What do you want to see more of in CA?

[Beherith]

Ah misread, that makes more sense.

[MidKnight]

Lots of nice points, KaiserJ.

i love CA.

Me, too!

...the communism logo...

What do you suggest be done to it?

2) a consistent interface. many of the elements of the CA user interface, although they work fine, look a lot different from eachother. some time should be taken to make sure that all buttons and displays have a better planned visual impact... important things should be more prominent, less important things should be... well.. given less visual significance.

We're working on it, whatwith the new GUI framework and all. What I think we really need in that direction is somebody to tell us exactly what we need to make the thing look like; the Luadevs' focus on customization, while being awesome for the CA devs/pros, has made the framework almost as hard for newbies to learn as the old one.

3) new name. sure, it started as derivative of BA, but CA has evolved so much beyond the *A mods that it is nothing short of misleading to call it so. instead of just throwing the idea around, pick a name, and stick with it. a poll may help you here

5) proper website, and a spam campaign. sure, CA has a website, but it's not exactly the most descriptive thing in the world for someone who hasnt played anything on the spring engine before... if i looked at it as is now; i dont feel that i really get an indication of what CA is all about.

http://zero-k.info

4) elect a leader. the biggest problem that i see with CA moving forward is the infighting amongst the devs. people get angry and quit; people make changes that others are not happy about. if you guys can't all get along and reach decisions about gameplay and widgets and so on, then fork the mod and continue in your own direction as you see fit. trying to keep everyone happy, although a nice gesture, really isnt going to work in the long run as peoples opinions of where the mod should be heading become more diverse.

Licho was lead coordinator for a while, but then he left, and Saktoth snapped up the post. IDK what our current administration system is, exactly.

once you get a friendly site in place, go and spam the shit out of youtube, moddb with links to CA... i've been doing this since i started playing spring, going to youtube videos about RTS games and bigging up spring (you get to try lots of games, for free, and it's more fun)

make CA videos, and post them as responses to every supcom and starcraft 2 video you can find.

YES! YES! YES!

6) ignore people who dont actually play or contribute to CA. their opinions are worthless; and i think CA seems to pander somewhat to peoples opinions outside of the devellopers and playerbase; like i said earlier, if the dev team cant even get along and reach conclusions, then good luck making all the trolls happy.

Hmm, good point...

[Pxtl]

Imho, capture needs to be just another weapon. Capture-as-power is bad.

My approach?

1) Give both factions Resurrection, instead of being Arm-only.
2) Give Arm some real riot-power, like the aforementioned "contagious weapon". Right now, most of Arm's riot weapons are really just high-DPS weapons, while Core's riot-weapons have concussion that makes them deadly riot-gear. I'd actually prefer to see it on Core (instead of them having a bazillion ways to do damage, but not much special tricks), but that obviously won't happen.
3) Give Arm capture as a weapon. Remove capture from the cons. Give it to the Infiltrator, Janus, and Weaver.

In general, more juju on the vanilla units. The veh arty should have stun and fire, respectively.

Is Zero-K 1Fac or CA?

[MidKnight]

Thanks for your opinion!

Tha tech tree thing is a CA design principle, we can't really change it without changing the meaning of CA.

As to the UI, CA is working towards not being a TA-based game. we will rename to something without the word 'annihilation' as soon as we get rid of all of the TA models.

[R-TEAM]

Hi,

i dont say the Tree-tech thing is bad
It is simply a other philosophy and you like it or not.
Most time i like the "mainstream" way - but from time to time i like the CA way.

The GUI is a thing i musst disagree.
i dont use IceUi if the name so cool or the colors ..
I like it - it is THE way I like to manage a RTS game.
And in all RTS games you musst build structures/buildings/units ..
And give orders, so it is not much a other GUI can make better ....
In Gundam it is a different resource and tech-upgrade management.
So the only part from IceUI i dont need is the resource bar.The rest is
always in Use - Minimap,Butons,message window.
The same is going for S44 - only the resource bars musst replaced.
For KP it is different - no resources and a diferent build menu ..
But i can use from IceUI the minimap and message window.
I see no point to say IceUI make no sense in CA .....
It will still based on the same system as TA (2 resources,minimap,butons to give orders,messages to shown....)

[KingRaptor]

Flanking damage could be useful for differentiating units, like tanks and the riot walkers. In particular, I'd like for light bots/vehicles to be able to improve their chances against heavy units by flanking.

In addition to being realistic, it could be a nice gameplay feature when properly handled.

[Licho]

Flanking mode must be set for all units in mod afaik.

[Gota]

Well i am pretty sure the lua exists to decide on the different armor values from all sides per unit(unless this functionality simply exists in the engine itself)..
In S44 maybe?

[Pxtl]

Ick, I cant' stand flanking bonus. Too invisible. At best I'd say front-facing shields on tanks, but I'd want them graphically represented by a big floaty shield in front of the gank.

[==Troy==]

Ick, I cant' stand flanking bonus. Too invisible. At best I'd say front-facing shields on tanks, but I'd want them graphically represented by a big floaty shield in front of the gank.

What is invisible in a bullet hitting the tank into the side?..

Flaking has been done that way for a very long time, even GC1 (ground control 1) had basic flanking in place.


@ Licho it would be nice to see, if flanking is to be implemented, some cases that a unit will not be able to penetrate the front armour, but has to flank the unit to effectively fight it.

Golliaph comes to mind in this case, cheap units should not really be able to penetrate it's frontal armour at all.

[Jazcash]

What do you want to see more of in CA?

players!

[Pxtl]

I'd still want a graphical effect if damage is being reduced somehow - like the old Megaman "plink" noise and bullets flying off to the side.

Flanking would be a fun concept for one or two units as a special power - like I said, a front-facing shield would be cool on the Goliath and the Halberd.... but really, you already get enough "flanking" based gameplay with mobile shield generators. Who hasn't had the joy of rushing through some guy's "impregnable" shield-crawl team with some raiders and kamikaze units, raping the shield-projectors, and then pummeling the whole exposed squad with ranged weapons?

In fact, I'd go far enough to say that front-facing armour would feel kind of redundant on Core.

Put it on the Brawler and the Bulldog instead.

[Licho]

Its probably easier to implement it (flanking bonus) on few specific superunits.
However it would determine direction from current position of self and attacker, not from visual impact direction, because its impossible to determine in lua.

[Pxtl]

Its probably easier to implement it (flanking bonus) on few specific superunits.
However it would determine direction from current position of self and attacker, not from visual impact direction, because its impossible to determine in lua.

Well, the trick with superunits is that they're all bots. And there the nature of the flanking bonus will become ambiguous - would you use torso-facing or leg-facing (or the crazy first-direction-of-impact-facing from the engine flanking-bonus)? Vehicles are a little more clear, at least, since the turret is generally much smaller than the main chassis.

[Pxtl]

Anyways, since we're crapping out ideas, here's a thought to make CA more newb-friendly:

research buildings. Use Zswzsszg's research lua and disable half the units at start, to make the early-game less imposing to newbs (and to discourage newbies from building the megafus). To unlock the more clever, ninja-esque hardware - particularly the large defense buildings.

You start out with scouts, raiders, AA (pack0 and MTs), LLTs, antiswarmers, light-radar, light-artillery, and cons, and need to research from there to get the real gear. Each research building costs 200 metal.

1 - gets you things like pop-ups, rockos, crawling-bombs...
2 - HLTs, special-defenses, cloaking and assault units, LR Radar
4 - 1000+cost mobile units (super-arty, super-gunships, etc), medium-ranged AA, fusions.
8 - Things that cost over 2000+ metal.
16 - Megafus, Bertha, Nuke, Striders
32 - Superweapon, Ultimate -striders.

just throwing this out there. I'm not even sure if I like the idea myself, but I wonder if it wouldn't make CA more accessible to newbies (although it might enrage the old-guard who love to boost-rush a Blackdawn and don't like a 400-metal preamble to that).

[CarRepairer]

research buildings

You mean a building you can build, then build the BlackDawn, then reclaim the building? You've gone full circle back to TA's "quasi-tech-tree."

[Pxtl]

... yeah, the more I think about it, the more that, if you did research, it'd have to be a one-way trip. No reclaiming it, no metal recovered from wrecks, etc. - the metal spent on research is lost into ether. Maybe a building wouldn't be the right way to go, but a nebulous "upgrade" like in StarCraft et al.

[SirArtturi]

I won't go through the gameplay side of this issue, but concentrate on on visual side of view. Maybe later some gameplay whining...

First, I think you are already aware that some of the models are too small and "invisible" and also some of the model texture is too bland. So I wont go on with that, but I really dont like how llt and hllt look. Hard to explain or make good arguments on that, but the design just dont fit in my eye. OTA (BA) models may bee lower poly and otherways look a bit boring, but I like the design.

Second.

...the communism logo...

Now, I think that this short complaint speaks of a much larger issue of small visual things that has IMO a lot of effect on the "experience" and the "feel" you get from the game.

I always thought that picture of Lenin at the beginning of game ruined the feeling. I'm not being political here. It just dont fit in the big picture. It would fit in some WW mods, but not a space/futuristic/scifi game as much as there is a game option called "communism."

Third, The loading screens. As much as they reflect the innovative and "personal" characterics of this game and the makers of it, they are just too silly and amateurish. And I wouldn't go on boasting the drawing skills of their author either, nor the jokes on them. As a design art, they are just damn poor job.

Fourth, Imo cans with spears and jumpjets are just way too silly packet me to handle properly and cope with it without breakdown. I always thought that cans were a bit silly units, but I liked them as far as they did their silly job with lasers. Now you just overdid the whole design and made it utterly tasteless.

Three(and some other things) of things mentioned above, contrasts the side of coolness you get from certain aspects of game in kind of immature and amateurish way, that doesnt impress the "demanding" spring players.

In other words: Choose your path. Either get rid of the silly things completely or just go with them and turn the whole sleigh to that direction...

[KaiserJ]

played CA again last night, had a lot of fun, and decided that some of my points were a bit useless now

...the communism logo...

it looked a lot nicer than last time i saw it... now its in a nice box with a clicky button. i guess what i was really getting at... is sometimes you see things that are very raw and metallic... sometimes you see things that are cartoony and fun... you need to either pick one, or figure out a way to amalgamate the two.

a consistent interface

i think it was scifi who made a nice interface design for AR. maybe break open fireworks and have a go? the two things i would suggest to keep in mind would be the metallic look of the units (or maybe ceramic in the case of ARM? at least i always sort of thought so) and the fun of the cartoons in the loading screen.

on thing i always thought would be could would be to have the buildpics hand-drawn (although i guess those come from machiosabre and i havent seen him around for ages)

didn't see / wasnt aware of the 0k site; it looks great, and is exactly the sort of thing i was thinking of.

about having a leader... im not saying "oh just do it" but i really feel that if you guys get into a massive uproar again about the direction of the mod, maybe it would be best to fork and explore both options.

and hey, i found spring on youtube... it was a video labelled as supcom, but all the comments said "this isnt supcom, this is spring! and its free!" not sure if it was intentional to grab me like that by confusing me, but it worked like a charm. so make more CA vids.

[Pxtl]

Honestly, I link the silly cartoons. To me, the problem is twofold:
1) They depict non-existent content. Most of those units don't look like that anymore.
2) Lenin should be another silly cartoon. And the Soviet anthem should be performed on the kazoo.