Can we finally ban ecomanager?

[mr_blastman]

I know this isn't a popular topic because it seems half the higher ranked players use ecomanager, but let's face it, we have a tool/macro/script that is saving players inputs so they can focus their attention elsewhere, optimizing mex and engie pausing/restarting to keep the mass and power flowing. To me, this is allowing the computer to play part of the game for someone, thus should be considered an exploit or a cheat.

I know removing ecomanager from play will require players to manually manage their eco again like the rest of us, but at least players of equal rank with one another will be on a level footing again because both will have to focus equal attention and apm resources on eco along with everything else. Higher ranked players will adapt like they always do and continue to kick ass.

RTS games were and have always been about the commander telling their army and economy what to do. Ecomanager removes a layer of this. Yes, there are other tools such as advanced targeting priorities, but I think a solid argument can be made that advanced targeting priorities makes sense as something intended in the spirit of the game, whereas ecomanager is not.

[Turinturambar]

im not sure about what kind of high rated players yure thinking, but i doubt you will find (any) good ladderplayers that use ecomanager.

[Bullydozer]

lol

[____]

I use eco manager, though I turn off the throttling feature manually in the first 30 sec of every game, as it is just plain terrible and just use it for the pretty awesome mex overlay feature.

The throttling feature is terrible because:

- You have no control over which units are being paused
- You regularly fight the mod itself. Often you need to tell your engies to keep building something vital which ecomanager paused. And after you unpause said engies the mod pauses them again and so on. I don’t have to tell you how this is a huge waste of apm and attention.
- It pauses tmds being built
- It pauses inties being built which can be a death sentence on the map we both main

Overall, I would never ever recommend to anyone to use this feature, as it is always better to manage your eco yourself, eco manager isn’t going to fix you forgetting to build 20 pgens. All it will do, is frequently pause and unpause stuff for you which sometimes leads to better eco balance. But since the mod doesn’t know which units actually should be paused based on the situation, this isn’t useful.

The mex upgrade pause feature is also detrimental to your gameplay, as it interferes with FAF’s double click to build storages feature. It also just plain doesn’t work sometimes, which is annoying. I know there are “fixes” for this on the mod page, though most of those don’t really fix the core problem and after a couple of games with it, you will find that not using it is better. It happened to me plenty of times that assisting engies just randomly start assisting the mex to t3 even though they were only told to cap it.

I also found that the mod sometimes gives some of your mass away to other people who use EM if you have a lot in storage. I think this one is also self-explanatory.

I too, have never seen any good players use it. Or at least I have never seen any use the throttling and upgrade pause features, which are supposed to be the cheating part of it.

Overall the only thing I find useful is the mex overlay, because I hate the standard one. However, I think you don’t even need EM for this, you can just edit the files yourself. Not sure about this though.

[F-odin]

All fun and games until you try to go tele with it on

[Voodoo]

I tried this mod and I failed hard. So I deleted it after 3 games again. No idea which advantage you gain from this mod.

[Morax]

I tried this mod and I failed hard. So I deleted it after 3 games again. No idea which advantage you gain from this mod.

You get to one-click mexes so you can stay zoomed out, you can have t1 mexes start and upgrade and pause right after being built (makes eco flow much simpler).

That in itself is not much an advantage for people with quick APM, but for those with "low apm" it is gives a nice "oomph!" to capability.

Regardless, the throttle feature is fairly awful and actually damages gameplay. The same goes for "[e] please!" which does not even work properly.

[armacham01]

Is it possible to get the mex unpausing as a separate, standalone mod without all of the other baggage?

Alternatively, is there a way to modify this mod so that the other features always start disabled? I don't want to have to mess with my mods during the first 30 seconds of every game.

[FtXCommando]

Pausing upgrading mexes isnt even optimal play nor is it optimal apm usage. You click twice to upgrade a mex without the mod or you click twice to unpause it with the mod. Anyone not using mex bp when upgrading eco isnt using full buildpower so the micro argument of sending engies to paused mexes doesn’t really apply.

[Morax]

It unpauses once you assist the mex, though.