A quick technical question

The rate of metal usage (on both fabs and buildings) is that in:
M/min or M/sec? Just to know how to interpret this better...

And how exactly does energy co-relate to this? I know i need energy to produce stuff, cuz it keeps the fabs and factories at maximum potential, but what is the underlying mechanic here?

Say a fabber uses 10 M and 1000 E at max potential, but i only have 800 energy available. Does that mean that it only uses 8M per given time, or that it uses 10M but the time rate decreases...?

If so, how does the deficit in metal work then? Cuz even at max energy but low on metal, the fabber can never reach it's maximum potential as with the energy, but won't the result be the same?

Enlighten me please

I't's per second. The metal and energy determine how fast you build and if one is lacking it bottlenecks the other.

i did the math ingame and it's M/Min and not second

It's logical when i thought about it. Take the nuke for example... A single nuke costs 60.000 Metal to be built and the silo "consumes" 120 metal. If that was per second, a nuke would build in (60.000 / 120)/360 = 1.38 minutes or roughly 1'24" ingame time. Now we all know a nuke doesn't complete in roughly 2 minutes If you make the equation in minutes, i.e. (60.000/120)/60 = 8.33333 or 8'20" which is the time it takes to complete a nuke from scratch!

Another thing that hinted me was the following... I had 151 Metal banked in the early game and had a -1 deficit in metal, but didn't go to 150 -> 149 -> 148 -> ... in seconds. it took, guess what, a minute

But the relation of metal/energy within the using structuresfabbers is (hopefully) more complex than just "one can't exist without the other"... Anyone knows the real deal behind this?

Something wrong here.
(60.000 / 120) = 500 seconds or 8:20 minutes. Not sure why you divided by 360 for seconds

Energy is consumed at a fixed rate dependent on what fabber unit or factory is building. This rate is constant regardless of whether you have the metal; eg. if you are running negative metal, you'll still consume the full energy amount, even though the metal amount (and therefore build time) will be pro-rated.

http://pa-db.com/unit/fabrication_bot?version=71729 (launch)
It would take 60 times longer to build a single nuke.

That makes sense, its a good explanation for a +7 mex providing 420 metal

Hmmm... i made a mistake here somewhere...

The thing that pointed me out wrong was that 151 Metal banked, but the -1 rate of my eco never made it go to 150 in a second and so on... So PADB idd states that consumption is in seconds. Dayum i'm that bad at math right...?

Raven:
If energy is consumed at a steady rate, then what is the drawback on having a negative energy rate? Is it purely the same as a metal deficit or not? In my opinion u can't "spray" what u can't produce, but isn't energy the same thing exaclty then? And how does it co-relate when both are in the negative?

Or... Is that why the percentage in the middle of the Rate bars shows... It just shows overall build effeciency in both the metal and energy total?

If you go negative energy, your metal rate is pro-rated down, but not vice versa. For example:

Negative Metal (only 50% income to expendature), positive energy:
Build rates will be reduced by 50%, energy usage will remain the same

• This is where Supreme Commander differed; in sup com, if metal went negative, energy usage was pro-rated.

Negative Energy (only 50% income to expendature), positive metal:
Build rates will be reduced by 50% (because metal rates will be pro-rated by the energy usage).

I just noticed the unit database link in your signature is not linked.

Thanks