Simple Weapons Upgrade possible?

[gypakk]

Maybe it is a silly question, but... is it possible to upgrad vehicles whithout having recycled them first?

I've learned these procedures in SSI's games (e.g. Panzer General, Dynasty General).
There you can upgrade all your vehicles between every mission.

Can I perform similar upgrades in Warzone?

[kage]

you can upgrade the statistics of a weapon, body, and propulsion without having to recycle the unit, but you cannot change the components that make up that unit without full recycle and rebuild (thus it is impossible to change a machinegun-viper-wheels to be anything else after it has been built).

[Serman]

Though, it annoys me that, after you recycle a high rank vehicle, and want to build some scouts or something, it gets transfered to them, making a high rank an easy target.

The recycled ranks should be stored, and we should choose which units in manufacturing queue should recieve that rank.

[gypakk]

The recycled ranks should be stored, and we should choose which units in manufacturing queue should recieve that rank.

Yes. Or this way:
In addition to the recycle button, an upgrade button should be added. After pressing this button, the vehicle moves to the next repair facility or factory (same as recycle command) and upgrades automatically.

Somewhere you should choose to what body/traction/weapon it upgrades. Maybe it would be best, if you could mark one of your designs in construction menu as upgrade target.

Newly produced vehicles would always have no experience.
What do you think?

This suggestion could result in an entry in http://wiki.wz2100.net/Proposals

[kage]

Yes. Or this way:
In addition to the recycle button, an upgrade button should be added. After pressing this button, the vehicle moves to the next repair facility or factory (same as recycle command) and upgrades automatically.

Somewhere you should choose to what body/traction/weapon it upgrades. Maybe it would be best, if you could mark one of your designs in construction menu as upgrade target.

Newly produced vehicles would always have no experience.
What do you think?

This suggestion could result in an entry in http://wiki.wz2100.net/Proposals

that'd be all well and good in single player, where you could pause it, but i think a lot of veteran players would rather have the current method, because it'd be way too slow to select new components for a group of 20 tanks that you want to upgrade (and transfer veterancy with) at once. the upgrade-targets idea is a definite improvement, but eventually, half your designs might be listed as upgrade targets (though providing a 'clear upgrade targets' button could mitigate the micromanagement that'd go with it).  at any rate, upgrade targets requires a little extra effort any time you want to upgrade to something new.

i think there's a way to make upgrading more exclusive without adding any extra burden to those that don't care about it: each factory could get a ui toggle button to turn on/off the inclusion of veterans in new units.  all factories would have it on by default, thus people who don't know about the new functionality wouldn't even notice anything different (which is a good thing -- one of our goals is to not change the way the game is played, but only enhance it where possible in a consistent way).  thus, if you toggle off veteran use on factories 2 and 3, then you'll still be getting veteran units out of factory 1 (that way you can, for example, produce tanks and cyborgs at the same time without all your hero level veterans getting sliced to pieces because they ended up in cyborgs).

[Rman Virgil]

............

(which is a good thing -- one of our goals is to not change the way the game is played, but only enhance it where possible in a consistent way).  ............

* I find that conceptual assumption really interesting (& please understand this is no attempt to be a prickly gadfly here.... just face value).

* That is - What criteria would you use to distinguish an "Enhancement" from "changing the way the game is played"  in the context of Pumpkin's own 10 Patches ?

* For example (& I can think of dozens upon dozens):

* Half-way thru the Official Patch cycle Toricat (a fan) suggested the Troop Transport & another fan (me) suggested the AI handicaping schema & Gui of the current Skirmish Mode..... Pumpkin heads liked them a bunch so they made 'em a WZ reality.

* Within your criteria would those changes qualify as "Enhancements" or did they "Change the way WZ was played".... ?

* Guess you can ask the same of any "ECM" implementation ?

Cheers, RV

[kage]

you have a good point about pumpkin's patches. specifically i only consider the interface, and the feel of warzone. certainly, support for other interface and gameplay would be great as long as the original is supported.

what i consider to be an "enhancement" is a change (usually additive) that is completely transparent to the user -- someone who knew how to play warzone 5 years ago could get the wzr version and not have to learn anything new to be at least as effective as they had been before (with only a few notable exceptions, such as the switch from a hit/miss dice system to collision detection, which would also make smaller and faster units harder to hit, which makes them useful for more than just cheap rushes and artillery).  in other words, if you force an extra step into an interface to get something done, it's a "change", not an "enhancement", unless you add an option use the old method instead.

of course, if all parties agree that a change is definitely for the better and more efficient, who am i to argue?

[Rman Virgil]

you have a good point about pumpkin's patches. specifically i only consider the interface, and the feel of warzone. certainly, support for other interface and gameplay would be great as long as the original is supported.

what i consider to be an "enhancement" is a change (usually additive) that is completely transparent to the user -- someone who knew how to play warzone 5 years ago could get the wzr version and not have to learn anything new to be at least as effective as they had been before (with only a few notable exceptions, such as the switch from a hit/miss dice system to collision detection, which would also make smaller and faster units harder to hit, which makes them useful for more than just cheap rushes and artillery).  in other words, if you force an extra step into an interface to get something done, it's a "change", not an "enhancement", unless you add an option use the old method instead.

of course, if all parties agree that a change is definitely for the better and more efficient, who am i to argue?

* Yup..... your PoV makes total sense, Kage.

- Thanks, RV

[gypakk]

Sorry, maybe it was a missunderstanding. I did not want to change the "way of Warzone", I simply wanted to improve the user interface.

Instead of using the recycle button and switching all factories to produce the wanted new design, You could select this design in the construction menu as "upgrade result" and press the new introduced "upgrade button" at the vehicle menu. Normal factory production would be unaffected.

Then, by using the double click you could easily upgrade all vehicles of one design to another design.

Users who do not know this new upgrade feature can play the game in exactly the way they are used to.

[Per]

I must admit I never used the recycle feature. Perhaps instead of a "recycle" command, we could have a "rebuild" command, which sends the selected droid(s) to the nearest repair center, where, for the difference in cost, the droid is rebuilt to another template? We could make it so that when the "rebuild" (former recycle) button is clicked, the build menu comes up immediately with choices for which template to rebuild to. I do not think that would be too difficult to implement.

[EvilGuru]

I must admit I never used the recycle feature. Perhaps instead of a "recycle" command, we could have a "rebuild" command, which sends the selected droid(s) to the nearest repair center, where, for the difference in cost, the droid is rebuilt to another template? We could make it so that when the "rebuild" (former recycle) button is clicked, the build menu comes up immediately with choices for which template to rebuild to. I do not think that would be too difficult to implement.

A while back I did have plans for the recycle function to make it more viable. I was going to make it so that when one recycled a unit as well as getting some power back you also got 'build points' back. These would be approximately 1/2 of how long (points wise) the original unit would have taken the construct.

Then when one next built a unit from a factory it would tap into the build pool and offset those points against the new units build points (capped at 3/4, so you do not get 'instant' builds).

However, in my planning I took one look at the file format and left it there. But the idea does make sense, as you may well have some useful parts left from recycled units. I think it would also allow for some of the higher end weapons to get used as renewing your army would be realistic.

Regards, Freddie.

[gypakk]

Hi Per and Evilguru,

please do not create additional menus or messageboxes. The preferred upgrade design can be selected in the existing design menu: the user yould mark one of the designs there as permanently highlighted.

The new feature should be transparent for users who do not know it.

To enable repair facilities to do upgrades by themselves could change the game play. While running a transport mission you can build repair facilities but no factories at the transport destination. In original game, that means, you have to fly every upgraded vehicle from your base to the transport destination before you can use it there. Your proposal would break this rule...
That does not mean, your suggestion would be bad. I like it.

A few days ago I startet an edit at wz wiki: http://wiki.wz2100.net/Handling_Proposals

[Per]

To enable repair facilities to do upgrades by themselves could change the game play. While running a transport mission you can build repair facilities but no factories at the transport destination. In original game, that means, you have to fly every upgraded vehicle from your base to the transport destination before you can use it there. Your proposal would break this rule...
That does not mean, your suggestion would be bad. I like it.

I suppose we can allow upgrades to be enabled/disabled from the script, if this is an issue.

[EvilGuru]

On a side note I went ahead and added in support for my recycling idea. Still a bit to be done but overall I like it.

Regards, Freddie.

[Kayiaxo]

A while back I did have plans for the recycle function to make it more viable. I was going to make it so that when one recycled a unit as well as getting some power back you also got 'build points' back. These would be approximately 1/2 of how long (points wise) the original unit would have taken the construct.

Then when one next built a unit from a factory it would tap into the build pool and offset those points against the new units build points (capped at 3/4, so you do not get 'instant' builds).

However, in my planning I took one look at the file format and left it there. But the idea does make sense, as you may well have some useful parts left from recycled units. I think it would also allow for some of the higher end weapons to get used as renewing your army would be realistic.

Regards, Freddie.

I already see a big exploit there !
People might build the cheapest tanks possible just to recycle them straight away and use those build points to spam out über tanks at amazing speed.
However I like the idea that recycling gives more bang for your effort of keeping them alive.