Front line Engineers

One of the primary features, that if not a feature but instead a mod, is bringing fabbers to the front line of unit combat.
What I mean by this is, when you band box select units with a fabber or two, and the fabber in the group auto reclaim mass, more importantly, auto repair.
Currently the only way/last time I checked, was to have a fabber assist a unit, which kinda fails.

Had an awesome game with an AI, with a bunch of units with a couple of fabbers, repairing key units, and just have a neat juggernaut of units attacking the AI base.

A secondary feature I would like to see is way of restricting a single type of fabber to be built from any factory, Supreme Commander I felt did this well.
Reason being that there are just too many units, particularly fabbers, which get lost in the map against their associated type, eg bot fabber next to a few other bots.

I am not sure about the last parts of your post.

I do like the first parts. One of them is technically a feature, being able to have fabbers assist a combat unit and follow them and repair them. The other is something they can add when they improve UI, being able to auto-reclaim when around reclaim after a combat.

Having fabbers in a combat group should make the fabbers function as such. It will probably come. Meanwhile, just have a few fabbers in your group and either manually (micro) repair the units or stick them in assisting some units.

Area commands will be in the game. So you'll be able to tell fabricators to just repair any units in a blob of units. So that issue will be solved.

One fabrication unit being able to build anything is a definite no. Multiple types of fabricators increase the strategy in the game.

It isn't a super big deal though. The only thing fabricators can't do is build an advanced factory of a different unit type.

Forever and without you having to reissue the order?

I like the idea of battle-engineers with many hit points and maybe an ability to protect the structures which they are building. Anything else wouldn't make sense imo.

Maybe.

Area commands are being worked on. We only have a vague idea of what they'll accomplish – not the details.

So maybe, maybe not.

Could be a neat unit idea.

Battle fabricators – where they can't build buildings, or maybe can only build defensive structures, not factories or economy buildings. And then they can repair and reclaim and have more health.

Probably been mentioned on the massive unit ideas thread though.

Don't they auto heal when on patrol ??

Most units die in 1-2 hits. There is no point in making an "extra durable" engineer when everything is made of wet cardboard.

Just like, use more of them or something.

Bumping an old thread (hurrah for search...)

I've been looking at engineers, and part of the problem seems to be that T1 vehicle fabricators are made of tissue paper, never mind wet cardboard. They seem to have one useful function: to build advanced vehicle factories. Otherwise, spam T1 fab bots.

Really, T1 fab vehicles are the anomaly in the whole 'vehicles vs bots' design. Vehicles = slower, more expensive to build, but more durable. To recap:

• T1 fab bot: same cost as a Dox, the same speed as a Dox, and ~double the HP of a Dox (in lieu of a weapon?)
• T1 fab vehicle: same cost as an Ant, faster than an Ant (Dox-speed), and less HP than an Ant.

Subject to the usual disclaimer about the balance phase not having started yet: how about making T1 fab vehicles more vehicle-like? Slow them down to Ant-speed, buff their HP to more than an Ant. Same with T2: slow T2 fab vehicles down to Leveler speed, buff their HP to more than a Leveler. Then, we'd have engineers that were more durable, and could be useful as part of an attack force.

TL;DR: Give fabrication vehicles a HP buff, cut their speed.

That won't work, because engineers aren't combat units. Being slower doesn't save them from battle, and a melee range lathe isn't that effective either. The best option for a non combat unit, when it is confronted by enemy units, is to run away.

More health only delays the inevitable. Given PA's rocket tag stat line, the delay will go from "practically nothing" to "not quite nothing".

Currently nothing has passive health regen.

I think if you put them on patrol, they will repair stuff.

Why would you EVER build vehicle fabs then? Every project takes longer to complete?

I do like the idea of battle fabbers.

A combat Fabber, would be able to build like a normal fabber, but is far less efficient in doing so. The unit would have higher HP or high armor, also would have a weak gun, able to fight back against small raids. This unit would be more costly then the normal kind, and would be only good for building front line bases/defenses, at a reduced rate as they would be 1/2 or even 1/4 of the efficiency of a normal fabber.

This would be a good hybrid of a combat/fabber unit, it wouldn't be able to do either of those roles well, but it would be able to do them. Aka, A jack of all trades, isn't as good as a more specialized unit.

T1 fabricators are one of the most useful units in the game. No idea where you pulled this 'only one useful function' garbage from...

Not sure if you guys realise, but the more fabbers the more flexible you are. Im currently getting around 30 bot fabbers, and 20 - 25 vehicle fabbers by the 10 min mark. Incredibly useful units.

T1 fabricators are useful, absolutely. But, bots are cheaper to build: 900 metal buys 5 fab bots or 4 fab vehicles. As a bot and a vehicle have the same build power and efficiency, bots are better from an economic point of view. There are plenty of good games on YouTube based on spamming T1 fab bots, and almost no T1 fab vehicles (which granted, proves whose YouTube videos I watch, rather than necessarily anything more substantial...).

Sure, economy is only part of the game - whatever works for you.

Currently. Just think, if this is really that obvious then Uber is already well aware of it. The Current balance is not really indicative of anything regarding future balance.

Mike

Yes but no.

That ONLY matters if you are relying on storage. Otherwise metal cost is arbitrary. It takes 15 seconds to build both fabbers. If you can afford the extra 3 metal for the factory it doesn't make a significant difference. You build them in the beginning because 3 metal per second represents 10% of your economy.

When you go T2, you should be building the factory you intend to build the most military units of. If you are never going to build slammers it's a waste to build the bot Factory first.

Having more vehicle fabbers means you can build your first T2 factory in multiple places. And I have started to encounter people who have spammed T1 air fabbers. It isn't strictly efficient, but they just drop down defences in front of any force they can intercept. The ants and doxen can't fire back at all. It isn't strictly efficient, but it works for some people.

ZaphodX is just ONE player. He does what works for him.

That depends on who you are watching... It is indeed correct that the reason we always build bot fabricators at the beginning is because of the cost, but that becomes completely negligible after the 100 metal income mark. I know for a fact that everybody has bigger economy issues to fix than worrying about the minute difference in cost of the 2 fabricators. In any case, you NEED vehicle fabricators to get T2 land. If you are building a T2 bot factory, your not even thinking about what you are doing.

Well I play with near pure bot fabricators. Bots are faster to move to key locations and build the structures you need outside your base.
When I want a T2 vehicule factory, I'll have a fairly well sized group of bots available to build an ant factory, pump out a vehicule fabricator and then T2 vehicule factory asisted with the bots and single vehicule fabricators. The ant factory will have its use anyway so it's not a loss.
Aside from the above, I just don't bother at all with vehicule fabricators.

The only difference between bot fabricators and vehicle fabricators is the cost and health. There are no other differences.