Remove old engineer behavior in campaign

[Arular101]

This is a proposal to remove the old engineer behavior in campaign missions.

There are only two campaign missions (Allies 03a and b) with the old engineer behavior. The rest of the campaign missions (including Monster Tank Madness) has the external capturing. By changing it to the external capturing, the campaign experience will be unified with the skirmish/multiplayer experience.

Starting with Allies 03b.
There are four engineers on this map. The mission can be completed without ever using these engineers. In case the middle bridge is destroyed, but Tanya is still on the south of that bridge, the player needs to capture the sub pen to build the transport unit. (The flame tower defending the south of the base will get destroyed thanks to a script. Opening a way to capture the sub pen.)

The radar dome has a special function. If the radar dome gets captured, the whole map will be revealed.

The buildings are all damaged so the player only needs two engineers to capture a building, resulting that only two buildings can be captured.

Now the new situation. I restored the HP of the buildings back to 100%. The engineers can now capture all the buildings.

The cons about this change:
There is no decision needed anymore to consider which buildings to capture, and by potentially choosing the wrong building, having to start the game over again.

The pros about this change:
The player doesn’t need to start over again if the wrong buildings are captured. (Which is convenient because the mission can’t be saved.)
Unifies the engineer with the rest of the missions, skirmish and multiplayer.

Now Allies 03a.
There is one engineer on this map. The mission can be completed without ever using the engineer. The radar dome is the only building with a special function. If the radar dome gets captured, the whole map will be revealed. The rest of the buildings are useless to capture because there is no money to build something.

I replaced the engineer with a mechanic.

The cons about this change:
Cannot capture the radar dome to reveal the map. On a side note, I never knew this, and there is no indication that it will reveal the whole map. However, the mission could be easily scouted completely, making this function a little bit redundant.

The pros about this change:
Now the artillery can be repaired by the mechanic.
Unifies the engineer with the rest of the missions, skirmish and multiplayer.

[MustaphaTR]

I'm pretty sure, at least in original there was a money crate somewhere in 3a, which lets you build some infantry if you capture the barracks. Will rewatch my videos to check.

Edit: Looks like i played in 3b in my playthrough, i'll test the mission when i can.

[Arular101]

Yes, I think you are right. If it is only $500, then you could train 5 riflemen. But they are not useful because Tanya is superior in all cases.

[MustaphaTR]

Tested with PS Edition i had on my tablet with an emulator. Crate has 2k not 500 and is under the Technology Center.

Also i was complately unaware of the existance of the second base, i never used that route.

[abcdefg30]

We could replace the second medic (you already got one from the start anyway) with the mechanic and keep the engineer if we really wanted to retain both. On the other hand, I don't know if your artillery gets damaged that bad anyway. It's an artillery unit after all and doesn't need to face the enemy in close range combat (so even if it is damaged, there should be no problem).

There is no decision needed anymore to consider which buildings to capture [...]

That's why I introduced the old-style capturing in the first place. Not sure if I like that going away. Imho it was quite nice to be able to try new things out on each play-through and not being able to do all things at once (I'd even like to further expand those possibilities). Also, with the money crate you got at least enough money to base push using flame towers.

Unfortunately, I don't have a better/other idea on how to solve this issue.

[Arular101]

Tested with PS Edition i had on my tablet with an emulator. Crate has 2k not 500 and is under the Technology Center.

Alright, I tested Allies 03a in the original game. There is indeed a money crate containing 2000 credits in the “technology center”. However, in the OpenRA variant it is 500 credits.

There are some buildings that could be captured by shooting with the artillery on it till it has less than 25% HP.
Barracks: the player can train rifleman and grenadiers.
Construction yard: enough credits to build a power plant, barracks and indeed flame turrets. Keep in mind the construction yard cannot be redeployed to base push with flame turrets. An ore refinery could also be build, giving the option to build silos.
Kennel: can’t be captured.
Radar dome, war factory: if the building has less than 25% HP, the building gets immediately sold. So, the radar dome didn’t had the function to reveal the whole map.

In the OpenRA variant of this mission the money crate contains 500 credits. By the time I was in the first base, I had 376 credits from bounties. Resulting in a total of 876 credits.

Side note of how much of the map could be revealed:

On the other hand, I don't know if your artillery gets damaged that bad anyway. It's an artillery unit after all and doesn't need to face the enemy in close range combat (so even if it is damaged, there should be no problem).

Someone can maybe decided to go with the artillery in front of Tanya to soak up some damage. Just an idea.

About the b-variant of this mission. A bad decision could still be made. The money crate in the truck contains 500 credits, and I remember that I made 400 something of credits thanks to bounties. A transport costs 700 credits. So, a bad decision is made if someone invests in infantry to destroy the flame towers, resulting not enough credits to build a transport.

That's why I introduced the old-style capturing in the first place. Not sure if I like that going away. Imho it was quite nice to be able to try new things out on each play-through and not being able to do all things at once (I'd even like to further expand those possibilities). Also, with the money crate you got at least enough money to base push using flame towers.

Another idea is that the AI sells the buildings if an engineer is nearby like in the original game. Of course, under the condition that one or two buildings are already captured. This way, in Allies 03b, only two buildings can externally captured. For Allies 03a (and maybe also for 03b), only one building is allowed to externally capture. If the player want to capture more buildings, the buildings get sold. This behavior is also in line with the multiplayer experience. You never now if the opponent keeps an eye out if one of his buildings gets captured.

[abcdefg30]

Another idea is that the AI sells the buildings if an engineer is nearby like in the original game. Of course, under the condition that one or two buildings are already captured.

That sounds like a good idea.

[pchote]

Ping @abc013 @ltem @MustaphaTR @Smittytron. We want to get this in for the playtest, so some gameplay-oriented feedback/review would be appreciated.

[MustaphaTR]

Do we really need 4 engineers with external capture?

[Arular101]

No, but the player is rescuing a squad of engineers ^^

[Smittytron]

Didn't see any problems with game play in both missions. 👍

[MustaphaTR]

Other than what i said about engis. This looks good to me.

[abcdefg30]

Sorry, this is a 👎 from me. We're removing the engineer completely from 03a, still have @MustaphaTR's complaint and didn't address the "you can now capture everything" point.

[pchote]

@abcdefg30 are you proposing that we instead go back to the classic style capturing in all the campaign missions? Because i'd 👍 that.

[Arular101]

When I made this PR, I wasn't aware that @abcdefg30 made this mission. So altering something without asking was not nice from me. I'm sorry about that.

Later, I found out that Tanya can C4 a tank. And that was something what I also wanted to change. But that is, I think, also controversial.

The only reason why wanted to change these things is because I heard/read somewhere that it was an issue that they behaved differently. And to me, this could be a nice solution to unify the campaign with the skirmish/multiplayer, there is no other reason behind it.

And if this is not considered as an issue, then feel free to close this PR. It was worth a try. I had some fun altering these things, I hope that you guys had also fun playing this altered mission.

[pchote]

The real problem is that we don't have a unified plan on how we want the campaign to work. Some of us want to have a unified experience (one way or the other), while others like having unique twists on a mission by mission basis. Personally, I think your ideas here are great.

[pchote]

Lets bump this to Next + 1 so that we have more time to sort out a direction forward.

[abc013]

Looks good to me too 👍 .

[pchote]

[21:57:58] | <abcdefg30> anyway, not sure what speaks for the external capturing
[21:58:23] | <abcdefg30> actually, I think I'm on pchote's side with that, wouldn't oppose introducing the original capturing to mp as well

How much work would it take to flip back to the proper capturing style on all of the RA missions?

[abcdefg30]

When I made this PR, I wasn't aware that @abcdefg30 made this mission. So altering something without asking was not nice from me. I'm sorry about that.

No! Don't apologise for contributing! :) It's not like those are holy ground. (Well okay, they are my babies. :P) Actually, I think I should be the one apologizing as I didn't act on this earlier (i.e. thought you worked on the comments above and hence didn't ask/bother further).
I'm also not against this change in principle. I don't like the current implementation because it feels like removing options and replay value from those missions.

Later, I found out that Tanya can C4 a tank. And that was something what I also wanted to change. But that is, I think, also controversial.

Indeed. I would oppose such a change. (And have no idea at the moment how you could bring that with allies05a together.)

How much work would it take to flip back to the proper capturing style on all of the RA missions?

I don't think much work was needed at all. The only mission we would have to alter I can think of at the moment is Monster Tank Madness. And that shouldn't be hard (we already discussed the details on IRC).

[Arular101]

Alright, then I'm going to work on implementing the classic engineer in the campaign files. It should not be that much of work indeed. I have to test it a bit for things like the engineer you get when selling a conyard etc.

[MustaphaTR]

I'm not really sure about making campaign use Classic Engineer logic. Unifying campaign missions is better than current situation. But i would really prefer skirmish and campaign also matching. This 2 missions are really problematic with this tho.

Idea: Considering we have no AA in either mission. Why not make a Yak from out of the map kill the engi after we capture one building. Change amount of Engi to 1 on 3b too, as i said before. Maybe replace others with rifles. Edit: Actually that doesn't make much sense, if there were a Yak Soviets could use around, they would target Tanya, not a random engineer.

[pchote]

Unifying campaign missions is better than current situation.

We can do this by, for a start, adding a classic/external capture checkbox to the RA lobby options.

I am hoping for Next + 1 to combine and improve the two capture traits so that we can support (internal vs external) and (consumable vs reusable) as separate options on the trait.

@AoAGeneral in particular has been long arguing for a properly done external capture + consume option for TD, and ExternalCaptures.ConsumeActor: True isn't good enough as it is. After that is completed we could consider even flipping the default value of the option in RA to properly unify the campaign and MP experience.

[AoAGeneral]

External capture + Consumed is the best method in my opinion. It does a few main things:

Closest to the classic capture system.

Doesn't allow quick capture styles and instead allows AI and players to respond from things being captured.

Disallows quick sell offs or base moving to prevent capturing.

Re-usable engineers makes them incredibly higher value then what their cost is. (IE: An engineer is lost is a massive blow to builds compared to having an engineer who can only capture one thing once and must make new ones.)

[Arular101]

Guys, good news about this subject. I have this working:

Another idea is that the AI sells the buildings if an engineer is nearby like in the original game. Of course, under the condition that one or two buildings are already captured. This way, in Allies 03b, only two buildings can externally captured. For Allies 03a (and maybe also for 03b), only one building is allowed to externally capture. If the player want to capture more buildings, the buildings get sold. This behavior is also in line with the multiplayer experience. You never now if the opponent keeps an eye out if one of his buildings gets captured.

Will update this PR soon. This can be the solution for now.

External capture + consume is also nice, but will be hard to convince everybody. Although an option shouldn't be a problem.

[pchote]

External capture blocks selling, so how would that work? We don't want the AI selling its whole base just by running an engineer past its buildings!

[Arular101]

Yeah, I used the OnEnteredProximityTrigger and also set a flag for when a production building is captured. Example:

Trigger.OnEnteredProximityTrigger(USSRConstructionYard1.CenterPosition, WDist.New(1024 * 3), function(a, id)
	if a.Owner == player and a == PrisonedEngi and capturedBuilding then
		Trigger.RemoveProximityTrigger(id)
		USSRConstructionYard1.Sell()
	end
end)

Trigger.OnCapture(USSRConstructionYard1, function()
	capturedBuilding = true
end)

It is quite similar to the original:

There are some buildings that could be captured by shooting with the artillery on it till it has less than 25% HP.
Radar dome, war factory: if the building has less than 25% HP, the building gets immediately sold.

So, not a good idea?

[pchote]

IMO now that the idea of going back to the proper capturing system is on the table for the campaign that should be the preferred option.

There are votes against merging this

[reaperrr]

Removed from milestone since there's currently no clear decision yet, and it's not really a blocker, either.

[pchote]

I have a proof of concept for a conditional internal/external capture trait, which i'd like to think could turn into a PR within the next couple of months.

[Arular101]

I have a proof of concept for a conditional internal/external capture trait, which i'd like to think could turn into a PR within the next couple of months.

Looking forward to that. I think, and hope, that it will be a solution that everybody would like.

Removed from milestone since there's currently no clear decision yet, and it's not really a blocker, either.

I think it's okay to close this PR.