No more: 100 engineers around a factory

The reply I got for such a suggestion was how to easily represent and display this to the user.

But I do kinda like it, My idea from before was:

So that engineers essentially can't stack well enough to a problem.

That example doesn't make sense. Engineers were so much weaker than the factory, that there's no reason to use engineers over another factory, ever. Diminishing returns did nothing to change that outcome.

The problem with engineer assisting is a simple matter of what you're paying vs. what you get. Engies can work anywhere, do anything, and have a multitude of other roles to contend with. Factories have one role, a limited set of things to do, and no moving parts. The obvious solution is to make factories more efficient than engineers, and the rest will sort itself out. No other change is needed.

How did this thread get so big?

In SupCom 1 T1 factory had the same build power as 4 T1 engineers.

And 4 engineers didn't cost a factory.

Factory assist was at 50% build power efficiency, so actually a T1 factory has the same build power as 8 T1 engineers, and 8 engineers does cost more than a factory.

Proof?

Even if such a penalty WERE true (it's not), T2 and T3 factories were overwhelmingly less efficient than T1 engineers. All the problems with assisting were strictly due to bad economics.

Guys, it's great that you're adding to an old thread rather than reposting it. But could you also try actually reading it? Everything that has been added since ign necroed it has already been discussed, at great length, in this very thread. To summarise: Diminishing returns is a terrible idea - arbitrary hidden modifiers don't fit the philosophy of the game. They add complexity for no benefit. Hard capping the number of engineers able to assist is similarly terrible, in TA/supcom type games high level limits like that emerge from the underlying model rather than being imposed top down - size of engineers and range of nanolathes provide an organic limit to assistance. Adjusting the balance of cost to buildpower between factories and engineers is worth looking into, but it isn't something we can speak about beyond the wildest of speculation until either Uber tells us what they're thinking, or the alpha arrives. If you want more detail on any of those points, read the thread!

So, does anyone have anything new to say on this rather than just repeating the same old stuff?

What he said

No, after 23 pages what you said pretty much sums up how I feel about it. I would like to take this opportunity to describe how i would like the game to turn out. Awesome... Apple-wood smoked bacon awesome!

Here's what I think, I think that if you wanna spend resources on engineers so you can build faster but it costs extra to keep pumping it then let them let them. though a well placed strike can still pretty much mess you up. Now if you want to build more factory's then let them, if the enemy brings in a new threat without you noticing then its gg for that planet then let them. The point is this do you want a fast smaller army. at the cost of your base being exposed a lot, or do you want a bit slower big army at the cost of a new threat your gonna be missing that planet soon and they have to micromange alot, or they are to far behind of a might be tier system that might be made. let people decide what choice they make rather then you attempting to deny them one way or another, overall it should be the commander who balences them just right that really wins the fight and I'm sure the devs are planning to let that happen. Like really let the devs do their job before telling them what to do because Usually most devs know that they are doing.

Leave the functionality in.

Removing features is not a good idea, see Supcom2 with only 3 assisting engi's.

I think having flow eco without the ability to fine-tune the speed of building is like dating a beautiful girl who has no genitals.

I've always liked the idea of having more factories, rather than having more engineers. It makes for a cooler looking base. In my opinion of course.

There is nothing wrong with a few, but when all you can see is a sea of assistants around a single factory it looks a little silly.

/edit: Look at what the AI did, for instance. Instead of producing 800 engineers they would produce more factories. Standard AI bases I've seen with 20+ factories, which makes it look like a massive war engine rather than a vehicle assembly line.

The AI always lost.

I completely agree. Factories should make units. Engies should make structures. It's awesome having a base with 10 factories rather than 1 factory with 100 engies surrounding it.

Hey look, more unsupported "I like <insert opinion here>" posts repeating the opinions we have heard many, many times before - in this very thread! Please, before posting here read the whole thread, and consider whether you are actually contributing something new rather than just repeating an idea that has been posted so very many times before.

To all first-posters, this is an amazingly bad thread to start with. The chance you will actually come up with something that hasn't already been discussed to death is incredibly slim - and no one cares what you think is silly. We have had enough arguments on either side to be sure that no matter what Uber does some people will love it and others will hate it. We care if you can bring a new proposal to the table, or raise an argument that we haven't discussed already. As a general rule, arguments from gameplay will generally be received far more warmly than those based on fluff.

Yes. There are still sane people on these forums.

There are people who have no clue what build capacity is, trying to explain to them the purpose of 100 engies around a factory is like trying to explain computers to a caveman. They will talk to you about the quality of the casing, based on how shiny it looks and how many times you can hit it with a rock before it breaks.

I put some because I agree Engineers should be able to assist a factory, but in all honesty I don't think 100 should be able to crowd round one factory and it be worth more than 3 factories with say just 10 engineers.

Then again Supcom 2's limit of 3 was a poor increase on top of an unassisted factory.

In imo there should be a soft cap of say 20 engineers after which it will drop off per engineer by 10% effectiveness per engineer until it gets to 10% total effectiveness and then each engineer would only add 10%.

Why people to vehemently defend 100 Engineers stood assisting a factory is daft when building another factory is just as easy.

Engineers already have diminishing returns. There is a certain amount of unavoidable lag when assisting a factory. A unit might have some delay before beginning its assist. A factory may idle while a unit comes off the line. Both factors mean that no matter how many engineers there are, there is a fixed time that they're not working, so a project will never get any faster than that.

Mass assisting also carries a huge risk against area effect weapons. One nuke and it's all over.

TotalA probably had the best mix of downsides as constructors were painfully slow to build, fairly expensive, and didn't work that well with factories. FARKs showed how assisting can be arguably OP as they were fairly cheap, effective, and had great assist power.

Supcom2 had a nifty thing where factories played a powerful role in defense. Even if engineers could be spammed, it would have left pitiful defenses. The only reason assist stacking wasn't allowed was because it'd screw up factory veterancy(units got cheaper as a factory kept building, which made no sense).

Long thread short, there's no need for arbitrary ANYTHING for assisting. All that matters is making sure factories are a better choice than spamming engineers.

Agreed. Particularly when it comes to the direction engineers are facing relative to the factory and the range the engineer can assist from. Both being limiting factors on how how many engineers can assist a factory and how efficiently. Roll off was also discussed quite extensively in another topic not long ago.

The real boon of having engineers assist is that they are a flexible force that good players will manage effectively to fine tune their economy and move build power around. Also they are handy for multiplying the effectiveness of higher level engineers. Example, I begin building a T2 power plant with my first T2 engineer. I then move one or more T1s to assist the build. The T2 is now free to go about building another T2 structure. End result: I have just simultaneously build two T2 structures with a single T2 engineer.

Assisting engineers aren't without their vulnerabilities, as has already been discussed. They are particularly susceptible to bombers and AoE weapons like arty. I see no reason why the formula needs to be changed. Sure you could balance it so that less engineers could assist a factory to prompt players to build more factories. But the end result is the same because players will keep building engineers/factories to meet their requirements.

It's one thing saying you don't want lots of engineers around a factory, but what about other critical builds that you want prioritised? Do you want a limit to the number of engineers that can assist those? What it comes down to is that if you have a strong eco then you need to be able to shift it's focus effectively and engineer assisting is the best way to do it. If you can't effectively produce and manipulate build power then that is a serious drawback and takes away some of the advantages of having a stronger economy. It stops you from responding as quickly to changing circumstances, stops players pushing critical builds (and as a result slows the game down) and could potentially waste your resources by removing the options for players to prioritise what they want to do.
For example, if you have excess resource/not enough storage, instead of assisting the build of your rocket gantry you have to build a factory or another structure instead to avoid wasting mass. If you can't assist then you just have to find somewhere else for the resource to go.