Capturing Units

Capturing is almost always less effective than killing something (so it can stop hurting you) taking the wreckage, and building anything you want. But with a stun type unit it could be feasible.

Capturing is almost always more effective than killing something because you get a unit there and now that can start shooting at the enemy immediately. If we have a unit with a capture weapon that can capture an enemy at the same rate an equivalent unit would kill something it is simply better to capture something than destroying it.
I guess you are referring to how capture was done in SupCom and TA but we haven't limited us to that yet.

No it's not, and no it can't be. A single capture represents 2 kills: The loss of one enemy and the gain of one ally. Such a weapon can not be superior to direct fire kills without breaking a loooooot of important stuff.

If you have a vastly superior force, then it doesn't matter what weapon you use to win. At that point capture becomes viable.

Yes it is, and yes it can be like that.

In Zero-K there is a capture unit, Dominatrix, which can be classed as an accurate skirmisher.
Capturing a unit is obviously better than destroying it so this capture unit has a few major drawbacks:
1. Captured units are linked to the Dominatrix so when the Dominatrix is killed the control of the units are returned to the original owner.
2. After capturing a unit the Dominatrix have a recharge timer before it can start capturing another unit. This means that you can counter it with light and fast units by swarming it.

A capture weapon can be balanced like you would any special ability or weapon.

Your first point in trying to prove "it can be balanced" is "it can be balanced by introducing or complicating game mechanics". A weapon outputting a certain DPS can have the rate of damage application or range adjusted without needing to introduce more game mechanics or programming. So no, balancing a capture weapon cannot be done in the same way you would any special ability or weapon.

Capturing/converting enemy units and gaining access to their build trees was one of my favorite parts of Total Annihilation, and it became a real challenge once you added in custom units that were designed for capture and hack an enemy builder so you could gain access the enemy's build trees.

When playing against the AI it was something that wasn't much of a worry, but against friends it was hard to watch out and make sure that I didn't expand beyond what I could protect else they gain access to my tech, and if they did use a ship or something else to do a snatch-and-grab, then rush to Ctrl-D that unit before it could be hacked!

I believe that a capture unit can have any role and function like any other unit without being overpowered just by increasing the price. So instead of dealing ordinary damage it deals capture damage. You could have several units like that.

Anyway. Lets look at how capture was balanced in SupCom.
Very short range.
The attacker/builder have to remain stationary while capturing.
The capture order have to be given manually.
The time it takes to capture is based on the buildtime of the target and is twice as fast as if would have been built by the capturing unit.
Capturing a unit can cost up to twice the amount to build it.
Capture progress is individual for each unit that is trying to capture so if the target goes out of range the progress doesn't matter until they can get in range again(or is the progress lost?).
If many units are capturing the same target at the same time the progress is increased by 100% on each unit for every unit that is capturing.

By seeing this you can see that capture is a lousy weapon in SupCom and it also competes with reclaiming enemy units.

This still does not answer a very fundamental point. The purpose of a capture bot is to defeat the enemy in direct battle. How is this any different from a tank? More importantly, how can it succeed in a way that can't be accomplished with more tanks, or in a way that doesn't supplant the tank entirely? Because as it stands, everything in the game can be murdered, reclaimed, and rebuilt into something new for your army(or perhaps even resurrected for permanent control). There's little need to risk an attack type prone to complete failure when a direct victory already provides similar rewards.

The capture beam is great for fabbers, because their goal is to build bases. Stealing a base is easier than building a new one, and beating the enemy with a lathe is a completely secondary feature. It's not something you'd expect as the norm. It could even operate as a fixed time capture (30-60secs), so that it becomes an anti-huge thing such as for capping nukes or an enemy's launch pad to give chase.

Just like you can use paralyze abilities, EMP or any other type of weapon effect. Capture is an additional weapon effect that can be used in different ways than just standard damage and promote different gameplay. Diversity I'd say.

What do you mean by complete failure? It's like that with any unit that one-hits other units. Hit or miss.

I think that would promote boring self-destruct micro. The enemy has overrun your base and is moving in to capture it. You watch the fabbers start to capture a unit and you select the unit and press Delete so it is destroyed just before it gets captured.

Are paralyze or EMP mechanics confirmed? I can't find anything that says they are, so why are we comparing a feature that hasn't been confirmed to other features which haven't been confirmed?

This isn't to say that capturing stuff isn't a cool idea, but it seems like folks are forgetting that the scale of the battles in PA is intended to be much larger than other games, such that the methods to balance capturing in the past will relegate it to being worthless, and as such won't be worth implementing.

Diversity is not intrinsically a "good thing" in all circumstances, and it relies on context. Diversity of strategies is only a relevant topic when the strategies are all valid. Having invalid strategies as an option for the sake of "diversity" is a waste of time and resources.

If a capture "fails", are the units "damaged" or "disabled"? If not, then a "failed" capture leaves your opponent retaining a fully functional unit and your own resources thrown at their feet.

How would that be any different for combat units? Capture mechanics seem to introduce as many micro elements as they are trying to solve.

I still think a later game until that can capture other units is a very good idea. It makes the dynamic very interesting. Capturing a mex is easier than destroying and rebuilding in terms of micro. So too is capturing a big item like a nuclear missile in order to prevent it launching or an orbital that you haven't built yet rather than destroy it. If things are done right I am very open to them.

That is one reason I voted no in this poll.

This is another reason.

When I entered this discussion I just wanted to add the perspective that capture should be treated as a weapon.
I think that capture can be well developed and have a big gameplay effects if it is treated correctly and not just like some gimmicky ability in SupCom.
I see some conceptual problems and I think self-destruct is one of the biggest reasons why capture isn't likely to work well in PA.

For example the orbital transports could be able to abduct units by first stunning, picking them up and capturing them.
There could be unit disabling abilities so that the player are not able to self-destruct his units anymore. After that you can move in and capture the disabled units.
That could provide some interesting gameplay.

Capturing would be a fun option.

Commander, Sub commander, fabber = capture
It's possible to disable selfdestuct when something is being captured. Everyone might have the same tech but its always fun to steal an Advanced metal extractor.

Commander, Sub commander = resurrect unit/buildings
Resurrect can be seen as building the same building/unit on the place of the wreckage. Only the commander and sub-commander because it should be special. The commander will probably never stray far from the base because of the risk.
The sub-commander would take time and resources to make. Before even being able to possebly resurrect a super-unit half way across the planet. There is a chance it wouldnt even make it, the enemy will not happily give you the wreckage for resources or the chance to resurrect it.