Number of Mass Points on a Planet

So I have been watching livestreams of the game and one thing I have noticed is the large number of mass points. Is this a result of custom map creation or does the planet generator place this many mass points? I guess I expected mass points to be more scarce. For anyone in Alpha (that still reads this part of the forum) do you think the amount of mass points is appropriate?

Most people think there's too many. Neutrino stated it was just a quick algorithm he whipped up.

Yeah at the minute all maps seem to be set to 50. This figure must be affected by the landscape, as barren maps appear to have a lot more mass points than maps filled with trees.

They're still working on those but its not game essential so its gonna be done when they feel like its time to get that done. For now getting orbital working is more important.

I don't necessarily think it should be a different amount, just different positioning.

I would hope the number of mass points would be an option in the planet generator. The way to make truly interesting planets is to control the planets resources.

It used to be an option in earlier planet editor builds, it isn't in right now though.

It didn't do anything in the old planet generator. I'd take a guess that the current metal placement algorithm doesn't have any variables for frequency and nobody could be arsed to change it if it's going to be replaced anyways.

Wow, thanks for the responses! Zaphod and Petard I follow your YouTube channels thanks for all the entertainment!

Yes I want a control for this in the planet editor. That way you can choose although I will try to make the default reasonable.

Do you guys really think there are too many right now for the default?

Wait what... Yes of course!?

There are way too many to the tune of often energy being the limiting factor instead of metal.

I feel like they are clustered too well.

But that could be a additional control for the metal spots as well right?

That's more of an argument for lowering how much they produce though. You do have to hold them after all.

Reducing the mex income and improving how they are spread over the planet is imho indeed the better solution.

Having many mex to fight over is good.

I actually quite like the number of metal points. Metal is a bit abundant at the moment, but i'd rather have lots of "poor" points rather than only a few "rich" points. It gives more reason to hold onto large amounts of contiguous terrain, rather than small, isolated heavily defended points.

I favor that as well, good point guys.

I also like the idea of more "poor" points as it can give a lot finer control over creating points of conflict via size and over-all area of a 'cluster'. This is a very user friendly method as it's clear and obvious that a cluster with 10 points is more valuable than a cluster with 5 for example.

Mike

Lowering the income will drastically slow down the early game, as a mex has to pay itself off before contributing anything of note.

But if you just mean fewer points: that's probably a good idea. The clusters are pretty large.

So reduce the income per mex AND the cost per mex.

It would make t2 mexes more used. I've never seen them really used except in long long games where everyone just turtled before mex points were never used

It's probably the best idea. However, the early game will be painfully slow without some kind of map wreckage to compensate. Slow income is great, but it takes a big initial investment to get things rolling!

Putting the metal directly on the Comm isn't that useful because Comm resources lends itself to rushing. Map wreckage requires a few units to roll out to get it, thus it demands at least some kind of base. It's basically the difference between minute zero and minute...3'ish.