I'm making a list of balance fixes to next xta version according to what people have said and what I myself think:

1) Make the smallest mines a bit less powerful. Add metal storage to minelayer vehicle so that it can perform it's function even without other construction units left.

2) Make (T2 gunships (Rapier/Brawler) more worthwhile than T1 ones (Tornado/Voodoo), wrt cost-performance ratio.

3) Decrease Freedom Fighter and Avenger Attack angle a bit.

4) Increase area of effect of flakker shells (Phalanx, Copperhead, Flakker, Cobra) to make them better vs swarms of aircraft.

5) Maybe decrease construction aircraft collateral damage area a bit.

6) Maybe increase speed of Hawk/Vamp, or buff them somehow. Freedom Fighters/Avengers are now more worthwhile to build.

Please add items to/discuss this list. I already tried to gather more opinions than my own here.

7) rename all included widgets to make them show like
XTA - widgetname
in F11 menu.

8) make xta work with spring 0.83
otherwise 9.666 might be very short lived.

9) update auto host

why not just give players a small metal storage not bound to any unit?

Maybe post 9.666 dev log and discus it ?

I got a copy of DKW's 9.666 but wouldnt post it without his permission.

Also, he mentioned he's going on holiday for a month, and probably wont be making a public release until he returns.



collateral damage?




So youve been beaten back to a point where you dont have any builders left to make Mstore, but still want to drive your minelayer around to frustrate your enemy, who just wants to finish you off and say GG?

Not to my liking i have to say. But if it must be done ide say Mstorage to the unit, and not a storage bound to nothing visible [imo]

Ide like to see hammer/thud being used more. Im not certain if this is down to balance or just general player style ive seen. Hammer/thud pwn the hell out of rocko/storm if you fortify them behind a DT wall. They can fire over DT and wrecks, but there hardly used?!?!
- increase weapon velocity i wonder...?

It's a small detail, but the area in which construction aircraft chain explode is maybe too large.

ooooooooow i see

+1

Is t1 fighter better than t2? Given that t2 fighters have (I believe) double the dps per-pass, as they fire twice as many missiles.

They are also faster, and radar stealth gives a substantial advantage, both in metagame terms and functional combat; it adds a particular edge in com sniping situations.

I would say t2 fighters are more worthwhile than t1 for the reasons pintle stated.

For thuds/hammers, they need to full-fill their role better, IE be able to shoot over DT 100% of the time. You can cheaply surround your llt in DT and a lot of hammer shots will fail. Increase the angle of fire and shot velocity maybe.

Other than that I agree with jools. Just dont over do the changes as it plays well now. Except mines fuck them to hell.

And maybe reduce DDM range a bit. Having a defence tower which out ranges all mobile units, has high health and is good at anti-swarm really isnt good for the game.

7) is easily done.

8 ) Moved to separate thead

9) Refers to Helium?

8) end game gadget:
idea is good but needs testing and polishing. It is not ready for release if you have it spam debug messages like this:
Also some other details.
Mind making its own thread for it or if I split it?

9) yes, Helium. It is hosting 9.642

10) maybe include that widget that shows player names above commanders

While we are at it how about a BA-style com-ends condition? For those who don't know it basically reduces the damage done to a com from another com blowing up. It's best use is cleaning up the rules, in 1v1 a combom is usually agreed as a loss to the combomber, so why not code it in?

It works really well in BA especially for 1v1s

Yes, it is definitely not ready, I just posted it so that someone else doesn't make the same work twice. It also needs to be integrated into the game options. And it also needs a new end condition: Team kill all units.

The commander names widget already exists and I even fixed a bug in it.

Go ahead and split it up.

It already works that way in XTA too, but only due to reputation. Usually someone who combombs is considered to be a coward.

But that applies only when someone self-destructs his commander near your commander? How about if he dguns your commander?

So as of today I'm on a ~30 day vacation, and due to limited badnwidth I wont be able to upload a next XTA release. Therefore I've uploaded my 9.666 RC (changelog in the archive) so that anyone interested can edit it with other gadgets/widgets from Jools, knorke, ShineSmith or whome ever and make an official release.

Please do so after Spring 0.83 release as before it wont really matter.


Some other things I had on mind:

I'd like to edit all units to use only following categories

ARM - All ARM units
CORE - All CORE units

TANK - All vehicles
KBOT - All KBots
VTOL - All aircraft
HOVER - All hovercraft
SHIP - All ships
SUB - All underwater buildings and units
PHIB - All amphibious units

NOTLAND - All ships and floating buildings, aircraft, underwater units and buildings
NOTAIR - All vehicles, kbots, hovercraft, land sea and UW buildings and units
NOTSEA - All vehicles, kbots, hovercraft, aircraft, land and UW buildings and units
NOTSUB - All vehicles, kbots, hovercraft, aircraft, land and sea buildings and units

PLANT - All factories
CONSTR - All construction units
DEFENSIVE - All defensive structures
ENERGY - All energy producing units/buildings
METAL - All metal producing units/buildings
STORAGE - All energy/meatl storages
COMMANDER - All commanders

MOBILE - All mobile units
WEAPON - All armed units
NOWEAPON - All unarmed units
RADAR - All radar towers and radar units
JAMMER - All radar jammer towers and radar jammer units
SONAR - All sonar towers and sonar units
STEALTH - All radar/sonar stealth units

as there are too many unit categories and most aren't used

Other thing would be removal of all unstable widgets and gadgets, like Bloom shaders and maybe converting metal maker widgets to gadgets like in BA. That would reduce network traffic a bit and give better control of E usage of metal makers.

iirc t1 fighters beat t2 fighters for cost in straight combat, but t2 fighters are much more effective in all other regards

when 0.83 will be released i will come back to xta :D, since it is just playable at one of my three PCs (and this is the netbook >_<)

Why is it not playable?

Could we get a svn up and running? let the community pick a ticket or 2 and get the next release the most player contributed as possible ?

That and having a public viewable & working "todo" list would be awesome. I see a good few games of peeps playing xta [strangers having the rooms locked usually ), and very little activity on the forum.

But ingame many peeps have concepts. If we make it easier for peeps to contribute....maybe more work could be done?



ideas ?

I find superspeedmetal with 30mins no attack is the best testing method too

laptop has a broken gpu (somehow), when cpu renders it is okay, but when gpu has to do something its just a mess, so i use the laptop just for web-stuff

htpc have to have to newest ati-drivers (dont work with spring)

and netbook works (i'm not sure, if i even updated the gpu-drivers :D)

I don't think anyone of us play any map containing the word "super". It's a rule almost.