View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001144 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Game Mechanics | Nov 5, 2010 11:22 pm | Dec 8, 2010 5:14 pm | |
| Reporter | Wingflier | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 4.021 | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 4.047 | ||||
| Summary | 0001144: Upgrading Harvesters too Tedious/Time-Consuming | ||||
| Description | I made a thread about this in the suggestions forums and was directed here. The general premise of the thread was that AI War seems to be a game about making economy and base building as simplified and streamlined as possible, so that the player can focus on the more exciting battles and strategy of the game. The introduction of the new MKII and MKIII Crystal and Metal Harvesters however, seem to be contradicting this design principle. If (or when) you decide to upgrade your Harvesters, you have to go to every single planet you control, select your Harvesters, destroy them, and then rebuild them with the upgraded version. If you have Harvester Shields, you have to rebuild these as well. If you want it done quickly, you have to move your Engineers to each planet as well. The general point that I'm trying to convey is that "upgrading" your economy could literally take over an hour, especially on a large 100+ planet map near the end of the game. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that you may even have to do it several times! The switch from MK1 to MKII, then MKII to MKIII, means that this whole process could be something you have to deal more than once per game. There are several ways you could deal with this: 1. Allow the player to "build" the "upgraded" version of Harvesters on planets that already have a lower version, which will just destroy and replace it. Bonus points if the exo-forcefields automatically rebuild themselves as well. 2. Allow the player to destroy Harvesters on the galaxy map on a massive scale, so that the game will automatically replace it for them. Some people have mentioned that this could be disastrous to your economy, however, I find it hard to believe people would be dumb enough to destroy their entire ecosystem (not including Orbital Commands) if they were low on resources to begin with. 3. Add some kind of option in the "control" tab that will slowly upgrade your Harvesters for you, as to prevent aforementioned resource "stalls". Regardless of what you do, I think this is definitely something that needs to be addressed for game design consistency and frustration reduction on behalf of the player. I'm sorry if I missed anything, and thank you for reading. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | |||||
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I support this. |
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I think it's on the cards but relatively low priority, and nontrivial. |
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It would be very nice to have this be easier, but it would probably require a rework of a lot of the specialized building logic attached to the metal/crystal deposit/harvester thing... there's a lot of special code there. Alternatively, it could just automatically replace all your harvesters with the upgrades and call it a freebie. Might increase the knowledge cost somewhat or something like that, but it would remove a lot of player pain and avoid a lot of developer pain (that would not really have other benefits). Dunno, though, that might be taking the easy way out. I'm going to be working on some more special building code fairly soon, I'll keep this one in mind. |
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Being able to destroy units/structures on the galaxy map probably wouldn't take that much extra code (I think), and could be a temporary solution until you came up with something better. |
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I support something of this sort. Maybe if the harvesters were automatically changed planet by planet, thus renewing several at a time, but never all at once. It'd be relatively speedy, automated, and not too dangerous to economy, even if enabled by accident. Could be an option in the controls tab, "allow automatic harvester upgrades" or something. *shrugs* |
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Make it a free upgrade and increase the energy cost fractionally, I say! |
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A button in your Controls labeled "Replace Harvesters", that simply scuttles every existing harvester that has a higher Mk version, would be a simple way to do it. |
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I second the idea of an auto-upgrade control. Toggle it on & when you unlock an upgrade the game should scrap all the existing harvesters & build the new versions. If you toggled it on, you're aware of the possibility of your economy taking a huge smack while they rebuild & should be able to plan for it (build up a reserve, pause any build queues etc). Actually thinking about it, all it would need to do is scrap the current harvesters, the code that builds/rebuilds harvesters in your systems which don't have any enemies should take care of building the upgraded harvesters. |
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This is annoying, but the problem with doing them automatically was that that could tank a player's economy in a big game. But without it, it has all the problems you guys are noting. Solution? I'll have to make it upgrade all of them for free when you unlock the tech, to avoid adding more interface complexity or tedium. |
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couldn't something like the remains re-builder just build them? if you have a remains rebuild it upgrades them (automatically) if not.. oh well? :P |
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I fully support this as well. |
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Keith, I got this one, just in case you were also thinking about it. |
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I was, actually, but wasn't planning on it today ;) |
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It's been on my to-do list for a while. I'm actually working on it now. :) Just wanted to make sure we didn't overlap on it! |
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Awesome! |
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* When players unlock higher-mark metal or crystal harvesters, all existing lower-mark harvesters are immediately upgraded to the new higher-mark versions at full health. ** However, any lower-mark harvesters that are still under construction won't upgrade until after they finish constructing. |
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Sweet! :) |
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Indeed. :) |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 5, 2010 11:22 pm | Wingflier | New Issue | |
| Nov 6, 2010 10:12 am | themachineissentient | Note Added: 0002814 | |
| Nov 6, 2010 5:54 pm | zebramatt | Note Added: 0002845 | |
| Nov 6, 2010 6:00 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0002847 | |
| Nov 6, 2010 6:11 pm | Wingflier | Note Added: 0002851 | |
| Nov 7, 2010 1:20 pm | HitmanN | Note Added: 0002879 | |
| Nov 8, 2010 4:21 am | zebramatt | Note Added: 0002890 | |
| Nov 8, 2010 6:04 am | TheDeadlyShoe | Note Added: 0002891 | |
| Nov 8, 2010 9:21 am | Malibu Stacey | Note Added: 0002911 | |
| Nov 8, 2010 9:22 am | Malibu Stacey | Note Edited: 0002911 | |
| Nov 8, 2010 9:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0002913 | |
| Nov 8, 2010 9:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Nov 8, 2010 9:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => confirmed |
| Nov 8, 2010 5:55 pm | DakaSha | Note Added: 0003000 | |
| Nov 22, 2010 2:29 pm | Chris Fifty-Two | Note Added: 0004228 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 12:23 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0005631 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 12:24 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0005632 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 12:27 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0005636 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 2:47 pm | Spikey00 | Note Added: 0005655 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 5:11 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0005689 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 5:11 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | confirmed => resolved |
| Dec 8, 2010 5:11 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => 4.047 |
| Dec 8, 2010 5:11 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => fixed |
| Dec 8, 2010 5:13 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0005690 | |
| Dec 8, 2010 5:14 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0005691 |
