Two suggestions regarding wrecks

Hello PA team,

after playing TA and SupCom FA with friends for a long time I have one idea that could make massive battles through bottlenecks more enjoyable:

Static wrecks often clog narrow paths and without units that can reclaim these wrecks on the front they are hard to remove from the path. I see that this also has strategic value, but often this is very annoying and I guess that flow field re-calculations could become quite costly.

Since you plan to have canyons and also a high number of units I think it would be a good design decision to make certain units (e.g., tanks or large robots) be able to drive/walk over wrecks. The destroyed/compressed wrecks could still be reclaimable (for a smaller value) and should be traversable by every unit. This way there could be more wrecks in one place, thus compressed wrecks on top of each other should probably merge, which also increases the value of the merged, compressed wreckage.

Alternatively, salvaging or destroying wrecks could be solved in a way that has more strategic/economic value than in TA or SupCom, but I guess that would involve a new unit ability or unit type (as engineers are cannon fodder outside of the base).
Remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game)?

I think that some improved way of "recycling" wrecks would fit PA since the large amount of units in battles will surely result in large fields of wrecks. Giving the player an easy, automated and profitable way of removing these wrecks would have two advantages:

1) Battle zones are of economic importance and reward players who recycle wrecks outside of their base defenses.
2) Player-driven reduction of the load on GPU and CPU as players want to remove wreckage wherever possible.

SupCom already had some form of automated recycling (squishy engineers on patrol paths) but I think that this system can be improved for PA.


Lastly: I really enjoy watching your streams and reading your blogs and I think you're doing everything 100% right (both from a game design and project management perspective).

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

You could shoot your way through. Or reclaim it.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

An AOE reclaim would be handy...or a specialized unit with a big steam roller on the front that could crush the wrecks would be fun.

Actually you could have it like a missile that you launch to an area that destroys or reclaims wrecks.

Another Idea would be a passive bot/tank that has really heavy armor and can only reclaim. If your enemy destroys it and reclaims it, then maybe they would get a portion of what it reclaimed from your metal...? Bad/Good Idea...?

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

Why make it slow and heavy? Engineers already do slow and heavy. A good reclaimer should be fast and light. That way it can stay out of trouble and race the enemy to the prize.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

cause it needs to get to the recage without being one hit killed! :ugeek:

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

Surviving TWO hits isn't worth anything if someone else gets the wreckage first! It's first come, first serve.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

From the unit white box, we'll have engineering planes, like we had in TA.
All we need now is area reclaim like Spring RTS does.

While you are at it, give us area Mex building as well =)

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

I love the wreckage in TA.

With area reclaim and flowfield, I'm sure blocking wreckage will not cause any problems.
Of course, units an order of magnitude bigger than wreckage should go through without being blocked.
Will I'm at it, spider could go through. But it can be a bit hard to animate well.
Another interesting point: kbots should pass through wreckage field with relative ease. It would make a good distinction with tanks.

Code:

Static wrecks often clog narrow paths and without units that can reclaim these wrecks on the front they are hard to remove from the path. I see that this also has strategic value, but often this is very annoying and I guess that flow field calculations could become quite costly.

As I understand flowfield, it's quite the contrary: it's not harder to compute a wreckage field than normal terrain. You still have to parse the terrain to make the integration map.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

I definitely feel that we should have wreckage, that, a la TA has a noticeable effect on the local battlefield. The fact that choke points effectively got ever more fortified as a battle went on was not only cool but a great boon to the nature of gameplay advocated by TA. As mentioned in the anti death-balling thread.

I'm definitely for PA having lots of physically useful wreckage as well as the ability to reclaim it, obviously sufficiently large units should ignore/crush it, however. There really doesn't need to be a specialised reclaimer though, that's what fabbers are for.

Hawksflight

P.S. Necro is bad but more repeated suggestion threads are worse

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

No, I don't because I only played the demo of Battlezone 2. In SupCom units left 81% of their metal cost as wrecks. Please explain how it had more strategic/economic value in Battlezone.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

Alternatively, big tanks could be capable of pushing the wrecks out of the way.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

It doesn't. It's pretty much the exact same mechanic as SupCom's.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

In Battlezone the player had a movable "bio-metal recycler" and constructed vehicles that automatically scavenged scraps of bio-metal around the recycler. The scraps from destroyed (exploded) vehicles were also the only resource available, i.e. there were no extractors (if I remember correctly).

I still think that some improved way of "recycling" wrecks would fit PA since the large amount of units in battles will surely result in large fields of wrecks. Giving the player an easy, automated and profitable way of removing these wrecks would have two advantages:

1) Battle zones are of economic importance and reward players who recycle wrecks outside of their base defenses.
2) Player-driven reduction of the load on GPU and CPU as players want to remove wreckage wherever possible.

SupCom already had some form of automated recycling (squishy engineers on patrol paths) but I think that this system can be improved for PA.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

All we need is something like a giant harvester that recycles a lot of scrap within a short time.
We need an ultra large fast wreckage recycle machine that drives over the battlefield and recycles everything. YES! Everything! MUHAHARAR!!!
All we need is RECYCLE BOT!


Or something like this, but for scrap ->

Wreckage was great in TA because it created a tangible impact and unique dynamic for battle. The easier it is to avoid the effects of wreckage, the less effective this mechanic becomes.

Naturally, wreckage can be cleared by blasting it or reclaiming it into your bank. The latter is generally more worth it.

Re: Suggestion: Make wrecks traversable (by certain/big unit

Not having played BZ1 (I'm a BZII fanboy through and through), I might be wrong about BZ1. In BZII you had the Recycler (which was a big tank until you told it to park itself somewhere and start work and then it became a factory). Scavengers would run around scooping scraps of goop, but could also deploy themselves on pools of the stuff and become extractors.

The way I see it was that TA/SupCom's Engineers were the same as BZ's Scavengers, except that Engineers could build extractors and Scavs became extractors.

I wouldn't mind having wreckages targetable (via right click) by combat units, so you don't have to manually say "attack" on the wreckage, like in TA. Would make clearing quite a bit easier, if reclaiming isn't practical at that location.

Actually....remember the "super unit" from sup com 2...where it would suck all the units into it and grind em up...why not have something like that but for reclaim instead...?

It would be a building you could put on your front line and when activated it just sucks in the reclaim within a certain radius without ever effecting actual units..?

I'd rather it be in the form of a longer range nanolathe, the magnet thing you talk about in SC2 was ... silly.

Every time I read "long range nanolathe" I die a little inside.