Variable Mass Drain Between Units

[Veta]

different units built by the same factory drain mass at different rates. this is more apparent in engie mod where unassisted factories are more common.

i'm curious if anyone thinks this improves gameplay at all especially compared to the approach of many spring games (and now planetary annihilation) wherein mass cost is related to build time such that units within a factory drain mass at the same rate.

[Ze_PilOt]

It's a matter of adjusting the buildtime.

Not sure if a lot of people want that, but it's possible. Probably a bigger change than engymod itself.

[Rienzilla]

I think it's fine that factory mass drain is different depending on the unit that's being built... Buildtime/buildpower is a resource that needs management, just like mass and energy.
--
Rien

[Veta]

well BP definitely is a resource but it is less direct than mass and energy. BP can be described as your ability to spend mass/energy, but especially mass.

100 mass will always be worth 100 mass but 100BP is not always the same. 100BP producing Titans is worth less than 100BP producing Percivals because the latter drains mass more quickly. That is an intrinsic advantage to a unit that has nothing to do with how it performs in game.

[Pathogenic]

One practical difference of the variable mass drain between units is that higher mass drain for some units will be better in terms of factory adjacency to mexes. The discount for these units will be the same regardless of the build rate with adjacency, but the advantage between putting mass storage around mexes versus using the mexes for factory adjacency shifts in favor of mass storage when the factory is producing low mass drain units.

[Nombringer]

Heres what I posted on the Pa forums in regard to the same topic, Ta also made a great post as well.

Feel free to disagree

Build TIME between units is no longer a factor, and this IS a souce of depth.

For instance, in supreme commander, experimentals are actually hidiously INefficient, by this I mean they lose halariously in a frontal fight, agianst equal resouces of tech three land.

Tech three land, in most cases, has more DPS and more health. Why then, are expermeantals built? They allow you to quickly divert you economy to them, withought a huge amount of buildpower. Thia allows you to quickly capitalise on reclaimables, and eject them into you economy, likewise tech three mex extractors, have a very high rate of drain, and allow the fast and effective use of recliamables withought the need to divert huge amounts of buildpower.

High build rate things also allow you to deliberately "stall" your economy, so you can priortise mass distribution.

This open a a diverse range of tactics and units, and and provides depth, as opposed to purely striveing for efficientcy. A recent MOD has been introduced to FAF and one of the main problems with is tech three landspam, as the mod effectively removed the limits of build capacity you could have on units produced at a factory.

Tldr:I think it will work with Pa and the two tier system, but will nevr be a good addition to supcom.

[Veta]

you make a good point that FA balance is optimized around the existing build power framework. that is why engie mod had the unforeseen result of excessively powerful t3 land.

i think engie mod will find an acceptable solution and PA being designed with this in mind won't encounter such issues. i agree with zep's assessment that this would have a larger impact than even engie mod and likely isn't appropriate right now. i disagree that variable drains create much depth for the complexity they add, especially since what you describe overlaps with the purpose of storage, that is dealing with spikes in resource income.

[Nombringer]

you make a good point that FA balance is optimized around the existing build power framework. that is why engie mod had the unforeseen result of excessively powerful t3 land.

i think engie mod will find an acceptable solution and PA being designed with this in mind won't encounter such issues. i agree with zep's assessment that this would have a larger impact than even engie mod and likely isn't appropriate right now. i disagree that variable drains create much depth for the complexity they add, especially since what you describe overlaps with the purpose of storage, that is dealing with spikes in resource income.

I would only say that it would add depth in cases, such as something with a low build time, high mass cost (exp)

However I think the main reason for variable drains is the tier system, imagine trying to rebalance build capacity and the tiers without it, Tech one engie spam is already a problem, and you could not change them, without completely altering the way the game plays. (like Zep said)

[Veta]

well if T2 factories are draining mass twice as fast and T2 units take about twice as long to produce you're looking at units that have 4x as much mass being poured into them at T2, which is approximately the relationship between Strikers and Pillars.

Those were actually the first 2 units i checked and it happened to work out that way but I'm sure this breaks down in other places, notably T3AABs and Experimentals.

Although the OP was more referring the inter-factory mass drains like the disparity between Titans and Percies.