The Opening Build

Since the Commander is so slow and so efficient, it's important to have it walk as little as possible.

Opening build really depends on the situation and where you spawn exactly. If you spawn in a place where the com doesn't have to walk for more than 2 seconds to get 3 mexes...then go 3 mex - energy - factory - energy - factory energy energy + and so on. However, if my com can't get to a third mex in time I usually go: 2 mex - energy - energy storage - factory - mex* - energy - factory - energy energy +.

mex* - with the second build you should structure your build so that your com walks minimally but in the direction of the next metal point.

Pro tip: Don't ever use line building for energy or area build for metal in early game.

Energy line building is bad for these reasons. Firstly, building in a straight line only creates a wall of buildings which can badly impact on movement since it just blocks your factories. Building in this fashion also will block uber cannon use against incoming rushes, takes up too much room as you can get a tighter formation just by building 1 by 1 (This needs to be tweeked by the devs to make line building useful), and also it'll make your commander walk. Only do line build if you're very busy with something else mid-game etc.

Metal area building isn't as bad and can save you some time, however, it doesn't always give you the best order of construction since you may have drawn a build over a blob of mass then another near it but you fabricator may double back to get there, wasting time - it can be better to just do it 1 by 1.

Final tip: Don't ever use 'assist' command on another unit. People who do this are wasting way too much time.
Assisting factories is great, but when it comes to units, an assisting fab that is in the way of a building site will stroll away from it rather than be zapped to the perimeter (I'm sure you have seen this when you select mutiple units and build something over the blob of fabs).
Also, fabs calculate what to do when they assist waaaay too slowly, it'll take 2-3 seconds before an assisting fab actually starts assisting.
Don't be lazy, select all the units you would be assisting with and just do the construction with all of them selected it saves time and lives... (well...robot lives)

Ehm, Brian? I think i don't must say it to you, but we already have thousands of "opening build" threads so I don't think we need more, you could post stuff in the other thread so we don't have million of them... Just saying.
#DoASearch

In doing a search, the most recent opening build thread was one asking about people's opening build – from January. Before that, two in October of last year. And that's all that shows up in the forum's 10 page search. That is far short from "thousands" or "a million." Even though I know you were being sarcastic, there's no need sensationalize. Especially since it is acceptable to bring up topics again when months have passed. Especially since search shows there have been four (including this one) threads on "opening build" since October. To take it a step further, the metal extractor cost was changed in mid February, which changes gameplay. We used to need to build three to five fabricators and then some non-fabricators – building more fabricators than that would cause to stall out. There's no need to do that anymore. There haven't been any threads on the opening build since then. So again, there's no need to sensationalize things – even though everyone loves to hate on Brian about searching.

I don't love to hate on Brian, okay at least a bit no serious, we could refresh the old threads with the new information, this would make the search a bit easier for other people when there is only one opening-build thread.
But I understand you argument.

Brian seriously, if this thread was posted by anyone else we would all be seeing your classic

''This topic has been discussed before. You should do a search before posting in accordance with forum rules"

Done a quick search of the word accordance posted by Brian. 72 hits. Possibly not all have the above quote but most do. Come on Brian this is not the first time you make your own rules for yourself. People wouldn't mind so much if you didn't pride yourself in being the main enforcer of rules on the forum.

However I once built mex pgen mex mex storage factory pgen pgen pgen air factory.
Then I built mex pgen mex mex factory pgen pgen pgen storage air factory.

The build where I placed energy storage earlier in the build had both the bot factory and the air factory produce more stuff by the same point in time, purely because I never energy stalled.


I'll try and reproduce that this patch and see what happens.

Just because someone says "opening build" in a thread doesn't mean the thread is on the topic of opening build.

You know what. I give up. Tired of all of the Brian hate that people love to pile on. Never gonna bother enforcing the forum rules again.

And this is most definitely not a topic that I would have asked people to search on.

It's not Brian hate. It's hypocrite hate. I wouldn't care if this was the tenth time the thread has been reposted but because of your stance I felt I needed to say something.

What is the difference between your 3 threads;
What's everyone opening build?
What's everyone's opening build (again)?
And Opening build.

Oh cool so you decide how to interpret the forum rules. Can we get a list of topics that we can spam the forums over and over again with without being shot down.

I think you are a huge asset to these forums but leave the policing to the people that have been giving the power to do so. Your post with tutorials and helping new players and test updates are great.

I think its unfair to hate on Briuhhn on this particular thread since while the previous threads are slightly different, they do apply to different builds under different balance adjustments. There are other threads that he's made that are clearly double posts but that was quite a while ago. The no-double thread rule is really to stop someone posting the same topic over the past few forum pages not to stop a revisit to a similar topic subject to big changes from 5 months back...

Thank you. That's the main difference. The threads are months apart and the opening builds change. The rule isn't "no duplicate threads ever." It's to prevent a post on the same topic every few weeks.

The first thread was, well the first one.
The second one was after the commander storage change, so that altered the opening build.
This is an information thread, not a question thread. And again, opening builds have changed.

Yes. I have had duplicate threads before on topics that were recently posted. It was a mistake, and I apologized for them. And as taxman mentioned, I have been more thorough with my postings lately. I create a lot of threads on the forums. I make mistakes. I apologize and it isn't the end of the world.

Now let's wait for the rest of the Brian hate posts to further derail the thread. Woohoo! I love when threads get derailed.

clopse. You should also note that the various efforts I have taken, like creating the FAQ (which is larger than the official FAQ) and asking people to search, has GREATLY cut down on the number of duplicate posts when previously the mods were doing nothing to cut down on the duplicate posts.

I usually go mex>energy (this means my storage onboard my commander is filling up again) then I go 2x mex>bot/tank/air/naval and after that it diverges. I've noticed that air is good for expansion and aggression so I'll go firefly > 3x airfabs>2x bomber>fighters if I'm feeling aggressive (or I'll add another fabber and go for fighters if I'm not), but air builds slow and is costly so building more than 3 really isn't optimal and you really must do something with those airfabs and bombers, but I haven't gotten air first hammered down exactly yet. Going any other way I build 6 fabs first (although I may try pushing out a different unit first now that I have read the OP) then I build 5 tanks 1 spinner/4 frigates/ 4 bots 2 anti air bots and after that the factory switches into full fabber production which I pause/unpause as the need arises. My first energy storage comes somewhere between 10th and 20th pgen.

Yes I agree. For example if someone has a post about fan art they want to submit or a question on the unit cannon that's a blatant double-post. But if it was something like a big meaty revolutionary suggestion about unit cannons and other buildings of its type which change our views on life, PA and the universe then that should have its own thread to discuss.

Why energy second? I go energy for the third building and my energy storage still fills up. By going metal, metal, energy, metal, factory – my metal storage is more full than if I went metal, energy, metal, metal factory.

building 3 mex and 1 energy then factory means you're wasting something like 200 metal (not sure exactly how much) since you'll have 6+ metal with 1000/1000 storage = waste while you're building that factory...

Building 3 mex and 1 energy before the factory means you're positive only 1 metal, not 6. And a Commander can build a factory in 20 seconds so you're only wasting 20 to 30 metal. Maybe 40 metal if you walk far.

I'ma have to revisit it and check because there is a common build order that will give you 6+ metal. Have to check which one it is then I'll post it here.

Mex x2, Energy x2, Air factory, Mex, energy then 3 bot factories. Then keep expanding on resource with air fabs and use com to build storage. Seems to work but depending on the location.

Hey.. As long as brianpurkiss does it, its fine. Right?

Wouldn't it be better to bounce between slight positive and not empty?

Going factory third I get one more engineer out compared to going factory fifth and while it isn't as tangible I think the ability to start paying the movement costs is close enough in utility that it isn't obviously inferior. I need to run (or someone show me) the exact numbers for me to become convinced that the thing doesn't work. That said going factory fourth is an intriguing option.

I do say that I don't find making up excuses to be defensibly mean to people to be that much fun. But if you fail to be not mean don't revel in it.