I'm not sure to understand what you mean. Here is what I understand: - You don't want to be able to go factory first, because currently, you are using the time used to make the first pgen & mexes that come before the factory to prepare yourself. It doesn't make any sense to me. What are you preparing for? What do you do that is necessary during these 3 minutes? There can't be any unit on the field before the first factory is made. So building a factory first or not won't change the time you have to react to anything, it will only increase the period where you can't do anything meaningful. Also, to answer the other question "How is that different from a quick start"? I'm guessing that you mean "pre-build base". It is different because you can make 3 types of factories. Or you make an option to be able to select the factory you want, but it overly complicated when just allowing factory first solve the issue of having a brain dead game for the first 3 min.
This. Hopefully this will be one of your suggestions. It will either control the startup income to be roughly the startup power/mex, or will unpack into your choice of factory or something, or will allow really fast building and no cost (the power and metal are derived from the egg so the egg is destroyed after used for startup but for it's short startup use it uses it's own metal and energy).
I don't want options, options divide communities and don't make it into matchmaking or ranked play; I want good defaults. What we have now is not a good default because I see no purpose to the first two minutes of the game at the moment.
Related but separate issue: In a recent patch Uber made team play start with only one commander. Why did they do that? I liked having multiple commanders. It saves a lot of wrestling over the units in the early stage of the game. Also, we each may have a favorite. That's important to me too.
I have not been playing the game for this exact reason. The early game is too slow and not meaningful especially with such a low selection of units.
Why? you don't think that having one Commander for 2-5 people counts as a slow early game? The Impact this change has on the pace of team games is huge. Mike
Until it's verified as an intentional change and not a bug, then no. I don't recall seeing it in the patch notes.
I don't play much, but from my limited play time, I'd say I quite enjoy having some "auto-pilot" time during the early stages. It allows me to have a little bit of a gander at the world, metal spots etc. and get my self organised. I could be misunderstanding the point of the argument though, so sorry in advance if so!
When this game was in alpha people originally thought at the beginning it was a 1 for 1deal eg 1 MEX = 1 Energy, Other people worked out this wasn't true that 3 to 1 was the better rule. Personally I think this becomes a great time to concentrate on your strategy and what you're going to do. I'm not expecting to play a RTS where my APM is a major factor and my tactics generally aren't that important. I want to scout the map and have the mystery of where is my opponent. See their responses when they detect my scout and imagine maybe I've come from that direction turtle up facing that way and me to attack in their blind spot. NOT because I can play at 300 apm and get carpal tunnel from enjoying the game. Thats not fun to me
I agree the first couple of minutes of the game add little. You can take some time to look around what the terrain looks like and where metal spots are before choosing your start location, so there's no need to do that while waiting for you to get enough eco to build your first factory. I think I'd prefer a combination of 2 and 4, so up the commander income a bit and give more starting resources.
Personally I think until we have all the units and the devs start looking at balance and what not that this discussion is premature.
No, prior to implementation is exactly when these things should be discussed because we want to influence what that implementation looks like.
Making factory first an optimal build is good, it gives you more options at the start and starts you strategically thinking from the get go instead of building a certain number of mex/pgen.
I agree with this. Option two seems like the best. Having more resources at the beginning lets you have more choices in terms of what to build and therefore more diverse build orders. It doesn't make the game faster. It basically just skips the boring part in the beginning.
I support the OP's motivation, the only solution in my eyes however is to increase the starting resources rather so the player retains the choice. I'm sure starting resource will be configurable however. What the hell is the Egg? Is it well defined or are we just guessing?
I think Uber should make interplanetary T1, so that even if the gameplay is slow at early game it doesn't matter because you're giggling at the prospect of sneakily taking over a few asteroids for your cause. I think we should dump more flammable ideas into this thread.
This is surely not a significant problem. There may be not much variation until the first factory appears but the factory is always the 5th or 6th building to be placed and that's at most 3 minutes or so into the game.
My solution: * Basic metal makers will produce 14 metal/second This reduces the value of a fast T2 tech-up and speeds up the early game. Advanced metal makers will still produce 28 like now. * Basic energy will produce 1000/second. Advanced energy will produce 7500 (so that they are still economically a better deal than basic). This will speed up the early game AND reduce the value of rushing to T2, which I presently think is mandatory.
