Spring RTS Engine

jackalope wrote: what is a bot map? vehicles own at all maps. (well maybe not all sea maps)

You want example ermm... like battle over planet xviii, evergreen. Desert Triad (you usually start with bot), Green Haven, Horst and Graben, Mars, Moon (vehicles might work aswell, but I would still choose bot), Small divide (depends on tactic). Prolly many others.

El Capitano wrote: The problem is that pretty much every game I've played for a while now has come down to Flash spam. It would be nicer if alternative strategies were more viable, leading to some variation. I miss Kbots

Jeffies owns at raidin. Sams are good as support with flashes especially if enemy has air aswell. Those rocket-firing tanks owns llt (they have bigger range I believe?) and come handy if you can micro them. Artilary is very very useful in games where you have line of defence and stumpies like I said, suq. Well the problem with stumpies is that they have same role as flashes, only flashes are more effiecent which make stumpies suq.

Jeffies/Weasels don't only own at raiding, they can kick the crap out of defences and even lighter units if massed.

I saw a game today that blew my mind, one of the players used strictly Weasels to crush his enemy.

Per Cost, these scouts are nasty as hell and per cost more efficient than Flash/Instigators.

He would send 30 Weasels in at a time at key areas, and these things would blow through walls of LLT, surrounding enemy units and just eating them.

What basically happens is the first 4-5 Weasels would die on approach, then the rest would already be through or past the defensive line, take a couple of passing shots and be out of range, and each passing unit would follow suit and nearly bypass the defences, each individual unit that passes by may take 1 Hit worth of damage and just keep on going.

They move so fast that they work better than using Zippers.

Zippers are soposed to be better in this role, but are so fragile and expensive that the cost difference makes them a non-option when you compare the abilities of these 2 units.

Not really sure what could be done, since its all a matter of greater Numbers attacking single targets, a LLT can only shoot at 1 target at a time.

Im so tired of freking IDIOTIC rockos. Thier the most stupid unit in the game. You gotta micro them everytime you see a LLT, since their to stupid to stand outside range... and on uneven terrain it's nearly impossible to micro them to hit!

Could you try something? anything? Make their weapon effected by gravity and have them have the smallest curve you can have. increase their range by 2 units. Increse their firing points by 2 decimals. Something!

Rockos are cool how they are. Usually the units that scale well with the micro you put into them are innefective at anything but raiding.


But rockos can be put into any situation and their effectiveness is really just limited to how well you can micro them, given their movement speed and range.

Static test of Rocko vs LvL-1 Defences

(Results Demo) Winzip format- Place in Ta-Spring\Demos folder
http://mrd.str8-6.com/files/Rocko-vs-LvL1.zip

Please forgive the lack of Micro and speed of the build in the demo,
I was tired

LLt vs Rocko (Full view LOS with NO MICRO MANAGEMENT)

Core LLT = 585 HP | 84 Metal | 652 Energy
Core HLT = 2475 HP | 449 Metal | 4443 Energy
Rocko = 670 HP | 85 Metal | 879 Energy

Rocko needs 5 direct hits to kill 1 LLt
LLt needs 14 direct hits to kill 1 rocko

** LLT TESTS**(100% revealed LOS for accurate figures)

1 LLt vs 1 Rocko = Rocko dead | LLt with

1 LLt vs 2 Rocko = 1 Rocko at 80 HP / 1 Rocko at Full HP | LLt dead

1 LLt vs 3 Rocko = 1 Rocko at 246 HP / 2 Rocko at Full HP |LLt dead

4 LLT vs 8 Rocko = 2 Rocko dead / 2 rocko at 600 HP/ 1 at 270 /3 at Full HP | 4 LLT dead

*Findings LLT*

As long as Rocko can have a clear line of sight a 2(rocko) vs 1(LLT) ratio means you walk away with 1 rocko.

If you use a ratio of 3 Rocko for each LLT, you will keep losses to a mimimum with maximum overall damage.

LLT costs an equal ammount of metal as Rocko, and at a 2-1 Rocko-vs-LLT you lose 85 metal and are left with 1 Rocko.

At a 3-1 Ratio the enemy lost 84 metal, and you are out nothing.

** HLT TESTS**

Rocko needs direct hits to kill 1 HLT
HLT needs 5 direct hits to kill 1 Rocko

1 HLT vs 1 Rocko = Dead Rocko | Hlt at 2375 HP

1 HLT vs 2 Rocko = 2 Dead Rocko | HLT with 2100 HP

1 HLT vs 5 Rocko = 2 Dead Rocko 1 / at 381 HP / 2 at Full HP | HLT dead

2 HLT vs 10 Rocko = 5 dead Rocko / 1 at 427 HP / 4 at Full HP | 2 HLT dead

2 HLT + 1 LLT vs 12 Rocko = 7 Rocko dead / 2 at 580 HP/ 3 at Full HP | 2 HLT + 1 LLT dead

*Findings HLT*

HLT goes down with 4 Rocko, but 5 Rocko or more vs 1 HLT will result in better odds for survival.

A mixed defence does better against large numbers of Rockos, and balences out Costs, but Rocko's are still more efficient for metal.

For the Cost of 1 HLT you can build 5.2 Rocko's, Kill the HLT and walk away with 3.

At 5-1 Rocko-vs-HLT, HLT user is out 449 Metal, Rocko user is out 170 metal.

Draw your own conclusions, but Rocko's seem fairly well matched, very efficient, and quite powerfull for their costs.

If you want to keep more Rocko alive, Be agressive enough to get close with them, and keep a 3-1 Ratio for LLT, and at least 5-1 ratio for HLT.

ty for data, good stuf.

I like rockos, they are best on flat maps while hammers are better on hilly ones. They loose their power though when u got many corpses around.

that's not the point... if they have the range to outrange LLT's, why must they be so stupid not to use it? >.>

A radical solution to the Flash spam would be chain 'splosion.

KDR_11k wrote:A radical solution to the Flash spam would be chain 'splosion.

Which would make them useless. We would spam stumpies then.

i would rather micro more to space them out

Day wrote:i would rather micro more to space them out

Wasn't TA, and by extension Spring, designed for the sake of "huge battles without micromanagement"? Why does everyone want to have to micro more all the time? In an ideal system, the units would be able to handle all their own microing, freeing the player to fight at the strategic level, which is overall more interesting. Most of this is a matter of needing better AI at the unit and group levels, but I think in general we should never have statements like "I would rather micro more." We should have statements like, "that can be handled once the units can act more intelligently."

Whether Flashes are microed by hand or by AI, the end result is that spacing them out means you have fewer near a target. This would be the real disadvantage versus Stumpies, rather than a "bonus for microing" way of looking at it. Micromanagement is just a way of saying, "the units are so dumb that we have to do all the work ourselves." A real commander doesn't run up to a soldier and point his gun for him; that's not what they're for. If the goal is to create large, strategically interesting battles, the need to micro should be kept to an absolute minimum--not used as a "bonus" in as many situations as possible, which is what many players seem to suggest all the time.

Regarding Aircraft

I think air needs to be reexamined. There are way to many different AA options and most of them are too effective, especially the level 2 AA kbots. Rediculous!

I will say this once (sorry for the allcap): THE BEST DEFENSE AGAINST AIR SHOULD BE OTHER AIRPLANES

Needing AA airplanes for supporting ground forces and defeding bases ADDS DEPTH to the mod and makes things more interesting. Right now, AA defense is "build and forget." Spam a few adv missile towers, AA kbots, and air is effectively removed from the game.

That being said, there is a role for static flak (protect localized areas against gunships) the adv missile towers (weaken incoming raids slightly, and mobile AA units (to defend ground armies against gunships), and lower level missile towers (stop scouts, etc...). But these need to work IN CONJUCTION with AA airplanes to be effective.

As an aside: I really dislike the gunship differences b/w core/arm and think you should go back to a more equal scaling of units (gunship -> vtol -> super gunships) for both sides. The brawlers are pretty good, but the rapiers are too good and take to long to build, making them less viable, they should be more inline with the brawlers. Make the vtol and core glying fortress thing the two advanced versions (weaken the fortress and boost the VTOL).

Re: Hovercraft

I think you should consider developing tech2 hovercraft. TADD and their associates back in the day had very workable hovercraft units, adding some units to tier 1 and making a tier 2. Perhaps you can consider working off their units. Here are some links:

TADD: adv. construction hovers and Level 2 Hovercraft Platform
http://www.planetannihilation.com/corep ... group=TADD

NWFD: Tier 2 hovers built from platform: Berserker (c), Diamondback (c), Jaeger (a), Insomniac (a), Physetor (c), Sidewinder (a),
http://www.planetannihilation.com/corep ... rpage=9999

TARAD: level 1 radar + radar jamming hovers (move to tier 2 i think)

http://www.planetannihilation.com/corep ... erpage=100

Arco wrote:

Day wrote:i would rather micro more to space them out

If the goal is to create large, strategically interesting battles, the need to micro should be kept to an absolute minimum--not used as a "bonus" in as many situations as possible, which is what many players seem to suggest all the time.

I think in TA (AA) you get a good balance of both, and that is nice. You're still assinging group orders to the same unit types all the time (attack this, go here) and early fights have a lot of depth because you can dance your units around a little. Latter on when things escalate, you can't afford to micro and you're forced to take a more strategic role. This is why TA has always been such a compelling game, and I think we're in a sweet spot right now.

Where's min3mat when you nead him... ^^

Weasels seem to be OP nowadays :)

No joke.

Replay featuring daywalker and weasels! Eeeeeeeek!

http://www.unknown-files.net/index.php? ... &dlid=1894

Edit: Errrr did i say day? I meant IZergYou ofc

IZergYou isn't Day <_<. I mean there are other WarC from Dutch like.....

like...

Noize <_< >_>.