FunkOff wrote:
In regards to shields, all increasing energy costs does is make shields worse in mid game and roughly the same in the late game. Mid game shields are not the problem, it's late game when you can stack tons of them.
Increasing E-drain costs is definitely a nerf, so yes it makes them worse in the mid-game (and the late-game, since cost-effectiveness is always important). But the effect is that it slows the rate of their deployment and, once many of them have been deployed, it makes your army/fleet that much more vulnerable to a loss in power.
FunkOff wrote:
That's why I nerfed recharge time instead of anything else... When you only have one or two shields, they'll die when you down them and recharge rate doesn't really come into play.
I disagree. 
I think that more-than-doubling the rebuild time makes a very big difference to the utility of my early Shield of Light or SD-Pulse. In the early game I might have layered only two together, or my shield might go down right as I'm fending off an attack. In both cases, I'd much prefer that the shield comes back online 15 seconds later instead of 35.
FunkOff wrote:
Recharge rate comes into play much more strongly when you have 10+ shields and it becomes impossible to out-DPS all of them.
When are you seeing 10+ static shields stacked together? That sounds hard to do, and if you're talking about T3 shields, that would be very expensive. I know it can be done, yes, but it's hard for me to imagine a player using Pgen+shield farming as a winning strategy unless it's a 2x resource Thermopylae game or something like that. More importantly, stacked static shields could be overwhelmed and "out-DPS'd" by artillery because of its wide splash. The only problem in 3599/3603 is that the arty has pathetic DPS for its cost.
No offense. I know you're a much more experienced player than I am, but maybe you could show us a replay where this crazy shield-spamming player won the game? I'd just like to see what kind of scenario you're trying to address with these nerfs.
FunkOff wrote:
Take the example of the seraphim T3 mobile shield in 3599. The damn thing was nearly unusable in 1v1 games because it required -300. To even have a single one, you'd need a T2 pgen. To have 3 on the field, you'd need 2 T2 pgens... that essentially doubles their cost. (800 mass apiece x 3 = 2400, +2400 again for 2 T2 pgens). However, in late-game scenarios where you have a bunch of T3 pgens, the energy cost becomes far less relevant and spamming them is easier...
Yes, the Athanah has been overpriced imo. That's why I suggested an E-drain of -250 for it earlier.
And yes, I'm fully aware that the E-drain cost indirectly factors into a unit's build cost. That's why I made this handy table (attached) that shows the effective cost for the mobile shields, which adds in the proportional cost from T1, T2 and T3 pgens. But, I think you're contradicting yourself when you argue that this only matters in the early/mid game.
If E-drain costs factor into total unit cost, then they're part of the unit's cost/benefit ratio, and that's relevant throughout the whole game. It's true that individual unit costs become less relevant in later games, but that's because there's no hard cap on resource income in SupCom. You can always create more energy with Pgens and more mass with fabs. Nevertheless, a higher E-drain means a player needs more Pgen farming and that is both a direct cost and risky investment.
FunkOff wrote:
Also, E cost does NOT deter spam, it only pushes it later into the game. Just look at Cybran ASFs. They all have E drain but people will spam those things like it's nobody's business.
The Geminis are a good point, but...
I think the thing with Geminis is that their E-drain is relatively small (-25) compared to their E-cost for construction, so by the time players are building Geminis they already need a lot of Pgen-power. Also, people think the cost is worthwhile so they pay it. Nevertheless, I've seen cases where players were forced to temporarily turn off their ASF stealth because the E-costs got out of control (maybe because they're rushing a T4 or something).
>>>>>>>>>>Let's take the last naval replay you posted as an example, where you were fielding (and then spamming) Bulwarks vs Karotten.
Would you have been able to field as many Bulwarks, as early, if they had twice the E-drain? As you said with the Athanahs, you probably would've been delayed there since you'd need to slow your unit production and aggression while you built more Pgens. (Although with my suggested changes, the total Bulwark cost is the same, it's just shifted to Pgens).
Then, later on in the game when you had tons of Bulwarks: If Karotten had nuked your base instead of your ally's, you might've lost most/all of your power. Even with their -150 E-drain, this might've made it hard for you to keep your shields up on all of your Bulwarks. But if the E-drain had been higher then you would've had more Pgens and, probably, more of your total power would've been directed at maintaining your Bulwark's shields. That means that a big loss in power would've forced you to choose between abandoning unit production or turning off a bunch of your shields.
The point is: When E-Drain costs are (relatively) low then covering them is (relatively) trivial and it's less of a tactical/strategic gameplay mechanic. When the costs are higher then the advantages of shield spamming (and ofc, stacking) are offset by the strategic vulnerabilities of maintaining a large economic infrastructure. That makes for more interesting gameplay and balance imo.Statistics: Posted by Mr Pinguin — 13 Nov 2011, 02:39
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I appreciate the feedback, but you seem to have misread my post. 
But there are some big differences between mobile and static shields.