Station footprint hunting

posted on July 24th, 2010, 9:39 pm

ah yep. thats on todo for fixing

you can fix that? it appears i have grossly underestimated your abilities which can only mean fo is gonna be even more awesome than i ever thought.

i think a partial solution at least would be to make the build footprint of any station go grey outside of visual range of the constructor. so that to scan an area with footprints would require the actual constructor to go there. and con ships are sloooooooow and would get blown up if u didnt leave your fleet there too.

it wouldnt stop scanning your own base for scouts/silly harassing fleets, but as you said scouts can be put in a naturally red unbuildable zone such as near a building.

lol the micro for this is so difficult

actually it isnt really. just hotkey a conship, push F1 for starbase footprint, you dont need the res to get the footprint, res is deducted when con ship tries to start building. then scan over areas with no stuff, ie not moons or asteroids. it is easy.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 9:45 pm

ah yep. thats on todo for fixing

Excellent to hear  :thumbsup:

(I gave in and updated the guide for some of the "known" but "better left alone" bugs  :sweatdrop:)

you can fix that? it appears i have grossly underestimated your abilities which can only mean fo is gonna be even more awesome than i ever thought.

i think a partial solution at least would be to make the build footprint of any station go grey outside of visual range of the constructor. so that to scan an area with footprints would require the actual constructor to go there. and con ships are sloooooooow and would get blown up if u didnt leave your fleet there too.

it wouldnt stop scanning your own base for scouts/silly harassing fleets, but as you said scouts can be put in a naturally red unbuildable zone such as near a building.

actually it isnt really. just hotkey a conship, push F1 for starbase footprint, you dont need the res to get the footprint, res is deducted when con ship tries to start building. then scan over areas with no stuff, ie not moons or asteroids. it is easy.

I would detest that first solution immensely as I select buildings from across the map  . It would dramatically slow down building many times  . I think it should just be feasible that you can build 'ontop' of cloaked units, just bumping them out of the way or something 

posted on July 24th, 2010, 9:55 pm

I agree, just bumping the ship out of the way would be preferable. I always hated the build distance limit from C&C, and wouldn't want FO tainted by that same flaw.

It's also more realistic, since any cloaked ship in the built area would move to avoid being hit by the construction pods and their welding beams (not to mention being crushed by the station).

[Anonymous]

posted on July 24th, 2010, 10:12 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on July 24th, 2010, 10:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the bumping option is harder to do i believe, as what if the game bumps a ship into a blocking zone?

or bumps you clean through an asteroid field lol.

or bumps you into a decloak ping. it could be messy.

my first solution isnt that i dont think. u can only build in places u have explored, meaning you know that you are not placing a mining station on a moon/asteroid field. so the grey footprint wouldnt matter unless there was a cloaked ship there, in which case building would fail when you arrived.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 10:31 pm

i know about this bug a while now. wasn't sure how to solve it. i guess the best option that station placement isn't blocked by vessels in general anymore. doesn't make much sense anyway. as soon as construction has begun you can move ships in the construction area again anyway. without crafts blocking constructions, when the station construction finishes, ships would be moved out of the way (by 'jumping' a few units away from the station). other method would be to limit that to cloaked vessels. what do you guys think?

posted on July 24th, 2010, 10:34 pm

the idea of making ships no longer block would fix the bug, but then if u accidentaly built on top of your own ship it would be difficult to select it afterwards, and that ship would sit there. i guess u could click idle unit a lot until its selected lol

the jumping idea sounds good, but it would need to be very intricately done to stop units being jumped into silly places like asteroids and pings etc. could it be coded to only jump units to empty space?

posted on July 24th, 2010, 10:43 pm

That wouldn't happen, Myles.  I've seen other FO mods where they've dealt with the constructor issue and moving a few spaces away would be fine.  I personally like the idea of no ships blocking, as sometimes a miner or some other vessel would screw up construction.  But if it's just cloaking ships, I'm fine with that too.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 10:48 pm

as it is now, you currently just can't start a station construction in a place where a vessel is. after it is has started, you are able to move ships in the construction area anyway. so the only change that fix would bring is that you can start the construction, even if there is a craft in the area you start a station construction.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 10:53 pm

as it is now, you currently just can't start a station construction in a place where a vessel is. after it is has started, you are able to move ships in the construction area anyway. so the only change that fix would bring is that you can start the construction, even if there is a craft in the area you start a station construction.

i think i would be largely happy with that fix.

thinking about it in more detail, i doubt i would ever have a ship sitting in the way of building. plus miners would obstruct the construction of their own docks, and con ships wouldnt block u building the very thing they are there to build.

if an enemy cloaked ship gets "built" on top of their ship, they can just use a selection box around the area, selection box gives priority to own vessels i believe.

posted on July 25th, 2010, 2:10 am

lol placing scouts so your enemy cant build anything 

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on July 25th, 2010, 3:02 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on July 25th, 2010, 3:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mal . Having it bump all ships after construction is finished - not just cloaked ones, would be perfectly ok in my opinion  ^-^. Thus station placement not being blocked by vessels in general anymore would be excellent.

EDIT: clarified

posted on July 25th, 2010, 4:05 pm

i think i would be largely happy with that fix.

thinking about it in more detail, i doubt i would ever have a ship sitting in the way of building. plus miners would obstruct the construction of their own docks, and con ships wouldnt block u building the very thing they are there to build.

if an enemy cloaked ship gets "built" on top of their ship, they can just use a selection box around the area, selection box gives priority to own vessels i believe.

I agree, I've had the constructor block construction many times, mostly due to the perfect spot for a research station being right where my constructors came out of the starbase. I've never had miners block their mining construction, but I've had them block platform construction (and it being really close to the moon helps vs. long range a lot.)

posted on July 25th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Yeah what I really hate is how my constructor gets in the way of its own building sometimes