I know metal is required to build stuff. But i just played a game and was forcing to drain out my metal supplies and production. I had a metal production of -70 en no metal in stock. Still my factory was building units and my commander was building buildings. So my question, what exactly changes when you are out of metal?
Stuff takes longer to builds. So if you have +100 income and you build with -200 everything will build with 50% speed.
When you are out of metal,your production speed is drastically reduced,make sure to build metal storage units to allow more storage.
Yeah okay, but how can you call this a balance fix? Stuff is taking longer to build, but it is still building right? I can still build a 16000 metal costing radar when i only have 800 metal in storage and a metal production of +8. It like buying a ferrari without any cash on my bank account and a few dollars coming in every month. I think when you are out of metal, you are out of metal. Development or producing tanks or whatever should be halted. (just like in any other rts). You can not buy stuff when you dont have money...
And you can't. Lets say you have a metal income of 8 per second and building a tank that costs you 160 metal. It will now take 20 seconds to build (160metal / 8metal/second). If you now build two tanks for 320 metal in total at the same time it will take you 40 seconds to build both (320/8). You don't get free metal, it just takes longer and longer to build something if you don't have enough metal income.
Of course you can. You take your few dollars a month, and buy a ferrari headlamp bulb. The mex month, you by the rest of a headlamp. Then some wiring. Then some bits of metal. After many many (many) months, you have the car. And it would take you half as long to get the car if you earned twice as much money. Simple. The reason why this analogy is laboured is because you selected a very poor one in order to describe the TA style economy. If you don't understand how it works, that's fine. There will be tutorials and mods to help you. However, it is pretty much a certainty that one of the biggest selling points of this RTS subgenere is not going to be changed at this point.
To use your analogy of buying a car with no money. Think of it as buying a part every week when you get paid, and building the car one piece at a time. At the start, you spend all your savings and buy loads of the parts needed so you build the car pretty quickly up to a certain point, but once you run out of savings, you can only spend what you have coming in every week, and so can only afford pieces for your car at much slower intervals. It will take you ages to build said car. Same in PA when your spending more metal than you have metal income. The storage is just like your savings, then you rely on your income. Edit: Damn you yourlocalmadsci. I was too slow!
I know that is not the best analogy there is, but you get my point right? I understand how it works, i'm saying that i dont feel a big difference when i'm playing the game. Maybe I did not explained it correctly (not an English native speaker). was just trying to say that even with no metal in storage and no metal being produced ( hence the -10) stuff is still being build! So let me give a new example then. If i have no money on my bank account. And i have no income, just debt to pay (the -10 metal )then i wont be able to buy stuff right?
But you DO have income. See the little green + number above the little red - number. That's your income. At the moment, your commander produces +10 income, and each T1 mex produces +7. If you have 5 T1 mexes and your commander, then you have +45 income. If you also have -60 outcome, then you are running at a net metal deficit of -15. That is to say, you will only be producing at a rate of 45/60 which is equal to 75%. Your factories will take 75% of the amount of metal they would normally take (because you don't have more to give them), and run at 75% speed (assuming you have none in storage).
Absolutely, and it'll take ((16000 - 800) / 8)) extra seconds to have it completed. You won't have that radar for half an hour (1900 seconds, or 31.6 minutes). Being able to build is far less important than being able to complete the build in time for the unit to be useful Metal is being produced. Your commander produces +10 metal and +1000 energy, so you will always have some production while you still have a commander. Look closely at your resource numbers; in your case it may be +30 income and -40 expenditure for a total of -10. Your big resource number (-10) is an indication of how much you are spending compared to earning. So if you have 1000 in storage, you will be losing 10 per second out of storage. Rest assured, that your builders are only capable of spending your actual income (+30), so you are effectively at an overall total of 0 once you run out. The negative number just stays there to show you that you only need to spend 10 less per second to break even, which is not much. If it were -270 metal, you know you are over-reaching and need to start cancelling build projects, otherwise nothing is going to get finished before yourr enemies turn up
Rule of Thumb: Metal is good. You can never have enough metal. Greater Rule of Thumb: Without Energy, you can't have metal. Energy is therefore more important than metal.
Flow based economy. When you have none in storage and are using more than you're getting you'll still build stuff, but incredibly slowly.
That is good then. What you really want is to always have a positive energy income that you rarely dip into so having a few energy storage units helps when you want to use a few T2 fabbers to spit a building out. Metal though, I always try (now that metal spots are in) to make sure I am always in the negative, around -5 to -10, any more than that and you should probably stop building some things. Metal storage is useless because why save what you should be turning into an army to bring about your opponents Total Annihilation
Ok clear. I was completely missing the fact that you still produce, you will always produce (commander). Stupid of me
Yeah, that number is your net. +100 and -110 = -10. But you are still pouring 100 metal into production each tick.
This is not a monetary system, it is a resource system. Money doesn't come into it at all. The resource system shown in the game, is hypothetically possible in 4000 years, where nanotechnology, femto-engineering, 3D-printing and the ability to convert energy into matter, converge to allow the construction of buildings on a whim. Hell I would wager that we shall see the infancy of this resource system in 300 years time.
You are not out of metal, you simply produce less than it is required to build properly. So everything you build is being built slower cause it can't be built fast enough cause there is not enough metal to do it. So the metal that is coming in is used to build but since you need more to actually build at full speed, it will be slower and annoying. It's not a matter of not having metal, its a matter of not producing enough metal to build full speed. I realize it has been cleared already but I wanted to write this. #YOLO
