Fire.

Yes. So as a landing commander, on a planet covered in forest, you land and a generous space to initially build in instantly disappears (indicating the area around the commander cleared in the landing). HOWEVER, due to "fog of war", the rest of the planet still looks like forest, even though when you scout you find what looked like forest in the FoW you actually find a similar clearing around your landing area to show up instead of the forest you saw, because that was where another commander landed. In the FoW, its forest as you initially saw. In the field of vision, it shows up as charred radius of landing. You only notice the charred radious in leau of the dense forest when you lay vision onto the land for the first time. (so you can't tell where other commanders landed, their landing looks like forest to you until you find it.)

The other thing I would like to mention, is that metal spots maybe should also be clear of trees on their buildable area. Depending on how long it takes to clear trees, having metal spots populated with trees compared to without would probably be a balance issue in expanding. Just make patches of empty space above metal, just little patches of space in the forest where the metal spot generates.

This sounds like it is in fact going to be a significant addition to the game.

Mexes would be a big deal about this, the taking extra time to clear trees. Metal spots should probably clear the trees where they generate at, just small patches of clearing in the forests to accomodate metal spots.

Besides that, the fabbers will walk through the forest without slowing hopefully, the trees will give way effortlessly. The things they build should take little time if any to build over trees, no biggie. The area around the landing hopefully should be cleared in the landing (but with Fog of War, you don't see holes in any other forests where other enemy commander landed until you scout for it, it just looks like regular forests pre-landing). As long as you can start a base without slowdown, and you can claim metal without slowdown, what is 2.5 seconds of time to clear land for a turret, or 5 seconds to clear land for a factory? In exchange, you get the reclaim value for the trees (in early bases you might actually need the resources too as you are building that base), which makes it not-game-breaking. It'll work.

WHAT THE WHAT! DOUBLEPOST! I didn't realize it was same thread posting in twice...

He sounds like a bit of a sap if Im honest

Really though, he's a good guy; he puts down strong roots wherever he goes, and leaves nothing to be desired. Plus the marshmallow thing (I just realized I've been misspelling that word my whole life).

Related to thetrophysystems suggestion, I doubt trees are going to give up all that much energy, and all the extra micro that would be required if you had a forest start/expansion would, I'm calling it now, get incredibly annoying. I like the idea of reclaiming being an option if you want the energy, but not forced micro to build something. If you just want to build, I think the game should not force a heap of micro upon you regardless.

Everything burns.

FA did the "gust of wind" thing- where when the commander spawned it basically removed all trees in a radius with a neat terminator-landing effect. I want that!

And the guy working on this stuff...Forrest. He hates puns and he couldn't help but refer to it as self-immolation in the morning stand-up meeting. (And no, that's not comedic stand-up).

What! Is that fire? What tha heck! Looks op and imba, hope u guy`s are going to balance it

I just wish they could grow back. Populous: The Beginning was fun that way.

That is as may be, but I think you're both barking mad


We'll see how Uber implements it. I share those concerns too.

I'm guessing he isn't that poplar around the office?

Scathis is actually one you posting, isn't he? The horrible puns in here boled me over. I'd take a photo to synthesize the pain, but it just doesn't leaf me feeling like I got my point across.

You bring me fire, and I will bring you victims.

If people are so worried about trees needing to be reclaimed, why not this idea:

When you build something within a forest, instead of reclaiming the trees, they're used to cut the energy cost of the building for the first few seconds, depending on how much build power you have on the building.

The way I see it, you're nanolathing a building right? It's not 100% complete as soon as you start the structure. It's digital, so the tree is still there. While it's nanolathing the building, it's also reclaiming the tree at the same time, but instead of that going into your energy, it goes into cutting the energy cost of what you're building instead. No fuss, no muss, and no messy trees in your way either.

And yet I do love the cartoony fire look!!
This will majorly change the core gameplay, I love it!!

I will burn you.

He might just be pining for some better puns, maybe we could spruce ours up a bit.

This thread is clearly gonna be an evergreen source of amusement.

The first thing you thought was: "omg, fire, is the game okay?" Admit it.

Oakay, I'll do my best.

STOP PLEASE