Spring RTS Engine

I've been looking for a use for intruders for a while. I've found a way that effectively allows you to teleport units across the map using a line of intruders.

The reason this works is because, unlike all other modes of transport, intruders load and unload units instantly. And the distance at which they can do so is quite good. By setting up a long line of them, you can effectively load a unit in, unload it near the next intruder, load it in that intruder and so on until you get to the end. The only problem with this is that it takes a lot of clicking.

You can set an intruder to load and unload on repeat. Sadly, the way repeat works means that it's no longer instantaneous. Repeat seems to work by repeating the order every 0.5 seconds or so. this means that if you have 30 intruders in a line, instead of being instant it takes 15 seconds.

It really needs a widget. I'd like to see a widget that auto loads units below x% Health into intruders and auto returns them to base when they're full, sort of like the return to base with x% health with air units.

Can you think of a sitation where this is more cost efficient or faster than air transports though?

Ares wrote:Can you think of a sitation where this is more cost efficient or faster than air transports though?

Chaining intruders is faster than air transports if used property. It's not cost efficient for human use because it takes a lot of micro. It could work with a good widget though. I think the ideal widget would work like this: if a unit is in the area in which an intruder can load units the intruder would load that unit then unload it in the direction it was going (at the closest point to the location of where its going). You could build a really dense base like this, by having no space for moving units and instead relying entirely on intruders to transport your units directly out of the lab and out of the block of nanos that completely surround the lab or whatever.

If you find a way to make use of this in a game, upload the replay =p.

Of course if it ever became a problem there are several ways to 'fix' it.

Better spent time to design a widget that'll let you manually load/unload with less keypresses.

Doing these intruder highways just costs too much... But on the frontline this kind of small-scale mobility could be excellent if used right.

Also Intruder doesn't kill the units it's carrying upon death, which is usually the only reason it sees any use (for protecting Com).

I don't play any more so I'll give out one of my favorite intruder exploits.

The exploit combines springs odd ground-transport mechanics with the intruders release-held-units-on-death to teleport crawling bombs into an enemies seemingly-safe base.

Instructions: (The blue L shape is the intruder, the blue squares are crawling bombs inside the intruder)


(Note: It appears the intruders release-on-death is actually bugged in the current ba/spring (my bets are on one of the transport gadgets) in that the units that pop out on the intruder on its death immediately explode themselves. This is why the example uses crawling bombs, having them immediately explode on the enemies base is exactly what you want)

Kixu did that to me once on the map which has randomly switching teleport sites ... all of a sudden a veh trans popped out of one of the teleports, exploded, and then my base was full of bombs....

Also, you are right in 7.72 units inside an intruder that dies self d instantly upon their unload. This is fixed in ba svn (but transports in the svn are currently bugged for other reasons, so don't try to test =p).

Since we're doing diagrams, this one illustrates my idea.

You tell a unit to move from A to B, and there is an intruder along the path of the units move order.



Loading and unloading units has no effect on the unit, so it would continue to move to B once unloaded without any additional widget.

Just chain a lot of intruders together such that the circles overlap slightly.

Since an intruder costs 11xx its not really worth it.

Anyway... I just noticed a change in the repo that reduces the loadrange:
http://imolarpg.dyndns.org/trac/balatest/changeset/816

Niobium wrote:I don't play any more so I'll give out one of my favorite intruder exploits.

The exploit combines springs odd ground-transport mechanics with the intruders release-held-units-on-death to teleport crawling bombs into an enemies seemingly-safe base.

Instructions: (The blue L shape is the intruder, the blue squares are crawling bombs inside the intruder)


(Note: It appears the intruders release-on-death is actually bugged in the current ba/spring (my bets are on one of the transport gadgets) in that the units that pop out on the intruder on its death immediately explode themselves. This is why the example uses crawling bombs, having them immediately explode on the enemies base is exactly what you want)

This is because it is how Total Annihilation did it, and a lot of rather fantastic cob scripts relied upon it to detect units being transported by other structures/units, e.g. Z's stargates

In TotalA the transported unit is at the exact same x,y,z as the transport when attached to 0-1. It's Spring that move it far below.

hmmm so how did the stargates buffer their units without grabbing units from air transports and land/hover transports?

Johannes wrote:Better spent time to design a widget that'll let you manually load/unload with less keypresses.

Did you try my atlastaxi widget?

It's Spring that move it far below.

though its BA's choice to attach to the underground piece, transports do not have to be this way.
So if Niobium's trick is a problem its easy to fix..

Why must they attach? Why can't they be engulfed?

Yeah... afaik transported units get attached to "link" and you can position that wherever you like. Why does BA move it underground? Am I missing something?

Niobium wrote:I don't play any more so I'll give out one of my favorite intruder exploits.

The exploit combines springs odd ground-transport mechanics with the intruders release-held-units-on-death to teleport crawling bombs into an enemies seemingly-safe base.

Instructions: (The blue L shape is the intruder, the blue squares are crawling bombs inside the intruder)

(Note: It appears the intruders release-on-death is actually bugged in the current ba/spring (my bets are on one of the transport gadgets) in that the units that pop out on the intruder on its death immediately explode themselves. This is why the example uses crawling bombs, having them immediately explode on the enemies base is exactly what you want)

I'd say about 25% of the games during the last 6 months I played with you guys was spent trying to exploit this.

Something for everyone, eh...