Claiming and Deconstructing

[Darth Fool]

So when the new ability to claim walls and mortars came into effect I was happy to finally be able to recover resources from them.  Since playing with it, I have become a little disillusioned with the claim function.  Claiming an area works OK on Mortars and walls in the open, but when a wall is buried in the mountain, it becomes necessary to either mine around the wall so you can highlight the whole wall, a waste of time for your colonists,  or you need to claim one chunk of wall, mark it for deconstruction, wait for a colonist to deconstruct it, then repeat for the next chunk, a micro-managing waste of player time.  I would like to propose a solution to ameliorate some of the problem.  I of course, would like to hear others thoughts/proposals in the hopes that a solution is ultimately implemented in the game.

First, I would propose eliminating the claim feature.  From a gameplay perspective this is one less thing for the player to have to do/keep track of.  From a storyline perspective, you are claiming everything in your territory and don't respect raiders "claims" on Mortars that they build.  The downside to this, if done in isolation, is that there is no balance to the ability to run over and deconstruct enemy items, but the current claim system doesn't really address this anyways.  This leads to part two: 

Second, have deconstruction take time.  It could be the same as the construction time, or some multiple (half?), but the key point is that when you mark a wall for deconstruction, your colonist doesn't just touch it and have it collapse.  This adds a bit of realism and accounts for why raiders don't just claim/deconstruct your walls and walk right in.  Deconstruction ought to take longer than attacking a wall/item, but should recycle a larger fraction of the recovered resources.

Thoughts?

[Shinzy]

You can't claim anything until you fight over it
as in the previous owner is dead
and you can't deconstruct anything until you own it

The claim tool and deconstruction provides only convenience to the player

Best part is that using either one of these features is completely optional, too!
you can still achieve anything you could without them
mine your old walls down and bomb the raider built stuff if that's how you like to do it!

[Matthiasagreen]

I get that it is a bit annoying to have to continually claim walls one at a time in a mountain, but I wouldn't really want it any other way. There is no way you or the colonists could claim something they don't even know exists.

Also, the claim feature, if i am not mistaken, is closely tied to automatic homezones. Having all those ruins automatically considered yours would make the homezone a nightmare in the beginning.

[Darth Fool]

The point is that the claim feature as currently implemented serves no puprose beyond adding an extra step.  In terms of determining which walls are repairable, it should be redundant with the home zone declaration.  Making you claim something before deconstructing it is not a big burden when you can do it in a large scale sweep of the mouse, but when you are forced to micro manage, as in the case of the buried wall, it become very cumbersome, revealing the UI problem with adding in the extra step.  Mining a wall and deconstructing a wall are not the same thing, as one takes time and the other occurs nearly instantly.  In fact this can be abused to create "secret" doors to allow you to flank enemies where you deconstruct a wall near the rear of your kill-box.  If you had to mine your way through the wall or attack it, the strategy would not be nearly as effective.

[Matthiasagreen]

I wonder if that step is less for us and more for the AI.

[Mikhail Reign]

Why do you have to claim it one square at a time? I've never noticed having to do that. Granted if something is in the way, you have to demolish it from the end out, but why the claiming?

[EarthyTurtle]

to be perfectly honest these are all minor inconveniences, if inconveniences at all for me. I honestly don't mind one bit, the claiming feature was a god send when I wanted to claim and maintain old buildings. Also some early stone bricks by de-constructing out there buildings.

[Matthiasagreen]

Why do you have to claim it one square at a time? I've never noticed having to do that. Granted if something is in the way, you have to demolish it from the end out, but why the claiming?

The claiming one at a time occurs when you find a wall inside the mountain and only one square of it is reachable. You have to claim that one and desconstruct it, only to find out there are more behind it.

[glyph]

I was very confused as to why I could not deconstruct walls near my starting area. I was pretty close to submitting a bug report before I figured out that you had to claim the walls. I knew about the claim feature but didn't know it applied to pre-existing walls.

Really, when going to deconstruct a claimed wall, it should automatically claim the wall first.