T1 to T2 Metal Extractor without reclaiming?

That's your opinion.

Indeed, this is being discussed in the micromanagement thread but it applies here as well. It's ok for games to divide your attention but whatever divides your attention should be engaging. If you're dividing your attention between moving around 100s of assisting engineers, building/assisting MEX upgrades or anything else trivial and banal then the game will not be engaging.

A lot can be said about StarCraft II gameplay but it can't be said it isn't engaging.

To be fair, if the optimal strategy of dealing with turtles is to not attack then the game becomes less engaging. There's nothing wrong with tactical turtling but strategic turtling is lame.

Not attacking turtles is only the way to go if the turtling player is economically ahead of you. Which he shouldn't since due tot he nature of a turtle, you will have superior map control. And in a game that spans multiple planets with weapons that can destroy several bases within seconds, I would not worry about a full-game turtle if I played against one.

This might have been brought up (if it has please ignore) but I'd just like to point that from an esthetic perspective it makes more sense to let the fabbers do it.

All other buildings/units that are involved in any sort of fabrication/building process have a special tool for it, a nano-spraygun if you will. It's special part of the model that engages in an animation to simulate the building process. Now, the current model of the T1 Mex does not have that.

Being purely esthetical here, you would have to come up with some clever way to represent that the T1 MEX is upgrading that looks in-line with the other fabrication processes we have.


Another point I'd like to make is from a lore perspective. In the PA universe the idea of the evolution of the units is that they are the best of the best that could ever be designed, they are specialized in a role or task to the point of lethal efficiency.

Mexes have one purpose, extraction of matter to be used for production. That's their sole
function. This supports the idea of the fabbers upgrading mexes, because they (fabbers) are built to reform matter into the desired shape while the mexes are as stated designed to mine stuff from the ground.

My 2 cents

Had this thought on the way home from work, thinking about how someone said that the devs wanted t2 mexes to be different than just an upgrade.

One solution to this is to up the metal output of mexes so that multiple t1 factories/etc can be run from 1 mex, and single t2 stuff can be run continually from it. Pretty much the opposite of energy gens.

Then, instead of t2 mexes, t2 fabbers can make metal factories that run 2 to a t2 gen. The advantage to the factories is they can be put anywhere, but are more expensive (both of themselves and with the cost of the power gen involved), and this makes t1 fabbers and the commander viable even for late game econ management/boosting, but you become limited by metal points. On metal planets, this could be an issue, unless the devs had metal points on them as well. Sockets if you will.

The numbers I'd start with would be around the value that offsets the commander spending, which right now is 20. Basic opener would be something like gen>mex>gen>factory>mex

I wouldnt mind building upgrades and upgrades for units

it was something i really liked in CnC Generals, which was a new addition to the CnC franchise: we never had upgrades or research, just a plain old tech tree.


personally, i think it adds flavor and strategy to any RTS. I love TA to death, but at some point i think it'd do better with some research and upgrades.

also, i wouldnt mind more detailed info about units. One of the only thing SC2 does right is give you a clear understanding of how powerful a unit is. But then again, i suppose the point of PA is the macro game, with massive armies clashing, and not cost effectiveness or micro

I was going to go with fabbers building the t2, but your post did point out to me that i would rather have my full attention on organising everything else thats going on then to worry about building some t2 fabbers to get a t2 mex going.

Yes it does mean that there will be something that has an upgrade option but this way seems more simplistic than the other and much easier to manage.

+1 for mex veterancy... 15 mins then they become t2?

Less micro and puts the emphasis on holding the mexes over a longer period rather than playing the economy game.

And it also makes fighting about resources in mid map not very useful, since you have to wait 15 min until you get your T2 mex...

Why don't we get rid of T2 mexes and T2 power entirely and add certain locations on the map where very large mexes or very large power gens can be built much like hydrocarbons in Supcom.

It would encourage fighting over these essential nodes and building forward bases around them for protection. Would make for more interesting gameplay than upgrading mexes one by one.

Or just do it like i did in TA.
Rush T2 and build T2 Mex

Big upvote for fabbers do it and queue it.

Should be possible to upgrade it

either by

building T2 on top of the other building starting the upgrade(disabling the income from the T1 extractor while upgrading so you should not upgrading too many at the same time).

or

built-in upgrading mechanism where you have in the UI while T1 is selected a button to upgrade(maybe very slow and then possible to make it faster by sending fabricators to help).


Also I'd like to see:

While placing a T1 it should be possible to show the "ghost icon" of T2 so you could plan better in advance(to make sure you have enough room). This also should be possible if try to build other buildings near the T1...

like a hotkey to show the T2(bigger versions) of everything even if there is only a T1 built.


This for all the buildings with T2 versions.



Edit: Interesting thread:

I prefered TA... with its much more units and stuff.

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Total_Anni ... Structures

They had a Geothermal PowerPlant which helped at the beginning because it was better than the T1 starting stuff... but needed certain spots in terrain where you could only built it... but then still later the better and more expensive stuff you could built everywhere(fusion reactors).

Of course if it was like this... that much difference in design and how the buildings work(fusion - different technology than wind or solar) - then there should be no upgrading... just build a new building then.



Regarding reclaiming: Seems a bit slow. At least if an allied(your) fabricator or commander is trying to reclaim buildings it should be much faster... seems to me it is even slower than building the stuff but have not triedt it that much yet.

Only think I don't like from TA: Metal Maker - the stuff you could make Metal with Energy... don't know if this is good for multiplayer oriented game like PA... would have to have very high metal cost then. Making it dependend on metal spots and building extractors there only is a better thing.. there could also be certain special metal spots like with the Geothermal Plant for an early advantage.



Edit2: If upgrading possible... then there should be at least some requirements... like at least 1 tech 2 fabber alive among your units(cause usually you would need 1 to build it)... or 1 of the T2 buildings already completed...

just so you can't ugrade from the beginning.

Special spots would be the best solution, IMHO.

Not so much with T2 energy generators since they also consume more build space and they are a bigger threat to your base when blowing up (anyone remembering the SC Paragon, experimental resource generator which nuked your own base when blown up and you couldn't use it if you were playing against a faction which had teleporting SCU?) and energy is secondary resource only anyway, but for every type of advanced metal source.

Placing them in hard to defend spots only would just be fair, like close to rifts or other obstacles which expose you to at least two threats at once, but make it difficult to defend against both due to the lack of building space.

I agree exterminans, T2 Metal Extractors could do with a little more extraction power but limited by where they can be placed to best efficiency. I really hope Uber pushes the "T2 is specialised, not better" angle when it comes to Eco as well as mobile units.

You shouldn't need to upgrade your T1 Metal Extractors in the first place.

I like the T2 is specialized instead of more powerful idea. It can be a really good and fun to play system like in EVE, if it can work similar in an RTS.

This is indeed a tricky one, i am also against reclaiming the t1 and replacing it with a t2.

I was surprised they wanted t2 mass in the game at all to be honest. We dont even know how the eco is gonna work over different planets. All this mass upgrading may only benefit one planet which could end up being a huge waste of time.

yeah this definitely deserves its own thread

Thinking about possible specialisations for resource buildings, I'm actually liking the idea of the T2 mex / pgen being armed/armoured. More expensive, slower to build, but the building has it's own defenses (which optionally use no resource for firing).

Maybe I've just played too much SupCom2; I'd also like the T2 battleships to have legs (or tracks) and one of the T2 tanks to be a hover unit. There's no accounting for taste I suppose :mrgreen:

wouldnt this all be moot once you move on to other planets?

or are we only allowed to take a commander to each new planet, thereby starting at T1 mex again?