Economics, when is it best to build what?

Just a few proper calculations and numbers to show you when to build what kind of metal or energy production facility.
After all wars often boil down to resource wars, he who wins the economy, wins the game.

Unit Limit, your most valueblue resource

There are basicly two types of war : boom, or prolonged.
in a boom war, you burn fast, fight fast, and as a result fast and quick returns on your investment are important. After all longer earn back times may mean you have lost the war before you start earning anything back on your investment. Also expensive long term investments are far to much a target in a war thats all over the map raiding and no structure or unit is expected to live very long.

In a prolonged war, both sides, for whatever reason, get a chance to build their most advanced technology, fronts tend to be more static, battles more strategic and chirugical, and attacks more about doing economicly more damage to the enemy than you yourself lost in your attack.
it is this kind of war where unit limit matters, as this game by default only allows for 250 units, and you hit that quicker than you think, having an economy that spits out an insane amount per second, without taking up to much space, unit limit wise, freeing up space for extra production buildings, expensive defences or tons of high end units, like krogoths or nukes.

Well than what is most efficient to build if one looks only to unit space?
For energy it is fairly obvious :
a submerged fusion reactor produces by far the most energy for a single tile, while also being relatively hidden, 1200 for core and 1150 for arm.
if the map has no sea, than that honour falls to the normal and cloaked fusion reactors with their 1050 energy for core and 1000 for arm.
costwise there is no point in building the cloaked variation, more expensive, longer buildtime, and at best equal energy production when compared to the normal fusion plants.
However they are still the third best option with 500 energy (core) and 550 energy (arm) production for a single unit, while cloaked, and since fusion plants explode, it may be sensible to have them cloaked in some situations.

For metal, it may seem less obvious, Moho mines, or Moho metal makers, what is better?
well lets see :

16 Arm Underwater fusion reactors can power 23 arm moho metal makers, for a total of 368 metal/s
1 core underwater fusion reactor can power 2 core moho metal makers, for a total of 24 metal/s
8 Arm fusion reactors can power 10 arm moho metal makers, for a total of 160 metal/s
4 core fusion reactors can power 7 core moho metal makers, for a total of 84 metal/s
16 cloaked ARM fusion reactors can power 11 arm moho metal makers, for a total of 172 metal/s
6 cloaked CORE fusion reactors can power 5 core moho metal makers, for a total of 60 metal/s

*if one gets acces to both core AND arm techology, than by all means build core (submerged) fusion plants and arm moho metal makers, but thats not a normal game situation so I leave that out of the calculations.

Now from these numbers can be derived when it is better to build moho mines, if the moho mine in question produces these amounts of metal/s it is more efficient than the above fusion + moho metal maker combinations.
(where I do take into account the fact that moho mines also use 15 energy that can be seen as having a value of 0.06 metal/s since we compare them to moho metal makers)

368 metal/s : 39 tiles used = 9,5 metal/s
24 metal/s : 3 tiles used = 8,1 metal/s
160 metal/s : 18 tiles used = 9,0 metal/s
84 metal/s : 11 tiles used = 7,7 metal/s
172 metal/s : 27 tiles used = 6,5 metal/s
60 metal/s : 11 tiles used = 5,6 metal/s

Since (submerged) metal extractors never can hope to achieve these kind of production numbers, never use those when your struggling with your unit limit.
And even Moho mines are often not an option, as in normal situations the best they can hope for is 6,6 production, so only when you are using the cloaked fusion reactors for power in their cloacked setting, it might be viable on normal maps, but even than, no way to know moho mine output before it's completed, so you might risk a lot of resources and production and still have a crappy spot.
The only situation where moho mines may be viable is if the map has locations where more than 1 metal tile is closely together so that 1 moho mine covers multiple of them and as such may have a production higher than 6.6.
On a core homeworld map, moho mines always have an insane metal output, and on such maps, always build moho mines, not metal makers.

so in short :
*submerged fusion plants when the map has seas
*normal fusion power plants when the map has no seas
*moho metal makers on all maps but coreworlds
*moho mines only on coreworld maps

However all this falls quite litterly in the water if it's a pure ocean map, without any land what so ever. Can't build moho mines, fusion reactors, cloacked fusion reactors nor moho metal makers on such a map.
Luckely submerged fusion reactiors are totally possible on such a map and a total no-brainer.

But should you build (submerged) metal makers or mines on such a map unit limit wise?

well submerged/floating metal makers produce 1 metal for 60 energy.
while submerged mines produce 0.8 to 2.3 metal for 2 energy.
so in all cases the submerged mines are by far the better option on a pure ocean map.

That was it for this section, the next section will look whats best to build for a boom economy.
(and since many economys start boom, before becoming this stable type, you might want to look into that part too)

The Boom economy

Ok, what if we do not care for unit limit, what if the war is quick and dirty, and units and buildings are destroyed all over the map all the time, when we need to grow, grow fast and earn good returns on our investment, to not withhold to much of our resources from the production of troops?

Well to calculate that, I start by estabilishing a conversion ration for metal and energy, how much metal is worth how much energy? I could use all kind of complex calculations to estimate this, but
I just maintain the moho metal maker's conversion ratio to keep things simple. Metal is the more important resource anyway, and as we just estabilished in most cases the moho metal maker is the most efficient converter. So this means I will maintain 1 metal <=> 50 energy (the conversion ratio of both moho metal makers)

Ok now I make a list for all production options, as follows :
*production cost (converted to whatever it produces in the 1 metal = 50 energy ratio)
*construction time
*output after completion per second of gametime (for mines that consume energy per second too, that energy is converted by the 50:1 ratio, and total output reduced by that number)
*earn back time (production cost / output after completion + default production time)
*interest (output per second as percentage of the amount of resources needed to build it)


Hive (core) : 80665 energy, 252,71s, produces 380 energy/s (with radar off) -> earn back time 464,99s, interest 0,47%
Colossus (arm) : 79857 energy, 253,94s, produces 370 energy/s (with radar off) -> earn back time 469,77s, interest 0,46%
solar collector (core) : 7840 energy, 24,16s, produces 20 energy/s -> earn back time 416,16s, interest 0,26%
solar collector (arm) : 8010 energy, 24,95s, produces 20 energy/s -> earn back time 425,45s, interest 0,25%
Geothermal Powerplant (core) : 34625 energy, 128,75s, produces 250 energy/s -> earn back time 267,25s, interest 0,72%
Geothermal Powerplant (arm) : 35568 energy, 130,78s, produces 250 energy/s -> earn back time 273,05s, interest 0,70%
Underwater Fusion Plant (core) : 417849 energy, 1248,38s, produces 1200 energy/s -> earn back time 1596,59s, interest 0,29%
Underwater Fusion Plant (arm) : 408537 energy, 1312,55s, produces 1150 energy/s -> earn back time 1667,80s, interest 0,28%
Fusion plant (core) : 288065 energy, 942,81s, produces 1050 energy/s -> earn back time 1217,16s, interest 0,36%
Fusion reactor (arm) : 292558 energy, 937,68s, produces 1000 energy/s -> earn back time 1230,24s, interest 0,34%
Cloaked Fusion Reactor (core) : 312275 energy, 1118,74s, produces 500 energy/s (with cloak on) -> earn back time 1743,29s, interest 0,16%
Cloaked Fusion Reactor (arm) : 313058 energy, 1054,87s, produces 550 energy/s (with cloak on) -> earn back time 1230,24s, interest 0,18%
Wind Generator (core) : 3273 energy, 16,87s, produces 5 to 30 energy/s (depending on map settings) -> earn back time 125,97s to 671,47s, interest 0,15% to 0,92%
Wind Generator (arm) : 3109 energy, 16,03s, produces 5 to 30 energy/s (depending on map settings) -> earn back time 119,66s to 637,83s, interest 0,16% to 0,96%
tidal Generator (core) : 4802 energy, 20,94s, produces 10 to 40 energy/s (depending on map settings) -> earn back time 125,97s to 671,47s, interest 0,21% to 0,83%
tidal Generator (arm) : 4868 energy, 21,88s, produces 10 to 40 energy/s (depending on map settings) -> earn back time 119,66s to 637,83s, interest 0,21% to 0,82%

So for a proper boom economy, in most cases Geothermal powerplants, followed up by aircraft carriers are the best energy supply.
On maps where there is no water, it's Geothermal powerplants, followed up by regulair fusion plants/fusion reactors.
However if the map has sufficient high settings for wind or tital energy output, they may be a beter boom than either of them.
The boundries, when it is better to boom with wind and/or tidal is as follows :
Core, landworld : better than fusion = tidal 18+, wind 12+
Core, seaworld : better than hive = tidal 23+, wind 16+
Core, better than geothermal = tidal 35+, wind 24+
Arm, landworld : better than fusion = tidal 17+, wind 11+
Arm, seaworld : better than colossus = tidal 23+, wind 15+
Arm, better than geothermal = tidal 35+, wind 22+
(do note that wind has a bit of variation build into it, and you might want a number slighly higher than this to prevent powerouts, while geothermal has a fixed output and not has that problem)

And now metal producing :

*I will only list the normal mines, that generally are a better chooice for a boom-economy.

metal extractor (core) : 61,28 metal, 18,74s, produces 0,74 to 2,24 metal/s (depending on mining location and map settings) -> earn back time 46,10s to 101,55s, interest 1,21% to 3,66%
metal extractor (arm) : 60,42 metal, 18,00s, produces 0,74 to 2,24 metal/s (depending on mining location and map settings) -> earn back time 44,97s to 99,65s, interest 1,22% to 3,71%
Underwater metal extractor (core) : 169,38 metal, 45,87s, produces 0,76 to 2,26 metal/s (depending on mining location and map settings) -> earn back time 120,82s to 268,74s, interest 0,45% to 1,33%
Underwater metal extractor (arm) : 171,48 metal, 41,75s, produces 0,76 to 2,26 metal/s (depending on mining location and map settings) -> earn back time 117,63s to 267,38s, interest 0,44% to 1,32%
Moho mine (core) : 1632,42 metal, 325,00s, produces 2,2 to 18,9 metal/s (depending on mining location and map settings) -> earn back time 411,37s to 1067,01s, interest 0,14% to 1,16%
Moho mine (arm) : 1682 metal, 357,50s, produces 2,2 to 18,9 metal/s (depending on mining location and map settings) -> earn back time 446,49s to 1122,05s, interest 0,13% to 1,12%

Now I hear you think "but you could just add the construction cost and building time of a powerplant and a metal maker together to calculate their earn back time and interest percentage"
That is true, but since metal makers only convert that would add no extra output, or even lower the output, while adding to the construction time and cost, resulting in a longer earn back time and lower interest rate than building only the powerplant. And as you can see mines already are more efficient than powerplants.

So while moho mines are the only thing that sometimes are more space-efficient than moho metal makers + (underwater) fusion reactors, they are the least suited for a boom-economy, sticking to normal metal extractors seems to be the best boom by far.
A moho mine must be active after construction is completed for around 12 minutes to break even, while only a tenth of that time is needed for a normal metal extractor, in a very active boom battlefield with a lot of raids it is unlike mines will be alive for more than a few minutes.
Underwater metal extractors are a similar bad long term investment, but the fact they are somewhat hidden and only need to survive 3 to 5 minutes to earn profit, makes it slighly more likely they are worth the investment on such a battlefield, at least early in the game, when sonar scans are still rare, on pure ocean maps they are your only pick anyway.

So to compress all this data :
*when you boom you use only normal metal mines (and/or possible submerged ones) other options are just not worth it short term, the game may be won or lost before you earned them back.
*unless there is exeptional good wind or tidal energy on the map where you play, you want to rely primarely on geothermal energy.
*on maps where there is ocean aircraft carriers are your second best booming-energy source, *on pure ocean maps aircraft carriers are your only viable booming option for energy.
*on maps where there is no ocean your second booming option remains the regulair fusion plant.

-> a combination of boom and long term can ofcourse be used, if you having a surpluss of energy you are not using, it is always better to use metal makers (you can always turn them off if your short in energy) and put it to good use, wasting any resources does not befit a boom economy at all, everything needs to be used.

Earn back times for Metal makers

So boom is mines, long term is metal makers, but where exactly lies the border?
Even if you play long term, you start boom and have to time right when to make the switch?
When is it worth to invest long term in those metal makers?
How long DOES it take to earn those back?

To answer those questions I made these extra calculations (for comparising with boom economy)
*construction times are not including delays because of resource shortages, you do want to prevent those when possible.
*construction times presume completing 1 building at default speed, and than the next
*if multiple buildings are being made earn back power is made first, and than as many mines as completed power supplies, before switching back to building power, so the production of a partially completed set reduces earn back time.
(this can result in earning back time being shorter than total construction time, meaning profits are made even when construction is still being done though interest rate will only hit optimum after all constructions are complete)

Core :
2 moho metal makers + 1 underwater fusion plant = 8896,1 metal, 1248,38s, produces 24 metal/s -> earn back time 1412,79s, interest 0,27%
7 moho metal makers + 4 fusion power plants = 24932,12 metal, 6658,95s, produces 84 metal/s -> earn back time 2803,23s, interest 0,34%
5 moho metal makers + 6 cloaked fusion reactors (cloak active) = 38820,8 metal, 8775,09s, produces 60 metal/s -> earn back time 2546,48s, interest 0,15%
20 floating metal makers + 1 underwater fusion plant = 8968,98 metal, 1784,78s, produces 20 metal/s -> earn back time 1978,44s, interest 0,22%

Arm :
23 moho metal makers + 16 underwater fusion plant = 136366,84 metal, 29046,2s, produces 368 metal/s -> earn back time 2523,30s, interest 0,27%
5 moho metal makers + 4 fusion reactors = 24629,64 metal, 5499,72s, produces 80 metal/s -> earn back time 1912,09s, interest 0,32%
11 moho metal makers + 16 cloaked fusion reactors (cloak active) = 102873,56 metal, 20725,72s, produces 172 metal/s -> earn back time 3654,97s, interest 0,17%
115 floating metal makers + 6 underwater fusion plant = 52428,44 metal, 11277,00s, produces 115 metal/s -> earn back time 2162,24s, interest 0,22%

As you clearly can see all these numbers are a lot lower in efficiency than mines.
And while earn back times in itself are reasonable AFTER completion (about 15 minutes), construction times are insane.
Sure because of building order, things start to earn themself back within an hour generally, even if construction has not completed by them, but no game generally takes THAT long
So you only going to do this if you have sufficient nanolathe to spare, and even with nanolathe to spare, it is going to take a while.
so as a rule of thumb, even WITH nanolathe assistance if any of those sets or the remainder of the game is not expected to last for at least 30 more inutes, don't bother building them.

Tips to utilise nanolathe properly :
*construction aircraft have low nanolathe for their cost, and are shot down easely, but can be used in very large swarms, 50 building together 1 building is totally possible, making them by far the fastest option to complete anything.
*however if you want to make submerged fusion reactions you going to need to use construction-submarines and more than 2 of those cannot work on the same building, in that case you want to use paralel building, where each 1 or 2 conships build 1 building of the total set.
(while that does cut production time, it is not the most economic way to speed production, because you only start earning once it is completed, having 10 halve completed things earns you nothing all that time it takes to complete it)
*you can use the same paralel construction technique on land with construction vehicles if you so please, keep in mind it still is smart to have 2 of them work on 1 building, so that it still goes faster and if the enemy kills one, production is not ceased.
* temporaly putting unit production on halt while expanding your economy might be a smart thing to do, no point in putting a lot of extra nanolathe in expanding your economy, only to have production halted by resource shortages.
* you might want to build a few units in between each completed building to prevent your defences from being so weak though, else you cannot defend your expensive investment, just don't build them simultanious if that causes a resource shortage.

[fad to the fone]

I think it's beautiful that 27 years after its release, people still talk about strategy in this game. I had no idea Aircraft Carriers were, on paper, the most efficient way to make energy at sea. I never liked building the things. They are so bulky and require so much attention or else they go kaboom. The explosion could cost you some planes, or worse, structures. You don't want them sitting at home, but you don't want them in the middle of nowhere. They can't defend themselves and are not particularly fast. They are a huge target to every offensive unit and can seriously be in the way of your navy units' pathing. I think I would rather stick to spamming tidal gens all around a base! Trying to spam seaplanes and having to micro dozens of carriers takes so much time

[Giant Raiders]

1- build wind generators / tidal generators / geothermal / fusion eventually
2- build metal extractors
3- build energy storages and metal storages
4- build the kbot lab and construction kbot and small kbot army
5- advance your reach for metal extractors using construction kbots for their defensive architecture that the commander helps finish
6- build like 10-20 advanced aircraft plants, a fat air force, and learn how to time bomber/fighter runs...

These are the absolute fastest units you can possibly create, speed here is only relative so I can't tell you seconds but tidal/wind, and kbots are the lowest metal-cost units, so you can use them to attack earliest, I agree early attacks go a long way. Kbots are by far the most economical early attack, and of the kbots I actually love the Rockos. Have your commander guard the kbot lab for a few minutes, and get 30-40 rockos together and no one is telling you no you in the early game

[wisemove]

First, what to build and how long does it take? Second, what next to build and how long does it take? Third, what to build next and how does it take? Fourth, what's next and how long does it take? Continue thru these questions on down to the point of attack.
What to build first and how long does it take to begin to attack?

[The Flying Rodent]

Interesting guide! For such a complex idea, I think ihe guide does a good job of defining a bunch of metrics, and then comparing different resource gathering methods to each other using those metrics. I think the 'Moho Mines only on Core Prime maps' point in particular is quite useful.

There are however, some practical issues that I don't think are addressed, which IMO could at least deserve a mention:

- Underwater Fusion Reactors are expensive & very easy to torpedo bomb in comparison to having multiple Carriers in different locations (not to mention that carriers can, you know, repair aircraft). Whilst UWF's certainly take up 'the least amount of space per energy unit produced', their expense & vulnerability make them pretty impractical.

- Pretty sure Solar Collectors don't cost 8,000 energy ... where are your cost values coming from?

[The Flying Rodent]

2/2

- Geothermal Power 'on paper' is the best 'boom economy' energy source ... but this assumes that there are vents exist in infinite numbers. If one were to watch competitive TA matches, they'd instead see an awful lot of Solar/Tidal/Wind (depending on map) as the main 'boom economy' energy structure.

- How is 'construction time' calculated, and wouldn't differences in construction time skew the 'earn back time' relative to the game clock (which is the more 'useful' time frame as it's relevant to all players within the game?) E.g. A Fusion is built in 600 sec vs 1200 sec, which amounts to an extra 600,000 energy production.

[zombean]

Space is a much less relevant metric to base your economy plan off. You want to be using Time

[Agamemnon]

guide to good economy = 1. make construction units 2. keep them busy 3. don't stop making them.

[timwaagh]

pretty awesome if you ask me. ive been playing this, on and off, for like 22 years and i literally never knew moho mines weren't worth it or that aircraft carriers were a viable source of energy.

[Yorbihtter]

Hey! I've posted a guide that says how to increase unit limit. It's changing tactics, ot adding new ones, so, can you tell about it or mention my guide in yours?

[Dutchgamer1982]

-added chapter with calculations for metal makers, with quite accurate earn back time calculations. (to give an estimate when it is logical to invest in them)

-corrected a few grammar errors.

-gave more clarity how I calculated certain numbers.

*ofcourse none of these numbers take into account travel time, to and between buildable locations that will be a factor on certain maps.

*would like to make a most efficient unit to build list.. but cannot find proper hp/damage data for all units (not on wiki or fanpage) if anyone has those numbers?