I have no idea how to do this kind of programming so I'll just make the suggestion and if someone sees value in the idea, feel free to implement it however you wish.
Here's the basic concept:
It's pretty widely agreed that the proper use of mass acquired via reclaim is to spend it on something that will increase economic production, as opposed to just spending it on tanks, for example. The game keeps track of mass that has been acquired via reclaim, but not how it's spent. Even though once mass has been reclaimed it becomes indistinguishable from mass acquired from mass extractors or any other source, I think a few simple rules for a few counters can give a player some indication of whether or not they are spending their reclaimed mass correctly.
The rules for "reclaim counters" might go something like this... there would be, say, 3 counters - "reclaim collected", "reclaim wasted", and "reclaim used" (ie. used properly):
- if 1 mass is reclaimed when the mass bar is not full, the "reclaim collected" counter goes up by 1
- if 1 mass is reclaimed when the mass bar is full, the "reclaim collected" counter does not go up, but the "reclaim wasted" counter goes up by 1
- if 1 mass is spent developing economy (building or upgrading extractors, storage, or generators, etc.) when the "reclaim collected" counter is greater than zero, the "reclaim collected" counter goes down by 1, and the "reclaim used" counter goes up by 1
- if 1 mass is spent on developing economy, and "reclaim collected" counter is zero, no change to any counter (there's nothing wrong with spending mass acquired from extraction on developing economy, assuming you have enough units to defend yourself, especially when that's all you have)
- if 1 mass is spent on anything other than developing economy (tanks?), and the mass bar is greater than the "reclaim collected" counter, no change to any counter (there's nothing wrong with spending mass acquired via extraction, etc., on tanks, and any mass above the "reclaim collected" counter could only have been acquired via extraction, etc.)
- if 1 mass is spent on anything other than developing economy, and the mass bar is equal to the "reclaim collected" counter (it should never be less, if the counters work properly), the "reclaim collected" counter goes down by 1 and the "reclaim wasted" counter goes up by 1
That's the basic idea. Maybe there should be options to include other things like factories, intel structures, etc. I think there's an argument to be made that building a factory or a radar using reclaim is better than spending it on tanks.
I welcome any thoughts, comments, suggestions, and especially someone taking on the coding. I have no ability to help beyond the basic concept. Thank you.