Metal Makers

Yes, the goal is the same. But Zero-k overdrive is more complicated.*
With my proposition, each boosted mex would for example produce 1 metal for 50 excess energy. And I think it fit well the new resource model with units with capacitor.

* If you have 4 mexes and 250 energy excess, can you tell me how much metal do I gain?

Sometimes it seems that the most of the posters didn't actually even like TA and SC:FA, because they're against all the old ways, which makes me wonder why are they here...

People who have been playing those games for a long time are well aware that those games aren't perfect. Their's no point making a new game if you aren't interested in improving the mechanics that didn't work well in the previous games(or that you believe could work better). You might as well just go back to playing FA if that's the way you want it.

They're here because they want PA to be the best game it can be. Their's still lots of room for improvement in the TA-like sub-genre; don't act so surprised that the players who really care about these games are willing to admit its faults, especially if that means those faults might be fixed.

I'm not especially for metal makers, but I think there should be another way to increase your metal-income than just by building more mexes. Whether this is achieved by Overdrive, continuous mex-upgrades, metal makers or something else isn't that important to me.

Overdrive is an okay system. The big problem is that it is impossible to determine the status of those extractors. Sure, you can try to eyeball the spinning bits, but other than that you have no idea how much metal the enemy is getting. Clarity on the enemy status is just as important as clarity for the player.

I think a new system is required. It is a game about destroying planets, so perhaps the metal maker mechanic should be tied to planetary destruction? Take for example:

Mantle extractor
- Expensive to build, extreme energy to operate
- Works nearly anywhere
- proximity to other mantle extractors reduces efficiency, still making territory control most important
- Creates a lava catastrophe when destroyed, permanently damaging the planet.

You still get the high cost -> low return mechanic, and it has much more serious limits to prevent abuse. They can't be parked in the base because they need just as much territory as normal extractors. Raiding units will LOVE blowing these things up.

How is a stationary reclaimer going to be effective at scouring the field?

Reclaimer scouts are where it's at. They're fast, cheap, and pay off quickly. With such a unit, every battle's aftermath becomes a second battle all its own.

Can one of the players who voted that they want metal makers actually post why they are needed? (Needed, not nice to have.)

I have seen a couple of compelling arguments from veteran RTS players why metal makers are a constant cause for balancing and game mechanics problems. The only argument in favor of metal makers seems to be that they add the choice to invest into a larger economy for the player. That choice comes at a price if the MMs are efficient, look at SupCom2. Metal Makers were completely broken in that game. (As were so many other things.)

The only way to make them balanced is to make them extremely inefficient and probably even more expensive than in FA. In that case: Why add them at all?

The permanently damaging area is a nice bit, although there is potential exploitation from self destruction at choke points or such. It does however mean that if it is destroyed you need to permanently pay its cost in space and then some.

Similarly the radius bit is nice but i can't help but feel that if you start implementing that you will soon just be enforcing a secondary range of structures over your game. it becomes near mandatory (even if its inefficient) to build mexs and these extractors. The key thing about a metal maker is that you can do it inside your base, essentially turning excess energy into metal, either it can be made to work better or we consider having it thrown out entirely.

it is good if you have alot of energy but it is not necisary if they raise the output of meatal extractors

Well it depends where you are fighting

In a defencive posture, it could be great.

Of course any reclaiming combat/scout unit would also be great, I just wish harbingers in SupCom would do it automatic, as I really do think that that ability (And if their healing was worth it's money) makes the harbinger the best T3 assault bot economically as they can gather back their cost in the field and even give the player enough of a boost after a battle to push their production to ludicrous levels.

In my experience, you don't want a high powered combat unit stopping to pick the roses. That happened in Supcom2 with support engineers, and it was annoying as hell. The engis would follow the army until they came across the first bits of wreckage, at which point they stop repairing units(repair was FAST) and stay back to pick things up. Reclaiming was slow in the game, so by the time you wanted engies in the third battle they'd be way back still picking up after the first one. I raged every single time, because their behavior was causing units to die.

Let a non-combatant do the role. Do you feel bad if a scout isn't part of a battle? No, it's a scout. Are you annoyed if they separate from the army? Of course not, a scout is supposed to be separate from the army. Do you hate it when a scout reclaims wreckage 3 times its own value, accomplishing something it could have never done in battle? Hell no. Give that guy a medal.

Well it's about priority's for the unit, repair and attack over reclaiming.
And as I recall only normal engineers could reclaim, the UEF support engineers could only repair.
And really any reclaiming that wasn't a building or experimental was more or less instantaneous. (Not to mention that most units were more or less expected to die anyway, so repair wasn't as important when compared to regeneration).

But yeah, harbingers with reclaim, even manually can be a awesome power to behold (Give em a go on the first FA mission(It's a great sand box) during the last objective, reclaiming all those seraphim tanks and experimental is really a huge boost, I could run 20 factory's off their spoils of war for the rest of the mission, they really were as close to self-replicating machines as it gets!)

But I can understand the concerns (Why not both?), So I would love to see a reclaiming attack unit included some where, maybe on a submarine?

I'm in for metal makers. Especially for planets that aren't metal rich (like carbon planets, gas giants...).

The SupComFA model seemed fine to me. How much was the ratio there? Like 3500 energy into 12 mass or so (without the adjacent buildings bonuses)?

That's the problem more than anything else. When a unit is given an order, it is difficult to determine if you want them to sweep the land for resources OR sweep the land for hostiles, or maybe you want a bit of both? I don't know. Doing both is messy on the interface and can lead to unpredictable or stupid behavior (and supcom2 shows some stupid behavior).

It's even worse for harbringers because they're a front line unit. When they stop to reclaim something, all the missile launchers and artillery weapons (and other harbringers) are moving up to their doom.

The scout would do both. It attacks with the reclaim gun, and it sucks up resources with the reclaim gun. They are one and the same. But when a scout meets the enemy, there is no question between whether they reclaim or fight. The proper response is to run!

A scout however has no chance to fight, even an infantry bot with a reclaimer would be fun to use.

Reclaiming as a proper combat method is a good idea, even with a scout reclaimer some times there is no option to not do it in combat conditions, so why not a combat reclaimer?

This is entirely a matter of semantics. A combat unit that sacrifices power to gain a utility gun is exactly the same as a utility gun that can go into combat. The only difference is that one unit isn't described properly, and the other one is.

When it comes to harvesting wreckage it's best to use a simple, cheap unit that can be safely removed from your army. A front line assault bot is the wrong choice. Their role is to stay on the move and continue pushing against other enemy units/bases. A scout is the right choice. Their role is to explore territory and quickly identify threats. The scouts can spread out, some cleaning up the previous battle and some searching for the next one. Meanwhile, the front line assault bots can continue their march. It's a great system where you need both roles to succeed.

That is, unless you can find a better use for a scout, where it is worth building more than half a dozen over the entire game.

LOS spotting because there is no radar for ground targets?

They are not needed. This whole game is not needed, no one dies without its existence

But they add more alternatives to the player and more alternatives = more depth = more replay value.

I can see few reason why metal makers are good to have:

-If you are getting more energy than you need and wasting energy (if the planet is energy rich for example), you can change the energy into metal to gain more profit.

-You can hide your economy. Your enemy knows were mexes are, but MMs can be anywhere.

-At some point, expanding becomes unprofitable, because more land you control = more difficult to defense. So at that point, you could still grow your economy with MMS.

-There is no limits of how much you can get resources per second, which is one thing that made TA and Supreme Commander unique. And this game is going to have even less limits.

Veterans from what game? SC2, vanilla SC or SC:FA? If the veteran players are from some game where they were unbalanced then it is not surprise.

I haven't really seen people use them often in FA, so why would you need to nerf them even more?

I can name over 150 units in Total Annihilation that did the same thing. I don't think we're fighting with an army of blind Shaolin monks... though TA could leave you wondering at times.

Yes, a scout tends to be fast and well capable of exploration. That also means they're the first unit to reach planetary resources and wreckage. Seeing it is good, but bringing some home is even better. Amirite?

Reclaiming was an important part of previous games, and having it in any capacity will make it very important in PA. It works on a "first come, first serve" basis, so it makes sense to have a fast unit dedicated to grabbing those resources.

An overdrive-like system would cover that, without the plethora of problems that the flat MM brings

Which would probably a bad thing. First, it would be hard to balance : either MM are weak, you will loose against someone grabbing the metal spots and MMs are then useless there, or MM are strong, making this a viable strategy and land grab useless.
In one case MM are useless and thus unnecessary, in the other it kills most of the interesting gameplay. And I doubt there is even an accessible sweet spot between those.

Which is precisely the point : you fight for resources, meaning that you fight for territory. If you have a bigger territory, you have more resources. The enemy has more choices of where to hit you, but you have more choices of how to defend and how to attack, having more resources.

Again, an overdrive-like mechanic would cover that (without lessening the value of land grab).

So no, please no flat Metal Makers. While the Zero-K version of overdrive is a bit complicated, some way to overdrive mexes (or another way to convert energy with diminishing results/that keeps territory relevant) would be a far better solution to the problem, if there is even a problem.

The problem with metal makers is that they are almost impossible to balance. If you make tem too good, you get supcom 2, where after getting mass conversion mass extractors became next to useless. Since that option isn't very desirable, it would be better to nerf them to the point of barely being effective, which would cause most players not to even use them. Thus, make them too effective and you have no expansion, make them not effective and nobody uses them. ( I can't see a middle point between these two ever appearing)

There are much more creative ways that can be implemented to gain metal that doesn't involve a system with so many problems attached.