Suggestion: remove "t2 to t3 mex rebuild" game mechanics maybe?
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Hello guys. New player here. Watching tutorials, streams and replays I have noticed that most mid-high level players use interesting gamehack to boost eco:
- Ctrl+k t2 mex
- reclaim 729 mass
- fast rebuild t3 mex with t3 engie/acu/sacu + assist
... - profit 729mass and even less per mex
as shown in this tutorial video of BRNKoINSANITY (timecode 6:53 for excel table and numbers)
This trick is possible because upgrade cost and build cost(from scratch) of t3 mex are even (4600 mass)
Idk maybe I'm wrong but this seems overcomplicated for that small amount of mass. It is counterintuitive for new players also: you assist t1 to t2 upgrade, but you kill t2 mex to build t3 mex (what?!) ( found this and this topics asking about this game mechanics)
I mean why not just make upgrade cost less than build from scratch by 729 mass for example? You can keep same timers for upgrade/rebuild equal to keep the game flow intact.
IMHO this game is hard to master as is with the tactics and all, to make it even more complex using time consuming tricks like this.
I noticed that developers team integrated some of QoL mods into a game, so I decided to suggest such a change.P.S. Tried to search forum for relevant topic, to check what people think about such issue but found nothing
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It requires way more attention to your eco to do this. Sometimes that's good, like when there is nothing to do but focus on your eco. Sometimes it's bad, like when there is way too much scaling going on, your spending is too volatile to make it potentially worth it, or you can't spend time walking t3 engies around the map instead of fighting battles.
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I think it would be a good change to have the cost of a new t3 mex and the cost of a t2 mex plus a t3 mex upgrade be equal. Having high apm is already very beneficial in FAF without this added bonus. We don't need to further handicap low apm players with an additional ~700 mass penalty per t3 mex compared to their higher apm counterparts.
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Except that it involves floating the required mass, spending time moving engies, and finding the time to go back to mexes every 30-50 seconds. Being mad that proper planning gets you an eco advantage might as well as mean removing tree groups so people properly planning around them don't get rewarded for their "apm" as well.
There are times where it's worth ctrl+k'ing mex, and there are times where it is not worth the additional mental overhead. If it is always worth it in your games, you're playing big teamgames where aggression is not a concern and you got like 10 mex to babysit.
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I thought bp was increased on t2 mexes so this was less of an advantage
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ok I can see this mechanics can be one of the aspects of mastering the game (when to do or not to do ctrl+k instead upgrade)
Still I don't like this overcomplicated technique.
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In my opinion it looks like a bug that become feature. Since it exists in FAF for ages and people get used to it i doubt that it will be ever changed. But it is very counterintuitive and may lead to accidental ctrl+k of something valuable like already rebuilt t3 mex or even comm. When i started to play FAF i legit had to make ui mod just to make sure i won't ctrl+k something else
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I was also of the assumption this hasn't really been worth doing for quite a while now.
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My only problem with this exploit is that it seems non-intuitive, and it’s not something that could be effectively conveyed in a loading screen tip
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Cost to build t2 mex - 900 mass
Cost to upgrade t1 mex to t2 mex - 900 massCost to build t2 radar - 180 mass
Cost to upgrade t1 radar to t2 radar - 180 massCost to build t3 UEF shield - 3300 mass
Cost to upgrade t2 shield to t3 shield - 3300 massThe "counterintuitive" aspect is adding a weird rule to t3 mex upgrades. The game is perfectly consistent. The only area the game doesn't work like this is support factories.
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It's rare that people will upgrade a lot of radars, but it's normal to upgrade multiple support factories and mexes.
It's only fair to make people pay extra for the privilege of upgrading a shield in place when a certain faction can't even do that at all.
It just comes down to this: do we want to give people the option to do a little song and dance, to trade APM in exchange for about 600 extra mass? Or do we want to streamline the game here.
I'm definitely in favor of streamlining the game by equalizing the cost of upgrading in place vs. ctrl-k trick. The game is complicated enough. Making it a little simpler here is more good than bad.
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@greensubmarine said in Suggestion: remove "t2 to t3 mex rebuild" game mechanics maybe?:
In my opinion it looks like a bug that become feature. Since it exists in FAF for ages and people get used to it i doubt that it will be ever changed. But it is very counterintuitive and may lead to accidental ctrl+k of something valuable like already rebuilt t3 mex or even comm. When i started to play FAF i legit had to make ui mod just to make sure i won't ctrl+k something else
I had problems accidently cntrl+k things I didn't mean to so what I do now when I use this technique (very rarely) is I just use my engies to reclaim the mex then build the t3 so there is no risk to make that mistake.
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This is a pretty counter-intuitive game mechanic, but pretty much everyone learns about it if they are trying to get better. It's one of those "spend apm, gain a slight advantage" kind of things which i dont really love as it doesn't add anything to the game strategy-wise, but just forces higher apm to maximize your play. I don't really mind it either though, and don't think there is much of a good solution without changing game mechanics significantly. However, just reducing the upgrade cost vs the straight build cost for mexes I wouldn't mind either.
One thing that REALLY DOES bug me, is the time for the animation of the mex ctrl-k that you have to wait for before you can place the t3 mex order. Can we speed that up? It's only like 2 seconds or something, but then when the game is lagging it feels like i'm wasting A LOT of time staring at my mex waiting to be able to give the build order, but it's not long enough to justify looking away and doing something else.
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All extractors explode immediately, except the Seraphim extractor: it takes less than a second. Do you have a specific unit in mind that takes a long time to turn into a wreck?
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@jip It is the Seraphim mex that he's talking about and it is pretty annoying imo especially if the game is already lagging. It's not 2s though for sure, maybe half a second in a lag free game? Would be nice for that to be consistent between factions but it's pretty minor.
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We can make that consistent
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This change would be nice.ctrlking the mex to make it more efficiently doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me and would make gameplay nicer.
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@jip I guess it must be just for sera extractors, but you also have the same kind of issue when you destroy other buildings. e.g. you ctrl k a bunch of factories adjacent to mexes and want to give a reclaim order on the wreck and then build storages around the mex.
So just generally speaking, it would be nice if all buildings in general became wrecks faster just so you can give reclaim orders and new build orders faster.
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@arma473 said in Suggestion: remove "t2 to t3 mex rebuild" game mechanics maybe?:
It just comes down to this: do we want to give people the option to do a little song and dance, to trade APM in exchange for about 600 extra mass?
This is the key question and all other considerations--faction diversity, time-to-wreck, consistency, that destroying something to rebuild it saves resources (??!?) doesn't make any sense at all--are secondary. And the least interesting part of decisionproblem.com is at the very beginning, when you're clicking a button to make more paperclips.
@ftxcommando said in Suggestion: remove "t2 to t3 mex rebuild" game mechanics maybe?:
The "counterintuitive" aspect is adding a weird rule to t3 mex upgrades.
The numbers aren't the last word on consistency, player behavior is. It doesn't pay to ctrl-k t1 mexes, shields, and radars, why should it for t2 mexes?
Everyone has seen the most recent APM graph. 80 APM is never just sitting around. Every click spent executing a construction algorithm by hand is taken away from a more interesting decision, for any player at any level.
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@analyzenoob said in Suggestion: remove "t2 to t3 mex rebuild" game mechanics maybe?:
So just generally speaking, it would be nice if all buildings in general became wrecks faster just so you can give reclaim orders and new build orders faster.
Though I agree with your statement, as it would make sense gameplaywise,
I must say, that all the tiny detail is what makes the game feel... 'alive'.If they blew up too fast, turning into wreckages almost instantly, the feeling of a factory being destroyed would feel much less vibrant.
~ Stryker
