Why remove Unit Wreckage?

My two cents, having it in the launch version of the game isn't essential but it does need to be patched in at some stage. Personally I'd like sup com style wreckages, all the benefits to economy none of the issues that stem from blockages to pathing and weapons fire.

I can't begin to imagine how supcom looked during it's beta.

Great analysis of how wreckages actually affect the economy when done right.

Sorry, but you've lost me. I fail to see how your personal gameplay preferences relate to wreckage being an essential mechanic. As best as I can tell your point is simply you liked wreckage reclaim in other games, ergo it should be here. I mean, fair enough that you liked it, but let's not get ridiculous with hyperbole like "essential".

Negative feedback loops are essential in games to ensure that the snowball effect is kept in check.

This has nothing to do with personal preference; this is solid game design theory.
(unless of course you count "wanting a decent game rather than a terrible one" falls under the purview of personal preference).

Very well put, hits the nail on the head on what is wrong with the PA economy.

Let me put it another way. Wreckage is essential because it allows you to have a larger amount of stuff in play than your raw metal creation income would otherwise allow. Possibly hugely larger. The reason for this is that the total player's net worth can be much larger than the player's income, by building using metal that was created over the course of the entire game.

In a game without any wreckage, you must wait for mexes to mine all your metal you use to produce units. You must pay the same amount of mex time for every purchase.

Let us assume a constant income, without reclaim. If you wait for a long time, build a large army, and fight a big battle with it against an opponent who also builds a large army, then you are going to have to wait exactly the same amount of time to make an army that is equally large. In effect, time = units. Waiting longer means a larger army, but once it's gone then you're back to square one again.

If both players are making big armies, then fighting, then making another big army, etc. etc., rinse and repeat, the game state doesn't actually advance.

But if you can reclaim then the more metal has been created over the course of a game, the larger your army becomes even if your income stays the same. Your army keeps growing and growing the more metal is mined, even if your income never changes.

Obviously in PA income also increases, but the same effect also applies. Reclaim makes it possible to have much, much larger armies than the player's income and casualties would otherwise allow because metal, once mined, stays in play.

After an hour of both players mining, a very large amount of metal will have been created. If that metal is completely destroyed after a battle, then the players might just be making armies and mutually annihilating them over and over, with nothing changing. But if wrecks can be reclaimed, it is entirely possible players' net worth will be very large, and still growing, even if their income has remained the same for a long time, and even after a lot of activity, big battles, and resource trading.

Without reclaim the player's net worth, representing the total value of all the player's stuff, is tightly correlated to the player's income. With reclaim, it is possible to have relatively low income, but still a very large net worth. The longer the game goes on, the more stuff will be in play, even on constant income.

Eventually someone will have enough net worth to be able to afford a superweapon and destabilize the game. That's how stalemates are eventually broken in this type of game. But without wreckage, you need the raw income to be able to build the superweapon on new metal creation alone, which is much harder than allocating a portion of your very large metal worth to it.


Wreckage is also essential as a negative feedback loop, since the player being attacked can reclaim those units and use reclaim to catch up, while the attacker must wait longer to create more metal using mexes.

Building on @ledarsi's line of argument, wreckage fields comprise a dynamic resource around which strategy must revolve. Whoever controls the battlefield wins the metal, and the flow of battle becomes much more interesting. This adds immense strategic depth to the gameplay, land and naval.

If you want to think in terms of abstraction, think weapon and ammo depots. Think food raided from captured land. Think technology and intel salvaged from captured enemy installations. You win a battle, and reap the rewards, with which to further fuel your war marchine. Empires, nations have gone to great lengths to deny the enemy these resources on their offensive. Don't even for a moment suggest this doesn't add depth, or it doesn't have a real-world equivalent, or isn't a big deal. Wreckage is TA's abstracted version of all of the above, to say the least. Dropping this because boo-hoo we can't sort out our pathfinding algorithms in 2014 .... Then just make wreckage flat, geez.

No, it's not as essential as certain planetary mechanics that have been a fundamental premise and promise for this game. But that's like saying it's not as essential as multiplayer; they have nothing to do with each other. And last I checked, the planetary mechanics brought up were in place a long time ago. Wreckage is still far more essential than individual unit balance, because it slots into the fundaments of the economy. PA would be so much leaner without it.

Feeling broke in TA was part of what made it great, and the current economic balance in PA does indeed pale in comparison.

Yeah there are far too many metal deposits in PA.

same.

you've got questions, I've got answers :

Thought that a little-birdy already told us that such images were heavily altered.

There's a metal slider for a reason.

And I bloody well use it! But also, the random generated system can't be adjusted in the same way.

Nope, that's promotional material.

lol, well at least I tried, but in my defence I think one and the other looked the same.

and that picture hurts my eyes. looks like 2D

I am dieing to have another high quality 2d rts.

TA was 2D... or well- the maps were, they just used a height map to trick to units into thinking it was 3D. Units and buildings however... were 3D.

Units and buildings used sprites generated from 3D models. Technically not 3d, just 2D sprites, but since they're generated from 3D models the effect is that they're 3D for most intents and purposes.

Having wreckage in PA is a lot different than the flat maps with limited resources you get in other rts'. This is to be the ultimate macro game, so instead of reclaiming wrecks you can be going to other planets and building more metal. Its the same reason there are no metal makers. I love the wreckage in TA as it adds something that is needed to keep those maps interesting. Not needed in PA, well at least in every single build that has been out to date. Would need a drastic change for me to argue that it is essential.

The only problem with it is that it also kills energy.
We need separate energy and metal modifiers.