Collectors and walls

[kwinse]

In short, collectors don't redraw when walls are removed (by decay, script (probably), or map edit) or added. Not sure if this is a thing that can/should be fixed or if it's been reported before...

Screenshots from a quick custom map (creeper visibility turned off) to show this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73817062/cw3ss_1.jpg Before
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73817062/cw3ss_2.jpg Walls decayed
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73817062/cw3ss_3.jpg Collector turned off then back on

And if it has to be said, no it's not the power zone or map. I first noticed this in the campaign.

[Kingo]

This has been around in CW1...
The collector zones don't change if a wall decays (the only way to modify terrain in CW1) in CW1. I think V might have used the same mechanics or even the same engine from CW1, so this is probably going to stay.

[florrat]

This has been around in CW1...
The collector zones don't change if a wall decays (the only way to modify terrain in CW1) in CW1. I think V might have used the same mechanics or even the same engine from CW1, so this is probably going to stay.

Collector zones are recomputed when you terraform, so I guess it can also be recomputed when a wall decays...

[Grauniad]

Collector zones do not change as a result of a graphic optimization. The entire green of all collectors (referred to as "soylent" (and forgive me if my terminology is wrong) is an overlay that is sent to the graphics engine to draw. Reducing the updates reduces the load on the graphics system to render it.

Energy collection values, unlike in CW1, where this was not done as a result of optimization to improve AIR performance) are recalculated every cycle. Or at least they were early on in development.

[kwinse]

Yeah I wasn't sure if it was in CW1 (it's been too long), and wasn't willing to download the editor or find a good campaign map to test it. >_>

OKay I just saw the discrepancy of energy in my screenshots, maybe I changed something between them whoops. Well, here's four more screenshots that should properly show that energy collection appears to match what the green fields show (I messed around with terraforming and collector redrawing): 4 5 6 7

In text, 10.8 energy when that collector is toggled with walls up, 11.0 when that collector is toggled with walls down. The number does not change on its own when wall states change, even if I were to, say, toggle one of the other collectors. So unless the internal energy value is changed but the displayed value doesn't, I'd say Virgil (over-)optimized it since early development.