Metal Makers

At the current time I have no plans to add them before launch. Maybe someday in the future but I just don't see them as being necessary right now.

I don't want metal makers, I think the take away from expanding and lower skill of game, while promoting turtling. Although with that being said it appears that the majority of player base wants them, and that's makes me wanna say I guess you guys should listen to your fans and backers and give it to them, but if you don't I'll be one of the happy few for sure

I like metal makers. They are less efficient and more volatile. If a turtle builds them, then you know how to crush his economy instantly. If an octopus owns all the metal patches, he has an efficiency in metal production that the turtle doesn't. The turtle will lose in that game. But at least he has a viable strategy.

The reason that TA was amazing is that there were MANY ways to do the same job. If you're getting edged out in one way, you can eek back into the game another way. Keep mm's but keep them less efficient than natural metal. (this is how the original balance was designed)

The idea on different kinds of metal is cool. Just like the occasional geothermal patches would give cheap energy. It's neat and gives a reason for territory skirmishes.

Metal makers didn't allow for massive econ growth until the Moho Makers came along. But with the crazy T4 projects you could build that were brought into the game, they were a great way to get there.

Remember, 3 solars per 1 metal maker. That's a BIG footprint on your base. Now you have to defend that geographical area just to keep a +2 metal flowing. And it can go poof if someone manages to hit it. It's not just the numbers of conversion, but protecting that income boost from metal makers that brought balance to the game. I still remember my seraph shielding trying to protect my moho mm farms. worked for planes, but not for t4. Good stuff. Crushing a turtle's base is one of the most rewarding parts of TA/FA

As much as i hate metal maker i think we need a bit of it hell i can hardly see them

I don't play a lot of 1v1 ladder matches. I play mostly team games.
"Dying slow" is a very integral part to team play.

Picture this,

You are in a 2v2.
You are separated from your teammate who is on another planet.
Your direct opponent has map control (of your planet), he has your cornered.
You have no surprised in your back pocket, you have no chance of winning

If you turtle a bit, you can die slow.
And if you die slow enough, that will buy your teammate time so he isn't facing a 2v1.​

Why limit the game functionality?
Why force the same gameplay on everyone to expand?

The downside of turtling is that you have no map control and no time to react to enemy movement or tactics. Thats already a huge disadvantage but gives people more choices.

Game functionality should be limited when said "functionality" is more harmful than good.
And the game is about expanding, thus "forcing" people to expand is a perfectly valid thing to do. Not to mention turtling makes for boring games, so promoting expansion is the way to go.

just saying, give the people "OPTIONS" how to play, like "**** i landed on an island without more than two mex-spots", "need to build those mabbers so i can get some stuff up to actually expand" ...
its just optional for one to build those, they naturaly should be less efficient than a single mex (eg: less mass per building than a mex, including a dimishing return ?), blow a HUGE *** amount of energy while doing so (dimishing return, more engery per mass-fab and less return to a point they are obsolete.
and to add to the mix, they blow up like a ripe melon with dynamite when destroyed ... taking with them whats around ... like more mass-fabs (chain reaction anyone ?)

I dont understand why you think giving more options about how to play the game can be harmfull.
Its all about good balance! I already highlighted two things that reward expanding over turtling.

It should always be more efficient to take the spread mexes all over the map.

The game should only have units/structures that makes sense. "Why limit the game functionality" is a really poor argument, because it could be used on any kind of bad decision making. Why remove tech 3, it limits the game functionality? Why remove commander upgrades, it limits game functionality? Why remove torpedo bombers, it limits game functionality? And so on. It all comes down to design decisions, and how the devs visualize the game, it has nothing to do with limiting the game.

Expanding will always be more beneficial, however I think there could be other problems with the metal maker. It removes a theoretical cap on economy, meaning lategames can get extremely laggy for people with weaker computers. If econ is capped by the amount of mexes you have, it is much more controlled. You have a bad computer? No problem, you can play on 1-3 planet systems and you know econ and unit counts can't get completely out of hand. But if your computer can handle ridiculous unit counts then you can play in huge systems with almost unlimited metal.

Adding metal makers basically puts a clock on people with bad computers - you have to end the game early enough before people's economies get out of hand.

That may sound radical, but I think that good balance between mexes and makers is impossible, because mex economy growth is (practically) linear and maker economy growth is exponential.

If camping in a single location is made into a viable tactic, why would anyone ever attempt to learn how to expand?

If turtling is made easy, everyone will turtle. If everyone will turtle, PA will be a very boring game to play and watch.

Is a strategy that ensures defeat a viable option? No, it's not. It isn't viable in terms of balance.

Just had an interesting idea - what if metal makers were implemented, but they were limited by size? Say, you could have a metal maker that produces 24 metal, but it takes up as much space as a Halley? To me, it seems like this kind of spacial limitation would work against any hardcore turtling, and add another incentive to maintain map control.

If building a metal maker requires you to expand, why would you use it over building more mex?

Furthermore, how on earth are you going to balance the thing? If it's not good enough to be a viable option for expansion, why add it? If it's so good that you don't need to expand at all, why have metal extractors?

The idea is that T2 mexes provide a considerably more efficient income source, so you start by getting as many T2 mexes as you can, then, once the planet is conquered (or when involved in a close war for the planet where some extra metal could make a difference), you must choose how to divide your planetary real estate between factories, metal makers, and other buildings like nuke-launchers or unit cannons.
The size of the metal-maker would place a limit on how much metal generation you can get out of one planet - rewarding players for expanding rather than turtling on one planet. On the flipside, using size as the limiting factor means you can keep the cost low enough to make building them viable but not overpowered.

In a losing situation, you can already look for different avenues of income, such as unused metal spots or other planets. If you dominate a planet, you can take all the metal and gain an advantage over smaller planets. The way you described metal makers to work doesn't seem to me like a necessary addition.

In the more final stages of the game there will be a slider for choosing the amount of metal spots on generated planets. If you feel your standard planets don't have enough metal, you can change that for your custom systems, after this slider gets implemented.
In the more final stages of the game there will be a slider for choosing the amount of metal spots on generated planets. If you feel your standard planets don't have enough metal, you can change that for your custom systems, when this gets implemented.

Metal makers should be added along with wind turbines for games with planets than have zero to no metal.

What about a mass to metal converter it uses power to turn the planets surface into metal but it starts making a ever expanding crater as it does this eating the planets lower mass materials more like strip mining. Metal spots are more the tapping the planets core type of deep shaft mine.