Upgrade Costs

[Evildrew]

This is a question for my mod mainly, since waiting for balance team to do anything relevant that actually matters seems to take months if not years

So T2 support land factories f.ex. cost 580 mass to build from scratch, but you can upgrade a T1 landfactory for 340 mass to T2 support land factory. This principle also applies for HQs as far as I can tell.

This problem is that this principle does not apply for upgrading radar, sonar, mass extractors, so it is not consistent throughout the game and doesn't really make sense for it to apply for some buildings and not for others.

I am planning to make it consistent in my mod but would like to know the thoughts of other people who care about the game.

[AdmiralZeech]

Rather than whether it's consistent or whether it "makes sense", think about the gameplay pros and cons of each approach. Is there a good gameplay reason for the factories to be different? If they were consistent with other structures, what will change about the gameplay? Is it a positive change?

[Plasma_Wolf]

I don't think this has been considered in the first place, when the HQ and normal factories were introduced.

The effect of the mass extractors will be that ecoing will be easier. That changes the game progress. It also determines the way to get T3 mass extractors. Always start with a T1, and upgrade. At the moment there is the option to ctrl-k the T2 mass extractor, reclaim the wreck and build a T3 one. I don't think removing this choice is such a big deal but it's a choice that would be removed nonetheless.

If you make this upgrade chain make sense, and make the T3 mex more expensive to compensate, you'd be changing the dynamic of the late game, where mass extractors get destroyed and you want to rebuild T3 mexes. This is more expensive, so if you lose a section of your base, rebuilding is going to be harder.

I don't think the effect will be that big on intel structures. You won't have many, especially as you go for omni sensors. One per player is usually enough. Most times one per team will do (although it's a bit of an issue if the omni gets sniped).

As for the shields, the Cybran already have this, but they are more expensive. The total cost of an ED5 is 4260 mass. A UEF T3 Shield generator is 3000, Aeon is 2400. Seraphim is 3600. The balance of Cybran shield generator costs is a different one though. Each upgrade gives you an instant new shield bubble.

I started off thinking "yeah consistency is better" but after this small wall of text I'm not so sure anymore

[Evildrew]

Rebuilding mexes will cost the same as building them in the first place. The issue with ctrl k ing mexes is that it changes the ROI of T3 Mexes affecting the eco-unit balance. I feel the logic of having a t1 factory's resource value being capitalized whereas that of a T2 mex is not in an upgrade makes no sense. I havent seen people ctrl k t1 radars yet but that might become a thing at some point lol.
I made the changes in v22 of my mod so some games might give some better data rather than pondering in theoretical thoughts. It might make building a t2/t3 mex from scratch unfavourable vs upgrading through the stages but i somehow hope it slows the game down so units get a bigger window to be effective between the t2&t3 mex stage.
I know removing the choice to ctrl k reduces an option but i feel having to make a t3 unit then spend time on managing the ecoing places too much attention on the sim city side and therefore gives less opportunities to be effective with units.
Thanks for your thoughts though plasma_wolf.

[Tagada]

I feel the logic of having a t1 factory's resource value being capitalized whereas that of a T2 mex is not in an upgrade makes no sense.

It makes a lot of sense because while you are upgrading a mex it still generates mass normally and if you upgrade a factory it can't produce units anymore. Same logic applies to radars etc. If you would implement the thing you would suggest then there would be very little reason to make a t3 mex from scrath (which is already pretty rare). You would rather make it for the same cost but still get some free mass while upgrading.