more engie/factory tinkering

[Veta]

A while back I was working on a mod that would take a lot of what was unintuitive about FA to newcomers (see: 300 t1 engineers, adjacency liability, marginal viability of factories, mfabs) and bring it back to the competitive viability the developers intended while not destroying established strategy.

The recent focus on addressing engineer spam has encouraged me to dig up some of my old files and consider working on this again. For starters I just made a few quick changes to the factories and the engineers overall but eventually I'd like to address mfabs, overcharge, resource storage, adjacencies, ASFs and more.

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All engineers now have a Mass/BP cost of 12
--I accomplished this by changing the cost of t2 and t3 engineers and leaving their BP the same

Let me explain this change first, I did not want to have the problem of point defense creeping that would come from simply buffing engie build power. So instead I brought T2/T3 engineers into equilibrium with T1 engies. You may also note the BP to mass cost of T1 engineers is now 12 as opposed to 10.4, this is because I wanted to maintain the current pace of the game. With faster factories the initial engineers were coming out 20% more quickly and so I increased engineer Mass/BP, this has the added benefit of buffing the less flexible investment avenue of factory build power. I am willing to reverse this so that all engineers are 10.4 Mass/BP, pending testing and only if Factories too get a Mass/BP buff.

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All factories now have a Mass/BP cost of 10
--I accomplished this in a similar fashion to the featured engie mod with 1 major difference
--factory costs are still the same
There is no tech building
--Instead of a tech building I greatly increase the time it takes to upgrade a factory, tying it to engineer build times

I settled on a Mass/BP cost of 10 for factories because it would be roughly 20% more efficient than engineers, which admittedly is a value I chose as being enough to offset the much more flexible build power an engineer provides.

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My goal is for this mod to feel intuitive to a new player while maintaining the complexity of strategy and tactics that makes this game epic.

Anyhow let me know what you think:

[Wakke]

Ok, I was confused at first. I assume you mean 'Mass/BP' everytime you mention 'BP/Mass'?

[Zock]

My two concerns:

I did not want to have the problem of point defense creeping that would come from simply buffing engie build power.

You will still have this problem.

And a t3 land factory has how much BP? 300? That is an effective cost decrease for the first factory of 2496 mass, because you don't need to pay that buildpower in t1 engys anymore. This means its much more appealing to rush t3.

And you can't really adjust your eco anymore. Alone your first t3 factory would drain huge amounts of mass, and makes it impossible to produce other things while its running, when you don't have a great income. That was the reason we didn't go for that solution.

[MushrooMars]

So, I must say something. Everyone's all worked up about engineer efficiency and whatnot, when I just must ask a question; why not just give a straight-up buff to engineer efficiency? None of this mucking about with equivalent build power, tech structures and PD creep, just BUFF them. Make T2 Engie and Fac more efficient than T1, and T3 more efficient than T2, because that's how it SHOULD work. Engineering structures are more efficient than all of them, while the Aeon and Sera T3 engies retain their superior build power to UEF and Cybran T3 engies.

But PD creep--
Then increase PD build time! Or decrease engineer health!

But factories are--
Then make factories have equal efficiency to their respective tech-level engineers!

Jeeze people, I understand balance is a touchy issue, but I've been modding this game log enough to know that, if anything, it is EASY TO FIX! And I must add, would it be such a bad thing if build power was a bit higher? This game is slow as it is.

[Bibblson]

What about increasing all t2 buildpowers and buildtimes by a factor (eg. 1.5 or 2). Same for t3. But make t2 engys build t1 with less bp than they do t2 or t3. Same for t3 engys building t2/t1. This would make engys at the same level as the building/unit thats beeing built most efficent. And t1 engys in lategame more or less useless, because assisting a t3 fac won't be as efficent as bulding t2/t3 engies supporting it.

With this nerv of t1 engys assisting higher tech, factories have to become cheaper. I'd say make the t2 factory about 500m instead of 800. T3 facs cost decreased a bit too. (has to be tested out)

[Veta]

Ok, I was confused at first. I assume you mean 'Mass/BP' everytime you mention 'BP/Mass'?

thanks and fixed

My two concerns:
You will still have this problem.

I don't think more so than normal - T2 engies have 10 build power and T3 have 20 at most, the structure build time was balanced around these build power values. Do you mean that simply having more T2/T3 engineers will make it easier to put down whatever you like whenever you like? If so I agree but I don't think it will be any more viable than it already was with T1 engineer assist - you may note I reduced the HP of T2/T3 engineers to be multiples of T1 engineers.

And a t3 land factory has how much BP? 300? That is an effective cost decrease for the first factory of 2496 mass, because you don't need to pay that buildpower in t1 engys anymore. This means its much more appealing to rush t3.

And you can't really adjust your eco anymore. Alone your first t3 factory would drain huge amounts of mass, and makes it impossible to produce other things while its running, when you don't have a great income. That was the reason we didn't go for that solution.

I'd appeal to more game testing - but if you rushed T3 you most likely could not afford to run the factory without stalling which you point out. What do you mean by not being able to adjust your eco anymore? Also the goal of this mod is not to keep all the established strategy but to make some facets of the game more intuitive. If rushing T3 is a problem then I would definitely alter my approach - I do agree that this will allow you to reach T3 more quickly in team games but I don't think this would affect 1v1 too much. Conversely T2 tech might be more viable for a longer period because of the improved factory efficiency.

Something that just occurred to me though would be to increase the time it takes to upgrade a factory to be similar to the length of time it takes to produce the equivalent build power in engineers - or in general to increase the upgrade time such that it is such a great time investment that you have a larger window of vulnerability when rushing tech.

So, I must say something. Everyone's all worked up about engineer efficiency and whatnot, when I just must ask a question; why not just give a straight-up buff to engineer efficiency? None of this mucking about with equivalent build power, tech structures and PD creep, just BUFF them. Make T2 Engie and Fac more efficient than T1, and T3 more efficient than T2, because that's how it SHOULD work. Engineering structures are more efficient than all of them, while the Aeon and Sera T3 engies retain their superior build power to UEF and Cybran T3 engies.

Yes this is what I did in this mod - all factories are now more efficient than engineers at building units and all engineers now have the same efficiency as T1 engineers with the added benefit of higher level tech.

But PD creep--
Then increase PD build time! Or decrease engineer health!

But factories are--
Then make factories have equal efficiency to their respective tech-level engineers!

PD and any structure's build time is calibrated according to its level engineer's build power. The problem with simply buffing the build power of engineers instead of reducing their costs is that it makes viable what once were gambit strategies like the engie suite SCU base drop no longer work on a mechanical level. SCUs had minimal competitive use because of how concentrated their build power could be - this was not the case in the past with simple engineers and we should be weary of buffing the already viable instant-firebase some high tech engineers can make.

Jeeze people, I understand balance is a touchy issue, but I've been modding this game log enough to know that, if anything, it is EASY TO FIX! And I must add, would it be such a bad thing if build power was a bit higher? This game is slow as it is.

Yes, as you know the build times for T1 factory units are generally between 5 and 15 seconds. In this mod the build times for T2 and T3 units are now in a similar range. All engineers except the T1 engineer have been buffed - T1 engineers might be reverse to be 10.4Mass/BP again but that is testing dependent. If Engineers receive a Mass/BP buff to 10.4 then I will buff factories accordingly but at the moment it does not seem necessary.

What about increasing all t2 buildpowers and buildtimes by a factor (eg. 1.5 or 2). Same for t3. But make t2 engys build t1 with less bp than they do t2 or t3. Same for t3 engys building t2/t1. This would make engys at the same level as the building/unit thats beeing built most efficent. And t1 engys in lategame more or less useless, because assisting a t3 fac won't be as efficent as bulding t2/t3 engies supporting it.

With this nerv of t1 engys assisting higher tech, factories have to become cheaper. I'd say make the t2 factory about 500m instead of 800. T3 facs cost decreased a bit too. (has to be tested out)

It has in the past been suggested many times to add a % nerf to engineers assisting things they did not have schematics for. I'm not opposed to this but it is a lot more complicated than playing with existing BP:Mass relationships and values. Currently in this mod T2 factories are the most efficient for building T2 units because of the time units take to roll off. This is not the case for Air Factories and for Air Factories it is viable to still make T2 units with your T3 factory at no penalty.

As far as engineers assisting factories I encourage you to play this mod - it is much less necessary to assist a high tier factory because of how quickly they already produce units. An additional 10 engineers will make no significant difference in the build time of a unit and eventually you will meet the build time floor of units rolling off construction.

[Zock]

About PD creeps:

The same mass/bp ratio in t2/t3 engies will build PDs MUCH faster, then the same mass/bp ratio in 1 t2/t3 + X t1 engies, because they suffer much less timeloss to the pathfinding. If they are equal mass/bp, t2 engies will build a t2 pd (as example) about 50%-100% faster then t1 engies when they have the same mass/bp ratio. As more engies you have on a building and as smaller the buildtime of it is, as mor extreme gets this.

Thats why we changed the buildtime of all structures. If you do this too, you have our mod, just with cheaper engies instead of more powerfull engies. That's almost no difference.

About t3 rush:

Yes you will mass stall. But you will either have to constantly pause/unpause your factory (another unintuitive thing..), or just live with it. It won't even the huge buff to t3 out, not even a little bit.

With adjusting i mean: right now, or in our mod, you can decide if you spend 1,5,20, 50 or anything between mass per tick on t3. With your factories you could spend only 50, 100, 150 etc. (numbers as example).

[Veta]

About PD creeps:

The same mass/bp ratio in t2/t3 engies will build PDs MUCH faster, then the same mass/bp ratio in 1 t2/t3 + X t1 engies, because they suffer much less timeloss to the pathfinding. If they are equal mass/bp, t2 engies will build a t2 pd (as example) about 50%-100% faster then t1 engies when they have the same mass/bp ratio. As more engies you have on a building and as smaller the buildtime of it is, as mor extreme gets this.

Thats why we changed the buildtime of all structures. If you do this too, you have our mod, just with cheaper engies instead of more powerfull engies. That's almost no difference.

Yes that's true I think of great concern is the ability to drop a lot of high tier engineers into and enemy base and wreak havoc. I like this dynamic with SCUs and ACUs but in the latter case there's a lot more risk. I'll do more testing and try to come up with an alternate solution - but I agree normalizing structure build times can work too.

About t3 rush:

Yes you will mass stall. But you will either have to constantly pause/unpause your factory (another unintuitive thing..), or just live with it. It won't even the huge buff to t3 out, not even a little bit.

With adjusting i mean: right now, or in our mod, you can decide if you spend 1,5,20, 50 or anything between mass per tick on t3. With your factories you could spend only 50, 100, 150 etc. (numbers as example).

Yes that makes sense - I'm running some numbers right now and it is awkward for instance that T2/T3 air/naval/land factories have different build rates - although I think it works out because all their units came out with normalized build rates. This could be changed by doing something similar to what you guys did and adjusting factory costs to give the same build power for each tier factory. What I do like about the current factories though is that no assisting is necessary which feels more intuitive.

Right now if you reach T3 and you stall it can be a problem. I will make it more difficult to rush T3.

Mod updated:
http://www.2shared.com/file/92wtsCge/Ve ... e_Mod.html

Edit: Ideally I would like players to use many factories and upgrade them 1 at a time like MEXs. Your approach with the Tech building may be the best way to do this - like MEXs each time you upgrade a factory you are paying for more of something (build power) but unlike MEX you are paying for new tech which you only need once. This makes it very difficult to balance the transition into Tech 2/3 with the viability of staying in T2 and making multiple factories at T2. What might be good is a Tech Upgrade that researches all T2 units - and then a separate build rate upgrade for factories that is much cheaper than engineers. This would function similarly to what you guys already have but you could choose to have multiple tech factories in strategic places. Some adjustment might be needed on strategic icons or building descriptions but otherwise I think this does what you and Rien want without a tech building. Anyhow just a thought.