Suggestions

[MidKnight]

People have been complaining that CA doesn't include player opinions in its development cycle.

Here is an experimental response (to player complaints! :O).

Suggest what you want or what you want changed in CA.

Now, let's get a few things straight:
There will be NO raging, flaming, criticism, or even discussion in this thread.
There are other places for that, start your own thread.

Discussion will be limited to "I agree with the suggestion about X." or "I disagree with X's suggestion about X."
Nothing else.

How to support your favored suggestions.
Agree with them in this thread, and do material work (coding, images, models, etc.) towards making your suggestion a reality. Bugging devs will not improve your chances.

Remember. You cannot, as a player, force any kind of work on a dev.
CA devs respect each others' time and preferences. The best way to get something done is yourself work on it.

Post away!

[Spawn_Retard]

optimize gaming, fps and gameplay before running for complete IP free models and textures.

Your current playerbase is more important than anything you might get in the future, as we are testing a experimental mod in our own free time.

[Pxtl]

1) Simplify the naval model.

CA's navy has overcome very little of the chaos that marks BA's navy. The RPS-based balance of hovers/boats/air/subs makes naval gameplay inscrutable. I have three possible directions on how to implement this:

a) Torpedoes kill hovers. This would make the torp-launcher the de-facto standard naval defense instead of making navy impossible to adequately defend.

b) Subs uber alles. Make subs win vs everything but static torp launchers. Thus, boats function as artillery and assault, but subs rule the open water. Possibly combine with (a).

c) No armed subs. All underwater units are unarmed. Thus, anti-sub weaponry is exclusively used for demolitions (and stopping amphib invasions), not combat.

2) More excitement in the dull factories.
Nearly every unit in the Tactical Walker factory and the Tank factory has a special power. Many of the units in the Infantry factories have special powers. Meanwhile, the vehicle factories are painfully dull - the Arm lab doesn't even have diversity as an excuse, lacking a riot vehicle or an assault vehicle - it's all still BA-with-glitz. Make the Shellshocker a stun-artillery or something. Turn the Janus into fast-attack riot vehicle. Something. Anything. Give a unit a "Sprint" command so that the Zipper isn't the only unit in the whole game with that ability.

The amphib labs are similarly dull - no special powers at all, and "hover" or "amphib" doesn't count.

[MidKnight]

I agree with pxtl's suggestions 1-a and 2.

[Google_Frog]

2) More excitement in the dull factories.
Nearly every unit in the Tactical Walker factory and the Tank factory has a special power. Many of the units in the Infantry factories have special powers. Meanwhile, the vehicle factories are painfully dull - the Arm lab doesn't even have diversity as an excuse, lacking a riot vehicle or an assault vehicle - it's all still BA-with-glitz. Make the Shellshocker a stun-artillery or something. Turn the Janus into fast-attack riot vehicle. Something. Anything. Give a unit a "Sprint" command so that the Zipper isn't the only unit in the whole game with that ability.

Discussion will be limited to "I agree with the suggestion about X." or "I disagree with X's suggestion about X."
Nothing else.

I agree in a round-about way which is complex and hard to explain. Maybe if I phrase the explanation as a suggestion.

I suggest condensing CA into 1 faction, as different as the sides are they still have a vast majority of identical units(counting turrets, econ etc..). This would have benefits in both gameplay and IP freeness. On the balance perspective I have been noticing that units in only 1 faction tend to be slightly less useful than duplicated units. This is probably because with no counterpart they are extremely hard to finely balance. This causes unique interesting units to be slightly UP compared to doubleups. The vehicle factory is basically a double up.

[Pxtl]

update: agree about 1-faction, on the condition that it means moar factories.

[luckywaldo7]

I agree with Google_Frog about the suggestion to move to 1 faction.
(Pxtl, see http://trac.caspring.org/wiki/1faction)

[MidKnight]

I disagree about 1-faction.

[Regret]

This thread is retarded.

Midnight is a child that needs to boss people around with how they are not obeying his moronic request to only agree/disagree. At least you get to edit/delete posts legitimately right mid?

[Pxtl]

1. Impulse is overpowered on some maps, it should be overriden just like wind etc
   agree
2. Levelers, banishers, warriors, outlaws should damage themselves
   - disagree, needless micro, lets fast raiders circumvent the anti-raider capacity which is the whole point of these units.
3. 't1' veh cons, and some other veh units rotate like boats, it adds nothing just makes you fight with the pathfinding
   tentative agree
4. Turrets on tanks rotate ridiculously slow
   tentative agree
5. Auto-skirmish / micro for raiders / auto mex dumbs the game down
   disagree
6. Long range radar costs too much
   disagree otherwise short-ranged radar would serve no purpose.
7. Communism discourages expanding and encourages porcing
   only if you want your team to lose - don't like it, don't use it

edit: typo fix

[1v0ry_k1ng]

I disagree about 1-faction.

this

get rid of the cartoony lasers, bring back ba style spring engine lasers with quants flare and impact sparks ala revs 500 and below

[MidKnight]

I tentatively agree with 1K's suggestion.

I suggest that the older effects be used for a 'trial period' of time, after which players and devs will decide which set of effects they prefer and what CA will use.

[Saktoth]

Agree one faction.

Anyone can work on FX. Agree that you should go and do it.

1. Impulse is overpowered on some maps, it should be overriden just like wind etc

Agree- we always intended to as soon as the engine allows it. Should make a mantis report to get it fixed.

[*]Bombers are bugged and cant be controlled after bombing.

Agree- again an engine problem! I have already made a mantis report.

[*]Aircraft repair is bugged (the autoland cant be overriden) and it is still set by default to land at 30%

Agree, really a part of the previous problem.

[*]Radars are still bugged and after they are build they turn on, then off and it takes several seconds for them to work again.

Agree- again a bug, this one local, if you wish to fix it look at e-stall-disable.

[*]Storages have to be spammed, they should give a lot more storage and cost more, a single storage is useless

Maybe agree.

Otherwise disagree or 'meh' with prettymuch everything. Optimizing FPS is important though, agree there, but it doesnt conflict with IP free.

[SirMaverick]

[*]Radars are still bugged and after they are build they turn on, then off and it takes several seconds for them to work again.

Agree- again a bug, this one local, if you wish to fix it look at e-stall-disable.

Play latest CA before writing about bugs. That one is fixed.

[Pxtl]

Just throwing an idea out there - on the subject of the 1-faction approach - the current 1-faction idea is to keep the "bots/walkers" split, and add a new "amphib" lab.

I think we can go one-better - 4 bot labs - walkers/jumpers/all-terrain-crawlers/amphibs.

Here's an idea of the breakdown:

Walkers:
Flea
Bandit
Thug
Rogue
Outlaw
Mobile Jammer
Necro
Clogger
Crasher

All Terrain Crawlers:
Weaver
Roach
Venom
Recluse
Crabe (as flak spider)
Vanguard
Scarab
Infiltrator
Sumo

Amphibots - all amphibots have a special power under water except the shield-walker:
Rector
Bandit (full-speed underwater, but unarmed)
Warrior (blockade-runner/assault, not antiswarm - is unarmed under water but shielded)
Rocko (mid-ranged underwater combat)
Jethro (long-ranged sonar underwater)
Pelican (nimble underwater-antiswarm)
Tick (can detonate underwater)
Hammer (has artillery-ranged-torpedoes underwater)
Dominator (stun artillery, can fire from underwater to surface at drastically-reduced ROF)
Shield Walker (shield is disabled underwater)

Jumpbots
Freaker
Zipper (replace sprint with super-long-fast-jumps)
Pyro
Can
Zeus (riot jumper, not stunner)
Manticore
Marky
Skuttle
Sharpshooter (use Morty model?)

[CarRepairer]

Disagree about 1 faction because having two opposing factions gives the game character. Gameplay might be superb but there would be no character in the 1-faction game. It would be like taking a comedic duo, combining all their funny lines and having one guy say them all. It's all the same lines but all of them coming from the same guy is just not the same. People like to see interaction, and in the case of a game like this, you want to feel like there's some sort of interesting context - two opposing factions with different beliefs, different technologies and different goals. I'm extra sad that Saktoth is for the 1 faction when many of the great ideas about the Nova vs. Logos storyline are from him.

[Karotte]

hm, genial Post

My SUggestions:

1. Delete Models with BA Style and remake it (it doesnt look good)

2. Make a new Unitclass: Flying Bulding (im working on it and post screens in a weak i think)

3. add a amphibius ship and a submarine which can come up. (see surpreme commander)

4. Made two models of every unit (high and low Polygon), so there would it possible to make very round faces for strong PC's

5. (Dont know if that is for Mods) remake the Trees. They looks terrible


My agrees:

pixls first post, i agree with number 2.
regret post: im agree with 4,6,7,9,10,11


My disagrees:

regret post: im disagree with the rest
Im disagree with the 1 Fraction, theyre should be 3

[Google_Frog]

1-faction things

Does this mean you agree?

That bot splitting looks reasonable (feel free to put it on the site) though I'm not sure that Jump and AT is needed, they're the same basic ability(mobility). Also Shields/Cloakers/Radar seems to be working as a morph so probably wouldn't be put back in factories.

I agree with Carrepairer's disagreement which is that people like to see 2 factions(or more) but I don't think it is actually needed for a good game. Many games have almost identical factions. We're probably just expecting 2 or more factions from a good game because every other game has them.

[Neddie]

I disagree on one faction, I believe that the sides do play differently to a degree which benefits the game as a whole and that a merger does not reduce the overhead atmospheric/visual content deficit enough to justify the action. Many of the units already modeled have redundant roles across the sides, with the obvious exception of the vehicles provided by Mr. D and the hovercraft TheSleepless is working on, and the stylistic differences might frustrate the construction of a coherent single side.

Yes, one faction would work, and if I were confident that the change would somehow allow the team to do better than they do with two, I would advocate it, but I don't think that comparatively minor increase in complexity is to blame for the present problems in CA and CA development, and I don't believe stepping back would serve any positive function for development.

Pxtl's ideas, hey, worth a shot.

Disagree with Regret's first point, as I have before, if it is more or less effective on a map to an extent that you don't want to deal with it, don't play the map. Second, sure, I don't care. Third, yes. Fourth, no comment. Fifth, agree but the active team won't change that.

[Gota]

I suggest removing all ip units and making one faction.
***edit***
And renaming to something not *A