Topic: Efficiency of Scouting

Forums » Player Forums » Playing Widelands » Efficiency of Scouting
teppo

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 Posted at: 2020-10-31, 19:11 UTC+1.0

GunChleoc wrote:

I think a scout's flag should definitely be within your own territory, just like for geologists. It will become too powerful otherwise.

If all you would need to scout is a flag (as with geologists), would the scout be too powerful or still okay?

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-11-01, 06:42 UTC+1.0

I was never proposing that - I was proposing a waypoint. Other RTS games where you manually control your soldiers/workers have a definable point that they will go to when the building has finished creating them and the leave the building.

Busy indexing nil values

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-11-01, 06:49 UTC+1.0

Screenshot from 0AD to illustrate what I mean

screenshot

Edited: 2020-11-01, 06:49 UTC+1.0
Attachment: image/png
0ad_flag.png

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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2020-11-01, 10:43 UTC+1.0

Nordfriese wrote:

Would it be possible to reassign a scout hut's scouting flag? If not, there would be no significant difference to the current implementation.

Agreed. A player should be able to send a scout at each flag.

Clicking on a flag and having a scout go there and scout once would be preferable IMHO.

Yes. It makes also more sense if he goes back to his hut to get some food again. Maybe he can send some messages to the inbox: "A Scout has found hills", "A Scout has found some trees", "A Scout has found foreign territory" or "A Scout has found a foreign military site".

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teppo

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 Posted at: 2020-11-01, 18:42 UTC+1.0

GunChleoc wrote:

I was never proposing that

Got it, thanks.

kaputtnik wrote:

Clicking on a flag and having a scout go there and scout once would be preferable IMHO.

Yes. It makes also more sense if he goes back to his hut to get some food again. Maybe he can send some messages to the inbox: "A Scout has found hills", "A Scout has found some trees", "A Scout has found foreign territory" or "A Scout has found a foreign military site".

Currently, the scout does few things:

  • Explores unknown territory
  • Enables attack to far-away enemy militarysites

If we go to flags, should the player be also able to tell the scout what kind of errand to take.

If I want to reveal lots of unknown land around a spot, could I put many scouting flags around, which the scout(s) the fulfill at their own pace?

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2020-11-05, 00:02 UTC+1.0

kaputtnik wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Changing scouts or sight ranges of buildings is not necessary at all.

Changing scouts would probably be a waste of work; not necessarily improving the game, maybe making it worse

It's your opinion, but an opinion without arguments is useless.

What a useless opinion of you here, not even supported by arguments

I don't think that an opinion needs arguments. A vote is still a vote. So we don't have consent, and the change might be a candidate for the add-on system.

Do you use scouts?

Of course, but not always. They are not overpowered, and they are not too weak, they are just fine

Edited: 2020-11-05, 00:02 UTC+1.0

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-11-05, 10:06 UTC+1.0

WorldSavior wrote:

kaputtnik wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Changing scouts or sight ranges of buildings is not necessary at all.

Changing scouts would probably be a waste of work; not necessarily improving the game, maybe making it worse

It's your opinion, but an opinion without arguments is useless.

What a useless opinion of you here, not even supported by arguments

I don't think that an opinion needs arguments. A vote is still a vote.

Please stop with this hick-hacking, you and everyone. You do realize you're contradicting yourself in these sentences though?

So we don't have consent

You're the only one who is really opposed to the change as far as I can see. Unless you provide good reason why we should not change scouts as proposed, the change will probably be implemented.

Edited: 2020-11-05, 10:08 UTC+1.0
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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-11-05, 10:55 UTC+1.0

Well,
I am against a change here as well. If the scouting algorithm won't be changed, the scout would get more inefficient as he needs to walk from his house to the flag he was sent to start scouting, plus he needs to walk back to his house to renew his food. So you would end up building scout houses's near the frontIf your territory grews it might then be possible that a scout from far away might be assigned if you click send a scout once too often. Furthermore it adds additional pathfinding to the already performance hungry economy.
So for me it is best as they are currently. They are not to effective as you can't control where they are going, they have maintenance costs which grow with effectivity (means building 2 scout huts rather then 1) and their basic cost (the hut's cost) is cheap. And you have the possibility to know where each scout is going to be around.

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-11-05, 12:51 UTC+1.0

These are good arguments. I disagree about the performance though – since scouts are not used in masses, the additional pathfinding of one or two scouts is negligible compared to the hundreds or even thousands of wares and workers that go through a large economy every minute.

How about combining the current and the proposed behaviour? The scouts would behave as they do now, and additionally one could click on a flag and send the order that a scout will come and scout from this flag the next time he goes to work instead of from his home house. Then you and WorldSavior can keep using scouts as you do now with no changes; and others could stop their scout's houses to not consume food unless they order it1, and use targeted scouting with the advantage of having more control at the cost of longer walking distances.

  1. When a player clicks on a flag and chooses Send Scout, a scout idling at a scout's house (with preference to a close-by scout's house) would then consume one food and come to scout, regardless of whether the building is stopped or not ↩

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-11-05, 18:55 UTC+1.0

How about combining the current and the proposed behaviour? The scouts would behave as they do now, and additionally one could click on a flag and send the order that a scout will come and scout from this flag the next time he goes to work instead of from his home house. Then you and WorldSavior can keep using scouts as you do now with no changes; and others could stop their scout's houses to not consume food unless they order it1, and use targeted scouting with the advantage of having more control at the cost of longer walking distances.

This is exactly what I proposed. Thanks for explaining it better.

Busy indexing nil values

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