Selling ships (and sieges?)

[Thalatta]

51 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

I would - personally like to have a little benefit, e.g. when destroying a storehouse I don't need anymore. 

That's adding rewards to something that's already too automatic

 

My proposal for Salvage was the simple rule of just doing things "in reverse":

On 18/08/2026 at 11:27 AM, Thalatta said:

salvageable units should have a salvage button when garrisoned on the building that produced them (and take maybe the same as production time), while builders should be able to salvage structures (this working in reverse of building them). The return should be some fraction of the materials used in the first place (maybe except food).

I mean, if you are already near the Dock/Arsenal, you might as well be inside it (it's not that a siege tower is literally inside an Arsenal, but surely when Demetrius' Helepolis was being disassembled by the Rhodians they set up some temporal depot right there, with people that actually knew what they were doing involved, represented by the "engineers" an Arsenal is supposed to have). Regarding the "fraction" mentioned for the salvageable resources:

On 02/09/2026 at 7:52 PM, Thalatta said:

assign every building a realistic "salvage rate", for example, 85% for temples, 15% for houses, or whatever values are best for gameplay.

 

Independently, and personally, to avoid the ugly simultaneous collapse of everything, I'd require one nearby (or better, garrisoned) unit for Self-Destroy to work. I'd rename that then "Set on Fire" or something, it would work only on one's buildings (supposedly being done also from inside), and once triggered the building can be left alone and gets destroyed fast. No time invested in getting the resources back, then no resource reward, but useful for quickly clearing up stuff and scorched earth policy.

[Grautvornix]

For me, in SP games, I sometimes have to move the storehouse closer to the next forest and I'd like to remove older storehouses and gain a little bit back. Same for fishing boats that I build but fish have been depleted or I don't find any (on some maps). I do agree that the default of 50% of resources is a bit too much and I propose to reduce it to 30%.

Frankly, I have not yet seen any scorched earth move by a human player, e.g. deleting a large group of his buildings, but it would be nothing new and already be possible now, I believe.

The mod does not endorse that particularly, except that you get a bit back when deleting your stuff. I do agree, though, that deletion should not be an instantaneous process as it is currently, but might take while. I'll investigate how this could be implemented.

Requesting a unit to be nearby or inside the to-be-destructed building might add a bit too much of micromanagement (in my personal view), so I'd prefer not to require that.

For a siege engine, this might be a good idea , resembling the near-a-dock requirement for ships. let me see what is possible.

 

[Thalatta]

1 minute ago, Grautvornix said:

I sometimes have to move the storehouse closer to the next forest and I'd like to remove older storehouses and gain a little bit back. Same for fishing boats that I build but fish have been depleted or I don't find any

Sure, it'd be all contemplated, just takes more time.

 

1 minute ago, Grautvornix said:

deletion should not be an instantaneous process as it is currently, but might take while.
Requesting a unit to be nearby or inside the to-be-destructed building might add a bit too much of micromanagement

That "while" would only make the "ugly simultaneous collapse of everything" happen a bit later . That's the main reason to require an arsonist. To reduce micro to just one extra action no matter the case, Set on Fire could work like this: select (all) building(s) and (all) arsonist(s), and just press the Set on Fire button/hotkey. This should make the arsonist(s) move to the closest building(s), garrison, "start the fire" and ungarrison (and automatically repeat the process until all buildings in that initial selection are set on fire). The only difference with Self-Destruct would then be the addition of arsonist(s) to the building selection to be destroyed. Self-Destruct for organic units is ok as it is now.

[Grautvornix]

Where do we get an arsonist actor with appropriate animation and a burning building animation? 

Same question regarding dismantling of siege engines. Which actor should we use to illustrate someone working on the siege engine? 

Frankly, I'd rather park these for a moment and instead generate a new mod version that provides the reduced amoutn of recovered resources and the slightly slower destruction.

QUESTION: if destruction is not instantaneous but a process taking a bit of time, how would we deal woth an attack onto that object during that time? Is it not attackable while being destructed, or, probably better, could an attacking enemy grab part of the resources of the destructed building ? (sounds complicated but is probably an interesting gameplay aspect)

 

[Thalatta]

No new actors are needed for anything, it's just the present units doing or getting stuff done when garrisoned (unseen).

 

15 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

if destruction is not instantaneous but a process taking a bit of time, how would we deal woth an attack onto that object during that time?

Simplest would be that it can only be attacked (but the process should be fast enough for this to have no relevant use case).

It shouldn't be capturable or salvageable, unless there's a method to stop its ongoing destruction (implying complicating things).

[Asher]

Maybe you guys already decided on something, but what if you could like convert a ship. It is like selling or returning something to a store and getting store credit. You sell you ship back, and some of the wood can be used for another one

[Thalatta]

11 minutes ago, Asher said:

like selling

On 18/08/2026 at 11:27 AM, Thalatta said:

An independent thing could be the ability to sell certain units to other players, for metal.

 

12 minutes ago, Asher said:

or returning something to a store and getting store credit. You sell you ship back, and some of the wood can be used for another one

Salvage then, as has been just discussed: returning something (a ship) to a store (the Dock) and getting store credit (salvageable fraction).

[Grautvornix]

OK, that is exactly what the mod already does (only the animation remains "delete" and does not show selling the ship)

Side note: The mod does not provide store-specific credit (which I believe is ok), i.e. when returning a ship, you are getting back a fraction of resources for general purpose. Store credit would mean you get a reduction for your next ship. 

The remaining question is if a building needs to be garissoned with at least unit in order to allow deletion (mimicking arson). I still have doubts on that concept: burning down your building does definitely not give back much useable resources.

Requiring a person to be in placed inside the building to be destroyed appears counter-intuitive to me (this is already strange with a manned tower or siege engine: the crew survives destruction, other than for a ship where they sink together).

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, Grautvornix said:

burning down your building does definitely not give back much useable resources.

But automatically deleting the building for usable resources is exactly that, plus being automatic, plus getting resources back, plus the animation makes less sense. The only purpose of the "arsonist" (which was never intended to be a new unit, but a role present units take) is to avoid the simultaneous collapse of everything.

Besides, you are defeating the purpose of how the game works. As mentioned: when you delete a building, "the amount of resources you get back depends on how much has been actually built. That is, if 35% of the structure has been built, one gets 65% of resources back, and so on". This implies "100% built means 0% of resources back". The present behaviour "makes perfect sense if one thinks of it as the resources having been set apart beforehand for construction, the resources already used being lost". If you want to press just delete and get resources back, you'd need to change how the whole thing already works, otherwise it makes no sense (if you get back, say, 30% with your method, if a structure is already 70% built and you want to destroy it, it'd be more rewarding to wait until it's completely built and then destroy it ). EDIT: Unless you are already considering all this, and what you get back is the unbuilt fraction and a fraction of the fraction already built, which would be the general rule (at present the fraction of the fraction already built is 0%, and you want to give it a value).

There's another possibility in between all of this: do what you want to do, but require unit(s) to do it ("salvager(s)"), the action is just Salvage, could be quite fast (unrealistic since it should be like unbuilding it, but whatever), and not only avoids the collapse issue, but ends not being in contradiction with present implementations or "too simple and rewarding".

 

1 hour ago, Grautvornix said:

already strange with a manned tower or siege engine: the crew survives destruction

One assumes they got out just before destruction I guess, but sieges are completely weird in the game anyway (which I think needs fixing).

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Thalatta

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

Unless you are already considering all this, and what you get back is the unbuilt fraction and a fraction of the fraction already built, which would be the general rule (at present the fraction of the fraction already built is 0%, and you want to give it a value).

Since now I see your mod applies to "finished" buildings, I guess you are not considering that.

Independently of Salvage working with "salvager(s)" to avoid the issues mentioned, got a better idea to deal with Self-Destruct: make a destruction queue, each structure getting sequentially destroyed by quickly draining their HP (giving a little time to each element for the queue to work). This solves the unsightly collapse issue, only gets noticeable the more buildings at a time one wants to destroy, doesn't involve other units ("arsonists"), adds absolutely no micro, and opens the possibility of eventually aborting the process before it starts or while it's under way (in that last case, one ending with a damaged structure because of the HP drain). Doing the same for units is a possibility, for them to die in fast succession instead of all at the exact same time, which, like the collapse issue, is quite goofy.

[Grautvornix]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

One assumes they got out just before destruction I guess, but sieges are completely weird in the game anyway (which I think needs fixing).

This is one of the many compromises to gameplay we have to make, I guess.

 

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

Besides, you are defeating the purpose of how the game works. As mentioned: when you delete a building, "the amount of resources you get back depends on how much has been actually built. That is, if 35% of the structure has been built, one gets 65% of resources back, and so on". This implies "100% built means 0% of resources back". The present behaviour "makes perfect sense if one thinks of it as the resources having been set apart beforehand for construction, the resources already used being lost". If you want to press just delete and get resources back, you'd need to change how the whole thing already works, otherwise it makes no sense (if you get back, say, 30% with your method, if a structure is already 70% built and you want to destroy it, it'd be more rewarding to wait until it's completely built and then destroy it ).

Hmm. You are right. So no refund after destruction at all because the same principle applies to buildings, ships, siege engines? 

To provide a refund, 

- ships need to go back to the dock (done)

- siege engines need to be manned (at least one unit) prior to destruction

I believe we agree already on these two.

There is no refund for buildings when they are at 100% (finished), ever. From the real world, I believe that old buildings (ruins) were often used as a quarry/resource for erecting new ones, hence I question the rule 100% built- 0% refund.

The rule in game (0% built/100% back up to 100% built/0% back) certainly applies to the resources you had originally put aside to construct that building. After it has been built (100%) you spent 100% of resources, so destroying currently means losing all of it. Could refunding be exploited? Not really: You get a higher fraction back if deleting after finalizing it, but you had to invest the 100% before. The only cheat here is, that you benefited form the building's function (e.g. research a new technology) while it was working and still get a refund after its destruction. 

[Grautvornix]

56 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

Since now I see your mod applies to "finished" buildings, I guess you are not considering that.

Independently of Salvage working with "salvager(s)" to avoid the issues mentioned, got a better idea to deal with Self-Destruct: make a destruction queue, each structure getting sequentially destroyed by quickly draining their HP (giving a little time to each element for the queue to work). This solves the unsightly collapse issue, only gets noticeable the more buildings at a time one wants to destroy, doesn't involve other units ("arsonists"), adds absolutely no micro, and opens the possibility of eventually aborting the process before it starts or while it's under way (in that last case, one ending with a damaged structure because of the HP drain). Doing the same for units is a possibility, for them to die in fast succession instead of all at the exact same time, which, like the collapse issue, is quite goofy.

Sorry, did not see your message before responding to your previous one. The discussion is less about the refund as such but more abpout shouldbalow the user to simply deletey a building (as well as a unit). 

For buildings, this goes back to the proposal to extend the destruction process a bit. In fact, what if we need at least one unit commanded to "work" on the building to destroy it, providing a similar benefit as when you destroy your enemy's buildings? This could be exactly the same process as attacking an enemy building (only with a differnt animation possibly). Instead of having a building-cenbtered command "delete" we would need a command to units "destroy my builidng", similar to "build that builidng".

This could elegantly take care of my previous  question "what if an enemy attacks your building while you were destructing it yourself". The mechanism to arbitrate resources in case of concurrent destruction by two parties attacking the same building is part of the game already (I think/I hope, at least this exists for conquering, never checked for destruction of an enemy builidng together with an ally).

[Thalatta]

22 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

the same principle applies to buildings, ships, siege engines? 

Not really, right now in the game, when you abort ship or engine training, you get the whole refund. This might be unrealistic, but maybe it would be too punishing and different from other RTS to do otherwise.

 

22 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

To provide a refund, 

- ships need to go back to the dock (done)

- siege engines need to be manned (at least one unit) prior to destruction

I believe we agree already on these two.

I didn't think of the second point, and although it makes sense, you can't get a refund from engines that cannot be garrisoned, and you are using a different rule than with ships. That's why I thought for them to go back to the Arsenal.

 

22 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

There is no refund for buildings when they are at 100% (finished), ever. From the real world, I believe that old buildings (ruins) were often used as a quarry/resource for erecting new ones, hence I question the rule 100% built- 0% refund.

Sure, but that's what salvaging would be. Right now the game only destroys. That's why you return the ship to the Dock to get resources back, it's not the same as scuttling.

 

22 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

The rule in game (0% built/100% back up to 100% built/0% back) certainly applies to the resources you had originally put aside to construct that building. After it has been built (100%) you spent 100% of resources, so destroying currently means losing all of it. Could refunding be exploited? Not really: You get a higher fraction back if deleting after finalizing it, but you had to invest the 100% before. The only cheat here is, that you benefited form the building's function (e.g. research a new technology) while it was working and still get a refund after its destruction. 

It's not so much about an actual exploit, but a gap in the logical working of things. If at 70% built I realise I want to destroy the building without benefiting from it, waiting for completion would give back more resources, making this refund scheme unnecessarily irrational, while ignoring calls for it "not to be too simple and rewarding".

 

4 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

what if we need at least one unit commanded to "work" on the building to destroy it, providing a similar benefit as when you destroy your enemy's buildings?

This is exactly my latest Salvage proposal: "do what you want to do, but require unit(s) to do it ("salvager(s)")". If you just garrison it you don't even need animations, which could be just construction in reverse. If the refund will be the corresponding loot or a "fraction of the materials used" (maybe the first is calculated as the second?) it's just a choice that can be discussed (it's all the same for me, as long as the rule is simple, but in reality salvaging is of course more rewarding than loot).

But, on top of that, I didn't want to remove the Self-Destruct option because some people will surely want to delete things ultra fast without any salvaging. That's why I now proposed for it to work like always, but in a queue (you imagine the arsonists, they were supposed to do things ultra fast and as an excuse to solve the collapse issue anyway).

Other things to consider regarding the destruction queue: when queued at the same time, elements should be ordered from lower to higher HP. Whatever addition to the queue comes at the end of it. If 50% of the ownership is lost (I think this is the limit to destroy them in the first place right now), elements have to be unqueued (limiting a player's ability to destroy a lot of buildings just before losing ownership, which is what the AI always unsightly does). While units, if considered, should have their own queue (running in parallel), a single queue icon (skull) should appear on the right, showing the remaining time of the whole process (that is, the longest time considering both building and unit destruction queues), which can be aborted by right-clicking on it (already destroyed/dead elements remain so of course, while whatever was being processed at that very moment ends damaged/injured). Unqueuing individual elements should also be possible, maybe by pressing some icon indicating that they are in the destruction queue. The HP drain could be around 1000 or 500/s.

[Grautvornix]

 

6 hours ago, Thalatta said:

It's not so much about an actual exploit, but a gap in the logical working of things. If at 70% built I realise I want to destroy the building without benefiting from it, waiting for completion would give back more resources, making this refund scheme unnecessarily irrational, while ignoring calls for it "not to be too simple and rewarding".

OK, point taken - how could that be addressed? Should we introduce steps and/or a cap, like 0% finalized- 100% refund, up to 70% finalized - 30% refund, more than 70% finalized - no refund anymore. Deletion after completion - 30% refund. Would that work for you?  Currently no salvaging of destroyed buildings exists and they can be immediately deleted anyway at the moment. Requiring units (no siege engines) to actively destroy own buildings woud prevent doing that to a whole group of  buildings at once already. Would you really want to use valuable units to destroy that one storehouse that's not needed anymore jsut to get back, say, 30 wood? For me this could be an emergency aspect to get more resources if none is in reach and no bartering is possible anymore, e.g. after a devastating attack of your enemy.

6 hours ago, Thalatta said:

in reality salvaging is of course more rewarding than loot

Of course, but for gameplay and simplicity I would possibly tend towards the same level of resource refund (we could use the same mechanism).

 

7 hours ago, Thalatta said:

But, on top of that, I didn't want to remove the Self-Destruct option because some people will surely want to delete things ultra fast without any salvaging. That's why I now proposed for it to work like always, but in a queue

But isn't that a contradiction? If it shall be ultra-fast (scorched earth tactics) it cannot be queued as this would take too long. 

[Grautvornix]

All right here is my proposal:

• a refund is limited to a percentage of the resources it took to construct something, say, 50%, multiplied with the current health status of the object, i.e. a ship at 60%health gets 30% refund.
• all refunds are tied to a condition:
  • ships must be within the perimeter (30m) of your own dock. Outside that area there is no refund.
  • siege engines must be on your own territory, no refund outside.
  • buildings are more complicated: some should not give a refund (walls, towers), others only give a refund if not under attack since 15s and fully owned, and if one own unit is present in their vicinity (radius 20m). Deletion wiht refund becomes a salvaging teardown: the building loses health over, 10 seconds, the resources arrive at the end, any enemy damage during that period cancels it. Deletion of buildings without anyone nearby, or not satisfying the other conditions is immediate and without a refund.

All of this remains configurable as I am not yet sure about the best settings (distances, level of refund, criteria, teardown period)

I'll adapt the mod and test it first before posting. Done testing. Please see below for the mod. WIll also put it onto mod.io and hope it can be signed @Stan`@ltms

 

recover-resources.zip README.md

Edited 35 minutes ago by Grautvornix
Test and relase of new version 1.1.0