Building with welder VS normal building
DooMBrIIngeR
Australia Join Date: 2014-02-03 Member: 193762Members
I've heard that a welder decreases building time, and that there is no difference (except for fixing destroyed power), clearly conflicting information. There may be a difference, but I can't see much when I tested it, for all I know building with a welder might be a few seconds faster. Does anyone have any definitive knowledge on this?
Comments
Thanks for clearing that up, I was suspecting this was the case. I'll avoid building things with a welder from now on.
Its torch is quieter and doesn't make the building glow like a lamp, plus also repairs the building & your armor if damaged while welding.
So if the structure isn't damaged, or you're not setting up a sneaky phase (or something along those lines) you're better off using the build tool because it's slightly faster switching to your rifle.
"It builds ghost structures, unbuilt power nodes, and destroyed power nodes faster than the build tool"
this was also stated when it was introduced.
definitely worth it for repairing damage power nodes and repairing structures and armour, not sure how much faster than build too for blue prints, maybe 10% to 15%
Because the wiki is a perfectly reliable source.
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It does, however, build broken power nodes notably faster.
I remember it was stated when introduced and confirmed with the wiki.
It may have been changed in later build for balance, only unknown worlds or lua code can tell us for sure.
your sarcasm is cheap, where your proof wiki is wrong, if so correct it.
Compared to the build tool:
Welders give the building more hp faster during the build process (reaches max hp before fully built)
Welders build power nodes faster, but no other structures.
Welders do not slow down marine movement while building.
Welders allow you to hold m1, finish building, and chase down a skulk and weld it to death in one fluid, unbroken, glorious motion.
I don't know about weapon switch timing, but I recommend always building with the welder if you have one.
I'd be interested to know which is actually faster (if any). Good players constantly take advantage of the delay in which marines can shoot again while building. It'd be nice to know how I should be building just in case there is a tiny difference I can use to better protect myself.
This information is very outdated, it was before b250. Now building with welder reaches 100% construction at the same time it reaches 100% hp.
Another thing, in tutorial they say "Welder builds faster".
Conclusion: testing needed.
Upd: I can't say that I was measuring very accurately, but I got results were I win 0.5-2 seconds when building with welder, where 0.5 split was Proto, 2 seconds was the arms lab. Now, as I wasn't very accurate, sometimes I was getting the same time, sometimes faster for welder, but never faster for builder tool.
Conclusion: someone with LUA knowledge should check it out. As my results tell me nothing useful.
Also, another welder advantage - much less noise while building = excellent choice for ninjas.
I'd say if anyone mentions this, you can assume they either didn't use welder to build structures for more than half a year or can't see what's right before their eyes.
A note on this, I and a sneaky comm dropped an observatory in a certain corner of a certain room on a certain map. In this corner, the welder can not actually hit the obs to build it because it's kind of in a wall, however you can use your "use key" to build it there. Pretty sure skulks can not bite this either, but probably can get hit by bile and stomp.
*whistle* :-\"
Anyways, that said the "use key" can be used slightly differently in some situations based on your physical orientation than can the welder. But yeah, like it's been said here, I always go w/ a welder usually for the purpose of repairing pwr faster and glorious welder kills.
Basically, compared to the "use" build tool, the welder:
*repairs broken power nodes faster (not sure about fresh/blueprint nodes)
*repairs your own armor when fixing power nodes (not for any blueprints)
*able to weld allies if more than one person is trying to build (at the cost of build speed)
*does not incur a movement speed penalty while building
*has slightly more range
*is quieter
I don't think the weapon switch time is worth mentioning. The assault rife "unsheathe" animation must complete whether you're switching to it from the "use" tool or the welder.
I won't start editing any wikies, especially this one. I'd never be done.
short test of mine revealed:
A blueprint RT is built 2 seconds faster with welder: Building Tool 15 seconds; Welder 13 seconds
Other buildings(tested on obs and robotfactory) are built 1 second faster with welder, e.g. Observatory: around 17 seconds with building tool; around 16 seconds with welder.
I am sure it is applicable on other buildings, too.
The conclusion: You build (slightly) faster with welder and the tutorial is correct.
Basically this -
If you are building an armoury
It doesn't matter
If you are building an arms lab
use a welder
If you are building a powernode blueprint
Do not use welder, it is slower
If you are building a destroyed powernode
Do not even bother if you don't have a welder. Welder is twice the speed from something like 30 seconds base to 15.
If you are building an IP
Use welder
If you are building a robotics
It doesn't matter
If you are bulding an RT
It doesn't matter
Otherwise Infinity_X's point about welders increasing base HP quicker is a decent enough reason to use the welder most times.
Edit: whatever the case, the takeaway message is this game needs more consistency.
The point is there is no one underlying *intuitive* reason to the real in-game observations. The realised build times are just what they are. In a perfect world, structures (excepting powernodes and sentries) are intended to be built at the same speed regardless of welder or not. See below for rates. Also, welders do not have a hp rate bonus as previously suggested
The only observed cases of welders building faster should be
1) sentries
2) destroyed powernodes
Because blueprint powernodes are treated basically as a different kind of special entity for a structure that normally has no blueprint cycle, they do not benefit from the welder bonus rate and thus behave differently. In other words, a long standing oversight
kWelderPowerRepairRate = 220
kBuilderPowerRepairRate = 110
kWelderSentryRepairRate = 150
kPlayerWeldRate = 30
kStructureWeldRate = 90
(Powernode blueprint is slower? Why? Why?)