Engineering Stations

[Al]

Interesting comment on one of the Youtube videos about Engineering Stations. What do you think?

If you're going to have engineering stations, make sure to add an option that lets them rebuild structures that have been destroyed within their radius. This way building a defensive line using defense towers and engineering stations can actually be viable and low-maintenance just like the infinite build-queue feature is for units. Otherwise maintaining a massive defensive line made up of defense turrets will become too tedious and energy consuming and you will just resort to factories producing infinite units.

This way engineering stations that are within each other's radius can infinitely re-build themselves (given you have the economy) giving you a semi-automatization of your defensive perimeter.

It will also allow the maintenance of your base to be a lot smoother resulting in an exact reconstruction of the outline of your base, in case you get attacked and your engineering stations survive. This way each engineering station will be responsible for the maintenance and re-construction of a small sector of your base and will become incredibly valuable assets to protect(especially when your base is massive). They will remember where everything is, unless you personally delete the structure.

You should be able to turn them off and on again to save resources. You should be able to see all the things they are going to rebuild by pressing "shift" like in supcom. And maybe if you click on a building they are going to rebuild, make they build that one first.

They should be available at T2 and at T3 their radius and build speeds increase.

If 2 engineering stations have the same building in their queue, they can build it together. T2 ES(Engineering station) should only be allowed to rebuild T2 structures, but a T3 ES can rebuild T2 structures more quickly. A T2 ES can assist a T3 ES rebuilding the same structure.

You should be able to upgrade each ES to an above tech by clicking on it just like metal extractors. That way you don't have to replace them when upgrading your base (would be annoying).

One faction should have experimental T4 ES, that surpasses all the other ES of the game. Although it may be too op. If you implement these structures like I stated above, they will become one of the most essential structures in the game, and the game (especially late game) will revolve around them a lot. So maybe one faction having a T4 ES would be too much. But ALL factions should have the ES or they will have a severe disadvantage.

I think if you put this above idea in your game, it would greatly distinguish it from it's contemporaries while adding such a big QOL feature as to make it an instant staple when talking about SANCTUARY and other games like it. It would make the game unique and imo would be a big step forward in base management, automation and logistics handling. Your role will no longer be to annoyingly rebuild everything in your base but to "supervise" it kind of like Factorio.

This will also mean the ES will maintain crucial relevance for the whole match and be among your most guarded structures. Making it an essential way to cripple a base in the long run.

If you make them, make sure to design them to be rather big and easily identifiable. also I think they should be half as big as a factory and maybe half the radius of a T1 defense at T3. They should be quite expensive. Radius should be big. I think a big base should have at least 3 of them to signify its stature and progression.

If an ES gets destroyed and rebuilt by another ES, it should not regain its memory in my opinion or getting through bases would become too annoying and slow. Although if you added the option for them to regain the memory of all the structures in its database before being destroyed, I would certainly always enable the option, because I love automation and I'm lazy like that. Id love to see it xD

Please consider.

 

[superbazzooka]

I had some extra points too, I'll leave them here:


-It would allow you to take bigger risks because you know your base can take a beating.
-The game will be more focused on Attack rather than defense, resulting in more engagements, because your base should be able to take care of itself.
-It doesn't change the flow of gameplay too much because its just adding one structure to your build queue.
-It would allow much more destruction over the course of a match and less need to micro manage repairs.
-Matches would actually lead into the late game a bit more giving you more chances to use the full arsenal the game offers.
-ES would become a focal point within a base giving you a clear target instead of not knowing what to attack and wasting time.


-I believe you should be able to turn the rebuild function off in the settings menu if you like shorter matches.
-Late game bases will be more difficult to destroy, but because you will have more faith in your base defending itself, you will feel like attacking a lot more.
-It makes the game safer, and you are more likely to see dangerous and risky plays because you have more of a backbone to stand on.

-it would also make artillery a bit less of a game ender which is good imo. Also the effort required to place one is low (for the player) , but the rewards and gameplay benefits imo are great.

Basically you're trading attack power for defense. But this will allow more skirmishes to happen, and that's the fun part.

That being said, this will also limit some game ending strategies. Trying to end the game post ES will be a lot harder and might drag on matches depending on how effective they are at construction.
I think that there will be a pocket of time between T2 and T3 where there aren't enough ES to really make a difference and you can still kill the opponent with a T1/T2 rush. So basically you'll be tied to the pre-T3 tech era if you want to end the game quickly, after that there will be a period of time where you have to build up, because you wont have enough strength to push through the ES defensive line. But it really depends on how effective they are. For example if you tag a bunch of engineers to assist the ES, that would be a great feature imo, but it would also reinforce the time limit you have for rushing. IMO its fine because the beauty of these games is the late game anyway.

Also if engineers could assist the ES, it would make bases feel alive and you would need far less useless clicking. just tag the engineers and watch them help the base out.

I think ES should only assist factories or other engineers when they are idle, their main goal should be to reconstruct destroyed structures. Once this is accomplished they should generally help their surroundings like a regular engineer on patrol.

Maybe there can be an option you can enable on an ES to make it so that it splits its reconstructive capabilities, rebuilding 2 or 3 structures at once. But now it seems a bit op.

Also watching your base defend and rebuild itself automatically would be so cool to see.

 

[Random Guy]

OK, my opinion on this :

"If you're going to have engineering stations, make sure to add an option that lets them rebuild structures that have been destroyed within their radius. This way building a defensive line using defense towers and engineering stations can actually be viable and low-maintenance just like the infinite build-queue feature is for units. Otherwise maintaining a massive defensive line made up of defense turrets will become too tedious and energy consuming and you will just resort to factories producing infinite units."

I see no reason to limit it to engineering stations. if feature is already there, it should be accessible to engineers too. Engineers being able to do it would be even better of QoL than just engineer stations. This is literally just like exclusives on Play Stations, where you try to force people buy Play Station because of God of War exclusive, instead of giving it to everyone including PC people, which obviously is so much more friendly. Why limit the usefulness of this awesome QoL features just in attempt to make engineer station more relevant?

"This will also mean the ES will maintain crucial relevance for the whole match and be among your most guarded structures. Making it an essential way to cripple a base in the long run."
Stupid nitpicking from me, but no, engineering station can not be be one of the most guarded structures, when you have tech centers, volatile power generators, t3/t4 artillery, nukes, etc.
And lets be real, if you are crippling a base, engineering station gets killed anyway, and if it isn't, the damage isn't gonna be severe.

"-It would allow you to take bigger risks because you know your base can take a beating. ""

This makes no sense. How does it allow you taking more risks? Your base is gonna get same amount of damage regardless of engineer station being there or not. Only difference is that it gets repaired by itself, and even then, it is not gonna be possible if you lost eco with this "risk". You would still be losing a lot with unsuccessful risk, only difference is that you don't have to waste APM repairing it. It is still in your interest to keep your base as safe as possible from any damage regardless of it repairing itself or not.

"-Matches would actually lead into the late game a bit more giving you more chances to use the full arsenal the game offers."

???? I fail to understand logic here. How does auto repair help you get into late game? It isn't gonna save you from poor army attack choices, or you missing a huge attack into your base or anything else. No auto repair is gonna save you from a nuke, or a snipe on mid, or your bad positioning of commander, a series of bad fights, upgrading late to next tier, not scaling eco enough, lack of defensive units or general bad macro. Many battles are lost even before your main base gets damaged, and if it does, you usually just do not have resources to recover from it properly.

"-ES would become a focal point within a base giving you a clear target instead of not knowing what to attack and wasting time. "

No? You have plenty of important targets inside bases to target, like mexes, power generators, tech centers, factories, nukes, anti-nukes, alloy/mass fabs, t3/t4 artillery, commander, excepnsive radars, drone launchers, Guard transmitters, etc. Like, if you can destroy entire base/huge chunk, there is no need to focus down ES, since it is gonna die anyway, but if you have enough forces to only focus down few targets, it has zero sense to kill ES, since what is it gonna do to the enemy? Majority of base around is still gonna be alive, he isn't gonna lose any key structure, eco or anything else of big importance. He could easily just repair ES and manually repair those few other dead buildings

Lets say you focus down just the engineering station, now what? Enemy isn't gonna care about engineering station if rest of the base is not damaged, and if it is, then you definitely did not lack valuable targets.

"-It makes the game safer, and you are more likely to see dangerous and risky plays because you have more of a backbone to stand on."

How so? If you play risky and enemy uses the opportunity, the damage would be severe, and to restore it you would need to waste resources, so technically, you would still be in severe negative. If enemy attacks into you, the chances are your local engineering station would be most likely dead too, and since you yourself said that engineering stations should not remember what buildings to rebuild after death, it makes the entire concept half useless. What is the point of such feature, if it can only handle minor-medium damage, which requires less APM to rebuild than severe-critical damage to your base?


"I think that there will be a pocket of time between T2 and T3 where there aren't enough ES to really make a difference and you can still kill the opponent with a T1/T2 rush. So basically you'll be tied to the pre-T3 tech era if you want to end the game quickly, after that there will be a period of time where you have to build up, because you wont have enough strength to push through the ES defensive line. But it really depends on how effective they are. For example if you tag a bunch of engineers to assist the ES, that would be a great feature imo, but it would also reinforce the time limit you have for rushing. IMO its fine because the beauty of these games is the late game anyway"


What?????? Look. I don't know what and how you are playing, but if your base is constantly being damaged by enemy during t1/t2 stage, you are doing something wrong. ES can not protect you from damage, it can only try and repair one instead of you. If you let enemy to constantly damage your base, you are losing the game anyway. All ES does it repair damage, which absolutely does not matter for a proper attack. Proper attack is supposed to deal severe damage to economy or key targets, If suddenly ES repairing stuff instead of player makes your attacks useless, they were futile anyway. Also, making defensive lines with ES's (considering they are expensive and big as you say) kinda does not make sense - it is cost inefficient. You can't just waste thousands of alloy on "autorepair", because enemy could just go eco and out macro you. No repairs are gonna save you if enemy just straight up breaks through you with huge army advantage.

You are severely overestimating the defensive usage of such autorepair


Over all my conclusion - ability to easily repair dead buildings is awesome, but in my opinion it is straight up bad to lock it behind engineering stations to try and make out of them a core building that they are not meant to be. This should also be available to engineers, so you can use this ability when you most need it - during huge destructions of your huge bases. Like with nukes for example - if one is flying towards your main base, almost everything will be gone, except your engineers that you can move away, and such a situation is the best use case of such feature - to not waste APM repairing your huge base. This feature is most useful for heavy damage, but the chances of ES surviving said heavy damage is minimal, especially if enemy actually focuses it down. Engineers MUST have this ability to actually use full potential of this feature when you most need it.
Besides, with your suggestion of making engineering stations bigger and more expensive, it means that you can't use this feature on many minor things, because lets be real - you aren't building one just for each of your 3 small bunkers that consist of a shield, radar, and couple of pds/AA's, but repairing them with engineers would make it so much easier and friendly. Doing so would also allow to make more smaller bases, instead of couple super huge ones.