I'd love to be able to upgrade a unit I have to have a new magic accessory I got instead of having to train a whole new unit that is exactly the same but with that one item in the design. Pretty much the only complaint I have left about the unit design/creation system since you're already addressing weapon type limitations for upgrades.
What about upgrading a unit to another unit class for double the usual upgrade cost?
Ya I don't like the upgrade system as a whole at all. I'd rather they get rid of it and just allow is to upgrade to another designed unit on our list. There's no control right now as is, so I just don't bother with it. Disbanding and training new units usually ends up being less of a headache.
SD went the wrong way with unit upgrades: instead of making the upgrade paths more specialized (one-handed swords upgrade to other one-handed swords, etc) they neutered the entire system. Now it's pointless to make units upgradeable at all.
we just need to be able to upgrade arbitrary unit X, into arbitrary unit Y. none of this mucking about with specific types of equipment.
The problem with that, though (aside from suspension of disbelief) is computing cost. Every custom transition would also have a custom cost associated with it (the difference between unit type x and unit type y, plus probably some gildar to cover "retraining").
I'll tell you one thing, It's a whole lot cheaper to just disband and recruit a new unit. 300 gold to upgrade or 2 turns to produce hmm that's a toughie
"but what about the experience they've gained, the blood sweat and tears they've shed and the quality time they've spent with your champion, doesn't that mean anything!?" Nope I wants my Chainmail armor
um, no ?
This is a simple one-time cost.Which a player will, at most, do once every few minutes. or maybe 50 times simultaneously in a bulk operation
The process for doing it is thus:
1. Make a list of all equipment the unit currently has (possibly traits too)
2. Make a list of all equipment the newly upgraded unit will have (possibly traits too)
3. Remove from both lists, any items which are in both (ie, any of the new items which the unit already has before upgrading)
4. Total up the labor, metal, crystal and resource costs of each item in the new list
5. charge that to the player's account, and/or present some kind of dialog showing them the cost
the whole operation is pretty simple and the biggest time cost would probably be in swapping out the unit graphics, which is a cost that already exists with upgrading anyway. Any computer in the world is going to be able to do those first 5 steps in less than 0.1 seconds, and that's a conservative estimate. computationally, it's nothing.
The only time CPU costs really enter the equation is in two major situations:
A: Large operations. Things on a big scale, like the code that handles movement or updating every unit on the map. It has a big data set to work with, but is used very infrequently (the average turn is between a few seconds, to several minutes. That's infrequent in computing terms)
B: High frequency operations. Things which are run regularly. From a computing perspective, regular means several times per second
For things that don't fit in either of these categories, a developer can, by and large, not bother optimising. Or even deliberately slow the operation down, and nobody will ever notice any difference.
Keeping their XP and traits would be quite easy. and, you'd generally assume, would be an integral part of the upgrade process anyway.
FWIW, i think an upgraded unit should keep all it's old traits, and NOT take the traits of the new unit
Why would it take any new traits? When you upgrade a unit you can currently only choose between armor and weapon upgrades
Meaning when a better weapon or armor becomes available you can make use of it. The only problem is there isn't too much wiggle room. If you prefer your units to have high initiative weapons and the highest damage sword actually gives +0 and the sword you prefer gives +4, the game is gonna choose the highest damage weapon. I would like to see a little screen pop-up that lets you choose from a variety of items, and a total cost appears at the bottom of the screen and once you are done you click upgrade and the cost is deducted from your treasury.
because when you design a unit, you can choose up to 3 default traits for it to have. And if the target unit you want to upgrade to has a different set of 3, there would be a problem to be resolved.
iirc we're discussing a potential overhaul of the upgrade system, to replace the current (rather useless) method.
i think NanakoAC had a pretty good suggestion there - the most comprehensive solution might actually be to select a new unit and change the old unit into that different type. you can still use that for small incremental upgrades (just select the original unit type that was auto updated to the new available weapons/armor anyway). AI could do this by default - so not much headache teaching them what units they should upgrade to which new type. and the player could just design a new unit and upgrade their old veterans to a different unit to add a mount or fancy new accessories that were not available earlier etc.
i believe frogboy mentioned at some points that upgrading units -internally - actually replaces the original unit with a new unit anyway, so the mechanics are probably already there, they'd just need a UI that allows the player to make their selection.
That is a very good suggestion.
From 0.52 Changelog
This will fix the weapon system anyway. I think the existing upgrade system is fine with just a few tweaks.
Oh god yes. I hate having to have have 2 Mage designs just to give one amulets. Let rings upgrade into amulets or something.
How about adding a mount (provided you've got enough) to a unit, for a decently high enough cost (that's still worth it)?
Btw: shouldn't adding more figures to a unit cost the same as the difference in resource costs between x and y?
That!
Just let us make a unit design and allow us to upgrade current units to it calculating costs in material/gold/time needed to do so. It would be way better then current one.
Also, upgrading in cities could add same benefits as training in said cities. For example, if my fort is giving impulsive trait to new units, then units upgraded in that city should get such trait as well. To balance this, upgrading could also take a turn or two and not be immediate as it is now.
There is also exploit with the current system of upgrades. Lets say you train only squad of 3 units that cost 100 metal and 100 crystal. Squad of 6 units would cost 200 metal and 200 crystal. However if you train only 3 units and pay 100/100 you can then upgrade squad to 6 units at the cost of about 90 gold and NO METAL and CRYSTAL cost. It pretty much allows you to significantly reduce cost of your units just by making squads with only 3 units and then upgrading their number.
The whole upgrade system seems a bit clumsy with different weapon types upgrading to only the one that is most to the right on the list, magic robes upgrading to plate, etc. Game can never guess what I want to upgrade to and what I want to AVOID when upgrading (like too much initiative penalty or too much weight). Upgrading to specific designs would solve this.
I still don't understand why upgrading a unit isn't done through the unit designer.
There's your problem right there.
You assume the player is the only one allowed to do this. The AI will also need to be able to do it, which multiples the complexity and costs for doing it. Not just keeping the AI from doing it all the time (as they will if not told to stop that behaviour) but also ensuring that the AI does it correctly. So yeah, there's a computing cost (AIs+you making upgrade choices/calculations) and a dev cost (teaching the AI to do it well).
edit:
I'm not against the idea - I'd love to add accessories to existing units as well as upgrade the group size instead of tossing 'old' units aside - but there's some realistic challenges that you missed.
The actual upgrading is pointless since you can't choose the weapons/armors (and can't upgrade accessories). Dev have make each weapons uniques, but the actual upgrading schema force you to use one type of weapon/armor by default when you upgrade tech.
Need something like upgrade to the best sword, axe etc... for armor : upgrade to the best defense, initiative or dodge...
I don't understand your point. It already "computes cost" when you use the current upgrades or build a new unit. There's probably more computation going on right now when it tries to decide what weapon or armor is an "upgrade" for the unit.
Yes I know, I contributed to it with my pop-up window idea. I just didn't understand what you were talking about when you said an old unit upgrades to a new unit, because ingame that isn't what happens, ingame you just select upgrade armor, or upgrade weapon. That's it, no traits to worry about or anything. But now that you've clarified you were talking about a potential problem that could arise in your new prototypical system, well it's all gravy baby.
Computing cost = more processing required = mor ecode to run a lot of the time = more CPU time - Ie a hit to the efficiency of the game code (and turn times). I didn't mean a simple gilder cost calculation for upgrades.
Ok, that stands but LH uses multithreading for AI process so AI 'thinks' while you do your turn. It already uses some of computing in current system and I seriously doubt it would need significantly more for the one proposed.
I wouldn't say 'significantly' either, but was mainly pointing out that the reasoning behind the suggestion was player only related.
That would be nice. The AI could still use the current method of upgrading, but a more refined option for upgrades for players would be appreciated, and this would do it I think.
That would be the easier thing to implement and to understand. Just station a unit in a city (or outpost!) then you open the training dialog, and in addition to the "train" button you can see an "upgrade" button. If you click upgrade you pay th difference in resources and production plus a small extra in concept of refitting (perhaps 10% of the production cost or so)
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