EE is back in development, Check page 6

[Peet]

The more realistic scale comes at a terrible price though..icon wars..Not only do icons ruin the atmosphere but they also look much worse than seeing a real model.
Icons conceal information and disorientate since you do not know where your unit is facing and how much hp it has.
It is also disorientating watching huge icons that clip with each other

So raise the unit icon distance...

[Gota]

Than i cant play cause i cant distinguish units?

[Peet]

Then don't play.

[Fanger]

There is no need, other than in your own mod, to play all the way zoomed out all the time, or in TA view.. this is your OWN preference.. It is entirely possible to play via another set of controls and zoom in.. I myself do this and have no issues telling my stuff apart.. and this is not just because I modeled everything..

[Gota]

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[Gota]

There is no need, other than in your own mod, to play all the way zoomed out all the time, or in TA view.. this is your OWN preference.. It is entirely possible to play via another set of controls and zoom in.. I myself do this and have no issues telling my stuff apart.. and this is not just because I modeled everything..

Wait,I don't understand.
You mean to play with a different camera and zoom in more?
thing is,if I don't make icons appear at a certain zoom level,which is quite close its hard for me to distinguish different units.
If i do make them appear at a close enough zoom Then im just playing with big icons instead of models.
I dont know how anyone who plays seriously can distinguish between the radar tank of GD and the regular one(as an example) fast enough.
don't take this the wrong way but IMO anyone claiming he can distinguish them fast enough(without icons)to be able to play at a high level in,say, a 1v1 game,either has an exceptional eye sight or doesn't play intense EE games with other serious players and trys to do all he can to win(a gameplay stress test).

[lurker]

1. Smoth is a heavy supporter of EE, that entire post is pointless.
--actually, after you edited in that comment about the lobby, that's over the line where I wipe your post to stop RAEG--

2. Yes, fang is telling you to not zoom out so much.

[Fanger]

That is correct Yan, most of the people who complain about the unit viewing problem also admit that they feel a need to have their zoom to a level which allows the viewing of the entirety of the units range, and that they play in TA view, this will of course neccesitate them being zoomed WAY out, however if you say used one of the tiltable cameras you would not have to zoom so far out to see the max unit range as you can angle the camera (gasp such a crazy concept). You may notice that many modern RTS games feature a slightly angled camera.. this is not just for shits and giggles. Now I realize you probably wont listen to me, or will come up with some bullshit excuse why you cant play like this. Let me be frank, IM NOT CHANGING THE SCALE SO DONT ASK..

Also on a further note Here is a link to a new version with the changes I mentioned earlier will post it in first post with changelist as well :

http://files.filefront.com/ExpandandExt ... einfo.html

feel free to mirrror and post a link, I will add it to the first post asap

[Gota]

1. Smoth is a heavy supporter of EE, that entire post is pointless.
--actually, after you edited in that comment about the lobby, that's over the line where I wipe your post to stop RAEG--

2. Yes, fang is telling you to not zoom out so much.

He can be a supporter but does he actually play it ...like say decimator or does he just enjoy EE from a developers point of view?there is a huge differance.

you found it nessesary to erase my remark,which was not abusive but didn't find the need to erase Smoth's blunt insults a page earlier?

[lurker]

Maybe a widget to change the camera mode?

[Fanger]

You do not need to be able to distinguish at a moments notice between a radar tank and a regular one, you can take some time to zoom in, EE is not that micro intensive/fast paced..

[Gota]

You do not need to be able to distinguish at a moments notice between a radar tank and a regular one, you can take some time to zoom in, EE is not that micro intensive/fast paced..

I disagree about the intensity...
about the camera,i will try a different one since some were added in the past few releases but from my gameplay experience with OTA based mods the ta camera is still the best when it comes down to intensive games where the objective is to win and react fast and not just browse the different units and structures and play casually.

[smoth]

PLAY EE, Accidently your whole opponent


The units are fine, you just have not played enough, after a match or two it is really obvious. We have gone over all of that before you shat your presence onto this community. I used to be one of the playtesters for ee and was one of the people who loved playing the aliens when they only had 1 tech level. So tell me more about the shit you don't know. I was there when fang had this cute little mod with one faction and a hand full of bots.

Take your weak noise elsewhere.

Hey man, you won't read any of this anyway you only know one answer and that everyone else is wrong. Fang has better things to do with his time than debate with you constantly trying to railroad your opinion into modders.

[Gota]

That is correct Yan, most of the people who complain about the unit viewing problem also admit that they feel a need to have their zoom to a level which allows the viewing of the entirety of the units range, and that they play in TA view, this will of course neccesitate them being zoomed WAY out, however if you say used one of the tiltable cameras you would not have to zoom so far out to see the max unit range as you can angle the camera (gasp such a crazy concept). You may notice that many modern RTS games feature a slightly angled camera.. this is not just for shits and giggles. Now I realize you probably wont listen to me, or will come up with some bullshit excuse why you cant play like this. Let me be frank, IM NOT CHANGING THE SCALE SO DONT ASK..

Also on a further note Here is a link to a new version with the changes I mentioned earlier will post it in first post with changelist as well :

http://files.filefront.com/ExpandandExt ... einfo.html

feel free to mirrror and post a link, I will add it to the first post asap

Your replying to me as if brought this up..Ivory king was the one who brought this up so its not like its only me who feels uncomfortable about the scale.
That was the reason I added my own personal opinion and arguments,cause I think others wont feel comfortable about it as well.

[Wolf-In-Exile]

Great to see you back man.

[AF]

hmm, while changing the scale itself is out of question, everybody either assumes one of the following solutions to the issue:

• Big units: Undo the scale change
• ignorance: There is no issue
• Princess diary painting: put big bright colours all over the unit and make them all distorted
• No its your fault: change camera zoom

All the above answers are nonsense and poppycock and its disappointing nobody can think of something better.

For example if the icons had little smaller icons that marked them out as a unit type such as a flamer a ranged attacker a builder or other, then icon wars would be far more playable and the scale and balance would not have to change at all. Make a square have a marker colour in one corner, different icon borders even. Construction units that have yellow dashed borders around them etc etc

Another example of an aide to help with this would be dawn of war style tips on mouse over telling you about the unit under the cursor. A build icon and a name should suffice.

Scale/balance/models don't have to change to fix this. Nor do you have to ahrass potential users and create shit storms by performing acts that are blacklisted as mortal sins on blogs across the design usability public relations and marketing websites across the internet. Lets not alienate people, and lets stop squabbling ofer the same set of old ideas that have been proven pointless time and time again.


Having said that, I'm curious what it would look like if the buildings where scaled up and the units where kept the same.

[Pxtl]

Fanger goes to a lot of trouble to model his units quite nicely. I think we'd all rather be able to see them, rather than an icon that was crapped out of a photoshop script.

Now, I don't mind the idea of playing with the freelook camera, but isn't the camera still too buggy to use? Last time I used it, it _still_ couldn't jump to a target properly - if you used F3 or ctrl-C or T, it would sit OVER the unit, pointing away from it.... which is useless.

That, and you need to be able to position the camera outside of the map looking in.

And the Total War camera's default settings are still too slow to use - I don't know if they can even be tweaked into being useful.

Both of these things need to be fixed before Fang's vision can be realized.

[Peet]

I think Rotatable Overhead is the camera of choice, but yes I agree fixing F3/T/Ctrl-C would really facilitate its use.

[imbaczek]

engine feature requests => mantis
also, game specific camera widget, perhaps?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

lets get this straight:

if you cannot tell the units apart sufficently, you

a) have not played the mod for more than two hours

b) are visually impared

c) are a whiny bitch who finds any unit design philosophy deviating from that of TA terrifiying and wrong

in the case of a), you are not qualified to comment so shut the hell up.

in the case of b), goto specfuckingsavers and stop posting horseshit

in the case of c), nobody cares what you think, go play ba dsd

now, as AF said, I am curious how scaled up buildings would work with the scaled don units, because i like big metal extractors

on the subject of Icon wars, I am not the biggest fan of this (which is why I didnt like the scale change so much) having said that, if you are willing to zoom in more this isnt neciserrily an issue- its just irritating when you have adapted to a certain playing distance. since you still zoom in to micro during battles etc by no means is this a crippling issue- and at this distance it is easy enough to tell the units apart. I didnt realise the bigger stuff was bigger because I rarely played games that esculated that far before a hell load of GDI t1 rolled over everything

do cannons gain range from altitude?