T2 Resource Generation.

Not really, its the same as having to build the basic mex by hand.

In the final game you'll most likely be able to select a bunch of fabbers, select the t2 mex and give an area command to build how many of them as you want with a single click.

Don't really see the issue with that.

And its obvious not the same as the basic mex as the cost/reward of it is very different.

No, it becomes a tedious calculation as to when you build the 'Upgrade'. There is no choice whatsoever. It's a mandate, and a rather boring, binary one at that. Get it right and you're permitted to proceed into the late-game. Get it wrong and you lose.

I would personally love to see a system where you can leave the resource/defense building for the A.I on planets that don't have an opponent on them. That way you don't have to shift your focus from the battle planets just to improve your economy or defenses on a planet that has no contest at the moment.

Sure having no A.I won't be a problem as long as you have solar system of, say, 6 planets? Having to babysit 4 planets while having a fight on 2 becomes a multitasking nightmare, even for the sc2 veterans.

Start thinking with the upcoming features in mind.

Why don't you currently need T2 mexes? Thats right, because you have the metal resources of a whole solar system available on a single planet. So if the metal spots were scarce, you would still have additional planets (and asteroids!) available to make up for it. Still no need for T2 to get the income, it just became a little harder to come by. T2 would just be a cheap bypass to expansion.

And contrary to SupCom (which you obviously still consider as an example), you don't NEED the exponential escalation in the economy. You don't have a tiered economy (well, you actually have one now with all that 2.0 units), but a flat one. Economical advance is not tied to increased efficiency, but rather to pure expansion.

Return rate alone is insufficient to justify an upgraded version, like Nanolathe said, it's not a choice and thereby only adds another routine, but no complexity. It's not a choice as long as you can still calculate a perfect, universal solution.

Yes, t2 mex(es?) should be a stratetic decision rather than "a must do if want them bigga factorys". T1 should be the one you are going to build most of the time. T2 should be something you build to fit the situation. Heavy enemy raids? Build the resilient one. Want to take the sneaky approach? Use the mex that doesn't show up on radar. Want to booby trap a metal spot? Well, use the bomb mex that explodes when the enemy comes near (so an engineer that has been put on auto build is going to blow up, the thing is actually visible).

I said Size 5, not Scale 5.

Scale 5 == 200 + 20*80 = 1800m radius.

Size 5 == 200 + 20*5 = 300m radius.

Ok. My point is clear. Replace T1 with T2 mex easily. It's only fixed-place structure. This is required often and I believe I don't speak only for myself.

No, that sentence is not clear. Do you mean, remove t1 and make the t2 mex the baseline t1 without any t2 mex?

In that case, hello limitless metal and only energy being your limit. They have said they'll reduce metal spots by a lot to reduce the abundance of metal and to make it matter more. Your idea would make it worse again.

Edit: Looked through the thread again and saw what you ment. Building over an existing t1 mex with a t2 mex without reclaiming.

IIRC that was as good as confirmed by uber that we'll eventually get that.

Perfect. Is there any link where is this confirmed ? If yes, then I think it's resolved, at least this part for me.

A higher level extractor which is somehow strategically special? HA! Good luck on that one.

This is one case where going strictly for higher numbers isn't such a bad thing. The whole point of resources is to enable all the other bits of the game. More money means more escalation and more opportunity to use the big guns. It's not the extractor's job to create the risk that drives strategic choice. It's the combat unit's job to make resource gathering risky.

There are cute tricks that can be used to add some flavor to high level extractors/generators. You can play with things like death explosions(TA fusion), no wreckage (TA moho), or grabbing resoruces where there were none before (like geotherm points were to energy, or space points, or asteroids, etc.). But remember that late game is supposed to reduce the complexity and size of the game field as players die off, not spread it out over a thousand shattered rocks.

no they aren't, unless all the other mass points are close one to eatch others, so they can be captured with "turtling creep"

the best solution would be to have a numbers of mass point(let's say 4) that represent an "expansion", they are all close togheter, then far away you have another one of those expansion and so on...this force the player to expand his territory(but let you have your time to take them, in comparison to FA and TA), with this turtling is much more difficult

instead in FA and TA, mass extractors were located at random points in the map, forcing you to take the whole map as a fast as a possibile or you lose, i always hated that...

expansions should be takes gradually...

How could it be bothersome???? Leaving it to ai control gives the person who has taken victory on their planet against another opponent, that is now trying to defend from your incoming assault no chance IMO. As you have only to concentrate on attacking them and not managing resources on conquered planets, meanwhile they are still managing every aspect on their home planet still.

Negative name of the game in any war is land grab

It would be nice if there were a mex placement option during planet creation to affect the way mex are put down.

For example, you could have options like near mountains, or tight fields, making their location more tactical and less spread out in every direction (you could have even spaced or near lava or only in water, or any other thing that you think up.

I think tight fields of mex are the equivalent of a "better" mex location, rather than have special spots, just have more in the same area.

Not if balanced. There literally is a magic number where you would only build them when you ran out of capturable metal spots, where a t1 is best to build first and a t2 costs a lot at first for no payout until 15 min of operation. Again, consider the servere lack of productivity worthwhile due to limited metal spots and increased health.

As far as choosing how late to upgrade, first off that is a choice just like choosing when to shift gears driving manual transmission in need for speed is a choice, and it is dependant on play style like drive style. Rushers will try to kill the enemy early so they won't consider t2 until they fail, while someone planning late game will do so earlier. Then, you have to choose which ones to make t2 because your enemy will keep killing you easiest to attack mexes otherwise.

The main purpose for t2 mex should be squeezing a little extra out of metal spots once you run out of gettable metal spots and maybe to keep front line ones alive. They should cost a lot and not generate but marginably better returns, so it should directly cost you early game for the survivability if you need it, and you will feel as encouraged as possible to find other metal spots instead of upgrading existing ones.

Besides that... metal could use rebalancing. Cost increase for units, less metal spots, little less income from mexes and much less income from t2 mex. They owe it to try these gentle things and see the improvement. Heck, after that, they can try no t2 and see how it works. Then they can choose the one that was best.

Trophy, that post was a hilarious read. My arms are tired from hugging my sides, just so they wouldn't split.

You can 'choose' to stay in first gear if you want for as long as you 'feel' like it's worth it, but someone who changes to second gear at the correct time is going to go faster than you. That timing isn't based on choice, there is literally a correct time to do so for maximum effect; a 'magic' number if you will.

Or even if you won't. Honestly it doesn't matter.
As I've said elsewhere, fact's don't need you to believe in them.
Facts are facts.

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As to your suggestion: what you propose is just as bad as what we have now. You're putting a huge risk on upgrading to the advanced tech by having it simply cost a massive amount with no payoff. A player (especially new ones) will fall into the trap of trying to build the Advanced Metal Extractors to increase their economy. Do not delude yourself, you have created a 'Trap' option, and you still have not addressed the problem with Advanced Metal Extractors in that it is still about the timing of when to 'upgrade', rather than if you should pursue Advanced Tech at all. You've pushed back the timing, since you've made your Metal Extractors less desirable to the point at which they actively hurt you if you try to build them for most of the match.

That is completely counter to the 'Basic vs Advanced' paradigm.
All you've done if nerf 'T2'. You haven't made an Advanced unit; you've made a **** T2 unit.

It's obvious that you know nothing about game design, or cars... or basic mathematics and mechanics for that matter.

@TheTrophySystem
I think your design for T2 mexes should make them weaker than T1 mexes. They should be built in safe places as this allows a second wave of expansion and raiding. You'll never want to upgrade a mex on the frontlines because control there is fluid.

@Nanolathe
With that minor change out of the way I'm going to go into "Agree with TheTrophySystem mode".

Once you introduce (meaningful) territory control to an aspect of the economy it ceases to be trivially calculable. With the 15 minute payoff system whether you upgrade a particular extractor is dependent on your ability to protect them. This boils down to a judgement of your defensive capabilities in the area against your opponents offensive capability. This is the sort of evaluation which we are supposed to be making in an RTS.

There will be a bit of pure calculation required for the extractors which are in your base because it can be assumed that they are completely safe. But there is even some choice here. When you upgrade an extractor you are gambling that you will will survive without those resources for the time it takes for them to be paid back. Technically the whole economy embodies this choice but it often pays back too fast for it to be meaningful and even then the complexity of the economy is far too great for such a reasonably simple choice.

Edit: Now I think the font is too small, what is the value of the default font size?

Why the font size change? it feels like you're shouting

Also, everything you've said there Mr. Frog are just compilations; variables in the equation. It can still be solved. It would just take more time to solve it. And it's still a pretty simple equation.

Minimise risk, increase output.

The font size is an accident based on copy-pasting names. I'm used to the old forum style, I didn't notice the change and if it doesn't have a size tag I assume the size is normal.

"Minimise risk, increase output."
This could be said of everything you do in an RTS. I am going to try to determine where you draw the line.

Take the task of choosing a path for expanding constructor. Each path you send your constructor on has risk and output. The risk of a path is the likelyhood of your constructor or mexes being intercepted and destroyed by opposing raids, the output is related to the density of extractors along the path. Is there any real choice in which direction to expand?

I agree that in principal RTS games are possible to solve but the equations are not simple when you have to take into account the nature of your opponent's attacks.

I am a firm believer in humans fundamentally lacking free-will. So my answer would be biased.