Proposal: Trucks can "upgrade" obselete defence structures

[sicanjal]

Truck can currently be ordered to build a Factory Module, which if placed onto a factory, upgrades that factory. As you can also multi-click several factories to upgrade them automatically, I propose that some similar logic can be used for obselete defences as well.

Should a superior defence technology become available, with a truck selected the user can click on a defense (with the Contruct mouse pointer), and the truck would rebuild it with the newer version. It would still however be at full cost, but it cuts out some navigation of the build menu, and manually demolishing old defences. The bonus of this is that a truck can be told to upgrade multiple obselete defences for automated upgrading of existing defences.

This would require each structure having a new entry in the CSV tables; upgradesTo. This would be a pointer to another defined structure. For example, R-Defense-MortarPit would have Mortar2Mk1-Pit as it's upgradesTo value. Some examples of technology obselence would be:

Cannon Hardpoints: WallTower02 -> WallTower03 -> WallTower04
Mortar Bunkers: R-Defense-MortarPit -> Mortar2Mk1-Pit -> Mortar3ROTARYMk1-Pit
Flamethrowers: Flame1Mk1 -> Flame2 -> Plasmite-flamer-bunker

Should a further techology down the tree become available, the defence upgrade will skip any obselete stages (ie, WallTower02 -> WallTower04).

One question I have is; should some defences be un-upgradable by this method? For example, should you be allowed to upgrade Mortar Bunkers to Howitzers Emplacements?

That's all I have; what do you think?

[NucNut]

Seems like a good idea, would take a bit of work though.

[Troglodactyl]

Good idea. If that would be too much work, simply having trucks autodemolish and replace old defenses when you try to build a line of new defenses in the same locations would help.

[themousemaster]

Good idea. If that would be too much work, simply having trucks autodemolish and replace old defenses when you try to build a line of new defenses in the same locations would help.

I'd have to run with this one instead...

Here's the problem I can see:

I have a Howitzer emplacement. I "upgrade" it.

Does it turn into a Hellstorm, or a Groundshaker?


Or if I wanna upgrade my Medium-cannon Hardpoint. HeavyCannon? Assault Cannon? HPV?



Auto-demolish sounds good though.

[DevUrandom]

Proposal: Build the upgrade *you* want over the existing building. At reduced costs of course. Can be chained as well.
Would that be good enough for you? If so, and when you finally developed an idea which will stand ground against all doubts I'd propose to file a "bug"report (severity:wish, priority:low).

[psychopompos]

* select truck
*click the defence in question
*build menu pops up with upgrade options
could be applied to factories too, go straight to heavy vehicle plant (for resource penalty) rather then the current 3 stages

thing with doing it automatically, is in low resource situation, where you need more vehicles, but a truck just decided to throw 2 lancer tanks worth of resources into a single arty emplacement.

[kage]

yeah, good idea. and no balancing issues involved that i can think of as being possible, though we'll hope that the AI maintainers can keep up