WTFeature: Capture Speed

[lurker]

Should this arbitrary math on capture speed be kept or purged?
captureProgressTemp = captureProgress + 1.0f / (150 + buildTime / captureSpeed * (health + maxHealth) / maxHealth*0.4f);

[Pxtl]

O_o

That sure is a lot of random constants. I mean, I could see wanting to include (current-health/max-health) and the unit cost (build time???) in the formula, but that's just... wtf? Where the hell does that 150 come from?

Reformatting to sane:

captureProgress + 1 / [150 + 0.4 * (1 + health/max) / capturespeed]

whiskey tango foxtrot.

[Argh]

Should this arbitrary math on capture speed be kept or purged?

Purged!

Even though it will screw up P.U.R.E.'s gameplay until it's adjusted to take that into account. I doubt most other games will even notice if it changes. It should just be a straight trade between the capturespeed and maxhealth, always, imho.

[Pxtl]

I'm curious about what the intent of capture-time is? Should it be dependant on the current health? Personally, I'd think it would be cool if it were easier to capture damaged units, but that's just me.

Or will it be handled the same as other systems, where you must capture the full maximum health of the unit?

[Tobi]

Reformatting to sane:

captureProgress + 1 / [150 + 0.4 * buildTime * (1 + health/max) / capturespeed]

whiskey tango foxtrot.

Fixed.

[el_matarife]

Make it accessible through Lua API or let the constants be set by the mod in some other way.

[zwzsg]

Keep but let it be configurable modwise by some FBI tag.

[lurker]

There's going to be a new lua callin in case any mod wants to implement inane behavior. I'd say no to configuration tags. It's either in or it's out, maybe with a tag to turn it on and off, but no more.

[Licho]

I already requested similar madness to be removed from feature reclaim.
Such random things with arbitrary constants should not be in generic engine imo.

[REVENGE]

Make it accessible through Lua API or let the constants be set by the mod in some other way.

Technically you can already implement your own capture system via lua (ie my capture gun).

What I'd like to see is some option for including capture progress decay, although technically you could probably write a gadget to diy.

[lurker]

zwzsg, why do you want it kept?
Does anyone else want it kept?

[zwzsg]

Just because I'm concerned that it might break some unmaintened mod, somewhere, somehow, and no one would know nor care about it.

[imbaczek]

price of progress.

imho get rid of it, replace with something sane, add AllowCapture/Repair/Reclaim/ConstructionStep, deprecate AllowBuildStep.

[lurker]

Already have more calls there that mostly done, but why split up Build into two parts?

[imbaczek]

because when the other calls are in place, AllowBuildStep should either change it's semantics or be redundant (if it does what i think it does, ie. works both on build and repair.)

[lurker]

It's only for build and unbuild (reclaim). There would be a new one for repair. Unless I'm missing an execution path, but then the 'part' var that says what fraction of the unit doesn't make sense.

[imbaczek]

ah yes, build and reclaim. those should be separated anyway imho.

[Pxtl]

Just because I'm concerned that it might break some unmaintened mod, somewhere, somehow, and no one would know nor care about it.

As long as it's replaced with _some_ reasonably sane susbstitute, I'd say ditch it in favour of a more logical formula. I mean, there are lots of unmaintained mods, but I'm quite sure that none of them have extremely specific ideas about how long the capture process should take. In fact, the reverse case is more likely - that these forgotten mods have absurdly short or absurdly long capture times for a handful of units, with players totally unaware of this quirk.

Are there any mods other than CA that even make extensive use of the Capture command?

[zwzsg]

price of progress

Progress somewhat involve the idea of getting better, no? Not just getting different, break everything around you, and introduce a dozen bugs for good measure. I mean, sometimes I feel Spring is devolving, not progressing.

But for the particular point of capture speed, I'm with Pxtl (minus the CA plug.)

[Tobi]

The fact you are sometimes unable to see the progress does not mean it isn't there.