That... wasn't obvious.

So, I have about 150 gametime, been playing since summer sale.

And only today I noticed this.

I had two advanced extractors side by side. But they had different icons. I look closed and damn... I thought advanced mex replace basic mex when built on top. BUT NO. They co-exist. If you build advanced mex, you can build basic mex on top. If you build advanced mex on top, basic mex is not lost. You have two extractors per metal spot.

Damn. This is so no obvious.
I wish someone told me about this earlier.


Was I the only one not knowing about it?

I heard quite some people that did not know that indeed. And I agree that it is really not logical either. It's the only building in PA that can be build on top of an allready excisting one. You could say it goes against WYSIWYG.

It took me a while to realize this too, you're not alone
It really should've been made a little more obvious, but overall it doesn't bug me that much that it isn't obvious (your economy goes up, that's all that really matters)

I like that you can stack em, as it can give you that little bit of extra juice.
But I wouldn't mind a tooltip explaining that you can do this, as it puts newer players at a disadvantage.

He wasn't, I played a game with my Younger brother today, and he hasn't played since Mid alpha, I had to point it out to him, as it isn't obvious at all.

Really? man, I just assumed that's exactly how they'd work from the start.

Well he comes from having played SupCom, in which you just upgrade one into the other, he didn't really consider that stacking was an option.

Point is, while some might make the intuitive leap (as you and I did), clearly not everyone will.

If you look at them the 2 Mexes are actually facing opposite directions. So they don't collide with each other on the metal deposit.

I took me a week or so to figure it out myself.
I had originall asumed that it would place a T2 that included T1+T2, with the building being cheaper if a T1 was already on the spot.

And it does make a huge difference as the T1 MEX is a lot more metal efficient (150/7 vs 2000/24) and is about 22.5% of your metal income per spot.

Any chance we can make a mod that replaces all oders to build a "T2 MEX" with "T1 MEX, then T2 Mex the same spot"?
It is still more efficient to have a T1 team go for the T1 Mex and then support the T2 team (wich is building T2 mex in paralel), but at least that would help with forgetting it totally.

While not immediately self explanatory indeed, I think this is as WYSIWYG, as it can be. Even the icons are designed in a way to show you if the point has one or two mex on it.

Edit: a tooltip or a hint in the building description would hell though.

I agree. I have come to accept this though. The strat icons stack if you look. Big mex, small mex, then an icon with big and small. The icons are specific.

The models can be noticed as different, but could be more different.

I am okay with this, it isn't aweful.

I still think if they added where build-over causes destruction of whatever was below (but not the built one), it would leave wreckage underneath but meh. Still slightly better. Could do enough overkill to destroy the wreckage outright.

Also, it used to be stupid unbalanced. Right now, it makes t1 useful because the t1 mexes can be built after the t2 and upgrade it, and t1 adds significant metal when you starve for it. Yet it makes t2 strong, just not overly powered on it's own. So, it's good, its good...

Anybody else still wanting T2 extractors that just replace the T1 ones when built over them?

I still feel like the stacking is a little silly.

I like, because that's how I thought they work.
At least, they should add descriptions to amex saying that it adds to mex.

Whether this is logical or not depends on your past experience. Last RTS I played had upgrades to structures, which means if you upgrade a structure, you get advanced version, not two structures in one place.

im totaly okay with how they are now

Cool, cool.

I have to admit that while I noticed that T2 extractors would be built on top of T1 (and a destroyed T2 would still leave a working T1), I never noticed that they were generating double income. Good to know.

Me but by now I'm just thinking a mod is the best option

No, I like the solution as is. Seemingly efficient code-wise.

It is efficient in the placing routines/building routines. But at a big cost in the unit movement area, wich is a lot more costly to begin with. As you effectively need two groups to place stuff on MEX.
If there is any reason to keep it like this, it is balance in that you cannot area build both - not code efficiency. I give it about 75% chance to be unintentional.

If it can be modded.
We would need to intercept the "build T2 Mex" order and replace it with a "build T1 + T2 mex queue". No idea how build commands and area commands are handeled in this regard (client side), somebody who actually delved into modding for this game has to answer that.