Units slow to a crawl when given new move orders

[Caydr]

Here's a bug that's been bothering me since Spring first came out. Suppose you've got a weasel or some similar vehicle with super high speed but it takes a second or two to get up to that speed. I'm pretty sure they're like this in XTA, but probably even moreso in AA. They're designed as a raider-from-hell basically.

Right, so you've got this unit, and you notice that up ahead of its current direction of movement there's a unit designed specifically to counter such units, say an LLT or something. It's off to the left of its path of movement, so all it really needs to do is turn slightly to the right. So, you tell it to do so. As a result, it slows to a crawl and has to build up its acceleration again, thus getting pwnt but that laser tower it could normally scoot past, avoiding its shots because of angular velocity.

This wasn't the case in TA. I understand that a unit should lose a percentage of its speed - not much, but a percentage - regardless of whether its a minor or major course correction. The percentage should increase until it's a roughly 70 degree turn, at which point it will be necessary to all but stop in order to... "prevent a rollover", let's say. (ie, not look retarded because the game doesn't know what a rollover is and thus can't intelligently compensate for one by reducing speed)

So, the example above is just one possible scenario where this would be really detrimental to gameplay. There are lots of others... like say you're like me and you liked to psychotically change the unit's movement so as to avoid some tiny obstacle like a tree that the unit would run into normally. If you try to psycho-micro a slow accelerating, high-speed unit like this in spring, you wind up with it barely moving at all.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Without intending any offense wit hregards to AA (or XTA, etc); but if such a minute detraction has such a large effect on the gameplay, then perhaps it is the game design (or rather, mod design) that is at fault?

If a unit losing speed for a fraction of a second is such a fundamental detraction, then the gameplay is perhaps bordering on the starcraft level of game-mechanics, where each minute statistic counts. TA was never about tiny details (even in the early game). It wasn't about 1v1, or even 5v5 (where the poor performance of a certain unit under certain conditions is certainly catastrophic), but rather 10v10, or 100v100.

[Caydr]

The existence of raiding units is not a failing. It makes sense that wheeled/treaded units can move faster than those on legs, but would accelerate more slowly.

For instance, a human racing with a 4-wheel ATV - while the human would have an initial lead because we can be at our maximum velocity in a split second, while an ATV takes 10 seconds or so to get up to full speed. During that time it would fall behind, but once it begins to approach even half of its maximum velocity it will have sped past the human.

A flea can outrun a jeffy for a few seconds, but invariably the jeffy will speed past it if you give it enough time.

So, it makes fleas a better unit for raiding a densely-packed base - it is instantly at its maximum speed so it can get away from an oncoming commander quickly. A jeffy is better for scouting or taking out remote metal extractors.

Or so it should be - the jeffy only has an advantage if you tell it to move only once. If you tell it to move from point A to point B to point C, changing your mind frequently based on quickly-changing circumstances (this is not a rare thing and anyone knows it), it becomes all but useless because of this bug.

[SwiftSpear]

Without intending any offense wit hregards to AA (or XTA, etc); but if such a minute detraction has such a large effect on the gameplay, then perhaps it is the game design (or rather, mod design) that is at fault?

If a unit losing speed for a fraction of a second is such a fundamental detraction, then the gameplay is perhaps bordering on the starcraft level of game-mechanics, where each minute statistic counts. TA was never about tiny details (even in the early game). It wasn't about 1v1, or even 5v5 (where the poor performance of a certain unit under certain conditions is certainly catastrophic), but rather 10v10, or 100v100.

I've seen several times a single XTA zipper take out a dozen or so mexes and an entire wind farm. One raiding unit can make a massive difference in terms of determining how fast your oponents early game economy is going to be able to go up, and therefore the unit, if used correctly, has a high effective value.

You will never finish a game with a single raiding unit but thier effective value is being deminished because of a bug in the game.

[Forboding Angel]

look at large groups of flashes for example. It's the same story. Same with all vehicles actually.

Microing gollies is a horrendus pain in the ass, simply because if you screw up or need them to slightly change course, they come to damn near a full stop.

All vehicles have the same problem, it's just not quite as noticable on slower units.

[SwiftSpear]

look at large groups of flashes for example. It's the same story. Same with all vehicles actually.

Microing gollies is a horrendus pain in the ass, simply because if you screw up or need them to slightly change course, they come to damn near a full stop.

All vehicles have the same problem, it's just not quite as noticable on slower units.

Golis and bulldogs have thier own problem... they have a slow turn rate and they need to be relitively slow/stopped to compleate a pivot turn so they are facing in the direction they want to move.

Weasles and jeffies shouldn't have to slow down to make small turns because they are wheel based vehicals and don't need to pivot on one spot to turn.

[NOiZE]

Here's a bug that's been bothering me since Spring first came out..................
................If you try to psycho-micro a slow accelerating, high-speed unit like this in spring, you wind up with it barely moving at all.

Agree completely, did you send in a bug report in the bugtracker?

[Chocapic]

it has all to do with units moving only forwards and slow turn rate.
i dont think there's an easy way to avoid it

[Weaver]

Is it the same in FPS mode?

[Warlord Zsinj]

Raiding units are certainly inevitable - and are condusive to good game design, in my opinion.

But I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to the importance placed on the performance of a single unit. In a group of units, if one unit loses it's acceleration for a moment, the fraction of time lost is hardly critical.
If the game design is so stringent in the early moments of the game, where the loss of a few seconds where the jeffy has to reaccelerate, then perhaps there is to great a focus on the importance of a single unit early in the game.

[NOiZE]

Raiding units are certainly inevitable - and are condusive to good game design, in my opinion.

But I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to the importance placed on the performance of a single unit. In a group of units, if one unit loses it's acceleration for a moment, the fraction of time lost is hardly critical.
If the game design is so stringent in the early moments of the game, where the loss of a few seconds where the jeffy has to reaccelerate, then perhaps there is to great a focus on the importance of a single unit early in the game.

It's not only AA, OTA would be the same as OTA's jeffy's are weak aswell. And perhaps its not critical the loss of one raid unit due to this bug, but it is anoying..

[FizWizz]

Is it the same in FPS mode?

If you hold down the forward key as well as a turning key, you will not slow down, so no, it's not the same.

I thought about it, and I think that units are made to slow down to turn in order to guarantee that they follow their pathing. turn on cheats and go to debug ('b' key) mode, and you'll see that the units will try to follow their paths to the letter. Until unit movement is coded to take unit speeds and turnrates into account, it's probably a good thing (in confined areas, such as forests, bases, or strewn wreckage) that units slow down to turn. Otherwise, they'd be bumping into things like mad =\