ABSTRACT: The halo wars 2 supply resources is governed by a mechanic that makes every subsequent supply pad less effective than the previous. It was determined that his was especially evident after 9 harvesters where the total resources gained after a period of 5 minutes only increased by an approximate 317 supplies. This is also significant compared to the jump between 3 and 4 harvesters which is 1090. It was also determined that there is no diminishing returns for power where each upgraded extractor seems to give an additional 6 power per second and each captured note seems to give an additional 2 power per second.
METHODS: A 1v1 game was played against a normal AI on the map Rift. The observer played as colony and the AI was SGT Johnson. At the start, the observer rushed the AI so that every building and unit was destroyed on the base except for the main structure until the hostile AIs economy were depleted. Once this was completed, the observer build on every base plot to make and built sensor towers on all turret slots to make sure the map was totally controlled. After, the observer destroyed all resource buildings an ensured no power nodes were captured. The observer built one upgraded harvester at a time and recorded the time that it took the current amount of harvesters to reach 400 supplies. The process was repeated for extractors and power nodes. From these values, a (resource per building per second) and a (total resource generated after 5 minutes) value was calculated. These numbers served as the basis of comparisons between numbers of buildings and the effects of diminishing returns.
RESULTS:
Harvesters - Resources/Building/second - Total after 5 min
1 ----- 7.39------- 2217
2----- 5.8 -------- 3483
3 -----5.79-------- 5215
4 ------5.25------ 6305
5 ------4.77------- 7164
6------ 4.36-------- 7846
7 ------4.05 --------8510
8------ 3.8 ----------9132
9 ------3.55 --------9600
10 -----3.31--------- 9917
11----- 3.08--------- 10169
Extractors - Resource/Building/second - Total after 5 min
1--------- 6-------- 1818
2--------- 6 --------3636
3--------- 6 --------5454
4--------- 6 --------7384
Power Nodes - Power/second
1------- 2
2------- 2
3------- 2
DISCUSSION: At large numbers of supply pads, the cost of the supply pad may actually outweigh the benefit even after an extended period of time. There is no likewise consequence for extractors.
SOURCES OF ERROR: Difficulty in starting and stopping the stopwatch at the correct time intervals could skew numbers slightly, especially with high numbers of supply pads. Using 400 resources helped mitigate the impact of reflexes in the equation but did not correct for all error.
CONCLUSION:
After 8-9 supply pads, base plots may be more efficiently used for producing units as supply pads and harvesters wont provide much aid.
112 minutes of taking data is not nearly as fun as actually playing the game
Colony is the man (men?.. worm?)
Happy to answer any questions about data or methods
Are these upgraded or unupgraded?
H/T. This is amazing. Thank you for doing then necessary research. I’ve been dying to know at what point should I stop building supply pads – and this helps.
This also explains why my power can go through the roof. As Johnson, I’ve used his leader power to build five generators at a base, mostly just to see what happened. Unlike supply pads and harvesters, the extra generators REALLY accelerated power growth. Whereas building a bunch of supply pads didn’t seem to help that much.
Again, thanks for this. 9 is the max number of supply pads for me from here on out.
Dude that’s fantastic. I appreciate how thoroughly you recorded and presented the data. If you were in one of my physics labs that’d be a solid lab report haha.
Awesome man! I wish we had this kind of data on the rest of the game. Thanks for putting in the work
Yeah that explains why power seems to be so abundant late game while supplies are still coming in slowly (although the cost of power increases with time to build countering this effect) That diminishing factor is a strange thing though, and it makes me wonder how it helps the balance at all other than preventing players from completely spamming units uber-fast.
> 2533274821521504;3:
> Are these upgraded or unupgraded?
All buildings were upgraded. I was going to do for unupgraded but the longer the game went the more I just wanted to stream line the process. I figured since most of these figures are only relevant mid-late game and resource buildings are usually upgraded right away that it wasn’t worth the extra 20ish minutes.
> 2533274814970819;5:
> Dude that’s fantastic. I appreciate how thoroughly you recorded and presented the data. If you were in one of my physics labs that’d be a solid lab report haha.
It was a nice change of pace to use the scientific method for something fun.
> 2533274840245702;8:
> > 2533274821521504;3:
> > Are these upgraded or unupgraded?
>
> All buildings were upgraded. I was going to do for unupgraded but the longer the game went the more I just wanted to stream line the process. I figured since most of these figures are only relevant mid-late game and resource buildings are usually upgraded right away that it wasn’t worth the extra 20ish minutes.
I see. Thanks a lot for the info.
I still think the diminished returns curve needs adjustments in the 1-5 pad range. They’re way too efficient.
Pretty much its safer to go minibases than expanding in the early game, there’s no contest pretty much.
> 2533274821521504;10:
> > 2533274840245702;8:
> > > 2533274821521504;3:
> > > Are these upgraded or unupgraded?
> >
> > All buildings were upgraded. I was going to do for unupgraded but the longer the game went the more I just wanted to stream line the process. I figured since most of these figures are only relevant mid-late game and resource buildings are usually upgraded right away that it wasn’t worth the extra 20ish minutes.
>
> I see. Thanks a lot for the info.
>
> I still think the diminished returns curve needs adjustments in the 1-5 pad range. They’re way too efficient.
>
> Pretty much its safer to go minibases than expanding in the early game, there’s no contest pretty much.
I am of the opinion that there should be more risk involved in buying a mini base. IMO its too rewarding to rush out and buy as many mini bases as you can, unfortunately I cant back that up with math 
> 2533274840245702;11:
> > 2533274821521504;10:
> > > 2533274840245702;8:
> > > > 2533274821521504;3:
> > > > Are these upgraded or unupgraded?
> > >
> > > All buildings were upgraded. I was going to do for unupgraded but the longer the game went the more I just wanted to stream line the process. I figured since most of these figures are only relevant mid-late game and resource buildings are usually upgraded right away that it wasn’t worth the extra 20ish minutes.
> >
> > I see. Thanks a lot for the info.
> >
> > I still think the diminished returns curve needs adjustments in the 1-5 pad range. They’re way too efficient.
> >
> > Pretty much its safer to go minibases than expanding in the early game, there’s no contest pretty much.
>
> I am of the opinion that there should be more risk involved in buying a mini base. IMO its too rewarding to rush out and buy as many mini bases as you can, unfortunately I cant back that up with math
Yeah but you don’t necessarily need too, it’s just too evident. It’s so easy to buy a mini base where some of the time it really doesn’t feel like you spent the money because how quickly your getting supply with early pads.
Either your math is wrong or your 3rd supply pad makes more money than your 2nd supply pad.
Thank you for posting this. It’s very helpful.
> 2533274811417927;13:
> Either your math is wrong or your 3rd supply pad makes more money than your 2nd supply pad.
I noticed this also. I checked 2 and 3 three times to see if I made a mistake but it came out that way each time. I appreciate the fact checking. If you try it out and get different numbers ill re run the experiment and adjust but I’m going to stick to what I have here.
Could you clarify the power nodes. Does each power node produce two power per second?
> 2533274969455749;16:
> Could you clarify the power nodes. Does each power node produce two power per second?
They do.
So having 3 nodes equates to having an upgraded extractor.
> 2533274821521504;18:
> > 2533274969455749;16:
> > Could you clarify the power nodes. Does each power node produce two power per second?
>
> They do.
>
> So having 3 nodes equates to having an upgraded extractor.
correct. for every node you control, its +2 power per second
This is great thank you man!