Engineer functionalities

Lathe resistance/immunity?

Seems silly against small scale units like engineers, but if lathe technology becomes fully scaled and weaponized then it could be a very good idea to give pesky engineers some inbuilt resistance to it's effects.

That's stupid and you know it.

I don't think it makes sense either. In order to balance reclaim you can't actually gain resources for reclaiming functioning units (otherwise you would just reclaim all your safe buildings to 1% HP... or anything with regneration).

So then reclaim on live units is just a weapon that doesn't do what it says.

Oh yea, that slipped my mind. In TA and Supcomm engineers have another weapon with poor UI. But my original statement still applies; why should all constructors be armed?

That's a stupid response. Argue for engineers being armed in this way.

I believe that personal regen should consume energy and mass, not be a freebee. As far as I know, the only unit with free regen is the commander (in SC / FA regen was an AOE effect from a unit or commander upgrade that did cost Mass / Energy). The commander cannot be captured or reclaimed. Also, if you want to reclaim your buildings to 1% go ahead, I'll be 1 shoting those.

As to reclaim being a weapon against living targets ... maybe. The reclaim speed is so slow vs living (from older titles) that it was only really worth it if you could get away with it before the target 1 shot you, it will be interesting here with the addition of air engineers. T3 engineers and T3 commanders could reclaim a lot quicker, but again, I wouldn't want either in the front lines of my army, in the back as repair and reclaim (wreckage) sure, but not as an assaulting unit.

all experimentals, (S)ACUS, and many T3 units had regeneration, as well as any veteran unit

Reclaim is a central mechanic that worked in every other game.

Argue for it being removed.

Nobody needs to argue. If you think engineers should be armed then say so and why. Personally I'm somewhat indifferent, on one hand previous games have had armed engineers on the other hand it's clear armed engineers undermine raiding tactics.

Reclaim can't work on living units though, that much is obvious. If you want reclaim (or capture) to act as a weapon on living units then say so - there's no need to be coy.

Reclaim only qualifys as a weapon to actually do it's job in de-constructing units, enemy or not.

Destructing units before reclaiming their wreak is dangerous as the death explosion could cause large chain reactions, like reclaiming artillery.

Reclaim is not a single indivisible mechanic, that's stupid and you know it .

Reclaiming wreckage is a central mechanic. Reclaiming your own things is a way to make back some resources, hardly central. Reclaiming enemy units is merely a way of arming constructors. Reclaiming as a weapon has never been core.

So, here are some reasons you would have constructors unable to reclaim enemy units. They are mostly based on the fact that armed constructors are fulfilling multiple roles; a combat role and their construction role. The combat role is usually fairly minor but it has to have an effect because if reclaiming enemy units is so bad that nobody would ever use it then the mechanic may as well be removed.

For example an expanding constructor is able to protect itself which limits a player's choices. Maybe they want to expand with absolutely no protection and put more resources towards raiders for intercepting and aggression. Multiple constructors expanding in the same direction can protect each other which may make very small raiding parties unable to deal damage.

Constructor spam within a base can make the base unraidable for sufficiently small armies. This defense follows along automatically with the constructor's economic purposes. This is similar to the previous point, no extra cost is required to reach this basic level of defense. This problem becomes worse if there are long ranged nano turret type constructors. Their high output and long range causes reclaim to be a more powerful weapon.

If you naked expand to an area which your opponent has already mexed an armed constructor fulfills all roles required. It can reclaim the mexes and replace them with your own.

Constructors can be effective when they can reclaim combat units which cannot fire back. The most obvious example would be aircraft constructors due to their mobility. Depending on the los checks used they may even be able to reclaim subs.

This is not to say that constructors should not be armed. I don't know how PA will be balanced. The design space of "TA like games" is easily big enough to contain games in which constructors are armed via reclaim and games in which they are not.

My point is that there exist reasonable designs in which it is good for constructors to be unarmed. But it depends on the design, offensive reclaim is not something which the rest of the game is built around. So when the game is being built I hope that offensive reclaim is thought about in terms of the effects of arming constructors and whether or not this work well with the design. Maybe multirole constructors is a good thing in this case, maybe it is not. I say this because a lot of people seem to want offensive reclaim just becomes it was in TA and FA, not for any design reason.

Other RTS, notably StarCraft, arm workers to combat other workers and provide a minimal recourse against raiding. Worker weapons are typically the weakest in a game.

For PA this would be useful in engineer against engineer situations and as a minimal recourse against raiders i.e. how it's used in SupCom. So there is merit to arming engineers but I agree with googlefrog that if it's a weapon it should act like a weapon and should be automated. There's no reason to obfuscate the UI and add unnecessary micro.

Reclaim worked on live units in TA. Reclaim also worked on live units in SupCom, FA, and SupCom 2 (it did however only damage the unit, and when the unit died it became wreckage which then got reclaimed). I'm not familiar with all of the TA/Spring inspired games, but I suspect reclaim works on live units in those games as well.

Given the above, I'd feel confident claiming that reclaim as a weapon always has been core for streaming economy RTS games.

It always has been bad, and I would never expect a single constructor to stand much of a chance against a single T1 tank. It has always been available as an option though, and I have used it to good effect reclaiming enemy constructors engaged in building, or unprotected buildings themselves; anything that cannot attack back.

That's part of the balance stage; how good is the constructor repair vs standard combat unit DPS? Unless you are arguing that constructors should not be able to repair, then a group will always be able to defend themselves against solo raiders. The combat DPS vs repair DPS is then balanced arbitrarily so that X combat units can outdamage Y constructors repairing.

I would argue that in a game with an intended combat scale to rival or exceed SupCom, the definition of "small raiding party" should probably be tens of units, not a few, which has historically always been enough to destroy a group of constructors, due to the short range of the nanolathe. It would appear that you are thinking of much smaller groupings e.g. 2 or 3 combat units, which has historically been perfectly effective against 2 or 3 constructors (they can neither repair each other quick enough, or reclaim the combat units quick enough), but would probably die to a group of 10 or more.

Again, you appear to be thinking of a different order of magnitude than I am for "sufficiently small army". 30 constructors patrolling around a base will not (or should not) be able to withstand 30 combat units incoming. I would argue that they probably should be able to withstand 3. The typical range for a nanolathe in reclaim mode is in the order of a few unit radii (3 or 4) which is far shorter than a typical combat weapon. Long range > short range (inherently) so constructors are automatically at a disadvantage either in offense or defense.

I have seen no plans for a long range nanolathe unit. I agree that it would significantly increase the power of the unit, however as long as it doesn't rival average combat ranges it should still be balanceable within the game, even with offensive reclaim (and indeed capture) abilities; most players would be ok with the implementation of longer range = weaker version

Also, if someone is going to forgo building even one defensive turret or combat unit in a base that can support 30 constructors, they deserve to lose that base. Conversely, anyone walking 5 units into a base thinking they will be effective deserves the kerb-stomping they are going to get. Those are my personal expectations, and the exact numbers will be determined by the balancing sweeps through beta, but you appear to be picking edge cases as examples that should not crop up in normal gameplay.

Which they have historically always been able to do (since TA). If you don't build defences near your resources, what do you expect?

Note: one single T1 combat unit (or constructor) has also historically been enough to take out an enemy constructor engaged in reclaiming / capturing your mexes. If you can't spare a single unit to protect something (or bother building a single point defense), you would appear to consider that thing throwaway.

If an aircraft constructor can endanger a unit, then a single gunship (or bomber) is an autowin. That unit is obviously vulnerable to aircraft, so should it not have some form of AA defense to accompany it? This is not an example of an overpowered constructor per se, this is an example of a vulnerability to a unit type. A seasoned player would understand and mitigate that vulnerability, or expect / intend the unit to be throwaway.

I think a lot of players have played those games, and understand that offensive reclaim can be both niche effective, and balanced, and not cause issues with the rest of the game. It's been stated pretty clearly that neutrino's vision is to build "TA but on planets", so I think it natural to expect a similar baseline in design for the constructors, including short range nanolathes that have capture and offensive reclaim.

You have played TA, right? I remember specifically having a poor sea presence and a ship began bombarding my base. I walked my commander out in the water thinking I could use my D-Gun on it... no such luck. So I decided to try to reclaim it.... and my commander began doing so! The enemy (AI) knew enough to run away from my commander.

So, yes it has been a core element from the very beginning.

Edit: er... what numptyscrub said.

Why does it matter if you one-shoot them? I already got almost a full refund on those units. If get a full refund on all my base units I can use those resources to make a bigger army which makes it even harder for you to damage my base in the first place.

Do you really want to micro reclaiming enemy units in PA? Reclaiming enemy units is a weapon. Lets try to treat it that way then.

No, but if I am in a position like I was with that ship, it makes sense to have it as an option. You will already have the ability to select reclaim and target wreckage, why not target a live unit?

Are you seriously arguing that having buildings at 1% hp (which get destroyed instantly by almost anything just looking at it) wouldn't be a significant drawback? Especially because rebuilding them takes construction time (and the full resource cost again).

I mean, how do you reinforce your armies when a few fighter planes just have razed your entire base? Bit of a short-term plan you have there.

What you're proposing here is an all-in strategy that will end up in a base raze. Given the scale of PA, I highly doubt it would be a good strategy. (All ins usually work best in small maps and are not very good in larger maps where your opponent will outproduce you in the end.)

It makes as much sense as turning all your units to hold fire and then targeting everything manually.
Obviously the default behavior for a weapon should be to target enemies automatically.
Just because of that reason I agree with GoogleFrog that reclaiming enemies wasn't a core mechanic of TA and SupCom.

The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
To put it this way. If I can have 100 powerplants on 1% compared to having 1 powerplant on 100% which one would you chose?
I only need some extra buildpower. If reclaim is a fast as building I can have 1 engineer reclaiming powerplants and one engineer building powerplants. Sure my powerplants are on low health but they are basically free.

What? Hey, anyone able to translate this?