The Roles of Mass and Energy

This is not going to be a thread regarding:

Different energy generation methods
Tiered energy and mass improvements and if its obsolescence or Supplemental.

This thread is going to roll along the lines of @GoogleFrog analysis of energy:

Energy Act's as a supply, however rendered plentiful in the advanced stage of the game that renders the supply to be of less concern

I wanted to discuss the roles of Energy and Mass and what their roles entail to make the game fun from beginning to end.

Energy acts as a limiter more then anything. If Mass extractors cost 50 metal to establish. There would be absolutely no issue with getting a metric ton of metal and expanding like crazy. You can't expand without build power, energy is a vital tool to do that. You are limited to the energy plants you create and maintain as long as you have unlimited metal to expand to supplement the energy production. a Base with 1000 mass income but 25 energy income isn't going to build or develop as fast as one that has 10 mass income and 1000 energy. Energy as a role is used in maintaining/expanding the production of units based on land space available to place energy plants and time/metal investment to increase the production capability of your base.

Mass acts as a Growth control mechanism. If energy cost 50 metal to create a T1 power plant, and metal was expensive( lets say 1000 metal to create an extractor). You would only grow as fast as the metal you can obtain and keep. You are effectively limited again but now it involves the crucial importance of map control to maintain the growth of the player and effectively pace the game around it. The values of Mass income as well as a mass extractor cost are key to how fast a player can expand and have an army. Metal as a role is used in expanding the production capability of your base based on expansion and securement of land to obtain more more metal for production.

So with these roles, production capability is increased. One through expansion, and the other through having secured land to defend the resource. As the game goes on. I do find that most people have no real problem expanding with 3 fabricators or less to local metal nodes and obtaining more metal for production. Energy however bottlenecks the process in the beginning with the high cost of an energy plant and investment required to obtain more production capability. This analysis is subject to change due to numbers being adjusted to get the right speed.

In this case though. At the bare basics, Expansion is currently easy to do, with secure ment of production capability lagging behind with energy investment. Most people build lines of power plants to start and probably never stop as its the only fast method to invest in the economy quickly. The problem I see here is not that energy is getting built in a line, it is that it doesn't have the same complexity or depth that expanding to other metal patches involves.

Metal expansion requires:

1. Sending Fabricators into the fog of war to secure undefended areas for more production.
2. Exposing metal extractors to elements of war due to their locations being sporadic or grouped.

Energy expansion requires:

1. Finding a patch of land next to a factory to build more energy
2. Keeping it close to defenses to maintain.

There is a certain imbalance in the end roles of these production capability that it seems there is no risk with an energy plant while a metal extractor is constantly fraught with conflict. Should Energy have the same dangers as Metal? No. I only state that there is nothing interesting to the Energy generator that gives the battlefield a good dynamic for conflict. Metal is right in the battle zone immediately from the metal patches that the fabricators leave to obtain. Energy stays behind to develop production. If both energy and metal are valuable to expansion, why does one have to be obtained so easily and bottleneck production?

I propose that for energy. It becomes the valuable structure that provides benefits similar to metal extractors and reduce the need to build an unnecessary amount more energy to gain a slight amount more production capability. That energy generators increase the production of a base at a magnitude of either 1.3 of a metal extractor or more to offset the need for a lot of generators to produce the same amount of production capability as a metal extractor. The change is to make the individual generator more valuable for destruction, but also the center of conflict for anyone's attack on a base.

When it comes to T2 and the energy generation and metal. The role should still be the same but the risks should be even higher to maintain. I have nothing against the T2 metal extractor except that it demotes expansion with inflated metal production. I do have a problem with the t2 power generator out right replacing the T1 generator in value and generation. However, these problems are with numbers and can change dramatically. The issue maintains the overall "Supply value" that energy grants in production maintenance comparatively. A T2 energy source should be valuable, produce favorable returns in investment, it should also be extra vulnerable to weapon fire due to the structure being "advanced" and not "better". Making a T2 transition a methodical addition instead of a stronger structure with pure upside.

Overall, Energy and metal are important "units/structures/land pieces" that define the rest of the units in the game with efficiency and balance. So it is important to have the upsides and downsides To promote a more balance play in how a base is created and how to prioritize attacks on an opponent.

Anyways, hope I made sense, and if any questions, feel free to ask.

Editted to make it easier to read.

Bit off topic but I want to add that this sort of thing is exactly the kind of thing that makes these types of games more strategic than other RTS games. Because infrastructure, logistics, supply lines etc. present strategic targets rather than just a battle. I've heard the term "playing sim city with your base" thrown around in a bit of a derogatory manner, but without that city the game would just be a bunch of tanks fighting over meaningless terrain.

I agree completely. Bases don't seem to have very high priority targets until Tier 2 with the anti nuke, umbrella, and other various expensive structures. I think Power can be one of those structures that needs to be protected to make the rest of the base function.

I would kind of rather just have energy building power things in a radius, as opposed to having a global power pool.

The only issue with that is that it wouldn't work well for fabrication, since expanding necessitates going places without per-existing energy.

I don't have terribly polarized thoughts either way, but let me address 2 of your biggest points:

-have to build many t1 power to get benefit
-nothing interesting about energy that adds to the battlefield dynamic

You propose a fix to these, but I suggest that they are their own fix for each other. The fact that you need to build so many makes the placement and management of them a battlefield dynamic. Will you take the easy road and draw a closely grouped line of them? Or take the time to spread them out and defend them?

Plus the fact that since you have so many and each's contribution is a smaller part, it's a built in buffer; you can lose a couple to a surprise attack without immediately stalling.

I guess the important part is to strike the right amount of vulnerability with a power generator when it becomes destroyed. Energy plants having a buffer from the sheer number of them being created is what makes them seem unimportant when you lose a "few"

If you really wanted to make an impact on a person's economy, you destroy 10-5 power plants. if you wanted to make an impact on their metal growth, 3-5 mass extractors will do the trick.

This is heavily biased on the numbers each power plant and mass extractor currently gives.

I rarely see anyone take the extra effort to plan their energy layouts. Do i want people to? I don't know, i'm rather mixed on that topic. But ultimately, I want the same depth of attack in a metal raid to happen when you raid energy.

Energy is a tech barrier. It pads out the cost of infrastructure and restricts when high energy units may be used. Since the highest energy consumer in the game is a fabber, it basically restricts construction in the exact same way that metal does, without doing too much else ATM.

Metal is how much, energy is how fast.

Not really. One is worthless without the other. The only difference is that energy flatlines in a second whereas metal takes a bit longer. Even then it's a pretty stupid distinction. Energy is supposed to be needed for things that AREN'T construction. Otherwise why have two resources doing the same thing?

The simple fact is that most energy goes directly into construction. Damaging a player's energy is going to hurt wherever energy is needed the most, which means it will hurt construction the most. But wait. Attacking metal ALSO hurts construction. It's even more painful because extractors are tougher to defend and can not be created in surplus.

So if it seems that attacking energy isn't getting you anywhere, it might be true.

What role would you like to see energy put into? I figure energy and mass feed off each other in that you can't ignore one and have a great economy. Sort of like two scales of economy where balance is the goal when expanding production and area around the map.

I know for Starcraft 2. Vespene gas acts as a Tech limitation to prevent specialist units being used enmasse. Command and Conquer generals made power plants as tech/ defense and production limiters which effectively stopped production.

Since we are in a streaming economy. I don't think this method of tech prevention is possible.