For those of you not in the know, painting is the tactic of starting to build a structure, but never actually finishing it. Normally this results in the structure being left accruing power. This tactic is a problem because:
They make path finding more complicated;
they often have quite a lot of HP, partially build bunkers especially.
Therefore, I propose the following solution:
Once a second we search for all buildings being built;
for each building;
if it is still in the accrue stage and no trucks are working on it;
subtract 8 power from it and return it to the owner;
should there be no power left, remove the structure.
This, to me is a viable and easy-to-implement solution inspired by that of TA. I would be interested to know what you all think.
Great idea.
I have to admit that i sometimes "painted" some bunkers to draw fire away from my already operative structures when playing against the AI. Pretty lame tactic
Hatsjoe wrote:
Great idea.
I have to admit that i sometimes "painted" some bunkers to draw fire away from my already operative structures when playing against the AI. Pretty lame tactic
Hey, the AI does it too! If you destroy one of its trucks when it is building a bunker it effectively ends up as painting. However, for the AI it is very much a disadvantage; as if it has 100 power locked up in a bunker it is never going to use, that is 100 power wasted.
EvilGuru wrote:
Hey, the AI does it too! If you destroy one of its trucks when it is building a bunker it effectively ends up as painting. However, for the AI it is very much a disadvantage; as if it has 100 power locked up in a bunker it is never going to use, that is 100 power wasted.
Regards, Freddie.
Well at least it doesn't do it on purpose. And it tries to finish unfinished structures whenever it can too.
As for painting, I think a better approach would be to increase hp of an unfinished building with the amount of power spend on building it, although decreasing hp with time is still better than painting.
Troman wrote:
Well at least it doesn't do it on purpose. And it tries to finish unfinished structures whenever it can too.
As for painting, I think a better approach would be to increase hp of an unfinished building with the amount of power spend on building it, although decreasing hp with time is still better than painting.
The problem with this method is that when you first start building a structure it will be very easy to destroy it. This could make building front-line defences very tricky. Although I do agree the current system needs to be re-worked at bit.
It is not so much decreasing HP as it is decreasing accrued power. So the green bar that increments when you first start building a structure will go in reverse if there is no truck/borg attending to it. Once you have paid for a structure, it's yours, if you decided to complete it or not is up to you.
Maybe, if a structure is 10% finished, it should only have 10% of the armor it normally has and so on? This would make it really hard to start building in the middle of a battlezone, and it would make the unfinished structures useless as defense since they only have x% of the armor. Sounds like a reasonable solution to me.
Currently, I will see if I can implement the structure thing in the next couple of days and if people like it I will look into making the HP (and possibly armour) proportional to the percentage of power the structure has accred.
I am unsure if these will make 2.1. Unless there is a very high demand that is.
hmm if yall work the capture idea into warzone it might solve some of that problem...or that you could just not give it any armor until it finished...usually armor goes on the exterior of what its protecting....
1. Have structures being build be percentage based.
example: 10% power = 10% strength.
CONs to this are structures are weak when first built.
2. Then have the the structure return power at "whatever %" intervals if that structure is not completed after a set time frame.
example: After 1 minute of inactivity, take 1% every second from an inactive structure & return it to the power pool. This will also reduce the HP of the structure by 1% every second.
CONs to this are if you pull a truck off a structure(factory or otherwise) , or the truck gets destroyed(by ground or air units), then you will slowly lose that structure that did take TIME to build.
Question - Should certain structures require the above conditions or do we make ALL structures have the same effect?
I have done "painting" before. It is a bad tactic. Though sometimes I pull a truck off a structure to temporally help other trucks finish another structure, if I feel I need something done in a hurry. I then come back to the previous structure to finish it.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
"En Vino Veritas"
The crucial bit is if you have finished paying for it or not. If the progress bar is yellow you are unaffected. If it is green and you pull a truck off it is 8 power per two seconds.
I don't like the 'losing health' technique. You are building something, your trucks get destroyed, and you watch the unfinished structure 'count down' till it self-destructs? Nah , Doesn't seem right. But trying it won't hurt.
this tactic ( aka building dummies) has been a thorn in the sides of those that play honorably ( in online gaming.) many threads on the old forums covered this tactic... for and against it. the only way to see what happens is to go ahead with the code and get feedback from the community.
personally i like the idea of self destructing items (dummies ). ;D
"to prepare for disaster is to invite it, to not prepare for disaster is a fools choice" -me (kim-lav_coyote25-metcalfe) - it used to be attributed to unknown - but adding the last bit , it now makes sense.
Hopefully it will be in the trunk version soon. I would like to get it in -beta3, just so that it can be field-tested. If no one likes it then it can always be changed/reverted.
Regards, Freddie.
Last edited by EvilGuru on 29 Mar 2008, 14:04, edited 1 time in total.
And it tries to finish unfinished structures whenever it can too.
, Doesn't seem right. But trying it won't hurt.
