As someone who has played since the beginning of first-access, I can safely say the constructor start is highly unbalanced, leading to a poorer experience for other professions. This is amplified this test by more experienced players starting compared to last test and realizing that they can grow much faster.
The constructor is unbalanced for these reasons:
- Constructors are able to feed prefabs back into constructing more buildings, leading to rather then selling prefabs on the market, they are used to grow bases for themselves. Constructors in the last test were able to have the first second bases while others were struggling with getting their first or second new buildings up, and this test seems to be the same.
- The point above leads to much slower growth and the feel from other players, especially new ones that the game is really slow. It’s a common question as to why this game is slow.
- Constructors because of the reasons above can vertically integrate fast due to being able to build buildings much faster, and cut other players out of the market. For instance a constructor can build a EXT, SME, INC, and not have to buy materials from the market, leading to a poor experience for Carbon farmers, and Smelters.
Look at the market health for Carbon:
Compared to BSE:
This is on a supposed constructor homeworld, with hundreds of active players-you’d expect much more on the market. It won’t be until constructors have filled their bases that prefabs might be available at non-MM levels.
Solutions for this problem might include:
1.) Not having the PP1 series be able to solely construct buildings alone-you can construct buildings by solely buying the MGC from the market. This could be changed by having other smaller components needed for other buildings, like for instance a basic mechanical component for Extractors and Collectors produced in a separate building(for instance the WEL is pretty underused).
Some other additional ideas might include:
Heating elements for SME and FP by (WEL)
Basic Electronic Components by BMP for PP1 and other buildings.
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Agree, what you wrote was what I did in first access (although not one of the first players in the world):
- start as constructor on Prom with BMP and PP1
- vertical integration (own DW and RAT and OVE)
- grew, got a WEL, earned money through TRU
- earned a lot of money through very early MHL
- next bases
- produced own C, made my own PE
- PPF for PG
- PPL for my own PSL
At the end i think three bases growing, almost no need for other players…
The “small parts” sounds good, maybe even one or two new buildings could pop up? (the biggest limit i hit was base-size. you had to decide what you want to produce)
Experts are a good thing also, maybe they need to be even more important? A specialized C-Farmer could outproduce a “vertical” corporation? And maybe even “corp”-experts, so you cannot easily have more bases specialized on different topics?
(raise max. bonus to 50%, and have “two tiers” (planet experts + global experts), so the factor would be 1,5*1,5 = 2,25 for highly specialized companies?)
For the most, i think the MM-prices are a bit of. I can buy DW and RAT a a fairly low price compared to my guaranteed income from PP1-prefabs. Why not increase the spread?
I don’t know if this is a problem. Constructors are naturally good being at the end of a production chain. There’s inherent challenge with being able to get inputs and if you buy them from the market, you can cut your profit margin.
Whatever the cost is, even using a WEL in addition to a PP1, someone who has buildings capable of building B-fabs will always be better at expanding than someone who doesn’t when B-fabs are in short supply.
I think the issue is that there’s not really a balance. The balance should come from FE price shooting up but they don’t, therefore CONS players don’t need to sell much. Thus they expand very quickly to SMEs and thus there’s no need for the previous SME players.
I wonder if oddly the way to improve this balance would be to expand the buy for Bfabs. Such that FE had to cost more and thus CONS have to sell more. Prices would raise across the market but you’d probably see more hitting the market.
Another solution would be to lower the FE output, such that it raises in prices and a CONS player would need to build a couple to really make a difference.
True: as a constructor, my fourth building is a SME (after PP1, BMP, EXT for LST). There is little to no FE on the Bentem market, so i have to buy FEO and smelt on my own. At the moment not for profit, but only to keep my PP1 running.
But this is also the weakness of CONS: they are dependent on FEO at least. If there is none on the market, they only can make BDE (on first tier). BDE prices tend to drop as i remember…
And no one stops ressource farmers from expanding to PP1 etc.
I think part of this is the following:
A ressource farmer
- has to sell extracted ressources at a lower price.
- has to buy BSE/BBH for the higher price.
A constructor
- can “buy” BSE/BBH at the price of the ressources. He just “waives” the profit.
Thus, in each case a ressource farmer wants to expand, he has to really invest that money that the constructor is just waiving as profit.
The idea would be to add more elements to Basic Buildings for instance:
BHE(Basic heating element) --> 1 CU = 2 BHE
BEC(Basic electronic component) --> 1 CU + 1 AU + SI = 4 BEC
BMC(Basic mechanical component) --> 1 STL + 1 CU = 2 BMC
The MM sell would be 2400 each.
Then you’d adjust the building recipes like so:
EXT = 6 BSE + 4 BMC
COL = 6 BSE + 4 BMC
SME = 2 BSE, 2 BDE, 2 BBH + 4 BHE
and so on…
So the building would be cheaper overall from the MM, but the construction would require more components from different chains.
I’d put tier one Copper on that Neon planet, and gold by Antares so it would require a involved chain.
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Carbon tanked because too many people started as carbon farmers and probably doubled down on INC with their starting cash.
One carbon farmer has one INC which makes 4 C/day.
One metallurgist with one SME makes 6 FE per day and only requires 2 C/day to operate
One constructor with one PP1 uses between 4 and 6 FE/day depending on if they are making BSE or BBH.
To further exacerbate the issue, Manufacturers also have INC included as a recommendation, so who knows how many of those players made INC just to sell it at the market.
The problem is that given a set of starting options, people will probably distribute fairly evenly between them if they don’t know the necessary ratios. With that distribution, carbon is extraordinarily over supplied compared to the need. On top of that, FE is slightly over supplied if players build BSEs. Given also that constructors rely on the market while farmers do not, players tend to prefer agriculture and carbon farmers over constructors.
The reason constructor is profitable is because nobody picked it, not because it is inherently better. Those who did pick it were savvy and smart for doing so and probably skipped the recommended BMP for an EXT so that they could prop their PP1 with a SME.
The prices are a product of supply, demand, and MM sell price ceilings. If anything, it favors everyone else but constructors because people are willing to pay more than 1550 for a BSE but constructors cant actually sell it at that price.
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The prices are a product of supply, demand, and MM sell price ceilings. If anything, it favors everyone else but constructors because people are willing to pay more than 1550 for a BSE but constructors cant actually sell it at that price.
Yes, they could make more profit, but if their profit margin is higher at 1550 than other markets (which I think it is), it’s still the most profitable choice.
