Steal enemy resources and supplies?

[torpid flax]

Currently, the only thing we get from destroying resource nodes and enemy supplies… is that the enemy doesn’t get to use them.

That feels kinda underwhelming.

So what if destroying a node gave your team some of the resources it provides? So destroying a Fuel Node would give your team some fuel… either by stealing it from the enemy team (pros: would make resource node hunting a much more important job for recon / cons: could be infuriating for the enemy team, as a bad player could just build resource nodes in a very visible spot and screw over the team.)

Or by simply adding some resource to your team (more fair towards the enemy team, but would make this change less impactful).

Exactly how much your team would gain/enemy team lose is something I would leave to the devs.

—

The same could be applied to enemy supplies, because even if US and Germany used different stuff, something in those crates could still be of use to the other team. Getting materiel (that’s an actual word) is good, but getting it from the enemies is even better.

So first of all, I’m going to say that Recon and Tank squads shouldn’t have this ability. Tank squads have no use for supplies, while this ability for Recon would be too powerful. It’s too easy to find enemy supply crates far behind enemy lines. It can be argued that Recon has to keep their packs light so they cannot really loot the enemy army.

This would be something only Infantry squads could do.

So an infantry squad member destroys a supply crate, and a portion of the destroyed supplies would go to their Squad Leader - making their next garrison cheaper.

—

…That sounds a bit overpowered, so here are some limitations to that:

*A limit of 50, maybe 100, supplies can be held at max. (50 would be a good number though.) Any captured supplies that go over that limit would be lost (or given to the closest different SL to prevent waste and misery).

*Only 50%, maybe 25% of the captured supplies would actually go to the Squad Leader. (So a full 150 crate would only give 75 supplies, or just 50 if we go with a 50 supply limit.)

*All of the held supplies are used when the Squad Leader places the next garrison. They cannot be held for later or placed down.

*Your Squad actually needs a Squad Leader to make use of it. Without one, all of the captured supplies would be lost (or given to the closest SL to prevent waste and misery)

---

This would make it easier to conduct offensive actions, as Squad Leaders would have one more source of getting supplies necessary for a Garrison. A limit of 50 would also let SLs to create an offensive Garrison without any support-switching shenanigans. Just one support would be needed.

One problem is that this ability might make Support class less needed… and while that is true, a single Support player is still annoyingly not enough to place an offensive garry. A Squad Leader would still need help of a friendly commander, a supply truck, or a second Support player. This would just give a SL just one more source of help they needed.

Another problem is that this could be infuriating for the enemy team, as now a poorly placed supply box could be transformed into an Enemy Garrison.

To add this ability, first we would need a way to move friendly supplies around, maybe give Supply Trucks an ability to pick up, store and move up to 300 supplies, then drop them in boxes that store up to 150 supplies. They would still have 2 boxes worth of supplies, but they would also be able to move friendly supplies to pick up nearby friendly supplies and move them around.

A problem with THAT is this would allow Supports to stack boxes of supplies and… It’s getting late and I’m tired. I’m going to sleep… I think this would be enough info to start a discussion. (I'm also reaching a character limit.)

EDIT: I have created a separate suggestion thread for the supply truck idea: #1106668330489753610 message

[gentle folio]

Not trying to shortcut your idea and be rude, but this is incredibly complex; much more complex than just asking the commander for a supply drop which are cheap and almost always available.

It’s kind of hard to follow IMO

[torpid flax]

To boil down the stealing enemy supply part: The Infantry (not recon) finds enemy supplies, dismantles them, and gets a discount for their next garrison as a reward.

The rest is just me going into rules for this mechanic, possible problems that this would bring, and a possible solution to said problems (Supply Truck being able to move supplies)

This thing isn't supposedly to be the next primary way of building garrisons, it's an opportunistic reward for pillaging enemy loot.

I might write a separate suggestion for the supply truck because I like the concept, and that in itself would be a pretty big change.

[median steeple]

This whole idea seems a little overly complicated for the kind of game HLL is. Nodes have had a long history of placement rules, and them giving more/less resources depending on how close to the frontline they were, cost, tear down time, etc, etc...

Long story short, the current state of nodes is the best they have been. You can generally drop them at the start of a match, and forget about them for the rest of the game. It's really better this way. Nodes in HLL are a way for your team to gain extra resources, and shouldn't require much more thought than that.

It's already hard enough the way it is to get nodes set-up in some games, let alone having to try to pull people from the frontline (enjoying the game) to go poop off somewhere in the middle of nowhere to build nodes (not enjoying the game).

[torpid flax]

IMO the nodes idea is very simple: An enemy team just gets a reward for dismantling them (be it literally stealing the resources from the enemy team, or just getting some resources out of thin air).

This change wouldn't really affect how the nodes are built - most engineers already go out of their way to hide the nodes. It just provides some incentive for Recon to actually go chasing after nodes instead garrisons or artillery.

[spare crest]

this is an interesting idea