Capturable Objects

Here's an idea: Allow neutral turrets and laserbeams to start under one team's control, then when destroyed become neutral instead of just a "dead." These objects can then be repaired by the enemy.

The idea is to create a sort of "capturable base." I think this would work really well in core. Have a core that's tough to reach from the outside. Players then work their way into a base and convert turrets and laserbeams to their color. So instead of taking a few shots at a core and having it repaired in your absence, an enemy must defend/repair their core AND their base assets.

Depending on gameplay testing it might be necessary to strengthen turret and laserbeam possession to increase their value. One way to do this would be to require several more hits to the turret or lasers after it has lost its health but before it changes possession. In other words, the steps for converting a red turret to blue would be:

1. Shoot at a turret to kill its health which keeps it alive and firing.
The turret is now dead, but is still possessed by the red team.
2. Continue shooting at the turret for a few more seconds in order to force its possession to change to neutral.
The turret is now white and neutral, and no longer belongs to red.
3. Repair the turret for a few seconds to capture possession.
During this step the turret does NOT gain health, but gradually changes color from white into blue (or some other visual effect occurs). After this step the turret is now blue but has no health.
4. Repair the turret for a few more seconds to boost its health.
The turret is now fully blue and fully healed/active.

tl;dr Alive - Dead - Neutral - Dead - Alive. The variables (number of hits to destroy, to repair, etc) of that would need to be modified depending on testing I'm sure.

Im undecided about this.

Thanks for the feedback. You're right that the tradeoff of spending time to capture a turret or laserbeam is not worthy given the limited value of an individual turret/laserbeam. So disregard the latter half of my post. What my idea now boils down to is allowing neutral turrets and laserbeams to be start the round under the control of one team. Simple enough, and means you can place turrets or laserbeams in each team's base that initially defend, then later attack, which I think is a pretty cool concept.

You're also right that this can roughly be achieved by just adding neutral turrets amongst team turrets. Enemy players breaching the base would then repair the neutral turrets and "capture" the base. To this I would argue it is a very rough solution and isn't always feasible on smaller levels where wall space is precious. I think the alternate solution would effectively double the amount of turrets and laserbeams and add a bunch of junk onto the level, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics.

edit: You edited your post, hope you saved the original! What you said was good feedback.

Sorry ive read your above post a few times but still dont understand can you clarify?

I edited because my opinion changed and I felt the post came off as rude.

[raptor]

Is this basically asking for more flexibility with turrets/FFs objects? How would that look with object options in the editor?

Couldnt you just use team neutral and hostile turrets to do that?

Sorry for the confusion. All I'll I'm suggesting here is the ability to give a team turret or laserbeam neutral capabilities. That is, when destroyed it reverts to white neutral instead of staying the color of its team.

If used in a base setting, players could breach the base, destroy the turrets/laserbeams, and use this functionality to then repair the objects, effectively taking over the base.

This can be accomplished very roughly by just adding turrets and laserbeams to a base that are neutral to begin with, mixed in with regular team turrets and laserbeams. Attackers would destroy the team objects, then repair the neutral objects. The downside here is it is messy, adds twice as much junk to the level, and isn't always feasible given the importance of wall space and aesthetic design to a level editor.

Visually, a capturable turret/laserbeam would appear no different than a regular team turret/laserbeam. Maybe there could be a subtle difference (like in regen objects vs non-regen), but really you'd just find out if it was capturable after killing it. The switch from team to neutral occurs immediately as the turret/laserbeam health reaches 0% so players aren't waiting to determine if it's capturable or not.

The best way I could think of accomplishing this in the level editor would to add a toggle setting when you click on the turret or laserbeam and press enter. Currently when completing this step, a setting comes up that asks about regen preference. So there'd just be an extra line below that listing if you want the turret/laserbeam to revert to neutral after dead. This setting wouldn't appear on turrets/laserbeams that are neutral to begin with, but would on hostile objects (for the interest of a coop "conquer the castle" mode).

oh i see yeah thats a great idea!

[watusimoto]

Just so I understand, is this essentially the same as placing a neutral turret and, in a startup script, healing the turret and assigning it to a team? That way, when it dies, it reverts to neutral?

I'm not sure this is doable with scripts currently, but I think it is. Regardless of whether a script is the right way to go, is this the idea?

Yes, exactly like that. Good point that it might be doable currently with a levelgen script, I hadn't thought about that.

[watusimoto]

In that case, the real challenge for the devs is to make it easier for you to add this behavior to a turret/ff without getting into full-on scripting (which I am certain you could learn, but I know somewhat scares you). I have some ideas about how it might work, but not really sure if they are implementable as things stand.

Maybe come back to this in version 21?

Yep, you nailed it. For what it's worth, I am definitely open to the idea of scripting, but I'm very much an arts guy and not at all a math/science guy unfortunately. I also just don't have a whole lot of time these days to prioritize it, especially when I can just steal someone else's script and apply it to my level.

I could be wrong be is is that hard todo?

[Skybax]

I like it.

Maybe make it so it's easier for the original team of the turret to reclaim it. Less time to wait. Turret loyalty!

[watusimoto]

So if we combine this:

https://code.google.com/p/bitfighter/is ... ail?id=506

With the ability to start a neutral turret fully healed and assigned to a team, we'd be there, right?

Seems Good IT will be interesting so see if this works well.

We'd be mostly there. The other aspect of the capturable object, which I think I failed to communicate very well, is that there would be a longer period required to convert possession. A regular neutral turret that starts as one color can be destroyed and converted fairly quickly, so it's not very effective long-term.

My proposal would include an extra step in between destroying the health of a turret and acquiring possession. The extra step would occur when the turret was rendered fully dead, but still belonging to the resident team.

The current turret possession acquisition can be modeled in 3 steps:

1. Destroy turret from 100% health to 0% health
2. Turret is now neutral and ready to be repaired
3. Repair turret from 0% health to 100% health

The proposal for a 'deluxe' capturable turret can be modeled in 5 steps:

1. Destroy turret from 100% health to 0% health
2. Continue firing at the turret for a few seconds to change it from one team possession to neutral possession
3. Turret is now neutral and ready to be repaired
4. Repair the turret for a few seconds to convert possession (it does not gain health during this period)
5. Once the turret is acquired, repair it from 0% health to 100% health

Does this make sense? I think this is an important aspect because turrets right now are more of a nuisance than an actual threat. Converting possession of a turret within an enemy's base would be a real thorn in their side when they cannot simply wipe it in 2 seconds. Winning a core match, or even a CTF match, should be more than just attacking the core or flag. It should be about winning the base and gaining a foothold there to fully eliminate the enemy.

Kinda

I disagree making it longer to capture a turret would make it more usless.

Maybe jsut give turrets x2 x3 or x4 more health but have the regen time stay the same.

[watusimoto]

Your proposal makes sense, but I don't see the value it adds. If you want to make turrets in the enemy base convertable, we just need to have a way of assigning an inherently neutral turret to a team at the beginning of the game.

Or am I missing something?

Or why not just place neutral turrets cant those do the same thing?

maybe I misunderstood....