Standing with invisible unit on a resource

[Ed-ward]

Standing with an invisible unit on a resource should trigger a warning and/or make the unit visible.

It's not fair that you don't get a warning. You are losing a resource after all. You should know it's happening. The loss of the resource can be figured out on the city screen so it's not something you are not supposed to know. UI just hides the fact.

 

[iDreadReapr]

+1
it happened to me once, lost lots of cosmite from 1 sector

 

[Sinsling]

Cosmite is the easiest resource to notice this on though. =/

You gotta develop a mindset for playing versus syndicate. You need detection. Mind games is what syndicate is all about and you do not want the runner+guild assassin stacks spawning out of thin air on you.

 

[iDreadReapr]

i was playing more than 10 pbem games at once so i guess i have an excuse to unnoticed

 

[Satonir]

*runner selfie to be put*
Hey! What a nice day! I steal ya cosmite, okay?

 

[orangelex44]

Syndicate is by far the race that changes the most from singleplayer to multiplayer. A lot of their tools just don't matter against the AI, but are very effective against a human so you just won't learn how to use them or deal with them until you fight a real person. Cheap and mobile invisible units are the most obvious example; as sinsling said, you essentially require detection mods and proper counter-scouting when playing Syndicate.

However, Syndicate need these advantages because they have some very real disadvantages to make up for. Their units are generally weaker and/or are situational compared to everyone else, their mods are similarly inflexible, their economy is really slow to get going, and they lack out-of-combat healing. Typically if you can manage to pin them down they'll lose.

 

[Satonir]

Syndicate is by far the race that changes the most from singleplayer to multiplayer. A lot of their tools just don't matter against the AI, but are very effective against a human so you just won't learn how to use them or deal with them until you fight a real person. Cheap and mobile invisible units are the most obvious example; as sinsling said, you essentially require detection mods and proper counter-scouting when playing Syndicate.

However, Syndicate need these advantages because they have some very real disadvantages to make up for. Their units are generally weaker and/or are situational compared to everyone else, their mods are similarly inflexible, their economy is really slow to get going, and they lack out-of-combat healing. Typically if you can manage to pin them down they'll lose.

Roguelike. They transfered aow 3 rogue gameplay in many aspects.

 

[Ed-ward]

Resources being lost is the same as energy credits being siphoned or other operation effects at that. The only difference is while the first can be effectively performed only by a specific unit, such as Runner belonging to the Syndicate the others can be performed by everybody.
Double standards.
Not having a warning about resources lost is clearly an oversight and trying to pin it on Syndicate playstyle is just wordplay. It should be the other way around. Warning should be the norm and not having a warning should be a domain of mod or perhaps some arcane setting when setting up the map.

It doesn't add depth, it just adds unnecessary overhead.

 

[Sinsling]

Resources being lost is the same as energy credits being siphoned or other operation effects at that. The only difference is while the first can be effectively performed only by a specific unit, such as Runner belonging to the Syndicate the others can be performed by everybody.
Double standards.
Not having a warning about resources lost is clearly an oversight and trying to pin it on Syndicate playstyle is just wordplay. It should be the other way around. Warning should be the norm and not having a warning should be a domain of mod or perhaps some arcane setting when setting up the map.

It doesn't add depth, it just adds unnecessary overhead.

Except those operations will not always tell you who is stealing, unless it is a 1v1 and you have a natural deduction occuring.

The entirety of syndicate is currently centered around espionage and sabotage. Call it a double standard if you like, but not all factions or secret tech needs to conform to the same rules for the same instance of doing something. Such conformity is dull and boring, and quite frankly makes a game bland.

 

[Ed-ward]

Except those operations will not always tell you who is stealing
...

As you say, they DO tell you.

 

[Sinsling]

As you say, they DO tell you.

They dont. Go fail a check in a 12 player game and tell me which of the other 11 players siphoned you. Or a 3 player game. Just because you can make the assumption in a 1v1 does not mean that is an intended assumption.

 

[Ed-ward]

They dont. Go fail a check in a 12 player game and tell me which of the other 11 players siphoned you. Or a 3 player game. Just because you can make the assumption in a 1v1 does not mean that is an intended assumption.

They do. You do get a warning when an ops is used against you.

 

[Sinsling]

They do. You do get a warning when an ops is used against you.

But you are not told who did it correct?

By being told there is a unit camping your resource node, you are essentially being told who is playing covert games with you.

Because the unit's that camp a resource are typically invisible, it would be like if energy siphon warned target players they've been successfully siphoned.

If you want to make an argument for recieving a specific warning about non-camo units on resources(you kind of already do with the trespassing message), be my guests. Otherwise, hidden units being invisible when camping resource nodes sounds like a stealth feature working as intended.

 

[Ed-ward]

But you are not told who did it correct?

By being told there is a unit camping your resource node, you are essentially being told who is playing covert games with you.

Because the unit's that camp a resource are typically invisible, it would be like if energy siphon warned target players they've been successfully siphoned.

If you want to make an argument for recieving a specific warning about non-camo units on resources(you kind of already do with the trespassing message), be my guests. Otherwise, hidden units being invisible when camping resource nodes sounds like a stealth feature working as intended.

I never told I want to know who did it, it's you who is trying to insert it here. Don't put words in my mouth.

As stated before, all I want is a warning that a specific resource is being drained at a specific city.

I guess if the devs wanted to have this stealthplay minigame they would have come up with a better solution and would have accounted for the difference between should-be income and actual income. As it now stands, it sounds as if the devs thought the smart gameplay would be to keep excel spreadsheet for each city and compare it to what the city is actually producing. The game is not a an accounting exam, and I highly doubt they had this in mind.

 

[Sinsling]

I never told I want to know who did it, it's you who is trying to insert it here. Don't put words in my mouth.

As stated before, all I want is a warning that a specific resource is being drained at a specific city.

I guess if the devs wanted to have this stealthplay minigame they would have come up with a better solution and would have accounted for the difference between should-be income and actual income. As it now stands, it sounds as if the devs thought the smart gameplay would be to keep excel spreadsheet for each city and compare it to what the city is actually producing. The game is not a an accounting exam, and I highly doubt they had this in mind.

Why overthink it so hard? They just want you to use detection. Is running a single scout with a detector on around really that hard?

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

Of course there should be a warning about lost resource from hidden units. For the same reason why there is a warning about hostile units entering your domain. Why? To save your precious time and keep the game fun. For invasions you can visually check every your sector every turn for hostile armies, for lost resources you can write down resource income of every resource in every colony on previous turn and then compare it to current. But that would be very unfun and time-consuming so game should automate it.

 

[Sinsling]

So the game should alert you to camo units when you can't detect them because you don't want to use detectors....

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

So the game should alert you to camo units when you can't detect them because you don't want to use detectors....

No, because I want to play the game and not compare screenshots from current and previous turns for all my colonies.
More reasons:
1) it worked this way in AoW3, you didn't receive "enemy in domain" happiness penalty for invisible units
2) it makes much sense from real life point of view. When your factory or mine is destructed, you quickly realize it was blown by enemy, even if you didn't see how it happened.
3) In games like XCOM 2 when a hidden soldier steals/destructs something, it loses stealth too.

PS. Maybe it is not clear from my previous message, but a better solution would be to go with AoW3 way: hidden unit cannot prevent resource collection. But if we allow them to prevent resource collection, at least warn the player about it.

 

[Sinsling]

No, because I want to play the game and not compare screenshots from current and previous turns for all my colonies.
More reasons:
1) it worked this way in AoW3, you didn't receive "enemy in domain" happiness penalty for invisible units
2) it makes much sense from real life point of view. When your factory or mine is destructed, you quickly realize it was blown by enemy, even if you didn't see how it happened.
3) In games like XCOM 2 when a hidden soldier steals/destructs something, it loses stealth too.

PS. Maybe it is not clear from my previous message, but a better solution would be to go with AoW3 way: hidden unit cannot prevent resource collection. But if we allow them to prevent resource collection, at least warn the player about it.

I dont know why you would go through all that trouble when there is a built in mechanic for handling invisible units.

There are 3 races capable of doing stealth builds and there is a detection mod for every race. If a player wants to spreadsheet everything to avoid using game mechanics, that sounds like a personal preference to me.

Seriously I see people so often never getting detection when I'm using stealth builds and it just seems silly to me that people would complain about a mechanic when they arent using the built in counter tools. Do detector mods need to be easier to access or does noone want to use them ever?

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

I dont know why you would go through all that trouble when there is a built in mechanic for handling invisible units.

There are 3 races capable of doing stealth builds and there is a detection mod for every race. If a player wants to spreadsheet everything to avoid using game mechanics, that sounds like a personal preference to me.

Seriously I see people so often never getting detection when I'm using stealth builds and it just seems silly to me that people would complain about a mechanic when they arent using the built in counter tools. Do detector mods need to be easier to access or does noone want to use them ever?

I have the same question for you. Why should I use the detector mod for checking my income if I can do it without? It's just very time-consuming method so should be changed (keep income unchanged) or automated (let player know about income decrease).

Are you suggesting to have own scouts with that mod sitting in every sector? That's kind of ridiculous when we have just got rid of annoying requirement of sending a unit to annex a sector.