The role of the Mass Fabricator

[Supreme321]

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.

[A_vehicle]

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.

[Supreme321]

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

[Wakke]

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

[Mr-Smith]

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

[Eukanuba]

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.

[Firestarter]

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.

[Pathogenic]

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.

[The Mak]

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.

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.

[A_vehicle]

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?