I know we haven't got foliage reclaiming (yet?) however I thought idle fabbers should be able to stay useful as can sometimes get forgotten within the chaos of a long game. If resources of either metal or power hit zero, they should reclaim whatever is in range without moving.
That or the 'roam' selection (for fabbers specifically) should set them to reclaim anything within their reach along their patrol path
Some changes are required to the wreckage system for this to become viable. Removing wreckages ability to block is the best change in my mind, for certain pathing issues around towers, but others have suggested making wreckages blow up and produce smaller wreckage that cannot be hit by projectiles for reclaiming.
Nah - tanks should have the ability to roll over and crush wreckage, bots should have the ability to climb over them. Reclaiming costs energy, but it provides metal income. Where's the disadvantage in that? This should be in general discussion shouldn't it? And um... they probably shouldn't reclaim EVERYTHING... they'd start reclaiming themselves? How is roaming/maneuvering/holding position supposed to work, and does it work already?
If you are low in energy, and you don't want to spend more reclaiming. If I have idle fabbers, it's because I can't afford to use them and I certainly don't want them wandering off. I want to prioritize metal or energy, not the ai. The ai doesn't know my plan. I'm just completely against automation. Let me draw a box around an area and set my fabber to patrol (repair,reclaim,assist, anything in that area that needs it).
It is silly for engis to need energy for reclaiming, it goes against using that energy and the reclaim for an eco boost. But in any case, i certainly was not talking about that. How many wreckages do you see after a large battle? The whole problem is that reclaim may never be used if the current system is not changed. I hope uber already have the plans to change it and make reclaim useful, but i think its one of those things that has slipped under the radar.
@gunshin - My reply to your comment was just the first line You use the metal for the income boost. I agree that you should be able to boost energy in a similar way - I just see reclaiming as a metal boost, not a complete boost of metal. I kind of agree after thinking about it - pathfinding does need to be substantially improved. The thing is though it the AI can't find a way over a bridge, it should start shooting at the wreckage, rather than getting completely stuck and you having to micro it out of the situation.. I guess in that situation the unit is in a killzone, so it's kind of disadvantageous either way. In any case, you shouldn't think "Where is that fab bot? How come this project hasn't been completed yet?" and find that the bot walked into a battlefield across the map and has been hanging out there for 5 minutes. True - I'm not completely against automation. I think it should always be controllable. I remember Lego Rock Raiders for PC. I think your lego men were mostly autonomous, and would do sensible stuff if they could. You could control your little Lego men to a point - but I remember that they were a bit of a pain at times - there was a little imprecision with some stuff, particularly with building. When they built stuff, they had to go and grab ore and energy crystals. It was designated to the project in the order it was picked up. So sometimes in the early game, buildings would take WAY longer than they had to because pathing problems would cause other lego men to get back to your base and put their stuff in storage instead of applying it to the project. The thing is AI can quite easily be controlled with Boolean statements. If (My economy is positive), reclaim. At the moment, you can set up the default behaviors of units coming off the production line. I still don't know what maneuver/roam/hold position do. But you can just set the default behavior of your fabbers to only do stuff like that if your economy is positive?
In TA, you could just set construction units to patrol. IF resources were needed, they would suck up any wreckage they came across while patrolling (otherwise they would just repair things and assist any builds they came across). Not sure if they do this in PA (reclaim, that is; I know they repair and assist on patrol). I don't think idle construction units should do anything. If I want them to act, I should at least put them on patrol.
I guess that's true. It's just that if they are idle, they don't do anything at all. And if you put them on patrol, they all get stuck on one factory. So having a little bit of AI there would be ok.. if you could select priorities. I guess it's too much bother to bother with.
