Spring RTS Engine

So, time for a balance changing suggestion that's got nothing to do with engine bugs or changes for once.


Reduce costs of all factories (any tier) by, say, 100m and reduce the starting metal each player has by the same amount.
M storage could still be kept the same though, you just wouldn't start with empty storage which is nice otherwise too - yo wouldn't excess then just because you missed a second of the games start.

This would improve the game in several ways.
Firstly, and probably most importantly, it would favor every player in a teamgame to make their own lab. As it is, on most maps it doesn't really make sense for each player to make a factory at start if there's more than 3 or 4 players per team. Reason usually everyone usually still does a lab of their own, is because they firstly lack the will and coordination to skip a lab and share resources instead, and secondly because it's just not fun to not have one.
So this change would bring the optimal strategy closer to what is actually fun for every player.

Other than that, it would favor having more labs instead of just one and then only spamming nanos next to it. This would lead to interesting plays of having a wider choice of units available, earlier, allow making factories in more than 1 spot better, also teching in a normal game (where you also keep the t1 lab) would be slightly easier.
So I think it would definitely make the game more varied and interesting.

It would also very slightly nerf any build that includes reclaiming your lab and not rebuilding another for a period, like the usual DSD teching on 3 mexes build for example.

A build where you reclaim a lab and immediately start building another is unaffected in itself.


Overall it would be a noticeable change, but still just a nudge to make some existing strategies better or worse. It would not cause any kind of paradigm shift, like the air damageclass changes for example did. So to me, implementing this change is totally within the lines of what BA is, it would not turn into a different game or anything. People can keep using their old builds just fine, so it doesn't really force you to relearn anything, but it adds more possibilities on top of that.
And to me it doesn't really have any drawbacks, someone might have a different preference of course.


Another related suggestion would be a change to nanos, to increase their cost significantly but make them not as chainable and give them a wreck (and possibly reduce range also). But that's actually a much bigger change.

Your thoughts, criticism?

+1 for blade spam :))

+1 .. especially in light of the coming changes(hopefully sooner than later)

hey guys, I have a great and original idea of how you can take this further - why don't you have the first factory ploppable for FREE and reduce players starting metal by the cost of a factory!

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:hey guys, I have a great and original idea of how you can take this further - why don't you have the first factory ploppable for FREE and reduce players starting metal by the cost of a factory!

Build factory, give t1 conbot to ally, ally builds free t2 factory, win

Link plop to commander, it cannot make adv factories.

What about disabling nanos so that units actually get some value? Then strategy really comes into play as micro-ing becomes an essence(you don't want to lose those 5-6 units).

On the actual post I don't get it how reducing, by say 100 of starting metal and factory cost at the same time, makes any difference. I don't see how that would effect me as a player. The difference cost between veh/air/kbot/etc lab will still be the same and that is really what matters. When I want to build a lab I just check which is the cheapest among the labs, not the exact value.

I vote for doing something with the nanos!

nanos=evil=no-strategy=spam=crap=low-iq=chuck-norris-without-beard

Pithikos, the whole point is that most starting builds stay unaffected (unlike with plop or such)... Only messing with your factories after the start, or doing factory-less starts, is affected.

And I don't get why you'd always build the cheapest (ie bot) lab?

Johannes wrote:Pithikos, the whole point is that most starting builds stay unaffected (unlike with plop or such)... Only messing with your factories after the start, or doing factory-less starts, is affected.

And I don't get why you'd always build the cheapest (ie bot) lab?

I didn't mean always. I meant the times when you just need the cheapest(if you have only 2 mexes for example).

What's plop btw?

Johannes wrote:Other than that, it would favor having more labs instead of just one and then only spamming nanos next to it.

That's the old TA gameplay. The reason people build only one lab is the nanos as you point out. From what I understood nanos came into play because people wanted everything to go fast.

As long as there are nanos I don't see why someone would prefer to have 2 labs instead of 1. There's not a real benefit if you are not overwhelmed with M and E. And if you are, then you would most probably build a t3 or a vulcan.

I think it should become extra harder to tech in general. Teching destroys the gameplay. I would like to see 200 t1 against 1 krog, not a spam of t3 :/

Plop is a feature in Zero-K (the other big Spring game). In Zero-K, all the factories cost the same, and the comm can build any of them (except the Strider Hub, which is ZK's Krogoth gantry). The comm starts out with with a little "present" icon over his head representing the fact that the first factory he builds is *free*. No build time, no metal cost, no energy cost. Just "poof, you have a fac". Then you're free to start building with it or even reclaim it to get back the 550 metal it's worth.

Pithikos wrote:

Johannes wrote:Other than that, it would favor having more labs instead of just one and then only spamming nanos next to it.

That's the old TA gameplay. The reason people build only one lab is the nanos as you point out. From what I understood nanos came into play because people wanted everything to go fast.

As long as there are nanos I don't see why someone would prefer to have 2 labs instead of 1. There's not a real benefit if you are not overwhelmed with M and E. And if you are, then you would most probably build a t3 or a vulcan.

Making a 2nd lab is already beneficial, if they are next to each other it lets your nanos work full time instead of waiting for a unit to get out. Or building a 2nd lab nearer to the front (especially when compushing, you already have buildpower there to assist), so you don't have to wait for slow units to crawl into the front.

The incentive to build a 2nd lab is already there, as demonstrated by good players constantly doing it. This would just be a nudge to get more into that direction.

I think it should become extra harder to tech in general. Teching destroys the gameplay. I would like to see 200 t1 against 1 krog, not a spam of t3 :/

Teching is really hard as it is, if you don't play huge games.
Especially when for the last years the trend has been to just make t2 units stronger (bulldogs, panthers, crocs, etc.), obsoleting t1 units to a big degree when you get there. But getting to tech is still as hard as ever. But well, that's mostly unrelated...

I agree with slightly cheaper factories but not the nanos bit. Part of BA's core gameplay revolves around slow building and the use of nanos to speed production. without nanos being a core element to a base, you are not able to hamstring an opponent and thus weaken his combat effectiveness. This strategy is akin to attacking harvesters in starcraft/warcraft, it is a very seldom spoken element of BA..

but then again I don't play BA LOLOLOLOL

So much text. tldr: facplop is awesome and I invented it in 2009. http://trac.caspring.org/changeset/5781 . Googlefrog said playing to win and playing for fun are not always the same. Building factories and units is what makes the game fun. Facplop was born.

Would be a very very bad change because of so many reasons I would not even bother to tell.

What's with the drastic words? 100m is too little to have a big impact.

While you're at it why not boost con buildpower so people stop spamming nanos.

Cheesecan wrote: While you're at it why not boost con buildpower so people stop spamming nanos.

Please dont do this. Increased buildpower will have massive impact on micro. For an example look at what increased buildrange did to sea battles.

Increasing con buildpower would be way too big a change, you could get expansions so quickly and spam turrets too fast.

Rather nerf nanos if you want to change people to make less nanos in favor of cons. Make them cost, say, 50m more per nano and they would be about on par with conbots in raw buildpower per cost (but buildtime:buildpower ratio still much superior). In response they could get a wreck and/or reduce chaining. Also they could do some damage to things other than nanos too on death imo...