Return some percentage of resources on factory cancel order

[FtXCommando]

E stall is literally a gigantic game mechanic that punishes the player for trash play.

[moses_the_red]

E stall is literally a gigantic game mechanic that punishes the player for trash play.

I imagine that e stall is the result of a few things.

- Devs wanted power to be a target-able resource by opponents, so not having it had to have a downside.
- Devs wanted to ensure that not having power didn't completely gimp a side, so they wanted it to be possible to keep factories running.
- This means that the cost of a power outage had to be paid in reduced mass acquisition.

So its not clear that this mechanic was added as a means of intentionally screwing over players that can't manage their eco, rather than a natural consequence of a pay as you go economy where power is intended to be a useful target of enemy players.

I'd argue that the fact that it screwed over players was actually seen as a major downside of this system, which is why they changed it for Supcom 2. I think that if pressed I could produce an interview where Chris Taylor says as much.

Game mechanics that punish players are very much against the spirit of this game.

[Farmsletje]

Jagged you listening?

[biass]

So its not clear that this mechanic was added as a means of intentionally screwing over players that can't manage their eco, rather than a natural consequence of a pay as you go economy where power is intended to be a useful target of enemy players.

You overthink design. (and not dev,)

I'm not sure where you were in 2007 but every cookie cutter RTS game around that period had a power mechanic. And if you lost power in those games things stopped working. The only difference this game has over it's peers is a hashed conversion to SC's Flow Economy idea. Which was not necessarily a new original design either. My assumption was they looked at CNC in their competition research and decided "hey why don't we make power also like the mass?" and it worked out in testing.

This is off topic regardless.

For on topic: I am not sure I can see a point where any implementation of this would not be either overly frustrating for either you or the attacker.

[epic-bennis]

When I cancel a unit I usually do it because I want to immediately start making something I need. Leaving a wreck to reclaim when canceling would be the opposite of a QOL improvement in that case.

Oh i never meant that would like that either. That would be unplayable. But it would make more sense than getting back the resources from the cosmos, like blodir is suggesting.

I must have missed the part in supcom lore where mass disappears to the void when constructing units

The mass of something made is always smaller than the amount of mass needed to make that something. And the mass garnered from salvaging something can sometimes even be worth less or damaged. For example using liquid bases to separate the silicon plates above the connecting nozzle oxidizer in rocketry disassembly.

[Capt_Bucky_OHare]

I'm not sure where you were in 2007 but every cookie cutter RTS game around that period had a power mechanic. And if you lost power in those games things stopped working. The only difference this game has over it's peers is a hashed conversion to SC's Flow Economy idea. Which was not necessarily a new original design either. My assumption was they looked at CNC in their competition research and decided "hey why don't we make power also like the mass?" and it worked out in testing.

Two words: Total Annihilation. C'mon now, know your shit. Obviously this wasn't a new mechanic because dynamic power (and mass/metal) was one of the core things that was awesome about TA.

That said, the idea that power stall is a game mechanic designed to punish players is as ridiculous as thinking that factories / resource gatherers should work with no power...

[biass]

A game design team did literally no market research on it's competition because the lead designer had made a similar game in the past

why necro the thread to say this

That said, the idea that power stall is a game mechanic designed to punish players is as ridiculous as thinking that factories / resource gatherers should work with no power...

feel free to give your take while you're here