NOTA 1.82

Thor · Post by **Thor** » 27 May 2007, 12:59

I've gone back and fixed up Island Defense and Convoy Rescue. Changes include making the game now end when you win or lose, and patching some embarrasing oversights that may have caused crashes (I really didn't know what I was doing when I made these!). I also completely reworked the trigger system on convoy rescue and made it more fun too!

http://spring.unknown-files.net/file/29 ... efense_v2/
http://spring.unknown-files.net/file/29 ... Rescue_v2/

Shadowsage wrote:While we're on the commenting thing:

I thought that the Black Hydra's Beam Weapon would be much more devastating.

what, 400 DPS isn't enough?

(That humoungus dragon gun on the Arm Battleship does only 270 in comparison!)

gamer17 · Post by **gamer17** » 01 Jun 2007, 16:06

Why is there no autohost for NOTA?

And whats maps should I get for this mod?

Cainen · Post by **Cainen** » 01 Jun 2007, 22:10

Is it just me, or do coastal defenses brokenly powerful? Seriously, the things outrange Guardians and do more damage than them; it pisses me off when I can't do anything about the game because someone spammed them on high ground when I didn't have any such opportunity.

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 01 Jun 2007, 22:39

Ways around this:

1. Make coastal guns only shoot at naval units
2. Make them buildable on sea only
3. ?????

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 01 Jun 2007, 23:40

Make them have a direct line of fire.

Most of the time on land, there will always be hills, etc.

While water is always flat.

j5mello · Post by **j5mello** » 01 Jun 2007, 23:44

they are pretty much direct fire weapons iirc

i honestly think you should just make them shoot exclusively at ships... no one is gonna care if it "doesn't seem realistic" if it makes gameplay less confusing. With a description like Anti Ship gun nubs won't be all that confused...

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 02 Jun 2007, 01:54

Its not that "unrealistic" anymore so than torpedoes only shooting at ships and anti air only shooting at anti air.. If anyone must know the targetting/tracking mechanism only works well on really big targets ala ships and otherwise cannot aim properly.. You dont need them to shoot at hovercraft, you have punishers for that.. they are specifically for dealing with ships and should not be gimped or overpriced or altered becasue this makes them too good against other stuff, they should simply be forced to only work well against ships, if this means making them only fire at ships, and do next to no damage to anything else.. then so be it..

gamer17 · Post by **gamer17** » 02 Jun 2007, 02:10

I just played this mod for the first time, this is the best mod I've ever played.
Why is there no one playing this?

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 02 Jun 2007, 02:21

gamer17 wrote:I just played this mod for the first time, this is the best mod I've ever played.
Why is there no one playing this?

No idea. ShadowSage and I are among the few I've seen take a stab at it.

Thor · Post by **Thor** » 02 Jun 2007, 03:44

I admit I was underestimating the coastal guns' usefulness before. They're fine in the early to mid-game when you're dealing with smaller armies, but once you have large masses of troops, and especially heavy units, they become a problem because the accuracy is irrelevant and the damage devastating to heavies. Here are the 3 possible ways I can see dealing with this issue...

1. only allow shooting at ships - this would solve the problem but I would rather avoid it if possible because of the realism issue, and yes it does seem more arbitrary to me than anti-air.

2. lower default damage- currently default is 1400 with 2000 against ships. Halving the default to 700 would be enough to solve the balance problems. There is an issue of "realism" or consistancy here too, but not as obvious of one. I prefer this to option #1.

3. Get rid of the stationary guns completely, while keeping the mobile ones. I actually kind of like this idea, but it would probably end up being irritating on maps with small islands or mountains where you wouldn't want vehicles.

I'll probably end up going with #2 and just lowering the default damage.

Thor · Post by **Thor** » 02 Jun 2007, 05:11

gamer17 wrote:I just played this mod for the first time, this is the best mod I've ever played.
Why is there no one playing this?

I think it can be boiled down to a few simple reasons:

1. It's a fact of online rts gaming. People don't want to join a game that is in any way different to what they're used to. I used to play Age of Empires II quite a bit and even with hundreds of players it was near impossible to get a game going if you wanted to try even a different gametype.

2. People also don't want to sit around in the lobby forever waiting for other people to join, which is what will inevitably happen thanks to reason #1, so unless they vastly prefer an unpopular mod to the popular one, they aren't going to go to the extra time and trouble.

3. NOTA has a much slower pace than BA or XTA. People used to the action packed, competitive gameplay style of these mods won't see anything immediately fun about nota, much the same way as a starcraft player might not see what's so fun about AOE II, for example.

gamer17 wrote:Why is there no autohost for NOTA?

And whats maps should I get for this mod?

I don't know anything about autohosts, but if someone wanted to set one up, that would be great. Otherwise, I don't think it will happen anytime soon.

Any large, wide-open map will work well. Chokepoint maps like Small Supreme Battlefield generally do NOT play well because they eliminate the most interesting part of the gameplay, the mobility. Also be aware that hovercraft in nota can not climb steep slopes/mountains, unlike AA/BA.

I've had good games of nota on these:
Arctic Plains - I like this one a lot, simple but fun
Arctic Zone - 32x32 ocean map, low metal
Expanded Tropics - Good medium sized hovercraft/naval map
Island in the Sun - Hovercraft wars!
Aaviko - wide open map, lots of raiding and skirmishing, good for 1v1
Mars - old classic, many hills stress use of infantry kbots
Battlerange - huge land map with varied terrain, tactics like surprise airdrops and stealth tank attacks work very well here.
Painted Desert - big enough for a good 2v2.
Greenhaven - great map, good 2v2.
Speedmetal - haha, not really, but it's kinda fun. First person to get the orbital laser wins!

There is sadly a lack of ocean maps big enough for full-scale naval combat - arctic zone is the best, but the low metal means you won't be getting more than a couple capital ships at a time, max. Naval combat is still somewhat incomplete anyway, though. Once we get cruisers and carriers implemented things will be more interesting.

gamer17 · Post by **gamer17** » 02 Jun 2007, 05:19

What AI should I use?

Thor · Post by **Thor** » 02 Jun 2007, 05:20

There aren't any that work, sadly. One of the downfalls of using stationary commanders.

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 02 Jun 2007, 07:06

Or thor you could get rid of the AOE.. if you need an explaination.. the shells being fired are large penetration rounds designed to punch through heavy ship armor and hit large targets, hence they dont need a large blast radius because they arent trying to hit small objects, remove the blast radius, they are still effective against ships (which cant really get more than 2 in a blast radius if even) but much less effective against clumps of ground units since they can only ever likely kill one..

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 02 Jun 2007, 11:17

I reckon NTAI could play this perfectly, talk to AF and get the config program. I could make you a config but i dont have any NOTA skillz

gamer17 · Post by **gamer17** » 02 Jun 2007, 17:08

What map is this?

http://www.unknown-files.net/imagestore ... _thumb.jpg

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 02 Jun 2007, 18:24

Green Comet perhaps?

Thor · Post by **Thor** » 02 Jun 2007, 19:30

Fanger wrote:Or thor you could get rid of the AOE.. if you need an explaination.. the shells being fired are large penetration rounds designed to punch through heavy ship armor and hit large targets, hence they dont need a large blast radius because they arent trying to hit small objects, remove the blast radius, they are still effective against ships (which cant really get more than 2 in a blast radius if even) but much less effective against clumps of ground units since they can only ever likely kill one..

I will do that.. the AOE isn't huge, 50 and 64 for arm and core respectively, but lowering it should help a bit. I'll still have to lower the damage somewhat, but that should help.

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:I reckon NTAI could play this perfectly, talk to AF and get the config program. I could make you a config but i dont have any NOTA skillz

last time we tried it, it kept getting stuck trying to build on top of the commander.

gamer17 wrote:What map is this?

http://www.unknown-files.net/imagestore ... _thumb.jpg

That is battle range, from a game I played against smartie back before 1.0.

gamer17 · Post by **gamer17** » 02 Jun 2007, 19:35

thanks,
cold war rocks with this mod

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 02 Jun 2007, 19:39

Thor wrote:
1v0ry_k1ng wrote:I reckon NTAI could play this perfectly, talk to AF and get the config program. I could make you a config but i dont have any NOTA skillz
last time we tried it, it kept getting stuck trying to build on top of the commander.

As I recall, this is a Spring engine 'bug' (due to hardcoded behaviour involving factories), and as a result will probably occur will all AIs and hub-mods

Spring RTS Engine

NOTA 1.82