Unit damage & deformation

First New post here, so I'll probably get flamed, but I have done some looking around and haven't found any topics of discussion on this one yet. Having said that, I LOVE how things are progressing, and am amazed at the scope of things being attempted, the speed at which things are moving along with this game, and the level of information being presented to the public concerning the game development details! That's why I decided to pre-order, which I don't do often. So, keep up the good work fellas!

Anywho...on to the topic subject matter...

I've seen some posts on units looking like they are damaged graphically, which I think is cool, but will unit combat/movement performance be limited by the damage it receives? I've always thought that it was kind of dumb that a unit with 1% health can still effectively use all of its offensive and defensive capabilities with 100% effectiveness. I think this is an interesting realism element, especially in a game with no (or very high) unit cap.

Along those lines, I think resource collection and production buildings should work more inefficiently, or more slowly, when damaged as well. This could provide a tactical incentive for small raids on facilities to do some economical damage, whereas without it, those small raids might not be attempted.

That doesn't seem to be the intent, although I don't recall and comments by Neutrino specifically it does work counter to trying to make things easy to understand, trying to keep track of what my extractor's income is when damaged by X amount and which extractors are damage, and what the damage level of each damaged extractor is and you can see how it can quickly get out of hand.

Same thing applies to units, I shouldn't have to worry about needing to repair 5 surviving units after an attack, all I should be doing is reinforcing those with fresh production from my factories(that are constantly pumping out units) and sending them all to the next battle.

Things can get out of hand especially once you start dealing with HUNDREDS of units at a time. This kind of thing might work for a smaller scale game with the right mindset/design goal, but not PA.

Mike

Thanks for the reply!

I think that it would be fairly easy to asses the effect of damaged extractors on your overall economy, as it will be apparent in your global income stream as the number drops. In terms of keeping track of the damage done to specific extractors, isn't that something that we normally would have to do anyway, with the intent of keeping them from being destroyed?

In terms of the units, again with super high unit caps, I don't think that you would put much energy into repairs, unless you have the extra time while you are mounting another offensive. I think that most players would just continue concentrating on pumping out more units as you suggest. This would mostly simply just provide more realism for the in game unit mechanics. Although, I would think that if there were going to be very large units, with a very powerful arsenal, and very high production cost, then the emphasis would shift to repairing those units to keep them at optimal performance.

In any case, given mobile engineer units with the ability to auto repair within their area of site, this actually might not add a whole lot of extra micro to the game.

EDIT: Maybe this could be restricted to the larger "Experimental" type units only. A good example of what I'm thinking is in Star Wars Empire at War. The larger ships and some special ground units had hard points for their individual weapons systems that could be destroyed, without destroying the unit entirely. The individual weapons would be destroyed however, which would obviously affect the offensive capabilities of the unit. In that game those weapons could not be repaired once they were destroyed, but I could see enabling repairs to them. I could see even providing a self-repair option that the unit would have to disable itself to perform.

It wouldn't be that clear, after all, even starting to build something can cause your income to 'drop'(it's not actually, but visually it's indistinguishable) and once you also add in the potential income fluctuations from reclaiming(both natural and unit wrecks) you income is going to bounce around a fair bit with no direct indication why, only having good situational awareness will give you vague idea, and even then it won't be perfect unless you try to monitor every little economy action so you can match each fluctuation with a specific cause.

Second Assuming it's fully effective until destroyed you wouldn't be paying attention to individual damage levels, which is entirely the point. you might glance around when zoomed out to make sure you still have extractors parked on every metal point, but you aren't cataloging each one's remaining HP. Also, as before, things get complex when you realize you might have 50+ extractors, spread out over 2 planets, 3 moons and 4 asteroids.....

But if units aren't at full effectiveness you would need to take some action. Lets say units slow down as they get damaged, once they slow down they're as good as dead because they can't keep up with fresh units.

This is commonly referred to as a 'slippery slope' mechanic, once you start losing, you keep losing, and frankly, that's jut not all that fun to play out because once you lose that first engagement you're at a disadvantage that is really hard to get back from.

It's true that doing things with engineers, area commands and what have you can help mitigate the effects of the reduced unit efficiency, but none of that changes anything about the player having all this extra stuff to keep in mind about thier units that they didn't have before.

You're not adding depth, you're just adding complexity.

Mike

Mike pretty much summed up the thoughts of the overwhelming majority. We're going to have 40 player battles across entire solar systems possibly consisting of hundreds of celestial bodies including planets, moons, planetoids and asteroids. If two PeeWees are limping behind the rest, I don't have the time to take them to the side, slap them across the face and tell them to suck it up; I have bigger fish to fry.

However, as usual, I will state that this could be a mod. It wouldn't be hard to make the percentage of a unit's speed change with its health, just a simple script.

Again, I wasn't implying that it would be beneficial to repair a bunch of tiny units in a large unit cap game with this kind of scope. I agree that it would mostly be a waste of time to do that, except for the small games maybe. However, if you check out my EDIT above, I think that in terms of repairs, you might just worry about the titan size units ("Experimentals" in SC) for obvious resource and strategic reasons (which you would probably do even if this was not implemented for the same reasons). I was simply referring to the fact that both visually and tactically, it would be more realistic and interesting really to build that mechanic into the game. Again, I don't think that it would add much more micro, or change your style of play significantly. It might alter some tactical decisions, and it would mostly just be cool to watch.

Except that to our knowledge Uber isn't planning on doing any Experimentals/T4s/Superunits/Megaunits. At best it's just unconfirmed.

Mike

But battleships?

On the other hand I think this would be a proper way to adress it:

Picture from http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=43611

Again, it's a possibility but we are peasants in a monarchy. Uber gets the final say no matter what, especially since we've given them everything they need to make this game and more. If the community makes a big enough stink about something, it *might* change, which was what happened to the megabot. Rather than divide the community and possibly loose valuable fans and paying players, they just left it ambiguous and saved the decision for when it matters.

This isn't a cinematic game, it doesn't have to try to be awesome. It just is.

Actually I'm not sure you guys would believe what I have planned. I simply haven't had a chance to try it yet. Super units schmooper units

I know it sounds crazy but from a gameplay perspective it causes a lot of problem.

The edit idea of just doing it on certain units might be explored a bit more though.

Sentient planets and space whales confirmed!


:mrgreen:

Some people think that engines on an asteroid isn't as "cool" as a big robot though Neutrino. Have you accounted for the Frat-boy demographic in your calculations when you say "Super units, shmooper units"?
:lol:

You mean the problem where DPS and overall performance degrades to a point where both sides come to a stall, unable to destroy each other in an acceptable time?

And the frontline of your army just turned into a huge junk of metal, blocking of movement for back rows, but the still can't move through since they do not count as wrecks yet?

This can actually be a desired behavior in Mechtec style games since you have only few, direct controlled unit and surviving is everything that counts, even if you are almost wrecked since you don't want to loose your equipment or pilot.
But not in a RTS where a severely damaged unit has little individual value, except for recycling. If it can neither deal nor take any more damage, it just became worthless.

Nano, you should start a Youtube channel. Your snark is legendary...



I'd subscribe to snarking

Snarking with Nanolathe.

Me replying to Youtube comments with scathing remarks all day?
Erghhhhh....

Indeed and with veterancy gone (amen, it's implementation was poor) there's less reward to keeping damaged units alive. Staging works for aircraft but there isn't an analogue for ground and naval forces.

I think for the base game, detailed damage systems for units/buildings etc. isn't practical or necessary.

You have to keep in mind this is Planetary Annihilation, where you have to manage multiple planets and battlefields eventually.

Decreasing combat effectiveness with units health would mean people micro-ing their armies unnecessarily.

It would be nice if such an effect were possible to mod in, or implemented for "shmooper units" as a balance mechanic.

This means that Petunias are in too! WOHOO!

That means nothing without bowls also being implemented thought....

Mike