Okay, I'm a fan of the building degradation over time, however, they degrade way too fast. If I steal a fabber to work on something else, such as a T1 PGen, the previous building (such as a T2 factory) is completely gone before the new construction is completed. In TA, it was a bit slower, and I hope that you guys reduce it to that speed, but that's just me. Any other opinions on it might as well be added here:
judging by the fact that its the first public iteration, they will probably adjust it by a bit. I did the same thing, de-prioritized advanced artillery to get a few pgens up and went back to an almost lost cannon.
It's weird how they degrade at different speeds. That being said, I think it encourages good gameplay, but at the same time I miss the lack of it because even I always underestimate how much power something drains so I need to stop to build power. I also forgot why it is needed, I always have trouble building something I didn't mean to click and build (it covers a metal spot) and then I can't get rid of the 1% built frame of it. I am glad that takes care of itself now. My favorite thing, would be if it degraded if below 25% build, but above 25% it doesn't degrade at all. That way it allows shifting it's priority without punishment, but still allows quick canceling of building if one didn't want to build it and just wants it to go away.
Going to double post. But i noticed that vehicles didn't get atrophy. Meaning turn the power off on a factory and the half built unit doesn't degrade.
What is build degradation for? It mostly seems to make de-prioritizing a task much more of a hassle. If you build something you did not mean to build then you should be able to self-d or reclaim the nanoframe.
Build degradation was a big thing in Total Annihilation, Knowing your enemy had to replace its builders you just destroyed on its Big Bertha Cannon meant that if they didn't they would bleed energy / metal from the construction. Eliminating the construction units alone was often enough to deal with troublesome weapons that haven't finished construction yet. It was also nice as a kind of 'oops, I didn't mean that' self correction, But I dont think that was the main idea behind it ( I could be wrong )
Was there often a situation in which you could kill all their constructors but be unable to kill the nanoframe?
Nano-frames were always target-able if I recall correctly, just like any other unit their health was simply the amount of progress on the building so far. An interesting thing though was that much like in PA if a Nano-frame took damage before completion it would start with somewhat less health and the construction unit would idle after completion even if the construction was in poor health... You could avoid this with a guard command on the Nano-frame replacing the build order the unit was following
I'd imagine killing constructors is a much better option for a smaller force, if you can't over come the build rate that is effectively 'healing' the structure you're attacking you aren't going to accomplish nearly as much as if you were to destroy the Fabbers first. Mike
Yes, of course, In Total Annihilation you could make certain assumptions like, if the enemy was building a big gun on an Island you controlled, you scout it and find its almost operational but has no supporting bases, no chance of reinforcements then you would target the structure and let your enemy waste his resources on it, Maybe even it let them finish so you could reclaim the whole structure for every scrap of metal
By "unable to kill the nanoframe" I meant to ask whether your opponent prevented you from killing it. You could kill the constructors first and then kill the nanoframe. I can see the case in which your opponent could chase your units away before they kill the nanoframe. This does not sound like an intrinsically bad thing as it rewards a partial success in countering your raiding.
Well at the very least it puts a time frame on how long you have to send your army to protect the construction. A big Bertha you started 40 minutes ago but never finished for example, is totally beyond salvation, but one that was just attacked a few minutes ago will be there for a few minutes more if say for example, The defence force was completely wiped out after they themselves completely wiped out the attacking force leaving the nano frame unfinished and alone.
Exactly, it makes the outcomes of some raiding situations less binary and could help to encourage small raids instead of just rewarding raids where you completely overwhelm a specific area and just destroy everything. Mike
