An Idea For Capturing Tech Buildings

[super_gsx]

Okay so I thought it was this way by default already, but after playing it a little bit, I realized I was wrong.

The way tech buildings work now is you go up and repair them until the health goes down and then back up again. You can do it half way and then walk away and come back later to finish the job.

The way I think they should work, you should have to repair it 100% with no interruptions (have it automatically go back down when you stop repairing it) in order to capture it. If you walk away, it goes back to what it was before.

Also, the whole health thing is stupid and confusing. Why does the building even have health if you can't damage it? It should be more like the beacon placement, where it doesn't actually have health, but you have to repair it for a certain amount of time in order to capture it (or to place the beacon). That doesn't mean it's a progress bar that shows up in the HUD. No that's an awful idea. By all means, keep the tech building's MCT. That's cool. But change how it works.

Also, the idea that it goes down and then back up again just makes no sense. Why doesn't it just do one thing and then be captured? It's not health. You can't damage it...

I think the tech buildings should be more like how "Control Points" are in TF2 (funny how that game always comes up...). It should be an effort to capture them. Not just one person goes and does some work, then gets killed and a second person later comes and finishes it. No, it should take a whole team of guys to capture a point, and it should be done all at once. That's what I think...

[Daedhart]

I cant say I disagree with you on most points, but the idea that you have to keep repairing it or you lose it is bad. There is usually too much going on to expect somebody to have to stand still for that long, and if the engi is strafing back and forth and jumping to avoid sniper and other fire, it just takes one whoopsy off the side and its back to square one.

[super_gsx]

I cant say I disagree with you on most points, but the idea that you have to keep repairing it or you lose it is bad. There is usually too much going on to expect somebody to have to stand still for that long, and if the engi is strafing back and forth and jumping to avoid sniper and other fire, it just takes one whoopsy off the side and its back to square one.

No, I don't mean the engineer should stand still the whole time. That would suck. No, keep the jumping around. Keep it all. Just make it so that if he breaks the stream with the MCT, it starts to go back down to zero.

Also "keep repairing it or you lose it" isn't what I said either. It should be captured once and then ignored until the other team tries to capture it. Same as it already is. Just change the capturing process.

[Daedhart]

I cant say I disagree with you on most points, but the idea that you have to keep repairing it or you lose it is bad. There is usually too much going on to expect somebody to have to stand still for that long, and if the engi is strafing back and forth and jumping to avoid sniper and other fire, it just takes one whoopsy off the side and its back to square one.

No, I don't mean the engineer should stand still the whole time. That would suck. No, keep the jumping around. Keep it all. Just make it so that if he breaks the stream with the MCT, it starts to go back down to zero.

Also "keep repairing it or you lose it" isn't what I said either. It should be captured once and then ignored until the other team tries to capture it. Same as it already is. Just change the capturing process.

Hmm, perhaps. I still cant say I like it, since the current method makes it very similar to building health in that the team who captured it can easily neglect it and leave it low health so that a cheeky member of the opposite team can come in and quickly capture it...or at the very least remove its ownership.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

Tech buildings should slowly turn neutral if they aren't being 'maintained' over the course of a few minutes.

[ZidaneA]

There is usually too much going on to expect somebody to have to stand still for that long

I agree. I like the way it works now and I do not think that mechanic should become more like in TF2..

[Robby609]

Tech buildings should slowly turn neutral if they aren't being 'maintained' over the course of a few minutes.

That sounds great!

[Taramafor]

The tech buildings don't have "health". If you played any other game with control points it makes perfect sense. You "repair" it to capture it. You set it from a neutral state to the state of your side (thereby flipping it). If said building is already captured, it goes back to a neutral state first (as it should) before flipping it to your side. Although I do think the bar should go down to a neutral state if it isn't flipped fully. Mantaining the tech building sounds like an ok idea, provided it's every 5-10 mins or something and not 1-2. Either way, holding the silos gives those extra credits which give your side the extra edge and more people need to capture them more often. Even more so in longer games.

[SFJake]

Whats the problem? What are we trying to fix with this her?

I'd be much more interested in being able to "steal" the tech building reliably, which would naturally make people defend it since it would be easy to steal, and something that forces it to stay this way for a while (so having the field doesn't equal having the building forever).

Otherwise in this topic I really just see weird, arbitrary changes, not wrong or right, just not sure what we're trying to accomplish here. Having a guy forced to be on the silo at all time is way overkill, for instance, and making capture more difficult isn't something I see as good.

[Noodlesocks]

A decay if not fully captured would be a good idea. Though if I am being honest, this feel like nitpicking.

[DKrumpp]

Would it be possible to allow other classes to capture tech buildings a la Battlefield control point style? Currently, the engineer seems to hog all the roles that really should be spread out amongst more classes.

[Daedhart]

Tech buildings should slowly turn neutral if they aren't being 'maintained' over the course of a few minutes.

I dunno, I think Id need to see how it affected gameplay before I could agree/disagree.

[N3tRunn3r]

Tech buildings should slowly turn neutral if they aren't being 'maintained' over the course of a few minutes.

This is a nice idea.

Also my suggestion is to move infront of the MCT and hold the USE-key for a certain time until it has been captured. Something around 20 or 25 seconds. Multiple Engineers aint be able to capture it faster, only one unit per capturing process should be able to use this MCT.

If a unit dies before the capturing process ends, the next one (allied or foe) will be able to continue the process. Then _ERROR_XD's idea comes infront. If a Tech Building hasnt been captured but aborted, it moves back to neutral status.

IMO there shouldnt be 3 parts as it actually is. Nod -> Neutral -> GDI

If Nod has captured it and GDI wants it back, simply: Nod (100% to 0%) -> GDI (0% to 100%)

If Nod/GDI status is less than 100% -> slowly returns to 0% of a faction, then from 0% to 100% neutral.

And later: Neutral (x% to 0%) -> Nod/GDI (0% to 100%)

[super_gsx]

Well, I just thought the way it looks when tech buildings are captured is odd. The health (neutral) goes down to zero and then it's captured (at zero health), and then the new health goes back up to 100%. It's almost like the repair gun is doing two different things. I'm not saying it's a legitimate problem to the game. It's just odd. It seems like the GUI for capturing should be a little different from repairing. The way it is seems a little non-creative and even last-minute.

And it's odd that it says "tech building captured" before you even finish the job; repairing it to 100% health.

Also the fact that you can captured it half way, get killed, respawn, and then go capture it the rest of the way. I don't like that. I think if you get sniped while trying to capture it, all your efforts should fail. The other team shouldn't have to send their engineer to re-capture it when you just keep repairing it little-by-little and getting killed. Know what I mean? Now that does seem like a bit of a problem to me. If you can fight off the engineers, you should be controlling the building. But the way it is, they can slowly get it back (with free characters) no matter how annoying it is.

SO!! Let me be more clear on what I want. When the tech building is NEUTRAL:

1 - It should require twice the amount of "capturing", but then turn green with 100% health (ultimately, still the same amount of capturing).

2 - Like the CnC RTS games, It should require continuous or semi-continuous repairing to be captured. If the engineer gets killed or runs away for a long time (and it's still neutral), all or most of his work should be foiled by the time he comes back to try again. This way if a tech building is left alone and neutral, it should always go back to zero.

3 - Capture speed should be proportional to the amount of engineers or hotties/techies repairing it. That goes without saying.

When the tech building is RED:

1 - It should require the exact same amount of "capturing" as when it's neutral, but then switch directly to green with 100% health. Once the tech building is no longer neutral, it should never go back to begin neutral. (Unless you want to implement what _ERROR_ said - that they should slowly lose "health" and go back to neutral. I'm not so sure about that, but it might be a good idea too.)

2 - Capturing a red tech building should be exactly like capturing a neutral tech building: it should take continuous or semi-continuous rep fire.

I do see the point you guys have. With my idea, tech buildings can never lose "capture health", and must be either 100% GDI or 100% Nod. This completely diminishes the point of "capture-repairing" tech buildings. But if you remember the original RTS games, that's exactly how it worked; they had health because they could be destroyed, but they didn't have this "capture health" thing... And tech buildings were not in Ren, so I just assume you're getting your ideas from elsewhere in the CnC universe. To give them traditional health just doesn't make much sense with the scope of things in this game, so I understand that.

But then... this just sparked an interesting and mindboggling idea. Maybe it's crazy... But what if we could capture the enemy team's buildings and create their vehicles or infantry, just like in the RTS games!!!??? WOAH. Think about it. It might ruin the Command and Conquer mode, but we could make a new mode for it. Maybe not though. Lol I'm just thinking too much.

[goztow]

I kind of like the idea that you cannot leave the neutral mct half way repaired butbthen only when the building is neutral. When it is not neutral, one should be encouraged to steal it.

Maybe something a bit crazy... make it take less long when Gdi's repairing it from Nod to neutral and longer for the remaining time from neutral to Gdi. The total time should be the same. This way you have more chance of the building becoming neutral again.

[Daedhart]

I kind of like the idea that you cannot leave the neutral mct half way repaired butbthen only when the building is neutral. When it is not neutral, one should be encouraged to steal it.

Maybe something a bit crazy... make it take less long when Gdi's repairing it from Nod to neutral and longer for the remaining time from neutral to Gdi. The total time should be the same. This way you have more chance of the building becoming neutral again.

I agree. It should be really simple to run up and decapture it from the enemy. That should be a good strategy to break a GDI lockdown of the field on...Field.