Some ideas about upgrading

[iap]

Hi, I have some thoughts about upgrading vehicles and defences.

About vehicles: It would be very helpful for me if I wouldn't have to keep designing new stuff instead of concentrating on the game (witch is hard for me as it is ). My suggestion is, if it possible or easy to implement: make better, new, turrets replace the old ones from the same class in the design.
I mean: If I designed light cannon, and start producing tons of light cannon trucks, then I research medium cannon, it should replace the light cannon in the design automatically so the next unit will be with medium cannon.
After all - it is just an evolution of the same class weapon. Like mortar and bombard and so on.

About structures: It would be extreamly awesome to build a new better defencive structure over an old one, instead of destroying one and building another. Maybe even get some "discount" for replacing a structure, based on the old structure cost...

These suggestions are not critical for the game, but do reduce the amount of management of stuff, and let me concentrate on strategy and fighting.

Thank you.
IAP

[Zarel]

About vehicles: It would be very helpful for me if I wouldn't have to keep designing new stuff instead of concentrating on the game (witch is hard for me as it is ). My suggestion is, if it possible or easy to implement: make better, new, turrets replace the old ones from the same class in the design.
I mean: If I designed light cannon, and start producing tons of light cannon trucks, then I research medium cannon, it should replace the light cannon in the design automatically so the next unit will be with medium cannon.
After all - it is just an evolution of the same class weapon. Like mortar and bombard and so on.

Unfortunately, this isn't always true. The light cannon is much lighter than the medium cannon, and putting a medium cannon on a light cannon tank will make it slower and more vulnerable to hit-and-run attacks.

For those weapons that are a complete unambiguous upgrade, such as flashlight to pulse laser, we do indeed replace the old one automatically.

Thank you for the suggestion, though; it's a good idea.

About structures: It would be extreamly awesome to build a new better defencive structure over an old one, instead of destroying one and building another. Maybe even get some "discount" for replacing a structure, based on the old structure cost...

This is a good idea, as well.

I wonder, though, what if you accidentally replace a structure when you meant to build one next to it? Some users might have an issue with that... What do you think?

These suggestions are not critical for the game, but do reduce the amount of management of stuff, and let me concentrate on strategy and fighting.

We appreciate your suggestions.

[Assault Gunner]

At a minimum, I would like it reduce the price of hardpoints when they are placed on existing walls. Any decrease would be nice, but a full-price(of hardcrete walls) decrease would be ridiculous. Probably just a $10 decrease.

[Zarel]

At a minimum, I would like it reduce the price of hardpoints when they are placed on existing walls. Any decrease would be nice, but a full-price(of hardcrete walls) decrease would be ridiculous. Probably just a $10 decrease.

Good idea. I would just decrease it by the same price you would get back if you had demolished the idea. What do you think?

[iap]

About structures: It would be extreamly awesome to build a new better defencive structure over an old one, instead of destroying one and building another. Maybe even get some "discount" for replacing a structure, based on the old structure cost...

This is a good idea, as well.

I wonder, though, what if you accidentally replace a structure when you meant to build one next to it? Some users might have an issue with that... What do you think?

Accidental clicks do happen sometimes, but considering the time it takes for a truck or a cyborg to go to that location, the player will have some time to abort.

In the case of a sturcture being attacked and even destroyed during reconstruction... I guess it's a risk a player would have to consider. Thats why replacing a structure should be cheaper and faster to construct - to give a balanced motivation.

[3drts]

For hardpoints, it should be just a matter of swapping out the turret....

I still think it would be cool (though far too hard to implement), to have trucks limited to building walls and tank traps, and hardpoints without a turret mounted for defense. After the Hardpoint/Tower/emplacement is built, it is ready to accept a turret, which must be made at a factory, and carried to the hardpoint.
Obviously it would be cheaper and faster to just build a weapon turret, rather than a whole tank.
The hardpoint serves as an immobile "body" that turrets can be put on and taken off.
Have a medium cannon Hardpoint, want a heavy?
Build a heavy cannon at the factory, truck carries it the the hardpoint, swap the turrets out in ≈10 seconds, truck carries the medium cannon to a place it can be recycled, or perhaps to another defensive structure, that wasn't a priority for getting new Heavy Cannons, and wasn't yet armed with anything.

Too hard to implement, and probably too much micromanagement required, but I like the concept, but doubt it could be easily adapted for good gameplay.

Maybe if structure designing is implemented, a truck can go up to a structure, and you can open a design screen, and swap the turret, and the truck starts building a new turret (with half the cost of the old turret refunded, and the "build points" of the just new turret are required, not the build points of a turret+ hardpoint.

[Assault Gunner]

For hardpoints, it should be just a matter of swapping out the turret....

I still think it would be cool (though far too hard to implement), to have trucks limited to building walls and tank traps, and hardpoints without a turret mounted for defense. After the Hardpoint/Tower/emplacement is built, it is ready to accept a turret, which must be made at a factory, and carried to the hardpoint.
Obviously it would be cheaper and faster to just build a weapon turret, rather than a whole tank.
The hardpoint serves as an immobile "body" that turrets can be put on and taken off.
Have a medium cannon Hardpoint, want a heavy?
Build a heavy cannon at the factory, truck carries it the the hardpoint, swap the turrets out in ≈10 seconds, truck carries the medium cannon to a place it can be recycled, or perhaps to another defensive structure, that wasn't a priority for getting new Heavy Cannons, and wasn't yet armed with anything.

Too hard to implement, and probably too much micromanagement required, but I like the concept, but doubt it could be easily adapted for good gameplay.

Maybe if structure designing is implemented, a truck can go up to a structure, and you can open a design screen, and swap the turret, and the truck starts building a new turret (with half the cost of the old turret refunded, and the "build points" of the just new turret are required, not the build points of a turret+ hardpoint.

This would work pretty well for the WZ tower defence mode some people are suggesting... too bad it probably needs a ton of coding to implement.

[KenAlcock]

About structures: It would be extreamly awesome to build a new better defencive structure over an old one, instead of destroying one and building another. Maybe even get some "discount" for replacing a structure, based on the old structure cost...

At a minimum, I would like it reduce the price of hardpoints when they are placed on existing walls. Any decrease would be nice, but a full-price(of hardcrete walls) decrease would be ridiculous. Probably just a $10 decrease.

Good idea. I would just decrease it by the same price you would get back if you had demolished the idea. What do you think?

I like these ideas, I think they should be implemented perhaps like all of this (if feasible):

• A player can build any new: Wall segment, Hardpoint, Fortress, or Gate (if gates ever get implemented), over any other such related structure with a single replacement construction order.
  
  I'm not sure I'm in favor of extending this behavior to base buildings. I'm on the fence about defensive structures like: Howitzer Emplacements, Mortar Pits, and Bunkers. What do other people think?
• In terms of power cost for the replacement structure, the cost of the new structure would be decreased by the same price you would get back if you had demolished the original existing structure first. (What I believe Zarel was saying above.)
• There should also be a time advantage as well. Swapping out a turret on an existing hardpoint should not take as long as building a new hardpoint from the ground up.
  
  @Zarel IIRC, you indicated elsewhere that construction time is a function of structure cost. So by reducing the cost of the new structure first, wouldn't the replacement construction time be automatically reduced proportionally as well? I believe this would be an ideal scenario.
• The Green Hologram/Blueprint of the new structure should appear superimposed over the existing structure (similar to how a Factory Module Green Hologram/Blueprint is currently superimposed over an existing factory).
• The replacement construction order could be queued, just like any other Construction order.
• A row of such Replacement Construction orders could be painted by using mouse click+drag gesture. This would be similar to how you can currently build a wall by selecting a Wall segment, then clicking and dragging in a straight line of tiles to build a long wall (or even a series of hard points).

I wonder, though, what if you accidentally replace a structure when you meant to build one next to it? Some users might have an issue with that... What do you think?

l believe with the new green hologram blueprints that this is less likely to occur. So I think the key here is to ensure that the green hologram blueprints appear for a replacement construction as well as for a regular construction. One other suggestion would be to require a qualifier key to held down. However, I don't recall if you have any left to use. Also, I would not want a new qualifier key to inhibit the ability to queue construction and replacement construction orders.

[Zarel]

Accidental clicks do happen sometimes, but considering the time it takes for a truck or a cyborg to go to that location, the player will have some time to abort.

The situation I'm afraid of is if the player clicks on the wrong spot, but thinks he clicked on the correct spot. Ken is right, though; with the new blueprints system, that's unlikely.

Alternatively, we could require a player to click on the structure first, to make it clear that the structure is being upgraded. I think that menu would be easy to confuse with the "select what to build" menu, though...

In terms of power cost for the replacement structure, the cost of the new structure would be decreased by the same price you would get back if you had demolished the original existing structure first. (What I believe Zarel was saying above.)

Yes, it was.

There should also be a time advantage as well. Swapping out a turret on an existing hardpoint should not take as long as building a new hardpoint from the ground up.

@Zarel IIRC, you indicated elsewhere that construction time is a function of structure cost. So by reducing the cost of the new structure first, wouldn't the replacement construction time be automatically reduced proportionally as well? I believe this would be an ideal scenario.

Unfortunately, when I say "reduce the cost of the new structure", I mean "give the player the demolish price of the old structure back, then build the new structure normally". Actually reducing the cost of the new structure would be nearly impossible with the current code, I think.

Fortunately, I think it could be possible to start the new structure off with build progress already partway done, so we can do that, instead. I think it should be capped at, say, 75% done, though, so the new structure doesn't finish instantly if it costs less than half the price of the old structure.

The Green Hologram/Blueprint of the new structure should appear superimposed over the existing structure (similar to how a Factory Module Green Hologram/Blueprint is currently superimposed over an existing factory).

...it is? I thought it isn't, since it can't be... I guess I'll have to reread the code. If it can do that, that'd be great!

The replacement construction order could be queued, just like any other Construction order.

Can do!

A row of such Replacement Construction orders could be painted by using mouse click+drag gesture. This would be similar to how you can currently build a wall by selecting a Wall segment, then clicking and dragging in a straight line of tiles to build a long wall (or even a series of hard points).

...hrm, might pose some difficulty. I'll try my best.

[KenAlcock]

The Green Hologram/Blueprint of the new structure should appear superimposed over the existing structure (similar to how a Factory Module Green Hologram/Blueprint is currently superimposed over an existing factory).

...it is? I thought it isn't, since it can't be... I guess I'll have to reread the code. If it can do that, that'd be great!

Well, the hologram doesn't stick now. Or, I should say that in beta 9 it no longer sticks. In Beta 5 I reported Ticket #1332. The issue was related to a factory being destroyed before a queued order to construct a Factory Module on it could be completed. The issue resulted in the ghost hologram of the factory module being left behind after the underlying factory was destroyed, even after saving the game and reopening it. So at that time, the building module holograms were superimposed over their underlying buildings. (Perhaps the fix for that ticket was to drop the superimposed hologram?)

Unfortunately , Trac no longer has the attachments I uploaded for Ticket #1332, and I deleted them all from my PC after I submitted my issue report.

Below is a screenshot of the factory module hologram, only in Beta 9 you can only get it to appear if you explicitly select Factory Module from the Construction Menu, then select a Factory to upgrade. (My mouse is actually hovering over that factory in the picture below). Most people do not upgrade their factories this way, as selecting one or more trucks and simply clicking on the factory (with the hammer cursor showing) issues orders to construct a factory module much quicker.

Factory.png

[Zarel]

Good to know. Maybe one day, when I have tons of free time, I'll be able to make it do that when you click on the factory directly, too. And when you build one defensive structure over another.

[iap]

I'm going back to two points:
First, if a player orders to build something in the wrong place by accident... well it's his problem. It happens to me all the time, it's part of the game. So I don't think there should be any concern about "are you sure?!" methods.

About the discount: Giving the the player the amount of money he would receive if he was destroying the building is good. What would be better is taking that money and using it to (partially) pay for the upgraded building.

On that matter, how hard would it be to make a green bar for buildings too, like the one in the factories that represent the money spent, before the building start?

[KukY]

On that matter, how hard would it be to make a green bar for buildings too, like the one in the factories that represent the money spent, before the building start?

There already is one, but you have to go to Build menu.
But green bar while building on place of health bar would be good.

[Assault Gunner]

At a minimum, I would like it reduce the price of hardpoints when they are placed on existing walls. Any decrease would be nice, but a full-price(of hardcrete walls) decrease would be ridiculous. Probably just a $10 decrease.

Good idea. I would just decrease it by the same price you would get back if you had demolished the idea. What do you think?

Sounds good. Probably pretty easy to implement, form the sound of it.

[Zarel]

Green bar on the build interface? I could do that without much difficulty.

Unfortunately, we're in a feature freeze for 2.3, so no new features. And the next version would have a different power allocation system that removes the need for the green bar...