What's Everyone's Thoughts on Metal Quantities?

^^
What the man said. Exactly. Expect more tweaks both positive and negative before they finish the game.

The problem atm seems to be its so random. Sometimes you spawn with 4-5 at the start, while the other guy might not even have 1.

Its not so much the amount that concerns me personally, its how they are spread, there will of course always be some sort of random aspect to a game like this, but at the start, you can downright lose the game if the other guy has 5 metal and you have 1 or 0.

I do know Uber is working hard to get spawn balancing as even as possible – one of which is making sure everyone has enough metal at spawn. This I know for sure will be changing.

I'm guessing the overall metal quantities and placement will be adjusted as well.

Unrelated but hey are you in charge of the pamatches website?

P.S.Yes a happy medium and more even distribution of metal would be nice.

You know, it's not a good idea to be saying "too much/too little metal" when you aren't using reclaim, which is itself a supposedly effective way to gain resources.

Yes, I do run the PA Matches website.

The reclaim function is a nice bonus to harvesting metal. However, it cannot be counted on as a staple source of income. Sure it's a great supplement, but not reliable enough.

I have the somewhat unpopular opinion that there is too much metal, not too little.

I realize that for practical reasons an average game needs to end in a reasonable timeframe, say 20 to 30 minutes. But I see no reason why every game needs to possibly contain the highest-end weapons in the game. In fact, the most expensive game-enders should actually be exceedingly rare due to their exorbitant cost. And this means that many kinds of orbital units (if absolute game-ender is their role) are either far too cheap, or there is too much metal available due to the 4x multiplier of advanced extractors.

Advanced extractors don't really add much except an incentive to expand less, and to contest territory less. They also give a yield that is FOUR TIMES higher than a normal mex, That is preposterous; controlling 4x more mexes is extremely difficult and expensive compared to the relatively negligible cost of the advanced mex. Generally speaking, you would have to increase the size of your controlled territory by a factor of four.

I am of the opinion that the game would be vastly improved just by removing the advanced mex from the game. Then the economy can be designed using one mex instead of trying to resolve two different extractors for cost-efficiency and territory-efficiency.

The amount of metal is perfect as it is (or need less even), the problem is the location of some of it, it's sporadic, if you clump them together you will have points you can fight over or defend.

But the amount of metal often depends on the planet size, and the amount of players, a big planet and 2 or 3 players, means there is plenty of mass to go around.

I believe that's kind of the point. You should always feel a bit short on metal, so that when a reclaim does happen it ends up being very effective.

As of right now I think the amount of metal on scale 4 planets right now are fine. The spacing between clumps and the amount covering average maps seems to be fine and very playable. Trying to take map control on a scale 3 or 4 planet is awesome.

I've notived seperatley on scale 2 or less have almost no metall points, and a scale 5 can jump to 300+. Balancing for these areas need to be fixed as the jump in metal spots is not proportionate (at least in my opinion) to the land mass.

The only gripes I really have with the current system have been mentioned many times, but I will say them again; A uniformed starting clump of metal (not nesarily in the exact same template/spacing), with 4-6 metal in it to start the teams off evenly near the spawns. Picking a spawn should then be decided on where the player or team can expand to, not ruling out which spawn is worse for starting. The other issue I would like resolved is one random metal in the middle of nowhere not surrounded by anything. This shouldn't exist and have no tactical value other than wasting resources trying to protect them. Three is fine, two even, not a lonely one. Forever alone.

Just my two cents.

I disagree. I think it depends on your skill. A better player will always expand and simply out produce, and if map sizes are correct, then both players should be fighting enough to where the tree to orbital is still late game. I don't think play has balanced.

Honestly I think the metal spots are still in the rough stages. The economy right now is running in excess( more mass and Energy generation that never seems to be to little) to give everyone a chance to build and try strategies, same roughness applies to a planets mass generation.

I think the random aspect makes every game just that much different and adds that initial strategy build up. For example you might choose a spot that has a good amount of mass on start but barren farther out.. while another location is barren on the start but plentiful in expansion. making you think how this landing site will affect the games complete outcome.

Making some algorithm with the beginning planet generation so that start locations have set mass might make the game to overly balanced.. already pre-defining how the game will be played out, and i'm not a fan of cookie cutter things like that.

I have played SC and FA where they always have nice starting locations with eventual mass expansions, but even for random PA planets, the start locations are pretty decent with good mass yield.

If there is one thing that I would like added to a planet's mass generation is for the mass points that are next to canyons or in mountains to be build-able or automatically terraformed by the builder. That would be really nice since there seems to be a small amount of mass that gets generated in a mountain side that just doesn't get built

They have stated they will fix this stuff.

I agree that Advanced Extractors are a good thing to have.

The main adjustment I want is the metal spots to be in clumps, not all by their lonesome. Beyond that it's a little early since interplanetary action needs to be majorly adjusted. Economies across multiple planets will be much stronger.

So maybe the scarce metal will be balanced when we have economies on three planets and fighting on the fourth.

Yes, mountains, ravines, and I've been noticing a lot more lately that some patches spawned on coastal transitions where it goes from land to water are unbuildable as well.

It's here that I'm going to have to disagree with you. The random aspect is the very thing preventing an understand of the early game. If the metal spawns could be more defined and a certain quantity guaranteed to spawn at an equal distance for both players, we would see more stable builds and have a better understanding of how much metal is too much metal.

Personally I would like to see the actual metal you get from an extractor reduced slightly and the metal points themselves to be clumped together.

This would give you a reason to expand and create hot spots to fight over for control of resources. As it stands they're much too sporadic and fighting is largely unfocused.

I miss metal makers.

The last few games I've played, ive actually had issues getting enough metal to sustain a war-time-esque economy.

;-;

Honestly we should keep this to one post. I made the first post on this topic and now there's 100's of them. Everyone thinks the metal is a little too low, too randomly spaced, unfair at the start, and half of the metal can be unusable because of terrian. Also they are working on the slide bar in the planet editor as well as modders. I give it less than two weeks till it's fully operational.

To be perfectly honest, this thread has content, and this is not your personal forum.

Im sure the creators of this fine product will balance this out with multiple starting possibilities like "abundant resources" and so forth as a selection from the hosting menu.
Currently i like the strategic aspect of having scarce resources available. Even though your oponent have more metal available from the start, this just means you have to adapt your strategy to his current situation.

Every RTS player is able to spam units like no tomorrow. It takes a real strategist to make use of smaller numbers to perform surgical strikes and win the battle. There are multiple unit types for a reason.

I created this post because the previous post I've seen, which wasn't yours, had poor quality discussion. All the answers were boiled down to just answering whether they wanted more, less, or the same. On this post we're getting more discussion on why they should be more or less, or other techniques (like clumping) to fix the issue.

I've noticed this as well. Armies are smaller and economies are strained.

Which, depending on how you look at everything, that could be a good thing.

I for one, wish there was more metal and larger armies.

This has been discussed before, and you aren't the only one. However, I believe Uber has said they won't be in the game. Maybe I'm remembering wrong or maybe Uber will change their mind, but likely they won't be in the final game.