Airdrop efficiency?

TehRoxxor · Post by **TehRoxxor** » 06 Jul 2006, 07:58

Aerial transports, right now, take a horrendously long time and amount of land to drop their payload. It takes forever. It really should be fixed.

What does a transport use to determine what is a good spot to drop a unit and what is a bad spot? Can that be improved?

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 06 Jul 2006, 09:29

This is a mod specific query, and you should post it in the corresponding thread.

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 06 Jul 2006, 10:05

Well, mods would take advantage of any system that was available, which there isn't, so this is certainly a reasonable query in a reasonable forum location.

Spring definitely needs some more advanced transport systems, I think. Particularly if we ever hope to get transports like those in Supreme Commander, which IMO is probably the coolest thing in SupCom beyond the full zooming in/out strategy interface.

I know SWTA and AATA would love transports that allow infantry to be picked up and dropped off in one go (mainly dropped off), and transports that sit in one position while the loaded units move towards it would really be a great addition, to name a couple of the things in the list.

Right now, it doesn't matter how fast we do loading, it is still a rather cumbersome, unintuitive and ugly process. Don't get me wrong, there are big improvements over TA, especially with the repeat function, but the load function isn't yet doing everything that I think it is well capable of.

TehRoxxor · Post by **TehRoxxor** » 06 Jul 2006, 11:58

Actually, I'm ok with how units are picked up. It's different, but its not bad, IMO. Maybe it's a bit micro-intensive, but having your transport move towards the units is a up to taste.

What's really terrible, however, is how long it takes to unload 10 units. Really, I'd love if they'd simply quickly get dropped off in a line and the transport zooms off for another load. And I don't mean dropped one at a time in a line, I mean the transport simply swoops down and unloads units on the run.

At the moment, it seems to carefully select the prettiest spots of ground to drop units onto.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 06 Jul 2006, 15:05

TehRoxxor wrote:Actually, I'm ok with how units are picked up. It's different, but its not bad, IMO. Maybe it's a bit micro-intensive, but having your transport move towards the units is a up to taste.

What's really terrible, however, is how long it takes to unload 10 units. Really, I'd love if they'd simply quickly get dropped off in a line and the transport zooms off for another load. And I don't mean dropped one at a time in a line, I mean the transport simply swoops down and unloads units on the run.

At the moment, it seems to carefully select the prettiest spots of ground to drop units onto.

Just use 10 1-unit transports.

esteroth12 · Post by **esteroth12** » 06 Jul 2006, 16:27

one thing that would be nice is if you could order the units to enter the transport, rather than ordering a transport to pick them up... it would be useful if you are just sending a small squad once, or a transport that holds many units, but you can't use the area load command because of units you don't want it to pick up.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 06 Jul 2006, 17:05

Pxtl wrote:
TehRoxxor wrote:Actually, I'm ok with how units are picked up. It's different, but its not bad, IMO. Maybe it's a bit micro-intensive, but having your transport move towards the units is a up to taste.

What's really terrible, however, is how long it takes to unload 10 units. Really, I'd love if they'd simply quickly get dropped off in a line and the transport zooms off for another load. And I don't mean dropped one at a time in a line, I mean the transport simply swoops down and unloads units on the run.

At the moment, it seems to carefully select the prettiest spots of ground to drop units onto.
Just use 10 1-unit transports.

And that's an improvement? Get real dude.

BlackLiger · Post by **BlackLiger** » 06 Jul 2006, 20:18

I'd want to see Paradrops also. Would look amazing in WD, and even OTA could be fun with it

Brackhar · Post by **Brackhar** » 07 Jul 2006, 02:42

Air transportation is something that has been a problem with TA ever since the original release. It'd be nice if we could come up with a new solution. :)

PS. First post! Yay!

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 07 Jul 2006, 03:33

Brackhar wrote:Air transportation is something that has been a problem with TA ever since the original release. It'd be nice if we could come up with a new solution. :)

PS. First post! Yay!

Welcome to the Spring forums.

Be warned that these forums are full of people who worship OTA and resist tooth and nail any attempts to change or add game dynamics or features that weren't in OTA.

See Pxtl's post in this thread for an example of that mentality (though I'm not saying Pxtl belongs to that group...). It's basically "what worked in 1997 is good enough for 2006".

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 07 Jul 2006, 03:42

Be warned that these forums are full of people who worship shit and resist tooth and nail any attempts to add optional game dynamics or features that were in OTA.

^ fixt ^

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 07 Jul 2006, 03:51

Uh, heh, felix, I don't think Gnome and I (and perhaps one or two other people) make up the vast majority of the Spring forums. We simply make more of an impact because our arguments are more logical then "OTA is teh suxxorz".

Ordering units to load into a transport while selecting them and hovering your cursor over the transport is a must. But I think this would only work well if it is possible for mods to (OPTIONALLY) make transports sit and wait for the units to come to them, rather then run around picking up different units.

Instant unload is almost essential to make combat drops with more then one unit possible. Currently, it is not, meaning that transports are relegated to dropping units outside of combat, while the player walks them the rest of the way.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 07 Jul 2006, 03:54

I have no idea what made you believe that I was referring to you in my statements.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 07 Jul 2006, 03:55

Warlord Zsinj wrote:Ordering units to load into a transport while selecting them and hovering your cursor over the transport is a must. But I think this would only work well if it is possible for mods to (OPTIONALLY) make transports sit and wait for the units to come to them, rather then run around picking up different units.

Starcraft (yes, I know it is hated) disproves those theories. The transports rendezvous with each of the units that are trying to board, and it is quick and efficient. Plus, the unload is quick but not instantaneous, and is quite useful for combat-drops.

Seriously, just because StarCraft was a very _different_ game from TA doesn't mean that it wasn't chock full of fantastic gameplay and interface ideas. SC was the peak of the "traditional" RTS genre. TA just took RTS games in a whole new direction.

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 07 Jul 2006, 04:03

Well, I'm not sure who else on these forums defends keeping the design feel of OTA as an integral part of Spring?

pxtl: Well, that's fine for whoever wants to use it that way. Remember, I said optional. It looks damn silly in SWTA when a Republic Gunship jumps around picking up stormtroopers, when it should really just sit in one spot and let them mount up themselves.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 07 Jul 2006, 04:12

Warlord Zsinj wrote:Well, I'm not sure who else on these forums defends keeping the design feel of OTA as an integral part of Spring?

pxtl: Well, that's fine for whoever wants to use it that way. Remember, I said optional. It looks damn silly in SWTA when a Republic Gunship jumps around picking up stormtroopers, when it should really just sit in one spot and let them mount up themselves.

Hmm? Have I done that? I like keeping OTA feel in AA, but not Spring itself. At any rate, I meant gameplay-wise it works well. I agree that graphically the "transport moving around picking up loads" is inappropriate for some genres.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 07 Jul 2006, 04:15

Warlord Zsinj wrote:Well, I'm not sure who else on these forums defends keeping the design feel of OTA as an integral part of Spring?

pxtl: Well, that's fine for whoever wants to use it that way. Remember, I said optional. It looks damn silly in SWTA when a Republic Gunship jumps around picking up stormtroopers, when it should really just sit in one spot and let them mount up themselves.

True enough. I guess you were who I was directing that comment at... I'm horrible with names.

I feel that you are attempting to limit where Spring can go, while I am trying to expand its horizon. I also feel that you are trying to turn us in a dangerous direction vis a vis copyright, while I am trying to direct us toward a result more consistent with a free, open-source RTS.

Molloy · Post by **Molloy** » 07 Jul 2006, 21:59

OTA FTW!

As Warlord says it'd be nice to have a few features in Spring that would enable SWTA, OTA and a few other mods to have a different style of gameplay than AA and XTA.

Friendly fire would be the crucial aspect. But it seems that that's the only feature of Supreme Commander that the Spring developers aren't expressing a desire replicate.

edit: BTW, a more effective form of tranport would be a godsend. They always sucked in OTA so I can certainly agree you don't want to use that as a model.

SinbadEV · Post by **SinbadEV** » 07 Jul 2006, 23:47

While you are fixing transports.... could you allow me to see which units it has loaded and unload selectively?

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 08 Jul 2006, 00:45

Gnome wrote:Be warned that these forums are full of people who worship shit

yeah they shit in holes and eat it later, also they eat babies ive heard.

Spring RTS Engine

Airdrop efficiency?

Airdrop efficiency?