What I'm currently wasting my time on

[KDR_11k]

I'm calling it GINTA because GINTA is not TA. I'm trying out how realistic damage and range plays for a game, ammunition is also limited. So far it doesn't seem very feasible, units moving at the proper speeds look just weird (you'd mistake that tank for a scout ingame) and aircraft weapons have a range of 10+ km in real life which is way too large for Spring maps (and Spring's gunship attack behaviour). I think the large difference in scales IRL can't be successfully transferred into a game, especially a game that has a maximum LOS range of 1280. Guess I'll just turn it into something C&C like. But before that I need to implement builders and ressource production and other basic stuff.

By the way, what happened to the OnlyTargetCategory tag? I can't find any Spring mod using that.

[Snipawolf]

I know what your problem with real aiming is, just scale stuff down to midget size...

My infantry will be 1/5 the size of a tree, so if I give them a decent distance for range (2-3k maybe?) there accuracy will be crap against other infantry, however it will be decently realistic...

It feels like I'm being passed up
How long have you been working/learning for this mod?

[Pxtl]

Shot #2 is incredisexy... but yeah, I think the only way you're going to have realistic scale is to use freakishly eye-strainingly small units. Which makes sense - I mean, how often do real-world troops/tanks pack shoulder-to-shoulder?

Then just make a mutator for units to be visibly sized, keeping all other attributes the same.

[Snipawolf]

And I forgot to say, I am gunna make a bullet model, and use it in some guys mod, and see it it looks good or not... Cuz, sometimes, lazers on everything looks kinda cheap... Or whatever looks like lasers..

[KDR_11k]

The units are already pretty small, the tank has a 2x2 footprint and a range of 2048 (4km by my conversion ratio, of course the unit sizes are too big for that), infantry will be 1x1. The hitspheres are already small enough that shots will often just pass through a unit, even smaller would be unfeasible.

Oh and I don't think I'll need anti-air for now, simply not telling the tank BadTargetCategory=AIR makes it pretty effective against gunships.

[Guessmyname]

Real Life and games were never meant to cross

(Sorry, seemed like a good joke at the time. I'm actually in favor of realism, so long as the learning curve isn't taking hints from Mount Everest

[FizWizz]

ArchangelofDeath and I had come to the conclusion that it is simply infeasible to try to make a mod at whatever the 'true scale' is for it. Even with BattleTech, where weapons have shorter ranges than you'd see than in real life, the longer range weapons (not even counting artillery) would simply be too long-ranged for Spring to work well with, even with infantry minimized as small as possible.
I would suggest keeping weapons on the same scale with each other, and units on the same scale to each other, but on a different scale to each other (the weapon scale being 66% or 50% of the unit scale, for instance).

[Snipawolf]

Bleh, of course its infeasible, but you can make it logical at least, rifles can shoot, about 2 miles if they are snipers, so I really won't even look at that and I will just say, okay sniper ranges are really long compared to the machine gun, good...

[unpossible]

then there's LOS to consider...i don't think spring would appreciate 'unlimited' sight distance

[Snipawolf]

ehh, maybe all units can have a decently long radius, something that is like fizzwizz said, about size of unit being appropriated to sight or something...

[Argh]

Instead of boosting LOS to insane ranges, why not just plan gameplay around the Seismic tags that will be in the next version? Just a thought.

As for scale... well... I've already explained that elsewhere... there are limits on how small you can make things before Spring starts losing hits left and right. About the only real-world combat you'd be able to adequately simulate in Spring is 19th-Century stuff with muskets, and even then, the RL artillery from that period would reach across many maps. In short... Spring is meant for cartoon-realism, not true realism. It's not a problem, really- players would hate playing a mod where they never saw the badguys shooting their units on the same screen with their units anyhow- it'd be boring. Not to mention that it'd make the current map sizes completely inadequate... not a minor problem.

[Snipawolf]

I won't have to worry about that now, will I

If I find it gets kinda dumb to have infantry sight 1/3 or so of their range, then range gets a nerf, adding sight would be a horrible idea...

Anyways, I can't be totally realistic anyhow, watch this for like 1-3 minutes and that skorpion (i already have a half decent model of it XD) has a LOOONG range!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f31MLDSay_U

[KDR_11k]

I think first I'll concentrate on the damage so units go down from one or two hits from a weapon that's designed to be used against them (one long-rod penetrator isn't going to bring a building down and HE isn' going to tear through tank armor). A bigger issue is getting weapons to only fire at the targets they can really aim at. Guided air-to-ground missiles shouldn't be fired at infantry or air, for example.

[SwiftSpear]

August 7, 2002; A Canadian sniper in Afghanistan has been confirmed as hitting an enemy soldier at a range of 2,310 meters, the longest recorded and confirmed sniper shot in history. The previous record of 2,250 meters was set by US Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock in Vietnam in 1967. The Canadian sniper was at an altitude of 8,500 feet and the target, across a valley, was at 9,000 feet. Canadian sniper units often operated in support of US infantry units, which were grateful for their help. The record lasted only one day, until a second Canadian sniper hit an enemy soldier at 2,400 meters. The Canadian snipers were firing special ..50-caliber McMillan tactical rifles, which are bolt-action weapons with five-round magazines. The Canadian snipers were the only Canadian troops operating without helmets or flak jackets as they had too much other equipment to carry. Each three-man team had one sniper rifle, three standard rifles (Canadian C7s), one of them with a 203mm grenade launcher.

I thought it slightly relevent.

[Imperator]

WWI style battles would be possible with real front lines? imagine hundreds of rifleman shooting over large distances fighting for that hill that gives them the advantage over the enemy! mortars with extreme ranges weakening the enemy lines over time, tanks trying to make a breakthrough at enemy lines pulling infantry with them. a division of enemies ambushed in a valley ... that would be nice to play!

[Pxtl]

And I forgot to say, I am gunna make a bullet model, and use it in some guys mod, and see it it looks good or not... Cuz, sometimes, lazers on everything looks kinda cheap... Or whatever looks like lasers..

Imho, the lasers look really good for the choppers. Maybe not for the tanks, I agree, but those little yellow pulses look dead sexy for machineguns.

[KDR_11k]

The yellow beams coming from the tanks are their machineguns, the cannons use the boring old plasma look.

[CrowJuice]

Why not aim this mod for maps of epic sizes? 64x 64 or 128x128?

[KDR_11k]

Those are few and they don't run on many PCs so I'll aim for normal map sizes.

[BvDorp]

new map format makes much bigger maps possible

However, since most maps are atm smaller, you could make the mod for these maps

Or gather ppl willing to make some maps for your map, using the new map format. Together with developing some total new GUI , ur mod can have it's very own look and feel, and be the first actual total conversion of Spring!