PA is a "Spam Fest?" Oh please...

There is a large difference in pacing between PA and TA.

PA is ridiculously fast paced, even for an RTS, with units being easily produced and just as swiftly removed from play. The OP's example is of a situation that took place 15 minutes into the match.

The player not only lost in 15 minutes, but was comprehensively taken apart.
That's pretty harsh on a new player.

The average game of TA (if you exclude Flash Tank rushes) lasted much longer than that, and even new players can put up a fight. With PA it is much harder for new players to fight back.

Nano, we are on alpha. The actual eco/pace of the game is certainly not final.

It is never early to give feedback though.
I for one would like the game pace to be slowed down aswell. At the moment
it seems players are able to reach high-end tech way too fast. There is also lots of metal on current planets
which supports rapid expansion and 'spamming'.

I am well aware we're in Alpha. I was mostly just passing comment, not judgement.
(Although the 'Decimated in 15 minutes is harsh' part is judgemental, I think it's a perfectly fair call. )

But compared to most games, this IS a spamfest. A regular PA army is what most games call a "unit spam" and the Uberian robot race outdoes the Zerg.

There is an easy counter to a massive army blob you split your forces and attack from various sides. Generally they'll take out 1 of your smaller forces but your other 2 will do massive damage to their economy so whilst they're rebuilding you have retreated to conserve your forces and grown larger at the same time

Fair enough

Even during alpha its worth giving feedback about major balance issues. That's hopefully one of the strengths of the PA /Kickstarter model. We can point out the big issues early on.

Yes currently its a SPAM fest. There are too many mass points, both clumped together at start points and over the map as whole. This means the best micro players can expand much faster that other players as well as micro unit spam. Thats why the current best and most vocal players are liking it.

One of the goals of PA should to NOT be Starcraft. They need to balance automation against strategic choices.

This. I think there are far too many mass points. The number of mass points need to drop, to 1/8th of what they are now. Those who have played TA never had this much mass, they had to REALLY fight tooth and nail for it, and even then decide if it's worth it.

Shaping up to be a good game though.

There are far too many mass points, i agreed.
On TA i never got so many mass points seems like unlimited resources.
And for now there are not many options that can change the flexibility of the tactics we use.
It is only eco + spam units.
We need new toys

I was called one of "those people" who can't "just have fun" for trying to expand quickly and spend all my income via factory spam. Seriously though, I think the resources are currently a bit too abundant. That or the UI is too poor to deal with them. If you start far away from your opponent there is no phase of the game in which your territories butt up against each other. Metal becomes an issue secondary to building enough factories.

We have to consider the fact that we are not (well, will be) limited to one planet. So maybe, _maybe_ that huge eco is needed for expansion beyond the planet.

Afaik the reason why we have so crazy amounts of metal is because the metal spot placement isnt very good, so the make sure everyone has metal available they had to place a lot mex spots.
I am pretty sure this will change once the metal spot placement is finally reworked. Even though I do hope that:
-PA stays a pretty spammy game. It IS about crazy huge armies after all.
-We keep lots of (well spread) mex, better to decrease their income and cost. We need something to fight over after all.

It is not only the fact that we have so much metal at our hands. I also think projectile speed should be lowered and unit HP upped.

projectile speed lowered? gods no, barely anything hits as is. One of the main selling points of having many units right now is that at least your chances of hitting anything are higher.

Err what? Tanks seem to have some sort of railgun at the moment - this is also the reason they are so ridiculously strong against aircraft.

Railgun? Sry but if they actually had a railgun you would not be able to see the bullets fly through the air, let alone evade them with bots. Bullets are quite slow in PA right now. Tanks hitting planes is more about the planes flying directly into the bullets.

Depends on if it's good for gameplay. If it's not I hope that Uber has the good sense to axe it.

I was obviously exaggarating.
I think TA did it perfectly with the bullet speed. We have simulated projectiles, but it doesn't feel like it at the moment. Also, slower bullets would add more to the diversification between bots and tanks.

It sure does feel like simulated bullets. You can dodge stuff based on movement after all.

@Nanolathe: Well sure that's true for everything. If it's bad for the gameplay it should be avoided by Uber