Unit sizes, or planet sizes...

And yet everyone knows what we're talking about. It's an extra thing you can do, alright?

If you can only enhance mass income by building another mass extractor, it's not as fun as if I can upgrade it, and also build storage units on the sides later on, that not only add more income, but also add extra storage.

Not saying everyone should like that, but I do.

EDIT: And just for you I'm gonna call it extra height.

you should watch that video

What's in it?

it's made by game design scientists and is particularly pertinent to the discussion

Okay, maybe I'll watch it for the fun later on, but regardless of what it is about it's not gonna change what I think is most fun in a game.

if you say so

And what was the purpose in saying that? Last word?

Yeah, nah. The key argument here is "can you live without it" and the answer is yes.

Sure, it all depends on the game. I am not as excited about the game as I was when I first heard about it. So could be I'm not even going to play it. It still comes down to personal preference, and that's what I'm saying over and over, that it's what I think, not what you think.

With alpha approaching it's good your expectations are lower. PA development will be interesting even if it's not immediately fun for no other reason than the community having a heavy influence. We get to help make a game we already want, if you backed you should be excited about that. And if you don't want to play an unfinished game (there's no shame in that) you can take solace that a devoted community will shape the final game. Not many games can make that claim.

Ah to be young and ignorant again...

Whatchootalkinbout? He obviously knows everything already.

Indeed.

I absolutely agree with Neutrino on all those points.

And what if PA would bring back some of those features. Let's look at adjacency.
There was one way to use mass storage: around your extractors. And you better don't build them before your last defendable T1 mex was upgraded to T2. Number of interesting choices: 0

Power around factories: In most cases it was not worth the bother tbh. 4 air facs around a hyd was useful. Number of interesting choices: 1

T3 mass fab/PG farm: Two ways to build; save or prone to self-destruction through chain explosions. Number of interesting choices: 0.25 (You really don't want to risk the whole thing blowing sky high...)

That is a lot of complexity with very little return at the end of the day. It might fool you for a while but at the end of the day there is only one way that is most efficient and every decent player will use it. In the end it is just something you have to do if you want to compete. Something that keeps you from more interesting tasks like controlling your units.

well said

You get interesting choices with localised economies.

Uh okay. I am 38, and personally I don't feel that young. I normally don't respond to silly comments like this, but I have to say this as it's related to the subject.

If I have the choice of a game where I can only build what is called a mass extractor, and that's it. Then I have a game where I can build mass extractors, upgrade them too, and also build a storage compartment directly next to it to boost it even more.

Well, I know for a fact already which game I would like more. If that is ignorant, I don't understand your train of thought.

Yes, but that's taking an exact copy of what SupCom had, but you don't have to do building adjacency a direct copy of that game. You can, actually, make up your own way of doing building adjacency with your own set of rules and rewards.

i liked the little mass generating crosses

Then please provide examples of a working system so we can shoot it full of holes for you. The problem with TA/SupCom/PA is the fact that Mass/Metal is 'hard' to get, primarily due to being limited to certain locations on the map, while Energy is 'easy' to get simply by building Power Generators.

So you get these situations where you provide options, but 9 times out of 10 you have a single option that offers the best outcome it terms of mass, and the rest are insignificant.

Have you ever, actually build a Factory next to an Extractor?

Having options is great and dandy if they are all sufficiently equal, but given the nature of the Metal/Energy system, that's hard if not impossible.

Mike