Actually I'm a noob and have never claimed any different. You just have to watch one of my gameplay videos to see I am a pretty weak and inefficient player. It is a fact that you should be using all of your eco and not wasting it on metal storages you don't need if you are spending your eco effectively.
I a perfect world we defiantly wouldn't need any storage, but when you are between managing troops and the economy its much nicer to have a buffer that you can then rapidly spend later.
reading all this makes me think .. wtf? 1. no one of us is the AI .. so effiently using all resources all time is .. the AI? .. there will always be critical circumstances which makes you micro alot and so wasting resources 2. what to do if (in future) you spawn at a planet all alone .. I think u would not choose to build massive amounts of tanks and stuff directly .. building up higher tier buildings will use up your eco aswell but I think everyone would like to build up a strong eco with lots of storage for the later clash of incoming forces and planets .. 3. even single moments of wasting mass are a justification for massstorages .. they are not that expensive .. and I think even "topplayers" will build at least one storage for safety 4 .. and everything igncom1 said above .. (lol .. too late) moldez
@Zaphod So who do you actually know that will not waste any metal, especially in the longer games? Because if all players that waste metal are by definition weak, and you call yourself weak, then who is left?
It's not that difficult. There is no competitive scene and as such there aren't any actually good players yet. You don't have to be a weak player to waste mass, but wasting mass or building storage is a weak play.
If you spawn on a different planet from the other player then you can spend all that extra metal on advancing to T2/orbital or expanding your economy. There is always something of immediate need to spend metal on and no reason to store it for later usage. If you suddenly notice you are approaching full metal you are better off building a factory or more engineers to spend the income than you are storing it for later use. You need more "build power" to spend the income. If you can't spend all of your metal income because your energy income isn't high enough to support your current "build power" (ie the number of factories/fabbers you have), then you should be building more p-gens, not metal storage. You would be building storage until the end of time b/c you'd never be able to spend it faster than you produce it, so you're better off cutting to the root of the problem and building p-gens. If you still can't spend all of your metal income after dealing with the above scenarios then you have bigger things to worry about than storing it for later usage. TL;DR Constructing metal storage is a way of sidestepping the problems with your economy, not fixing them. Edit: Right after I wrote this I figured out one possible use for metal storage. It could burn metal to produce energy, so that if your economy is suffering from not enough energy to spend your metal, you can help offset this with some of your metal income. It is not "ideal" to use it this way, but it helps prevent wasted metal by giving you the ability to spend at least some of the excess immediately, which is better than storing it for later usage.
It's true that storing metal means you are not handling your economy efficiently. It's also true that very few players are adept enough at handling their economy to maintain a constant metal deficit. (I also think that the way the economy currently handles makes maintaining an equilibrium exceedingly difficult, but that's another matter.) This causes lots of wasted metal. With both of the above in mind, I take the view that metal storage is a balancing lever between good players and exceptional players. A really exceptional player will waste only a minute amount of metal. A good player will waste a bit more. Having the storage building there enables the good player to at least harness some of their would-be-wasted resources at a later date to bring to bear against their opponent. I suppose it's a bit of a "Well, good for you" if you can play your whole game balancing your economy so well that you've no need for any buffers. Most of us - the overwhelming majority, I'd wager - are simply not that skilled. So we get the balancing lever to help us out.
Well Said, I like to have 2 or 3 of each storage sitting around just to help me with my swings.....i also like having a swarm of 15 adv fabbers throwing down defenses in 3-4 seconds, 3 or 4 at a time when needed....so storage is useful for that
I have been watching these posts about economy efficiency for quite some time, and to be honest I do not understand what the hype is all about. Perhaps someone can either enlighten me or explain why it is so important as I really honestly do not understand why it is bad to "waste" resources. When I have built your energy or metal extractors, they give you a permanent source of the resource. The more you have the less impact it will have in the middle of the battle. When I play, I build up my defense as fast as I can over a wide area, and take all the metal spots I can, and can have up to +1000 metal (plenty of energy as well) even while fabbing, fairly early in the game. I know I have this in excess as its how I like it. If I have a sudden demand to use all 20 of my advanced bot factories, I can without having a slow down. If I want to have 50 advanced construction aircraft helping build a nuke, I can, as I have the resources to do this. WIll my commander stop working if i have too much excess? Will the game freeze as i have too much? Will I lose the game after defeating the enemy commander for having an excess? Will it heat up the planet as I have a bigger carbon footprint? It seems to me that this is more of an opinion on how an economy should be ran So, can someone please explain to me why is it such a big deal to make your economy "efficient"? Thanks! Steve
You could be producing tanks (or defences) faster if you have spare metal. If you and your opponent have the same income, the person wasting less of it is going to have a bigger army. You should be able to see what happens when you have a bigger army.
To show some examples with arbitrary numbers, I'll just show metal, Energy is the same but the numbers are different. For the sake of the Example; Extractors generate 5 Metal a Second Factories Drain 10 Metal a Second to build Tanks in 20 seconds Fabbers Drain 15 Metal a Second to build a Factory in 60 seconds You have a storage capacity of 1000 So you have 10 Extractors(+50M) and 3 Factories Building Tanks(-30M) leaving you with +20M a second 'extra'. Assuming you start with nothing in storage, you're okay for 50 seconds, but then your storage is full, and anything beyond the 1000 is lost to the warp. in that 50 seconds you end up with 6 Tanks and 3 Tanks 50%. After 50 Seconds your Losing resources even thought your Extractors are still running. So now lets say you've realized you're losing Metal and decide to build some factories to use it, lets say you build 2 for an Extra Drain of -30M. so now your overall income is at -10, but you've got full storage, by the time those factories are done you'll still have 400 Metal in Storage. Then they're done and they start to build Tanks, bringing your overall income to 0, meaning your factories are spending as much metal as your Extractors are Creating. This is important because even those 2 extra factories can make a big difference, 3 Factories over 2 minutes create 18 Tanks, but 5 makes 30 tanks. So keeping your output(Factories, Fabbers) equal to your Income(Extractors) is important because it is the most efficient, you're using 100% of your resources. Obviously out in the real game it's much harder to keep everything exact,due to Factory roll off where they aren't spending any metal and the income from sporadic Reclaiming. storage is in part a cushion, you have to to get things rolling(of course part of the game is preempting these o cut down on your reliance on storage) but someone to keeps the spending and income even(or even overspending so they don't get extra income) will do better than someone who lets metal sit and storage and go to waste if teh storage is full because he'll just have less stuff. A least I think that's how it is....pretty sure. At least in a basic low level concept. Mike
@mab, Wasting resources is really really bad in this game. I will explain why, You and your opponent are both at +20 metal. You are only using 10, he is using 20, he is building twice the amount you are. This happeneds for 5 mintues, then you up your game and start using 20 metal all the time like him, can not get back the metal that you did not use. He is up 10 * 300 = 3000 metal on you in terms of stuff built. Now metal storage can help you curb that loss, so if you are only using +10 but you have room to store it is is not wasted as you can use it when you tell your engies to build something. I believe the idea is that your factories should always be using more metal than you make. Then when you want to build stuff your engies over power your factories and most of your metal made goes to w/e they are making.
There are a couple times you will want metal storage. The first is if your building is restricted by energy so that you can't use your metal fast enough. (May not be your fault, a base on another planet for mass energy production was wiped out or something). The second is when your economy is spanning several planets, that initial buffer may not be enough.
there are also times when you are supporting a building in making something like a nuke anti nukes or orbital anything and when it is done your builders just sit there thus your metal income will shoot up and can cap the metal storage you start with
I don't see how some of you can speak so strongly against metal storage. Have you never had to reclaim a couple experimentals in FA, and be greatly saddened by all the micro you had to do by reclaiming, then stop when storage is full, then re-reclaim when its empty again? Because if you just kept reclaiming with full storage, that mass would be wasted. Having to stop/resume all the time would be especially annoying if said wreck was contested. You'd be forced to waste mass just to deny it to your opponent! In the case of PA: imagine a game with multiple planets, battles going on all over the place. You'd be a fool not to have a bunch of engineers going around reclaiming stuff on automated patrol paths. If you never build storage for this you would either have to be going at a MASSIVE negative drain on metal, which is also not recommendable, or just build some storage, which by the way is pretty damn cheap.
Id like to keep metal storage for one simple reason that I think we can all agree on: Humans make mistakes. And while it is nice to assume that everyone should be playing as efficient as possible, that isn't a reality, so this is good for those of us less.....skilled in the art of economy management.
I don't really see it as a crutch... I mean sure a perfect player would not NEED them, but having the buffer to react to what you see seems completely reasonable. For example, I played against a player who had surprised me with a large amount of bombers (I know, I should have scouted better, but I was in between 2 players in a 3for-all) and since I had a few metal storage units, I was able to instantly build a few bot factories on the spot and pump out AA bots to save myself. Had I not had those storage buildings, I would have been delayed and could have very easily lost the game. They add to the game. Plus, I would like to be able to fly to a new planet with a ton of fabbers and start a base there. This would be much easier to do if you have storage capabilities.
Besides the game shouldn't just be balanced for 1v1, it should be viable for shared armies as well. Building storages in teamplay is a necessity, there will always be a player that does something to destabilize the economy.
