3 Factory Start! on PTE Air only

http://www.twitch.tv/planetary_annihilation/c/4674849

just watch that video and ask yourself, do you want to face me.

I'll kill you with Boom Bots... .ohhh.... wait..

You competitives really ruin playing the game, which can in fact ruin a game's very existance if you weren't worried before.

*sigh* but you are right, by showing this it is obvious that exploiting storage with the commander's self sustained eco income, that triple air factory leads to too great an early unit surge to handle from an air factory.

I present the same solutions I did elsewhere.

1) This worked in Statera mod, which is similar to RCBM anyway, which is no suprise because most simple math questions have a single right answer. That is, more eco income than before, less than now, and more storage, so factory first is viable but not inhereitly sustainable without any eco ever (you stall if your second structure immediately after ISN'T eco)

2) Bots become factory first viable, air requires 2 pgen 1 mex, vehicles require 2 mex. Combined with less eco income, even exploiting storage while building bot factory, you can only either build bot and get units up while establishing eco and second factory and production and bots can even expand to proxies, or you can get vehicles or air up and start to really attack focally albeit later. THIS also adds factory variety a bit, since the cost is not just different for units, but the actual eco consumption and initial cost for the very factory itself.

Oh and ofc naval needs to be 1 mex. Because it is vehicular, but needs buffs for equal viability.

I'm confused. You seem to really resent those people who understand how to exploit and show how broken the balance of the game is... which is kinda the purpose of game that's undergoing balance changes.

Would you prefer that such exploits went undocumented and unchallenged?

It's beautiful

I just simply hate that broken balance is abused by a competitive on a video, and that makes less-good players feel like moving to another game entirely. That is the wrong mentality behind it, but so is a lot of human mentality unfortunately.

I just think anyone watching this should know PTE is in progress changes so this is just abusable balance and is something TO be changed. Competitives focus way too much on balance, and to show off the chip on their shoulder and prove a point, they will often bluntly display it like this, like it is a challenge to the very devs who overlooked it.

Because it is explicatively abused there. The specific setup for storage alone is the testing environment's variable that allows for it too, if income is slightly reduced then building the storage would stall you before you built the factory.

Basically what everyone is saying. If the income is less, and the storage is more, then factory first is viable, but you cannot sustain it without immediately making up for it with some eco before it stalls shortly after factory completion. Then, technically, you could go eco first too. You could go either. You could even play a little sloppily since more storage is available for stabilizing ecoflux. It really benefits new players in every way. As long as it is tweaked so the exploited storage in-video is no longer a "thing".

EDIT: Also, did you notice the change is "too extreme"? It really fits their testing protocol, make sure to overshoot by a bit, just so you know what "too much" looks like, and you know what "too little" looks like, so you know what "just right" must have.

In this case, too much allows for storage abuse to run 3 factories for... just long enough to spam units between the time the storage is built and the first factory is finished, which is the end of the game anyway because of the snipe.

Too little makes boring startups of eco-gathering for 45 seconds.

Just right means you can do either 1 eco and then factory, or 1 factory then eco, but if eco isn't your 1st or 2nd structure then you stall, and if the factory is first then you need eco development to produce your 2nd or assist your first.

Then there is my suggestion to make some factories require some eco on 1st factory anyway *shrug* just as an additional balance lever for bots and against air...

Seeing these cool things exploited doesn't put people off in my experience.

Quite the opposite, it makes them go: oh boy, I have got to try that!

Well this shouldnt work against anyone that knows the new build, the new player you were playing obviously didnt know how the economy worked and to not scout within 5 minutes is horrible. 10/10 would rek this build.

Uber do not have a good record of listening to "Theory-Crafters", who would have identified this problem long before it needed testing. So, people have moved on to actually showing the issues in a recording.

I don't see any problem with an evidence-based testing report. Uber want this stuff tested, people are doing so. "Competitives", as you put it, aren't a problem at all.

I like how you built a metal storage you had no need for.

Just to put the shoe on the other foot, Trophy, you saying that 'competitives are ruining the game' is no better than one of the top ten players saying 'filthy casuals are ruining this game'.

Not that Mered hasn't been known to say such things from time to time, but still

You could have easily grabbed a few mexes right at the start, in the place of that metal storage. It would have probably gotten you more benefit.

You could get the same result by 3 minutes 30 seconds. And yeah this won't work against anyone who understands that it is possible, unless they just get unlucky with their scouting, but to the new player who has it happen to them even a few times as their first experience to multiplayer, it might not be nice.

I'm kinda assuming (or at least hoping) this is gonna change on the PTE though before it goes to stable.

I tried your strategy, but without the metal storage. I think that wasn't necessary.

Energy Storage -> 3 Air Factory -> 5 Mex -> 2 Pgens -> More factories

I beat the Absurd AI within 4:30 minutes.

How is this different in the live game where you just start with the economy first? If everybody is starting 3 metal and a power anyway, you should still be able to rush bombers.

It feels like a SC2 6 pool.

3 mex and 1 power gives you 31 metal / 1600 power. currently you're getting 30 metal / 3000 power on PTE.

That's a big difference and why you can go 3 factory first.

As Dromed said, we're getting much more power income right now. That's a serious limiting factor in the live build.
Also consider that the metal income stacks with the mex that are spawned in your immediate area, so gandalf had much more metal than he would in the stable build without expanding. Normally he would need to spend time and resources expanding in order to get 78 metal income.
Giving the commander more storage at the start of the game might be worth looking into I think. You still need to expand and build energy, but I think it could give a nice buffer that lets you start off with a factory first.

I think an early-game boost and higher Comm output is good for early-game combat, rather than requiring us to build eco before we can even do anything.

T1 Air costs might need tweaking as a result, as Air is has always been the thing most open to rushing and sniping with. Air is also pretty effective against small ground forces early game. I hope we don't see a return of Air dominated play.

And like other posters say... the big problem is the POWER income on the commander, not the metal.