New Project Update: April 10 - Page 2

New Project Update: April 10

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Caydr
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Caydr »

Take height map, invert applicable areas, copy to typemap applying a vehicle movement bonus? Less complex than lua. But that's a mapping discussion, and there will always be maps that just aren't well-designed, or rather, not designed with optimal gameplay in mind.

I will base things like structure size and slope tolerance on a bunch of the better maps that have been made, so that on average things should work reasonably well. This, combined with the weaker/shorter-ranged defenses creates a natural effect where the player has to make very careful choices on what to build.

There will be an inverse relationship between structure size and efficiency, but things like an analogue to a "fusion reactor" won't be available until late in the game and will be an extreme expense, without the gigantic output advantage over lesser structures as you find in TA, such as when comparing a Solar with a Fusion (20 vs 1000).

Pulling numbers out of my ass, you might have a cheap 18x18 structure that produces 50 energy, versus a very expensive 6x6 structure that produces 250 energy. For reference, an AA gantry is 10x10.

It doesn't sound like it's worth it, until you consider that for example to generate 500 units of energy you would need to protect:
"fusion" = 72 map units
"solar" = 3,240 map units

Once more, all names and numbers are made up for the purpose of demonstrating hypothetical gameplay situations. References to AA are of course accurate since I couldn't forget them if I tried.
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AF
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by AF »

Words do nothing for you, videos and screenshots, even work in progress do you wonders
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JohannesH
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by JohannesH »

AF wrote:Words do nothing for you, videos and screenshots, even work in progress do you wonders
They do wonders to what end?

Reading design concepts is much funnier than some picture of something, thats not relevant at all for considering if the game is worth my time. Actually reading design ideas can be funny even if its misguided bs.
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Pxtl
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Pxtl »

I like the idea of inverse cost size relationship for high-level structures, but I still don't see how you're going to make the units be not-spammy, particularly since it still sounds like you've got the OTA economy (extractors, makers, energy) in mind.
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Caydr
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Caydr »

Oh there's lots of ways. I could make tanks have high energy maintenance for example, that would probably be the simplest method. But there are many, many others.
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Gota
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Gota »

That makes no sense unless your gonna implement some lua that will increase a tanks energy intake exponentially the more tanks are closer to it.

If certain tanks just take a lot of e to use compared to the e economy than players will make something else,if everything needs tons of e to work than players will just not be able to make much of anything,this is just like making metal extractors extract less metal in any ta mod(or they will make tanks than wait for e to store up and than attack(provided tanks only take e when attacking),in any case this in no way leads to people not wanting to use big groups,a tank will be just as efficient in a group as he is in any ta mod).

In TA mods ATM tanks can already be less efficient when in tight groups if they face a high Area Of Effect weapons like(in BA) a Goliath's gun.

How much E a unit takes is also part of The unit's effeciency/cost ratio.

If a unit takes huge amount of E to fire but does low damage it will be less efficient and unless compensated by other high stats it will be useless.
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Caydr
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Caydr »

And what if I just make tanks constantly use 10 energy each?

The cumulative effect would be that a large army would inhibit your economy. No lua tricks. I think you're overthinking the problem.

This probably won't be the method I use, or I might use this as part of the solution, I don't know. There are many, many methods addressing the issue.
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AF
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by AF »

That is actually not true because it assumes a deterministic spring economy.

Instead, the ordering of unit IDs plays a large role, as a result you may have the misfortune of these 'fixed costs' coming last in order, by which time all the energy has already been handed off to factories and builders and weapons firing, so what is the engine to do? Nothing. You get it for free.

This is why its always a good idea to be stalling, but only just.
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Gota
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Gota »

Caydr wrote:And what if I just make tanks constantly use 10 energy each?

The cumulative effect would be that a large army would inhibit your economy. No lua tricks. I think you're overthinking the problem.

This probably won't be the method I use, or I might use this as part of the solution, I don't know. There are many, many methods addressing the issue.
ATM,in TA mods you make a choice between more expansion/eco buildings and attacking units/turrets.

If all you have are tanks and every tank needs e to run I dont see how
It becomes any different than TA mods(If most of it is the same like ta economy lab assist and continual draining of resources as units are built).

I make a unit instead of an eco building to attack you so you make one as well so youll be able to defend and we,again try to balance between making eco and expanding and sustaining our tank army.
If Its easy to generate more E than we will field big armies if its hard to get more E than the numbers of units will be smaller much like it is now in TA mods.

If you want to make it more tactical don't have E conversion but,instead, a limited amount of resources without any exponential growth.
If energy production has a set max and you are able to get higher E storage than There might be a different playing method where you store tons of E,pump tons of tanks,more than you could sustain,than try to use them very quickly before your E drains...

Without changing the eco system It will be hard to get away from TA gameplay.
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Caydr
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Caydr »

I don't think I ever implied the economy system would be similar to TA.
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Gota
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Gota »

Regarding the economic system, there will be something of an analogue to metal makers, and I will use only two resources. There will be lots of opportunity for economic growth, but there will be severe risks inherent in trying to pursue TA-style exponential growth. Economy will rely more heavily on map-based resources in the new mod than in AA, and while it won't be impossible to play on maps without any metal spots, it won't just be a matter of making an infinite 5x solar, 1x metal maker queue.
Sounds pretty Taish.
2 resources,conversion..metal spots...aside from "grave danger will robinson" of exponential growth sounds very similar unless your gonna cap the metal amounts in every metal spot?
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Pxtl
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Pxtl »

If I wanted a TA-style resource system but capped growth and a focus on micro, I'd re-use your old "Action AA" economy - fixed energy income, with the an extra 10% available from Geos. Every unit action costs E, from firing every weapon to moving to maintenance costs.... E-stall means your units are all unarmed. Every unit has a tooltip showing their cost breakdown. Certain small units get energy and micro-intensive powers like cloaking devices, on-offable shields or regen, weapons bound to the d-gun key, morphable into super-high-energy high-power combat form, combat-engineering, resurrection, on/offable capture-weapons... hell, steal the jump-jets and sprinters from CA.... but at the same time, the units are still good fighters without using their special powers. Metal-makers are actually a good option for a player with his back to the wall, since he can porc up on defense and burn his energy into metal for building defenses... but his adversary will have more E available for special attacks. Energy silos become important since you want to stockpile E full-scale. Include a few large units that tend to be simpler and more energy efficient, but also grossly metal-inefficient so they are only useful as endgame assault swarms once you've dominated a massive portion of the map.
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JohannesH
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by JohannesH »

Units draining energy means youll be producing less units if you have a big army. What it also means is that you should often play much more aggressive, just to get to use that e to spam more stuff.
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Gota
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Gota »

Not necessarily...Since there still is no point of attacking just to lose your units mindlessly...
If you have 50 tanks and 10 turrets and he has 50 tanks and 10 turrets If you attack him you will most likely lose so you wont,just like he wont...So youll stil be amassing units just like in TA mods,raiding and waiting for a crack in the enemy Perimeter to deal the final blow.
This all holds if E is not limited like in TA mods.
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Pxtl
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Pxtl »

Hmmm... E-cost plus no wreckage reclaim would mean a near constant trickle of offense instead of large assaults (assuming you want to keep the pressure on). It would be like Tower Defense. But with any MM econ, you'd still have constant geometric growth, and attacking at all would be risky since the expense would put back your growth, since you can't put together a large enough force to guarantee success.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

yo dawg, wheres the new project update
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Caydr
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Caydr »

Hi, yes, still working on it. If I visit the forum I spend too much time here so I'm trying to work quietly and avoid distraction as much as possible.
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knorke
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by knorke »

recent advances:
  • it is now possible to join games midgame
  • a third person flightgame was made
  • missions were made, broken, then added again
  • EvolutionRTS, The Cursed, S44, GundamRTS, Conflict Terra, Kernel Panic and some more
  • a mapeditor was made
  • the rise of DSD but speedmetal finally died
  • there are currently ~5 popular mods based on ota
  • multiple non-"mex & energy" resource systems were made
  • TASclient and Springlobby got broken and were fixed multiple times
  • the hotkey editor was merged into springsettings after 150 years of looking like "my first visual basic window"
  • pacman as a spring game
  • almost all OTA units were redone by the CA team or different people
  • ota was redone with a new engine: TA3D (ta3d.org)
  • smoth ragequit the forum and came back
  • a logo stamper tool brought much joy
  • ESC was changed to shift+ESC and back 76 times
  • a spring game went commercial
  • emmanuel released at least v34 of tutomod then was banned, came back as PicassoCT and started work on a new game
  • a new mapformat was made then broken
  • a online replay site was made
  • replay fastforward
  • Gota was comnapped by knorke
  • springdownloader was made and renamed to zk lobby
  • maps with non-ugly edges, weather effects and whatnot were made
  • auto & relayhosting helped routernoobs being socially accepted
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Jazcash
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by Jazcash »

Most of those aren't very recent...
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knorke
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Re: New Project Update: April 10

Post by knorke »

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