Like a constructable thing, kind of like how you build the towers in slaughtered. The refinery is already there, in a transparent state which you just have to build. Pros: Less spam for a refinery Commander doesn't have the trouble of placing refineries on maps where they are hard to place People won't block refineries More cash for stuff that is useful (tanks, research) Easier comebacks as refineries are free Emp_money becomes much more fun (is it even possible?) Cons: Less for the Commander to do (oh no!) Spams the suggestion forum
I don't really see the need to make it that way. Plus commanders need to pay attention to the team, and should be aware of requests to drop refs. Edit: Refs costing res does add a bit of strategy to elements of certain maps at the beginning.
I don't like the idea of free refineries, if they don't cost 100 res you don't really have to defend them, you just have to reclaim them in case of someone destroyed one behind your lines, etc. if a commander can't drop refs he's not fit to be a commander anyway an unfinished ref would also be a nice hiding place for scouts, better: make placing a ref shove ppl under the ref away (like when building these slaughtered towers)
Wasn't there a suggestion a few weeks ago, that makes refinerie points capturable? Thought that was a good one, maybe having to cap and then some blueprint for the refinerie
Refineries gives cash, that's a pretty legit reason to protect them, free or not. Also a refinery not in your hands is a refinery in your enemies' hands. That's what you usually needs to do with refineries, this only causes them to be free and you don't have to sit and spam ref ref ref ref ref for 2 minutes. Scouts can hide anywhere. And they still suck. This is to remove the "ref here com" spam that you always have to type for about every refinery there is in the whole game, usually it takes at least 1-2 minutes before you get one.
1. Emp_money is a shit map with shit gameplay. 2. As above posters say, placing refs is an element of strategy, since in their initial state, unbuilt, they are very vulnerable. Expansions, like in every RTS game can't be free, otherwise you are taking no risk placing them. 3. Commander has even less to do, which leads to even more boomtanking. This would work out if the comm was removed, research was automated, and the game would be a pure FPS.
You take no risk anyway, aside from some stupid-ass maps that give you no money at the start, when would you ever not want to place a ref? If you can cap a refinery you always should because they pay back their cost almost instantly and the earlier you get a res advantage the better.
I like this idea because it reduces the skill gap between new and experienced comms. I've been on numerous teams where we lost because the comm was new and inexperienced. I've sat in front of a res point for 5 mins before a comm has dropped the ref. Also, if your a good comm, you will always find something to do. I find that since I have more time as comm from not having to spam wallhax, I actually have time to micro better. Also, I have more time to build base defenses/buildings so I can have my team always on the front line.
A totally different Idea Make it so infantry can place refs. They hit e near a ref or maybe make it part of the engy tool, this causes a pop-up (large enough to be seen, small enough to be willfully ignored for half a minute if your Commander is in intense micro or something...) which optimally would be green if you have over 100 res and red if below. Something along the lines "A player wants to build refinery #_, (A1)/ [Accept] [Reject]... Just another GUI widget to be requested. The OP's proposal might work, but if you try to implement it, do it on a lone test map. Remember to consider the full effects of the current system - (as above)un-built refineries are vulnerable; refineries are a 100 res risky investment; destroyed refineries must clear before new ones are placed; refineries can be blocked by ammoz-boxes-which-actually-have-a-placement-denial-zone-larger-than-the-box-itself-WHAT-THE-FUCK-the-Devs-inentionally-improved-denying-refineries-by-placing-an-ammo-box-NEAR-it?. Also remember that RES varies on map and based on server size, and on some 100 res is a LOT and you need to keep a ref up for a minute to get that back.
I preferred this way of dealing with refineries. But anything which means that as a com I have do fewer stupid jobs is good. Free refineries are good, 100 res is nothing and the initial cost is not a barrier except in the early game or when one team is behind. In all the other cases losing the ref hurts because you lose the res flow, although this cost is not something that people are normally going to be bothered to calculate it is usually far more than the 100 res the ref costs. Has anyone other than me noticed that the same topics crop up on a loop, this is at least the third time these same suggestions for dealing with refs have come up, the interesting thing is that the same solutions seem to be independently rethought up each time.
Problems: If anyone or engy can place it, then people might place refineries before, say, a barracks. Part of the strategy of refineries is when to place it. the strategic part of this depends greatly on how the mapper mapped the map. It is much more relevant in maps like canyon, where placing the northern refinery as BE or the southern refinery as NF may give you an advantage but allow the enemy to push between you and your base, allowing them to corner you off. If you skip building the refinery right away and build a barracks and turrets first, you lose some res for the moment but you secure the entire area behind you, including the refinery. Otherwise, if the mappers want maps to have this, they need to use a flag capturing system similar to king. Capturing a flag places a refinery. A refinery being placed disables the flag cap. The flag cap is re enabled upon refinery death. Cap time would be 30 seconds, the amount of time it takes for the old refinery husk to go away. Players to capture would be how much res the refinery is worth. ^that is the only real solution to this problem, and should only be used where refinery positions are NOT the focus of areas on the map, like a map with refinery's behind a defined chokepoint in an area where one team has dominance by design. In other words, money. Crossroads may fall into this category, but the refineries that give the most advantage are in a contested region. Again, refineries draw quite a bit of focus in empires, and taking control from the commander takes almost all of his ability to focus the team.
I could only support this if we pimped out the commander role, and soon. While I supported the removal of targets and this idea, with both taken and nothing added, the commander role would be too toned down. I will support this, or the flag capture/king way, or the inf can place refs, but only only after the commander gets more things to do.
Ress loss if you loose a ref and build it again in 30 sec (which is plenty of time)=30 ress (assuming 1res/sec) cost for the ref=100, thus you reduce the costs to one fourth in this case, saying that the ref will be lost twice in average cause of scouts sabotaging them brings the question up if a jeeps worth of res really is a reason to defend the ref with turrets or similar yeah but not being able to spot one hiding inside an unbuild ref at all is worse then almost not being able to spot him ...
Stupidcomprimisrtokeepmoronshappy: An engineer can place a ref, but it costs that engie 100 personal res. Happy? No? Well, I tried.
Why do refs have to cost? What's stopping the scouts from saboaging the refineries right now? Why would it be more worth to place turrets and shit around the refineries in the setup we have now if they are anyway just going to be sabotaged by scouts. I can understand if you want to try all the "no" answers for the suggeston, but this is starting to feel like a "We can't have workers automine from the rallypoint in Starcaft I because we are pro and the noobs are not"
Nothing is stopping them completly, but turrets hinder them from running, which costs tons of time they could have used instead to be useful and kill twice if not 3 times as much of your refs, but you will loose the turrets most likly, if the refs aren't worth anything why bothering to drop turrets? just rebuild the ref after you lost them .... Sorry, what? I don't try all the "no" answers, I'm not even against the whole suggestion, I'm just against the idea of free refs, and I explained why it is crap imo. It's NOT me coming up with something new, it's YOU, so either bring a real reason for free refs or forget about them tbh
The strategic part of ref placing only matters in the very early game and it is detrimental to the game as a whole. Placing your starting buildings in a different order rarely has a significant effect on the game, but when it does it can be huge. I do not want more games that are lost within the first 5 minutes but it takes another 30 to actually win. Also I disagree with your assessment of the Canyon refs, certainly in the north it always seems to be built by one engineer while the rest of the north group defends the pass. In the south the geography makes it more difficult, but being able to get your team not to camp a defensive position is vital for success on any map. If you actually read the thread I linked to the refineries would not cost any money to place, so there would be no way for the engineer to grief his team. As it is clear that both suggestions are meant to be taken together rather than separately. Moving it to a flag based system will only encourage the increased use of scouts in jeeps, playing whack a mole with scouts is already bad enough on open maps like duststorm, having to wait 30 to recapture a ref node will only make things more irritating. The ability of vehicles to roll around destroy a ref node, capture it and move on without getting out of the vehicle. Also this system will remove the same 'strategy' that the system I proposed will, making me unsure what you meant by your first 2 paragraphs. I do certainly disagree with your assertion that this is the only way to fix refineries, however I do want to not have to deal with them as a commander. While I de feel that this is the weaker solution it is certainly better than the current situation. The main thing that the commander needs is to have fewer jobs and more tools. As a commander I need better tools to be able to organise, inform and direct the players that I command. I DO NOT NEED MORE STUPID JOBS THAT REQUIRE NO THOUGHT. Keeping research running, dropping refineries on captured res nodes and spamming targets are all things that the commander needed to do to win, but they require no thought to do (fortunately the last is no longer with us, although its absence does leave an annoying gap). Instead I need ways to be able to tell my team what I want them to do, so they at least have a chance of doing it. I need ways to better relay the information I have to my troops and ways for them to better relay information to each other. Spamming the microphone means that only one group at a time can coordinate and the weakness of that was exposed during the PUG, when FN's use of the voice channel to coordinate attacks meant that I had to rely on those attacks to succeed as it was very difficult for me to organise anything else.
