Units decsriptions - have anybody took care of this?

[tacho]

I think, game will be more attractive if unit description with illustrations (from top, frond, side, back), velocity characteristic, cross-country ability, weapon principle and radius of operation will be available.

Example of use on different map tipes and combination with other units would be fine.
If such topic already exist, please, point me to it. But I think that topic must be fasten on the top. If it no exist, experienced players must to make such manual if they want to attract noobs, and not to seet in narrow circle, who already knows everething about each other...

I can not do it completely by myself, independing of that I registered a rather long time ago I have no required experience.

[babbles]

game will be more attractive.

Board index ┬╗ Content Creation ┬╗ Project Subforums ┬╗ Balanced Annihilation

lol

[tacho]

i.e. you think it is more suitable at General discussion.

Or something else? Or unit descriptions unnecessary at all?

[SinbadEV]

i.e. you think it is more suitable at General discussion.

Or something else? Or unit descriptions unnecessary at all?

I have no idea what his post was about, but I think this is the right place for you to have posted it.

When you said "game" you meant "BA" and you want someone to tell you if someone has gone through the trouble to produce, effectively, a manual for BA. (or get someone to do so)

You are probably looking for http://springrts.com/wiki/Balanced_Annihilation , which has a few links to manuals in various states of completeness ans/or accuracy.

[TheFatController]

It was a stupid joke about BA looking bad btw

[Niobium]

All possible in-game via a widget, which would be preferred over a webpage, I'd definitely like to see a newbie-focused widget that gave new players basic information about units, speed/range/damage/reload and a pretty 3D picture when they mouseover build icon or something.

[dansan]

When I started playing BA, I would have loved to have a tech-tree in a widged in-game. Units could have been browseable/interlinked like in modinfo.adune.nl. Widget (for the sake of screen-space) would be collapsed starting from the t1-builders and t1-labs as root, like:

Code: Select all

                        widget-icon
                             |
                +------------+------+-------+
                |                   |       |
               kbot                veh     air
                |                   |       |
  +-------+-----+---+------+       ...     ...
  |       |         |      |
t1-con  t2-con    t1-lab t2-lab
 ||||     ||||     ||||   ||||
units    units    units   units

[Johannes]

Theres already a widget that picks some stats and displays it to you when you press a button when hovering over buildicon or having it selected or such. Or so I have heard.

Now a proper guid is a different matter, it's a pretty big effort to do well but I agree that it would be worthit if someone would get on it. Just always gotta have that someone... :D
And not a guide about describing single units, that isn't the most helpful thing. But about basic concepts like how to balance economy between different resources well, how to design a starting bo on a new map, how to react to various scouting info, how to prioritise your attention etc...

[Wombat]

i hope we are talking about about this little window in bottom left corner. so, basicly only thing i would change is changing the numbers. buildtime 1093 tells me shit tbh.

according guides, i would suggest changing loadscreenies into guides, like, picture of wind generator and info ' space them, they like to chain.' or 'cheap but unstable source of energy.' etc etc. would be better than fugly BA screens of, basicly, nothing.

[albator]

I dont think description matter since balance is still not done: for exemple, for last ba8.19, the descritpion of dragon fly would have been:

name : dragon fly

category : transport

best use : noone use them as transport but mainly as emp unit

defence tactic : you can stop any t2 attacks with half of the metal cost if your opponement only spam expensive ground unit since even if your opponenent only spams t2 flak , you can still nap everything for same cost without your dragoon fly to die

counter : fighter are the most efficient for same metal cost, making heavy gound AA is not cost efficient and can be emp easily, better spam cheap AA.


with new BA8.20, description totally changes.

[dansan]

I dont think description matter since balance is still not done: for exemple, for last ba8.19, the descritpion of dragon fly would have been:

[..]

with new BA8.20, description totally changes.

...just an idea: the widget retrieves version specific information ("description") from a online database, that is edited with a little web application. Some trusted editors for the content... and "democracy" here in the forums

(BTW: sl could use this for maps... or it could just link to a wiki-page)

[tacho]

...
And not a guide about describing single units, that isn't the most helpful thing. But about basic concepts like how to balance economy between different resources well, how to design a starting bo on a new map, how to react to various scouting info, how to prioritise your attention etc...

Exactly that I mean!

I understand that parameters are change for version to version, but I think it is no more then +/- 10%!
I think it must be not interactive as people above wrote (no time to read descriptions where you are in game), but a simple application for extracting data to database, wich is linked with html document.
It is also help people to move to new version.

And, I think, units changes its parameters, not entire principle!
For example, brawler is always a low-flying attack aircraft, with rapidfiring plasma cannons, shellshocker is self-propelled howitzer etc...

It is interesting to know, for example, a projectile trajectory - is it straight, or ballistic, or high parabolical?
Can lvl1 bomber to drop bombs automatically (atomic drops, I know, lvl1 bids fair not drops...)?

Can this ship launch torpedos or not? Can it see submarine or not? (it is about me, my side lost an aqutory with 8 metal deposits by my mistake yesterday...)

Can this turret to shoot both air and surface, or not.

How does damage reduce by the moving off explosion epicentre, etc?

I think programmers know about it allready, but others...?

sorry it is inconsistently, i must to go - break is over...

[KaiserJ]

i don't mind this idea; but realistically it seems in BA that you experience units for the first time when they are used against you

didn't even rationalize that there could be something like a krogoth until one came stomping into my base

[knorke]

most of the stuff would ideally be clear just from looking at the unit, ie a ship with torpedos would have visible launchers, a unit with long range has a long barrel etc. That is kind of what ca/zk tries to do...

but a simple application for extracting data to database, wich is linked with html document.

it isnt so easy. just getting the numbers is possible, see the modinfo page. But the numbers have to be interpretted to text humans understand. You do not want a whole lot of numbers for a weapon, you just want to read "huge area of effect, high damage" which is tricky to generate by a program.

[Pako]

I made this widget over a year ago which shows tons of information and shared notes about units and players. Sadly Spring lacks support for too many features it needs.

[tacho]

I made this widget over a year ago which shows tons of information and shared notes about units and players. Sadly Spring lacks support for too many features it needs.

So, it can not work with modern version of spring/BA?

[Pako]

I made this widget over a year ago which shows tons of information and shared notes about units and players. Sadly Spring lacks support for too many features it needs.

So, it can not work with modern version of spring/BA?

It can work but it would be too hacky and I won't release non-perfect widgets anymore.