The way FAF uses tree groups is just a walkaround from how ugly the patrol or manual reclaim mechanics work:
-For patrol reclaim: engineer logic is fcked and for some reason they waste of lot of time to pack/unpack their claw between reclaiming multiple things.
-For manual reclaim: 1) You wouldn't click every tree manually which allows engineers to reclaim without claw unpack animation 2) FAF rejected all sorts of area reclaim and consideres it game-breaking mechanic despite such things exist in other RTS. (nobody misses stone clicking there, but i guess in FAF clicking stones is so much funnier than remaining SCFA gameplay)

Instead FAF abuses attack move from factory - and that is actually a bug abuse which AFAIK didn't exist in GPG.

May be fix factory attack move and introduce proper area reclaim so people wouldn't waste half of their life clicking every stone on the map?

Some time ago it was more efficient to just break tree groups because it gave more mass, these days it better not to break trees because it is soooooooo much faster and gives more E. You have one number of trees, why do they give different amount of resources if they groupped of separated? All tree groups should automaticly break once game starts.

May be fix factory attack move and introduce proper area reclaim so people wouldn't waste half of their life clicking every stone on the map?

As numerous people have stated in this other topic that is about area reclaim - the better players among us rarely use manual reclaim with the exception during the first few minutes of the game because there's literally nothing else to do.

At all other moments of the game it is better to use patrol or the regular attack move, as you need your apm to do your decision making on the battlefield.

Anyhow - I'm asking moderators to delete future posts that reference the area reclaim discussion in this topic. This topic is not about that, it is about scouts being visible through the fog and scouts being able to be used to seriously impact your opponents economy without firing a single shot.

You have one number of trees, why do they give different amount of resources if they groupped of separated? All tree groups should automaticly break once game starts.

See the original post, in particular:

The tree groups are a product to safe on performance. They are simply put more efficient to render

We'd destroy your fps if we'd break them all at the start .

Is it possible to make this into a toggle for scouts (or maybe all T1?), so that they can intentionally break trees at reduced speed and otherwise they don't break them?
Makes it into an option to intentionally break trees, but makes them not break your own and because they get slowed down while doing it they become a bit less effective at it and can be more easily chased down.

That would be possible - yes. But it feels like an interaction that doesn't fit this game. Toggling things on individual units is an apm / attention sink.

I like the toggle with default to not break trees.

Scouts are supposed to be stealthy and not leave tracks

Slowed down by hitting the trees kappa

Imo a toggle would be too niche to be worth adding. I agree something should be done about being able to see trees through FoW but that should be in the form of some fix (not showing trees breaking through FoW) rather than a overly complex workaround that does not actually remove the issue.
Also a toggle makes no sense from a perspective of realism (or consistency). Ik its just a game and there is plenty of unrealistic features, but it makes no logical sense for a mech marine to be able to with the push of the button go straight through trees. I think making labs/scouts not interact with trees and leaving tree interactions the same are both valid ideas, however i think both at once would be a mistake.

How do we feel about T1 engies also not breaking tree groups?

Feels to me like a noob trap you "just gotta know about" to avoid random e-stalls, that also doesn't really add anything to the game at higher levels.

Tree breaking should just be fully removed from the game.

I don't think that's needed. Using these units specifically to destroy groups of trees is relevant only on 1 map. In other cases, take into account that labs and scouts in factions are very different (aeon and seraphim for example). Player 1 (aeon) builds labs and does not break the forest on his half of the map. Player 2 (seraphim) builds tanks and breaks the forest on his side.

I think for Setons reducing the on-water speed of the spirit would go a long way to allowing time for the other team to destroy it before it gets into all the forestry.

Any non-sera can put a lab in a transport to do so.

Otherwise you can get situation like above where player spamming flares keeps their tree groups intact and the player making tanks breaks theirs.

Arguing about the balance of units/mechanics on only a single map is pretty irrelevant imo.

Still, breaking trees in the early game is just an unintuitive feel bad mechanic all around, so why keep it?

Well it is a thing in the game maybe it is bad but if it is removed is make the game more linear less interesting

@unknow

It’s just an aesthetic thing honestly. Maybe breaking tree groups should still happen but allow the engineer to still suck up the whole group at once, fallen trees and all

@zeldafanboy Def not only aesthetic when u see that on all maps with trees and +1800 players they all try to break opponennts trees (last setons tourney, watch nexus vs petric on LOTS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjX79ZgVd0Y)

Recently there has been a suggestion to perhaps make the center of tree groups visible when you are in reclaim mode (CTRL-Shift). A problem with this is, that it will make the trajectory of unscouted enemy labs visible to the player. See this discussion in Discord: https://discord.com/channels/197033481883222026/1190144799588745277

A possible solution is to make treegroups impervious to labs. It might even make sense considering the labs have "legs". But I'm not sure. What do others think?

Tree groups need to be visible on the reclaim overlay since they are important to reclaim on many maps. A more generalized solution that shows energy contents on the reclaim overlay instead of just mass would be preferable to showing some arbitrary dots. Though currently tree's are pretty much the only prop containing energy.

You can already determine the trajectory of units by noticing the trees falling over, or if the tree groups have enough mass they appear/disappear on the overlay already. You also already get free intel by seeing what bits of mass your opponent has reclaimed. 99.9% of people probably don't utilize this information, but weirdos like me and ZLO sometimes look at the falling trees to know there are labs coming, or to know precisely where to raid engineers that are reclaiming.

Having labs not break tree groups makes sense to me since they are tiny units and I don't think the deliberate breaking of tree groups is an important game mechanic anyway.

@thomashiatt They are not tiny, selen is the same height as a tree, it's impossible for such a vehicle to not break trees on passage.

What if it’s made of a super advanced light material

@robustness said in Scouts and labs should not break tree groups:

[...] there is no such problem on the gap [...]

What more needs to be said?!
Jokes aside i think it will be a massive improvement if there was (1) for example a small yellow dot in the middle of tree groups (basically something you only see if you are looking for it) and if (2) tree groups do not get broken by small, fast, raiding units (labs, scouts)