The BA Economy Balance Spreadsheet

[YokoZar]

View it here

You can enter your own values for how much you think various things are worth relative to another. The spreadsheet will tell you what the most efficient (cost per value) thing to build is using your own assumptions. It will also tell you when it's worth reclaiming something in order to build something else -- I was surprised to find, for instance, that it's worth reclaiming advanced solars to make geos.

Pay special attention to column N, which is the cost per value when you are metal stalling. In my experience, this seems to be the normal case for most players most of the time in BA.

Some caveats:

• It doesn't consider mobility or crane time, so you'll need a bit of sense.
• Nor does it consider hit points or build options or weapons

Other interesting things:

• If you are metal stalled and spilling excess energy, the only thing you should be making is basic or floating metal makers. Moho metal makers are ok, but in such a situation their metal cost isn't worth it.
• Freakers are better than T2 con bots in every way, except of course for what they can build.
• In general Core energy buildings are a better deal than Arm ones, with the important exception of the wind generator. The other exception is the Prude, for which there is no core equivalent.
• Economically, the commander isn't worth his reclaim value in metal. This supports the theory behind the self-D eat-comm teching strategy.

Doing this also revealed some possible bugs:

• The Core underwater Moho Mine is substantially more expensive than the Arm one.
• Amphibious construction vehicles have no energy storage
• The FARK is worse than the Freaker in every way, and is also worse than the rector/necro for much of its uses

[el_matarife]

Suggestions: Put in an "average Wind Value" square so we can calculate what wind's payback period looks like compared to other energy methods.

When I built my BA economy spreadsheet, I assumed 80E -> 1M for the energy to metal conversion ration. Then I built an ROI calculator by taking the metal value, multiplied it by 80, then added the energy cost, and divided by the energy output of the building.

This allowed me to find out that with an average wind of ~15 wind plants had a faster ROI than anything but an advanced fusion at the time, assuming you didn't care about construction time. Also, I ran a goal seek to make the wind ROI equal to that of a solar and came up with a value around 11 average wind.

[JohannesH]

whats ROI? In Finland its the name of a famous dog but i think thats not the case here...

[Llamadeus]

Return on investment.

[el_matarife]

Example calculation of the Arm solar plant:
135 metal
0 energy
T1 metal makers convert energy into metal at one metal per 60 energy.

So, take 135 metal and multiply it by 60 to get the energy cost of 8700. The Arm solar plant makes 20 energy per tick, so divide that 8700 by 20 to get a ROI of 435 ticks.

[Regret]

Example calculation of the Arm solar plant:
135 metal
0 energy
T1 metal makers convert energy into metal at one metal per 60 energy.

So, take 135 metal and multiply it by 60 to get the energy cost of 8700. The Arm solar plant makes 20 energy per tick, so divide that 8700 by 20 to get a ROI of 435 ticks.

What a load of bullshit.

Majority of games is based primarily on mex economy until quite late-game, not MM economy. Saying 1m = 60e is just plain stupid.

[el_matarife]

Well, the energy output buildings don't make metal. However, we know with a metal maker, you can turn 60 energy into one metal so we can put a "price" on the metal cost of buildings by multiplying the metal cost by 60.

This isn't going to make a difference in real games because you start with metal and have metal spots, but it may come close to being what you see on Greenfields. It's just a theoretical number that allows you to compute an ROI that covers both the metal and energy costs.

[Regret]

Well, the energy output buildings don't make metal. However, we know with a metal maker, you can turn 60 energy into one metal so we can put a "price" on the metal cost of buildings by multiplying the metal cost by 60.

This isn't going to make a difference in real games because you start with metal and have metal spots, but it may come close to being what you see on Greenfields. It's just a theoretical number that allows you to compute an ROI that covers both the metal and energy costs.

Theoretical useless crap is theoretical and useless.

At least use adv MM value of ~45e per 1m.

[el_matarife]

At least use adv MM value of ~45e per 1m.

That's the underwater advanced moho maker value. The T2 ground moho maker is 50 to 1 metal, which makes the ROI 363.

Anyway, I'd argue if you're metal stalled by midgame you're probably looking for the energy generator that will make the most metal for the least cost, and that's what this will tell you. If you're not metal stalled, use some other calculation like Yokozar's spreadsheet.

[Gedanken]

Most of the OP spreadsheet figures are general-purpose 5 min no rush plz numbers - as stated, the figures don't take into account con speed or whatever. They also don't take into account build time when not e spilling, which is still a factor purely for the fact that it affects how fast you can get units out

Additionally, things like t1 vs t2 mex efficiency are irrelevant in a game not balanced for metal maps.

If you make spreadsheets like these to find some kind of sweet ratio, then you probably need one for small games, big games, big porcy games and metal map games. Also taking into account when and where things are built and at what stage in the game - which is totally unpredictable and any attempt to crack that would require massive amounts of specific, relational stats to back it up. Even then you'd be pretty much analysing balance of DSD or CCR. There are so many factors not taken into account here that it makes most of the figures largely worthless, but the spreadsheet does highlight some interesting things

[*]The FARK is worse than the Freaker in every way, and is also worse than the rector/necro for much of its uses[/list]

FARK is not comparable to necro/rector imo. I do think FARK needs small buff though, like stealth or smth, as we discussed.

The bit about comm reclaim value - imo the tech strat is flawed in that the amount of m reclaimed in DSD basin or whatever far outweighs comm wreck value

[Regret]

~45e

50

The ~ implies it is around that value and I didn't check the real value.

The spreadsheet is useless for real games, and there already is http://modinfo.adune.nl/ which makes the effort put into assembling the spreadsheet a waste.

EDIT: a great example of how ridiculously silly it is to go by the spreadsheet

for instance, that it's worth reclaiming advanced solars to make geos.

This is never true in real games because you simply can't afford the buildpower required to do this.

[Beherith]

About fark vs freaker: Arm and core are not the same. Deal with it. There is no imperative to have a comparable unit for each side; as it would make the game super boring.

The major thing people forget about the MM eco is that:
1. Stuff doesnt make eco till its fully built.
2. Nanos are quite expensive
3. You cant kill a smart enemy with purely eco, the way you use it counts for much more than the fact that you have alot of eco

Also, reclaiming adv solar for geo? Do you have any idea how much E a geo costs? Where the hell are you gonna get 12k e on any decent map without stalling for the whole first five minutes without a few adv solars to help out. And yeah, the buildpower and time to reclaim things is also a factor.

I dont honestly know why everyone seems to think M is the most important resource in BA. In my opinion time is the most important resource. And command time as well.

[Saktoth]

To get the real value of energy, rather than using the MM ratio, you can multiply the time a source of energy has spent alive (IE how much it has produced over its lifetime) by its cost.

So for example you build some solar panels at minute 0 and if after 10 minutes, a single solar panel has made 12000 e, costing 145, then you are getting 82.7 e per metal invested- the value of e after 10 minutes of solar usage.

One side effect is we can caculate how long it takes to pay off your metalmakers depending on what they are running on. It takes 7.25 minutes of operation to earn back the cost of a solar panel and start making a profit, if you are running metalmakers off it (IE, dont do this).

So the return on metal to e is non-static over the course of the game. Early in the game, if you need units right now, then use metal-costing units rather than energy-costing: the return on a solar that has been up for a minute is 8.25 (most things cost 10-1 e-m). Say, for example, for early attacks you should use flash (8.3-1) rather than peewee (19.9-1), all other things being equal (Which they are not).

If you can find the average lifetime of all e sources you could give the conversion ratio depending on what you are using, though you will need to do some factoring of the effeciencies of M vs E use on the fly (a porcier game means you, and your e, will survive longer- and thus tends to encourage air use, which is 20-1 (gunships) 30-1 (t1) to 40-1(t2)).

The numbers above assume that you get 1 e per second, which isnt precisely correct AFAIK.

[JohannesH]

If youre stalling m, youre excessing buildpower

[YokoZar]

Example calculation of the Arm solar plant:
135 metal
0 energy
T1 metal makers convert energy into metal at one metal per 60 energy.

So, take 135 metal and multiply it by 60 to get the energy cost of 8700. The Arm solar plant makes 20 energy per tick, so divide that 8700 by 20 to get a ROI of 435 ticks.

What a load of bullshit.

Majority of games is based primarily on mex economy until quite late-game, not MM economy. Saying 1m = 60e is just plain stupid.

You can enter your own relative values of metal and energy onto the first line of the spreadsheet. Similarly you can factor in build time (and build power) as important too -- just change the values at the top and see what pops up.

For instance on a metal map a more reasonable ratio is not 1 : 60 but probably more like 1 : 10.

Suggestions: Put in an "average Wind Value" square so we can calculate what wind's payback period looks like compared to other energy methods.

It's already there, at the top.

At least use adv MM value of ~45e per 1m.

That's similarly silly, as the advanced metal maker costs a good amount of metal to begin with.


One good thing to consider here is opportunity cost. 12 metal makers costs a good amount less than 1 Moho metal maker, but for doing that you lose 120 more energy per tick. So building a moho metal maker is much like building 12 normal metal makers and 120 energy worth of stuff at a cost of 300 or so metal. This is not trivially better - on maps with very high wind or tidal, for instance, that metal is better spent on basic metal makers and more energy production. That moho metal maker is also only making that implicit 120 energy when it's on, which isn't always the case by any means.

[YokoZar]

About fark vs freaker: Arm and core are not the same. Deal with it. There is no imperative to have a comparable unit for each side; as it would make the game super boring.

My worry isn't that the FARK is inferior to the Freaker in every way, it's that it's also inferior to the Rector.

Yes, it can build, but the only things it's going to be assisting are slow t2 conbots, and for that you're better off using t1 conbots.

The major thing people forget about the MM eco is that:
1. Stuff doesnt make eco till its fully built.
2. Nanos are quite expensive
3. You cant kill a smart enemy with purely eco, the way you use it counts for much more than the fact that you have alot of eco

Yes, build time does matter, which is why I included it as an option in the spreadsheet (although I defaulted it to 0).

Also, reclaiming adv solar for geo? Do you have any idea how much E a geo costs? Where the hell are you gonna get 12k e on any decent map without stalling for the whole first five minutes without a few adv solars to help out. And yeah, the buildpower and time to reclaim things is also a factor.

If you're metal stalled (the only reason to consider reclaiming anything at all), then the energy cost isn't your big concern.

I dont honestly know why everyone seems to think M is the most important resource in BA. In my opinion time is the most important resource. And command time as well.

Attention is definitely a valuable resource, so you'll obviously have to use some judgement and take numbers with a grain of salt. For instance nanos may look inferior to all con units unless you very heavily weight the value of build power, however nanos are much easier to micro than con units. So late in the game nano spam doesn't look so bad.

[YokoZar]

The spreadsheet is useless for real games, and there already is http://modinfo.adune.nl/ which makes the effort put into assembling the spreadsheet a waste.

EDIT: a great example of how ridiculously silly it is to go by the spreadsheet

for instance, that it's worth reclaiming advanced solars to make geos.

This is never true in real games because you simply can't afford the buildpower required to do this.

If you're metal stalling by definition you have excess build power. You should never reclaim an econ unit unless you are metal stalling, which means you can spare some of that excess build power to do the reclaiming. I don't see how you could credibly claim otherwise.

[YokoZar]

Most of the OP spreadsheet figures are general-purpose 5 min no rush plz numbers - as stated, the figures don't take into account con speed or whatever. They also don't take into account build time when not e spilling, which is still a factor purely for the fact that it affects how fast you can get units out

You can put a value on buildtime and change the value of build power if you like.

Additionally, things like t1 vs t2 mex efficiency are irrelevant in a game not balanced for metal maps.

Well, it does show one thing - it's a bit better to put basic mexes on empty metal patches than it is to upgrade to moho mines. Similarly it's better to spam basic metal extractors than moho mines on a metal map.

It also proves something obvious, namely that metal extractors are better than other means of getting metal (although some players seem to ignore this once they get their adv fusion / moho metal maker economy going)

If you make spreadsheets like these to find some kind of sweet ratio, then you probably need one for small games, big games, big porcy games and metal map games. Also taking into account when and where things are built and at what stage in the game - which is totally unpredictable and any attempt to crack that would require massive amounts of specific, relational stats to back it up. Even then you'd be pretty much analysing balance of DSD or CCR. There are so many factors not taken into account here that it makes most of the figures largely worthless, but the spreadsheet does highlight some interesting things

Yes, the values at the top are not meant to be magical universal constants - in fact we should expect them to change during an individual game itself. When combat units get more energy intensive, for instance, energy becomes relatively more valuable.

The bit about comm reclaim value - imo the tech strat is flawed in that the amount of m reclaimed in DSD basin or whatever far outweighs comm wreck value

There are superior strategies once you start factoring opponents and what they're doing, of course. An econ spreadsheet can't hope to factor in the value of opponents in any sane way - it's purely a "well I'm gonna spend these resources on econ anyway what's my best option."

It shouldn't surprise us that most of the conclusions are obvious to experienced players - eg, that advanced solars are better than basic solars unless you're energy stalled.

[Pxtl]

The Fark is fast. If you're using it to assist L2 conbots, you're using it wrong - you should be using L1 conbots for that, or nanotowers if traffic is an issue. Hell, iirc they even chain.

I don't think anybody has changed the Fark much since Caydr's day, and if I remember correctly his intent for it was field repairs... imho, the damned things are way too fragile for that kind of dangerous work, though.

As for the "60 e = 1 m" thing, there's also the issue of raidability. At L1, makers make for a hard-to-defend base.

And everybody knew that metal extractors are the most efficient source - that's obviously the point. The trick, though, is those extractors have a hidden cost-to-defend associated with them.

[YokoZar]

The Fark is fast. If you're using it to assist L2 conbots, you're using it wrong - you should be using L1 conbots for that, or nanotowers if traffic is an issue. Hell, iirc they even chain.

This is the thing - if it's for repair, Rectors are better. If it's for reclaim, Rectors are better. If it's for Build, L1 conbots are better.

So what's its point? Being mediocre at both? Assisting t2 construction aircraft?

edit: could it have a very high repair rate but a low build rate? Is that possible?