Commenting more on #3 here. A 2.5x increase in cost effectiveness at Fusion is still a lot.
A thought I had was to instead give each reactor a proportional HP increase.
I also feel that better weapons and armor should make troops more cost effective
I suppose I should clarify. What I mean is that upgrading the weapon/armor should never result in a negative to cost efficiency.
For example, an Impact Rover is 30 minerals (7.5 minerals/attack). A Missile Speeder is 50 (8.333 minerals/attack).
Reactors could double I suppose (10,20,40,80) with no cost reduction. That would leave them strong.
I think that if you're going to go to all the work to re-code unit costs, I would do it with as general a formula as possible.
Let people play with various air cost factors and such.
The issue I see with keeping reactor cost reductions (rather than scaling up HP only) is that air quartering cost reduction. Air chassis become very cheap at later reactors because of this.
The problem I forsee with my formula is that with a chassis as a constant, better chassis becomes cheaper relative to infantry at higher weapon/armors as well.
It's a side thing, but I'd also prefer combat was speeded up for later reactors. That might also be too much to change?
It's similar idea (either way, you get a more linear increase from reactors).
Perhaps it is easier to change reactor reduction than change HP. I would put the reactor factors down a bit from 2x, if feasible. Consider that reactors also have the same effect that a weapon/armor increase does in helping a unit survive another battle, plus it gets the cost reduction applied. I don't know...I just never really get excited about a weapon/armor increase the way I do when I get a new chassis or reactor. It feels like weapon/armor upgrades only matter really early when support costs mean something.
It seems to me that there were more extreme examples of strange cost jumps at later reactors than with Fission. I'd have to run some examples and see if this is the case. Logically it should be less where rounding factors get smaller.
I don't think more costly and more powerful late game units would be so bad. A lot of common units are 60 minerals currently (and less, with + IND, and the proposed change to infantry cost), whereas late-game cities often produce 100+ minerals a turn.
I think it's more interesting if costs and power rise more...otherwise it comes down to 'the best 1-turn unit you can make, without waste'.
Although, something would have to be done with Native life.
I assume there's no (easy) way to just prevent designs over X minerals.
A shame. Btw with a quick test it seems the rollover is at 2560 minerals. You can design a unit >3k in the game as is and the actual cost will be 2560 less.
I like the idea to make better weapons/armor more decisively beat the older models though.
What I was getting at with Native life forms, was that unfortunately they would get very cost effective against the more expensive units (since they ignore reactors).
Now if unarmored is Tier 0, and thus a value of 0
Maybe if air units didn't also exert ZOC they wouldn't feel as undercosted.
I'm not sure what the cost effective counter would be to that...SAM infantry maybe?
Agreed. SAM definately should come earlier at Synthetic. I think this was the window I was getting at where you don't have air but your ground units can't advance. This is a good argument for air units not having armor (even a 1/3 move rush attacking infantry will beat an aircraft).
Ok so if the min cost is 2R, all units cost other than infantry have a min cost of: 10, 20, 40, 80.
I think infantry should go 10,20,30,40 for minimum cost.
Air units with AS still hard counter rovers/hovers.
Maybe AS air shouldn't be able to hit ground if it's Cost:0.
Gotcha. Ok this makes more sense. Infantry would indeed be 20,30,40,50. That's fine if other units are at 20,40,60,80.
Yea, with AS. You can kill an unprotected unit, then it fights just fine at 100% its weapon value against the anti-air unit sent as a counter.
Granted if you're in-close to SAM infantry, it will get killed cheaply.
Is it intended that defending AS units get their weapon value when not scrambling? I'd argue maybe this is more of a bug...the air unit is on the airstrip not in the air when at home. Air units without AS can at least be counter-hit by AS units at no loss. They seem to use their defensive value (armor:1).
With infantry getting cut in cost, and AAA free, this does create more of a rock paper scissors. Rock being infantry, scissors air, paper rovers. I'm a little concerned that rovers (moreso hovertanks, than rovers actually) might be a little overcosted to counter defense infantry.
Especially if you have Elite troops and your enemy does not.
AS air units only get their weapon on defense against Air. I can get that it should use its weapon value when scrambling. But after ground-attacking? I'm not so sure.
At least with a Needlejet or Gravship, it can be hit by SAM. A copter returns to base after attacking. Then when you want to hit the base, it additionally fights very well against Air.
Maybe Copters should have Cost:1 for AS, unlike Needlejets.
As well scrambling on defense didn't seem consistent (i.e. Needlejets come and scramble only some of the time, even when fuelled). I'll have to do some more testing to confirm.
I seem to remember some odd behavior with air-to-air combat that seemed exploitable. Maybe it was that you could bait out Needlejets with a Scout air unit, and then kill them with a SAM. A hard one to fix, perhaps.
I think AS units also got +100% to attack against ATG air units for some reason. Seemed un-necessary as those ATG units only have 1 armor. That one probably isn't major.