The Next Step in Balance - The Commander's Economy

So the Devs have "fixed" the Dox problem by reducing their vision to 100 in the PTE. They also nerfed the commander's OP torpedoes.

Now we have to get into the problem of the Commander's current Economy.
As it stands, the commander has the following stats:

Code:

   "production":{
      "energy":3000,
      "metal":30
   },
   "storage":{
      "energy":20000,
      "metal":1000
   },

The storage hasn't changed since Alpha (I think), but production was recently changed to allow for factory first strats. Unfortunately, they also allowed for the double factory first strat.

Energy income:

Equivalent to 3000/ 600 = 5 t1 power plants.
Or, 3000/675 = 4.4 Bot factories (whoa).
Or, three fabricators (without the commander being used for building).

Metal Income:

Equivalent to 30/7 = 4.3 mex
Or, 30/15 = 2 bot factories (not so whoa)
Or three fabs.

What this is basically saying is that you don't need to do anything for the first 2-3 minutes besides make units to do well. In fact, that's the only strategy right now, since defensive towers are not OP.

Let me summarize some history here:
First, we had Beta. Balance wasn't perfect, but it was epic on a regular basis.
Then, we had Gamma. Balance went off the wall, and we suddenly had fabricator-only builds based around using dox to harass a little bit, then rushing T2.
Then, release. Now, Balance went off the OTHER wall, and we suddenly have single, double, and triple fabricator builds, with a huge emphasis on units.

Can we get to the middle of these? Where you build a respectable amount of fabricators to expand and build, but also build a good amount of units to attack and harass with. Your main push should come in the mid-game, unless you are rushing units.

A big part of getting to that place is the Commander's Economy. It needs an adjustment.

Instead of giving the commander a lot of regen, why not give him a lot of storage? That would enable factory first, but you would still have to build eco to compensate for the sudden downward trend in your economy.

I propose setting the Commander regen to 1000e/15m (so he can run himself, metalwise), and setting the storage to at least 40000e/1500m.

In the Community UberBalance, I used 45k/1.75k, and it works quite well.

Thoughts?

I am unsure about increase the storage size. I'd try to make the commander a t1 fighter like it is in SupCom:FA and implement the economy changes I am proposing all the time to fix the other things. The commander economy alone won't fix that.

It's a start. One step at a time. The next step is Energy plants and Combat Fabs.

I'd rather not see a reduction of energy production on the commander without any other changes
Energy is bad as it is, no need to make it worse.

That's not the core problem. We don't need both rushing and expanding. You need to be able to chose.

EDIT: Let's slow the game down. It plays to the strengths of the engine and the unit compositions.

Well ofc

Why 1 000 energy instead of 1 500?

That's the old energy generation the commander had before the regen buff

Hmm... Truth is, I'd rather see the Commander being able to run himself energy-wise. It would make it easier to recover if someone slams your energy.

More energy/metal storage and less energy/metal production is what most balance mods use. This means the commander has enough storage to go factory first but it's not required, unlike vanilla. Basically it means economy start is still viable.

Come to think of it, starting 4 factorys first in my mod is kinda one of the best starts......

Agree the game needs be slowed down. The climax of most games should occur around mid-point. Early game should be about light raiding and expanding. Rush strats need to be viable but risky. Defenses need to be slightly stronger to bring back a mixed unit roster. I think you are also correct that the commander probably needs a slight adjustment back in the other direction to make it more a '1 factory first' strat then a '2-3 factories first'. I would also like to see the commander be made viable for skirmishing and frontlining assaults again. I think some of the most exciting gameplay we saw was back when team game assaults often took the risk of putting a com or two front and center to build forward defense and give a decisive punch-through point. It was certainly OP, but lets scale that back a bit.

On the subject of slowing the game down, I'll be making a mod soon-ish that finds a sort of balance between the balance we have today and the balance in beta. Something that fixes a lot of the actual problems instead of the symptoms.

The CUBM was a great step forward, but I'm starting to realize how many problems lurk underneath the aurface