Spring:1944 dev and testing

[Nemo]

So, I'm going to take a week or two off (lots of uni work),and it would be a shame if balance work stagnated completely, so I'm going to set you and neddie up with commit access.

I had a long megapost about why I made a test build (which is NOT applied to the trunk, and thus is entirely temporary - a TEST) with the changes that I did, but realized it was something of a waste of time. in short, LoS is way powerful given the long weapon ranges, LoS is often spread either equally between attack and defense or the defense has the advantage, and thus stalemates or very long endgames become common. my solution was to tie LoS more closely with map control by making observs expensive - but to just crank up observ price would mean you'd just use snipers instead, so I had to knock them down in LoS and weapon range. which meant that MGs had to lose some range as well so snipers were still a viable counter. and rifle ranges came down as well, so they'd not outrange snipers and MGs. which made infantry combat a bit of a mess from my initial tests, so it's safe to say that the test wasn't a success, at least in that form.

[Neddie]

If you do want somebody to actually help you out with this, I can crack open the files and figure out some solutions as well. I still haven't formulated an ideal one.

Sorry, Nemo.

[KDR_11k]

RL Snipers have spotters so why didn't you simply require an observer for them?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

here neddy isnt editing non-offensive posts because they question your arguments a slight abuse of administrative power ?

[tombom]

RL Snipers have spotters so why didn't you simply require an observer for them?

I suggested that but Nemo thought it 1) wasn't intuitive that a sniper can't see to it's range 2) because observers are now more expensive it would mean that MGs are more of an issue (as snipers are the counter)

[1v0ry_k1ng]

snipers need high LOS and observers have nothing to do with the porc.
the porc comes from:

1) the superiority of stationary units over moving ones

2) the superiority of fixed guns over armour

3) limited factorys make gaining a numerical superiority difficult, even in a game winning situation

4) the high buildtime of assault units (smgs, light tanks) in comparison to what they acheive

5) the expense of artillery (building enough for a proper bombardment is difficult)

6) assault units (armour)s low LOS meaning it cant function on its own and thus lead a strike despite its high speed.

7) the ability of a line of sandbags to allow 4-5 rifles to beat 30-40

the lack of covert of air units to allow assaults on longistics, and the low damage rate units have VS buildings

[Pressure Line]

7) the ability of a line of sandbags to allow 4-5 rifles to beat 30-40

sandbags are an issue of their own. namely the fact that units will target them and attempt to shoot them, all the while ignoring everything else (theres also issues regarding what happens when you take over a sandbagged position, since it gives the original defending team an ADVANTAGE to attacking ;_; )

[FLOZi]

I don't really see what this is all in aid of. The game is working fine from my perspective.

[Guessmyname]

7) the ability of a line of sandbags to allow 4-5 rifles to beat 30-40

sandbags are an issue of their own. namely the fact that units will target them and attempt to shoot them, all the while ignoring everything else (theres also issues regarding what happens when you take over a sandbagged position, since it gives the original defending team an ADVANTAGE to attacking ;_; )

Maybe something similar to what the SWS team is using for their flag system may be of use here: When a flag dies, it converts instead to the team that created it. We could use similar code for the sandbags, so that infantry will capture them automatically and thus get the bonus of the position

[Nemo]

snipers need high LOS and observers have nothing to do with the porc.
the porc comes from:

1) the superiority of stationary units over moving ones

2) the superiority of fixed guns over armour

3) limited factorys make gaining a numerical superiority difficult, even in a game winning situation

4) the high buildtime of assault units (smgs, light tanks) in comparison to what they acheive

5) the expense of artillery (building enough for a proper bombardment is difficult)

6) assault units (armour)s low LOS meaning it cant function on its own and thus lead a strike despite its high speed.

7) the ability of a line of sandbags to allow 4-5 rifles to beat 30-40

the lack of covert of air units to allow assaults on longistics, and the low damage rate units have VS buildings

You now have commit access, feel free to fix these issues in whatever way you see fit. See you all in a week or two.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

I dont really know enough about the inner workings of s44 balance to be making my own changes, i'll figure out some tweaks but they are all going through devs first. need more testgames! any chance of roping a few more testers in?

[Neddie]

I figure since you edited in our entire conversation without touching an erroneous point you made earlier, both of which were pretty offensive and wouldn't be tolerated in any other medium, a little leeway there was permissible.

On the subject of sandbags, I think that is a great idea, GMN, but we would have to ask it of SWS and it feels somewhat cheap to take something they devised for a different universe.

Iv0ry, you can't have your points go both ways. You discuss the superiority of fixed gun and then follow it up with the extreme cost of such preventing an offensive player from bombarding...

I'm still working on the limited factory issue, I think they should scale to map control on the basis of sectors, so large maps have more sectors to control, and when you hold another full sector you gain the ability to establish another troop production facility. It isn't the best solution, but it might resolve that problem.

Unless I'm much mistaken, AT guns were recently reduced in efficacy, but I can look at that as well. I believe another issue is that the attacking player seldom builds enough logistics for his units to act to full capability; AP rounds are expensive, movement is expensive - the economic system is designed to impact play and has positive effects the majority of the time, but people simply don't understand the overwhelming need for logistics to act.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

I figure since you edited in our entire conversation without touching an erroneous point you made earlier.

??

On the subject of sandbags, I think that is a great idea

+1

You discuss the superiority of fixed gun and then follow it up with the extreme cost of such preventing an offensive player from bombarding...

AT guns own tanks hard, which is porcy. but artillery, which is a diffrent type of fixed gun, is one of the primary counters to a porced in defence position

Unless I'm much mistaken, AT guns were recently reduced in efficacy, but I can look at that as well. I believe another issue is that the attacking player seldom builds enough logistics for his units to act to full capability; AP rounds are expensive, movement is expensive - the economic system is designed to impact play and has positive effects the majority of the time, but people simply don't understand the overwhelming need for logistics to act.

I think the new AT guns might be enough now,
the longistics thing is a balance because if you can get an APC of boys into the enemy supplies and do some damage then his whole war machine is weaked.
one idea i did have though, was remove infantry moving costs and replace it with infantry stationary/cloaked cost to represent having to provide regular supplies/mail for bunkered down troops, and this would punish having a big stationary front and "keep you moving"
the new half supply cost for bullets should fix the offensive stall though

[Warlord Zsinj]

GMN, we are reasonably happy with sharing our lua, especially with the S44 guys; but it is important to us that if anyone has access to the lua from our private builds, that it isn't released for other mods to use until we ourselves have made a proper public release. I think this is reasonably fair, as it ensures we have some 'tricks up our sleeves' that other mods don't have to set us apart when we release, so that we aren't releasing into a climate where most of our advanced lua tricks have already been adopted by several other mods, and so aren't particularly special any more.

[Guessmyname]

I haven't given them anything beyond the idea. I'd thought they'd ask Mael, who (I assume) wrote the LUA code - I'm a modeller who had nothing to do with it, so it's hardly my place to go handing it out

[Pressure Line]

the longistics thing is a balance because if you can get an APC of boys into the enemy supplies and do some damage then his whole war machine is wrecked.

or a commando team *shakefist at neddie*

[Warlord Zsinj]

I know GMN, wasn't accusing you of anything (except besetting hoardes on gnome ), I was just stating our stance on our lua.

[Guessmyname]

Ah. I guess that means I'm low on sleep again...

[Neddie]

the longistics thing is a balance because if you can get an APC of boys into the enemy supplies and do some damage then his whole war machine is wrecked.

or a commando team *shakefist at neddie*

That was a single commando, and it was expensive in micro-time and metal to use.

[Snipawolf]

lol, burn.

Also, what does "efficacy" mean?