Why do people do this...

[uzurpator]

Hello there. I'd like to preface this that I am a filthy casual and play thermo and dual gap 24/7. That being said.

In my futile efforts of 'gitting gud' I have watched some replays and noticed some oddities:

1. Many people pause their mexes before upgrading. Why is this being done? Is this the same as mex bug from times past?

2. I noticed that quite some people end up with their mexes at 5% or less health for no reason whatsoever - there were no raids or whatnot, this implies it was intentional. Why?

3. One guy ( rated 1100 ) was actually insta-killing his T2 ringed mexes ( how, without ctrl-k and delay? ) and power building T3 mex over it. Why? Is there efficiency benefit from it? This fellow managed to get four T3 mexes (on thermo) at ~13 minutes, so I am curius.

4. Regarding adjecancy. Is it a bug that if:
- building a nuke missle on a bare launcher and then surround with T2 mass fabs, the launcher says -40 mass use regardless
- building a nuke missle on a launcher surrounded with T2 fabs says -36 ( which is expected ) and if I reclaim all the fabs it remains -36? Essentially giving me 1000 or so mass for free.

[speed2]

1. Many people pause their mexes before upgrading. Why is this being done? Is this the same as mex bug from times past?

They start the upgrade and then pause it (there's even a mod that does that) so later you can just assist with engies and they will upgrade the mex.

2. I noticed that quite some people end up with their mexes at 5% or less health for no reason whatsoever - there were no raids or whatnot, this implies it was intentional. Why?

That's most likely the paused upgrade showing at low %.

3. One guy ( rated 1100 ) was actually insta-killing his T2 ringed mexes ( how, without ctrl-k and delay? ) and power building T3 mex over it. Why? Is there efficiency benefit from it? This fellow managed to get four T3 mexes (on thermo) at ~13 minutes, so I am curius.

No, that's just plain stupid.

13 min doesn't seems that incredible to me.

4. Regarding adjecancy. Is it a bug that if:
- building a nuke missle on a bare launcher and then surround with T2 mass fabs, the launcher says -40 mass use regardless
- building a nuke missle on a launcher surrounded with T2 fabs says -36 ( which is expected ) and if I reclaim all the fabs it remains -36? Essentially giving me 1000 or so mass for free.

This is an engine bug, the adjacency is only applied when a new missile is started.

[PhilipJFry]

killing your t2 mex in order to build a t3 mex on top of it is cost effective as long as you build it fast enough (upgrading from t2 to t3 costs the same but reclaiming gives you 81% of the mass worth of the t2 mex)

[biass]

You can bind instant crtl k (no delay) in the keybinds menu (f1)
doing so is highly recommended

[Viba]

3. One guy ( rated 1100 ) was actually insta-killing his T2 ringed mexes ( how, without ctrl-k and delay? ) and power building T3 mex over it. Why? Is there efficiency benefit from it? This fellow managed to get four T3 mexes (on thermo) at ~13 minutes, so I am curius.

No, that's just plain stupid.

Oh my...
If you want to be as efficient as you can, you ctrl-k T2 mex and build T3 mex on top of it, not stupid.

[tatsu]

Oh my...
If you want to be as efficient as you can, you ctrl-k T2 mex and build T3 mex on top of it, not stupid.

wait that is actually more efficient?!?

[ZLO_RD]

consider these facsts:
t3 mex upgraide cost = t3 mex that gets build from scratch
t2 mex can produce mass while upgraide happens
t2 mex dissapears into no-where when t3 upgraides completes
t2 mex can be reclaimed to get 729 mass

you can simply upgraide your t2 to t3 and if storages are in place you will get 9 mass per second while upgraiding, after 81 seconds you will be up to 729 mass, but if you upgraide faster than 81 second you can instantly get your 729 mass from killing and reclaiming mass extractor, you would not get all of this mass if you would simply quickly upgraide t2 mex to t3 faster than 81 seconds.

t3 mex build time is 3944, so it takes 81 second to build with ~48.7 build power, so if you have enought mass and power in storage you also need more than just single t3 engie (30 build power) and 3 t1 engies (5 build power each) to have any benefit from this trick. (and again that is assuming you will not stall on resources)

Edit: are you not watchig seton's streams or something? this "trick" also requires you to have a t3 tech, since ras was nerfed you want to have t3 power earlyer and that lines-up well with setons t3 mex race. that is why this trick was not widely used before, but was known.

[FtXCommando]

Cost of upgrading t3 mex: 4600
Cost of building t3 mex: 4600

Reclaim left by t2 mex wreck: 729
Ringed t2 mex makes: 9 mass/s

Do the math to figure out how fast you need to build t3 mex for it to be efficient in this way.

Brutal got beat to the post

[tatsu]

so quick debate (although this should probably get it's own thread) :

Is this, in your opinion, another one of those anti-noob statisitcs that shouldn't have it's place in the game?

like if the values are tweaked it could be made so that a build time that only seems possible with paragon eco-buildpower (thus having breached the usefulness barrier of that technique because: why waste time and BP building mass point when you have para?), then the technique becomes obsolete in favor of the mechanics that were intentionally baked into the game and are the only one taught to new players (say, via the campaign) : upgrading it.

I'm not saying I have an opinion on this yet. just saying it's worth a debate, right?

[JoonasTo]

Basically if you have T3 engineers(or T3 commander or T3 engy+ a few extra T1) and you don't stall while building the T3 mex, it is always better to reclaim.