Capturing

[Jeru]

I would take k776's advice on sheep.

He is from New Zealand.

[Pedro Falcão]

Sheep and goats auto converted. Vision range based on the sheeps, not the capturing unit. And when multiple players are withing range of the sheep, capturing takes into account total unit power/strength, and when that is equal, total unit count, and when that is equal, the first player to get to the sheep.

I would rather have the "first to get to the sheep" condition as the main condition, else it'll be annoying to see scouts kidnapping your sheeps within your base

I would take k776's advice on sheep.

He is from New Zealand.

---Warning--- The lame joke ahead may give you cancer

[k776]

I would take k776's advice on sheep. He is from New Zealand.

---Warning--- The lame joke ahead may give you cancer

LOL.

I would rather have the "first to get to the sheep" condition as the main condition, else it'll be annoying to see scouts kidnapping your sheeps within your base

I suppose. Maybe just unit count then? First there, but if enemy comes around with two units, they capture it?

[Pureon]

With all the capture ideas, I think the simplest ways are most attractive. I proposed that soldiers should capture buildings by their default behavior because to me it seems the simplest way for the player. Using a separate Loyalty stat instead of using Health for capturing separates the two behaviors (capturing vs. attack) and makes most intuitive sense to the player.

I too would prefer a separate loyalty stat rather than using the unit's health value. Having control over a unit's capturing ability gives us more flexibility, and allows us to have capturing speed techs to add more strategic depth to teching up (unit strength vs capturing speed).

[idanwin]

As long as you can do a quick raid on the enemy, taking all his sheep with you, it sounds fine to me. Something to do with unit count, should also take into account the proximity of these units.

[Pureon]

As long as you can do a quick raid on the enemy, taking all his sheep with you, it sounds fine to me.

When corrals begin functioning the planned way, where animals stand around the corral structure generating food, this could be a game-winning strategy

[Aurium]

More one concept to think about:

Wildness X Loyalty

Gaia units are independent and wild, while, on the other hand, player units are related and loyal. There is no direct translation between this concepts. A gaia's horse has a big wildness, but a owned horse has low loyalty, while a gaia's building has low wildness and when owned has a bigger loyalty.

Loyalty needs to interact with territories, the current damage for out of territory structures should be changed to a loss of loyalty, this is basically capture by the gaia player. Neutral structures within a territory would be gradually captured.

...and its wildness will grow until 100%, until nobody try to own this.

Wildness is like self loyalty, so wildness and loyalty will not decline and grow together. When wildness becomes 0, the unity is owned and its loyalty start to grow up. The same happens to the "gaianization".

[zoot]

Is 'wildness' a measure of how hard the entity is to capture from Gaia? If so, I don't see why it should grow for abandoned (out of territory) buildings? Seems to me it should be constant, an intrinsic property.

[Aurium]

While i'm trying to implement this feature i need to add a loyalty/wildness bar, like the health bar... but i see that is difficult to put more information together. For animals we already have health and resource (food) bars, 3 bars is unhandable by the current layout, and i believe that will be worst to make that bigger. However, the animal is a food resource only when dead and has loyalty/wildness only when alive. Why have both at same time? My proposal is to make this change on the entity info box:

The resource bar will be replaced by loyalty/wildness bar while alive, the resource amount will be displayed as a icon information, also more readable. The loyalty bar will be also applied to units.

[idanwin]

Totally agree!

[quantumstate]

That sounds good

[Gen.Kenobi]

Keep it up, mate!

[Lion.Kanzen]

and if we capture humans and put them in idanwin's "Special Actor Cages" and been torturate to convert in your units.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[historic_bruno]

While i'm trying to implement this feature i need to add a loyalty/wildness bar, like the health bar... but i see that is difficult to put more information together. For animals we already have health and resource (food) bars, 3 bars is unhandable by the current layout, and i believe that will be worst to make that bigger. However, the animal is a food resource only when dead and has loyalty/wildness only when alive. Why have both at same time? My proposal is to make this change on the entity info box:

The resource bar will be replaced by loyalty/wildness bar while alive, the resource amount will be displayed as a icon information, also more readable. The loyalty bar will be also applied to units.

Agreed, especially when it has been proposed to add even more status bars (see this topic) to the confusion. I can think of these possibilities:

* Health

* Resource supply

* Siege pack progress

* Loyalty

* Stamina

* Garrison capacity

A different color for each? It's not very intuitive Surely there is a better way to present this information.

[Aurium]

Agreed, especially when it has been proposed to add even more status bars (see this topic) to the confusion. I can think of these possibilities:

* Health

* Resource supply

* Siege pack progress

* Loyalty

* Stamina

* Garrison capacity

A different color for each? It's not very intuitive Surely there is a better way to present this information.

Yeah... My proposal:

• Display as bars:
  
  • Health (for alive things)
    
  • Resource supply (for dead animals or plants in any state)
    
  • Siege pack progress (only while progress)
    
  • Loyalty (for alive units and some animals, when that is not in 100%)
    

  [*]Display as icons on details box:

  • Stamina
    
  • Garrison capacity
    
  • Resource supply (for alive animals)
    

The maximum that we will see will be two bars. Color may be not intuitive, but with only 2 for specific cases, will be easy to understand seeing the details box.

[Jeru]

For loyalty, perhaps the player color on the unit texture should gradually fade, or oscillate more and more strongly as it approaches the conversion point.

For garrison slots, I suggest showing a set of small person-shaped icons that fill up as occupancy increases.

[Pureon]

Yeah... My proposal:

• Display as bars:
  
  • Health (for alive things)
    
  • Resource supply (for dead animals or plants in any state)
    
  • Siege pack progress (only while progress)
    
  • Loyalty (for alive units and some animals, when that is not in 100%)
    

  [*]Display as icons on details box:

  • Stamina
    
  • Garrison capacity
    
  • Resource supply (for alive animals)
    

The maximum that we will see will be two bars. Color may be not intuitive, but with only 2 for specific cases, will be easy to understand seeing the details box.

You've got Resource Supply written in both bars and icons - is this intended? I agree with your suggestions, but i don't think Resource Supply needs a bar (if the bar can be used for something more important). Garrison capacity definitely does not need a bar, it can just be a number.

Multiplayer games will get very interesting when capturing is implemented

[Aurium]

For loyalty, perhaps the player color on the unit texture should gradually fade, or oscillate more and more strongly as it approaches the conversion point.

For garrison slots, I suggest showing a set of small person-shaped icons that fill up as occupancy increases.

Looks like a good idea... Please, call the artists to analyze and comment this proposal!

[Aurium]

You've got Resource Supply written in both bars and icons - is this intended? I agree with your suggestions, but i don't think Resource Supply needs a bar (if the bar can be used for something more important). Garrison capacity definitely does not need a bar, it can just be a number.

Yeah! Trees, rocks and dead animals are resources and some of us like to know the resource level without selecting it. So a resource bar is interesting.

For alive animals a resource bar is useless, but is nice to know how much resource comes from a chicken or an elephant before killing it. So a icon with the number on details box is interesting.

Multiplayer games will get very interesting when capturing is implemented

Yeah! I want that too!

[oshron]

Yeah... My proposal:

• Display as bars:
  
  • Health (for alive things)
    
  • Resource supply (for dead animals or plants in any state)
    
  • Siege pack progress (only while progress)
    
  • Loyalty (for alive units and some animals, when that is not in 100%)
    

  [*]Display as icons on details box:

  • Stamina
    
  • Garrison capacity
    
  • Resource supply (for alive animals)
    

The maximum that we will see will be two bars. Color may be not intuitive, but with only 2 for specific cases, will be easy to understand seeing the details box.

i say keep it as three bars with the rest as icons or going un-stated:

• a red bar for Health with a numerical value below or next to it
  
• a green bar for Stamina (possibly with a numerical value), which can be repurposed for Packing/Unpacking in inorganic units and for "Special Attacks" in very specific units like in AOM; for example, if a hero unit is given a "special attack" like a battlecry to boost allied morale, his "stamina" would be immediately drained to mark that he can't use it again until his stamina bar has refilled; alternatively, since hero units likely wouldn't be capable of switching sides, they could have a different color bar to specify Power
  
• a blue bar for Loyalty
  
• Garrison Capacity can be specified with a numerical value along the lines of "0/10", with the numbers turning red or yellow when the cap is reached
  
• resource counts can be marked on units by the resource icon with a numerical value
  

[Aurium]

Hi oshron, i believe the Jeru idea simplify your proposal using another ways to display some status. I also believe that three bars is not a nice thing. Will be a real problem when we have some entities together. At least this will crap the artistic value of 0ad.

[Pureon]

I agree three bars is too many. However the bars in the UI and the bars that appear above the unit when it's selected can be different - so stamina could remain in the UI, while Loyalty changes only appear above the unit.

For loyalty, perhaps the player color on the unit texture should gradually fade, or oscillate more and more strongly as it approaches the conversion point.

Unfortunately I doubt a gradual player colour change will be distinguishable on the textures, especially if conversion takes a minute or more.

Loyalty should have a bar appear above the unit whenever the unit is being converted - like siege packing appears when siege units are being packed, and then disappears. It doesn't necessarily need to appear on UI, just above the unit.

[Aurium]

(...)

Unfortunately I doubt a gradual player colour change will be distinguishable on the textures, especially if conversion takes a minute or more.

(...)

Thanks by helping us Pureon.

Well change color in texture will be really difficult to see, but what about blink the selection circle when loyalty decreases? The progress bar and the circle can only be displayed when the unity is selected, so we can chose. That can also have more details in the info box, displaying numerical values. As Jeru propose, we can grow up the blink frequency while the loyalty is lost.

[Pureon]

Lets see what others say

Thanks by helping us Pureon.

You're the one helping us

[Pedro Falcão]

As Jeru propose, we can grow up the blink frequency while the loyalty is lost.

It would be interesting to see if that would do, but I don't have much hope, i guess it would be annoying, sometimes. Don't be discouraged, though, some things work out better than planned.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Pedro Falcão