Spring:1944 dev and testing

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 31 Oct 2007, 04:36

only because I'm procrastinating yet more:

Adding more units to fix a stalemate problem is a bandaid fix; if it is impossible for the game to end smoothly at a given tech level when one side has a decisive resource advantage without adding in new unit types, there is something wrong with the design.

One more time: MG and sniper have NOT been nerfed in the current main rev. Stop whining. It was an experiment in a separate build that failed. So shush.

perhaps making halftracks observs will do it. I worry about obsoleting infantry, but that's just me.

Likewise for cranking up LoS on tanks - we tried that not too long ago and it resulted in some issues with panthers rampaging around the map unsupported, but I agree that they're too impotent right now. It's also a BIG nerf against infantry if tanks can take them on unsupported.

AT guns are probably nerfed enough - I did knock their turnrate down to VERY low, so try them before changing other things.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 31 Oct 2007, 04:45

I'm going to check the economic cost curves for vehicles and tanks again to ensure that the AEC is of a reasonable cost for power.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 31 Oct 2007, 04:54

Nemo wrote:perhaps making halftracks observs will do it. I worry about obsoleting infantry, but that's just me.

Halftracks don't cloak - that alone seems like enough to keep observation infantry useful.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 31 Oct 2007, 04:58

obsoleting infantry as requirements for tank support. IE, once tanks and halftracks show up, there's still a reason to use/build infantry beyond a handful to deal with flags.

Pressure Line · Post by **Pressure Line** » 31 Oct 2007, 05:01

Felix the Cat wrote:Probably should add in at least one medium AA gun for that side as well.

only problem with that for the germans is that the *other* german AA gun is an '88, which is a very potent anti-tank gun too.

yuritch · Post by **yuritch** » 31 Oct 2007, 07:16

88 is a heavy AA gun, medium German AA gun would be the 37mm FlaK38. It's not that good vs tanks (it should be able to kill light vehicles easily though).

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 31 Oct 2007, 10:53

neddiedrow wrote:I'm going to check the economic cost curves for vehicles and tanks again to ensure that the AEC is of a reasonable cost for power.

its not just a matter of HP to cost etc ratios, its the effect of the AEC being crazy fast and well armed for its cost. moving at speed its virtually impossible for other tanks to target except at very long range since turrets do not track fast enough. trust me when I say that AEC and Diamer are not outstripped later in the game; they are cheap, therefore more numerous, they have higher LOS and they move crazy fast, the result is a unit capable of very much indeed.

obsoleting infantry as requirements for tank support. IE, once tanks and halftracks show up, there's still a reason to use/build infantry beyond a handful to deal with flags.

I can buy 100 riflemen for the price of a medium tank, or 35 panzerfausts, both of which are probably going to acheive more in a standard game. tanks may be powerful but they die very fast when fighting other tanks or AT. this ensures there is generally only a small number of tanks about...

People complain that the british lack pros; but british tanks were pretty awful as a rule and they were used badly. if the british had strengths it was via paratroopers and commandos, i reckon paratroopers would be the direction britan should go in (could do it easily with LZ structure or complicated using lua scripts), germany needs bitching heavy tanks, america needs long tom artillery, russia needs vast numbers of t34s (as per real life, the t34 was the russian solution to EVERYTHING, from apcs, trucks, ammo carriers, bulldozers, lined up as artillery...) so maybe just reduce t34 buildtime and give them the ability to transport infantry on the back?

also, Ive read about four books now which cite that the russians were far more into tommy guns, smgs, than rifles and the number of smg soldiers in their army completely outstripped the number of riflemen, so maybe do somthing with that to help differ them.

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 31 Oct 2007, 12:03

t34 == lua?

Yes, it must be used that often.

yuritch · Post by **yuritch** » 31 Oct 2007, 14:28

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:also, Ive read about four books now which cite that the russians were far more into tommy guns, smgs, than rifles and the number of smg soldiers in their army completely outstripped the number of riflemen, so maybe do somthing with that to help differ them.

Yes, that was the case. 6 million SMGs made in USSR during the war, mostly PPSh, but some other types as well. For some reason SMGs proved to be simpler and cheaper to produce than rifles.
There were initial problems with them (like ammo clips from one SMG not fitting the other of the same type, but made at another factory), but those were fixed by the end of war.

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 31 Oct 2007, 16:06

could make smg cheaper (like 7m-->5m) and rifle costlier (7m-->8m) to help emphasise the red army "endless assault" style stratergy: continous attack without reserves is the russian way!

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 31 Oct 2007, 21:31

Checking Power != Checking HP to Metal Cost.

When you ask me to just trust you, you ask me to admit that your opinion is superior to mine, blindly. I don't do that for anybody, let alone a peer.

The British do not lack pros, as I've stated again and again. They're hard to use for many, but they have positive elements and can stand up against the other sides.

hazard · Post by **hazard** » 01 Nov 2007, 03:24

Hi, first off this mod sounds great, and the few screenshots I've gotten to see after reading though (the vast majority) of this 53 page thread are amazing.

Being that I can't currently play spring period (this machine simply can't), I'm wondering if some kind soul could post some screenshots of the aircraft/an air battle of some sort? The few planes I did see were amazing, I'm really curious what the others look like. And for that matter, what the airstrips look like (though I'm thinking they may not be in their "done" state).

Thanks, keep up the great work guys!

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 01 Nov 2007, 03:43

Hey, thanks for the kudos hazard

I dont know what planes you've seen but we don't currently have planes in the build. The only planes we ever did have were the 3do models ported over from AATA -- they're really shitty tbh. Nor do we have them ingame, as for the moment we're focusing on a "Lite" build containing infantry, light vehicles, and lighter tanks. The heavy and high-tech stuff will come later (soon!)

Back to business, I don't think the Brits need anything. They are undoubtedly the hardest side to play but once they are learned and used effectively they are one of the best sides in terms of capability. Their Cromwell is better than the Sherman (comparable armour, much lower profile, same gun, faster speed); their Firefly is better than the M4 76mm, their AEC outstrips any other armoured car and the Daimler is matched only by the Greyhound; their infantry are the best by far and make up in resilience what they lack in numbers; their 17-pounder AT gun is the best in the game (currently) and their 25-pounder artillery is one of the fastest-firing. But they lack several important things which make the British the British. They need the Sexton SP gun; the Achilles tank destroyer; Churchills (which trump Tigers in armour); Kangaroo APCs (fully-armoured APCs made from tank hulls rather than pissy halftracks); heavy artillery; Spitfires; etc.

And IIRC the Soviets had about equal numbers of rifles and SMGs in their forces. They definately need better SMGs. It'll give them that mass rush edge.

Boost MGs, it might turn out OK.

Btw I'm back now.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 01 Nov 2007, 03:47

only one plane has been finished so far - we've been focused on infantry, light and medium guns, light and medium armor, and light vehicles. However, there's a Fi-156 Storch modeled and skinned (and scripted/FBI'd I think..) floating around somewhere. Which won't do much in the way of fighting (it's a recon plane), but it does look nice.

Airstrips are indeed not yet done - we haven't worked out a way to make aircraft be non-VTOL yet. it's probably lua-able though.

I_K: the sherman firefly has one of the most potent anti-tank guns of the era, period (the 17pdr). I wouldn't call that so awful. and the cromwell compared favorably to standard shermans (in terms of speed it was one of the fastest tanks, and ranked pretty highly as far as tracked vehicles period)

if we want to play this game of specifying each side: the real british strength was its navy of omgwtfwin, and aircraft like the mosquito and spitfire. the fact that they had the most experienced pilots in the war after the battle of britain didn't hurt either (considering that the luftwaffe tended to fly their pilots to destruction rather than cycling them to teaching positions after lots of combat experience). Their artillery was also quite good (25pdr was widely regarded as one of the best field guns of the war).

The german strength was indeed high quality equipment at all levels, as well as generally superior commanders. that said, by 1944 that advantage was wearing off a bit as their material resources ran lower and lower. also many authors attribute a much greater effectiveness in their infantry forces - however, there are also those who say that that effectiveness was weakened somewhat later in the war as they began to draw on a wider range of civilians for manpower (older and older troops=less effective, generally).

russia would be 1) swarms of infantry at their disposal 2) ridiclously large amounts of artillery, dwarfing any other nation in terms of sheer numbers of guns, and 3) yes, T-34. some of their aircraft are reasonably good as well (IL-2, for example).

americans had several advantages, but mostly they stemmed from blatantly having MORE of everything than anyone else, except russia and men. The sherman wasn't a great tank, but just the fact that they were SO MANY let them deal with most threats eventually (although you hear stories about things like 11 shermans firing at a tiger II trying to take it out, and having their shells just bounce off). Generally good quality equipment with a few standouts (Garand, bazooka, some of the bigger arty, some aircraft), and excellent organization, logistics, and inter-force support - for example, the US had hands down the fastest response time for redirecting arty fire, since they had way more radios than anyone else.

almost kind of sort of done the paper. woo.

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 01 Nov 2007, 05:06

2) ridiclously large amounts of artillery, dwarfing any other nation in terms of sheer numbers of guns

yeh but soz no ammo lulz russian longistical skillz = LOL

IIRC the british didnt have all that many of the tanks youve named, their forces surely tended to be mostly stocked with the old infantry and cavalry tanks (L O L). their armoured cars are the wtfpwn though. gbr paratroops would own! gbr infantry are mad on the defence but their health boost counts for very little when not prone since its still just 3-4 bullets gg, which basicly means the brits suck ass at attacking (realistic at least then)

I reckon russian trucks should be extra costly since they didnt really have acsess to trucks beyond the american ones gifted to them (because they used about 3 kinds of chassis in their whole war effort to make repairs and maintance simple)

Pressure Line · Post by **Pressure Line** » 01 Nov 2007, 05:46

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:yeh but soz no ammo lulz russian lonistical skillz = LOL

/me sings along to: Metallica - Sad But True

Evil4Zerggin · Post by **Evil4Zerggin** » 01 Nov 2007, 06:42

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I'm putting it here. S44 crashed today in a game involving me ([W]DaLicheMob), Sehkmet, PressureLine, and Felix. At the time I was unloading some SMGs off of a truck in the middle of some of Felix's riflemen; I don't know if the crash was related to that. Anyhow, here's the stack trace:

Spring 0.75b2 has crashed.
Exception: Access violation (0xc0000005)
Exception Address: 0x006da552
DLL information:
0x00400000 spring
0x7c900000 ntdll
0x7c800000 kernel32
0x77dd0000 ADVAPI32
0x77e70000 RPCRT4
0x77fe0000 Secur32
0x73f10000 dsound
0x77c10000 msvcrt
0x7e410000 USER32
0x77f10000 GDI32
0x774e0000 ole32
0x76b40000 WINMM
0x77c00000 VERSION
0x68b20000 GLU32
0x5ed00000 OPENGL32
0x73760000 DDRAW
0x73bc0000 DCIMAN32
0x76c90000 IMAGEHLP
0x71ad0000 WSOCK32
0x71ab0000 WS2_32
0x71aa0000 WS2HELP
0x10000000 SDL
0x7c340000 MSVCR71
0x00d00000 DevIL
0x66fc0000 freetype6
0x61b80000 zlib1
0x003d0000 glew32
0x00e90000 ILU
0x76390000 IMM32
0x74720000 MSCTF
0x755c0000 msctfime
0x69500000 nvoglnt
0x605d0000 mslbui
0x71a50000 mswsock
0x662b0000 hnetcfg
0x71a90000 wshtcpip
0x76c30000 WINTRUST
0x77a80000 CRYPT32
0x77b20000 MSASN1
0x72d20000 wdmaud
0x72d10000 msacm32
0x77be0000 MSACM32
0x77bd0000 midimap
0x73ee0000 KsUser
0x59a60000 DBGHELP
Stacktrace:
(0) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x006DA552]
(1) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x006DB29C]
(2) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x007DE985]
(3) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x006E87CE]
(4) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x0071BE02]
(5) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x005BB7F1]
(6) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x005DB50C]
(7) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x005DE5EE]
(8) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x00819AA9]
(9) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x00821C68]
(10) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x00822038]
(11) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x00822269]
(12) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x0090F147]
(13) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x00401292]
(14) C:\Program Files\Spring\spring.exe [0x004012DD]
(15) C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll(RegisterWaitForInputIdle+0x49) [0x7C816FD7]

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 01 Nov 2007, 06:55

Nemo, it was pointed out to me that the link to the public alpha on the first page of the thread doesn't work.

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 01 Nov 2007, 13:07

4,400 Cromwells and 2,200 Sherman Fireflies, or something like that.

Considering the Firefly could penetrate the Tiger's front armour at 1,000 meters that's pretty good. The British had a lot more "regular" Shermans but for the purposes of making the Brits and US as different as possible we decided to make their main tank the Cromwell. But when the Churchill gets here... woo!

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 01 Nov 2007, 14:36

the AECiii is still insane, you can afford two for the price of one panzeriv and two will quite easily rip right through a panzeriv. this isnt helped by the way that as far as I can tell, there is no loss of accuracy when the unit is moving which is a small bonus for a slow tank but the worlds biggest baddest bonus on a unit that is basicly a ferrari with a stylish armoured top. increase cost/buildtime imo

actually, do any tank weapons lose accuracy on the move? that movingaccuracy tag isnt anywhere to be seen..

marder moves way to quickly

the GERSdKfz250 sucks utterly, combining the cost (1525M) of a t60 (-1), the weapon on a t60 (-1) and the armour of a halftrack (-999) Ive watched about four of them lose a fight with two diamers, one of them overwelmed by riflemen, and it cant even match the t60 in a straight fight.
please explain how this unit is worth 1525M and not, say, 1025M?

diamer OP plz

since they get blown apart so quickly you should consider making the 'MG only vehicles' like that russian scoutcar and the APCs slightly cheaper, that might help keep infantry more relavent late game as they can have greater acsess to wheelz

Spring RTS Engine

Spring:1944 dev and testing