PTE Allows Us to Go Factory First!

Making them not good for the early part of the game would make them even WORSE for late game, no?

His point was that we're not at the happy middle. Whatever that happy middle looks like.

I think ground AA needs a range buff all the way 'round.

I agree with brianpurkiss on the general point that this is a "good change".

The only legitimate argument was cwarner's, which was basically "I like the feel of a eco-first start better". I'm not saying that's a bad argument, but honestly I think the benefits outway them. Getting right into the action, for me at least, is a much more fun way to play this game.

As said before, before this, every player ever would start out with a few metal, an energy plant, etc. There were some deviant players trying out new things, but the prevailing meta was "obligatory eco stuff that's exactly the same every round, then make actual gameplay decisions starting from there". This update removes the irrelevant part of the game that is "starting eco".

Given a well balanced "everything else", this will be a very good change.

I like the metal at +30, the energy at +3000 seems a bit high.

• Energy storage first or very soon after seems the logical thing to do, as you can avoid most energy issues easily this way
• The metal +30 alleviates many issues with bad spawns, as you have enough income to cover early game where spawns particularly matter
• Bombers use energy to reload. Reducing commander energy income would nerf bombers in early game yet leave them unchanged later on

I'd make energy +1500, covering precisely the commanders footprint on the economy. If you go eco + storage first you need to go factory after to spend it, and factory first you then need eco quickly to cover factory + commander draw.

Why couldn't they just supply enough starting eco to build a factory first instead of making the commander self sufficient enough to run multiple factories without economy buildings?

I can see this strategy being used in every single planet game going forward:

Exactly, I'd like to see it done so that the commander has enough storage to go factory for like Statera, and the RCBM I think.

I'll advocate for 2000 comm energy and zero metal and zero energy in storages on start. It will be just enough for "eco or military" decisions to matter. You can do eco first to ensure efficiency, then start making an army, or build a factory and then build some eco to support it. If you go all factory, you won't be able to do other stuff without crippling production. On the other hand, slight energy surplus will lessen pgen busywork for commander.


Well, maybe my solution is not optimal, but anyway, mandatory eco first must go, there should be a real choice of what to do first. Ideally, eco, storages or any of three(sometime four) factories should be all viable starts.

Remember guys, it's the first iteration in the ability to go factory first.

We've found some flaws in their implementation, but there's multiple routes we should go.

Rather than focusing on their specific implementation, we should analyze the concept of going factory first and make suggestions on how to make that happen.

There's been some excellent feedback, and as I said, we've found some flaws. Like the bomber rush Gandalf/reptarking brought up. That doesn't mean factory first is a bad thing, it means there's some kinks we need to help Uber smooth out.

same here, I think this is a good change.