Economy Guide

Basic Economic Management

Metal is the most important resource. It is limited by your territory, obtained from metal extractors on metal spots, but is relatively cheap to get. You should always acquire it ruthlessly and spend it as soon as possible- your metal bar should always be empty.

Energy can be made anywhere and there is no limit to the amount you can have, though it takes an investment. It is used for tasks other than construction, so you should always have more energy than you do metal. Excess energy is automatically used to [Overdrive] your metal extractors.

Build Power is the ability of your constructors to build locally at a fixed rate. Having too much of the other resources just means you don't have enough constructors. Some excess buildpower is good, so that you can move it around or perform other tasks.

In order to build anything, you need all three resources in equal quantities (an exact 1-1-1 ratio). Constructors drain the same amount of resources at a fixed rate no matter what they are building. In your resource bars, income of each is shown in the small green number, and drain in red. The balance of these numbers is the larger number, added or subtracted from your storage. Unlike some other RTS's, the goal is to balance your income vs your expenditure- storage exists only to give you a buffer. If your storage is full and the green number is larger than the red, you're excessing. If your storage is empty and the red number is larger than the green, you're stalling.

Guard/Repeat Method to a Smooth Economy

One of the keys to running a smooth economy is to automate it. Here is one method:

1. Click the factory guard button on your factory. This will make all constructors guard (and assist) your factory.
2. Press the repeat button on your factory. Your factory should almost never be idle, and repeat greatly reduces the amount of micro you need to manage your fac. It also allows you to mix units more easily. (Alternately, you can press F11 and enable the Factory Autorepeat widget and it will do this for you every game.)
3. Queue up offensive units and constructors. Constructors should generally comprise around 1/4th of all your spending, but this varies by map and situation. Lots of constructors allows you to react to a varying and slowly expanding economy.
4. Expand with your constructors, guarding them with units and building defences as you go, gradually and smoothly increasing your metal income. Make energy constantly, non-stop over the course of the game, and in pace with your metal production. Making a solar panel next to every extractor is a good practice.

If you find yourself in a crisis and need to rebalance your economy, remember these tips:

• If you stall energy, build energy structures and set them on [EconomyGuide#Priority high priority]. Always watch out if your energy storage starts to dip. Turn off any cloaking units, cloak generators or shields until out of the stall.
• When you have too many constructors working on your factory and you are stalling heavily, send some out to expand, reclaim, make defenses, and repair.
• If you ever find yourself heading towards an excess of metal due to a sudden glut, make nanotowers in your base or construct a new factory on the frontline if you have your commander or some idle constructors there.
• Swim in energy and be short of metal, never the reverse.

That's the practical advice. Now, some theory and specific data:

Metal

Metal is directly tied to territorial acquisition and military conquest.

Metal Extractors (mexes) are the most efficient way to get metal, and can only be placed on metal spots. As such, you should expand quickly and rapidly get as many metal spots under your control as possible. Metal extractors are cheap, and pay themselves back quickly. Remember that any metal spot that doesn't have an extractor on it is just wasted metal. If you ever lose territory or get raided, quickly re-expand into the area with extractors again.

Reclamation can make up a significant portion of your metal income. For everything that dies, a corpse is left behind with up to 40% of the metal it took to produce the unit. Securing an area after an assault and getting the reclaim from both your units and the enemies (an 80% payback on your investment) can decide the outcome of a game. Since it takes a constructor to reclaim things, you can think of reclamation as a way of turning buildpower directly into metal- reclaiming is a very good use of an excess of buildpower. Also note that unlike mex income, reclaimed metal is not shared.

[Overdrive] makes your mexes produce more metal, with diminishing returns as you pump more and more energy into them. Due to this, the more mexes the energy is spread over, the more efficiently you can overdrive them, and the more metal you get for invested energy- so always try and take territory. Overdrive requires an energy structure near the extractor to work, but as long as the colour of your overdrive circles are the same, the efficiency is the same- dont worry about linking your whole grid together, rather, make a solar panel next to each extractor.

Communism mode distributes all metal from mexes - basic output and overdrive - at equal quantities to all members of your team.

Energy

Energy can be made anywhere. It is generally built in your base, and having energy is required for a number of things, including making all units and structures and running some special units (jammers, shields, etc). Since it is such an investment, losing your energy can cripple your whole economy, so always try to protect your energy and hit the enemy's when possible. If you stall energy for any reason, get it back up again as quickly as possible by making small energy structures (solars, winds- not fusions).

Solar Panels give a fixed income and are well armoured, closing up when under attack for a defensive bonus. They are the least efficient energy structure in terms of investment, but they are cheap, have good HP and don't rely on the varying wind, tidal and geos of the map.

Wind Generators are fragile and have a variable output. By default, the wind average on all maps is 1.25, so wind is discretionary. Building wind on higher altitudes raises the minimum that they produce. A tall, flat mountain can be of great economic value. The wind min/max values and altitude bonus are shown in your console at the start of the game and when you build a wind generator it will show you the altitude bonus to its generation in the tooltip. Wind is very fragile, so its best to space it out rather than build it in tight blocks - it will chain explode. Refer to the [WindgenfarmGuide wind generator farming guide] to find out how to do this. Even when wind is more efficient, you might wish to also have some solars as backup, due to the fragility and unpredictability of wind. When placed in water, wind generators become the sturdier tidal generators, with a high cost efficiency.

Geothermal Powerplants are almost always the most efficient source of energy (more so than even fusions), but they are not very cheap and can only be placed on geothermal vents. Moho geothermal powerplants are even more efficient, but are hazardous and explode like a nuke when destroyed. Still, it is almost always worthwhile to take the risk of building them - just keep other buildings and units away from it.

Fusion Powerplants are efficient but expensive. They tend to explode in a small radius when killed, so don't put them directly right next to anything (especially not each other). Singularity reactors are even more expensive and efficient, but are hazardous and let off a nuclear blast when destroyed.

Buildpower

Buildpower is mostly used for spending metal and energy, but it can also be used to reclaim, which gives you metal (reclaiming for energy is usually inefficient but good in desperation) and to repair, which costs energy equal to the constructors buildpower. You can also think of moving buildpower around as a way of 'using' it that doesn't require you to spend other resources. You should always have extra buildpower around, as it regulates the rest of your economy. Metal gluts can quickly be turned into energy with buildpower, and metal stalls can be alleviated through reclaim or mex expansion with buildpower, but getting more buildpower requires a factory or a constructor, and all three resources. Remember though that you cannot spend more resources than you actually have. Don't go crazy with the nanotowers until you have the economy to actually run them.

Build power is shown in the units tooltip.

• Cloak bots, Shield bots, Hovercraft and Vehicle Constructors drain -5 (e and m).
• Tank, Jumper, Spider and Amph Constructors drain -7.5.
• Nanotowers, Commanders, Factories and Construction Ships drain -10.
• Air constructors drain - 4.

This means you can very easily look at your income and expenditure numbers and know just how many constructors or nanotowers you need to bring your economy back into equilibrium.

Priority

All constructors and partially built structures have a button called Priority that can be set to low, medium or high. Constructors that are currently building a non-normal priority structure inherit its priority. Constructors set to high priority will receive resources before those with normal priority and those with normal receive before those with low. Assuming you are stalling metal (as you should be, explained above), high priority build projects will build faster than normal priority projects, and so on. This feature will save you the time of pausing all less important construction when you need to build something more quickly than others.

Below is a table detailing priority inheritance. The builder and structure priority result in the builder receiving resources with the priority shown in the main body of the table.

		Builder
		High	Normal	Low
Struct	High	High	High	High
	Normal	High	Normal	Low
	Low	Low	Low	Low