Reactive buildings

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by zordon, December 19, 2012.

  1. zordon

    zordon Member

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    I'm fairly certain I haven't seen this posted yet.

    Are we going to see a return of the reactive buildings in PA? eg the solar collectors that would fold up to protect themselves when damaged. I thought that was a really nice detail.
  2. nightnord

    nightnord New Member

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    Fold up and stop producing energy leaving your armies without ammunition. Especially funny when it's hit by random projectile or bots wreckage flying around.

    As graphics effect - ok, fine, as gameplay - please add button "stop doing idiotic stuff" with permanent switch-off for all reactive structures, so you may control it.
  3. rockobot

    rockobot Member

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    Truthfully, I thought this thread was about volatile structures when I first clicked it.
  4. zordon

    zordon Member

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    It wasn't a problem in TA nightnord, I don't see why it would be here. At this point I'm wondering if you've ever actually played an rts before.
  5. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

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    The concept of buildings that shield themselves from damage when attacked is pretty cool, although ideally they should shielding at the end of the animation, not the start. As it is in TA (I think?) if a Peewee opens fire on a solar collector, the second shot already starts dealing reduced damage.

    If it is at the end of the animation (and you give it to lots of buildings) then you give players an incentive for a rapid strike into enemy territory, where they have about 3 seconds to destroy everything before the whole base retracts into defensive mode, but during which buildings are exceptionally vulnerable.

    Whereas in a pitched battle, all the buildings (or most) would already start shielding themselves from damage to survive the battle.
  6. nightnord

    nightnord New Member

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    It wasn't, but power generators in FA wasn't reactive, and it wasn't a problem too.

    If building do something, it should be controllable in game where everything is controllable.
    If generator is attacked and I have enough force to drop attackers, it will survive anyway.
    If generator is attached and I don't have enough force to drop attackers, folding won't help it.

    So it's useless feature that just adds another button to control panel, only increasing overall complexity.

    "Why add something that doesn't add any value?" ©
  7. zordon

    zordon Member

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    Not necessarily, whilst folded they take less damage.
  8. asgo

    asgo Member

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    it has a value if the rebuild cost of that building outweigh the temporary loss of function for the duration of the attack.
    It may also depends on your strategy and planning if you have enough reserves of that type function to compensate its temporary loss.


    of course if it's cheaper to rebuild in case of a total loss compared to the temporary effect, then it might not make much sense. (but that would be a bad balance in building costs)
  9. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

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    Not a given. They could focus fire it to pieces before you can destroy them, while the damage reduction could save it.

    Not a given either. You might have the extra forces close enough to save it in 2 seconds, which means the extra resistance can save the building.


    I've seen both of them happen often enough.
  10. nightnord

    nightnord New Member

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    If that happened, than you mess all recon up. Solar panels from TA were used as walls sometimes, which is weird.

    About solar-panels in particular - it's just weird or useless. Resource generator is resource generator. It should not protect itself in any way - you have forces for that.

    Other buildings also have their roles, why they should switch to some other role when attacked? Anti-TML defenses are reactive enough - they shoot rockets in proximity, that's enough of reaction, IMO.
  11. zordon

    zordon Member

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    How is a building that increases its defense "changing roles"
  12. elexis

    elexis Member

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    Why not? (yes that's right, I am using your traditional argument that you and everyone else use when they come up with a totally weird or stupid idea, except this idea is already proven. How does it feel?)

    In C&C some of the harvesters could defend themselves and even fight off enemies. Other RTS games allowed for buildings, including in some cases buildings related to resource generation , to be fortified. (Ooh and there is the other commonly used argument, because it works in other games that aren't in the style of PA. See how easy and frustrating it is?)
  13. Bouncer2000

    Bouncer2000 Member

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    Want! I asked for that in another thread some time ago. Also I would like to see some turrets unfolding before firing as in TA. Reactive and unfolding animations really gave your TA base a living/organic manner
  14. godde

    godde Well-Known Member

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    Mm... Pop-up turrets.
  15. LordQ

    LordQ Active Member

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    Give us mexes that unfurl to reveal some sort of defensive gun.
  16. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

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    Or your enemy is fast moving and your troops aren't, which means he could close the gap fast enough.

    Just shows that people needed a wall structure of sorts and found whichever building fit the bill best. It's not weird, it's practical.
  17. zordon

    zordon Member

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    TA had walls. They were called Dragons Teeth. Also solar panels as walls is pretty inefficient.
  18. eukanuba

    eukanuba Well-Known Member

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    Nice little animations are good, but is it possible to have the energy output changed so that it makes a difference, but not so much difference that it's unbalanced?

    I never played TA online so I'm not sure what difference it made. I can see that an early raid could be used to power-stall your opponent (shoot each pgen once then on to the next one), but is this worth doing? If it's worth doing, how to stop it being OP and therefore obligatory?
  19. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

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    I doubt it was worth it in TA, you generally had energy maxed anyway and you could hold out on your reserves for a bit, even with some of the generators down.

    Especially considering extractors were a far tastier target, I don't really seem the point.
  20. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    Most of this sounds like work for the animation team. It is certainly cool to watch a base hunker down and turrets pop up for battle. That alone is worth a few awesome points.

    In terms of gameplay I guess it can help. Pop up turrets do give a few seconds of free time to the enemy. That can help an attacker deal more damage against a superior defense. A weapon might take advantage of this by forcing a "reboot" on an enemy target. Certain weapons could take a long time to shut down and become ready again, making the weapon extremely effective against them.

    Solar panels made minor damage possible. A shockwave might be fairly harmless, but it could trigger a lot of panels to go offline. This lets the economy be injured without necessarily demanding lethal damage. For example, an asteroid impact or nuke or EMP could cause just about every power plant to go offline for a few seconds. That could cause an economic crisis far more damaging than the original weapon. Those sorts of options could add a lot of depth to the game if they add meaningful tactics and tricks.

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