I'm worried

As far as early crash goes it's pretty much inevitable to me, now how hard of a crash would be the question.

You've missed the point. It's not about you having to ask about build orders; it's that there are build orders AT ALL that bothers me.

This has been my stance since day one and it saddens me that they exist in such a tangible way in Planetary Annihilation, especially since Jon has said in the past that he wishes to eliminate them. That Build Orders exist as a barrier for entry (as is evident since you and others have been asking for them) is a strike against the game. It should be solved, but answers for it aren't forthcoming from Uber at present.

Your n00biness doesn't bother me; the state of the game and Uber's lack of information on the issue does.

I think there probably shouldn't be an "optimal" starting build as such. It does vary but something like factory first isn't really viable. In supcom you had a bit of a choice how much eco you wanted to build up before a factory which would help you either tech or rush. Though your starting resources were a bit too low for a first factory it could be made to work. FA went completely the other direction and gave you so many resources that first factory was the only choice.

There should be a balance so that you can choose what you want to build first, each choice is meaningful, and there isn't a "wrong" choice as such.

The downtime at the beginning where you are just building things according to rote learning isn't good gameplay. The very first thing you should do right out of the gate is make a meaningful decision, start making decisions and don't stop.

There's going to have to be one or the other. If factory first is possible and viable why wouldn't you?? There's no tech to research so..... just trying to eco is going to put you light years behind the person who used all available resources to start

Because you are getting units out before you can technically afford them. It won't crash you if the balance is right but it will slow your eco compared to a pure techer. Therein lies the choice.

You don't have to have Factory First be the only 'meaningful' decision availible to the player, however introducing anything more than that would mean Uber would have to greatly expand the potential and situationally viable options for how you can 'Eco first', or 'Intel first', or 'Anything-other-than-Military-Presence first'

That sounds more like civilization IMO. Who knows perhaps they're will with the load of proposed game types

Having meaningful choices as to what you build first sounds like civilization to you?!

The balance is really simple to make btw. Just start with enough resources in the bank + commander income to build at least one factory and then some. Depending on how much the "some" is it will be more or less viable to start with one up until the point where the "some" no longer hurts your ability to build more eco while building units. After that point the factory first is the only viable choice. The balance lies between these two points.

Considering how many people still like playing 'SimCity' with their bases it seems a shame that it's an entirely unrewarded gameplay-wise IMO.

Isn't it kind of possible now anyway depending on the situation?? Meaning larger planet few players, military first is still a choice but economy is generally a better choice.....

Not really, the faster you have engineers the faster you can expand. Expanding leads to more economic growth than trying to 'Eco first' with just your Commander.

At the end of the day it's a game of military action, while I understand what you're saying the game isn't really built to play sim city, it's about some aspects like economic management but only in an attempt to see your enemies driven before you!!!

If I want to play sim city I go play sim city....

That is a fair enough point of course, I'm just sayin' it would be nice is all.

So what do you suggest?? Fast commander mode?? Then it's more than likely going to be battles of one unit. Any game of strategy is going to have that one track that's going to be more profitable than others 75% of the time, I really see not way around that. I think pa is doing very well with multiple choices as far as what kind of military you want, aside from balance issues currently, and the droll of the initial start of 3/1 factory like you say, after that however it's anyone's game.

Unless you are crashing something. If you don't have enough resources to get engineers then going for engineers first will be significantly slower than building eco with the commander. In supcom you had to build at least 1 extractor before a factory. In FA you had to start with a factory. Costs and rates were exactly the same. Only difference was how much you had in the bank to start with. If what you said was true, this difference would not exist.

The point of having a balance point is that you might get an engineer out before the other guy but you will have sacrificed a stable economy to do so. Having some extra power backing your builds before you do them helps those builds finish faster, but postpones your ability to get units.
The ideal eco build works better because while you get engineers later, you are able to get more of them fast enough to outweigh the benefit of getting them earlier. Thus your total rate of expansion goes up but your initial expansion is slower.
The benefit of getting units first is you can harass the enemy to slow their expansion enough to outweigh what you sacrificed, thus making it a total gain. Ghetto gunship wins being the most extreme example.

This same principle applies on a larger scale where focussing on T1 spam can win you the game, at the cost of your ability to tech up and expand your eco.

For supcom the balance point lies somewhere between vanilla and FA. 750 starting mass I think was the value I came up with. Obviously costs and rates in PA are different and so the balance point will be different.

I'm not at the point of suggesting any way to fix it yet. First I need a 'complete' unit roster and all of the major/minor features of the Early game to be ironed out to a point at which suggestions can actually hold some form of significance. Without the roster Uber still haven't tipped their hand, and I'd prefer the professionals to at least have a chance to balance it and call it final before I throw out what I'd change.

The only thing I'm doing right now is pointing out the issues. It's up to Uber to either listen to them or ignore them. Only once they've made that decision can I take a stab at my own solutions.

As I explained the balance is defined almost entirely by factory cost vs starting resources. It's pretty simple to balance because of that. There are other factors but they are not as important.

It's balanced by the utility and ease of transition into your main strategy of either opening. Resource cost is a part of that, yes; but it isn't the main factor. All the starting resource generation does is limit the available options.

What does that mean? Unless your strategy involves not building anything I don't see how costs are not a main factor. The point is you can choose what to build.
Currently the same choice is always valid for all strategies: build extractors + 1 energy first. There is no other choice.

Exactly, since any other opening is sub-optimal for the utility and transitional ease into other strategies.
Thus you have an 'accepted build order'; something you must either know or learn, before you can play the game with any chance of success.