Flight behaviour of planes

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 28 May 2005, 19:45

and i think the crash damage is currently turned off?

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 29 May 2005, 02:48

Evidently not, otherwise they would live forever after their crash sequence is initiated

I think that it should be the other way around (Even though I disagree with the whole radar scheme, if thats what people want, I'll have to work within it), so that passive radars act exactly like TA radars, in that they don't immediately reveal themselves to the enemy unless they themselves have been spotted by someones radar.
Jammers should cloak any radar they are put next too.

This cuts out a lot of unecessary fiddliness, and it stops your enemy from seeing a big circle of nothing, with a single dot bang in the middle.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » 29 May 2005, 22:30

I'm not wholly for the idea to lighting all radars up like flares disregarding of the placement. I'm for the idea to show radars when there are enemy units within their work range (and not to be revealed by some other radar, which would defeat the purpose). I'm against the idea to introduce "passive" radars into the game (since that would mean altering the game and changing it into a mod), although such extra units would be welcome to be created. I also second Zsinj point that all radars should be jamable.

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 29 May 2005, 23:20

Making active radars jammable eliminates the whole point behind making radars reveal themselves. It's not really hard to place a jammer near your radar, and when you've done that, you have a perfectly invisible radar, that provides targetting for each and every AA battery of yours. Airplanes are once again at a major disadvantage. You'll have to send massive waves of common aircraft just to spot the radar, and then another massive wave to destroy it.

Again I turn to realism: a jammer placed near a radar would completely screw up the radar's readings.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » 29 May 2005, 23:35

Hrm... now that you say it, it does indeed bring us back to the original point.

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra · Post by **[K.B.] Napalm Cobra** » 30 May 2005, 05:47

Would it jam it if it were on a different frequency?

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 30 May 2005, 06:18

Why not juts make a basic jammer plane with a small jamming radius?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 30 May 2005, 10:15

That's already possible. Transport plane + jammer unit = jamming plane.

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 30 May 2005, 11:30

Radar Jammers are level 2 units, so I don't think it is entirely unbalanced. Seriously, if you were offering a level 2 "passive" radar, a radar jammer is at the same level tech tree, it just slots in with current gameplay far more seamlessly.

I think you are looking at it the wrong way, however. I think that the current solution is a round about method of fixing the issue with aircraft.

We have identified that aircraft are dealt a significant balancing blow because they are targetable on radar. I am not sure how you managed to locate how the radars themselves are detected as being a primary solution to the issue.

Perhaps a better thing to look at is either how aircraft are portrayed on the map as radars, or how units are targeted when firing. Fixing these up would be a far more logical solution then making complex radar detection rules, which seem to me to cause far more problems then they solve.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 30 May 2005, 17:50

are hawks no longer stealth? seems to me that stealth units have gotten a huge usefulness boost (as if hawks needed it <_<) with radar targetting

i'd imagine the solution for planes would be to simply make more of them be cloaked from radar...have a few of the bigger ones still be radar targetable.

*shrug*

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 31 May 2005, 01:17

I would think a better option is how aircraft are portrayed on the radar itself. It has to be some way so that the player knows what is happening, and can work out that such and such blips are aircraft, but that his defenses cannot target them as well.

One potential solution is to make it that the radar is unable to give units a vertical bearing. It simply detects where units are, and places a dot on the map, according to the heightmap.

That way, all aircraft are identified, but when you look on your game screen, they will look like vehicle dots; as in they will seem to be moving along the ground. It won't be until line of sight is established that you know what it is for sure.
Of course, it is pretty easy to figure out what is an aircraft, and what isn't; just as it was in OTA. If it is moving in a straight line, and pretty fast, chances are its an aircraft. But your defences don't know that!

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 31 May 2005, 03:16

Oh, nice idea....so the defenses will fire at where the dots are on the ground, allowing the planes to close to LOS range.

I like it, good idea warlord.

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra · Post by **[K.B.] Napalm Cobra** » 31 May 2005, 05:47

Bad idea warlord, what kind of retarded futuristic radar only detects in 2d?

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 31 May 2005, 06:53

The same one that can only see about 5 feet infront of it, and can go faster than light without inventing a GPS.

Its all about gameplay. I'd rather have the 2D radar system, which mind you, was exactly what OTA technically had, then the complicated "oh radars can detect such and such at X range, but only if they have first been detected by another unit...", which completely defeats the purpose of intuitive gaming controls. I don't want to play Warhammer, and work out stats; I want to blow shit up.

Gameplay gets my vote over realism any day. This is the path taken by Cavedog, and I hope it is the path taken by Spring.

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra · Post by **[K.B.] Napalm Cobra** » 31 May 2005, 07:21

Gameplay gets my vote over realism any day.

Same here, but 2d radar is detrimental to gameplay.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » 31 May 2005, 10:11

Why can't we do it as in old TA? Update the radar once a second and not realtime. That means it would be impossible to squander incoming planes but for the slow ground units, it wouldn't matter as much.

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 31 May 2005, 11:03

That happened in OTA?

And yes, when It was said that radar is updated intermittently, I said that would be a good idea too. But is it all radar, or individual radar structures? Wouldn't the individual radar structures overlap? etc.

zwzsg · Post by **zwzsg** » 31 May 2005, 14:23

Update all radars at once, once in a while. Sound like the best idea to make radar-targetting ineffective against planes.

VonGratz · Post by **VonGratz** » 31 May 2005, 16:59

mongus wrote:i think planes should turn around to gain height.
this can be really tricky ...

See the game Massive Attack.The planes are VTOLs but do it.
VonGratz(Graatz)

VonGratz · Post by **VonGratz** » 31 May 2005, 17:04

[quote="BlackLiger"]Key note. Sean mirrsen has had me testing for the past 2 days his modified spring code. It has only 3 features away from the normal spring code

1) Water level rises and falls like tides. Its not major, but its neat.

Its VERY interesting and real.This will enable or not changes in range of ships during the game.
DuGratz(Graatz)

Spring RTS Engine

Flight behaviour of planes