[:1]Now that GPG has probably abandoned SC2 for AOE:O, I decided to make a personal mod with few tweaks here and there, mainly for improved sp/skirmish stuff, as mods are very hard to play in multiplayer.
One of the interesting changes I thought of, is about a strange tweak in economy, that has the advantage that you don't have to completely re-learn how to play the game.
My proposed somewhat simple change is for all resource generation (economy) buildings (PGens, Mexes, Research Stations, Mass Convertors etc) to have:
1. Double Cost
2. Double Health
3. Double Resource Generation
4. Double buildtime
Some quick thoughts on how this will affect gameplay:
- Defensive buildings will be more efficient, as they can cover more resources per area (PD, AA, Shields)
- Because of the above, comebacks will be easier to maintain.
- More population for combat units (lategame), because of less PGens and more Mass per Mex (also maybe no need for conversion at all in many games).
- More room for huge buildings (mainly experimental ones) in small maps.
- Easier to defend against artillery and battleship bombardment because of more efficient shields
- Easier to defend against nukes
- Better pathfinding because of less buildings overall. (also better for AI)
- Less wasted damage against eco buildings for slow-particle high-damage units (Missile Launchers, some experimentals, battleships).
- no-area-damage units, more efficient base destroyers late game
- Easier to deal with PGen Spam (UEF, ILLU)
- More tactical, instead of spammy use of PGens abilities (UEF Repair, ILLU laser)
- Easier to save buildings under attack with manual repair. (Because of more health)
- A Nerf (maybe) to Cybran buildings detonate
- A single Research Station will be a very risky build option early game, because of the high cost.
- and many more, I haven't thought of yet.
Of course the most possible game-breaking change is when the double-everything is applied to the MEX. The player will have 8(4x2) easily defended Mexes right from the start and much more resources once they expand. Even if they will have double cost, the sudden increase of mass income can change a lot of things.
What do you think?|||Double income = double factories = less room.
double factories = more tanks = splash units such as bombers and artillery will be rediculously OP. Brackman + adaptor will destroy everything.|||I'm with Neph on this one. Also, expansion and, by extension, raiding would become worthless with the mex changes.|||The problem with ability to raid doesnt lie with mex cost, I think, but with the maps. There is not enough room to expand, not enough avenues of attack, or neither. And on big maps, where this IS present, air is too strong. Only a few maps are "just right". Fundemental flaw in the game, as far as competitive 1v1 goes. I wouldve made a map pack to show you people, but I cannot resize maps.|||This could possibly be applied to energy generators only. Doubling mex cost and/or output would be very problematic. Doubling mass converter output would be horrifyingly bad.
The real problem is mass conversion. Until mass conversion can't totally replace mexes, this part of the game will have problems. Until it's not viable to spam pgens for infinite cheap mass, concentrating pgen cost and output would have an extremely negative impact on runaway mass conversion. And runaway mass conversion is almost always the reason you need ultra-massive bases and fourteen factories and six nuke silos and five thousand pgens (bad maps with too many mex spots are the other reason).
I've already got a little mod released in the mod talk forum that makes converters 4 times as expensive, twice as large, twice as explosive, and one fifth as fast at conversion (100 mass for 1000 energy every 20s, from 250/2500 every 10s), and in an average game where I don't rush them, I still end up almost doubling my total mass income with converters (granted, an improvement over one converter increasing mass income by 300% or more over the course of the game).|||Quote:|||B08AH|||I believe that increasing mex cost and output both will slow the game down, and make people less inclined to expand.
- Say, someone has 4 mexes, and decides to expand as soon as he has 200 mass. Once that is done, his mass income is higher and will therefore be able to expand again sooner than he would if he had waited for resources to build both at once. Therefore, double output and cost slows down the game.
- Right now, you need to keep a mex for a 200/1.2 seconds to repay the mass cost. With your changes, that will ofcourse be the same (400/2.4), but since you have less mexes, it will be more painful to lose one. Its like making 2 risky expansions at once. Therefore, people would be more inclined to not expand and just spam maximum tanks.
An alternative I would propose, if you want to change anything, is to increase mex cost by 40% to 280|700 and increase output by 66% to 2/sec. Still not perfect, but there is little else you can do.
By increasing output more than cost, an expansion will be worth the money sooner.|||Whatever was wrong with the idea of just decreasing the cost and build time universally a la cybran tech, but for everyone. That way, you get your mexes cheaper and your economy starts to scale faster.|||What was wrong with that idea is that most maps either dont have the right layout or amount of mex spots to support that|||Nephylim|||B08AH|||It is possible to alter the mass output on mass deposits themselves, or is it tied to the mass extractor?
What if the mass deposit locations towards the center of the map had a higher output? That would encourage expansion and make raiding beneficial in those high-importance areas.
Similar to the "gold" in StarCraftII.|||Short answer: Impossible.
Long answer: Production is tied to mass extractors. You cant differentiate between mass extractors unless you can make an entire new marker class "rich mass spots" and add "High Yield Mass Extractors". Making the extra mass extractor is doable, but im not sure about making different sorts of mass spots. Even if it is doable, every map would have to be edited to include "High yield mass spots", and everyone would have to download a 20 MB mod (duplicating a unit requires duplicating all files associated with it), and even then the mass spots would be inconvenient because they would look the same, only difference would be some can only have "mex 1" and others can only have "mex 2" built on them.|||Nephylim|||Fransotto, its probably not worth your time, unless you want to try it against the AI yourself...|||Nephylim|||Nephylim|||It's easy to get resource data and use it in a unit script. Having variable output mass deposits wouldn't be hard to implement; it just hasn't been yet.|||Nephylim
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