Openra: Prevent units from blocking refinery dock points and production building exits

[netnazgul]

Not specific to any particular mod, mainly related to RA and TD where it is a feature and, in TD, a part of balance.

To my feel blocking mechanic the way it is now is quite frustrating, and in case of TD - is actually game-deciding a lot of times, because it is easy to get caught napping with 1-2 fast light vehicles blocking your vehicle production facility as well as refinery so that you have only the option to surrender because you can't produce a response unit and can't get money to produce anything else. Husks left by heavy vehicles only worsen the issue.

This may be a fun mechanic to play with, but it looks just too punishing early game and makes do-or-die situations, taking from gameplay instead of adding to it.

There are several possible scenarios to change it, in case there is a general consensus on it being an issue. For TD this is also a balance question as well, because Airstrip can't be blocked contrary to WF, but has a [significant] delivery delay. Also I assume cases of blocking a production exit and blocking a refinery dock point should be considered separately.

1. Introducing secondary exits to production buildings (obviously doesn't work for refineries). For both RA and TD War Factories there might be two additional exit points, making it possible for a vehicle to pop out into 3 cells instead of 1. This doesn't remove the blocking, but makes it much more invested and thus not really an option for early game at least. This is actually already implemented for barracks exits in TS mod.
2. Explicitly "push" a blocking unit out of the way. This has a lot of possible implications and edge cases, i.e. currently there is no push logic for aircrafts, while it is possible to block an exit with a landed helicopter.
3. Introduce a newly added passable-only cell type at production exit or dock point. Used for TS mod War Factories, same as original.

[Violetnred2]

what if harvesters could crush light vehicles? so blocking would have to be done with slower vehicles and would happen much later.

[pchote]

There are technical limitations that make vehicle-vs-vehicle crushing look really bad in practice. IMO that route would cause more trouble than it is worth.

[abcdefg30]

:-1: to nudging enemy units (option 2).

[abmyii]

Related to #17404 and many other issues all about the same problem.

[Orb370]

Changing this shouldn't be an issue in RA. I'm sure the phase transport enthusiasts will be up in arms but I don't really see a negative impact.

I'm in favor though for Tiberium dawn. I'll miss the tense early games but it's not a very fun mechanic for newer players. Might have to do a pass on economy to make harassment more viable, but that'll come later.

[abcdefg30]

Tbh, I'm not sure how good of an idea it is to change that in some mods but not others.

[Smittytron]

It's an annoyance to lose to but it's so rare in my experience (at least in RA) that the tactic should be left in the player's tool kit. Particularity as another way to make players respect playing vs WF first builds.

I remember a fun game that 5a won with this tactic. Gannon was casting and said something along the lines of "Ranger first; that's so bad you shouldn't do that", after which 5a got a solid ref block and won the game.

[pchote]

I don't see an issue with solving this in some mods but not others. We have already done this in TS, in the first case. Production doesn't work the same in all mods either.

[abcdefg30]

But bibs and unit movement do. This would feel to me like making the service depot passable in one mod but not the other.

[MlemandPurrs]

War Factories should gain +1 exit point anyways.
TD Ref is not really fixable outside of replicating what ERCC did for RA for the TD mod.
The passability change has implications regarding what happens when an vehicle husk occurs there. An possibility might be to grant Vehicles capacity to crush husks while exiting the Refinery.

[pchote]

The suggestion 3 above would fix the TD ref without requiring those.

[anjew175]

I really think harvester crushing light vehicles is the graceful solution that has the least impact. I agree with Smitty that it should still be a possibility as its creates more interesting plays. It's also a feature of the original game that harvesters crush bikes.

There are technical limitations that make vehicle-vs-vehicle crushing look really bad in practice. IMO that route would cause more trouble than it is worth.

If this is the case, does it mean that Tiberian Dawn is technically not feature complete? Although I'm not sure how good it needs to look, the orignal just deletes the unit and plays a squish sound

[Orb370]

I had a pretty clear example when I used the blocking in the tournament that occurred yesterday. The relatively new player raged out, and the people watching the stream really disliked it. So yeah this has got to go. At least for TD.

Husks are fine since it should really only be your own units in those cells (if solution 3). Also husks time out, which is certainly better than how it works now. You can always fire on husks to destroy them too.

The only frequent case I see with solution 3 is harvesters getting killed while unloading and leaving a blocking husk. This is fine because A)TD player may want to rescue the husk with an engineer, B) It adds another consideration when harassing (do I target the docked harvester?), which I think is a good thing. And once again it times out eventually so unlike currently it's not a permanent block.

[anjew175]

I had a pretty clear example when I used the blocking in the tournament that occurred yesterday. The relatively new player raged out, and the people watching the stream really disliked it. So yeah this has got to go. At least for TD.

He built 2 harvesters when he should have built units, regardless of the blocking, you would still have had his base on lock down until he built tanks, which is just as frustrating. I also think that game is a clear example of how harv crush would have solved the situation.