Why was healing not implemented using energy?

[Timwi]

I am confused because it seems that the "energy packets" idea is used for almost everything: building things, charging weapons, and activating totems... but somehow, not healing. I would have liked the game a bit more if healing was dependent on one's energy reserves like everything else. Is there a reason that healing was made an exception?

[Kamron3]

Healing is based on energy packets already.

_k

[djcian]

Healing is based on energy packets already.

wait. what? i think Timwi is trying to say is why can you not send packets (like ammo packets that you can see) to damaged buildings to heal them.  because right now buildings just inexplicably auto-heal at a snails pace when they are connected to the network. 

[Timwi]

Healing is based on energy packets already.

No, it isn't. Are you sure you've played the game before?

[Joykill]

Buildings, actually only the weapons like Sams, blasters and mortars regenerate when connected to a network, but they do it slowly, there is no other way to heal your buildings... besides any other building that gets touched by creep just goes Boom anyway

[Aurzel]

i think kam just got ownd :D

anyway its pretty easy to explain an autorepair system, the lead one i'd got with is nanobots working inside each turret, besides if there was 'repair packets' i think it would be too much hassle, unless it autorepairs as normal and you have an option to turn on a sort of 'repair faster' button which uses energy

[UpperKEES]

I like the idea of quicker healing (upgrade?) or let it depend on your energy reserves.

Now it seems weird that it goes so much slower than building (have the nano bots gone on holidays? ;))

BTW: Does anyone know the exact time it takes to repair damage equivalent to 10 energy units?

[Karsten75]

I like the idea of quicker healing (upgrade?) or let it depend on your energy reserves.

Now it seems weird that it goes so much slower than building (have the nano bots gone on holidays? ;))

BTW: Does anyone know the exact time it takes to repair damage equivalent to 10 energy units?

Only if you can equate 10 energy units to 4 spanners and a socket wrench.  :)

[UpperKEES]

Hmmm, this makes me think. Repairing might indeed not even be related to the initial cost of the weapon.

Without upgrades a blaster costs 25 energy units and a mortar costs 50. Let's say they become both damaged for 50%.

Does it take twice as long for the mortar to become healed completely, or is the healing a fixed percentage per second?

[Siccles]

the healing is probably a % of the total health, afaik mortars and blasters have the same amount of that.

[UpperKEES]

I think you are right. I previously assumed that a more expensive weapon would have more health as well (as the health meter is also used to indicate the build progress).

[Karsten75]

I saw something today that I've seen before and that I have been wondering about. I was building a blaster in an area that got overrun by creeper.  Even though I was sending a lot of build packets to the blaster, it never got completed, you could see the health/completion bar increase for every packet received, but then it would go down again.

So in the build stage there is a definite correlation between the health and the completion and the number of packets sent to it. It is an interesting observation.

[Aurzel]

not necessarily, it might just be that a mortar takes twice as many build packets to give it the same amount of hp

[knucracker]

Regarding why units heal without taking energy packets:

A more relevant question is "why can't you accelerate healing of a unit?".  Whether or not packets are seen moving to a unit is probably not the root of your question.  I'm guessing you really would like ways of accelerating the healing of a unit.

The short answer is that game play would change significantly if you could put a unit in harms way, then fly it back and use excess energy to heal it rapidly.  To prevent this, units heal very slowly.  This makes your use of a mortar on a mortal bombing run something you can't really do in rapid succession.  The reason I wanted to prevent this is I didn't want people to be constantly micromanaging the flight of mortars into the creeper, and then back to heal, then back to creeper.  You might also ask why healing happens at all.  The game would work without it, that is certain.  But in play testing it gave a little extra incentive to save units that became damaged by moving them to safety.... since saving them and letting them heal would be much better than building a whole new unit (for the energy conscious player).  This small aspect provided one more little brick in the overall strategic element of the game.

Note that on larger maps it might make sense to have healing centers that can accelerate the healing of units through the use of energy.  This might be something I explore in episode 2 of CW.

As for the mythology of how a unit can heal without requiring packets, you can imagine the nanobots that originally constructed the unit can very slowly tap fractal space energy to reconstruct the damaged armor of the weapon.

[rs]

I suppose in theory the healing could actually be made to use packets without necessarily making it any faster - it's already the case that building consumes packets slower than recharging the weapons.