Unit Wreckage

[Tramis]

Unit Wreckage

Description:
Instead of just blowing up and leaving no trace, which isn't very realistic, the vehicle could just have a small explosion, and just lay there, nonoperable.  Concentrated weapon fire could destroy the derelict, or a cargotruck and spider/repairVec could come and salvage it.  The cargo truck would park near it, and the spider would be told to salvage the hulk and place it in the cargo truck, and put it in bit by bit.  Then the truck would dump the derelict into the Gorf.  This would enable both sides to save a lot of resources.  You could also just get a group with Spiders and Trucks, and tell them to salvage an area, and it would automatically do this.

Advantages: Reuse resources, and leave an obstacle which would be far more realistic.

Disadvantages: May decrease framerate from too much wreckage on the ground?

[BlackBox]

That would be kind of cool, although you'd have to have more / less wreckage available based on what type of weapons hit it.

Ex. if a supernova hit it then there should be nothing but a crater left behind.

[Betaray]

I always thought there should be a way to recycle vecs for ore, it was even described in the noliva, if you can make it work I like it

[TH300]

I think we were planning this or something similar already.

[Freeza-CII]

Dump a vec in the gorf using a cargo truck end of story but would it be worth going out to get that unit ruble

[croxis]

Ooo oo oo Eve is going to have something like this!

You can extend this line of thought further so that you could reverse engineer (another game concept stolen from Eve) the remains to maybe gain some vehicle or weapon technology that the other player may have but you don't.  You could even extend this further to make a research item that is available to the other colony but isn't normally to your colony.

Obviously not every wreckage can be reversed engineered.  First off it must have technology you don't have, otherwise its just good ol recycle material.  Second there will be some probability factor (which could be improved with research?  This could be one of the player specializations talked about - research and reverse engineering?).  Third, if the chance factor is true, then either just the availability of the technology is unlocked so it still must be researched, and/or some research points are given to a tech already available for research.

[Tramis]

I like that reverse engineer idea, also, if you did reverse engineer, it would be a less effective version, IE if you are Plymouth and you salvage a Thor Hammer Panther, and you only have Microwave Lynx, then you would have a certain chance of say, 25% you can research a Thors Hammer that isnt as good as the Eden version, 25% you get a certain amount of points already researched towards Panthers when you unlock that research, or 50% your microwaves destroyed any useful technology and your screwed

Also, you would only get a bonus for salvaging, once per technology.

Also, would you be able to salvage things out of the insides of Cargo Trucks and ConVecs?

You would need a Spider to pick up the wreckage because the Truck isnt able to pick up something that big and put it in the cargo bed, it needs a Spider or Repair Vec to do that for it.  So say, a Spider is told to assist in salvaging a Truck that had a starship component, it says "i found a starship component in here" and it probably would by default put the starship component in the cargo truck first, then come back for the wreckage.

You could also tell your combat units "shoot to disable" and they would do less damage, but the cargo of the target would be more likely to survive.

[croxis]

Yah, more or less some variation on that.  I think for gameplay simplicity only the cargo truck needs to go out and pick it up, we can just assume the truck has a robotic arm or something.  Needing another unit to pick up the wreckage to put it in the truck would just add too much micromanagement.  I figure the labs would need a cargo dock as well then in this case.

I didn't think of the starship wreckage, thats rather nifty, it would also lead to a race to pick up the wreckage (map setting I assume?)


As far as a weaker version for a colony-specific tech, it sounds reasonable but not realistic, you think if they discovered the principles of thor hammer they would be able to research everything needed to make an equivlent version.  Also, the weaker units will only be a viable option if your colony doesn't have anything stronger and really couldn't be used on the colony you captured the wreckage from.  The big reason I suggested it for gameplay is that it would help a player falling behind to catch up (or just delay the inevitable mwahaha)


When gamebalancing starts I'm sure the percent chances would be lower, but that is more or less the right idea.  Perhaps a scout (or a research improvement for the scout) could print a readout on the chances of salvigable tech from the wreckage, and/or recoverable minerals?

Also I think wreckage, both starship, units, and buildings (oo!  salvage/recycle wreckage from other player's buildings, wow this can get rather involved rather fast....)
 

[Tramis]

You could salvage his buildings ... OR you could rebuild them

If a building gets blown up it leaves a big creaking wreck in its place, and anyone can go through and rebuild it, this would take a lot longer than a simple repair job, but would be cheaper.  If a different player rebuilds it, it becomes his building.  This opens up an opportunity that you can completely take over someone elses base.  Not everything can be taken over, IE if you try to rebuild a structure you dont have the research for, like a Spaceport without the Space Program, then theres a 90% chance that you mess it up somehow and the structure falls apart more, and theres less stuff you can salvage from it.  Also if you succeed you wont be able to build anything at that Spaceport, until you research your own Space Program, but it puts you that many resources ahead

Also, Spiders and Repair Vecs wouldnt be able to rebuild structures, only ConVecs, just to help balance it out.

This makes it more realistic, I hate how when you kill a structure it just falls apart into dust, that doesnt make sense unless its from like 4 supernova tigers X.X that would suck...

OK so the trucks will have their own arms, but it obviously isnt strong enough to pick up an entire vehicle so it puts it in bit by bit and this takes time...which could be sped up by telling Spiders to "assist salvage" ^^

[TH300]

I don't like the whole idea of taking over other players' bases. Too many other games have it. And if I were Eden I would rather selfdestruct my structures before Plymouth gets them.

[Axalon]

I think rebuilding structures borders on too much realism and might make things too complex.

The reverse engineering idea is cool though, though I would cut the chance of success way down, to like 5% or something, (ie: it almost never works), or else you'll always end up with some megacolony with everything. I see this as something that should only work once or twice in a particular match.

[Tramis]

True, Axalon, very true.  I'd say 5-8%, and go ahead and scrap the rebuild structure idea.  But they should leave a big half-destroyed building, and not just get blasted into a billion atoms just because it got hit a bunch of times with a laser.

I think the best way to implement this would be to allow negative hit points - when a unit hits 0% of its hitpoints, it breaks down and is unable to continue functioning.  Units stop recognizing it as a target unless instructed.  During that time it can be salvaged.  If you tell them to keep attacking it, or if it was killed by something really big (supernova), then the more damage it takes, the less it can be salvaged for, or the less likely you are to be able to reverse engineer it.  Advanced Labs would have docks, so that salvaged vehicles can be dumped in there instead, giving you a tiny chance to open up an otherwise unavailable research.  Any cargo has a certain % chance to be salvageable, which again, lowers each time its hit.  When it hits -100% hit points, it is blasted into tiny pieces that scatter all over and can't be salvaged.  

IE: you have 2 laser lynx, the other guy has a supernova lynx and a microwave lynx.  Your laser lynx have 300 hit points.  The microwave lynx eventually whittles one of your lynxes down to -2 hitpoints.  It breaks down and cant do anything.  The supernova then goes off, and your other laser lynx takes 700 damage.  Its now at -133% damage, and is blasted to bits.

What do you all think?

[croxis]

Don't forget salvaging for resources!

What a player does with salvage (again, assuming colonies can be specialized) depends on what focus they are taking.  A player that is focusing on mining will want to salvage more, as they have learned techs to also improve salvage rates.

I very much agree that opening up a colony specific tech should be rare, 1-3 times per game if one reguarly salvages, and would be more usueful to a research focus colony as they too would have learned tech to improve the chance of it.

Finally I think it should be a bit more likly that wreckage would just give a small but nice boost to whatever is being researched - that way a player can decide if they need the ore or research more.

[Leviathan]

I like the idea of this, it works well in TA (i think thats the only RTS game with it in). but it can be anoying, it can get in the way, you cant just send in 100 light units because when they die in a bottle neck they block up the entrance. its a nice idea but not allways effective.

i like the idea of geting a salvage unit to roam a area and collect all the rubble and wreckage.

it would add a lot to the graphics tho and would decrease performance i would think because there would be more models on the map.

[Tramis]

The vehicles would have most of their armor slagged off, meaning they'd be very light and easy to push or blast out of the way with a weapon or RoboDozer.