I do have some very minor suggestions based on what I've seen with Spring, which wouldn't be terribly obvious immediately, but together would generally make Spring have a more cohesive feel of a real world. These aren't criticisms at all; I think Spring is incredible as it is. They are just suggestions for potential improvements.
Well, here we go. I might add more later:
1) I think that weather conditions (I'm not talking about the blizzards and storms I was advocating, rather the conditions already in; being wind and tides) should have far more visual effect on the game. "Whats the wind like here?" Is a common question at the start of games.
This shouldn't come from knowing the map, or building a windgen to find out; rather, people should be able to see that it is windy. One easy way to do this is simply to make trees rustle and sway in the wind. If the wind is light, trees would slowly rustle, in a more random direction. If it is heavier, the trees will sway in the direction of the wind. If it is particularly gusty, the leaves of the trees would point in the direction of the wind, and would lean in the direction that the wind is blowing. It would be nice if, in such conditions, the trees even edjected leaf particles in the direction of the wind, which swirled around in the air (only visible when zoomed in close, of course).
If you wanted to go further, you could have wind effect all particles produced, from explosion ejecta to dust and smoke (I remember in OTA, the steam from geothermal vents blew in the direction of the wind; I don't know if this happens in Spring).
The other gameplay effect is the tidal system. At the moment, all water always look like placid lakes, with minor ripples added to reflections. This is a very nice effect, but really it looks somewhat strange when you have a placid "lake" which is actually an ocean, and an ocean which is generating your tidal generators!
I think that tides should have a visible effect on the water. Firstly, this should be visible at the shore, where instead of just sitting neatly with the shore, it should move slightly up and down (much more so than it already does; not just up and down, but laterally inshore a little bit); the greater the tide, the further the oscillation, and the faster it moves. Waves are unnecessary. Not only would they be bloody hard to do, but they would probably look ridiculous as well. A simple slow ripple sway up and down the coast would be fine.
Secondly, if a tide is stronger, the sea should be a bit more chopped up and turbulent. This may be somewhat more difficult to do. Most games apply an animated texture to the sea. I don't think that this is really necessery to visually sell the idea that the sea is a bit turbulent. Instead, use what you already have that gives the impression that the water isn't actually glass: That is, reflections, wakes, and ship motion.
Reflections should become chopped and distorted in high-tides. Ship wakes should also imply a choppy sea by being wider and less streamlined; they should also splash at the front, showing the ship cutting through the water. Finally, ship movement can also bely heavy seas. If tides are high, ships should not move at a constant height from point A to B. Rather, as a ship progresses in heavy seas, it should be slowly lifted up and down as it moves. This doesn't have to be very much, and it shouldn't be quick at all; a slow lofting up and down of the boat (moving higher and lower if the tide is higher) would easily sell this intent, perhaps even include some lateral rocking as well. Indeed, if a boat is sitting still and not moving, the player would be able to see the ship being lifted up and down.
Of course, on a lake, or a low-tide area, everything would act and look much as it is now.
An image to give you an impression of a ship going through rough seas (obviously Spring wouldn't be as dramatic, but it does give you an idea)
Now, those two suggestions were there so that there would be a visual connection between gameplay features and visual features. I think that the suggestions are rather minor and easy to implement, and if done so, would be to the benefit of both gameplay and graphics.
Onwards!
2) I think that Spring should come packed with ambient sounds. These sounds wouldn't be heard from high viewpoints, and would intensify from nothing to a clearly audible sound as you zoomed closer to whatever it was that was making the sound. Many games do this these days, and I think it is a nice feature which adds atmosphere.
For example, say you are above a lake, and you zoom right up to it, you would hear the sloshing of the lake against the land. Indeed, hooked with my previous tide suggestion, one could even have the sound of a chopped sea when hovering above a sea with high tides.
Other examples include the wind as you zoom in on grassland or desert, or the rustle of leaves (and perhaps sounds of birds/animals) as you zoom in on trees.
This should also be applied to units. While units make robotic acknowledgement noises at the start and completion of their orders, they are completely silent in between. Tanks should make the creaking noises of caterpillar tracks, Kbots should have the noise of robotic gears turning (if you're feeling really ambitious, you could even get foot stomp noises), aircraft should make flying noises as they go by. It makes for a far more atmospheric game.
Of course, I'm not saying that the SY's should go out and grab all these sounds, but it would be nice if the ability was programmed in. Indeed, on new maps, it might be worth setting your own soundbites to terrain, for example, slow bubbling of lava, or the low metallic hum of a metal world...
Next!
3) I think explosion effects on water (particularly big ones) should have that big upwards splash that you get with water explosions. This includes the upward torrent of water, the ripples which shoot out from the epicentre of the explosion, and the splash as the water comes down again. This should also have its own sound-effect. They should also be used for depth charge and torpedo explosions, I think.
4) While hovercraft wakes make sense, and look fantastic, I think ship wakes can be improved. To be entirely honest, I'm not quite sure how this can be done with a good compromise between not overloading the CPU, and making ship wakes look better. I think the best way would be to distort the sea around the ships, rather than creating a wake animation, but I don't understand Spring enough to know if this is possible.
Well, that's all from me for now, I've spent much longer on this than I intended too. I might be back later to add some stuff, but to summarise, these suggestions are intended as minor alterations which should not effect CPU issues, while making the game more visually attractive and realistic.
... oh, and I think we should be able to fly our nukes around
