Forged Alliance Forever

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-24T23:03:27+02:00

I used to use that mod. It gives fabs economic IQs of +200. The fact that it was sim side made them very responsive.

However I have solid stat suggestions for the fabs that I have done alot of "mathing" on.

T2 Fab:

Code:: Make it T1, and not buildable by unupgraded com, just like hydrocarbon powerplant Energy drain: -100 Mass income: +1 Build Cost: 18 mass, 10000 energy, and 100 build time

This way the T2 fab pays for its mass cost every ten seconds (+10 mass) and costs its energy cost every one hundred seconds (-10000 energy). It will pay for it's mass cost in the sametime as a T1 extractor. You may be thinking "Wait! Making the T2 fab a T1 fab, then making it as mass efficient as a T1 mex, will lead to it's being spammed!". Fear not, for the energy cost (10,000 energy) divided by the build time (100) means that a T1 engie, with build power = 5, will spend 500 energy every second that it build the unit, and will finish it in 20 seconds, longer than it takes to build a T1 mex. This means that it will cost 1875 mass in T1 pgens to fund its construction and 375 mass in T1 pgens to run a single T2 fab. This will render the unit inefficient until cheaper power sources become available at T3 and still make it somewhat feasible to build in ones or twos at lower tech levels.

I'm still trying to figure out stats that would make the T3 fab hard to spam but still efficient. It should be about as efficient as a T3 mex in terms of mass cost, but be much more expensive in terms of energy cost. To be as efficient as a T3 mex it must pay for itself in about 255 seconds or 4 minutes and 15 seconds, but this would make a mass income of 12 require a mass cost of about 3000 mass. This would mean that, for it to refund its mass more than it costs its energy in operating costs, it would have to drain -1000 energy and cost 1,000,000 energy, or drain 390 energy (which would be ridiculously low) and cost 100,000 energy (which seems reasonable when compared with the energy cost of the RAS on most coms).

I'm going to keep analyzing this and making changes as I figure this stuff out.

Statistics: Posted by A_vehicle — 24 Mar 2013, 23:03

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-24T14:00:10+02:00

To chime in off topic: There is a little mod that enables and disables fabs automatically depending on the capacity of your energy storage. That makes a few t2 mass fabs pretty awesome even in their currect status, since they convert energy into mass that would otherwise have been excessed.

Oh and I'm in team 'explosions-are-cool': the extreme volatility of the mass fab is interesting, but maybe should be compensated by making the fab a little better.
--
Rien

Statistics: Posted by Rienzilla — 24 Mar 2013, 14:00

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-23T09:41:23+02:00

I will say it again : eco values for mass fabs are probably fine as they are, not too good, but still useful as a subsidiary income source. What makes them really awkward to build is their crazy explosion. I'm all for them to explode and be a risk to your base. But :

1) having one t2 mass fab with just 360 hp be responsible for the death of all its brothers in a wide radius is ridiculous. It should explode and damage its fellow massfab, like pgen do, but not kill all of them. If the opponent kills 2, then it would kill more fabs as a chain reaction. Or if the t2 pgen is killed = all mass fabs linked to it killed. I think pgens work well like that, it should be an example.

2) the damage radius of the explosion is insane : 5 for t2 massfabs (pgens have 2.5 blast radius), 14 for t3 mass fabs (for 5000 damages). A t3 pgen has 10 damage radius, and it's already huge.

IMO, reducing explosion damage of t2 mass fabs to 250, radius to 3, and 4000 damages with radius 8 for t3 mass fabs would make them still quite risky to build but in a more reasonable way. Energy structures would be better to target first so that mass fabs die afterwards, instead of killing the mass fabs first, which are more vulnerable (less hp), and manage to kill everything super easily with a huge chain reaction.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 23 Mar 2013, 09:41

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-23T04:59:26+02:00

A_vehicle wrote:
Pathogenic wrote:The role of the mass fabricator should be a way to get a nominal amount of mass income after all available mass extractors have been upgraded to T3, and surrounded by mass storage. It should take quite a bit longer to pay for itself than mass extractors, but if an enemy can turtle long enough or be ignored long enough, they can make a significant difference over time.

They already fill this role. One thing that blows me away is that every time someone says "lets fix mass fabs" someone screams that they don't want to play sim city or vanilla supcom or that they have never played seton's clutch (btw how can someone avoid playing seton's clutch?). The key word here is fix. Mass fabs don't have to be what they used to be. They just have to be useful. You know what I mean? Oh course you do. That's why you're reading this, right?

I guess what I am saying is, I don't consider them broken, so they don't need fixing. I fully realize they already fill the role I mentioned. That is the role I think they should be filling, after all.

Statistics: Posted by Pathogenic — 23 Mar 2013, 04:59

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-23T04:26:38+02:00

Pathogenic wrote:
The role of the mass fabricator should be a way to get a nominal amount of mass income after all available mass extractors have been upgraded to T3, and surrounded by mass storage. It should take quite a bit longer to pay for itself than mass extractors, but if an enemy can turtle long enough or be ignored long enough, they can make a significant difference over time.

They already fill this role. One thing that blows me away is that every time someone says "lets fix mass fabs" someone screams that they don't want to play sim city or vanilla supcom or that they have never played seton's clutch (btw how can someone avoid playing seton's clutch?). The key word here is fix. Mass fabs don't have to be what they used to be. They just have to be useful. You know what I mean? Oh course you do. That's why you're reading this, right?

Statistics: Posted by A_vehicle — 23 Mar 2013, 04:26

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-22T20:23:38+02:00

What if we introduce a bit of randomness to its mass production similar to the wind mill power generators in TA. Say when the mass fabricator is built alone, next to a power generator, or surrounded by mass storage; the mass production jumps around from say 1/2 T1 mex production to a fully mass storage surrounded value (mostly staying on the low end) but its energy usage is fixed.

When it is placed next to a factory, the mass production and energy usage remains constant even if you surround it with power generators or mass storage (which will lower its energy usage or increase mass production, respectively).

This way the mass fabricator acts as more of a discount to your production and you have placed a volatile structure within your production line. The mass farms that we knew will not be predictable and now you are gambling if it will pay off. We can even include a timer where the longer a mass fabricator is not adjacent to a factory its ability to reach that high mass production value slowly diminishes.

I would apply these changes only to the T2 fabricator. This way if a player gets behind he can try to "roll the dice" and may try to get back in.

Another idea that popped up; what if these fabricators only work when your mass income goes in the negative.

Pathogenic wrote:
The role of the mass fabricator should be a way to get a nominal amount of mass income after all available mass extractors have been upgraded to T3, and surrounded by mass storage. It should take quite a bit longer to pay for itself than mass extractors, but if an enemy can turtle long enough or be ignored long enough, they can make a significant difference over time.

I agree with this for the T3 version.

Statistics: Posted by The Mak — 22 Mar 2013, 20:23

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-21T22:39:58+02:00

The role of the mass fabricator should be a way to get a nominal amount of mass income after all available mass extractors have been upgraded to T3, and surrounded by mass storage. It should take quite a bit longer to pay for itself than mass extractors, but if an enemy can turtle long enough or be ignored long enough, they can make a significant difference over time.

Statistics: Posted by Pathogenic — 21 Mar 2013, 22:39

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-21T20:28:39+02:00

I think what the OP and others are trying to say is:

Problem 1 - massfabs are pretty well useless.
Problem 2 - if massfabs become more efficient (mass produced per energy and mass cost) they will be spammed.

Idea - Is there anything we can think of that might get around both?

IE, they are already aware of the need to avoid a straightup 'buff' in the traditional sense but think it is a shame that the unit has no practical use at all.

So accepting that we all understand this, can we think of any constructive ideas that might bring massfabs into a usable but not abusable role and discuss how each proposal might affect each problem?

Eg (all these are questions to get us thinking and talking)
-Increase adjacency bonuses but leave efficiency the same?
-reduce mass cost but make even more energy-expensive in both buildcost and upkeep so they are a solution to mass problems but take a long time to pay off the cost of the energy production needed - or are used only to turn excess energy reclaim (trees) into mass?
-Make more explosive but more beneficial (risk/reward)?

etc etc

PS thinking about it the second one isn't a bad idea.

Statistics: Posted by Firestarter — 21 Mar 2013, 20:28

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-21T16:17:35+02:00

A_vehicle wrote:
But anyway, supcom is already fast paced enough that players won't have time to "sim city".

...

Besides, sim city is not bad if it does not distract the player. That what templates were added for. In fact, templates and sim city makes bases look cooller in my opinion, and adjacency is what seperates the ugly and disorganized bases of some real time strategy games from the more organized and aesthetically appealing bases in supcom.

Continue the joke.

Have you played the original vanilla SupCom? The multiplayer was completely broken because massfabs were too good. There was no incentive to leave your base because it was more efficient to make pgen-massfab-pgen-massfab-pgen-massfab...Fatboy than any sort of territory control.

Whether or not massfabs could be adjusted *slightly* to make them slightly more efficient without breaking everything is kind of moot: they can never be efficient enough to be worth making except in exceptional circumstances without breaking everything else.

Statistics: Posted by Eukanuba — 21 Mar 2013, 16:17

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-21T11:44:50+02:00

i would buff massfabs i realy liked the fab spamming from vanilla

Statistics: Posted by Mr-Smith — 21 Mar 2013, 11:44

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-21T11:34:29+02:00

A big no on buffing mass fabricators here. We saw what this did in Sup Com 1 and it wasn't pretty, imo.

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 21 Mar 2013, 11:34

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-21T01:27:42+02:00

I see that you have never played Setons clutch or any other 20x20 and plus size maps.

Statistics: Posted by Supreme321 — 21 Mar 2013, 01:27

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-20T23:27:36+02:00

Not really. Here is a guide about how to stop that from happening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmIsSVV1060

But anyway, supcom is already fast paced enough that players won't have time to "sim city". The fact that you said

This is the effect that mass fabricators will have if they become useful again

really says something about how broken they are. Their death explosion is already high enough to punish sim commanders, as they could be considered, and most brand-new justgotthegameonsteam players don't know the difference between a sim city with wall sections and a sim city with T3 artillery, shields, antinukes, engie stations, etc.

Besides, sim city is not bad if it does not distract the player. That what templates were added for. In fact, templates and sim city makes bases look cooller in my opinion, and adjacency is what seperates the ugly and disorganized bases of some real time strategy games from the more organized and aesthetically appealing bases in supcom.

Continue the joke.

Statistics: Posted by A_vehicle — 20 Mar 2013, 23:27

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-20T05:56:45+02:00

This is the effect that mass fabricators will have if they become useful again, it wont be happening. Also, the ptoblem is already bad on maps such as Setons Clutch, do you really want to promote this type of behavior to new players that don't even understand the basic economy, think of this from a logical standpoint please.

Statistics: Posted by Supreme321 — 20 Mar 2013, 05:56

Re: The role of the Mass Fabricator

2013-03-20T03:28:56+02:00

I like what I am seeing.

I agree, mass fabs are broken. They should be units that you can fall back on if you begin to lose the land war but are out producing your opponent in energy. What they are now are black holes that you dump energy into that spill out a little bit of mass on the side. I would like to see T2 mass fabs lowered to T1, which was what they were originally. They should also have a low mass cost, say 20 to 30, because;
1.)They are about the same size as T1 mexes, so they can't cost much more than them and have less armor or weight without bending the player's suspension of disbelief, and
2.)At one point they cost zero mass, allowing for interesting maps with no mass points where players would rely almost exclusively on fabs.

T3 mass fabs should provide their current mass income, but their energy drain should be reduced to at least 2500 and should have their other build costs (not build time) reduced by, say, 50%, more or less, because;
1.)They currently drain 3500 energy to make them cancel out the income of a T3 pgen. The problem is, the T3 pgen's income rate was cut from 3500 to 2500 a long time ago, while the T3 fab's drain was not,
2.)A boost to the mass income of the T3 fabricator would make the T3 mex seem wimpy and redundant, despite the fab's otherwise inferior status, and,
3.)The T3 fabricator farm cannot keep up with SCUs with resource allocation upgrades because they are immobile, not as well armored, fail catastrophically (explode and kill their farm),are unarmed, have no intel advantages, don't build anything, etc.

The T2 mass fab does more damage with its death explosion than it has health in order to emphasize their status as mass farming units. On the other hand, T3 fabs have more health than their death explosion deals, meaning you have to kill two in order to trigger a chain reaction instead of the one with T2 fabs, thus emphasizing their heavier weight compared to T2 fabs.
Keep these stats in mind when you analyze them.

Statistics: Posted by A_vehicle — 20 Mar 2013, 03:28