Spring:1944 dev and testing - Page 20

Spring:1944 dev and testing

Discuss game development here, from a distinct game project to an accessible third-party mutator, down to the interaction and design of individual units if you like.

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Boirunner
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
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Post by Boirunner »

i have to agree with zsinj and 1v0ry_k1ng here. health bars are only useful in 1 vs 1 games. to gain a tactical overview at a glance it is imperative to be able to tell which unit belong to what team at a glance.

maybe have the whole unit just blend towards the teamcolor a bit?
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Neddie
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Post by Neddie »

Alright, before this falls into a recursive loop, I would like to interject.

I did some focus group work, as part of my Spring distribution planning, and there is a general concern with identifying the units in 1944 when at a normal zoom. In fact, it is the only consistent negative feedback I've received about the game thus far - well, and some WWII nuts who aren't satisfied with anything - but fanatics exist regardless.

I've been trying to think of a way to make the affiliation of a unit more apparent. The best two options would be difficult to say the least; Outlining the unit in team colour when the player hits a certain button (This could be done with lua as a required widget which gives all your units an outline when toggled!) or projecting a plate beneath each model with the team colour. The former is a better solution, and I recommend it highly.

Anyway, this IS a problem for players, and while it isn't major, if you could rectify it, I believe it can have a positive influence on how 1944 is taken up by the public.

Just hang loose, you know I love the game, but please - just take Zsinj under advisement. He's on the ball.
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
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Post by Warlord Zsinj »

Another option is to teamcolour the stars. I know you really wouldn't want to do this, and again, I can totally understand why, when there's the chance that the USSR could be cruising around with pink or blue stars instead of red ones.

However, I think those symbols are there for the express purposes of recognition; and when people pick 'blue' when playing the soviets, they're already breaking the historical logic. The Soviets would never drive around with blue painted on their tanks any more then they would drive around with blue stars.

Seeing as the stars are painted in quite prominent places on all the trucks, I think it would be a useful place to put teamcolour (though I think you'd have to stick a british symbol on their truck). It could also be confusing currently if there is more then one russian player in the game, and none of them, or only one of them have the red colour, because the most visible identification colour on a truck is the red (or white for US) star, even though it (currently) has nothing to do with whether that player is on the red team or the white team.

Obviously for screenshot purposes you would always have the russians with the colour red, the americans with white/blue, etc. It's like this in most RTS's; in SupCom, Aeon are meant to be green, UEF blue and Cybran Red; in the missons and all the screenshots and default in skirmish, this colour coding is true, but it's anyone's game online. Obviously it's not quite the same as it doesn't have the historical precedent, but it's similar.

EDIT: Just checked, that's how CoH dealt with it too.
http://news.softpedia.com/images/review ... -large.jpg
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8067/easuxssh7.jpg
http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/art ... 90-000.jpg
http://www.computergame.com.au/userimag ... 362248.jpg
http://www.compofheroes.com/tutimg/care ... ial012.jpg
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by FLOZi »

Yes, the CoH method is perhaps most agreeable. So long as the colour isn't massively overdone, but rather a pale tint.
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Guessmyname
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Post by Guessmyname »

I bet it's possible to make the GUI show a little square or something in the player's colour above all units (a bit like Nanoblobs, but billboarded, so you could have the side symbol, for instance, hovering above)
SpikedHelmet
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by SpikedHelmet »

I'd actually like a teamcolour footprint outline underneath the unit... essentially the same as when the unit is selected except, of course, teamcolour. And when the unit is selected it'd turn the usual green. But unselected it would be teamcolour. Have I said teamcolour enough? I just woke up. But I'm very, very, very defensive about spoiling my skins with ugly blotches of colour.
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Nemo
Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by Nemo »

I think that the teamcolor dashed-line circle around a unit (except when selected) is a pretty classy way to solve this problem. Any LUA wizards have a sense of how to do that?
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Abokasee
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Post by Abokasee »

Any infantry?, you should stick em in robes so they stand out from germans and usa infantry, and UK should have there helmets colourable
SpikedHelmet
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Post by SpikedHelmet »

maestro
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Post by maestro »

SpikedHelmet wrote:I'd actually like a teamcolour footprint outline underneath the unit... .
This would be very,very, very best solution :-) is this a way to do that ??
It naturally solve the problem for mod like wd and S44 because there is no otherway to make recognizable side color on invantry. (other than make entire grunts camo=side color which is sucky sucky suck you gonna have all pink soldier if you play pink).
SpikedHelmet
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by SpikedHelmet »

Apparently its doable with the guiluiaiaisi or whatever the hell. Which is good. That means I don't have to put ANY teamcolour on ANY unit!

PaK 40:

http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... 937#189937
SpikedHelmet
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by SpikedHelmet »

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Pressure Line
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Post by Pressure Line »

have had a quick play against AAI over the weekend. and i love it!

just a few slight niggles i had while playing. not sure if any of it has come up before:

1) USA has no buildable defensive turret (while im aware that the US was on the attack for all of WW2 in the european theatre, and was not fighting from prepared positions like the Germans were) for gameplay balance reasons it would be nice to have a pillbox type thing for the Allies too.

2) pillboxes are quite expensive to build, could there be an 'mg nest' type defensive structure (two guys and an mg in a little circle of sandbags, resistant to small arms fire but very vulnerable to explosive type weapons *and flamethrowers*) for both sides for early base defense? make it use a less powerful mg than the pillbox does.

3) some sort of guard tower. cheap, better los than the pillbox, just a guy with a rifle in a box on stilts. nothing special, a single light vehicle can knock it out very quickly.

4) cloaked infantry/towed guns. im not too sure about this (while balancing a multiplayer game for playing against an ai is probably not a good idea, if an ai can do it, a player can do the same with even greater effectiveness). perhaps either make it so they can only be cloaked when not moving, or perhaps some kind of on/off mode where infantry can move cloaked, but at 25-50% movespeed, so that infantry/towed guns retain their ambush abilities while still being vulnerable while moving at full speed towards enemy lines across an open plain.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by FLOZi »

Pressure Line wrote:have had a quick play against AAI over the weekend. and i love it!

just a few slight niggles i had while playing. not sure if any of it has come up before:

1) USA has no buildable defensive turret (while im aware that the US was on the attack for all of WW2 in the european theatre, and was not fighting from prepared positions like the Germans were) for gameplay balance reasons it would be nice to have a pillbox type thing for the Allies too.
Not a pillbox as such but...
2) pillboxes are quite expensive to build, could there be an 'mg nest' type defensive structure (two guys and an mg in a little circle of sandbags, resistant to small arms fire but very vulnerable to explosive type weapons *and flamethrowers*) for both sides for early base defense? make it use a less powerful mg than the pillbox does.
...These are planned for each side. :)
3) some sort of guard tower. cheap, better los than the pillbox, just a guy with a rifle in a box on stilts. nothing special, a single light vehicle can knock it out very quickly.
Nothing in that vein planned, I'm not sure what real purpose it would serve.
4) cloaked infantry/towed guns. im not too sure about this (while balancing a multiplayer game for playing against an ai is probably not a good idea, if an ai can do it, a player can do the same with even greater effectiveness). perhaps either make it so they can only be cloaked when not moving, or perhaps some kind of on/off mode where infantry can move cloaked, but at 25-50% movespeed, so that infantry/towed guns retain their ambush abilities while still being vulnerable while moving at full speed towards enemy lines across an open plain.
IIRC there are going to be some alterations to cloaking.
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Zpock
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Post by Zpock »

FLOZi wrote:
3) some sort of guard tower. cheap, better los than the pillbox, just a guy with a rifle in a box on stilts. nothing special, a single light vehicle can knock it out very quickly.
Nothing in that vein planned, I'm not sure what real purpose it would serve.
Those are needed for the uh.. camps.
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Pressure Line
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Post by Pressure Line »

FLOZi wrote:
3) some sort of guard tower. cheap, better los than the pillbox, just a guy with a rifle in a box on stilts. nothing special, a single light vehicle **edit* or a very sneaky at rocket trooper* can knock it out very quickly.
Nothing in that vein planned, I'm not sure what real purpose it would serve.
Cheap defense against wandering scouts? And possibly give it a good los for air units... The main reason i suggested it was frustration at AAI's habit of parking a tank just outside visual range and having it hammer my defenses.

Also could be used in missions in conjunction with a barbed wire fence *that tanks can knock down* for 'rescue the downed air crew' or 'free the concentration camp prisoners' type missions etc. And also for making your base feel more like... well.. a base...

I also noticed that (mainly due to the cloaking thing) there is no defensive advantage to taking high ground (esp with pillboxes) because the infantry doesnt decloak till it gets too close, and the pillboxes cant shoot at them.

And as a quick question, have you considered implementing radar for the planes? short ranged, and based on night-fighter aircraft like the JU88C etc
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FLOZi
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Post by FLOZi »

Planes used to have radar but now we removed it to use radar for the artillery warning system.
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Pressure Line
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Post by Pressure Line »

Thought id better put a :D post in here too.

I absolutely love this mod. I love the scale (so please don't make the units bigger!) and the general feel of the mod, its wonderful!

Other than the gripes in my first post:

Can you make all the vehicles leave tracks? I've noticed some of the halftracks and other lighter (but still damned heavy) vehicles dont leave tracks, intentional or bug?

There seems to be a slight problem with the exit point of the US barracks (this is mainly an AI problem) where units (only noticed it on the BAR GI) get stuck in the door if they are told to go to a point north of the barracks immediately upon completion.

And again, cant stress how much i love this mod. Great work guys, keep it up!
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Pressure Line
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Post by Pressure Line »

FLOZi wrote:Planes used to have radar but now we removed it to use radar for the artillery warning system.
Fair enough.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

there is no need for fix defences to take care of scouts. scatter a few cloaked sharpshooters around your perimeter, gg scouts
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