Replicating tech was never used to full effect in SupCom

[samoja]

I believe that SupCom never did use full potential of replication, 200 meter robots seem like something but in fact the exponential growth can be utilized far better, here is my calc using Mavor sized machine that has reclamation beam on one end and builder beam on the other, i counted it as being able to optimally build 5 times as fast as Fatboy(it is a big engi after all) and reclaim mass directly from planetary bodies and suns, trough complex and long calc i came to the figure that if such machine were to build replica of itself that is twice larger it would take it exactly 7.4 minutes, and the next one can build a replica of itself that is also twice larger in the same amount of time, using old figures of one mass unit being 5 metric tonnes in little under 7 hours and about 54-55 circles(one circle being time the machine needs to build the replica of itself that is twice larger) it would grow to more than 5 times the mass of Earth, and here is where things get interesting, that machine needs only half the time of the original circle to build exact replica of itself namely 3.7 minutes, and in the next 3.7 minutes those 2 can build 2 more, in as little as 18 circles or 1 hour and 6 minutes you would have 131072 of this machines, now what do you do with them, you can send them to reclaim your opponent planets(and them with it) which they could do with ease, but if you want to be more pragmatic and spare the civilian population you could have each of them travel in one chosen system and replicate there til you have over 10 000, or in this case 16384 in 15 circles, and then each of this machines could build a giant planet ship full of units of your choosing, the whole thing would take a little less than 9 hours(not counting travel time) from first Mavor sized machine to 2147483648 ships each five times the size of Earth(and you can make another batch in 3.7 minutes if you need it) full of killer robots and experimentals ready to do your bidding, to conclude i think SupCom universe rely has the most powerful tech of any SF universe i ever saw, it was just never utilized to even fraction of its potential.

[prodromos]

This is why war is going to have no meaning in the future. The economy is not going to have any meaning as well, at least as we know it. Let's hope humans have some meaning and not get disposed to the dustbin as unnecessary burden.

[Golol]

well since from my knowledge mass is not just matter, as it might seem, but instead it does matter what elements you have. better units might need less common elements and higher tech pgens can dig deeper so they get more of those elements thus effectively producing more mass.
so you can't jut reclaim a whole planet and make units out of it
the fastest way to seld replicate is propanly just an engineer that build stuff like a normal person and then builds tons of engineers, who then build more stuff

[samoja]

well since from my knowledge mass is not just matter

There is absolutely no proof of this, everything we see points to SupCom being able to transmute matter, else how would you get matter from rocks and trees. As to why is it only possible to build mexes on certain spots, as usual SupCom game mechanics seem intentionally nerfed from what the tech could conceivably do(the same thing goes for why can't you control more then 1000 units with SupCom era computer while present day one can handle multiple thousands or why SupCom t3 fab cant spam Commanders that are roughly the size of Percival, have build capacity of t2 engie and cant compete with Percival 1on1 without OC) for those things the best answer is game mechanic, as any other answer is so full of holes that it just wont float. Also maybe Mexes are so heavy they would sink in the ground they are reclaiming if they were not built on the ground that can support them, i always taught upgraded mex just gets larger reclamation beam.

[Senteth]

TA's explanation regarding mass was that it only referred to the small amounts of heavy elements needed for building things, and that most of the mass used to build a unit just came from materials in the ground too common to meter.

I'm fairly sure that Supcom has a similar explanation as it's spiritual predecessor, since otherwise it leads to wonky situations like your units being made of styrofoam, either that or UEF cars made of solid neutronium. (go to the first campaign mission in FA and reclaim one of the civilian cars lying around. It gives you enough mass to construct a massive t1 factory that utterly -dwarfs- the original car)

Total Annihilation actually made much better use of their reclamation technology than Supcom ever did. In the heyday of the war, both sides were constructing several fully artificial planets, and playing interior decorator with entire solar systems by towing a bunch of natural planets around.