Morph and expand vs unmorphed com and E generators

Recently I have been leaving my com unmorphed and building solars/windgens. I have found it very effective, more effective than ecell/LPB. It has the advantage of leaving you with more breathing room to prevent stalling at the beginning, but it leaves you without a weapon to defend yourself while expanding and since you have to build solars/windgens you expand slower. I find that the lack of proper armament is not especially important, but the speed you can expand at may be. Some people do a level 1 build with an ecell and no weapon, which would help with expansion speed without a particularly excessive strain on your starting eco and resources.

Thoughts?

Junior FTW.

Eco comm with E-cell is still unbeatable eco wise though. (given windmills aren't an option)

It depends a lot on the starting mexes.
If you start with 3 mexes worth 2 metal each, morphing to E-cell is the fastest way to to actually be able to spend that metal income from the mexes.
This means that the commander can build all the 3 mexes immediately while morphing to e-cell and after he is done he can start expanding or making other structures.
Compare that to making the solar generators where the commander have to spend about 21 seconds more in the base to make the 3 solar collectors while his metal builds up. Alternatively if you put in some solar generators between the mexes you will have less metal income until you build your last mex.
If you are cheap like me and only get a laser you only spend 40 more metal than making solars and you will easily get that back because all your mexes will be finished faster and you can start expanding faster.
When wind is strong or you can make tidals it changes the equation abit.

Personally I think that e-cell is a bit too cheap as it is always a no-brainer if you want to expand your economy as fast as possible.
I only consider other commanders when they are essential to my strategy, when there are lots of energy reclaim or when metal income is scarce at the start.

Ecell is not only fastest, it's also 20 seconds faster than closest competitor.

I wouldn't miss it.

Yeah give all commanders level 0 energy cell imo. Maybe this will make a new open to new tactics in first moments of game.

My opinion on the subject(as a 1v1 player that never morfs to ecell) is that you do not need to have your E=M income, what you need is not to excess, wich is in fact a difrent thing altogether...

[proof=math]
total metal you can ave to spend in first minute
500+(4*60)+(2*52)+(2*44)+(2*36)=1004M
base+com+1+2+3(mexes) asuming 2m/s mex

with morf
total e
500+4*60+6*30-300=620E
base+com+ecell-morf cost

total m
1004-300=704
total-cost

total BP
(10+10)*60=1200 free bp
600-225=375free com bp
base-mex-solar

84e shortfall, 620 free spending

without morf
total e(3 solars after 3 mex)
500+4*60+2*29+2*22+2*15-210=662E
base+com+1+2+3(solar)-cost

total m
1004-300=704
total-cost

total BP
(10+10)*60-240=960 free bp
600-225-240=135free com bp
base-mex-solar

42m shortfall, 662 free spending

conclusion:
no-morf is 42e more efficient then morf
both morf and no morf have (huge)excess build power to spend
[/proof]

[proof=strategy]
at the start(first 1 minute) you do not need power at all, you have 500e/m in storage and +4(from eco com) giving you a total of 740E+M to spend in that minute

asuming you build at the maximum 20bp (lab+com) you can only spend 1200e/m in an ideal world, but often you spend less then 600e/m due to movment/building opening times ect...

in the first minute you need/can only build 3mex +2llt +3raiders (iregardless of your strategy) this costs 225+180+~300 = ~705e/m

leaving you ~35e/m

you need 300e/m to morf, thus morfing means you must stand around and wait for at least an extra 26.5seconds at the very least to finish this basic prep (longer since it takes (min)22.5 seconds to build 3 mex (actual time ~35s))

to build the 3solars/wind gen takes only 21seconds, if you build your first soalr at 22.5s (when you built 3 mex) you do not e stall are effectively faster then the morfing comm
[/proof]

TL:DR
morf eco com takes a theoretical 1:35 seconds to leave the base
non-morf eco com takes a theoretical 1:21 seconds to leave the base
non morf com is faster then morf com (and can later morf into combat orientated morf com)

i was using the asumption that you stay in base to build it up a bit and make it safe" with llt, ect... if you are going for straightforward rush, yes ecell is the best

unless you have 250m more raiders running around in your undefended base while the com is comwalking...

unless you have 250m more enemy raiders running around in your undefended base while the com is comwalking...


i fixed statment to be more clear XD

If the enemy have 250 more metal of raiders in your base and you haven't been able to match this then the enemy have to had sacrificed economy to rush out a lot of raiders. Whether or not you should comwalk depends on what your enemy does. In most situations it is a good thing to do as you can make more raiders without having to build an extra con while expanding.