Capturing Units

I did a quick search and didn't find any posts about this.

Will this game have the ability to capture units from other players? it would be nice to be able to capture a Metal extractor instead of having to get a unit to come kill it and then remove the wreckage then build the extractor this also might mean people would try to protect their builders more... no one wants to give away an advanced unit to another player after all

what do you guys think?

I like the TA way. Only the com can capture. That makes capturing hard and rare. Yet still possible and rewarding.

The only concern I have on capturing is the endless ability of the AI to multi task taking over entire econ sections that didnt get defended.
My other issue is that this game does not get factions, so it is a more expensive risk for what it rewards.
In Supcom, a capture ment gettign another factions engineer, and using it to have virtually a second unit set and the other experimentals. Seeing as the Experimentals played like rock paper scissors, you could acheive 2 hands in that dynamic and have both your rock and scissors vs the paper ..if u know what I mean.
That doesnt happen here for PA.
The commander only concept is neat though, and this would work well if you eliminate a base down to its last few ADV factories, and capture them instead of destroy.

cheers

Yes but it's not important and I don't want it just as another armament for constructors.

The main reward for capture was access to the other guy's tech. In PA, the other guy already has all your tech. I don't think a 20% mass and small time saving from not having to reclaim the other guy's stuff first is rewarding enough to justify it being "hard and rare."

I'm fine with either TA's way of doing it or SupCom's.

I thought that level in SupCom2 where Engineers ran around capturing all of your stuff (including your army) was really fun and innovative. Sadly it was one of only a handful of cool new things in SupCom2, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored.

It'd be pretty cool if spamming nothing but Engineers into Unit Launchers and assaulting an enemy base with engineers was an entirely valid strategy so long as you kept them away from the standing army and big defensive lines. It would be hard to balance, but it would be fun as all hell.

I did mention this in the units thread in the general planetary annihilation section of the forums. I suggested a difficult unit to build like a sub-commander type of unit. Obviously a lot less powerful. I loved that about TA although obviously there is no arm and core tech.

It could be when we're talking about advanced tech that may take a long time to build. Think planet engines, orbital launch sites, galactic gates, nuke launchers.

I don't like the idea of capturing units or buildings. It tends to be a little dull and bad for balance/gameplay.

However I love the idea of resurrecting/reanimating/fixing a wreckage. This way you don't have to think about damaging things that your trying to capture, or capturing things that are still producing for the enemy.

Capture time has always been proportional to build time, so it won't actually save any time. If only the commander can capture it'll actually cost you time, because you can't put a bunch of engineers on the project.

Some people dont see the big picture here.

You got kicked of the starting planet, your opponent controls a moon and wants to crash it on your secondary planet, you hijack the moon and capture the Halleys, you destroy the starting planet.

capturing should only be able to be used on buildings not on enermy units

Personally, I'd like to see it as a commander weapon much like the Uber Cannon/D-Gun so only a few commanders would get it. Using it would have a power drain and maybe a cool down but it would allow for making it powerful enough to be useful in a game without different tech trees.

Could be a mod. Or a game mode option, unit/building capture on/off , captureable by commander on/off, captureable by fabber on/off. Rules are set by game host and agreed upon by join and ready up.

Said no, as the key benefit of capturing was to get access to tech you didn't already have.

I can see the argument that it would reduce the micro in dealing with destroying mass extractors and building your own, but in the same vein it still requires micro to accomplish effectively, and you'd still need to protect your engineers. In the end the only difference I can see is that when you capture you don't need to expend the mass resource to build the structure.

Is that an interesting or significant enough action that it would be worthwhile? Are there other differences between capturing or just destroying and rebuilding?

As I mentioned in the units suggestion thread it would add an interesting dynamic but I don't think it should be an early or an easy thing to do, nor should a commander or normal fabber be able to do it. Imagine capturing an enemy base after they have left the planet? There are so many reasons to add such an extra dynamic to gameplay. It's not just about capturing technology but you could do so by capturing an orbital launcher or t2 plant you hadn't built yet.

There are pros and cons and this is my opinion. The developers can take what they like and somewhat they don't.

I see a few problems with capture mechanics.

1. You can self-destruct your units before they are captured.
While there can be interesting interplay between reclaiming, destroying or capturing enemy units I think it is too tedious too surveillance and micro your units to self-destruct before they are captured.
However if there are abilities that stop enemy units from self-destructing, like paralysing a unit, I think it could cut the micro and attention requirements a whole deal.

2. Obscuring capture behind bad UI.
Capture is a weapon and should be treated that way. Unless there is an actual interesting choice between reclaiming, shooting an enemy or capturing it, units with the ability to capture should start capturing by default.
On another note it would be cool if you could mark enemy units to be captured so that other units wouldn't fire at them.

Very insightful points.

Maybe dedicated paralysing/capturing unit would work well for that. It could be an expensive T2 vehicle and move slowly to help with the balance. It should also be able to capture buildings, but that would have to be balanced as well.