Turret/unit mental retardation

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 26 Sep 2005, 02:32

I saw a video on fileuniverse that has the same problem I am having.the video

Is there a fix for the turrets/units not firing on/blowing themselves up? It makes spring outright unplayable. Is SY going to fix this release a fix?

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 26 Sep 2005, 08:55

Quick solution: dont build turrets directly next to eachother. If you build a line, they only have free shooting field directly orthogonal to it.

In fact, the 2 problems are exactly opposing: To reduce friendly fire hits with missiletowers, even stricter "no fire" checks would be needed.

Dwarden · Post by **Dwarden** » 26 Sep 2005, 14:43

also it will be nice if some turrets ... e.g. flak are "smaller" (ie compare UH to XTA) ...

so You can build AA defence w/o screwing up surface defence line of fire ...

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 26 Sep 2005, 15:43

IMSabbel wrote:Quick solution: dont build turrets directly next to eachother. If you build a line, they only have free shooting field directly orthogonal to it.

uh, yeah. that is not a solution or a fix because when moving formations of troops towards the enemy they shoot each other. Fixing it would be less of a cop-out answer.

IMSabbel wrote:To reduce friendly fire hits with missiletowers, even stricter "no fire" checks would be needed.

... and that is why every other game has it? I understand that there is a workaround on the player level but when my squads of troops decimate each other it isunaceptable. Even FPS games can have friendly fire on or off. I have read netcode for them. If an FPS can handle people not shooting each other and my other strategy games can also why not spring. Let's not make excuses. I am sure the spring team is working on this but I wanted to know if anyone else had this issue/knew the fix for it. I have NO idea how you guys can play this game online like this. As pretty as it is it still remains unplayable.

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 26 Sep 2005, 15:54

Perhaps they don't want friendly fire? ...At least, I don't want it.

Man I have NO idea how you do to have your building blow each other :)
I've only sometimes problem with rocko.

Just try to play Spring as a new game, and not like TA. no?
At least, I'm happy that Sping has removed odd things like the "multi row missile tower"

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 26 Sep 2005, 18:08

Well, there is ONE possiblity for friendly fire, currently. (well, two, if you consider splash damage from immolators).

Missile towers (and -kbots) only check for a clear LOS. If they launch against a target which moved tangential to the line of defense, the missile will change course to keep aiming at the target, without checking for firendly targets in the way.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 26 Sep 2005, 23:32

Torrasque wrote:Just try to play Spring as a new game, and not like TA. no?

I never said I wanted it to be TA. I said the turrets blow each other up. This NOT the case in EVERY SINGLE game I OWN.

Torrasque wrote:At least, I'm happy that Sping has removed odd things like the "multi row missile tower"

It didn't remove the issue the players have to work around it. The game does not prevent you from building the towers it lets you build towers. If it restricted their construction I would understand but this is asinine. This is NOT A FEATURE! This IS A BUG!

IMSabbel wrote:Missile towers (and -kbots) only check for a clear LOS. If they launch against a target which moved tangential to the line of defense, the missile will change course to keep aiming at the target, without checking for firendly targets in the way.

or just allow the units to fire through each other like every other game

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 26 Sep 2005, 23:48

BUT THAT (your arguments and bitching) IS BULLSHIT (excuse the caps, but you dont seem to get it)

There is no "bug" that needs a workaround. Every defense stucture needs a clear firering area. If you try to put too much into too little space, they will hinder each other.It _cant_ be "fixed" back to the broken state of ota with swarms of missile towers by the player.And im sorry, but a babysitter AI telling me where is am al├â┬Âowed place my turrents isnt very high on my "oh what a great idea" list.

I see you want porcing. You want as much towers and shit in as little space as possible. Forget it. Just forget it. Maybe try building staggered defense lines, spacings between towers, killing grounds, overlapping fields of engagament.... strategy and tactics, you know? Thats what it is all supposed to be about.

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 26 Sep 2005, 23:56

smoth wrote: or just allow the units to fire through each other like every other game

I think this part is the best of Spring, remove it will change completly the gameplay!
On another side, I agree, it's not optimal now, and some algorithm should be improved...but it's always a beta.

I don't want Spring become "like every other game" :)

I don't know if you play a lot of Spring games on the net, but it really add something to the game.

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 27 Sep 2005, 00:22

Did you even watch the video? Graphically, the missiles weren't even HITTING the other missile turret, they were hitting the collision spheres, which are still way too big and inaccurate...

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 27 Sep 2005, 00:43

Gnome wrote:Did you even watch the video? Graphically, the missiles weren't even HITTING the other missile turret, they were hitting the collision spheres, which are still way too big and inaccurate...

On another side, I agree, it's not optimal now, and some algorithm should be improved...but it's always a beta.

In my opinion throwing something godd because it's not optimal instead of improving it is not a good solution.

And the SY have said they will switch to another method one day...(perhaps with a new model format?)

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 27 Sep 2005, 01:32

IMSabbel wrote:BUT THAT (your arguments and bitching) IS BULLSHIT (excuse the caps, but you dont seem to get it)

There is no "bug" that needs a workaround. Every defense stucture needs a clear firering area. If you try to put too much into too little space, they will hinder each other.It _cant_ be "fixed" back to the broken state of ota with swarms of missile towers by the player.And im sorry, but a babysitter AI telling me where is am al├â┬Âowed place my turrents isnt very high on my "oh what a great idea" list.

I see you want porcing. You want as much towers and shit in as little space as possible.

geez. what a... no I don't porc. I am an ex-eagle and now I am an infantry freak. However, if the game will have towers that HURT each other then it is fucking retarded. For christs sake, you did not listen at all. The infantry is the same way. I don't want to play a game where only the front line of troops can fire. I don't want seas of towers but guess what? the units are designed and balanced to be used thus. They are not meant to be used as one solitary unit they are meant to be used in clusters.

While I can understand you wanting something that is NOT the same as everything else you are entirely incorrect.

First and foremost the ai cannot babysit jackshit there is no AI you condescending.... stoping there. You know your overall I know everything tone is soo repugnant. This is the thing...

A: infantry can and DO hurt one another.
B: towers can and do hurt one another when they could clearly make the shot.
C: the game spring BUILDS TOWERS IN ROWS AND BLOCKS. If they didn't intend on us doing that they would not have completed THAT feature.

AI would be an actual opponent which this game doesn't have. you really should give me more credit I am not your average person and know alot more then you are giving me credit for.

Sure you could have infantry that only fire within their front arc and cannot fire through basses that would make this like many TABLE TOP "strategy(read tactic)" games I have played. They all suck. I do not know of ONE RTS that the units cannot fire over or THROUGH each other.

Also LIKE IT OR NOT but Spring has ONLY OTA content. That is all the content it has and it is meant to RUN ota content DESIGNED to use towers in clusters. So shut it or make something yourself with all of your wisdom and knowledge. I am sorry you cannot realise that by disabling the origonal functionality of the towers destroys their intended use. Of course odds are I'll just get another "UH UH" reply from you consisting of a paragraph of character acusations in an atempt to defend a flawed beta that I was just looking into a fix for. Good day madame.

*edited for grammar*

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 27 Sep 2005, 02:04

You can send an e-mail or a PM to SJ or one of the SY and ask what they think about it. That's the best way to have an answer.

smoth wrote: So shut it or make something yourself with all of your wisdom and knowledge.

I'm happy as it is now.
But you can take the source, and make a fork you know?

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 27 Sep 2005, 02:10

Torrasque wrote:You can send an e-mail or a PM to SJ or one of the SY and ask what they think about it. That's the best way to have an answer.

smoth wrote: So shut it or make something yourself with all of your wisdom and knowledge.
I'm happy as it is now.
But you can take the source, and make a fork you know?

you are right and I was thinking about it. I have written team fire off code before just right now I am pretty busy. I really didn't want to pester SJ with it. SY has done SOO MUCH for this that I'd hate to be a pest to them.

DavetheBrave · Post by **DavetheBrave** » 27 Sep 2005, 03:28

1: New friendly fire rules, I considered it to become a more interesting game when you couldnt fire through friendly units unlike in most other RTS. This causes the most severe inbalances and favour units that are expensive, have short range and uses ballistic weapon paths.

this is from sj in this post.

The sys did intend this feature and it makes the game more fun in a lot of ways, because of the new strategy it adds imo. It was not a bug.

FireCrack · Post by **FireCrack** » 27 Sep 2005, 04:23

I think the most elagent solution for this, and related problems, would be to use that new fbi tag in the latest release of spring to make all missile firing units shoot their missiles upwards at 15-25 degrees.

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 27 Sep 2005, 06:07

*facepalm*

It's not about the fact that lines of units can't fire through each other, necessarily. That's understandable. The problem is that the missiles (and other projectiles) will explode in front of or otherwise near friendly units where the collision sphere, but not the actual model itself, reside. This is about the precision of collision bounds. Again, watch the damn video so you can see exactly what is meant... watch the missile turrets near the end when you do. They start hitting each other, and KILL each other, when graphically the missiles were NOWHERE NEAR the turrets themselves.

I think we can all understand the whole "units can't fire through other units" thing. The point is that better collision detection is needed so friendly fire accidents such as this, which are VERY common with most missile units, do not occur. It's one thing for a friendly unit to be near the explosion of a plasma shell, or to move in the way of a projectile from one of your units, but it's totally different when your units are killing each other off because they THINK they have a clear line of fire but in reality hit the guy standing next to them.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 27 Sep 2005, 06:26

thanks gnome, I was having a hard time explaining that.

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 27 Sep 2005, 11:21

Yes, it's a bug, and the need to fix it, but not remove the feature as you said before ! (Or perhaps I misundersand you?)

They need to do a box collision instead of a shpere one. But I think it's not an easy task...and they don't know the performance hit.

An answer form an SY to know if something is planned would be nice :)

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 27 Sep 2005, 13:50

smoth, missile turrets may be meant to be used in clusters, against air targets and area denial. And no against ground targets in neat lines.
Their primary target is air, and if you gut about 2 towers space between them in all direction, a band of those will hurt any airforce quite well.

The collision spheres arent optimal, true. But most problems come from the expectation of "they can ignore friendly units" (and yes, i have seen people put tripple rows of missile towers into the gates at castles... they dont deserve better)

Spring RTS Engine

Turret/unit mental retardation

Turret/unit mental retardation