Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-26T19:30:27+02:00

muzzl wrote:
That link said a mass extractor stops producing while it's upgrading. Is that really true?

FIRST THING TO KNOW: It's not true anymore. The bug is fixed and there's nothing to worry about in FAF.
To explain this a bit more. In the GPGNet version of FA, we had the mass extractor upgrade bug.

First some info on the income/expenses of the mex upgrade: A T1 produces 2, upgrading drains 10, the net total you'll see on the mex then is -8 (As Eukanuba pointed out)

If you upgrade and then run out of mass, pause the extractor (so that you'll no longer spend the mass for upgrading it and building units goes faster again), the upgrade process is pauzed, but the income/expenses system would remain as if the upgrade process is still going on. The result: You'll continue spending 10 mass per second while nothing is being done with it.

The ways to circumvent the bug were:

pausing the mex just before you run out.
pausing other things, until your income is positive again and then proceeding in whichever way you want.
Actually fixing the bug, which was done at some point.

So there's nothing to worry about right now. The bug DOESN'T exist in FAF

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 26 Jan 2013, 19:30

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-26T19:25:20+02:00

The text accompanying the link doesn't say anything about whether the mex keeps producing minerals as it's being upgraded. The pause bug is something else.

The consensus seems to be that they will keep producing mass while being upgraded. I just tested this in game and can confirm. The formula given for how fast you'd need to bring up a T3 extractor to turn a profit by reclaiming your T2 extractor first is a good start. To be even more accurate, you can take into account that if you choose to upgrade, the T2 mex will contribute its own build power, making the T3 mex come up faster so granting you a bit more minerals that way vs building it from scratch,which does turn out to be a significant amount. So taking that into account and changing it to output total profit we have:

(Reclamation value of T2 mex) - (Amount of minerals the mex would have produced during upgrade) - (Minerals lost due to slightly slower T3 mex)

One could also consider the time it takes to actually reclaim the T2 mex and get the new one started, but assuming that you're not too slow on the controls this won't be very significant and will be ignored.

So, with X being the number of T3 engineers on the job, the above equation can be written as:

(810) - (9 * (2875 / (15 * X))) - (18 * ((2875 / (15 * (X)) - (2875 / (15 * X + 1)))))

Plugging in a few values for X we have

3 => - 52 (Negative means loss)
3.33 => 53
3.66 => 136
4 => 206
5 => 350
10 => 606

In conclusion, if you have the build power of at least 3 T3 engineers + 1 T1 engineer it's economically possible to turn a profit by first reclaiming a T2 mex and then building a T3 one in the same spot VS upgrading the T2 mex. If you have significantly more build power than that, it might even be worth considering doing in a game.

This also has implications for the other, more practical idea being thrown around in this thread. Do you use a high tier engineer to make a T3 extractor from scratch or start with a T1 extractor and upgrade it when approaching an empty mex spot? The formula could be changed to account for the resources gained during an upgrade from T1 to T2 and also the resources lost from getting the T3 extractor more slowly by taking the upgrade route... But suffice it to say that it depends on the number of engineers doing the job... If you have a fair bit of build power there then it's better to build the T3 extractor from scratch (and if you plan to get a T3 extractor it's probably a good idea to put some engineers on the job anyway). If the engineers aren't available or you just aren't going to assist the build then it's better to upgrade from a T1 extractor.

Statistics: Posted by muzzl — 26 Jan 2013, 19:25

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-26T18:32:58+02:00

ColonelSheppard wrote:
muzzl wrote:That link said a mass extractor stops producing while it's upgrading. Is that really true?

no it does not "stop" it just uses more mass than it produces while upgrading

T1 to T2 costs -10, but if you look at the drain you will see it is only -8. This is because the T1 mex produces +2, even when upgrading.

Statistics: Posted by Eukanuba — 26 Jan 2013, 18:32

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-26T14:03:27+02:00

muzzl wrote:
That link said a mass extractor stops producing while it's upgrading. Is that really true?

no it does not "stop" it just uses more mass than it produces while upgrading

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 26 Jan 2013, 14:03

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-26T09:57:29+02:00

muzzl wrote:
That link said a mass extractor stops producing while it's upgrading. Is that really true?

what link? the one that is accompanied by the addition that the mass extractor bug does not exist in FAF anymore?

muzzl wrote:
If that's the case, then what do you think of getting a T3 engineer and reclaiming a T2 extractor before building a T3 one in the same spot? Same price as upgrading the T2 extractor with a ~800 mineral bonus refund in theory.

if you can build the t3 mex in less than (900 - 0.1 * 900)/9 seconds.

Statistics: Posted by rootbeer23 — 26 Jan 2013, 09:57

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-26T07:24:57+02:00

That link said a mass extractor stops producing while it's upgrading. Is that really true?

If that's the case, then what do you think of getting a T3 engineer and reclaiming a T2 extractor before building a T3 one in the same spot? Same price as upgrading the T2 extractor with a ~800 mineral bonus refund in theory.

Statistics: Posted by muzzl — 26 Jan 2013, 07:24

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-23T12:50:10+02:00

i'm normally instantly building t2/3 at safe point's just because i'm lazy

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 23 Jan 2013, 12:50

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-23T11:39:48+02:00

The exact same thing can be said for going t2 on other mexes...

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 23 Jan 2013, 11:39

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-23T04:07:10+02:00

Well you forget that while you upgrade your t2 mex to t3, it produces +9 if surrounded. It simply depends how fast you can build your t3 mex.

Statistics: Posted by -_V_- — 23 Jan 2013, 04:07

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-22T12:31:21+02:00

When you first start upgrading in 1v1 you do not need engineers to assist, unless you have huge power and reclaim, in which case you have either lost from having too few units or could have just rolled them over with units if you had decided to build them instead. Also as sheppard points out, to get t3 not only are you buying the t3 upgrade, you are also paying for the t2 first, so a t3 mex costs 5500 mass!

for the same price you upgrade 6 mexes to t2 one at a time, no need for "engie" teams to assist. If all your eco is going into more eco and you need to assist on the 4~5th mex, then wtf are you spending on your land??

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 22 Jan 2013, 12:31

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-22T11:59:37+02:00

I'm still not convinced on this. I had a game on Finn's Revenge and I am sure that if I upgraded all of my mexes to T2 before building mass storages around my base mexes (and taking them from T2 to T3) I would have fallen behind on economy. It is not practical to get engineers to assist all mexes to T2 before going T3 because then your mass engineer mex upgrading team is in the wrong place when you want to start capping/upgrading your base mexes.

Statistics: Posted by Flynn — 22 Jan 2013, 11:59

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-15T18:24:20+02:00

i guess you know that building t3 mex directly is way cheaper?

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 15 Jan 2013, 18:24

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-15T16:19:17+02:00

What dilli said:

To cap one mex at t3 costs a total of 6300 mass, and an eco increase of +25

For the same cost, you can get 7 t1 mexes up to t2, gaining you an eco increase of +28.

Also you will get the benefits of the t2 mexes sooner than the t3 one.

The last point is important. You are gradually working your way up to +28 and so the final cost is much cheaper.

Same reason you should always rebuild destroyed/unbuilt mex's from tech 1 and upgrade them. You see lots of players directly building t2 or t3 mex's and losing the mass which would have been produced during the upgrade.

Statistics: Posted by Combo — 15 Jan 2013, 16:19

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-15T15:33:55+02:00

what rootbear say is that you upgrade the outside t2 mexes if you are sure you can defend them for at least 3min and build mass storrages around the t2 in your base if you are not sure, but sure that you will survive the next 3:15 (?) not sure about the exact time

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 15 Jan 2013, 15:33

Re: Upgrading Mexes

2013-01-14T14:41:29+02:00

that is what the grey matter is for, yes.

Statistics: Posted by rootbeer23 — 14 Jan 2013, 14:41