That's insane. No engie is going to pay 30 squad points (if they even have 30 squad points) just because they can't get their comm's attention. Not even 15 squad points, if they re-lower squad revive. And the unfortunate fact is, it sometimes isn't a good strategy to send your entire squad every place you go -- and often claiming refs is an example of this. When there's an undefended ref, sending one engineer is best. Making a squad-leader-only way to claim those refs doesn't make sense.
If this was put in game, the way to get refs is for a scout to drive around in a jeep so the commander drops the ref without the scout even stopping, and if the scout runs into an enemy refinery, then they just sab it and come back later for a drive by refinery. I personally find this to be silly. Also, I agree that this would only add to the confusingness of empires, and in so, scaring away precious noobs. Also, this means that it is essentially a "self building" refinery, and that would also be silly. the battle would mostly be around who can get close enough into construction range for the commander to drop the ref, and there would no longer be the penalty of throwing buildings into enemy territory. No other game has ever included anything like this and for a good reason. The ONLY idea I support in this thread is the OPTION for the commander to allow engineers to place refs. however, this could easily lead to lazy commanders who have a reduced incentive to keep an eye on the map.
I think you misunderstand. Engineers would still have to actually construct refineries with their tool, just like they do now.
Nah, it was horrible. One, there is a way to make this possible, and mappers can do it. Two, forcing every map to work this way would ruined a few maps. Namely the ones that don't suck
I would like for you to expand on your objections to the idea, unsubstantiated comments are worse than useless, they do not debate the merits of the idea but your position on it and if there are no complaints other than your dislike then perhaps you should reconsider your attitude.
I've already posted them in other threads. I thought the "We can already do this" though was a pretty substantial reason why the suggestion sucks.
Except it is not generally a very good reason. This suggestion is different from yours in how it maps onto game play, while your suggestion can be immediately tested to see how it works that is about the implementation rather than conception. Difficulty to code is not a reason for rejecting suggestions after all.
It doesn't need coding isn't difficult. The only examples I can give you come from the only other FPS/RTS that I can think of that works, which is natural selection. One team is pretty dependent upon the commander and placing buildings, ammo, etc. That team needs to have refs placed. The other team, each individual unit has the ability to place refineries, but gaining this ability makes the unit fairly useless for anything else except for healing. Also, many of the units on this team gain resources primarily from killing enemies, not from the res gain, as each individual has their own res pool and the res income is divided between the players. From my experience, the latter method of gaining res nodes does not work as well in larger games. People don't want to be base bitches. People don't want to be running around building refs. They want to be fighting. That's the main point in empires. Empires can be fun because it gives the task of thinking about what's going on to relatively few people, while allowing the vast majority to kill shit. At least that's my opinion. I like thinking about stuff from time to time, and it's fun to command, but if I want to just join a team and slaughter people, I can do that too. Because of my opinion, this suggestion sucks.
People really don't want to be sitting around an empty refinery point doing nothing but trying to get the commander's attention*. Funnily enough, fixing THAT was the entire point of this suggestion. That way, they can sooner move on to more interesting things, like building turrets that kill shit. *Though, I just realized that insulting the commander's mother is an option. (Also, those alien pigs in NS were nasty in the right hands.)
I understand the problems to this idea and somewhat agree, but I believe the OP and supporters have a much more reasoned argument. I like suggestion #1 and find #2 intriguing with #1 included and think that both engineers and commanders should summon refs and troops build whether by E-building or calculator .
Refineries where there is no fighting normaly only need to be built once, so if there is no fighting then there is no need to be there. The fact that open maps encourage "whack a mole" type gameplay is a problem with the maps and the inadiquacy of defence in general in empires. Any suggestion involving refineries is going to have these problems though, unless you are proposing a fundamental rework of how the resource side in empires works in which case please start a new thread on the subject.
a good comeback would be an APC rush and hoping the other team doesnt have homing/guided or lots of turrets.
