Is wreckage and reclaim planned to be a substantial part of PA? At the moment the vast majority of land units get vaporised instead of leaving wreckage, and I was wondering if this is planned to be changed? I'm not sure what the figure is now, but perhaps the overkill values should be tweaked? By that I mean that for instance a unit should only be vaporised if it takes 120% or more damage, and if it takes 100-119% thern it should leave a nice wreck for reclaim. Of course it's arguable that reclaim was too much of a focus in say Forged Alliance, and I can understand the thinking behind consciously limiting it in PA. But still it would be nice to see how it affects the game if wreckage is more consistently produced (and of course if there is an easy way to bulk reclaim - I know you can do area commands, but I'd like to see the alt-click attack-move of SupCom being available too, if only for familiarity's sake). Also will forests be reclaimable, and are there any plans to scatter reclaimable rocks and the like across worlds?
I don't know about reclaimable rocks / trees. but I would definitely want to see more reclaimable wrecks after a battle. I cry when I see my own units destroying those tasty wrecks :'(
yeah, about this. I've really really been itching to create a new thread about wreck destruction. not only is the whole dissaperation of wrecks graphically displeasing but it happens after one shot for units, a couple more for structures. I was wanting to suggest : wouldn't it be nice if the wrecks took more hits to disappear completely and "shrunk" or "boxed in"' progressively as it was pounded by enemy fire. not to mention let enemy fire pass more or completely. (also naval wrecks should sink and commander wrecks shouldn't exist because of the blast)
Naval wrecks are fine. Commander wrecks are sort of funny that they would vaporize. Other wrecks should probably not be so "in the way of fire midbattle", it sometimes even decides battles because you always end up shooting wrecks and when they are clear your units weapon is empty while the enemy's are firing. Maybe make shells pass through wrecks, maybe make wrecks more "close to the ground" so unless the ground they are on is intentionally targeted and shot they don't block shots.
I agree that wrecks should be more important. Battlefield wrecks should be obstructions to movement and direct-fire weapons, as well as reclaimable for metal. Wrecks should be very hard to destroy- the unit becomes a wreck when it is no longer operational, but the inert chunk of metal should require an immense amount of damage to completely vaporize.
I like that the commanders leave wrecks, it serves as a sort of grave. Of course you can make up any sort of fluff to explain it, e.g. the commander is the most heavily armoured unit on the battlefield so even his internal reactor combusting isn't enough to vaporise his armour. Of course then it would be nice if the wreck model was deformed, perhaps a bit like the T-1000 in Terminator 2 after it takes a grenade to the chest? Also from a gameplay point of view a commander would be a very desirable source of reclaim (in TA pressing F1 on any unit told you its cost in metal and energy - even though a commander couldn't be built this still worked for coms, and the figures were very high indeed).
