Is Paragon building pointless?

[SpiffyGonzales]

Dont get me wrong i get that experimentals arent supposed to be an every game thing... but I could probably build a hundred colosus units with the resources it takes to build that thing. Like yea, infinite resources are def OP dont get me wrong. But it takes like an hour and a half to build assuming you dont end up having resource problems and all goes smoothly.

What kind of ungodly long stalemate lasts long enough or is costly enough to justify that? like if you cant end the game before youve used up SEVEN AND A HALF MILLION MASS after ALMOST TWO HOURS.... what on earth are you even doing with those resources?

it makes sense that its increadibly expensive... but not THAT dang expensive. Am I the only one who kinda sees this building as useless due to the sheer improbability of actually building the dang thing?

[Stoic⁧⁧Sirius]

You'd usually see these fairly frequently in team matches, where by default there are many more mass deposits to capture. When building a game ender, it's common for your teammates to come in and assist.

If you're an unexperienced player, it's very easy to get confused in later stages of the chaos that is a multiplayer match. And even disregarding that, if both sides get so entrenched on each side, the prospect of keeping on trying to push into enemy territory begins to seem daunting. I would compare it to the transition from a war of movement to trench warfare during WW1. A Paragon is usually the prelude to mass experimental artillery spam, and hopefully ends up winning you the game (unless, for example, the opponent was also building artillery at the same time and ends up being too based, which is what happened to me in one team game).

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by StoicSirius:

You'd usually see these fairly frequently in multiplayer matches, where by default there are many more mass deposits to capture. When building a game ender, it's common for your teammates to come in and assist.

If you're an unexperienced player, it's very easy to get confused in later stages of the chaos that is a multiplayer match. And even disregarding that, if both sides get so entrenched on each side, the prospect of keeping on trying to push into enemy territory begins to seem daunting. I would compare it to the transition from a war of movement to trench warfare during WW1. A Paragon is usually the prelude to mass experimental artillery spam, and hopefully ends up winning you the game (unless, for example, the opponent was also building artillery at the same time and ends up being too based, which is what happened to me in one team game).

lol. I wouldnt say im new by any means, but i never did get into any competative play or multiplayer stuff. It just boggles my mind how somebody could even afford to build it or have enough time to build it as opposed to spamming out eperimentals

[Mohrrunkel]

Well, the core mechanics of the game are exponentially scaling eco plus escalating resource situation. While in other games like Warcraft gold and wood run out, here resources don't vanish. They just drop and you can pick them up. So more and more mass just lies at your doorstep as you trade experimentals into each other. Plus the fact that you usually generate RAS-boys along the way means affordability increases a lot as time goes by, but you can't afford that T4 just with your T3 mex eco.

A paragon is still a niche gameender and most often I have seen them in Phantom games, where a huge buildup/ceasefire phase means that exeptionally large ecos are clashing. Then their investment drawback is not as big a factor. But 7,5 million is new to me, is that in vanilla supcom? The comunity driven client FAF has a very different balance, there it's just a tad more expensive than a Mavor or Salvation at 0,25 million. Don't know how that translates into costs of other vanilla experimentals though. I guess the devs thought that building was just too op for actual use.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by Mohrrunkel:

Well, the core mechanics of the game are exponentially scaling eco plus escalating resource situation. While in other games like Warcraft gold and wood run out, here resources don't vanish. They just drop and you can pick them up. So more and more mass just lies at your doorstep as you trade experimentals into each other. Plus the fact that you usually generate RAS-boys along the way means affordability increases a lot as time goes by, but you can't afford that T4 just with your T3 mex eco.

A paragon is still a niche gameender and most often I have seen them in Phantom games, where a huge buildup/ceasefire phase means that exeptionally large ecos are clashing. Then their investment drawback is not as big a factor. But 7,5 million is new to me, is that in vanilla supcom? The comunity driven client FAF has a very different balance, there it's just a tad more expensive than a Mavor or Salvation at 0,25 million. Don't know how that translates into costs of other vanilla experimentals though. I guess the devs thought that building was just too op for actual use.

https://supcom.fandom.com/wiki/Aeon_Experimental_Resource_Generator
yea, its the vanilla one

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

A single Paragon produces a lot of resources, and you have a limit to how many units and buildings you can have so a Paragon lets you do more with less. Certainly useful in the campaign where a single battle can last a long time.

[Mohrrunkel]

Uhm, thanks for the link, but I guess you confused mass and e here. It's 7,5 million power and only 250.200 mass for a Paragon, so it's excactly the same as FAF. Looking at other experimentals the mass seems to be almost always equal, in vanilla the power is much cheaper. So going by that I'd judge my experience from FAF to be applicable to vanilla. It's not a useless T4, but it entails huge risks similar to any other gameenders. You taking almost two hours to build it tells me that you don't make use of eco scaling as much as you should.

Here's a comparison of combat experimentals to a Paragon, with a T3 arty for reference. After you build 9 GCs you could have had one instead.

Unit Mass Units/Para
Czar 45.000 5,56
GC 27.500 9,10
Tempest 24.000 10,43
Chicken 26.500 9,44
Monkeylord 20.000 12,51
Crab 37.500 6,67
Fatboy 28.000 8,94
Duke 72.000 3,48

And here are some screenshots of a recent cast on YT, just look at the mass that get's thrown around here. And believe me, it's not a turtle fest with a huge buildiup. They just couldn't brake each others bases with just one or two experimentals at that stage. Theese could have all gone into multiple paragons at this point.

the start
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958906708
the defense
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958906753
The aftermath, over 200k reclaim
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958906730
meanwhile on the other flank
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958906778

[Grumpy Old Gamer]

They are called game enders because they are intended to end a game where the outcome is more or less settled, but it will take a lot of grinding down the opponents base to kill every last unit.