metal makers

Couldn't you overdrive your mexes instead?

these would be nice if you are backed up in a corner with 1,2 or 3 mexes and you need more metal.

No.

There are some potential directions for new ways to get metal, but metal makers are madness.

Just overdrive your existing mexes. The ability to just build energy and makers is the core problem with BA's DSD game, and I don't want to ever see that terrible gameplay in ZK.

metal makers aren't in ZK for a reason, it forces you to expand rather then sit and porc in a corner liek a nub and tech2krogot as is seen so frequently in other mods

The point of overdrive was to have economy growth with dimishing returns.

The idea is that
Agressive combat-driven territorial gameplay = fun
Economy-based stalemated campy gameplay = bad

Not everyone has the same tastes of course but this just happens to be the design.

If you're on 3 mexes, you've lost. If you're trapped on 3 mexes the enemy will have way more mexes than you and thus can build more metal makers much faster than you ever could- and since this kind of growth is exponential, they'll be way ahead of you on the curve. Metal makers won't save you in this situation.

We want players to be able to invest in their economy, but eventually they're going to have to move out and fight for new territory. This is what overdrive does: It keeps territory important while still allowing economic investment. It's a war game, so you're going to have to fight for resources.

100% overdrive = 12 energy.
200% overdrive = 32 energy.