Forged Alliance Forever

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-17T10:06:07+02:00

SACU + RAS:
11 mass income
1020 energy income
1950 (Aeon) + 4500 mass cost
An energy income of 1020 equals 1020 * (3240/2500) = 1321.92 mass in T3 power.
So IMO Aeon SACU with RAS has a payback time of 5128.08/11 = 466.19 mass. Which, if you calculate in the other many advantages just renders T3 mass fabs useless for all but one single thing:
They are good if you build T3 air factories around them and spam Restorers/Engineers/Bombers due to the huge adjacency bonus combined with the high mass drain of the T3 air factory, used like that they are highly efficient.

Got anything to add to this?

Statistics: Posted by SC-Account — 17 Feb 2014, 10:06

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-17T03:51:22+02:00

I used to generate these kinds of calculations back on the GPGnet forums. I believe much of the numbers have changed since then. However, for the correctness of calculations - you can't compare apples with oranges. You need to evaluate everything on an energy neutral basis. Which is to say: When considering mass generation technologies which have a constant energy cost, you need to consider the cost of producing that energy to support it. I generally cost energy based on the pgens which are available at the current tech level. So I evaluate T2 fabs with T2 power, and T3 fabs with T3 power. If instead, you propose that T2 fabs be used late game, then T2 fabs would be evaluated with T3 power in this situation.

If we concern ourselves with T2 and T3 fabs. The primary consideration is the efficiency of conversion of energy into mass. Factors which might alter this are adjacency. Savings can be attributed to mass draining structures, production gains can be made through attaching mass storage, or efficiency can be increased by attaching Pgens to reduce the power draw. All these things effect the energy to mass conversion and must be considered. They are separate scenarios which must be considered in isolation.

One such consideration is the use of T2 fabs as an opportunity generator... That is: If you need to make the power for T2 fabs they are not viable. But if the power is already there they are viable. Consider the situation where you have an ally who is massively overproducing power. It could be because they are making T3 air, or they have a lot of shields. Or have units with high peak demand (like teleporting SCU's). The result is that they are bleeding a lot of power into your eco. A smart player would make a few fabricators to soak up this excess power and turn it into mass. Because the power is free, the fabs are economical.

But that is not all we must consider. Ideally we want the best economic growth rate from a fabricator. Which is not simply represented by energy conversion efficiency, but, also by the Cost to generation ratio. Which will be the key factor determining the economic growth rate. This factor could more readily be understood as a "Payback Time". Which is essentially the time required before the economic investment ceases to be a liability and becomes an asset.

A secondary factor for economic growth rate is the build time required to construct it. One key factor here counting favour of the T3 Fab is that engineers don't need to move much. Thus the same generation capacity can be constructed in a much smaller footprint, and much more quickly. I could generate some calculations, with FAF data, if people are interested.

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 17 Feb 2014, 03:51

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-17T03:53:00+02:00

SC-Account wrote:
After 81,5s energy has paid back and you generate 1020 e surplus, that multiplied by T3 energy constant of 1,296 gives us 1296,4 mass 'discount'.
81,5s is 13,7% of whole 593,2s so effective discout is only 1118,8 mass.

2. "81,5s is 13,7% of whole 593,2s so effective discout is only 1118,8 mass."
What? I honestly don't think this calculation makes any sense at all. Please explain why you think it does.

The upgrade costs energy - I'm calculating in isolated enrivoment with only sACU present so he has to generate the power on his own - mass cost will pay back after 593,2s but the energy only after 81,5s, after that the power generated will be in + and thus will add to the discount, but before that it does not help to pay mass back.

Well, all energy calculations are a bit.. diffent, I only included them if anybody cares abut them, the main problem is always mass and I provided calculations without energy included for that reason.

SC-Account wrote:
4. Using average SACU costs...
Why do you do this? What is the point? One can only build an Aeon, Sera, UEF or Cybran SACU, not an average SACU. It may be that the Aeon SACU/RAS is more efficient than T3 MFs, while the Cybran is not. So how does an average value make sense here, if the purpose is to evaluate different economy options? How could it make sense at all?

You can build diffent sACUs, jsut capture engies
j/k

My point is - calculating sACU RAS for 4 diffent races would take time, mass costs of sACUs are very close together so the average is ~3% off for the cheapest and the most expensive sACUs so it is quite accurate (1950 Aeon, 2025 avg, 2100 UEF).

SC-Account wrote:
After 81,5s energy has paid back and you generate 1020 e surplus, that multiplied by T3 energy constant of 1,296 gives us 1296,4 mass 'discount'.

5. 1020 * 1,296 = 1321,92 on my calculator, did I miss something? It is a minor difference, but how did you end up with 1296,4?

I edited a lot, obviously forgot to edit that one.
Not much of a diffence anyway.

SC-Account wrote:
ARAS costs the same and gives +34 m/s (+19 compared to RAS) and 5 700 e/s (+2 575).

6. No, all stats are the same for ARAS as for RAS. The value stated is always the total value generated. So after you upgraded ARAS you get 2 x single RAS income, but the total resource generation only increases by 100%. It is quite misleading when you only look at the database.

Also, error in editing, just 3 lines lower I explained the correct ARAS effect.

SC-Account wrote:
Meaning - if you get ARAS both upgrades are free as you do not have to build T3 PGens that cost shitload of mass, hell, you even SAVE mass.

If you dont include energy discounts both upgrades will pay off after:
5 000 (RAS) - 140 (generated) + 5 000 (ARAS) - 2 520 (generated) = 7 340
7 340 / 35 = 209,71 seconds with about half a million of energy you can use anywhere

No, you could as well say T3 mexes are for free, since if you build them slow enough the second T3 mex will be completely paid by the first. Things are free if you do not have to sacrifice anything to get them. If you are playing with infinite build power and have a mass income of 100 and your one and only goal is to build a unit that costs 30000 mass then building a T3 mex could be considered free since it would pay off before the unit could be finished if you did not make the investment - it is an investment that comes at no noticeable expense within this specific framework.

T3 Mexes comparison makes no sense.

For cost of ARAS (10k mass, 300k energy) you get +34 m/s and +5 700 e/s meaning it makes more power than two T3 PGens.
If you didnt get ARAS you would build those 2 PGens eventualy, costing you 6 480 mass (and a lot of energy).

As stated before, all calculations assume that build is not assisted or stalled, it might not be the most realistic scenario, but please tell me - what scenario would be?
Obviously some people will build things without assist, and some might use 500 tier 3 Hives to support the build with enough storage it would mean insta-build.
It would be time-consuming and not very user-fiendly if you wanted to calculate every single possibility and list the results, even average of them wouldnt work and we do not have sufficient data to calculate median.

As for the 'free' ARAS - you get 5,7k e/s = 5-7k * 1,296 = 7387,2 mass discount.

If you dont include energy discounts both upgrades will pay off after:
5 000 (RAS) - 140 (generated) + 5 000 (ARAS) - 2 520 (generated) = 7 340

7 340 is less than 7 387,2 - thus the 'free' upgrade.

Of course its not 'free' per se, but if we assume that player will need the power that ARAS generates as oposed to building T3 PGens instead it will be cheaper and it will generate mass to pay for the upgrades making it 'free'.

But like I said - all energy calculations here are just there 'coz I felt like it, they change a LOT depending on player, situation and hundreds of other variables so you should only look at the 'non-discount' prices.

Of course that only includes RAS, ARAS and sACUs, energy costs are a given when you are building T2 or T3 Fabs as they NEED the power to run and I use T3 PGen energy cost and that is the CHEAPEST energy avalivable.
So again - cost of running Fabs might increase if you use diffent energy source.

You just can't calculate everything

Statistics: Posted by Sulo — 17 Feb 2014, 03:50

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-17T00:44:41+02:00

Plasma_Wolf wrote:
I typed that the SCU with RAS gives 10 mass/s, you gave the 11 m/s correction, so I was off by a 10% margin.

Ah, right, but a 10% margin is the difference between night and day when it comes to those calculations. I agree that the energy part is negligible, though.

@Sulo:
1.a) Energy cost matter a lot for ACU-RAS, but they are negligible for SACU-RAS. The energy per mass drain of SACU-RAS is merely twice of what building a T3 mex drains. It surely is significant at the T1 power stage, noticeable at the T2 power stage, but quite insignificant at the T3 power stage.

1.b) If you have a mass income of 450 you would need 6000 energy per second to use all your mass for building SACU-RAS and even using that mass income to spam Percivals would require you to have 5000 energy income - you will have this power anyway, hence it is irrelevant, unless you somehow have a lot of mass in storage and feel the need to transform it into SACU-RAS immediately, but even in that case it would only take 10 seconds until you would have a power income of 7000 when your first SACU-RAS finished...

After 81,5s energy has paid back and you generate 1020 e surplus, that multiplied by T3 energy constant of 1,296 gives us 1296,4 mass 'discount'.
81,5s is 13,7% of whole 593,2s so effective discout is only 1118,8 mass.

2. "81,5s is 13,7% of whole 593,2s so effective discout is only 1118,8 mass."
What? I honestly don't think this calculation makes any sense at all. Please explain why you think it does.

RAS costs 60 000 energy, sACU costs 26 125 (average) but you had 3k generated while upgrading = 83 125 energy

3. Yes, I agree it generates resources while it upgrades and that it alters the calculation, but if you go this road and try to take it into account it gets WAY more complicated and unless you calculate it thoroughly you can only fail.
Just some examples:
You assume that the SACU upgrades without support, but what if I support it with all my build power? Your calculation makes it seem like that would be less efficient. What if I assist the upgrading SACU and support with one mantis while pausing the SACU? It would go so slow that the energy cost would not only be completely paid by the SACU itself, It would also generate a massive surplus.

Now I guess we both agree that the idea of upgrading SACU-RAS by pausing the SACU and supporting with a single Mantis is utter bullshit.

Therefore I do not think that taking build time into account makes any sense. It can only make sense if you calculate it for a specific in game situation where the mass and energy income as well as his stored resources and accessible reclaim and his available build power at the upgrade location is known. Furthermore you would have to know how much that player is capable of spending on upgrading his economy.

Only if you know all that you can make a statement regarding the energy/mass generated by the SACU before finishing RAS and how much it would alter the efficiency of the investment. If your only resource income is a single SACU on a map without MEX then making a T2 Fab and 8 T1 mexes would be way more efficient than starting the RAS upgrade right away, while in most other cases it would be ridiculously inefficient.

Calculating this only makes sense when comparing different economy options for a specific in-game situation.

4. Using average SACU costs...
Why do you do this? What is the point? One can only build an Aeon, Sera, UEF or Cybran SACU, not an average SACU. It may be that the Aeon SACU/RAS is more efficient than T3 MFs, while the Cybran is not. So how does an average value make sense here, if the purpose is to evaluate different economy options? How could it make sense at all?

After 81,5s energy has paid back and you generate 1020 e surplus, that multiplied by T3 energy constant of 1,296 gives us 1296,4 mass 'discount'.

5. 1020 * 1,296 = 1321,92 on my calculator, did I miss something? It is a minor difference, but how did you end up with 1296,4?

ARAS costs the same and gives +34 m/s (+19 compared to RAS) and 5 700 e/s (+2 575).

6. No, all stats are the same for ARAS as for RAS. The value stated is always the total value generated. So after you upgraded ARAS you get 2 x single RAS income, but the total resource generation only increases by 100%. It is quite misleading when you only look at the database.

Meaning - if you get ARAS both upgrades are free as you do not have to build T3 PGens that cost shitload of mass, hell, you even SAVE mass.

If you dont include energy discounts both upgrades will pay off after:
5 000 (RAS) - 140 (generated) + 5 000 (ARAS) - 2 520 (generated) = 7 340
7 340 / 35 = 209,71 seconds with about half a million of energy you can use anywhere

No, you could as well say T3 mexes are for free, since if you build them slow enough the second T3 mex will be completely paid by the first. Things are free if you do not have to sacrifice anything to get them. If you are playing with infinite build power and have a mass income of 100 and your one and only goal is to build a unit that costs 30000 mass then building a T3 mex could be considered free since it would pay off before the unit could be finished if you did not make the investment - it is an investment that comes at no noticeable expense within this specific framework.

Statistics: Posted by SC-Account — 17 Feb 2014, 00:44

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-15T18:53:49+02:00

As for sACU RAS upgrade - you are including mass 'discount' using energy generated by RAS but you are not counting energy required to make this upgrade or the sACU itself in the first place and those are quite high, so proper calculation should be:

(assuming RAS upgrade is not assisted and sACU was without engi upgrades)

RAS takes 150s therefore for the time of upgrade we get 150 mass and 3k energy from sACU itself.

2025 mass for sACU (average) + 4500 for RAS = 6525 mass cost

RAS gives 10 mass/s + 1 from sACU so it would take ~593,2s to pay itself back

RAS costs 60 000 energy, sACU costs 26 125 (average) but you had 3k generated while upgrading = 83 125 energy
That means energy requires 81,5 seconds.

After 81,5s energy has paid back and you generate 1020 e surplus, that multiplied by T3 energy constant of 1,296 gives us 1296,4 mass 'discount'.
81,5s is 13,7% of whole 593,2s so effective discout is only 1118,8 mass.

6525 - 1118,8 = 5406,2

Therefore sACU with RAS pays back after 491,47 seonds

-------------------------
EDIT
-------------------------

While I'm at it... let's calculate ACU RAS and ARAS.

FACTS:

ACU itself is free (duh) and gives 1 m/s and 20 e/s.

If you have ARAS avalivabe you will go for it anyway so I'll divite this in 2 groups: Cybran + UEF in 1 group as they get RAS only, and Aeon + Sera as 2nd group with RAS + ARAS.

RAS costs 5 000 m and 150 000 e, it takes 140s to build.
ARAS costs the same and gives +34 m/s (+19 compared to RAS) and 5 700 e/s (+2 575).

For 1st group RAS gives average +13 m/s and +3 400 e/s

For 2nd group RAS gives average +17 m/s and +2 850 e/s
ARAS gives +34 m/s and +5 700 e/s (so two times more than RAS, ever noticed it? )

CALC:

GROUP 1:

For 140s of RAS construction ACU generates 140 mass and 2 800 energy.
So (5 000 - 140) / 14 = 347,14s

After upgrade you get 3 420 e/s and that equals to 4 432,32 mass after multiplying by T3 power constant (using T1 or T2 one it would be MUCH migher and you can get RAS quite early...)

But to pay off 150k e required to make it RAS has to run for 43,86 seconds first, so effective discount is:
[ 1 - (43,86 / 347,14) ] * 4 432,32 = 3 872,31

So the mass cost is:
5 000 - 140 - 3 872,31 = 987,69

Meaning RAS will pay off after 987,69 / 14 = 70,55 seconds (or 347,14 if you do not include energy discount)

GROUP 2:

For 140s of RAS construction ACU generates 140 mass and 2 800 energy.
So (5 000 - 140) / 18 = 270s

After upgrade you get 2 870 e/s, that equals to 3 719,52 mass after multiplying by T3 power constant
To pay off 150k e, RAS needs 52,26 seconds
Effective discount is:
[ 1 - (52,26 / 270) ] * 3 719,52 = 2999,58

So the mass cost is:
5000 - 140 - 2 999,58 = 1 860,42

Meaning RAS will pay off after 1 860,42 / 18 = 103,36 seconds (or 347,14 if you do not include energy discount)

But if you get ARAS:

For 140s of ARAS construction ACU generates 2 520 mass and 401 800 energy + 251 800 left over from RAS if you didnt take energy discount into account (come at me power costs ).
So (5 000 - 2 520) / 35 = 70,85s

As you can see RAS gives enough energy to finance your ARAS, thus we can use 100% of power production in energy discount: 5 720 * 1,296 = 7 413,12 (that's a lot..)

Meaning - if you get ARAS both upgrades are free as you do not have to build T3 PGens that cost shitload of mass, hell, you even SAVE mass.

If you dont include energy discounts both upgrades will pay off after:
5 000 (RAS) - 140 (generated) + 5 000 (ARAS) - 2 520 (generated) = 7 340
7 340 / 35 = 209,71 seconds with about half a million of energy you can use anywhere

-------------------------
EDIT 2
-------------------------

Damn, I really got nothing to do... T2 Mass Fabs time!

T2 Mass Fab costs 100 mass and 4k energy, it needs 150 e/s to run.
Placed next to T1, T2 and T3 PGen:
-140 / -131 / -121
Placed next to Mass Storage it gives +0,125 m/s per side, but Mass Storage are VERY expensive compared to T2 Fabs (200 mass...).

I've tried a lot of grids with Fabs and Storages, you need to remember that Fabs are fragile so you dont want to build them big, those are the best ones: http://i.imgur.com/uAhOgiu.png
Format of description is:
Mass cost | income/s | cost returned in... not including power needs
e/s needed | e/s * 1,296 + cost of structures | cost returned in... power included

As you can see, on T3 power stage it's cheaper to just place T2 mass fabs anywhere than to build complex mass farms with storages, on T2 power stage.. well, just build mass fabs next to your T2 PGens, still better and you will make transistion to T3 power soon anyway.

T2 PGen surrounded with 12 T2 Mass Fabs gives you 12 m/s and needs 1 072 e/s from external sources (so either build more PGens or get RAS/ARAS), this complex costs 2 400 mass + 1 072 * 2,4 (or 1,296 if you made transition to T3 power) = 4 972,8 mass (or 3 789,31).
So it will pay off after 414,4 seconds (or 315,8).

T3 PGen can sustain 16 T2 Fabs next to itself and almost 4 (36 e/s over limit) placed elsewhere (not next to PGens) so you can place them next to your Mex storages to get 1 m/s more (but risking leaving your T3 mex at ~1,6 HP after they blow up).
For complex that costs 5 240 mass you will get +20 m/s (or 21) so it will pay off after 262 seconds (or 249,5).

By the way - T3 Mex surrounded with Storages costs you 5 400 mass and gives 27 m/s (pays off after 200 seconds).

-------------------------
EDIT 3
-------------------------

As stated many times before - T3 Fabs are just horrible, but just for the sake of it:

We already know that it's better to aim for power adjacency as the power required is just sick, whole adjacency table here:

For 1 side of mass storages you get 1,5 m/s more (12,5%)
With T3 PGen adjacency: -2843 / -2187 / -1531 / -875 (18,75% / 37,5% / 56,5% / 75%)
With T2 PGen adjacency: -3062 / -2625 / -2187 / -1750 (12,5% / 25% / 37,5% / 50%)
With T1 PGen adjacency: -3281 / -3062 / -2843 / -2625 (6,25% / 12,5% / 18,75% / 25%)

As you can see if we could get T3 Fab surrounded with 4 T3 PGens it would be most efficient, but even then it would need 344,5 seconds to pay off for just the Fab and energy required to run it (and you get a lot more of that than you need).

Best complex: http://i.imgur.com/KjRIvJl.png
Energy surplus of 375 e/s.

You can expand this complex in any side and the time to pay off will stay almost the same as for this one.

Cost is:
4 * 3 240 (T3 PGens) + 5 * 3 000 (T3 Fabs) + 24 * 200 (Storages) - 486 (e/s discount) = 32 274 mass cost with income of 72 m/s, meaning it will pay off after 448,25 seconds.

So, a BIT better than RAS sACU but, bigger in size and investment, cannot build or move, cannot be used in defence, a LOT more fragile... etc.. etc.
And still, T2 Fabs are better, a lot.
(well, ok, except the lag generated in the process, grid for 72 m/s would need a lot of buildings)

That was a lot of calculations
Hope it helps

Statistics: Posted by Sulo — 15 Feb 2014, 18:53

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-15T18:19:09+02:00

I typed that the SCU with RAS gives 10 mass/s, you gave the 11 m/s correction, so I was off by a 10% margin.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 15 Feb 2014, 18:19

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-15T15:59:54+02:00

Awwwwww u found a typo :p
Yes it was supposed to be seconds ^^

Oh and asides that feel free to correct me if I am wrong, no idea what you mean with that margins though.

Statistics: Posted by SC-Account — 15 Feb 2014, 15:59

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-15T14:58:15+02:00

SC-Account wrote:
Tss... reading so many false calculations :p

So IMO Aeon SACU with RAS has a payback time of 5128.08/11 = 466.19 mass.

Funny how you start about false calculations (10% margin in terms of mass, 0.5% margin in terms of energy) but you're giving a payoff time in mass rather than seconds.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 15 Feb 2014, 14:58

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-15T14:39:14+02:00

Tss... reading so many false calculations :p
SACU + RAS:
11 mass income
1020 energy income
1950 (Aeon) + 4500 mass cost
An energy income of 1020 equals 1020 * (3240/2500) = 1321.92 mass in T3 power.
So IMO Aeon SACU with RAS has a payback time of 5128.08/11 = 466.19 mass. Which, if you calculate in the other many advantages just renders T3 mass fabs useless for all but one single thing:
They are good if you build T3 air factories around them and spam Restorers/Engineers/Bombers due to the huge adjacency bonus combined with the high mass drain of the T3 air factory, used like that they are highly efficient.

Statistics: Posted by SC-Account — 15 Feb 2014, 14:39

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-15T07:08:10+02:00

Gyle wrote:
Essentially there is no real point. Its setup that way to deliberately discourage their use otherwise it breaks the need for map control and hands more options to turtlers.

I realize that the Devs nerfed T2 and T3 mass Fabs in order to discourage people from using them due to their very easy upkeep in Vanilla SupCom. However, I do think that the Devs did overnerf the T3 Mass Fabs too much. The structure or any structure should have a "point" yet it currently does not. I believe the problem lies with their upkeep being to high for such small mass gains.

Statistics: Posted by Goldy3 — 15 Feb 2014, 07:08

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-11T18:02:13+02:00

errorblankfield wrote:
Hawkei wrote:The adjacency bonus is given whether the Fabricator is functioning or not. Activate the Mass Fab UI Mod. Then the fabricators will only ever use surplus power.

I know, but I don't see the point of such a mass investment for a 1/3 reduction in mass unless I'm making an INSANE amount of strats. It's buy 3 get one free, but you start 6 planes in the hole.

So you spend double to make the first 6 (which is a lot in it's own right) and break even at 17 (an ungodly amount).

So I'd hope you'd be pumping that power so they pay off for themselves much faster.

Off topic: do engies adjust for adjacency? Or would they suck the same mass regardless?

How much mass fabs do you exactly have to build for that 1/3 reduction? I can't see it in the thread (Only T3 and T2 were mentioned but not how many, and if it were just one T3, you'd break even at 5 Strat bombers, which can't be right).

Assuming a 1/3 reduction breaking even at 18 (or 17, whichever it is) strategic bombers, it may not seem to be a very good choice but remember that if you're going to build the T3 Mass Fab anyway, you might as well put it next to the factory, if you don't want (or need) 4 T3 Pgens surrounding it. Whether that small advantage in mass will help you, I don't know, but it most certainly won't hurt you.

As you said, the factories are so large that the death explosion often doesn't even hit the factory (Best example is with the T1 Pgens). Even if it hits the factory, that thing has about 20K HP, so it'll survive.

The Engineers won't be so lucky, but that's where the engineers always suffer (and they have to).

As for the question if Engineers take the adjacency into account or not: no, they don't.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 11 Feb 2014, 18:02

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-11T17:20:10+02:00

Any mass fab is a TOTAL AND COMPLETE BARGAIN.

e = mc^2

rearranging: m = e/c^2

So, it takes insane amounts of energy to produce small amounts of mass.

According to that, mass fabs should use WAY more energy than they do. We could find out exactly how much if we could relate the units that SupCom uses in relation to the speed of light.

PS - I'm being sarcastic, I know you're talking game mechanics here.

Statistics: Posted by Flipper — 11 Feb 2014, 17:20

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-10T06:27:55+02:00

errorblankfield wrote:
Off topic: do engies adjust for adjacency? Or would they suck the same mass regardless?

They use same mass regardless

Statistics: Posted by Reaper Zwei — 10 Feb 2014, 06:27

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-10T05:41:59+02:00

Hawkei wrote:
The adjacency bonus is given whether the Fabricator is functioning or not. Activate the Mass Fab UI Mod. Then the fabricators will only ever use surplus power.

I know, but I don't see the point of such a mass investment for a 1/3 reduction in mass unless I'm making an INSANE amount of strats. It's buy 3 get one free, but you start 6 planes in the hole.

So you spend double to make the first 6 (which is a lot in it's own right) and break even at 17 (an ungodly amount).

So I'd hope you'd be pumping that power so they pay off for themselves much faster.

Off topic: do engies adjust for adjacency? Or would they suck the same mass regardless?

Statistics: Posted by errorblankfield — 10 Feb 2014, 05:41

Re: What's the point of T3 Mass Fabricators? T2 clearly bett

2014-02-10T06:22:30+02:00

Ithilis_Quo wrote:
Its very good point, Hope it will be rework.

Its stupid when cehaper T2 is better like more expensive T3. What cost incredible T3 phase.
And it is stupit when somthing with many time more position in game -> sacu is so muth better like mass fabricator, what has only one position.
Sacu is imho the primary combat/building unit and not mass fabricator. or mass storage. Thats a reason why this key building are not building. And why not build a building what give a mass, mass is everthing (maaas maaaassss )

Imho it energy consume would be less, and in sacu ras with energy consume, for bring some fabricator balance.

Also mass isn't everything. The more a game progresses, the more important Power becomes. Most late game technologies require excessive amounts of power. So while Mass = rate of growth. Power = capability to do things. When sniping mass eco, the impact is a sustained and long term reduction in combat effectiveness. However, sniping power eco has a short term and immediate crippling effect. A player will recover much more quickly from a power stall. But, for that duration they will be completely exposed. Their shield generators will not function. Their artillery will not fire. Their radar will not find targets. Their air factories cannot make ASF. Their mexes will not be bringing in mass. Their SMD's will not be building anti-nukes.

While a player with a mass deficit will be economically cripped - any combat units which he has in the field will be effective. A player who is suffering from power stall, during the late game, is rendered combat ineffective. So during late game, power is more critical than mass.

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 10 Feb 2014, 05:02