I agree with everything you’ve stated. I think your idea about the diminished refinery is interesting. Assuming all existing mechanics are overcome (e.g. harvester blocking) this would increase the slope of VP disparity which may promote strategic play. However, one thing I have observed is an increase in VP for killing higher VP tier units. If this is true, it acts as a damper for VP disparity and might cap separation between teams because VP beyond heroic is capped. I think that VP is an outstanding improvement made by TA to the original game, but like everything, it has subjective imperfections. I do like your idea, I think you could also explore alternatives such as making the harvester move at 1/4 speed.
Edit: The nostalgia goggles would probably smudge at this. This may be a roadblock for many ideas, but for a game unburdened like firestorm, I wonder if the developers will have more freedom to explore 20+ years of restricted innovation.
Edit #2: The reason I was focused on passive income is that I believed it to be a contributing factor to the problems I stated. The other advantage and probably the reason I targeted it mentally is that it is a “tweak-able” mechanic and therefore allows for subtle experimentation. If I were to be trying to make this change myself, I would try to come up with metrics. For instance, in Chess(FIDE) there is rule that 50 moves without a piece being captured (or fwd pawn movement? I don’t recall) will result in an automatic draw. I feel this way about building destruction as well, but I think the idea of a team fighting for a draw would be unappreciated in RenX.
Edit #3: Sorry I got distracted mid-update. I didn’t mean an automatic stalemate as a feature, but I would consider large gaps between building destruction as a candidate metric for unwelcome stalemates.
Edit #4: I had only read Silv’s second reply as of writing this. Since then, I have noticed additional replies. I think my example metric is terrible, but I agree with Silv. I believe there are likely good “fun” metrics to be found. I’m sure the RenX team is quite sophisticated, and maybe aware of some good ones, but I agree, I would ultimately rely on those for insight.
I strongly agree with your comments on power plants. On a map like X-Mountain where there is a power plant and no base defense I think the power plant is still a better target than the refinery. I recall the increase in price being double in the original game, but even at 1.5 I think its more impactful.
Alas, I have moved on from RenX for now, as I find several members of the player base to be extremely toxic without repercussion. I have enjoyed playing with most of the players, but I am not here to be the entertainment for these sorry bozos. With that said, thanks for the replies, I will not be posting anymore on this thread.