Engineer functionalities

Will engineers be able to reclaim foliage.rocks and dead units for an increased metal value for a temporary amount of time and will they be able to capture units.

Yes, and maybe. We haven't heard anything about capturing yet.

I'd like to see a "resurrect" like zero-k too. Otherwise ctrl-K becomes an effective tactic against capture.

Capture is very much an all-or-nothing attack. If it succeeds, you kill one enemy and gain a new unit. If it fails, then it was a waste of time.

There are two types of capture units that can work fairly well. The cheap one sacrifices itself to claim control of a unit (possession style). It typically does not use a standard attack or have other utility, being dedicated to the capture role. The other kind is fairly durable and valuable. An expensive unit limits the number of capture attempts, while a tough unit maximizes the chance of each attempt succeeding.

Going with cheap, reusable capture units is a recipe for disaster. It toes a razor's edge, where they individually have a high chance of doing nothing, but unchecked can build up enough momentum to assimilate across the map. A short range capture leaves the unit vulnerable against nearly everything with a weapon. The Illuminate Loyalty Gun is a decent example of a long range capture, used to bolster a defense.

Depending on who's capturing you, suicide may be the better option, I see no problem. ;P

... Right, what's the point of capture if it can be mitigated with a Ctrl-k widget or only benefits you against low micro players? Why artificially create a micro barrier with poor mechanical design? I'd rather some actual thought be put into the design of capture and Ctrl-k be mitigated by a resurrect ability. For example, capture could cost a player the full energy cost of a structure but if a player Ctrl-k's then the same structure could be resurrected for the energy cost of the structure, making tedious Ctrl-k a waste of time.

Well, I guess you could just disable Ctrl+K while a unit is being captured. But you can just as easily... MOVE a unit, if it's being captured. It's not like engineers are god-beings that will just snatch away your units if you don't keep a constant vigil over them.

Edit: Or in the case of structures, just shoot the offending engineer.

TA Core Rez bots, never send an army of mavericks to deal with 3 Krogoths, an hour later you will be meeting your mavericks on the opposing team.

I love rez bots, and I love trying to capture an enemies off guard engineer, the amount of times I've played seraphim and sent in soul rippers to guard my exp. bombers MUHAHHAHAHAH!!!

I would like to see both options, capture on the commander and engineers and rez on a rez unit.

As far as capture goes, it only works on engineers and structures, anything else will kill you ... oh, I forgot the air engineers are back and I'm not sure if everything will be able to attack everything (like TA).

Nether the less, capture will have less repercussions here as all units are the same and you cant just got and build the best of each race.

I guess I don't see why it's bad that a player can ctrl-k to avoid being captured. Either way they end up one unit less, and you now have the advantage. You just have to be sneaky to actually capture a unit. That sounds fair to me. Capture units sneakily, it's like... Realistic and stuff.

Lets say I'm flying over your country with my U-2 spy plane. I get shot down. I melt the tape and evidence with thermite before you can capture it. Sound familiar?

or just make it so you can not manually detonate units XD

Capture is a weapon, not a normal engineering type function. If all engineers are able to capture then they are effectively all armed. That is not to say that capture on engineers is bad, just that the repercussions have to be evaluated similarly to if they were given a conventional weapon. I fear that engineers will capture just because it is cool. I would rather they gain capture because some design mandated that engineers have to be armed and that capture is a weapon that works well for their role.

Previous games have conspired to make us believe that capture isn't a weapon by hiding it behind a poor UI. If engineers can capture I want them to be able to automatically use it as intelligently as an ordinary unit with fire states.

I think rez works much better on dedicated engineers or units instead of something which is available to all engineers. If everything is able to resurrect the player only has to chose between resurrect and reclaim on a case by case basis, it becomes a local choice which may well have a trivial solution. If resurrection requires investment in special infrastructure the choice to use it is more meaningful.

the problem i have with that approach is that it necessitates micromanagement and attention to something trivial that the game should handle. and if the game doesn't automatically ctrl-k before capture then you can bet a widget will be made to this capacity. in your example it was protocol for the pilot to destroy the tape. he didn't need a call from the president to figure that out, this would be analogous to units automatically self destructing before capture.

i'd rather capture be an interesting choice that doesn't increase the attention or micromanagement burden on your opponent, like reclaim and resurrect.

If you pay for 5 engineers and pit them against a similar cost in combat units, those engineers will all die and the enemy will be able to reclaim them. There's no point in trying to give Engineers a "I am a combat unit hear me roar," hat, SupCom2 tried to do that and it failed miserably, even when all the engineers had constant micromanagement, and the enemy had about 10 times the resources you did. It was the easiest mission in the entire game.

A capture has two functionalities; both are strategic, not tactical. Which is why Capture is not a conventional weapon. Capture can either be used to steal high tech shizzle from your enemy (or their resources), or it can be used to force a response from the enemy Commander.

Please excuse poor writing, I didn't get any sleep last night.

Resurrect was in TA.

I agree with those that have said there are a lot of common anti-capture abilities other than cntrl-K: destroying the capturing units.

Did anyone ever play King's Bounty? Ghosts could really get out of hand if you unleashed them on Peasants.

In the same vein, capturing units can get out of hand if they run rampant in your base. Otherwise, they should be a nice way to cap your opponent's resources and otherwise an over priced combat unit.

I also agree with Googlefrog that basic fabricators do not need capture or resurrect. I wouldn't mind if commanders had both, either or neither. I think this is a valuable idea, because capturing is really a matter of cyber warfare while fabricators fabricate. Resurrection is far closer to what fabricators do than capturing. One could argue that the only thing missing for resurrection is blue prints that factories usually have.

Reclaim is superior weapon. It can be stacked, does fairly conventional damage, and still has a very powerful outcome of "kill an enemy/get his stuff". It's very straight forward and easy to use.

If engineers build factories then engineers also have the blueprints for units. I agree though capture and resurrect could be interesting mechanics in their own right and don't have to be on engineers.

I don't think anyone said ctrl-k was the only counter to capture. When you are in danger of being captured (EMP chained kroggoth, undefended structures/engineers, etc) it is though. You are not in danger of being captured if you can kill/disable/runaway from what's trying to capture you.

The commander built the factory, therefore he should know how to make all the units in the factory. Also the engineers can repair the units that are damaged, thus they must have fair knowledge. Finally the Core TA units were just a slow rez / slow repair bot with no other weapons (quite devastating when paired with a stealth bot and radar bot and 3 krogoths). The larger the unit the longer it took to rez.

Engineers have another powerful weapon (for higher techs anyway) reclaim. Reclaim can be used as a weapon. Infact, a T3 commander can reclaim 5 T2 aeon floating tanks (supcom FA) faster then you could kill them with 5 T2 units of similar strengths. If the engineer fails to reclaim, the unit it was reclaiming is still damaged. With air engineers, there is nothing stopping you from flying over and reclaiming the enemy army if they don't have AA. TA stopped this as all units could fire on all units, just not very effectively if it was built for a purpose, e.g. Plasma Battery's (arty tower) could shoot air but would almost never hit unless it was stationary.

I honestly don't think you should be able to reclaim live units. Feel free to discuss.

Units should not be able to cntrl-k if they are under the effects of emp, but I see your point. I especially don't enjoy engineers capturing each other. It feels like a micro contest between very feeble forces... horrible.

agreed with both points