Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.
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@maudlin27 But there would still be a significant reason to get T2 engineers, for the ability to make T2 structures.
I just don't see people making a brand new 3D model to add a new kind of engineer to the game. Re-using existing models would be bad too, because it would be harder to tell the engies apart.
Allowing multiple units to merge into a single unit would be a brand-new game mechanic which would require significant coding.
If Aeon gets an engineering station, you could just sacrifice your engineers into it. The system could even be rigged so that sacrificing engineers is an efficient way to make the engineering stations. That would encourage people to convert t1 engies into stations. It would also be a way to remind people about the sacrifice mechanic, which should encourage them to use it more often.
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An alternative that might be less complicated and just as effective a fix, might be to just buff t2 and t3 engies so people have more incentive to build them for bp. Not sure exactly what buffs would be best to make them more popular, whether it be speed, acceleration, build range, build power, or reducing mass cost or build time.
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I think by the time you have 50 t1 engis clumped up at some factory your mass income is so high that a few percent more or less in bp mass efficiency dont matter anymore. You can just control k and reclaim the t1 engis and make new ones. but that takes time and apm and this move wouldnt be apm efficient anymore. I think that's kinds a cool metric by the way: what kind of apm is most conducive towards victory. Acu play, macro or unit movement. Brb watching some zock POVs
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Yes, I agree that a tiny difference in efficiency isn't going to be worth it if it costs important apm. I have no idea how popular an idea it is to buff higher tier engies to reduce t1 spam, but I definitely dislike the huge swarms of t1 engies, so I would prefer some sort of change that discourages that. We might see some positive changes simply from t2 and t3 engie buffs. If t2 engies are a bit more efficient, maybe you will send half of the 30 (or whatever) t1 engies assisting your hq that is upgrading to t3, up to the front on a suicide reclaim mission and replace that bp with some t2 engies you build out of a t2 support factory. So you could end up with fewer total units and better pathfinding. Maybe it will still always be better to just use factories at the front to get the reclaim asap, though. Or maybe people would just slightly adjust how they increase their build power, and making an extra t2 support factory or two to make bp later on ends up being slightly more optimal than making t1 engies a bit earlier, I'm not sure.
In any case, if it is still not worth the apm to adjust your bp around, that would just mean that any buff to t2 and t3 engies just needs to be a bit larger to have any effect. I think the problem is all tiers are EQUALLY mass efficient (10.4 mass per buildpower for all engies), so there is zero benefit to building the higher tier engies FOR BP (so you only make a small number to access higher tech). The only exception I can think of is where you really need to concentrate tons of bp in a small location, perhaps to assist an smd or shields, where a huge mass of t1 will not all get close enough to assist.
Maybe changing the cost of t2 engies to 10.0 mass per build power, and 9.5 mass per build power for t3 would be a small change that makes them more viable, without making them too much better either. So t1 engies would be still 52 mass for 5 bp, t2 engies 125 mass for 12.5 bp (reduced from 130 mass), and t3 engies could be 285 mass for 30 bp (reduced from 312). That makes t2 engies less than 4% cheaper, and t3 engies less than 9% cheaper, so those are pretty small changes we could try very easily.
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T1 engies are also more attractive to build because they don't impact your ability to build higher tier units.
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@Wainan said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
T1 engies are also more attractive to build because they don't impact your ability to build higher tier units.
Yeah, the opportunity cost incurred when producing T2 and T3 engineers is being overlooked.
Maybe allow T1 factries to produce T2 and T3 engineers when a T2 or T3 HQ is available?
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The main problem is 1) shit pathfinding 2) small assist range.
It's same shit pathfinding and bad range at all tiers.
Kennels/hives fix both problems, kennels have worse bp but can fly anywhere.Pathfiding is not fixable, but better range is changeable.
We need a way to contrate bp efficiently in specific area.
2 ways: better range or better bp with same/similar range.
Reuse sparky model and make either- 1.5x-2x range + 1.5x hp with same bp as t3 engi from t3 factoty with 1.5-2x costs or
- make 2-3x bp with same range and more hp with 1.5-2x cost.
It could be tier 3.5 engi it can be produced from factory or 'made' sacrificing t3 engi into other t3 engi, we can even add another cheapish upgrade(800-1000 mass) to t3 factory HQ so it could produce them.
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You spam out t1 engies to get reclaim and might keep a dozen in base to help speed up fac upgrades/assist in t2/t3 construction with more flooding in once reclaim is sucked up. Anything talking about making t2 or t3 engies adjustments or some other sort of engie won’t change anything about the reason you have like 50-80 t1 engies on many maps.
I can spend like 200 mass and have a factory producing infinite engies to get thousands of e/mass in like a minute. There is no reason I’d ever get anything with more setup cost to do this unless it’s a specific circumstance like an ongoing battle where I need bp with more survivability (navy battles).
If you want a better way to concentrate bp, assist 1 engie to a fac and assist the rest to the engie. Now you have an infinite bp glob concentration near your factory that doesn’t even really block pathfinding much.
Making it possible to combine engies to quickly get t2 in areas doesn’t really attempt to deal with inevitable engie spam so it’s more viable. In fact it benefits from it. But it also has a lot of possible abuse opportunities that would need to be reviewed.
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@techmind_ said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
The main problem is 1) shit pathfinding 2) small assist range.
It's same shit pathfinding and bad range at all tiers.
Kennels/hives fix both problems, kennels have worse bp but can fly anywhere.Pathfiding is not fixable, but better range is changeable.
We need a way to contrate bp efficiently in specific area.Deploy button on engineers
After deploy engineers cannot move and get double range effectively transforming into small hivesNo pathfinding - no problem
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@advena said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
@techmind_ said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
The main problem is 1) shit pathfinding 2) small assist range.
It's same shit pathfinding and bad range at all tiers.
Kennels/hives fix both problems, kennels have worse bp but can fly anywhere.Pathfiding is not fixable, but better range is changeable.
We need a way to contrate bp efficiently in specific area.Deploy button on engineers
After deploy engineers cannot move and get double range effectively transforming into small hivesNo pathfinding - no problem
Perfect for trapping ACU and other units.
If it is just for Aeon and Seraphim, let them hover a fair distance above the ground and disable their movement and more importantly collisions.
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@Valki said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
Perfect for trapping ACU and other units.
It's not really different than walking units into the acu to block it not sure why this would be an issue, sounds really hard to actually use this to block enemy acu especially with how fragile engineers are relatively speaking.
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@Exselsior said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
@Valki said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
Perfect for trapping ACU and other units.
It's not really different than walking units into the acu to block it not sure why this would be an issue, sounds really hard to actually use this to block enemy acu especially with how fragile engineers are relatively speaking.
Normal units are kicked round in these cases. If they cannot move and don't pathfind I don't think they can be kicked.
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Deployed units are really unmovable. I thought ACU would bump them on way out.
Looks like hard to use but still a problem. -
Hey I have an even better idea:
Make engineers able to merge intona factory to add their build power to it. I.e. naval fac. Or so. Greatly reduces pathfinding issues. Doesnt that sound useful?
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Or station them in it. Like in a carrier. So you can get them out and to another one.
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I really love the idea of just adding bp into the factory by sacrificing engineers into it, though I could see us maybe wanting some upper limit on it. There would be pros and cons such as not possible to raid the bp with bombers or tanks, but also inability to repair the damaged factory. Allowing them to be stationed might go a little too far by giving tons of flexibility plus removing the risk of losing bp to bombers.
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@BIG-BENNIS-MAGIC said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
Or station them in it. Like in a carrier. So you can get them out and to another one.
Getting raided by an early bomber? Dump your engies into a nearby factory. Boom they're invincible now
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@Deribus said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
@BIG-BENNIS-MAGIC said in Merge engineers into support engineers to circumvent pathing issues.:
Or station them in it. Like in a carrier. So you can get them out and to another one.
Getting raided by an early bomber? Dump your engies into a nearby factory. Boom they're invincible now
So make it a feature exclusive to Support Factories.
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Crunches, crunches everywhere...
Just limit deploy to T3 engineers
Some cost and BP increase also can be done for T2-T3 engineers but this is much more complicated suggestion to balance.
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advena, if we limited it to t3 engies it would be pointless. The problem is t1 engie spam. And deploying them does absolutely nothing to reduce the raw number of t1 engies that will still mess up pathfinding badly, just slightly to the side.
If we stationing engies in a factory exclusively for support factories it would be much less effective because many people often have massive assist around their hq. So you could just apply it to HQs and support factories. Maybe everything except t1 factories would be ok? Do we want to apply this to nukes or smds or quantum gateways? Not sure, but it would be possible and would have the same kind of effects.
And maybe stationing engies would not be op even for t1 factories if there was a delay period for the engie where it is idled before moving in or out of the factory. Something like 15 seconds each way, or 20 seconds in, 10 out. Just throwing out some numbers. Anyway, this would mean you are still fairly vulnerable to raids, and lose a bit of build time for the ability to station engies.
