GUI ~ Build Grid

The problem with adjency bonuses is they followed an internal logic which made no intuitive sense and was all maths. There was also very little optimization choice in how to lay out a base, which is where I believe the statement on having to lay out a base in a centain way comes from. In Balanced Annihilation games there are many ways to go about blocking(I'm using the term liberally to extend to internal base layouts to control traffic and attack paths.)

The 'micro' that ensues from sending your first units into the enemy's base usually also carries with it a lot of interactions, context sensitive player decisions and implications- like whether to target the metal extractor or energy farm; where I want to position my units to avoid getting shot at; whether to sacrifice unit sustainability while being chased to quickly destroy a target; what can I do before my enemy gets another defending unit out. These are decisions the player usually wants to watch over.

Although, blocking in Balanced Annihilation isn't just restricted to stoping first minute rushes.

I just as well think buildings requiring space around them is wierd. Buildings in real life have space to move people and things around them. If I'm not going move units through a particular space, then it's useless to me.

This would seem to be the case.

And I'd wager using a unit like a door is an extreme case.

Except that the problem in Starcraft is the map, where in every single map you would begin on a cliff with exactly one small ramp.
There is no such maps in TA nor in SupCom.
With more creative maps, the ramp blocking is not a problem anymore.

You reject the idea for a scenario that will most likely never happen.

I don't reject the idea. I will use it if it turns out to be effective, but:

The ramp scenario unit-as-door is the only scenario where it makes sense to use production buildings as a wall in all games I know. (okay I only really know SC2 and FA) It is the only scenario I know where this all makes sense. Why should anybody use factories to make a wall if they can build a real wall for a very small fraction of the price? Wall-elements in FA have incredible 4000 HP per Mass. There is no reason to ever use factories to make a wall, it is way better to use real walls and protect your production facilities behind them. If you were to make a line of factories as a wall in FA to slow down enemies you would get serious production-issues, since they could shoot at your factories and you would only be able to watch them from the other side of the factory-line.
I don't see why changing the balance-numbers to favor walls made out of factories would make a sense for gameplay.

Also it makes sense for factories to have space between them, since newly build units need a way out.

To put me opinion very simple:
Wall-elements should be used to build cheap walls.
Factories should produce units.

This. I HATE it when everything is freeplace... What if I want to place two buildings far enough apart that I can fit something in between them later? I want to make sure there's enough room! Give me SOME sort of snapping...

Crazy idea, but instead of grid snapping, you have the snapping be from building to building? Kinda a minimum distance, but you could toggle it between none, small(single unit?) or large(multiple/big units?)? You could at least be getting a base that could grow in an organized manner if you chose. But with none of the grid issues

I'd hate it if there's no grid. The thing I hate most about CnC 3 is that there's no grid.
An automatic grid with spacing etc wouldn't be enough for me, since there'd still be disorganizedness.

How about a simple setting instead of a complicated auto-recognition system.

+1 Great idea!

Or learn a new system.

Grids on Spheres just don't work mathematically.

Good idea.

False.

There are 5 regular convex restricted polyhedra (they are called platonic polyhedra or solids), and therefore homogenouse or symmetric grids to a sphere. That they have at most 20 sides, may be likewise to less for a implememtation into the game.
There is a infinite amount of inhomogenouse grids to a sphere.

there are even orthogonal grids on spheres, but the surfaces are not quadratic or even rectangular.

Yeah forgot that the spheres arent all the same size.....