Complete Annihilation News

[manored]

Thats because the comment was about how it is now :)

Just in case mod team didnt noticed yet, morphing chicken drones might be pushed away by impacts winhout interrupting the morphing, what looks weird since they are morphing into fixed units.

[Jamuk426]

Oops, fixed.

Never mind about the single resource system anyways, I'm going to try to implement it as my first contribution to CA other than my genius ideas.

However, since this will be my first experience modding for spring does anyone have a problem with:
A. using a copy of CA for my experiment
or
B. Occasionally posting questions about how code already in place works if there is not enough documentation on it
?


(The new overload system will be extremely useful for me, as it will provide most of the examples about resource management through lua that I will require. However, I will likely track down the writer of that code personally as I hate using code from other people.)

[CarRepairer]

Just in case mod team didnt noticed yet, morphing chicken drones might be pushed away by impacts winhout interrupting the morphing, what looks weird since they are morphing into fixed units.

Thanks, I did notice that. It's kind of funny looking.

[YamroZ]

Hi

Is there a way to disable units in CA?
I thought that maybe this way i could workaround problem with RAI building T3 units at game start but I can't add anything to disabled units list.

Regards
YamroZ

[manored]

You can disable units from any mod using the "disable units" option on battlescreen, but I never did so so dont know how to use it.

[Evil4Zerggin]

IIRC that doesn't work since we use Lua defs.

[trepan]

All mods use lua defs, whether raw or by proxy.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

losing energy as a resource is dumb to the max, perish the thought

[manored]

losing energy as a resource is dumb to the max, perish the thought

Give a decent argument or I will not only not listen to you, but lose respect as well.

[smoth]

removing energy is not a good idea.

[Otherside]

removing energy is fail and ive stated in chat b4 why i feel this way so i will not repeat myself

[Saktoth]

I believe that the problems regarding the nature of BP could be solved by having builders build very slow, but adding a building capable of amplifing the build speed of builders anywhere on the map as needed.

Having your mobile constructor that roam the map dictating where how and what, while a cetralized investment dictating the how much? Hrrm.... why, we already have such a system. Its called energy.

with energy you are either building very fast cause you have enough or very slow cause you dont

You build at a rate of your income, if you build any faster than your income, you have a small buffer (your storage) to run down before your production begins to slow. IE exactly what you're describing.

I dont not believe BP is a poor economic "brake". It acts pretty much the same as energy, that is, it requires you to spend resources to increase the speed at wich you can spend resources... in the same manner that you could use part of a metal burst to spam builders and then spam militar, right now you can spam energy structures and builders, and then spam militar.

And that extra step is important. The main problem with BP as a throttle, as i already said, is not that buildpower doesnt work as a throttle, its that it does too many other things- its locational and must be moved, its a direct source of income etc. Making BP expensive enough to be an effective throttle would make it quite simply a logistical pain in the butt to handle. With E, you can invest in E at home then use that E on the frontline with a builder- the throttle isnt locational, its centralized. You can spread your builders out more, expand with them, stick them on the frontline, reclaim with them, and have more than you need to allow you flexibility- because they arent a huge investment and thus having more than you need of them doesnt cost much. Tacking the 'where you can build' and the 'how fast' together like that makes the 'where' a lot more expensive, limiting the 'where' significantly. Yes, the 'where', the logistics, is important (Which is why i dont like morphing) but you dont want to make it too expensive.

So, how expensive? Lets crunch the numbers here. At current in CA it takes 3 solar panels to power a constructor working flat out. That is 300 metal (the current solar cost is 100). If you keep the same economic throttle rates and just add that cost to constructors, you're talking about constructors costing 420 metal each- about as much as a factory. Either that or you could cut their buildpower down to 1/4th.

Can you make a game based on this? Yes. Is this for CA? I dont think so.

[manored]

I believe that the problems regarding the nature of BP could be solved by having builders build very slow, but adding a building capable of amplifing the build speed of builders anywhere on the map as needed.

Having your mobile constructor that roam the map dictating where how and what, while a cetralized investment dictating the how much? Hrrm.... why, we already have such a system. Its called energy. /quote] Well the whole point is to stop calling it energy to simplify stuff :) Currently expansion requires energy to be faster, but with BP only you could chose between the energy substitute (Those buildings) or simply having a lot of builders there.

[Google_Frog]

Energy isn't called the BP cap because it's used for other things too.

[Elkvis]

and is so simple. I mean, you have an energy bar and you need certain quantities of it to run things. We instinctively can understand the relationship between power and work.

If it was dumbed down any more, it would be too abstract to make sense. It actually becomes more complex, just because it does not make as much sense.

[Argh]

TBH, other than metal makers, removing energy wouldn't be a big deal. Just make the weapons that eat energy eat some fractional amount of metal, make all operational costs for all units use energy instead of metal, remove the units that make and store energy, remove energy storage from everything, edit the UI to quit showing it... and voila.

Hours and hours of boring work, but nowhere near impossible, and it wouldn't cripple the game... technically. But it would sure change it, and not in a good way.

The real problem with this is that it wouldn't be as much fun. Energy makes things more complicated, and forces players to re-direct their resources at different points of the game, to make enough to keep their economy working. And it provides one of several ways to reach the slippery slope to victory- destroying your opponent's energy production cripples their defenses, making victory much more likely.

I've emphasized this more in P.U.R.E., than in CA, because I think it works. During early game in P.U.R.E., you generally have far more energy than you can spend- by late game, it's the upper limit on what you can do, because both weapons and units eat energy. That relationship with metal is a big part of what makes things work, imo, by introducing a seesaw that players have to manage throughout the battle.

I'd like to add a third resource, that's different for each side, to make things even more interesting, but I haven't gotten around to writing the Lua yet. But, even though it'd be far easier for me to convert to a one-resource system than it would be for CA... there's no way in hell I would. It's one of those ideas that sounds great, until you really look at what the effects would be, and it goes so much farther than simply a limit on the power of builders, frankly.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I think TA:Kingdoms showed pretty well that the two-resource system is not something that can be dropped without losing considerable depth.

I'm not saying it can't be done, nor that it can't be done well - but I do think it's a big ask, and to an extent, breaking a dynamic that was working well to usher in a new dynamic that may not be nearly as successful.

In IW I've tried to use energy as a sort of 'economic investment' area. Energy factories cost quite a bit of metal; metal that you really need to put into units. But in order to escalate to build more units, more powerful factories, and more powerful units, you need energy. So it means players need to trade-off spending metal (well 'requisition') on units to keep the pressure up with investing in further expansion of their warmachine, with energy as the currency. It doesn't immediately translate to CA or a *A mod because the metal resource behaves quite differently in IW due to our capture mechanic - but the point was just the flexibility available from having more then one resource.

[manored]

The real problem with this is that it wouldn't be as much fun. Energy makes things more complicated, and forces players to re-direct their resources at different points of the game, to make enough to keep their economy working. And it provides one of several ways to reach the slippery slope to victory- destroying your opponent's energy production cripples their defenses, making victory much more likely

This would make energy really interesting if we had resource trasportation, that is, you needed to take that energy to the defenses somehow, but with the "resource teleportation" style of CA and, I believe, most spring mods its not viable to sabot your enemys energy production to launch an attack first because all of the vital pieces of it will be very well guarded in the harder to reach areas of the enemy base, since there is not somewhat vulnerable structure or unit connecting it to the front, and second because since resources are teleported you would need to destroy almost all of your enemys energy production to make your move since you cannot "chose" where the blackout will be... and attacking multiple spots to force his remanescent energy would have the same effect than using all those armies on the same place since your forces are divided. I have never actual seen someone destroy someones else energy production with the intention of chaining that up with an attack: the destroyed it to ruin their economy and win the game, because they know it is pointless to try to disable defenses if pretty much any leftover energy producting stuff anywhere will be capable of suppling it.

Tough now I see energy is indeed interesting, but I really think it needs the "supply line" element to be fun. Also, I think that CA needs something to automatically disable or reduce energy waste of certain units according to our pre-settings, cause really sucks to have to do manually something that its obvious such as, during a stall, disabling shields so your defenses can fire at assaulting armies.

[smoth]

This would make energy really interesting if we had resource trasportation, that is, you needed to take that energy to the defenses somehow, but with the "resource teleportation"

no.

oh and to contribute... I said fuck it, let there be more resources, kdr then made more resources and it was good.

[the-middleman]

Most of ca´s cool graphics dont seem to work for me. For example I heard today that the arm mexes have some distortion effect. Well they dont for me. Also units of fire dont burn, they just glow red. The core fusion reactors dont have cool effects but just a blue ball with some sprites around it. The outline widget give me a error message when I try to activate it. I dont know what else but I think there are other cool effects id like to see.
I got an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600

CA really is the best! I love it keep up the good work!