What's Everyone's Thoughts on Metal Quantities?

What's everyone's thoughts on current metal quantities?

Seems the general consensus is that the reduced metal quantities slow down the game too much.

Personally, I'd like to see a small increase in metal. Just a small one. I'd also like to see at least 3 metal spots at spawn locations and more clumps. Single metal spots scattered around seem to reduce a little of the strategy. If instead of one metal spot every so often, have clumps of 2-5 metal spots every further often (if that makes sense). This will make protecting the metal spots a little easier and taking the metal spots a little harder.

Although, it's a little difficult to say what it'll be like as interplanetary stuff develops a little further.

I'm guessing the reason Uber reduced the amount of metal is because players will control entire planets, providing a huge boost to their economy, and if planets had as much metal as they used to, then economies would be crazy large. Which could be good, could be bad – depending on what side of the coin you're looking at.

I'm curious to see how gameplay is when there's 3 or 5 planets and players start out on different planets. That'll be interesting stuff.

At any rate. Rambling over.

What's everyone else's thoughts?

The metal changes made them kinda too rare, before it was too much. Somewhere in the middle should be good I'd say.

I actually agree with just about every point you made. However, I beleive that starting on different planets is critical in those very situations. If you build up properly, yo ucan be orbital in 15 minutes or less, which is my current strategy in every game, get extra-planetary and let the rest fight it out and simply deal with the survivor and build up my defenses the whole time.

Also the fewer metal makes turtling more powerful you can pin enemy in to 1/4 planet and have 3/4 planet but if they have t 2 metal on that 1/4 they are your equal. Were as before if they gave you 3/4 planet so they could rush t 2 there were enough metal points to break there turtle......don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing

Surely you could then be building T2 metal yourself?

of course but since they rushed t2 they are ahead or even

Ah, sorry, your wording didn't make that clear. I see what you're saying now.

I don't think their is a general consensus on the amount of metal. Quite a lot of people like it and the main problem is more about the distribution for each starting positions.

I kind of like the way things are right now as well.
Personally I don't mind the game going off to a bit of a slow start because it allows you a moment to take stock of your surroundings and plan the rest of your build accordingly.

My one gripe with the current metal quantity is being forced to build T2 metal extractors at all. I don't like that T2 extractors are a direct upgrade from T1, and that they are now necessary to keep your economy competitive. I do feel that there is room for there to be a specialised Advanced metal extractor, which is only suitable or desirable in a certain set of circumstances.

As it is at the moment, you will always want to build a T2 rather than a T1, making T1 largely redundant late-game.

remember the Rule of 10 . turtling to T2 will never give you the advantage early game.

But to stay on topic: I like the fact that there is less mass. It forces you to expand and confront your opponent.
The only thing that I dont like atm is that 1/4 of the mass is unusable cuz of bad placement.

edit: funny thing is I really dont see the point in taking all the mass point or making alot of T2 atm. Having 10 T2 mass points is more than enough. I have never been in a situation that I wasnt overflowing after 15 mins.

I do not want more metal points... i'm having a hard enough time killing commanders before they tech up to orbital and jump off the planet... needlessly lengthing the game unless they are going to throw a nuke at me as my army will always tear through their base and i'll beable to spam 30 orbital factorys before they even make it to their planet then go hunt them down while they are just building their new base xD the current metal supply is fine they just need to patch the glitched ones you can't build on and then maybe fix up pathfinding abit more so our builders don't get stuck on rocks

*edit* I do not want more metal points for standard games... you can use the slider to have you free metal for all games and so forth but if they are put in there needs to be a way for the players to be able to see that it has been changed from the normal so something like a % on the lobby for each planet 100% would be normal metal spawn 50% would be half and 200% would be 2x the normal amount

T2 extractors give far too much metal IMO. The game should be changed such that expanding with T1 extractors is more beneficial than doubling up on the ones you already hold. You should only have to make T2 extractors when you run out of territory for T1.

The above change, in conjunction with "clumps" of metal points, instead of a vast spread, would make territory control and land grabbing more interesting I think. They are so spread out now and each individual point is worth so little, that they are not worth defending on a point by point basis. Think of each clump of metal points like a conquest point in most versions of territory control gametypes in FPS and some RTS games. If they are numerous and spread all over, then each point is worth less overall.

I agree. I'd like to see more clusters and fewer sparse patches. I like that there are a few single patches here or there, they can serve as a nice bonus to whatever clusters I find, and the distracting aerial battles that take place in those lonely parts of the world are fun, I would just like fewer of them.

I also agree with just about everything said in the OP. Just a small increase in metal and a fair bit more density so that we have more defined resource areas to focus on and fight over would help the game tremendously.

You guys ARE using reclaim for that last bit of eco boost, right? RIGHT?

I don't think we should settle for one set amount or distribution layout. I'd like to see some maps with not much metal, some with tonnes, some with clumps and some spread out. Why? Because if metal distribution is always similar then the games are more likely to evolve a dominant strategy present in all sup com competitive play.

Variety is king in a random map generator!

In my opinnion,it would be good to see a slight increase in the metal spots,but personally i don't mind it as it is.

I'm glad everyone likes my metal clumping idea.

I really liked that about Alpha. There were major fights over metal clumps and it really was a major part of gameplay strategy.

I like the clumping thoughts, but I think that there is currently enough metal (if you count the ones you can't build on due to them being under mountains and stuff). With current metal distribution i've been able to leave the planet even on size 2 worlds... armies are smaller, but you can make them bigger with T2 exctrators and stuff.

so put me down for same metal as now, clumped, and all of it usable.