Suggestions

[SirMaverick]

I rarely reclaim factories, I keep my old one when I make a new one.

+1

When assessing the cost of a factory think of how important it's cost in units is at that stage of the game. 500 is 5 flashes which are only important for the first 6 or so minutes depending on the map.

1k will be important longer.

[Licho]

Its funny I was about to decrease factory cost to 200-300 before I left - in attempt to reduce need for 1000 boost.

[Pxtl]

Its funny I was about to decrease factory cost to 200-300 before I left - in attempt to reduce need for 1000 boost.

Yeah, I think that would be good in the factioned-version of CA. 1Fac is based on the premise of factories-as-factions, so being expensive is a good thing there.... but cheapening the factories would encourage using the whole faction... that being said, CA's factories are already really cheap compared to BA.

[Licho]

factory = faction is imo dumb..

It again leads to duplication..

Why should you have full set of roles in each lab

[CarRepairer]

I rarely reclaim factories, I keep my old one when I make a new one. I mainly don't like 100% reclaim for other reasons.

I like multiple factories but they shouldn't be given to players for almost nothing. Making another factory should be an important choice as. When assessing the cost of a factory think of how important it's cost in units is at that stage of the game. 500 is 5 flashes which are only important for the first 6 or so minutes depending on the map.

1k will be important longer.

+1 to the above quotes.

Its funny I was about to decrease factory cost to 200-300 before I left - in attempt to reduce need for 1000 boost.

Instead I added facplop (it's in the mod options under start conditions) to make the first factory free (and instant) but I did it in the hopes that future factories would remain expensive, preferably even have their cost increased.

[Google_Frog]

When assessing the cost of a factory think of how important it's cost in units is at that stage of the game. 500 is 5 flashes which are only important for the first 6 or so minutes depending on the map.

1k will be important longer.

Yes, that's the point.

[JohannesH]

1k is important to reclaim ~always? By that cost you can afford some nanos too for faster swapping in future

[det]

1k is important to reclaim ~always? By that cost you can afford some nanos too for faster swapping in future

This is what reduced reclaim efficiency would penalize you for.

[SirMaverick]

When assessing the cost of a factory think of how important it's cost in units is at that stage of the game. 500 is 5 flashes which are only important for the first 6 or so minutes depending on the map.

1k will be important longer.

Yes, that's the point.

That means is longer a big impact to kill the factory.

[pintle]

That means is longer a big impact to kill the factory.

It means the game becomes kill lab: gg

[jeykey]

1.) Merge specialized walker factory into other factories.

2.) Units shouldn't be white-coloured

3.) Perhaps sth. like http://kde-look.org for CA (perhaps we could register to opendesktop.org?), with categories like:
* CA Brainstorm
* Screenshots
* Models
...

4.) Clicking on mini-map should make it larger until it looses focus again.


5.) Less and only the best unit sounds

[maackey]

1.) Merge specialized walker factory into other factories.

...I really fail to see how this would solve anything. Could you explain your reasoning for merging them?

2.) Units shouldn't be white-coloured

What is wrong with white colored units?

3.) Perhaps sth. like http://kde-look.org for CA (perhaps we could register to opendesktop.org?), with categories like:
* CA Brainstorm
* Screenshots
* Models
...

What the hell does desktop themes have to do with ca?
(besides, we already have a new website if that is what you mean)

4.) Clicking on mini-map should make it larger until it looses focus again.

The minimap is used for commands. if you select some units and want them to move to the far end of the map without actually scrolling your main view there, you can just right click on the minimap and they follow the orders.

Pressing tab will zoom the main view out all the way, which in effect gives you a maximized minimap, pressing tab agains returns view to normal.

5.) Less and only the best unit sounds

I'm not sure why you would want *less* sounds. But feel free to contribute some good sound effects, we can always use more.

[MidKnight]

3.) Perhaps sth. like http://kde-look.org for CA (perhaps we could register to opendesktop.org?), with categories like:
* CA Brainstorm
* Screenshots
* Models
...

What the hell does desktop themes have to do with ca?
(besides, we already have a new website if that is what you mean)

I think he means a website with an Ubuntu Brainstorm-like area, a model database, and a media gallery.

PS: I once tried an opendesktop.org-style site for CA. They are, ironically, closed-source.

[Saktoth]

It hasnt been important to kill the factory (to the degree it is in BA) for a long time. Factories are cheap and have oodles of hit points. They also protect whatever is inside them against most weapons, so they can freely build while getting shot at and probably fend off the attacker.

1k would make it -slightly- more important to kill the factory, but ATM, its barely feasible. When you bomb or raid a base you go for wind, mexes, nano: You ignore the factory as 'too hard'. Only a few rush builds, which usually devestate a base entirely, will be able to kill a factory. Its well worth 1k.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

today one faction

tomorrow one factory

has nobody developing these awesome ideas taken a step back from this process and thought 'oh wait, this is making the game terrible' yet?

[Gota]

has nobody developing these ideas taken a step back from this process and thought?

[CarRepairer]

today one faction

tomorrow one factory

has nobody developing these awesome ideas taken a step back from this process and thought 'oh wait, this is making the game terrible' yet?

I assure you that regular 2 faction CA will not be replaced.

[luckywaldo7]

today one faction

tomorrow one factory

has nobody developing these awesome ideas taken a step back from this process and thought 'oh wait, this is making the game terrible' yet?

I assure you that regular 2 faction CA will not be replaced.

Indeed. It seems that it was not made clear enough that 1faction was a mutator/fork, not CA.

Also, wtf offtopic? We were talking about increasing lab costs, not 1faction.

[Saktoth]

1faction is a new game. Its not even going to be called CA. It will release IP free, under a new name, as a new project. Will CA be maintained? Thats up to the developers working on it. Many of us cannot stand to work on a project that is not IP free anymore, while others of us think that a fully fleshed out 12+ factories with 6+ being start viable will be a vast improvement over CA gameplay.

One faction should be called no factions. It has been my design goal since before CA existed, when i proposed a new game, with new content, no factions, flat-balanced, using physical unit dynamics to create dynamic counter mechanics and geniunely unique units. Each factory would represent a different playstyle, allowing you to pick, mix and match or evolve your play over the course of the game, or stick to strategies you prefer. These design ideas were expressed to the team, and agreed with and implimented almost universally in CA. And they say we dont have long term plans for CA! However, the goal of making a diverse game with unique units was shifted from having no factions, to diversifying the current factions. This was very early on when CA took the 'More is Better' approach, adding units rather than removing them, and before free content was the priority it is today.

The reason i wished this new game to have no factions is as an extension of flat balancing. Within the gameplay mechanics, the only use of faction selection is as an extension of the limiting mechanic of the tech tree. The idea behind flat balancing is to create a single branching tech tree that diversifies into a huge range of options, that can be mixed and matched at will in any sequence the player desires over the course of the game. This greatly increases the possibility space of the game, while still having exclusive options, as you cannot pick all factories (or indeed, all units in a factory) at once. Yet factions are a single choice at the start of the game which halves your factory selection. Worse, it is before the game even starts and locks you irrevocably down one path. Yes, locking a player into a choice in response to an investment is good: locking half his options out entirely though is verymuch against the design ethos of flat balancing. Worse, it wasnt even meaningful in anything except 1v1, as tech sharing is trivial. You essentially create a set of factories that must by necessity have units that are at least similiar enough that not having at least the option of going flash/gator doesnt cripple you and make one of the factions useless.

Overall, the concept of factins are a relic of the Dune and Warcraft days, when you had almost identical factions with varying art for your singleplayer campaigns, for story reasons. In a competatively, purely multiplayer RTS, not only do they serve no gameplay dynamic beyond extending the tech tree, they massively and intentionally bloat the amount of art you need, since balancing two diverse factions is hard but making two identical factions with different sprites is easy.

What is our major bottleneck for the fulltime open source release of CA? Art content.

Yes, if we had Starcraft style diversity (and the tiny amount of art assets required for that many units, comparatively) it would be crazy to remove the factions. We dont. We have about the same number per factory as starcraft has per faction. Using factories as your 'lock in' tech choice option, then, is the perfect solution.

[Otherside]

Yey CA vs 1faction

man really i cant stand this emo attitude of "baw baw this is not IP Free i dont want to touch it anymore" good riddance to any of the dev's who leave to work on 1faction and i hope you never touch CA ever again.

Such a counter productive attitude

HF det google and sak playing 1v1 inbetween yourselves that about as far as it will go.(which you could be doing in CA anyway)