Absolute Annihilation 1.5

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 16 Jun 2006, 14:52

ginekolog wrote:
NOiZE wrote:Quite some times Searchers and Skeeters don't fire their Anti-Air missles, don't know for sure why...

I hope you can take a look @ them.
i noticed the same. Looks like that when air unit is above skeeter it wont fire. It fires only when unit is at edge of skeeters range. So maybe sth with fireing arc?

Very strange. I don't know what could be causing this, since I've never even touched their script and the last time I modified their weapon must've been like a year ago. And they have no firing arc code whatsoever, so that can't be it.

Hmm... Well I'm hearing something about anti-air units firing straight up randomly as well. It could be there's something messed up in toairweapon code, hard to say.

I could remove toairweapon and give them a onlytargetcategory1=vtol; instead, since it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other, but it'd probably be handled slightly different by the engine and maybe get past whatever's causing this.

BigSteve · Post by **BigSteve** » 16 Jun 2006, 14:57

I agree with everyting sleksa said.
standardise speed - terrible idea
remove metal makers - terrible idea,
Id type why I think that but its already been covered.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:01

WarC. "Flaming noobs so you don't have to"

^__^

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:05

Forboding... um... your ideas seem somewhat unpopular. While I'll still keep this unit speed standardizing thing on my mind (note that arm and core would have different standards, thereby allowing for instance AKs to still outmaneuver PWs), what I'm most interested in is what you liked so much about 1.13. You mentioned that you liked it, but nothing more.

I want to know what made it so good in your opinion. I want this next version of AA to be so good, it's illegal in China. Or at least strictly regulated. I want there to be 13 step programs to help stop playing it - not those 12 step programs, those are for ordinary addictions; the 13th step is to put a bullet hole in your head because you won't recover from the addiction. I want a national crisis. I want riots. I want there to be an AA underground, people who lead double lives, ordinary productive citizens by day, hardcore AA addicts by night. I want a black market. I want Canada to legalize it and there to be a mass-immigration and an underground railroad. Sooo... if you have something to contribute, by all means do so, even if it's unpopular.

And everyone else, let others say their piece without flaming them to death.

Day · Post by **Day** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:18

WarC. "Flaming noobs so you don't have to"

correction: Min3Mat "flaming newbs so you dont have to"

Ishach · Post by **Ishach** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:20

Caydr wrote:Forboding... um... your ideas seem somewhat unpopular. While I'll still keep this unit speed standardizing thing on my mind (note that arm and core would have different standards, thereby allowing for instance AKs to still outmaneuver PWs), what I'm most interested in is what you liked so much about 1.13. You mentioned that you liked it, but nothing more.

I want to know what made it so good in your opinion. I want this next version of AA to be so good, it's illegal in China. Or at least strictly regulated. I want there to be 13 step programs to help stop playing it - not those 12 step programs, those are for ordinary addictions; the 13th step is to put a bullet hole in your head because you won't recover from the addiction. I want a national crisis. I want riots. I want there to be an AA underground, people who lead double lives, ordinary productive citizens by day, hardcore AA addicts by night. I want a black market. I want Canada to legalize it and there to be a mass-immigration and an underground railroad. Sooo... if you have something to contribute, by all means do so, even if it's unpopular.

And everyone else, let others say their piece without flaming them to death.

Im already unhealthily addicted to it, any more and it wont be a double life, cause it will take over both.

BigSteve · Post by **BigSteve** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:25

ginekolog wrote:what are u arguing about ffs? AA needs simple, small tuning. For big changes like unified speed go play or make other mods.

And MM's are one of best feature in this game. In all other RTSs' u know u will win when u have more than 60% of map. In TA u can get nasty surprise when u have map but enemy got lvl2 eco and units and u loose. :)

AA is best mod around and leave it on top plz

I couldnt agree more, small unit balance tweaks are the order of the day caydr imo anything like removing mm or standardising units speeds would be a serious mistake and would seriously detract from the quality of your mod. The scope and unit variation is unmatched by any other mod and is the main reason why aa is so popular,
what would be the point in having hammer the same speed as a peewee or a flea? whats wrong with it now? nothing imo

I love the fact you can use excess energy to power your economywhen you lose territory and metal spots you still have a fighting chance if you can get some mm up.
Its one of the many things that makes this mod so damn cool, theres so many different ways you can approach a game.
Tbh I cant believe any rts fan/player would actually suggest removing them, it baffles me.

FA wrote
" I think replacing metal makers with metal generators would be a bit better in terms of the game and freeing up energy constrains/cost for energy buildings. "

You do realise metal gens take more than a shite load of e to make in the first place dont you? leave metal gens for lev2.

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:45

Bah i go away for a day or two and people start going mad! ^^

I have to say standardized speeds, MM removal - both awful ideas.

I know people have already stated why, but its what makes AA great - people will be saying "remove sniper bots", "remove crawling bombs" or any other unit that isnt strictly a toe to toe fighter. It'll end up just like EE, which i think would be truely awful.

A wide array of units performing diffrent roles is what makes AA the BEST mod for spring, and are generally well balanced (costs, movement speeds etc). There dont need to be any radical changes, the only real issue is minor balance tweaks, such as sorting out naval balance, metal makers are FINE as they are. I don't want to see AA go down the same road as EE. (Diffrent units performing identical roles - there zero variety, such as lvl 1urc units, plasma, rocket, cannon - they ALL move at hte same speed, and they are all direct fire weapons, and lvl 2 is the same, just slighty tougher :/)

Sleksa was spot on.

esteroth12 · Post by **esteroth12** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:51

Cabbage wrote:...A wide array of units performing diffrent roles is what makes AA the BEST mod for spring, and are generally well balanced (costs, movement speeds etc). There dont need to be any radical changes, the only real issue is minor balance tweaks, such as sorting out naval balance, metal makers are FINE as they are. I don't want to see AA go down the same road as EE. (Diffrent units performing identical roles - there zero variety, such as lvl 1urc units, plasma, rocket, cannon - they ALL move at hte same speed, and they are all direct fire weapons, and lvl 2 is the same, just slighty tougher)...

err.. they do have different roles...

Plasma - Meat of the army, Med dmg, med RoF
Missiles - Light AA, indirect fire (over hills etc.)
Cannon - High dmg, low RoF (OK, i concede the cannon mech...)
SAMs - Heavy AA

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 16 Jun 2006, 15:54

another thing, ambishers/toasters are not at all useless, ive used them a number of times to take out annies etc, when used with lvl 2 walls they can be very effective. Useful when placing them behind/ontop of hills aswell to harass your enemy whilst you prepare to strike elsewhere or something.

They're far from useless - better range, faster rof and hugely increased damage absorbtion over guardians/punishers..

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:16

i would agree that most of Forboding's ideas are somewhat too radical...especially the MM thing...but I think there is *something* that could be done for unit speeds. I'm not really talking about a total speed standardisation, but perhaps it would be nice if, say, the main line units all moved at the same speed to keep together:

eg for core, make banisher, reaper, pillager, dominator(?) and the flak and jammer vehicles go the same speed...its annoying to have the (flak) run off and die every time you order an attack :S

Then the goliath, tremor etc could be slower and comparable to each other (not sure if they are now) and so on.

obviously its not worth overdoing, and not worth applying to 'loner' units, but it would be nice to be able to mix units effectively without having to micro or mess around with formation AIs to keep them together.

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:20

Soulless1 wrote: eg for core, make banisher, reaper, pillager, dominator(?) and the flak vehicle go the same speed...its annoying to have some (flak) run off and die :S

Select all other units except the slowest unit in the party and put others to guard it.

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:25

Sleksa wrote:
Soulless1 wrote: eg for core, make banisher, reaper, pillager, dominator(?) and the flak vehicle go the same speed...its annoying to have some (flak) run off and die :S
Select all other units except the slowest unit in the party and put others to guard it.

meaning micro, extra preparation time, and the extreme likelyhood of having that unit die and the others get confused...surely it would be nicer to make all of the main units (currently very similar) speeds the same, so you could just order 'you guys, go there, kill that' and not have to fiddle about cos the flaks want to run ahead?

I mean...can you think of an actual downside here? I'm not advocating the full rebalance, just make units that are designed to be mixed, have the same speeds so its easier to do so...would seem to be in the direction of AA's 'combined arms' philosophy

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:28

we just need a spring group AI or something which forces all units in that group to move @ the same speed

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:35

NOiZE wrote:we just need a spring group AI or something which forces all units in that group to move @ the same speed

one that ignores buildings in the group, so you can have stuff join it upon spawning.

but it would still be easier just to have the main line units move at the same speed, rather than at nearly the same but not quite speeds...

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:46

Kixxe wrote:Forboding says that all energy sturcture are balanced after the metalmakers, since if energy would be high and cheap, many metal makers could be built to expoilt the high effect to low price of energy makers to make metal. Without metal makers, E would only be usefull as a secondary resource for building and using Units and buildings, a support Resource.

Then there's no point to having energy, and you might as well only have metal. Right now, there's two resources and you can convert between them: energy->metal by building MMs, metal->energy by building more generators. Each is obtained by different methods, forcing you to diversify your economy. If you can only convert metal->energy, then there's no point in having energy. It only exists to slow down your metal expansion rate by forcing you to convert a certain percentage of your income to energy.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:48

Sleksa wrote:Select all other units except the slowest unit in the party and put others to guard it.

Doesn't that break some of the combat AI? Normally, you want units to fire autonomously on anything that gets within range as you move them. If you do this, don't they only fire on things that attack the unit they're guarding?

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:56

Ive noticed a Crashbug that usually happens when the arm kbotlab blows up.. ive gotten this twice, both times killing teh kbotlab with gators.

I _think_ this is where this should go, as ive not experienced this crash in XTA.

EDIT: it says Access violation: No RTTI data!

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:57

still i think it's a spring bug

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 16 Jun 2006, 16:59

Egarwaen wrote:
Then there's no point to having energy, and you might as well only have metal. Right now, there's two resources and you can convert between them: energy->metal by building MMs, metal->energy by building more generators. Each is obtained by different methods, forcing you to diversify your economy. If you can only convert metal->energy, then there's no point in having energy. It only exists to slow down your metal expansion rate by forcing you to convert a certain percentage of your income to energy.

And if you only can convert energy->metal then there's no point in having metal?

Energy is needed to power heavy weapons and to BUILD STUFF (just like metal). Without energy, your mexxes, your radars and every single laser weapon you have will seize to function.

i'm sorry, but it sounds like you are saying "Well if you can't build energy plants, and then convert this energy into metal, ENERGY IS USELESS!."

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation 1.5