Surrounding Mexes with Fabricators, worth it?

[Fernest]

Is it a valid strategy to surround T1 Mexes with T2 mass fabricators?
You save mass during the upgrade.
Destroying the fabricators on T3 does just small damage to the mex. Building storages around it will reclaim most of the mass spent on the fabricators.

Some additional infos:
Fabricators give more mass than stoarge-adjacency on a T2 mex (but cost 600 energy if active)
Fabricators give adjacency bonus to the Mex upgrade, even if they are not active.
You don't get mass-storage from fabricators.
T1 or T2 mexes get very vulnerable because of the fabricator's volatility.

[Gorton]

There are no t1 mass fabricators.
The answer to your question is no, they're not worth it.

As you probably already know, All t1 mex you can get -> t2 mex -> storage around mex -> t3 mex.

[Apofenas]

Don't self distruct mass fabs. They will damadge mex and each other's wreckage. If you think, that you need to utilize your power, you might want to also get a 13% mass discount for t3 mex upgrade. But it requiers micro.

As for t2 mex upgrade, it doesn't worth it. You pay 45% to get 13%; you will utilize power though, but in that case it's easier to reclaim power generators since 600 power over float is a huge waste, if you try to get bonus for t2 mex upgrade...

[Fernest]

There are no t1 mass fabricators.

mistyped. Sry. Edited.

The answer to your question is no, they're not worth it.

I was hoping for a more fact-based, elaborate discussion and not a dogmatic repetition of one of the most basic strategies... (= please no opinions. Just data driven analysis.)

Don't self distruct mass fabs. They will damadge mex and each other's wreckage.

Sure, but you still get about 250 mass out of the 400 mass you've invested into the fabs. The damage done to the mex is small.

13% mass discount

Are you using "T2->T3 mass cost" - "4 T2 fabs mass cost" to get to that number?
How much adjacency do the fabs exactly provide to the Mex-upgrades? I thought 20%.

[Apofenas]

13% mass discount

Are you using "T2->T3 mass cost" - "4 T2 fabs mass cost" to get to that number?
How much adjacency do the fabs exactly provide to the Mex-upgrades? I thought 20%.

T3 mass extractor upgrade basicly costs 24 mass per second; Being surrounded by T2 mass fabs it takes 21 mass per second, which is only 12.5% mass discount. It's actually interesting, but for SCUs it's like 25% bonus.

[A_vehicle]

I was hoping for a more fact-based, elaborate discussion and not a dogmatic repetition of one of the most basic strategies... (= please no opinions. Just data driven analysis.)

Here is a great resource for all your eco-related questions.

http://supcomfaguide.com/

Edit: The site is gone! NOOOOOOOooooo...

Well, to sum up the eco part of the guide, the most efficient way to use T2 mass fabricators is to surround T3 pgens with them. Make sure each pgen is 3 mass fabs apart so that the pgens don't share any fabs. This maximizes the energy cost to mass production ratio. In addition, it allows you to build shields between all the pgens. Building them any other way simply slows your economy down because they aren't efficient enough to compete with mass extractor development. I don't remember the math behind it all but the guy who wrote the guide used calculus to justify it, so it seems legit.

He also used calculus to prove that T3 mass fabs (unless you are building a base on a small island) are NEVER worth building because they are the most inefficient energy-to-mass conversion method in the game and nothing they can be adjacent to can fix it.

Edit: In summary, efficiency (and thus what you should maximize the number you build) of mass production, according to PrayingMantis' calculus magic is as follows:
t1 mex > t2 mex > t2 mex surrounded by mass storage > T3 mex surrounded by storage > T3 mex isolated (avoid these) > resource allocation system (RAS) (for the ACU, all factions, but Aeon > Seraphim > UEF > Cybran) >t2 mass fab surrounding t3 pgens (unshared) ~= RAS for support commanders (Aeon > UEF > Seraphim > Cybran, but true for all factions) > t3 mass fabs (adjacent to anything or not)

[Exotic_Retard]

IF you have spare energy that you are wasting, then t2 mass fabs are worth building over t3 mexes. HOWEVER t3 mexes should be built first because they are much more energy efficient.

the best places to put t2 mass fabs are: when you surround a mex with storages, surround the storages with t2 mass fabs. they get 25% more mass income that way, or 12.5% more if touching only one storage. dont build storages unless they are next to mexes.

surrounding t3 pgens with them. they have a much lower energy cost that way, and the whole structure (t3pgen + 16t2massfab) gives a net positive on mass and energy.
keep those at least 2-3 t1 pgens away from other massfabs to prevent chain reactions, so you only lose one if it gets bombed.
alos keep them shielded.

http://www.faforever.com/faf/unitsDB/unit.php?bp=URB1104,URB1202,URB1302,URB1103
simply divide the mass cost by mass production to find their efficiency.
lower = better = should be built first.
note that mass fabs a re more efficient than a t2 mex but need a very large energy upkeep per mass, making them least efficient when taking that into account.
(energy cost from t3 pgens = 0.772 energy/mass)
so a massfab+ upkeep = 100 + 150*0.7716 = 215.7 masscost /mass
compared to t3 = (4600 + 0.7716*54)/18 = 257.87 masscost/mass
but when you factor in storages: (4461.67 + 800)/27 = 201.54 masscost/mass

meaning t2 massfabs are less efficient than t3 mex with storages.

hope i did the maths right :/
hope this helps