Warzone 2100 Forums

There was a discussion today on the IRC channel regarding this issue. It was discussed that half built derricks may be a cheap strategy, so there was a suggestion to remove this mechanism from the game.

Perhaps a truck could demolish the enemy half-built derrick easily, or maybe there could be a timer so that the half built derrick auto-demolished on it's own.

Anyhow, the disagreement was not on how it could be done, but whether it should or should not be done.

Voice your opinion here... Mind you, this is just a discussion, and not meant to be a warzone

If they are removed, I will go apesh!t and go on a chainsaw rampage. First I have to make the chainsaw .pie, then the stats...

JDW wrote: Perhaps a truck could demolish the enemy half-built derrick easily, or maybe there could be a timer so that the half built derrick auto-demolished on it's own.

no, just not a truck demolish. imaging two trucks demolishing derrick by turn.

I'm for increasing build time + auto-demolish - would be fine I think. I dont like this "oil-hunt" too

I think they should be removed. I can live with the enemy building complete derricks on wells in my base, but I can't live with an exploit in the game mechanic that allows my enemy to make half-built derricks over my wells to delay me from getting power. Unlike half-built structures, there is a oil well burn time after a half-built derrick is destroyed which can delay you quite a lot.

i think this issue is vital for WZ, because this making low oil games as truck race and boring
this issue was discussed before and people was agreed to increase price of derrick to 20-30$

solutions are
1) increase price of derrick (easiest way)
2) make half-built structures automatically captured by nearby enemy player
3) auto-demolish such structures

I wonder, perhaps trucks could be given the ability to demolish ANY structure (though at a reduced rate if they're not the player's structures)? I'd imagine that players could block off chokepoints with half-built walls, or even factories!

Terminator wrote:no, just not a truck demolish. imaging two trucks demolishing derrick by turn.

Of course not. The opponent's truck should not be able to touch your derricks that are in the process of being built or have been completely built. Demolishing should be only possible on half built derricks that have been left incomplete by your enemy, this is only if demolish is the suitable solution.

I think auto-destruct would be best way. So, if a "being built" derrick hasn't been worked on by a construction droid for 30 seconds, it gets destroyed automatically (without fire). Derricks are cheap and quick to construct so that shouldn't get in the way of legitimate derrick building.

EDIT: A nicer approach might be that if a construction droid stops building a derrick mid way through construction, after a 10 second delay the derrick will start to deconstruct at the same rate (ie. flatten towards the ground and eventually disappear). So if your truck gets destroyed, you have a few seconds to get another nearby truck to complete the construction.

completed derricks would still have plenty of HP for 0 cost and would still require more energy to destroy than to build.

The solution I took in NRS was to make them cost 25$ and reducing their HP by 25%.

Let's just auto-decay unfinished structures unless they are being built by at least one truck. If that's what meant by auto-demolish, i like it, and it seems to be the simpliest (:

Sorry but it's overkill. Half-build have already half-hp in master.

The only thing that is bad is the guardian pgen and the derricks because they are clearly OP, not because of the half build mechanics

aubergine wrote:EDIT: A nicer approach might be that if a construction droid stops building a derrick mid way through construction, after a 10 second delay the derrick will start to deconstruct at the same rate (ie. flatten towards the ground and eventually disappear). So if your truck gets destroyed, you have a few seconds to get another nearby truck to complete the construction.

Very good point you have made.

NoQ wrote:Let's just auto-decay unfinished structures unless they are being built by at least one truck. If that's what meant by auto-demolish, i like it, and it seems to be the simpliest (:

I agree, seems like it's the best approach so far. Let us wait for more ideas.

my approach would be the burn time of the well is proportional to how built the derrick was. Example a fully built and operational derrick gets destroyed the well burns for the full amount of time, whereas a half built derrick gets destroyed the well just burns for half as long.

ODDity wrote:my approach would be the burn time of the well is proportional to how built the derrick was. Example a fully built and operational derrick gets destroyed the well burns for the full amount of time, whereas a half built derrick gets destroyed the well just burns for half as long.

This too makes a lot of sense. Only difference between this and the other ideas is that we would require to have attack units/structures to get rid of the half-builds.

auto-demolish is a bit unreal i think
derricks should have price