Reclaiming your own stuff?

[Xyx]

I have questions:

1. How efficient is it? If I put 10k mass into something and then reclaim it, how much do I get back?
2. Why do people Ctrl+K their stuff before reclaiming it? I just reclaim it "live". (Why) am I doing it wrong?
3. If a structure is almost dead, should I repair it or Ctrl+K it and rebuild it?
4. Isn't it dangerous to Ctrl+K a volatile structure such as a PGen? Is there a difference between "live" reclaiming and Ctrl+King it first?
5. What's this I hear about overkilling wreckages so that there's no reclaim left behind? Is that something I should do?
6. Is there an easier way to reclaim walls than one segment at a time?

[speed2]

This could answer a question or two

[Sprouto]

Reclaim values (for wreckage) for each unit are set in the unit blueprint. Each unit has a setting for mass, energy and a time modifier that governs how quickly it's wreck is reclaimed.

In almost ALL cases, a wreck will never get you back the full value of the original unit, while reclaiming a live unit will. However, reclaiming the live unit may take considerably longer.

Repairing will never take as many resources as building something new -- but, depending upon what built it, and what's repairing it, the time to repair it may be considerable (ie. - T3 unit being repaired by T1 engineer).

If you reclaim a live unit, there will be no 'Death' event and thus no volatility.

Wreckage is another form of 'unit' as far as the game is concerned. If a unit is 'overkilled' (takes a hit far in excess of it's health) there is a good chance that the unit will simply be vaporized and leave no wreck at all. Wrecks already on the field, can take damage as well and when they take enough, they will simply disappear.

In the stock game, there is no easier way to reclaim walls, but there is some discussion of 'area' commands that would give you the ability to define an area, and reclaim everything within it. Check the forums for this discussion.

Speed's video (above) tells the whole story.

[KeyBlue]

First a wreckage is a prop, this means that it behaves just like a rock, except for the posibility to build the same thing on top of it for 50%price in the case of building wreckages. Not really important, but just something that irked me.
Each prop has a certain amount of max hp (some % of original unit hp in the case of wreckages) And whenever a wreckage gets damaged for x% of its hp then it also loses x% of its reclaimable mass and energy. Wreckages will also contain less mass than is necessary to build it in the first place.

Reclaiming
You can't actually reclaim a 'live' unit. Doing a reclaim command on a 'live' unit will slowly remove its hp to 0, at which point the unit dies and becomes a wreckage. During this process you gain no resources. The dead unit now left behind a wreckage and from then on you actually start properly reclaiming and you gain mass. So you don't win anything by reclaiming a 'live' unit compared to first ctrl-king it, but sometimes ctrl-king can have nasty side-effects.


So if you can ctr-k something then that will remove the time needed to 'kill' the unit. So you basicly saved some time and got the mass faster.
Unfortunately wreckages can get damaged and with the hp loss comes mass loss. So if you have a volatile building next to reclaim or next to another unit that you want to reclaim at the same time, then ctr-king all of them is dangerous. Because the death damage will hit the reclaim (even wreckages of units that got ctrl-ked at the same time) and lower its value as explained before.
For example: ctrl-king a line of pgens to reclaim them, will give you less mass than reclaiming the 'live' pgens. (no death damage when it dies due to getting reclaimed)

So ideally you ctrl-k things to speed up the reclaim, while avoiding to damage any of the wrecks. It depends on the situation and what you want: less mass faster or more mass later.


Repairing
Usually one doesn't repair units, because it costs the same amount to build it to repair it. For example repairing 50% of a pgen will cost 50% of the mass and energy to build a pgen.
Since damaged units behave exactly the same there usually is no reason to repair them, because getting a second full hp one is usually better than having only 1 full hp one. So unless the unit is under threat you won't notice any difference from a 1hp pgen and a full hp pgen.
Ofcourse this also is situationally depend because if keeping that 1 unit alive will win/save the game then getting a 2nd one maybe isnt a good choice.

Repair vs rebuild? (if the unit really needs to be full hp for some reason)
If the unit is providing an important feature that you can't go without during the time it would take to rebuild it (for example a t3 pgen or defending experimantal unit) then ctrl-k and rebuild isn't an option. But if you can spare the feature for the rebuild time duration then ctrl-k can be a viable option.
Incase of mobile units you can simply reclaim it and get it for ~70% less mass, but you still pay 100% of the energy and build time. So this is usefull for getting your experimantals back to full hp for a lot less mass than repairing an almost dead one would.
Incase of buildings you have 2 options: reclaim the mass or build same thing on top of it to get it already build at 50% (i think it decreases whenever the wreck is damaged so 1hp wreck won't give much start %)

Why would you reclaim the mass?
You get more than 50% of the mass for reclaiming it compared to having to start at 50%. So if only mass is the limiting factor it is better to just reclaim it than to rebuild it. Beware of this when you rebuild t2-3 mexes and other important high mass buildings.

Why would you rebuild on top of the wreck?
When you are also limited in energy or buildpower, it could be better to just start at 50%. So if you getting that building back up is timesensitive then being able to shave off 50% of the buildtime can help you a lot. Could be useful when rebuilding t3 artillery or paragons.
Or when you lose that all important first t2-3pgen then you'll be in need of energy so getting a 50% energy discount will be very useful for getting it back up in reasonable time.


Fun facts about unfinished buildings
When reclaiming an unfinished building you do get all the mass and energy you put in it back. So if you reconsider your building plans it is good decision to reclaim the unfinished building instead of letting all the juicy mass and energy go to waste. Don't wait too long though because an unfinished building will decay when not being worked on so you're losing mass each tick.

This knowledge can be used in the tight situation where all your t2 or t3 pgens get sniped and now you are in total power stall. Just rebuild a pgen on top of each wreck and turn these 2 50% unfinished buildings into 1 finished building by reclaiming 1 of them so you can put the energy you gain from it into the other one.



Hope this helped you.

PS: f***, this took way too long... I only wanted to write 1-2 paragraphs... FAF wasting my time since 2015

[Exotic_Retard]

can i just say that i love how keyblue is always on point with his game knowledge & explanations

[KeyBlue]

can i just say that i love how keyblue is always on point with his game knowledge & explanations

Wow really? That means a lot coming from you. Thanks.

[Xyx]

Thank you all for being such a great help! Some of this stuff works in very unintuitive ways and I'm glad I asked.

This could answer a question or two

It certainly did, and more. Thank you! I'll be checking out your other tutorials as well.

You can't actually reclaim a 'live' unit. Doing a reclaim command on a 'live' unit will slowly remove its hp to 0, at which point the unit dies and becomes a wreckage. During this process you gain no resources.

Whaaaaaaaat!?!? I believe you (also because I saw it in speed2's video), but that makes no sense. So, if the Ctrl+K command did not exist, an ACU would "reclaim" faster by first shooting the structure with its gun. That is super unintuitive. Why would the game be set up like that?

You get more than 50% of the mass for reclaiming it compared to having to start at 50%. So if only mass is the limiting factor it is better to just reclaim it than to rebuild it.

So, if I understand this correctly...

1. If I reclaim the structure and then rebuild it, the net cost is 19% of the original mass (100%-81%, less if the wreck was damaged) but 100% power and 100% build time.
2. If I rebuild on top of the wreckage, the net cost is 50% of everything.

Right?

When reclaiming an unfinished building you do get all the mass and energy you put in it back. [...] This knowledge can be used in the tight situation where all your t2 or t3 pgens get sniped and now you are in total power stall. Just rebuild a pgen on top of each wreck and turn these 2 50% unfinished buildings into 1 finished building by reclaiming 1 of them so you can put the energy you gain from it into the other one.

So... rebuilding on top of the wreck insta-builds the first 50%, and because it's no longer a wreck, reclaiming that 50% provides not just mass but also energy. Whereas wrecks only give you mass when you reclaim them, right? That's going to come in handy!

[everywhere116]

Whaaaaaaaat!?!? I believe you (also because I saw it in speed2's video), but that makes no sense. So, if the Ctrl+K command did not exist, an ACU would "reclaim" faster by first shooting the structure with its gun. That is super unintuitive. Why would the game be set up like that?

Reclaiming a live unit takes the same amount of time that it would for that engineer or group of engineers to build it. For most things a T1 commander can damage a unit more quickly than they could by reclaiming it, but if you upgrade the commander to t2 or t3 then you might find situations where an ACU can reclaim a unit of building faater than it could kill it with its gun.

[angus000]

By the way, reclaiming a hydro with your t1 acu is faster than shooting at it.

[ZLO_RD]

Same with uef land factories and some other factories