Question about mass extractors and energy generators

[Browser_ice]

Ok, I looked at the tutorial in the game. It shows us how to build mass extractors and energy generators but one thing it does not tell us is about their surroundings/proximity requirements/usages.

I mean, anything I want to build later on, does it have to be touching the mass extractors and/or energy generators ? Far fetched question, can I build all my stuffs miles away from each others without causing any problems ?

Think of it like the Protoss power crystals that once you dropped it, any equipement had to be in a certain range from it to be fed by it. Well does this apply to Supr Com ?

If not, are there benifits or disavantages to how they are located related to anything else ?

[Tydo]

Originally posted by Browser_ice:

I mean, anything I want to build later on, does it have to be touching the mass extractors and/or energy generators ?

No, there is no hard 'have to'. But often there is great benefit.

A mass-extractor or massfab, that is completely surrounded by (directly adjacent) mass storage, gets a 50% production bonus. If less than completely surrounded it gets less, down to 0% for no adjacent mass storage.

The same goes for power generators with energy storage.

For things that use mass/energy it is a bit more complicated, specially for factories.
But for shields it is straightforward. 50% less energy usage for being surrounded by energy generators.

For radar the bonus gets a bit weird. And for some addon shields you can get it down to 100% reduction=no usage.

In practice though, you'll rarely take advantage of more than 3 types:
Mass storage around extractors (when upgrading to T3)
T2/T3 Power around T3 massfabs, those things are powerhogs.
T1 Power around T3 radar, lots of benefit for a small investment.

[Dustreaper]

everything is instant there is no travel time between them.

[Maxwell Sinclair]

The adjacency bonuses are strange but definitely beneficial. If you place energy generators against artillery you will reduce the cost required to fire each shell, some of the experimental and T3 artillery batteries are huge energy hogs.

Mass fabricators and energy generators adjacent to factories reduce the mass/energy cost of unit construction, because units are completed when all the required mass and energy is spent on them, this means their build times are also reduced IIRC. It could just be the drain rate that is reduced.

I won't go into storage as they were covered above, but a good set up I've used is to have a mass extractor, with 4 mass storage on the directly adjacent sides like a + then put T2 (Small) mass fabs into each corner. Each fabricator gets 2 storage boosts while the main extractor gets four.

Shields and radars also get cheaper with adjacent energy generators, as covered above.

[Tydo]

Originally posted by Maxwell Sinclair:

Mass fabricators and energy generators adjacent to factories reduce the mass/energy cost of unit construction, because units are completed when all the required mass and energy is spent on them, this means their build times are also reduced IIRC. It could just be the drain rate that is reduced.

Just drainrate and thus indirectly the unitprice - it does not adjust buildtime.

But, yes there is a catch, that only effects the drain that the factory itself does.
This has 2 consequences:
1) that bonus sits unused when the factory is not producing.
2) weasily, like lawyers, politicians and sales/marketing, it does not help reduce the drain that assisting units have, e.g. when you have a bunch of engineers tasked with assisting the production of units.

So it is not done a lot, except early on, where you may as well put the T1 power generators, that you need in any case, next to your factories, since energy storage is not a good idea until T3 and even then you already get enough "free" energy storage included in a number of structures.

For extractors is it better (in the long run) to have mass storage.
Massfabs are too costly (resource, time) to build and too expensive to run (power) to make use of the marginal bonus when paired with factories. Massfabs should instead be paired or in checkerboard grid with powergens.



Sidenote, a bit about energy storage vs powergens:
** these numbers are skirmish/matchmaking for steam SCFA. It is a bit different in campaign and may also differ for FaF. **
T1 PG: 75m, 750p -> +20 eg.
ES: 250m, 1200p. Over 3x the mass cost, almost double the energy cost

Next to a T1 PG, each ES adds (20/2)/4=2.5eg. At the cost, it is plain bad.
Next to a T2 PG, each ES adds (500/2)12=20.8eg. Slightly more than a T1 pg, but still at a undesirable cost.
Next to a T3 PG, each ES adds (2500/2)/16=39.6eg. Almost double that of a T1 pg, but still worse due to price.
Only if you wedge the ES between two T3 PG, to get double benefit, do you get a better boost for your mass than just adding a number of T1 PGs.

And now comes a kicker.
With wedging, lets say 4 ES between 2 T3 PG, you are paying 4*250m=1000m for +156.25eg.
But what is this sourcery: a T2 PG costs 1200m and delivers 500eg, which is by far a better investment per mass.

Adding to this, that you already get a large amount of energy storage "included for free" with other structures, makes this highprice item obsolete. It, or rather the entire economy, is setup up to make you avoid it. Too pricy for the synergy benefit and not adding enough buffer.
The bottom line is that energy storage is not something to build, at least not when you do PVP where every scrap of mass matters.

You can run similar number for mass storage, to figure out when it pays to invest those 200m for each, considering repay time and whatnot. If nothing else, to at least avoid the obvious cases of building them too early.

Lets just take at least one example of such a calculation:
4 of those at each of your initial 4 T1 extractors, thats a 3200mass "debt" you have to pay off. Your enemy could build 40 T1 bombers for that much, that will wreck your nice storage and give your ACU serious health problems. Or 64 T1 fighters, or half each: 20b+32f. Or, or, or... they can do a lot with a 3200 mass advantage early in the game which will put you unrecoverably far behind.

[sex haver OFFICIAL]

no, they add to your economy, which is acsessed when building, or when buildings are operating.
although there is an adjecency bonus