When Lander type units are defending on the ground and retreat from combat, they are destroyed and not capturable

[floralpond]

Description:

When Lander type units are defending on the ground and retreat from combat, they are destroyed and not capturable.

Expected behavior: Retreating landers on the ground should move backward one hex like any other ground unit, then capturable. Or another possibility, if the surrendering unit can't move backward for whatever reason, then it just stays in the same hex, but is capturable.

Actual behavior: They are destroyed and not capturable.

Game version:

1.51 vanilla

Steps to reproduce:

1. Load up lander_retreat_test.sav, attached to this issue report here:
   • LANDER_RETREAT_TEST2.zip
2. There are some low loyalty rebel landers near the Li Halan fort on Kish and a Li Halan blademaster and a bunch of trackers in the fort.
3. Use the whole stack of trackers and blademaster to attack the assault landers
4. some of the landers should surrender
5. Move your trackers forward to see that the landers have disappeared.

Additional information:

• This appears to have something to do with terrcost.dat, with how landers can't move on land so when the surrendering mechanism tries to move them they just disappear. I don't think they should disappear in this case. I don't know if maybe there is a way to just modify terrcost.dat so they don't disappear but still can't move on land, or if an exception needs to be added to the surrendering mechanism.
• This issue doesn't appear to affect Mech or Gate units, probably because they can move on land.

[Matt-Caspermeyer]

I'm not 100% certain, but I thought that this was also in V1.4, but I may be mistaken.

Allowing them to move on land will fix this issue, but they are not allowed to and so that's why they die.

We'll probably have to discuss this issue during our next developer meeting to decide what to do...

[floralpond]

I think just making landers able to move won't really fix the issue, although it may mitigate it, because there is still the case of any other move type surrenders and can't move back for whatever reason (like for example, foot units backed up against water tiles with nowhere to run), then those units will be destroyed. So even if we allow landers to move on land, this issue of surrendering units being destroyed will still occur, but it's just most likely to happen with landers because they can't move on land.

Furthermore, allowing landers to move on land also changes how the game can be played a bit.

I don't know how easy it would be to implement, but I think surrendering units that don't have anywhere to go should just stay in the hex that they currently are in and not move would be my preference. Maybe this means they are basically auto-captured (like Jump or Space type units would be if they were in the defending stack), or that they aren't captured yet but still capturable.

[Matt-Caspermeyer]

I think just making landers able to move won't really fix the issue, although it may mitigate it, because there is still the case of any other move type surrenders and can't move back for whatever reason (like for example, foot units backed up against water tiles with nowhere to run), then those units will be destroyed. So even if we allow landers to move on land, this issue of surrendering units being destroyed will still occur, but it's just most likely to happen with landers because they can't move on land.

Furthermore, allowing landers to move on land also changes how the game can be played a bit.

I don't know how easy it would be to implement, but I think surrendering units that don't have anywhere to go should just stay in the hex that they currently are in and not move would be my preference. Maybe this means they are basically auto-captured (like Jump or Space type units would be if they were in the defending stack), or that they aren't captured yet but still capturable.

Actually, the more I think about this, the more I like it - if the unit can't move, for whatever reason, it just stays where it is. This is probably the best solution for the issue at hand...