipes jutting further off both sides.

The air factory, hmm, maybe basic has smaller and only 2 spin-arms, while advanced has 5 spin-arms and larger than the basic ones. spinarms, you know, the gyro things? But, the same sized build pad.

T2 factories could have more construction arms like in SupCom.

A good start, not obvious enough though. Coupled with mild size increase, its almost enough, maybe enough.

If they did that, to make smaller without spending more time on modelling, I would understand and it would still be much better.

They already kind of do that though; T1 bot factory has 2 arms, T2 has 3 arms. T1 air has 2 rings for the gyroscope-thing, T3 has 3 rings. Pretty sure the vehicle factory has something similar going on.

I think that if T2 factories have their size reduced, T1 should as well. Neither one needs to be as big as it is, at least for the bot and tank factories in their current state. They take up a lop of room. I honestly think the size of T2 factories is a bigger issue for why people don't spam T2 factories than the cost of factories; you need a whole lot of territory locked down before you can do it, and most of the time there will be brushes in the way so you still can't spam factories.

A size reduction for both is terrific, as long as it is possible. I remember seeing a small pathing issue leaving factory not so long ago.

how could you distinguish the two then?

what about going with the most straightforward solution? scale megathread.

I like the factory sizes as they are. It does seem strange that T2 units aren't much bigger than T1, so don't need the big factory, but I like being able to tell them apart easily. It could be cool if T2 units were made in 4 sections, then towards the end of the build animation (while still green and nanolathy), the bits got put together. That could make the larger size make more sense, because it would need the extra space to make the complex parts of the T2 units separately.

I like the current factory sizes as well (I find the whole "space" as a resource idea oddly appealing) - the only thing i am still struggling with is that the advanced factories are still a bit hard to differentiate from their t-1 cousins while trying to place them (and their build icons look too similar), especially the advanced air.
Metabolical seems to suffer from the same problem. I think barely a stream goes by where he doesn't mix them up ;-)

ye. one day they'll fix their icons (or even do new models) untill then icon pack : P

I think this comes down to "proper" factory design. I'm not sure if it comes down to adding more, say, "junk" but it can be done via proper information relay (i don't think i have to preach this to professional 3D designers).