Swallowed ship's cap change and auto-rebuilt engineers

[TechSY730]

When a sallower eats an engineer, the auto-rebuild mechanism considers the engineer not there anymore, and builds a new one. Problem is, if the maw is then popped, then those swallowed engineers come back (and start taking up ship cap again), and then you get a planet with like 2-3x times the number of engineers than you wanted. Especially an issue in the early game, where you don't have enough DPS to kill swallowers before they can nab your engineers.
Similar issue with remains rebuilders too.

I think this started happened when swallowed ships started not consuming ship cap, but it may have been an issue all along.

I would propose that engineers and remains rebuilders in maws on a planet still count towards "built" engineers on that planet. But that could lead to some ugly corner cases where you do want, say, 1 remains-rebuilders if all so far have been eaten so your turrets can get back up to kill the swallower.

I can think of two alternate solutions that would not have that downside:
-have engineers swallowed insta-self destruct, preferably ONLY if the total engineers of their type on their planet (swallowed and non-swallowed) > auto-build count on that planet
-making engineers and remains rebuilders swallow immune (which doesn't seem like a warranted buff IMO)



Tangentially, units not getting their orders back after being freed from a swallower remains somewhat annoying.

[keith.lamothe]

making engineers and remains rebuilders swallow immune (which doesn't seem like a warranted buff IMO)

I'll probably go with this one; it's not so much a buff as it is removing the need for the player to micro around this very specific interaction.  Honestly the swallowers should probably prioritize stuff that can shoot, anyway, and this helps with that.

Tangentially, units not getting their orders back after being freed from a swallower remains somewhat annoying.

Fair enough, though I'd rather wait until it's ok to start breaking stuff again before breaking the assumption that "ships entering a transport clear all their orders", as it's very case-by-case that a given order would still make sense after unloading, etc.

[TechSY730]

On second thought, making engineers swallow immune probably is a decent solution. It would mean engineer auto-FRD no longer becomes counter-productive when swallowers are around, and the orders being cleared thing is very visible, and annoying, with engineers.

Hey, as a short term workaround, if the "reclaimed ships go to rally point" control option is on, and a ship is feed from a swallower on a planet with a rally post rally like if it was just reclaimed?

Also, one of the controls description texts still mention tugs, not sure which one.

[Kahuna]

tugs

What's a tug?

[Aklyon]

tugs

What's a tug?

There were tugs at somepoint?

[TechSY730]

Not sure if you guys are joking, or not, as I think some of you were around during that time. But in case you didn't, and also for the benefit of newer player who were not:

WAY back in the day (like in the version 3.xxx days), mobile repairers, now mobile space docks, could build "tugs" that would seek out and tractor in your own (and allied if allied assist was enabled) ships with an HP below a certain threshold (the threshold depending on the kind of tug built) and would pull them close to the nearest mobile repairer. I think their was a tug class that keyed off of engine damage as well. It would release the ship once fully repaired. As it was a tractor, the ship would resume with its previous orders after it was released.

Sadly, as these tended to be kind of "finnicky", and from what I heard, they always were ever since they were introduced, they were removed before 4.000 IIRC.

It would be nice to see them back, as they did help make "low HP ship retreat micro" much less painful, but the gain for putting them back in may not be worth the dev cost of making them work well. IDK.

[Salamander]

I miss tugs! I loved them so much! When Golems degenerated and FF gens could go through wormholes, I'd send the mobile docks and their tugs in the follow-up support group and the little tugs would grab those golems and constantly drag them back for repair. It was funny as heck if disruptive.

I've always wanted them back. They had various thresholds, you'd build tugs for low engine health, low overall health, etc. I can't recall the exact details anymore but they used their pre-built criteria to decide who to yank back for repairs. I would love to see them return to us!


Maybe that could be the next expansion!

The Tugs Strike Back!

 

Oh I found this in an old post of mine about this!

"I love the Repair Stations, although I had to scrap my one tug as he kept grabbing the Armored Golem and pulling him back to the wormhole where I set up my repair and engineers on the assault! Watching the enormous Golem get pulled back by the tiny tug was hilarious though."

[Kahuna]

Well I bought AI War when it was 5.xyz version.

[Draco18s]

Well I bought AI War when it was 5.xyz version.

My first game was pre-3.0 (I don't know what version).
The game's changed a lot since then.