Considering the fabrication process work as describe here : The stats of a vehicule fabricator are : The stats of a plane fabricator are : It means that energy cost of a construction is not related to the construction itself, but to the constructors. And we arrive at the conclusion that plane are terrible constructors, since they need twice more energy to produce the same amount of metal than a vehicule fabricator. conclusion : never use plane constructor ______________________________ edit : You can easily calculate the efficiency of a constructor by dividing the energy consumtion by the metal consumtion. You obtain the energy cost to produce 1 metal. here a short list of efficencies : commander : 50 vehicule T1 fab : 100 plane T1 fab : 200 Vehicule factory T1 : 45 bot Factory T1 : 56 plane factory T1 : 92 The factories are much more efficient than the constructors. Conclusion assisting a factory with constructors cost a lot of energy, prefere to build multiple factories. I get all the information from the wiki : http://planetaryannihilation.gamepedia.com/Fabrication
It's called a trade off, these are often used when balancing out other capabilities of a given unit. For example the fact that Air Fabbers are the most flexible, they work on land, sea and areas of raised land other Land Fabbers can't reach. Mike
Plane fabbers still have their use. On water maps for fast expansion to new islands (vehicles won't be able to walk through water forever) easy patrollers for base maintenance (no pathfinding issues) or to build fast forward bases (easy to get there and easy to evacuate). As mike has said, its a trade off. I really like that factories are more efficient. Although in late game you'll still assist them because you run faster out of defensible space then place where you can build more.
Energy cost is only one factor in efficiency. A higher metal cost also makes the constructor less efficient, making them less viable for main production. As it stands, the air fabber requires a little more than twice the cost and infrastructure when compared to land. That's really bad when factories are the best constructors, and you need the land space to use them instead.
Don't bot fabbers cost 180 metal and have identical stats to vehicle fabbers except a superior turn rate? Shouldn't one compare those?
you wouldn't want super flying fabbers spamming turrets around your base don't you :lol: its just a balance thingy.
Also keep in mind that aircraft can be stacked, making factory assist/spam building too easy if construction aircraft weren't inefficient (see TA for example).
Stats of the bot fab are exactly the same as vehicle fabs, except they cost 45 lest metal to make. From viewing it also seems they move faster and turn faster, so they seem to be much better - though they also seem to die faster. Meanwhile, advanced variants have triple the production rate, at triple the power consumption, for some quintuple production cost (1350/1000 for vehicle/bot). Same appears to run true for the advanced plane fab
