Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building types)

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Its something else, someone earlier in this tread mentioned supcom having multipliers for construction costs when building artillery over power plants.

Witch makes sense, but it is never shown, eventually meaning that 2 engineers building a artillery each will be cheaper then 1 + 1 engineers building 2 artillery, one after the other.

Something that I don't like, and easily screws new players.

(Further note, I don't like how in SC1:FA you can get the same production for having many engineers assisting a single factory over having multiple factory's.)

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Did you watch that FA econ video somebody posted earlier?
(This one http://youtu.be/MCrWm1LRBEw)
It explains things pretty well, and shows that multiple factories are pretty important.
TA, I think, was a bit tougher on that aspect, since you could stack unlimited constructor planes on a factory to assist it.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

I was referring towards the late game, but you are right, and I can say that this is better then most games that I have seen, so me and the people I have seen are doing it wrong it seems.

And TA air constructors are really bad builders, and with TA having a much more appropriate HP for aircraft then the SupCom games means it it very vulnerable to destruction (But this might be a moot point).

I think they were at least half as good as Kbot builders, for twice the cost.

I feel like it might be good for assistant engineers to increase the building cost for assisting on every engineer to combat this, but to also show it (And other building costs) when preparing to tell them to assist, giving the max amount of information to the player.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

You've misunderstood how the system works, it's a lot more simple than that. If a T2 static artillery costs 2400 mass, it will always cost a total of 2400 mass. Additional engineers will get it built faster, but they will use a proportionate amount more mass over a shorter total time. The total cost will always be 2400 mass irrespective of how many engineers build it. More engineers = faster mass drain = faster build.

The only complicating factor in SupCom is adjacency, but this is pretty much negligible and you can ignore it for all intents and purposes.

You can do this in TA too. Land engineers are too big for much increase, but flying engineers.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

I am sure there is some kind of hidden penalty for certain structures, because at times when each engineer should be spending a particular amount per tick, the end up spending much more, and there is even the case where when I should be spending enough to go into the stored resources per tick, it doesn't.

I cannot predict it.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

The only time something will cost less than the advertised price is if you have resource-gathering buildings adjacent to a factory - in all real situations this will be power gens reducing the overall energy cost of produced units by a marginal amount.

Buildings always cost their advertised cost in all situations.

The only bit that's more complicated is that factory adjacency bonuses do not apply to engineers assisting the factory, but the difference this makes is so minimal that you'd have to be a really, really good player before it could make any difference to your game.

If you want to give FA another go you can find me on FAF and I'll be happy to give yo some basic training.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

The thing is, I find TA really easy to play.

What changed other then the adjacency bonus?

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Just that there's more space around factories to put engineers. Also at T2 and T3 it is more cost effective to assist one factory with T1 engineers than it is to build multiple factories.

EDIT: also that FA is generally faster - units move faster, build faster and the economy ramps up more quickly.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

If that's the change, then that's what I don't want.

If you catch my drift.

Edit: Using the advice in the video earlier, I decided to put this new knowledge to the test.

I am furious, because of how long I have been playing the game and not known how to actually play it.

So know my opinion is that it is ridiculous that it took me several years to even know the basics of its gameplay.

Frankly I am in the same state as before, I don't like the SupCom:FA economy.

Edit 2: It might also be the teching that screws me, as in TA the outcome of resources is still dependent on the factory and engineer building them, the better factory's and engineers obviously cost more to build but the rate is still very similar to basic factory's and engineers, thus the increase in time.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

And this is why you end up with those ridiculous T1 engineer swarms. It should be more interesting to build more factories than more engineers, particularly T1 engineers (though I'm advocating no tiered engineers, but that's another point).

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

It's an interesting conversation you guys are having here.

Personally I think something that has been skimmed over and needs more of a mention is the time aspect to this debate. Time is extremely valuable to the player. Sometimes more so than resource.

I think that even if there was some kind of losses involved with getting a bunch of engineers to assist a particular building (as opposed to increased consumption and building costing the same), the loss of a percentage of resource per additional engineer would probably be acceptable to the player (to a certain extent at least) if it provided the facility to get a critical building up and running much quicker. I know that in some instances I would still trade resource efficiency for time.

Can't say that I ever noticed any losses attached to engineer work gangs when I last played SC:FA. Not to say it couldn't be there if I really looked. I like many others, just watched more successful players and emulated their techniques. Sometimes not fully understanding why they did what they did to begin with.

The thing is, if I already have 10 T1 engineers available it's quicker to assign them to assist a T3 factory than it is to build one and upgrade it. Of course that depends on the context and length of the build queue I am trying to produce. In the long run it will always be quicker to have two factories and put 5 engineers on each. But what it really comes down to again is time. If I need those things built yesterday and I have only a certain amount of resource available to do so it's the logical thing to do.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Value of time is an interesting point, but I'd fear that such cost increase with assist is a 'hidden' cost, not obvious for the player. And even if it is, it's still a cost difficult to measure and it gets away from the simplicity of the flowing economy.

Also, you can see it another way : this cost was already paid with the construction of the engineers/nanotowers. If you do need this thing done for yesterday, then you'd better have the spare assist units available for the occasion and/or take them back from other assist works. And there's also the increased resource strain (the Zero-K priority system helps for managing it, though).
That's another reason to have engineers costing more than factories cost-wise : they are far more flexible and can give you time for the emergency thing.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

This is why SupCom2 removed it I guess, to prevent it entirely.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Supcom2 removed it because they were planning on making a bloody terrible game, that kids on xbox could play.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Because company's love throwing money away right?

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Square Enix clearly took the approach that more accessible = more potential players = more money. They didn't factor in several intangibles though, namely that StarCraft has the market cornered for anyone who's only mildly interested in RTS (or indeed anyone who's really into RTS and doesn't object to the backwards interface), and SupCom had a lot of emotional goodwill invested in it by a lot of loyal players. By going off half-cocked they didn't interest the StarCraft fans for the simple reason that it's not StarCraft, and they greatly upset the SupCom fans because it could barely even be compared to TA/SupCom.

There was no middle-ground niche for SupCom2, certainly not big enough for SE to sink that sort of money into it. Also Pulinsmash? Weedoboth? Wilfindja? GTFO MY INTERNETS

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Indeed the names are kinda painful, but at first I didn't notice them, and still don't pronounce them properly.

Its a good RTS game, but yeah you more or less say why it didn't take off.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

SupCom2 was not a good RTS game. It was a disaster that should have been aborted.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Fixed.

Re: Please dont simplify the game (tech levels, building typ

Not good doesn't begin to cover how systematically terrible it was.