I agree with V.
noobymcnoobcake wrote:
To T3 Mex only. T3 Mex are generally not used as they are so inefficient. These massfarms are highly volatile and a great target to snipe. Map control is still required to win the game. Massfarms require more space, more protection(shields that need constant energy and t3 shields are very expensive anyway), will blow up and leave no wreckage and have little hp, require more build time. T3 Mex will still be better but massfarms won't be not used at all. You will NOT see the sc1 massfarms but may occasionally se them in team games on larger maps. As I said makes the game slightly deeper and gives you new fun targets to kill and something to protect.
Impossible to balance such a thing. Either it's better than a T3 mex (and will be used exclusively) or is worse than a T3 mex (and will not be used).
At the highest levels of play, it's all about maximizing your return on investment. If it's possible to protect that fab farm at all (cough, shields) it will be used and abused. If it's impossible to protect, or less efficient than a T3 mex, it won't be used.
Simply put, the most efficient ways of managing your economy are already known. The T1-T2-storage-T3 formula was figured out long ago. If fabs are found to be more effective at any area of that (in this case, T3 mex's), they'll be used instead of T3 mex's. If they aren't, then we have the same "problem" that we have now - fabs won't be used as the tried-and-true mex's are a better value. There is no middle ground as high level players will always go for the most efficient way to maximize their return on investment to their economy.
Even more simply put: there can only be one shortest path to a destination. High level players will always find that path and take it. Your economy is the destination, paths are mex's or fabs.
One final nail in the coffin: I have yet to see even the largest teamgames make it to a point where you have upgraded every single mex to T3 and surrounded every single mex with storage and find yourself in need of more mass, to the point where you would need fab farms, even if they were only some small percent lower in efficiency than a surrounded T3 mex.
The only three places that I have ever seen fabs used are in:
1) Thermo. (no expansions aside from a trivial number of mex's in the middle)
2) NR. (again, no way to expand)
3) Survival. (I'm detecting a pattern..?)
Economy doesn't shoot. Units shoot. You win games by shooting things. If a game reaches the point where T4s are flying back and forth, it will only be a matter of time until something gives. There's simply too many ways to end a lategame game for there to ever be a deadlock where eco spamming will be more viable than unit spamming.
TLDR; FA is about expansion and territory control. If you don't like that go back to vanilla.
Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 05 Nov 2011, 10:55
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