No more: 100 engineers around a factory

I was far less aggressive the first 3 times I had this argument, this **** gets old

Googlefrog makes a good point about factory diversity being another factor that can be significant. However the concept of factory diversity stems from the idea that it is more efficient to have a single factory with a great deal of assist, and that you should be required to pay for the increased options of having more possible unit types available from factories. This is one consistent way to design a game, and it works very well for ZK.

Typically, I would say that ZK is so well done that the fact that a mechanic or feature is present in ZK should commend it for inclusion in PA. However, I will make an exception for the idea of nanotower-centric factory assist. It would work, and would create a consistent, fun, playable game structure of one kind. However, I think PA would be even better served by an alternate system.

The basic reason for this is that maps are going to be very large. Arbitrarily large, in fact. ZK (and CA before it) was created to play fast on small maps, and its build system lends itself well to this style of play. A single factory (or few factories) with enough assist to spend a significant metal income is a deliberate design choice for ZK. More than one factory of each type, especially at different locations on the map, is generally unnecessary or unwise in ZK.

I posit that as maps become arbitrarily large, this system becomes undesirable. As the size of maps relative to the movespeed of units increase, having production be focused on a single large industrial center becomes increasingly unwieldy. Players should need to control territory, and should need unit production in those areas in order to do so. Turbo production in serial should be disincentivized with inefficiency, in favor of horizontal production in parallel, in different regions of the map.

It will still possible to build large industrial centers if factories are largely the most efficient source of production, however such complexes will be composed of large numbers of factories, rather than large numbers of nanotowers assisting few factories (which are type delimited). If you want a lot of tanks, you should need to build a lot of tank factories. Assist power can be applied to make them build faster, but investing in more factories instead of assist would make you build even faster for the same cost. This is also relevant for strategic choice, as you need to decide a ratio of production facilities beforehand instead of reassigning queues or assist, and also in scouting, as you can plainly see an opponent's industrial disposition.

Nanotowers have less flexibility than engineers, as they cannot move, and cannot start constructions, however they are also more flexible than factories, as they can assist anything, including construction of structures nearby. Nanos' relation to engineers is similar to engineers' relation to factories- one factory building, mass engineer assist, and similarly one engineer starts, mass nano assists. Consequently, for the same reason that engineers should be less efficient BP/cost than factories, nanotowers should also be less efficient BP/cost than factories. In addition, engineers should be less efficient BP/cost than nanotowers, due to their independent mobility, and the capacity to initiate construction independently.

This point is strange. You seem to be arguing this:

"Players will have to make a choice between A and B. A will make the player more likely to win so we should further incentivise A."

Here A is constructing a spread out base with factories all over their territory and B is a centralised base. Why does something that is already a good choice need further incentivisation?

I don't even think BP/cost would be the main controller of the power of spreading out factories. Low BP cost and low factory cost would incentivise spread out factories. Low cost is because you would not want to build expensive things in dangerous areas. Low BP cost would let players overspend on BP such that they can quickly do a lot of construction where it is needed. It doesn't really matter where this good BP/cost comes from but it would be most powerful in engineers because they can retreat.

You are actually correct that the size of the maps may force players to build factories in many locations on one planet, regardless of BP/cost. The only difference would be how many factories in each location. While it could be argued that efficient centralization of immobile assist BP will encourage fewer, larger bases, using fewer factories and more nanos, I concede on this point. That isn't necessarily less desirable from a gameplay perspective, although I think it is a colorable argument.

However, the basic point that nanotowers are more flexible than factories, but less flexible than engineers, still stands. I for one think nanotowers are awesome, and static assist BP is a very convenient way to manage production. Still, the same argument regarding engineer assist applies to nanos. If nanos are equal or better sources of BP than factories, then the player is going to minimize factories (down to 1 of each type), and use nanos for the bulk of BP, ignoring engineers for the moment. However, if factories are a more efficient source of BP, then the nanos do not disappear, as they are still useful for assisting factories and base construction projects, the numbers of factories and nanos will arrive at some happy balance according to the player's preference on the scale between maximized unit production, and building other projects in a hurry.

There is also the significant feature of the actual total cost of the factory, which does matter with respect to how the player places the structure on the map. Expensive factories will encourage more distant, safe placement and more extensive use of rallying units. Cheap factories will encourage aggressive placement, at many locations about the map. This dimension is quite separate from how efficient factories are as sources of BP.

I think it is preferable to have cheap factories, as it creates an incentive to populate the board with bases and other features. Cheap factories also encourages building many factories, and the ratio of factories of various kinds in each area gives texture to your presence on the board.

Granted, this scheme is contrary to Zero K's philosophy, where considerable cost is required to increase your factory diversity and access new unit types. However it introduces the dimension of the number of factories. Building a single air factory does not really constitute "going air" because that's really not that many air units (although this may be a deliberate strategic choice to only have a few in that area). In order to have a serious air presence, many air factories are required, with more air factories representing a larger investment in air infrastructure, and proportionally greater numbers of units from that factory type.

I dunno. I guess it does look and feel spammy but with limit or not there'll always be tactics and engineer distribution.

Its a strategy to the games and it should stay. The ability to build things faster is key to help keep yourself alive. And to the end game when your trying to get the bigger items built and in a way mass produced.

I would like to suggest an alternative solution if I may:

In TA engineers size, cost and build/assist range was very different then to that of SupCom.

Engineers would be large enough to prevent stacking because of engineers short build range, and would be costly enough that in comparison building basic factory's would be slightly more efficient cost wise from how many engineers can assist.

This way engineers can keep their unlimited stacking of build power because their own size and range would prevent too many from assisting a single building, and their cost could make then inefficient to spam anyway.

(And thank you Zordon for finding this post for me so I may add to it's list of ideas.)

It's definitely something more intuitive than what I would suggest, which is giving factories an order or two of magnitude more build power (and similar build times for units) than engineers. Like FA's nuke siloes.

That solution is, however, amazingly irritating. And, for me, it often led to me marching construction units around to get them as close to the factory being targeted as possible. Aka, micro. A big no-no.

It might well be possible to create some sort of solution by which engineer's unit AI causes them to go as close to the targeted factory as they can, but from the pure perspective of effort, it's easier to change a few numbers affecting buildpower than to put in new code regarding unit AI.

Possibly, but do not that numbers regarding to build power and the like aren't things that are taught in a games tutorial, and take a lot more time to learn then what I am suggesting.

Its a game of space management, do you go for 2 factory's? or 1 factory with the extra space taken up by 5 engineers?

But I do respect your opinion.

Yep, as I said, having differences in build power is less intuitive than your system. Not that it would take a person very long to work out that an engineer, or even a horde of engineers won't have much of an effect on build speed. Especially if we have a system by which we'll be able to tell in advance how much resources engineers will eat up when assisting something.

Arguments could be made for or against for either. Personally, I'd love to see how the former would go as the game progressed since FA required engineer swarms because T1 engineers had a better buildpower to mass ratio than factory upgrades.

Marry me. <3

Why there shouldn't be 100 engineers around a factory? Because you just don't like it? Or is there any proper argument? Nope? Because I personally like it. I like to watch how 200 engineers make a plane in a micro second. I think it's hilarious.

Why not? I like the fact that you can speed the process almost without limitations. Limitations are bad! Engineers are the easiest way to speed up the process because they are mobile and small. No assisting would mean factory spam. Weak assisting would mean even more engineer spam. So the only way to actually prevent this is to make engineers more efficient in assisting so that there is simply not enough resources for 100 assisting engineers.

I'm very much partial to the idea thrown around here of simply making factory build power more powerful per buck than engineer build power, or at least equal. Keep it nice and simple.

Just throwing my two cents in.

I do hope the devs work on this issue, the engineers around factories was stupid. Not only was is a mission to control but was one of the main reasons the game slowed as much as it did.

In sup com it always seemed to a mission to ensure you had the spending capacity ready for your level of economy which was controlled by hundreds of T1 engineers lol,

I liked how sup com brought in the assisting stations that had a limited range. I was surprised when I discovered SC got rid of the engineer planes but even with assisting stations the ability to spend money was a tricky job to control. I think people did not want to invest in the assisting stations much however because of their cost which could have been used to build other things. Maybe if their cost was cheaper more people would have used them instead of T1 engineers.

Its a little silly don't you think?

My point as before was to keep engineers to being engineers, like in TA, and prevent factory's from being outmoded by engineer swarms.

Here is an idea:

How about letting the commander and one engineer be able to assist builds.

This is a limit, yet it allows you to pump something extra into builds.

This way, you can have the commander pump into a build, and regular units pumping into a build at a rate dependent on their tech level, but only the highest tech level engineer and the commander if assisting will affect the build speed, anything more will not additionally increase.

I too would rather not have engineer spam. This way you only need as many engineers as you want structures being built simultaneously.

I always found swarms of engineers juicy targets for my bomber wings.

Indeed, but it's not always possible to pull that off.

As long as it's not as silly as SC, I will generally be ok with anything.

More tanks, less engineers.

I'd rather agree with people who suggest balancing factory/engi cost-per-speed ratio, rather then implying some artificial limits. I think that both ways should be possible (one factory + dozen engis, or dozen factories). On Seton's back position first 10 minutes your work is more about building and collecting woods around. All this engies occupied with wood or constructing/mex upgrades would became free after a while. Without ability to support factories you may just self-destruct them - they are useless now. With such ability - you just send them to support factory and you don't need to build another dozen of factories - you already spend that mass on engies.

Or if you don't want to collect woods, than you may build just a few required engies and build a dozen factories to get same speed-per-cost. But, well, in FA everyone collecting woods, so...

My view is that forcing the player to build more factories instead of more engineers, forces them to plan ahead more. A player with 1 of each factory type and 100 engineers can pump out a very high number of any unit very quickly. Whereas if engineers can't assist, the player has to plan ahead concerning what they want to build instead of having a vast supply of infinitely flexible build power at their command

Buuut, since this thread is now over 20 pages long, i'm content to see what uber come up with

Factory building speed should increase with engineer support, but the more engineers help a factory, the less it becomes efficient per engineer.

Example:

[Generic Factory] builds [Generic unit] at a speed of 200.

A [Generic engineer] comes along and helps boost construction: The construction now builds at 210 speed (+10).

An other [Generic engineer] tags along, so they're now 2 on the factory, boosting the production to 219 (+10+9, actually being +9.5 each).

So eventually, you'll end up with a factory with 255 (+10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1, so +5.5^10) with an eleventh+ guy not speeding up production.

This would make factory assist a worthy system, but not to the point where a factory builds at the speed of light.



If the Engineers have a fixed value (say +10) to start speeding up the factories, low tier factories/buildings would be advantaged far more than (Basic speed = 100. +10 = +10%. On a tier 2 factory with build speed of 200, it'd be +5% only with the same engineer. So the base "Support" value should be a percentage of the factory's speed (otherwise there would be low tier spam all the way). Or all factories must have the same build speed but then it'd become a mess with unit prices, etc... if the game follows the way it worked in TA/SupCom.

Different Engineers should have different % boost value. A Tech 1 land engineer should do something like +5%, while a tech 2 engineer +10% and a commander +20%.

Now the math becomes complicated: 5 Tech 2 engineers + 4 tech 1 engineers +1 commander working on a factory would give a boost to production too high for my maths abilities according to my system above. If someone could find the equation...