I agree with Storm and Zwzsg on this one. Not because I don't think its a cool feature, but rather because of Gameplay issues.
I regularly see my aircraft banging into cliffs and hills and things, especially when I'm flying them. If they take damage from it, then aircraft are dealt another balancing blow in a game already stacked against them.
Another important thing with Spring is that it is actually an RTS, which means that no matter how cool the effects are on a micro scale, it has to be predictable on a macro scale, so that battle decisions can be made.
If I build 10 hawks, and I need them to run support air cover for my attacking ground forces, I should reasonably be able to expect them to do so, unless there are major air or ground AA installations, which my ground forces are supposed to deal with. I shouldn't have to lose three or four of those aircraft to hilly terrain, or more if I'm playing some of the more height-challenging Spring maps (which I generally do, being more interested in them).
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That being said, if aircraft collision detection was improved markedly upon what it has now, so that an aircraft would never hit the ground of its own accord, when it is flying normally, but could occasionally hit the ground when drawn into it by another unit (for example, divebombing a base nestled in a mountain, or dogfighting in a narrow valley), then it might be something to consider. But its a pretty big hypothetical.
Flight behaviour of planes
Moderator: Moderators
realism gives the game more adernaline... i vote for realism!
but... implementing it like "mods" or smthng... maybe even Mutators :D that would rock!
Praying for your bomber to not hit that hill before they reach target area...
even taking some bomber and manually "assure" he doenst fail misserably...
omg!
but... implementing it like "mods" or smthng... maybe even Mutators :D that would rock!
Praying for your bomber to not hit that hill before they reach target area...
even taking some bomber and manually "assure" he doenst fail misserably...
omg!
[quote="zwzsg"][/quote]
Don't write tabloids please, I feel them as annoying reading.
I thought strategy game is only about equtations.
Equtations about health, physical capablities of units, Energy conservation equtations, AI equtations, Formation equtations( handled with mathematical collision spheres in this game ), Computer binary equtations, and so on.
There are already equtation for airplanes in the game, or actually for high flying hovercrafts&aircrafts.
You haven't realised that, do you?
Myself I keep separating the planes with boxes as stupid. They needs the flocking or some kind of else formation equtation which keeps them in some kind of work condition instead. Normally I got 17 planes which jams together because of no proper formation.
If AI will be improved, there won't be too much collisions into clifs or hills in this game even if it's possible. Only with the manual control or EMP pulse or something which jams them.
Don't write tabloids please, I feel them as annoying reading.
I thought strategy game is only about equtations.
Equtations about health, physical capablities of units, Energy conservation equtations, AI equtations, Formation equtations( handled with mathematical collision spheres in this game ), Computer binary equtations, and so on.
There are already equtation for airplanes in the game, or actually for high flying hovercrafts&aircrafts.
You haven't realised that, do you?
Myself I keep separating the planes with boxes as stupid. They needs the flocking or some kind of else formation equtation which keeps them in some kind of work condition instead. Normally I got 17 planes which jams together because of no proper formation.
If AI will be improved, there won't be too much collisions into clifs or hills in this game even if it's possible. Only with the manual control or EMP pulse or something which jams them.
I don't think games are made with equations that you solve, but more with algorithms that you repeat over and over. Taking formula straight out of a physical book and trying to push it in a game rarely gives good result. And I'm talking from experience! (albeit very small one): once I had a book on how to program games on my calculator. One of the game was the usual artillery game, where you must choose an angle and a powe to hit a target on the other side of a mountain, in 2d side view. The book was manifestly written by math/physic teachers, because their approach was to take a pen, write the equation linking the time, the initial angle, the inital power, and the gravity (x=p*cos(a)*t+x0; y=-g/2*t^2+p*sin(a)*t+y0;), and then program a loop that for every instant t used the equation to determine position. This way worked but was very slow. When I programmed the same game myself, instead of using that approach, I calculated the initial vertical and horizontal speed once after the the fire button is pressed (vx=p*cos(a) and vy=p*sin(a), then used: x=x+vx;y=y+vy;vy=vy-g; It played exactly the same but was incomparably faster. It's also more powerful because I can more easily apply new unexpected acceleration on the fly and things like that. Well that was just an exmple just to back up the argument that the approach to solve a problem analytically and to simulate a phenomenon informatically are opposed.
It's the same for every part of the game. All the equation you learnt in school about energy conservation, sphere intersection and stuff are good for solving problem with pen and paper but really bad to be used directly in a game. BTW, it's very fun to see you write "handled with mathematical collision spheres in this game". Do you realise that "handling mathematical collision spheres" simly mean compute the distance between two points and compare with the sum of radius?
However, especially for fluid dynamics, the algorithm to be used in informatical simulation also exist and are well developped, but, and that is a second, distinct point, spring isn't a simulation used by areonautical engineer to design new planes. It's not even a flight simulator. It's a RTS, that must be able to handle hundreds of plane at once. And where the players (the players, not the forum posters) simply wants the planes to move from A to B in a way that doesn't look too strange. If they follow the exact physical law of areodynamics is completly irrelevant. Even more, it would hurt the gameplay alot, because for instance rapiers wouldn't be able to hover, low flying bombers wouldn't be able to avoid mountains, unaerodynamics plane wouldn't be able fly, hawks wouldn't be so manoeuvrable, etc.... Not to mention it would hurt the framerate unbearably.
So, I persit in saying that your equations don't belong here. For two reasons:
- They are the physic analytic equations, not the numerical algorithms.
- They are too complex for a game like Spring.
That said, if flock behavior and better ground avoidance can be implemented without costing too much CPU, I'm for it. I'd also be rather curious to know if flock behavior as already been used in any RTS. And if not, if is it because of conservatism or because it's too difficult or too CPU costly to use in an actual game.
It's the same for every part of the game. All the equation you learnt in school about energy conservation, sphere intersection and stuff are good for solving problem with pen and paper but really bad to be used directly in a game. BTW, it's very fun to see you write "handled with mathematical collision spheres in this game". Do you realise that "handling mathematical collision spheres" simly mean compute the distance between two points and compare with the sum of radius?
However, especially for fluid dynamics, the algorithm to be used in informatical simulation also exist and are well developped, but, and that is a second, distinct point, spring isn't a simulation used by areonautical engineer to design new planes. It's not even a flight simulator. It's a RTS, that must be able to handle hundreds of plane at once. And where the players (the players, not the forum posters) simply wants the planes to move from A to B in a way that doesn't look too strange. If they follow the exact physical law of areodynamics is completly irrelevant. Even more, it would hurt the gameplay alot, because for instance rapiers wouldn't be able to hover, low flying bombers wouldn't be able to avoid mountains, unaerodynamics plane wouldn't be able fly, hawks wouldn't be so manoeuvrable, etc.... Not to mention it would hurt the framerate unbearably.
So, I persit in saying that your equations don't belong here. For two reasons:
- They are the physic analytic equations, not the numerical algorithms.
- They are too complex for a game like Spring.
That said, if flock behavior and better ground avoidance can be implemented without costing too much CPU, I'm for it. I'd also be rather curious to know if flock behavior as already been used in any RTS. And if not, if is it because of conservatism or because it's too difficult or too CPU costly to use in an actual game.
Why do you think we would use exactly the original equtation I just introduced it!
And what comes into bombers and rapiers. Well. Rapiers have somekind of repulsion system on bottom which allows them to hover. They are hovercraft-aircraft hybrides. Instead bombers climb high enough to avoid hills and drops bombs from there like in real life. There are no reason why they would fly so low, if there would still be the same problem, a decent AI and fly over the mountain, or if the mountain is too high, it can bypass it.
A Mathematical sphere is a mathematical sphere! Everybody ( even layman ) understands which is it instead of 'compute the distance between two points and compare with the sum of radius'. As we saw. It tells where it's used, it tells much more than only compute something and compare.
And what comes into bombers and rapiers. Well. Rapiers have somekind of repulsion system on bottom which allows them to hover. They are hovercraft-aircraft hybrides. Instead bombers climb high enough to avoid hills and drops bombs from there like in real life. There are no reason why they would fly so low, if there would still be the same problem, a decent AI and fly over the mountain, or if the mountain is too high, it can bypass it.
A Mathematical sphere is a mathematical sphere! Everybody ( even layman ) understands which is it instead of 'compute the distance between two points and compare with the sum of radius'. As we saw. It tells where it's used, it tells much more than only compute something and compare.-
Warlord Zsinj
- Imperial Winter Developer
- Posts: 3742
- Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59
I think everyone except Rev is a layman in the TA community...
Anyway, complex equations, for the most part, aren't necessary and will just clog up CPU time. You can achieve the same result with other, easier methods. Until you can recreate all aspects of physics in a game engine, the asumptions of such equations won't hold to be true.
Anyway, complex equations, for the most part, aren't necessary and will just clog up CPU time. You can achieve the same result with other, easier methods. Until you can recreate all aspects of physics in a game engine, the asumptions of such equations won't hold to be true.
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smokingwreckage
- Posts: 327
- Joined: 09 Apr 2005, 11:40
I'm against planes either suffering "critical hits" and crashing or hitting the ground and crashing. I'd rather claw my eyes out than have to pilot a bomber to be sure it gets there. I want my planes to look good and fight good and anything beyond that is a waste of CPU time.
Planes being downed by terrain in the core game is a 100% bad idea. If someone decides to make a "planes hit the ground and go boom" mod, LATER, after the important facets of the RTS game are working well, then that's fine; I'd suggest that if you can't order your planes to "fly high" in such a game, most RTS players will get irritated. If my hawks all hit a mountain and died in the middle of a critical phase of a game I'd stop playing Spring; so would everyone I know.
Planes being downed by terrain in the core game is a 100% bad idea. If someone decides to make a "planes hit the ground and go boom" mod, LATER, after the important facets of the RTS game are working well, then that's fine; I'd suggest that if you can't order your planes to "fly high" in such a game, most RTS players will get irritated. If my hawks all hit a mountain and died in the middle of a critical phase of a game I'd stop playing Spring; so would everyone I know.
Storm wrote:
I think you've only been playing small maps, Storm. Try some epic class maps and think scales of 20K energy and 500 metal per clock-tick by the end game.
Storm, I will be happy to play a game with you in which I will destroy using only planes, assuming we limit our resources to be the same at any given moment. Planes are currently WAY overpowered. In numbers greater than 10 or so, brawlers completely dominate an enemy base. I regularly use fighters to destroy ground units. FIGHTERS. They aren't supposed to be effective against ground, but the fact of the matter is that it is easy to build a defense against a ground assault, and very difficult to do the same against air. Additionally, the only valid defensive strategy against LRPC is bombers, nukes, or your own more experienced LRPC, since ground will take so long to get there and when they do, they can easily be mowed down by heavy laser and medium plasma. And only planes will get you a good enough positional fix on WHICH dot is the LRPC so that you can nuke / bomb it effectively.God, do any of you actually play the game?
Planes are totally redundant already because of the radar targetting and the new more inefficient, easy-to-track flight mode. A maverick is thirty times more effective than any plane already and you want the remnants of my planes to crash and burn on random notice?!
I think you've only been playing small maps, Storm. Try some epic class maps and think scales of 20K energy and 500 metal per clock-tick by the end game.
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Sean Mirrsen
- Posts: 578
- Joined: 19 Aug 2004, 17:38
Well, firstly, the airplanes need to be taught to respect ground. Right now they tend to needlessly make reverse loops when turning. Placing an airplant on a mountain could be dangerous. In combat, planes usually attempt to avoid ground, but they sometimes don't manage - as they are controlled by a relatively simple system that, however, uses certain preset aerodynamics values to steer the plane.
Now, I might change the collision damage so that it respects several things - the angle at which the plane hits, the presumed mass of the plane, and the speed it travels at. At certain low speeds, planes could be made to receive no damage whatsoever. This will decrease the overall amount of damage received by planes from colliding, and hopefully reduce the unwanted casualties from the current buggy manuevering logic.
Now, I might change the collision damage so that it respects several things - the angle at which the plane hits, the presumed mass of the plane, and the speed it travels at. At certain low speeds, planes could be made to receive no damage whatsoever. This will decrease the overall amount of damage received by planes from colliding, and hopefully reduce the unwanted casualties from the current buggy manuevering logic.
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Warlord Zsinj
- Imperial Winter Developer
- Posts: 3742
- Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59
Heh, I'd like to see this game.Storm, I will be happy to play a game with you in which I will destroy using only planes, assuming we limit our resources to be the same at any given moment. Planes are currently WAY overpowered. In numbers greater than 10 or so, brawlers completely dominate an enemy base. I regularly use fighters to destroy ground units. FIGHTERS. They aren't supposed to be effective against ground, but the fact of the matter is that it is easy to build a defense against a ground assault, and very difficult to do the same against air. Additionally, the only valid defensive strategy against LRPC is bombers, nukes, or your own more experienced LRPC, since ground will take so long to get there and when they do, they can easily be mowed down by heavy laser and medium plasma. And only planes will get you a good enough positional fix on WHICH dot is the LRPC so that you can nuke / bomb it effectively.
You realise Storm plays online fairly regularly, yeah?
Not to mention what you say is pretty wrong. The only time I have found fighters to be useful is in water maps early on (although they are often redundant after the first 10 minutes because of floating MT's) and in big games.
Frankly, the most common ground units in TA are the ones that use missiles. This is because they are cheap, easy to mass produce, outrange most defences, and pack a good punch in numbers. The same goes for the most popular defense: The Missile Tower.
What do you think that means for aircraft, especially now that they can target to their (very long) maximum range of radar cover?
And Brawlers are good if you pull them off succesfully, but they are expensive and a mass of level 1 Samsons would have done just as well.
Also, it sounds like you are playing XTA, which is not what Storm plays, and not what the majority of people have in mind when they talk about Spring.
This explains it somewhat. Of course planes are more useful on epic maps. Any unit in numbers above 50 is a threat, even if its Zeus's or AK's. The fact that planes are not impeded by terrain and travel quickly just makes them the perfect option for epic maps.I think you've only been playing small maps, Storm. Try some epic class maps and think scales of 20K energy and 500 metal per clock-tick by the end game.
But this doesn't mean they are any better as units.
The majority of people don't play Epic maps. They are fun, sure, but there isn't a stack of skill involved; because you rarely meet each other on the map in anything other than full blown battles, nothing really happens in the way of strategic decisions. Both players have too much income to really topple the other, so of course it comes down to aircraft and superweapons. I think you should try playing some more smaller maps, for a real test of skill.
Sigh, you don't have a clue, do you? I'm an agressive air player at Old TA. [bWhenever[/b] I get the change, I try to swarm up a giant batallion of planes and crush my opponent. That is especially true on Core Prime Industrial, which by my definition is a purely aircraft map. I tried to play as I used to and failed because planes in Spring suck so much it's not even funny. I win with Mavericks, with minor aircraft support, not with a horde of Vamps large enough to impress the sun like I used to. Radar targetting, little boy, is what destroys any balance of the game.Storm, I will be happy to play a game with you in which I will destroy using only planes, assuming we limit our resources to be the same at any given moment. Planes are currently WAY overpowered.
Brawlers can be semi-descent for sure, but hey, I had 15 farks on a plant and they STILL didn't build fast enough compared to all other units. Spring planes are largely redundant, except for metal maps, where they are remotely useful.
So yes, if you play me and crush me with planes, I will willingly submit myself to your greater skills, because if you managed to do it with air, you would have done even better with a ground army.
Again, I have no idea what games you are playing but my 15 Brawlers were pretty much crushed just after taking out a simple Guardian. Well, I have to admit, I had two successful plane attacks, but they were against a player completely lacking any AA defense, heh.In numbers greater than 10 or so, brawlers completely dominate an enemy base.
Oh yes indeed, the problem, however, is Spring. The radar targetting forces you to swarm up at least twice as many planes to attempt anything at all, which is why I keep claiming that planes are suck nowadays, contrary to your futile claims of the opposite.Additionally, the only valid defensive strategy against LRPC is bombers, nukes, or your own more experienced LRPC, since ground will take so long to get there and when they do, they can easily be mowed down by heavy laser and medium plasma.
Oh, you mean in case I want a dull boring game devoured of any strategy? Both players expand insanely, get a silly high output and just pork against each other, sending planes and nukes once in a while. So utterly pointless. Yes, I've played and yes, it sucked.I think you've only been playing small maps, Storm. Try some epic class maps and think scales of 20K energy and 500 metal per clock-tick by the end game.
BTW, there's no reason to gloat over your insane resources income, after all, the skill is to spend that much, which I critically doubt you do that late in the game, when you are closing in on the unit limit anyway.
Storm wrote:
Back to my main point. If you are playing EvolvaOTA, or any of the other OTA mods for spring, then you are playing a different game than us. Try as I might to convince people to play AA, XTA represents the vast majority of games on the Spring BattleRoom. Therefore, when we are talking about game balance, we must talk about XTA. OTA is and has always been massively unbalanced. If you do not believe this, then I will not try to convince you, because I am not interested in arguing religion with fanatics. Yeah planes don't work in OTA in Spring. This is because there are only a couple units worth building. There's the flash, the MT, the samson, the panther, and the goliath, with a few laser towers occasionally sprinkled in. And the construction plane, of course. The vast majority of games end in a flash rush. It isn't very interesting to me, because I want epic games of strategy, not a contest in who can min-max flash production best.
Which brings me to my second point. If you want to play OTA, feel free. If you want to play OTA in spring, feel free. But do not expect the rest of the world to follow your pursuits of a game which is strategically only slightly better than Tic-Tac-Toe. If you want to fork the Spring engine, again, feel free. But I doubt that your clinging to OTA will win you many followers, judging simply by the number of OTA games I see played in the battle room.
Lastly, I do spend 250 metal per tick on a regular basis. I regularly put up fusions in 20 seconds, and build krogoths in 4 minutes. Under AA, with the nano-lathe tower, it is easy to spend 1500 metal per tick, and on epic maps, I often do. With a good construction plane swarm (around 100 advanced), which is the heart of any large economy, it is possible to build just in time defenses, where you throw down the defenses as the opponent's ground troops get near your base. When you can put up a guardian in 10 seconds, the 5 minutes it can take for ground troups to arrive can be huge.
In your reply to this post, I ask that you attack my arguments (and with something other than simple denials), and leave any feelings you have about me for the battlefield. I am reasonably certain that I could not beat you at OTA, but I would be happy to play you at XTA or AA anytime. Perhaps I will learn something.
As a side note, I am almost certainly older than you. I do not appreciate being called a little boy. I would, however, like to thank you for running fileuniverse. You do the TA community a great service.
Now I understand. You REALLY have been playing a different game than me. If you like playing with OTA units in spring, then no wonder our conversations devolve into telling each other that we are wrong. I would like to point out, however, that I have refrained from name calling, while you have sprinkled ad hominim attacks throughout your posts. Please remember that this is a debate, not an argument. I really couldn't give a shit less about you personally, having never met you, and never even played a game with you. Your arguments, however, are sometimes interesting, when they are not flames.I'm an agressive air player at Old TA.
Back to my main point. If you are playing EvolvaOTA, or any of the other OTA mods for spring, then you are playing a different game than us. Try as I might to convince people to play AA, XTA represents the vast majority of games on the Spring BattleRoom. Therefore, when we are talking about game balance, we must talk about XTA. OTA is and has always been massively unbalanced. If you do not believe this, then I will not try to convince you, because I am not interested in arguing religion with fanatics. Yeah planes don't work in OTA in Spring. This is because there are only a couple units worth building. There's the flash, the MT, the samson, the panther, and the goliath, with a few laser towers occasionally sprinkled in. And the construction plane, of course. The vast majority of games end in a flash rush. It isn't very interesting to me, because I want epic games of strategy, not a contest in who can min-max flash production best.
Which brings me to my second point. If you want to play OTA, feel free. If you want to play OTA in spring, feel free. But do not expect the rest of the world to follow your pursuits of a game which is strategically only slightly better than Tic-Tac-Toe. If you want to fork the Spring engine, again, feel free. But I doubt that your clinging to OTA will win you many followers, judging simply by the number of OTA games I see played in the battle room.
Lastly, I do spend 250 metal per tick on a regular basis. I regularly put up fusions in 20 seconds, and build krogoths in 4 minutes. Under AA, with the nano-lathe tower, it is easy to spend 1500 metal per tick, and on epic maps, I often do. With a good construction plane swarm (around 100 advanced), which is the heart of any large economy, it is possible to build just in time defenses, where you throw down the defenses as the opponent's ground troops get near your base. When you can put up a guardian in 10 seconds, the 5 minutes it can take for ground troups to arrive can be huge.
In your reply to this post, I ask that you attack my arguments (and with something other than simple denials), and leave any feelings you have about me for the battlefield. I am reasonably certain that I could not beat you at OTA, but I would be happy to play you at XTA or AA anytime. Perhaps I will learn something.
As a side note, I am almost certainly older than you. I do not appreciate being called a little boy. I would, however, like to thank you for running fileuniverse. You do the TA community a great service.
From my point of view, it was only fair to assume that you were talking about OTA, as I was blatantly comparing Spring to the Old game and the lack of strategy through the porting. Yes, the Old, Original TA that everyone else were playing, "back in the days" that I mentioned several times. To debate me on how much better planes are in XTA is pointless, since I have been comparing strategies in between the game and it's port, not any mod.Back to my main point. If you are playing EvolvaOTA, or any of the other OTA mods for spring, then you are playing a different game than us.
However, from your posts, you seem very reluctant to indeed do so to prove me right.I really couldn't give a shit less about you personally, having never met you, and never even played a game with you.
Laughable. I despise XTA and don't give a rat's ass about it's strategies... XTA got most players because it's the default mod and people don't know/don't care to switch (or just like it). Even though I rever to OTA when talking about strategies, I mean every single mod and unit ever released when I explain the effects of the changes in the Spring engine.Therefore, when we are talking about game balance, we must talk about XTA.
However, the point you miss is that indiffirently to the game at hand, planes have lost much much of their previous superiouty compared to the real game we once bought on disc. The planes balance has been severely injured by autotargetting because - no matter what you claim - bombers get shot upon far earlier.
Yes, and since the Spring introduction it has just been going steady downhill.OTA is and has always been massively unbalanced.
This can just as like be applied to you, so devoted to NOT-OTA and pro-epic it hurts.If you do not believe this, then I will not try to convince you, because I am not interested in arguing religion with fanatics.
Again, you have either not played enough OTA games or just never learned how to tackle Flashes. They are only viable the first ten minutes of the game and I have played for hours.The vast majority of games end in a flash rush.
What bothers me is not that you despise OTA, but that you fail to understand the changes Spring brings to all mods and conversions. It's like speaking to a wall. I say "Radar targetting makes planes worse" and you say "No", as if the XTA planes are radically differently coded within the engine.Which brings me to my second point. If you want to play OTA, feel free. If you want to play OTA in spring, feel free. But do not expect the rest of the world to follow your pursuits of a game which is strategically only slightly better than Tic-Tac-Toe. If you want to fork the Spring engine, again, feel free. But I doubt that your clinging to OTA will win you many followers, judging simply by the number of OTA games I see played in the battle room.
Which means that you are wasting the OTHER 250 metal per sec you get in. Instead of building those facilities, you could have produced more units...Lastly, I do spend 250 metal per tick on a regular basis. I regularly put up fusions in 20 seconds, and build krogoths in 4 minutes. Under AA, with the nano-lathe tower, it is easy to spend 1500 metal per tick, and on epic maps, I often do. With a good construction plane swarm (around 100 advanced), which is the heart of any large economy, it is possible to build just in time defenses, where you throw down the defenses as the opponent's ground troops get near your base. When you can put up a guardian in 10 seconds, the 5 minutes it can take for ground troups to arrive can be huge.
Epic maps are profoundly simple games condensended to three strategies:
1. Planes
2. Berthas
3. Nukes
There is absolutely not a single worthwile reason to build any kind of ground army on such maps. They are stripped off about 80% of the strategy in the whole game. Last time I checked out some good sized battleground like Comet Catcher, one could win by early rush, a creeping base, heavy tanks, level 1 masses, berthas, planes and pretty much everything else. Epic map games may be a fun way to spend your time, but there's definitely not half as much strategy into it. As I said earlier, you expand, tech up and fusion the world, then pork... in that order.
Of course you'll never send any ground troops and neither would I. That would be exessively stupid and that's why balancing the entire game on the games you play is laughable at best.
Heated exclamation, I apologise.As a side note, I am almost certainly older than you. I do not appreciate being called a little boy.
Storm wrote:
1) Planes
2) Berthas (which is a creeping base, really)
3) Nukes
4) Krogoths
5) Hiding bases near your opponant and churning out ground units
6) scaling sufficiently to drown your opponent in units
7) Pre 30 minute mark rushes
Undersea bases
plus the 8 factorial strategies made from combining all of the above together in various combos.
Additionally, each of these strategies is dependant upon getting good intel on the opponant, and denying them same. So really, the only strategy that doesn't work on a big map that you outlined was level 1 masses. But they still serve an enormous purpose in feints and false info, and are more than replaced by Big-K, who is ever so much fun. Nothing is as much fun as taking that porc, bombing his nuke defense to weaken it, then releasing a wave of nukes at his front lines to overload the remaining defense, then having krogoths, goliaths and mortys (that you built in secret 5 screens from his base under radar jamming) walk through the hole to cap the commander. Or conversely, few things feel as good as letting the enemy walk though your "base", pouring wave after wave of attackers at an empty shell, all the while building fusion after fusion deep below the waves and krogoth after krogoth on the shore. You cry in mock horror as the last of your "base" is eliminated and then spring an attack from a totally unknown direction against an opponant who never saw it coming. A small map is a game of chess. All pieces are always visible (something you obviously agree with me as a bad thing, since you dislike autotargetting), so a good opponant should never be surprised. I like hiding, and I like the intelligence war.
Apologies. This shows how deep our miscommunication went. I have not played OTA (the mod, not the engine) for at least 4 years, basically since Uberhack came out. I am located at a university, and play mostly LAN games, so I have only been deeply involved in the online community since Spring came out. I just assumed everyone saw the inherent superiority of rebalancing mods.From my point of view, it was only fair to assume that you were talking about OTA, as I was blatantly comparing Spring to the Old game and the lack of strategy through the porting.
I certainly would not want to give you that impression. I play probably 2-5 nights a week after work, which for me is generally 8-midnight EST. If you log on during those hours, I would be happy to either issue you a beat down, or be taken to school, preferably several times in a row. I would, however, rather not play OTA, unless you can provide me with a reasoned argument about how it is superior that I find convincing. See below for my arguments about how it is NOT superior (sigh, I am letting myself be dragged into a religious debate).However, from your posts, you seem very reluctant to indeed do so to prove me right.
This is true. It was sorely needed, in my opinion. The total inability to defend against planes with anything other than forests of MTs and flak was a weakness of the game. No strategy should trump. It is relatively easy to build an inpenetrable ground defense, especially in OTA. 10 bombers, however, are almost guaranteed to destroy any particular target in the enemy base. This was unbalanced.However, the point you miss is that indiffirently to the game at hand, planes have lost much much of their previous superiouty compared to the real game we once bought on disc. The planes balance has been severely injured by autotargetting because - no matter what you claim - bombers get shot upon far earlier.
So if you admit that it is unbalanced, why play it? XTA IS balanced. The ability of the commander to build level 2 does not appeal to my sensibilities, I admit, and I'm not sure how I feel about regeneration, but at least it has more than a handful of useful units. AA is even beter, and even has some neigh invulnerable planes (a point which I find problematic). AA is the balanced OTA you were looking for. Unbalanced is NOT a good thing. It just means that experienced players beat up nubes unfairly, rather than kicking their ass because they can't think stratigically.Quote:
OTA is and has always been massively unbalanced.
Yes, and since the Spring introduction it has just been going steady downhill.
I have made arguments in my support, and I will continue to do so. Should you convince me that either my assumptions or my logic is faulty, I will gladly cede the debate. Simple reiteration will not work, however.This can just as like be applied to you, so devoted to NOT-OTA and pro-epic it hurts.
A valid point. I did fail to understand those changes, because I fail to understand the importance of those mods. If you want to make the perfect updated OTA, fork the project. The community at large, however, has shown itself to be interested in the perfect strategy game about robots killing each other and gathering resources in real time, however. I submit that even were you to fork the codebase, gather a community, and make the perfect updated OTA, you would after a few years return to the fold. Radical conservatives and reactionaries will be dragged kicking and screaming into a utopian future in all walks of life, including the perfect strategy game.What bothers me is not that you despise OTA, but that you fail to understand the changes Spring brings to all mods and conversions.
Sigh. 250 is an example. I have also spent 500. 500 is an example. Please don't be intentionally obtuse.Which means that you are wasting the OTHER 250 metal per sec you get in. Instead of building those facilities, you could have produced more units...
Ok. Here we reach the heart of the matter. There are more strategies than that.Epic maps are profoundly simple games condensended to three strategies:
1. Planes
2. Berthas
3. Nukes
1) Planes
2) Berthas (which is a creeping base, really)
3) Nukes
4) Krogoths
5) Hiding bases near your opponant and churning out ground units
6) scaling sufficiently to drown your opponent in units
7) Pre 30 minute mark rushes
Undersea basesplus the 8 factorial strategies made from combining all of the above together in various combos.
Additionally, each of these strategies is dependant upon getting good intel on the opponant, and denying them same. So really, the only strategy that doesn't work on a big map that you outlined was level 1 masses. But they still serve an enormous purpose in feints and false info, and are more than replaced by Big-K, who is ever so much fun. Nothing is as much fun as taking that porc, bombing his nuke defense to weaken it, then releasing a wave of nukes at his front lines to overload the remaining defense, then having krogoths, goliaths and mortys (that you built in secret 5 screens from his base under radar jamming) walk through the hole to cap the commander. Or conversely, few things feel as good as letting the enemy walk though your "base", pouring wave after wave of attackers at an empty shell, all the while building fusion after fusion deep below the waves and krogoth after krogoth on the shore. You cry in mock horror as the last of your "base" is eliminated and then spring an attack from a totally unknown direction against an opponant who never saw it coming. A small map is a game of chess. All pieces are always visible (something you obviously agree with me as a bad thing, since you dislike autotargetting), so a good opponant should never be surprised. I like hiding, and I like the intelligence war.
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Sean Mirrsen
- Posts: 578
- Joined: 19 Aug 2004, 17:38
Hmm. I thought this was a topic about airplane behavior. I must note that however powerful were the missile defences at the bases I created, an adequately sized airforce can do several things: overwhelm the defences (although flak towers prove a hard nut to crack), and ultimately deny the opponent the benefit of radar targetting by simply obliterating nearby radars. I think the best and most realistic way to further decrease the brutal effectiveness of automatic targetting is make active radars immediately visible as dots to the units in their effect radius. Then, radars will be a lot easier to destroy. As of flak towers, their effectiveness is way less than in TA (one could take out any amount of Brawlers at once - because planes didn't collide), and missile towers are only slightly more effective due to the oversizedly round nature of the airplane collision spheres, and a bug in missile tracking code that sometimes makes them accurately hit a target when firing at a radar blip.
Also, I must say that the recent addition of wind affection to missiles further reduced the amount of long-range missile hits simply because the missiles also have to struggle against the wind. On maps with extreme wind, missile weapons with wind affection may become unusable.
Also, I must say that the recent addition of wind affection to missiles further reduced the amount of long-range missile hits simply because the missiles also have to struggle against the wind. On maps with extreme wind, missile weapons with wind affection may become unusable.
First youseem very reluctant to prove me wrong, then you claim that it doesn't matter, then you seem to brag again. Look, I don't care. It was an answer you misunderstood.I certainly would not want to give you that impression. I play probably 2-5 nights a week after work...
Again, on epic maps only... It's your gamestyle and it doesn't fit any other maps than epic.This is true. It was sorely needed, in my opinion. The total inability to defend against planes with anything other than forests of MTs and flak was a weakness of the game. No strategy should trump. It is relatively easy to build an inpenetrable ground defense, especially in OTA. 10 bombers, however, are almost guaranteed to destroy any particular target in the enemy base. This was unbalanced.
I know it's unbalanced and I'm not gonna defend that. However, what you miss is that people have grown used to the balance and how to handle it. The games we play are equal and not unbalanced, and surprisingly still fun.So if you admit that it is unbalanced, why play it?
I was not.AA is the balanced OTA you were looking for.
It just surprised me that you called me a religious zealot or something alike because I keep holding onto OTA. In exact same way, you are that same thing yourself for being anti-OTA. The accusation was silly and I returned it, get it?I have made arguments in my support, and I will continue to do so. Should you convince me that either my assumptions or my logic is faulty, I will gladly cede the debate. Simple reiteration will not work, however.
I didn't understand a word of this. Didn't find any point or punchline.A valid point. I did fail to understand those changes, because I fail to understand the importance of those mods. If you want to make the perfect updated OTA, fork the project. The community at large, however, has shown itself to be interested in the perfect strategy game about robots killing each other and gathering resources in real time, however. I submit that even were you to fork the codebase, gather a community, and make the perfect updated OTA, you would after a few years return to the fold. Radical conservatives and reactionaries will be dragged kicking and screaming into a utopian future in all walks of life, including the perfect strategy game.
Wow, pre-30 minutes rushes. Look, you don't get it. I recited the three main strategies that this game is condensed to. Playing such a map renders a dozen other main strategies completely useless. Ever ever had your base assaulted by an early bomber? Do you understand the concept of forking a player? Creeping? Raiding? Tech rush? Those are just a narrow selection of ground warfare, which combined with planes, berthas and nukes and an enemy just outside your line of sight is more than enough pressure to get going.1) Planes
2) Berthas (which is a creeping base, really)
3) Nukes
4) Krogoths
5) Hiding bases near your opponant and churning out ground units
6) scaling sufficiently to drown your opponent in units
7) Pre 30 minute mark rushes
Undersea bases
plus the 8 factorial strategies made from combining all of the above together in various combos.
What you describe is a lameass porking and outproducing weaker opponents with krogs. It's easy and hardly requires any broader effor than keeping the base somwhat functioning and having many conairs. On epic maps, you are hardly even remotely at pressure comparing with a standard game where you raid your enemy while being raded yourself, while counter-expanding his expansion. In a small game, you have to keep a tight grip on your economy without wasting a single metal batch (I use to have 3-4 exess metal points per game) and still produce a working army. None of this is a real concern in epics. They are mere grey shadows of the real game.
Jesus, you haven't played a real map for a while, have you?Nothing is as much fun as taking that porc, bombing his nuke defense to weaken it, then releasing a wave of nukes at his front lines to overload the remaining defense, then having krogoths, goliaths and mortys (that you built in secret 5 screens from his base under radar jamming) walk through the hole to cap the commander.
Why am I even debating you? It's obvious you don't understand the gameplay on normal sized games like Comet Catcher and Greenheaven. You don't think jammers can't be used on "lesser" maps with same effiency? If all pieces were visible there, I would hardly even raise a finger in complaint about the spring-installed features. You can see all the moving pieces, but only with ruthless control. That is what separates the newbs from the pros.A small map is a game of chess. All pieces are always visible (something you obviously agree with me as a bad thing, since you dislike autotargetting),
As I said before, I like this idea because it gives a lot of thought to the building of radars. How much control do you want to have and how much control can you afford without being detected?I think the best and most realistic way to further decrease the brutal effectiveness of automatic targetting is make active radars immediately visible as dots to the units in their effect radius.
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Warlord Zsinj
- Imperial Winter Developer
- Posts: 3742
- Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59
Er, I think this thread should be split. I find both discussions interesting, but they are quite distanced from each other, and I'd like to discuss both.
THE ON THREAD TOPIC:
I have thought of two possible solutions, one based on the current system, and one radically new:
1) Using the current dot system, but make the dots much larger, and move a greater distance from their actual location. The intention of this is that interpreting radar data becomes far more vague. Not only this, but firing on radar data is even less accurate. This way, the radar system gives you an idea as to what is going on outside the sphere of vision, but can't really be used for long ranged combat; spotters are needed.
2) Redo the entire radar system, based on a threat probability. Then shade the map (or some other visual effect) according to the probability that there are enemy units in the region, with the probability rising based on the amount of units in the region. You could still have actual radar signatures on the minimap
-----------------
OFF TOPIC DISCUSSION:
10053r: You are being just as aggressive as storm, just in a far more "high horse" fashion. You argue that AA is the only "logical solution", and that OTA is fundamentally flawed.
Balance is predominantly a point of view. And perfect balance is Rock, Paper, Scissors.
But perfect balance is bad. As a quasi-artist, I can understand assymetrical balance. Having units not balanced perfectly allows for greater chaotic functionality, and hence, greater strategies.
I am a proponent of OTA, myself. I think its learning curve is a little over-steep, but this is not necesserily a bad thing. It means that games at the top rungs are breathtaking, but games lower down are still very interesting. A minor issue is the unfortunate lack of cross-gaming between different skill levels, but I suppose this is to be found in any game.
I could analyse your arguments and attack them individually, but I can't honestly be bothered. While I can understand the fun of epic maps, having played both the epic and small maps, I must say I find the heartpounding edge-of-your-seat battles of a small map to be far more intense then the numbers war played on an epic map.
I think you are being very short sighted to attack small maps as being chess-like (an inverted compliment which I'm sure you didn't intend), especially after describing your encounters on an epic map.
And just for the record, I think Krogoths are strategic the same way as a baseball bat to the head is strategic. On any map other than an epic map, and against a decent player, Krogoths never see the light of day, simply because the resources (and far more importantly, time) are far better spent. Why build a unit that the enemy can target individually? Doesn't it make greater strategic sense to spend the money and divide it into a number of smaller units? That gives you the flexibility to surround, divide, retreat, and counter attack. Krogoths are not a strategically sound option.
THE ON THREAD TOPIC:
I have thought of two possible solutions, one based on the current system, and one radically new:
1) Using the current dot system, but make the dots much larger, and move a greater distance from their actual location. The intention of this is that interpreting radar data becomes far more vague. Not only this, but firing on radar data is even less accurate. This way, the radar system gives you an idea as to what is going on outside the sphere of vision, but can't really be used for long ranged combat; spotters are needed.
2) Redo the entire radar system, based on a threat probability. Then shade the map (or some other visual effect) according to the probability that there are enemy units in the region, with the probability rising based on the amount of units in the region. You could still have actual radar signatures on the minimap
-----------------
OFF TOPIC DISCUSSION:
10053r: You are being just as aggressive as storm, just in a far more "high horse" fashion. You argue that AA is the only "logical solution", and that OTA is fundamentally flawed.
Balance is predominantly a point of view. And perfect balance is Rock, Paper, Scissors.
But perfect balance is bad. As a quasi-artist, I can understand assymetrical balance. Having units not balanced perfectly allows for greater chaotic functionality, and hence, greater strategies.
I am a proponent of OTA, myself. I think its learning curve is a little over-steep, but this is not necesserily a bad thing. It means that games at the top rungs are breathtaking, but games lower down are still very interesting. A minor issue is the unfortunate lack of cross-gaming between different skill levels, but I suppose this is to be found in any game.
I could analyse your arguments and attack them individually, but I can't honestly be bothered. While I can understand the fun of epic maps, having played both the epic and small maps, I must say I find the heartpounding edge-of-your-seat battles of a small map to be far more intense then the numbers war played on an epic map.
I think you are being very short sighted to attack small maps as being chess-like (an inverted compliment which I'm sure you didn't intend), especially after describing your encounters on an epic map.
And just for the record, I think Krogoths are strategic the same way as a baseball bat to the head is strategic. On any map other than an epic map, and against a decent player, Krogoths never see the light of day, simply because the resources (and far more importantly, time) are far better spent. Why build a unit that the enemy can target individually? Doesn't it make greater strategic sense to spend the money and divide it into a number of smaller units? That gives you the flexibility to surround, divide, retreat, and counter attack. Krogoths are not a strategically sound option.
Warlord Zsinj wrote:
Storm wrote:
You like small maps and OTA. OK. I don't. I have explained my reasons, and if they don't work for you, I'm not going to convince you in the future. You are welcome to provide futher arguments if you would like as to the superiority of OTA and small maps, but I can't debate any appeals which are not founded in logic. I'd say I'll see you in the battle room, but I probably won't, given that we are unlikely to be attracted to the same games. No hard feelings, I hope.
Sean Mirrsen wrote:1) Using the current dot system, but make the dots much larger, and move a greater distance from their actual location. The intention of this is that interpreting radar data becomes far more vague.
Both of these are great ideas! I vote for implimentation, if that counts at all. I can't decide whether these dots should be jammable or not though...I think the best and most realistic way to further decrease the brutal effectiveness of automatic targetting is make active radars immediately visible as dots to the units in their effect radius. Then, radars will be a lot easier to destroy.
Storm wrote:
What you describe is a lameass porking and outproducing weaker opponents with krogs
I didn't understand a word of this.
Storm, it's been nice debating you, but I feel we have reached an impasse. You tell me that I am wrong, and then ask if I understand basic strategy (which is effectively calling me stupid, another ad hominim attack.) You have also used a straw man argument of "lameass porking", which ignores my points. I would like to refer you to http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FallaciousArguments for a list of argument styles that are fallacious. You will undoubtedly find them useful in the future. (I would like to apologize for this post, which is in and unto itself a ad-hominim attack of saying that you don't understand basic logic, but I hope that you will set your ego aside long enough to educate yourself in this area.) Additionally, I'm sorry for calling you a religious zealot. That was unclear language. I meant to say that I believed that you held beliefs which were unfounded in logic and were unreasonable on the face of them. Religious zealot was meant to be a shorthand for that, not name-calling.I know it's unbalanced and I'm not gonna defend that.
You like small maps and OTA. OK. I don't. I have explained my reasons, and if they don't work for you, I'm not going to convince you in the future. You are welcome to provide futher arguments if you would like as to the superiority of OTA and small maps, but I can't debate any appeals which are not founded in logic. I'd say I'll see you in the battle room, but I probably won't, given that we are unlikely to be attracted to the same games. No hard feelings, I hope.
First of all, Ad Hominem attacks are critisizing someone's views because of a trait the person has. No, sorry, can't say that I do. I'm not critisizing your view on strategy because you play on epic maps, I'm critisizing your view on strategy on epic maps. However, my personal trait/flaw is subtile insults against people's credibility. They are insults, not arguments.
BTW, I took the time to read what your reference said about Strawman arguments. No really, I'm posting this because it's a) Interesting b) I want answers.
I have played Epic. I have won and I have lost, but in the end, the only thing I was doing is sitting back and building my base. You have said yourself that you would have my ground forces obliterated before they even reach half-way. A player that sits behind defense lines and produces planes is in my notebook listed as "porker". Porking is not always a bad thing, but when 99% of the games are designed in that way... I mean, where is the strategy?
And again you have been arguing me that planes are overpowerful, which they indeed are on maps that size because the amount of land to be covered makes all kind of ground forces (well besides Krogs) completely obsolete and planes becomes the only way to directly impact on your opponent. If we now balance the game after your preferences, it would directly mean that planes in normal games will be zipp, null, pointless. Con planes - maybe, Finks - sure, but... what else?
Try out Core Prime Industrial sometime... It contains everything you mentioned plus pressure.
BTW, I took the time to read what your reference said about Strawman arguments. No really, I'm posting this because it's a) Interesting b) I want answers.
In order to make a strawman argument against you in this case would be to say that epic strategies suck because you are a bad player. That is not the case. What I am doing is generalising the whole epic gameset compared to the "normal" games with maps around 20x20 size and I have perfectly valid grounds to do se (well, besides "lameass") because epic maps are completely devoured of real physical contanct with the enemy, besides a shocking amount of planes when a certain number is reached.Example Straw Man: Let's pretend that I think that the Federation from StarTrek is disrespectful to local cultures. I attempt to prove this by arguing that Captain Kirk is often disrespectful to local cultures. But this is a Straw Man; the example itself may be true, but it's a distraction from the larger issue, and doesn't (necessarily) map onto the entire Federation.
I have played Epic. I have won and I have lost, but in the end, the only thing I was doing is sitting back and building my base. You have said yourself that you would have my ground forces obliterated before they even reach half-way. A player that sits behind defense lines and produces planes is in my notebook listed as "porker". Porking is not always a bad thing, but when 99% of the games are designed in that way... I mean, where is the strategy?
And again you have been arguing me that planes are overpowerful, which they indeed are on maps that size because the amount of land to be covered makes all kind of ground forces (well besides Krogs) completely obsolete and planes becomes the only way to directly impact on your opponent. If we now balance the game after your preferences, it would directly mean that planes in normal games will be zipp, null, pointless. Con planes - maybe, Finks - sure, but... what else?
Try out Core Prime Industrial sometime... It contains everything you mentioned plus pressure.