Suggestion: speed controlling

[smoth]

Though, i thought nothing is impossible to program...

Re-read my post. It is not possible.


The idea in not scrapped it is just in need of refinement. Again, like I suggest above having ground units stop and wait up every so many steps ahead is not unreasonable. However, I would still want it as an option. Sometimes I like fast units going ahead of the squad.


Yeah you can slow down a run animation to the correct timing for that speed but it's ACTUAL movement will NOT magically or code-wise transform into a walk animation. The movement is too different.

[TradeMark]

Well i wouldnt care if my units walk slower and looks ugly, when its really needed, you dont care about graphics... its just a game, like chess.

[smoth]

Well i wouldnt care if my units walk slower and looks ugly, when its really needed, you dont care about graphics... its just a game, like chess.

Not true at all. People will complain, while you in particular may not care many of us would not like slower moving units at the cost of looks. You can say what you want about looks. As I have said many times over if I did gundam to look like battle tech more people around here would have been excited about it.

This is not chess. This is a game with many enjoyable graphical elements that help a sense of immersion that draws the player in. It is a VERY important element of game design, Perhaps there are some who would be happy with geometric primitives. That is not for the other Xlarge% of the market.

I suggest you make a mod with geometric primitives that all move the same speed. Otherwise, no people are not going to want units that are going to slow down their anim. It will look ugly.

CONSIDER THIS:

optionA:
You set your units out to move to waypointA, you use formation. The units arrive one by one at waypointA and wait for the others in formation. Then they proceded to waypointb stop untill their allies reach and then procede to C. I think it will look cool as hell and get what you want.

optionB:
There is a squadspeed toggle on the gui. When set to on, the units will all move at a speed the mod maker has already covered with an animation script. Along with a squad speed FBI tag. Not only would it look good but it would give you the slower speed units moving in a squad speed.
neither of the above bits would be a quick add in.

You current suggestion WILL NOT WORK OUT.. consider maybe something like optionA or optionB. that will at least all the mod makers to have support for the correctly timed animations.

Otherwise, MAYBE you are playing the mod wrong. In my mod I would not want your little speed thing. Certian units are meant to be fast attack and that is all. If I wanted them moving at the same speed I would have done so.

[esteroth12]

actaully... option A can already be done...

just use shift and assign a bunch of move commands...

for formation move, make them how you want and hold control when you click to move (or was it alt? or alt+ctrl?)

[Forboding Angel]

only thing is that when you use alt move for waypoints the units when reaching the first waypoint do not wait for the rest.

[esteroth12]

whoops, forgot to say that you needed a wait command (no buttom, hit the 'W' key)

only problem is that you will have to hit W again to make them continue

[Fanger]

The point would be to make such behavior easier to control and more intuitive, as it is pressing 5 or 6 different keys or setting multiple way points is a little much to do for nearly all groups of units..

[smoth]

maybe we can use the building spacing buttons to set stop point between point0 to point1 that distancing would then be stored similar to the building spacing. Then we can have controll of our unit movement in a very intuitive way along with the fact that we would only have to set it once and we can change it as needed(ie less spacing over a greater distance?

[Theotherguy]

I dont think there should be a toggleable feature for units to move slower, but I do think units need to be better at keeping pace with other units. I mean, just look at the new supcom screens (the ones in the desert) where all of the tiny units are spaced between the large ones and maintain formation. All we need is some kind of dynamic animation system to make this work...but it already does for vehicles and aircraft.

I think homeworld had a good system for this. Units in the same group would slow to the speed of the slowest unit, and if you wanted them to move faster you would take the slowest unit out of the group and give it the order seperatley.

[smoth]

All we need is some kind of dynamic animation system to make this work...but it already does for vehicles and aircraft.

For vehicles this would be fine but not for humanoids.

Running:


Walking


For the third time there are differences in posture, gait and even the way the arms move. there is a big difference between the two that is not simply speed of animation.

[Felix the Cat]

I dunno, allow modders to define multiple animations/scripts for a unit? i.e. if a unit is moving between x and y speed use this script, if it is moving between y and z use that one.

More work on the modders, but I think it is the only workable and pretty solution that we're likely to get - I don't see dynamic anatomically-correct animations being added in any time soon (maybe Spore will give us some ideas?)

[smoth]

yeah... you are aware that the speeds in my mod go from 1.0 to 8.0? that is a big range, 2.4 to 2.2 required a lot of work. My mod is just mechs. What about *crosses fingers* the day we get the ability to make a fantasy mod with close combat?

[Das Bruce]

Perhaps if we were able to cut animations in half so to speak, and have a left step + right step and loop, that way we could put pauses between the steps?

[TradeMark]

Well i wouldnt care if my units walk slower and looks ugly, when its really needed, you dont care about graphics... its just a game, like chess.

Not true at all. People will complain, while you in particular may not care many of us would not like slower moving units at the cost of looks. You can say what you want about looks. As I have said many times over if I did gundam to look like battle tech more people around here would have been excited about it.

I dont think the difference is that big it makes you cry when you see such "bad looking" things happening in the game...
Try to make example with unit "thud" from AA moving slower than normally, you cant see much difference...

This is not chess. This is a game with many enjoyable graphical elements that help a sense of immersion that draws the player in. It is a VERY important element of game design, Perhaps there are some who would be happy with geometric primitives. That is not for the other Xlarge% of the market.

I didnt say it is chess, chess is just a game like TASpring... Well, that how i see it, and i dont care about graphics much. The gameplay is most important to me.

I suggest you make a mod with geometric primitives that all move the same speed. Otherwise, no people are not going to want units that are going to slow down their anim. It will look ugly.

This game is not about graphics... gameplay is what makes games good. Not graphics... TA didnt last for over 8 years just because of graphics. (and TA gfx are worser than spring)

optionA:
You set your units out to move to waypointA, you use formation. The units arrive one by one at waypointA and wait for the others in formation. Then they proceded to waypointb stop untill their allies reach and then procede to C. I think it will look cool as hell and get what you want.

Yeah... but i dont have time to set >5 different waypoints with formation...
(Didnt understand option B)

You current suggestion WILL NOT WORK OUT.. consider maybe something like optionA or optionB. that will at least all the mod makers to have support for the correctly timed animations.

It can work, but it just looks ugly, thats all.

Otherwise, MAYBE you are playing the mod wrong. In my mod I would not want your little speed thing. Certian units are meant to be fast attack and that is all. If I wanted them moving at the same speed I would have done so.

Im not playing wrong mod... its the same thing in every mod, there is fast units and slow units... and fast units goes ahead of slow units, and they dies because im too lazy to control them all the time here and there...

I think you misunderstanded my idea, its all about slowing the units speed to the slowest speed in that group of units. So they all will arrive to the destination at same time.

[esteroth12]

actually in EE everything on the same tech level is the same speed...

[alik83]

I'm actually for setting a command to allow slowdown of unit speed and acceleration by a certain value (command parameter) so you could have controlled timing of when your whole group will arrive at point X.
AF said there's a command for this that is not in the GUI? Are you sure? I think I tried it before and it never worked.... Then again you would need to slow down the animation proportionaly as well. So AF, can you make a groupAI of different units that will move let's say at the speed of slowest unit?

[smoth]

It can work, but it just looks ugly, thats all.

Do you know how many man hours go into animation timing? that shit is a lot of work.

[TradeMark]

Nope, but i dont need animation timing, only the speed to get lower. I dont need eye candy.

[Das Bruce]

I still think my idea is best.

[Rayden]

it would look weird when the mechs slide over ground without moving.