Spring RTS Engine

The screen shot page showcases spring. What is added to the screen shot page should represent the abilities of spring, not the politics and popularity of the mods we have.

As such screen shots of the two most popular mods are not a good idea because they do not represent more than a small percentage of what spring is capable of.

Most Televisions are colour, and yet television adverts stopped touting colour screens as their primary feature a long time ago despite almost every TV on sale being colour by popular demand. A mods popularity will not sell spring to the masses, and it isn't justification for all TA advertising.


As for the battle statistics, you'll see they're fundamentally flawed.

• Only the statistics for the top 5 entries are factored into the pie chart, as such the 'other' component is removed entirely skewing the other statistics
• Most games do not register in those statistics at all. One day 20 gundam games may happen but gundam may not make it onto the list despite 10 XTA games in 5th place.
• Games less than 20 minutes in length are not considered in the statistics
• If the host disconnects from the lobby while loading the game does not register regardless of the mod or time spent in game

If the true statistics where collected and shown fairly we would see far more mods and far more battles on show for all entries. There were definitely more than 5 CA games and 10 XTA games ongoing.


Also from a statistical standpoint those figures are meaningless as the sample is far too small to be used as justification for any point. At least a week of statistics shown correctly using fair charts would be needed.

AF wrote: If the true statistics where collected and shown fairly we would see far more mods and far more battles on show for all entries. There were definitely more than 5 CA games and 10 XTA games ongoing.

Also from a statistical standpoint those figures are meaningless as the sample is far too small to be used as justification for any point. At least a week of statistics shown correctly using fair charts would be needed.

I'm just saying it is almost impossible to find more than a few non-BA / XTA / AA / CA games going on at once. I've never even see a non-TA based game with more than a few people in it. I challenge you to provide a screen shot of a non-TA mod game with a bunch of people in it that you didn't rig yourself my sending PMs around and begging in main until people joined.

I don't think the screen shots should reflect an unrealistic image of what people will actually play if they download and install Spring. If they download Spring and never see an actual game of these neat looking mods going they won't be happy. I'm not saying we need to go purge non-TA mod screen shots and establish a policy that TA based mods must be the vast majority of screen shots. I'm saying that mod makers need to stop stuffing the screen shots section with their own ego-stroking screen shots in quantities that are completely out of proportion to the actual player base.

I do understand the argument about highlighting the flexibility of Spring as an engine to developers, but I don't think the screen shot section that's designed to induce players to download it is the right place to do that. Instead, why not stuff Mod DB, Libregamewiki and a few other sites with info? Hell, Mod DB still records Spring as a commercial engine!

No SWS shots

Or only released mods get screenshots?

Warlord Zsinj wrote:No SWS shots

Or only released mods get screenshots?

You in particular don't get any until you A: Make a working ATAT and B: Put in some sort of tech tree and balances changes to make the star fighter tree on Imperials and Rebels make sense.

Heres a tip, STOP MAKING NEW TA BASED MODS.

Mainly aimed at NOiZE

Complicated wrote:Heres a tip, STOP MAKING NEW TA BASED MODS.

Mainly aimed at NOiZE

...

Lohen, we know where you live.

el_matarife wrote:true stuff

Thank you for saying this so I don't have to.

Complicated wrote:Heres a tip, STOP MAKING NEW TA BASED MODS.

Mainly aimed at NOiZE

fail

cause ta sucks and no one should ever play it!!!!!!

(Wait, why are you people even here?)

el_matarife wrote:

Warlord Zsinj wrote:No SWS shots

Or only released mods get screenshots?

You in particular don't get any until you A: Make a working ATAT and B: Put in some sort of tech tree and balances changes to make the star fighter tree on Imperials and Rebels make sense.

We have had a working ATAT for about two and a half years now. We just don't have a good looking ATAT or a balanced ATAT. There will be no ATAT in our next release, but possibly the release after that.

Also, if you are referring to the balance in the SWS1.0 pack, we have rebalanced from the ground up again, so things will be unrecogniseable in the next pack.

However, we'd love to get your opinions on the aircraft balance, feel free to post them on our forums. I'd be interested to hear your feelings on the starfighter line-up in greater detail, as I'm not really sure if I agree with your opinion that the starfighter buildtree is nonsensical.

Back on topic, here are some nice screenshots that I can recommend of Star Wars Spring:

http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/6/ ... een034.jpg
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/6/5816/67675.jpg
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/6/5816/67673.jpg
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/6/5816/61062.jpg
http://sws.unknown-files.net/forum/inde ... h=11;image
http://sws.unknown-files.net/forum/inde ... =198;image
http://sws.unknown-files.net/forum/inde ... h=21;image
http://sws.unknown-files.net/forum/inde ... h=15;image
http://sws.unknown-files.net/forum/inde ... =292;image

I'd also like to see some S:44 shots up on the screenshots page, because really they're one of the mods that are really pushing the boundaries of high-quality art in Spring.

el_matarife wrote:

Warlord Zsinj wrote:No SWS shots

Or only released mods get screenshots?

You in particular don't get any until you A: Make a working ATAT and B: Put in some sort of tech tree and balances changes to make the star fighter tree on Imperials and Rebels make sense.

"el_matarife" IM CALLING YOU OUT

There's not really any political agenda being furthered when it comes to screenshot selection. I usually just download a lot from the screenshot threads that pop up every once in a while, and narrow it down to a few based on what I think looks nice.

And as I usually say in these kind of posts, any site admin can upload screenshots, hint hint. :) The screenshots page was originally just used to show the technical progress of spring, and it has not evolved since then. It could probably do with a redesign, but I guess that holds true for other parts of the site as well. :)

I2:Isaacment_Day wrote: "el_matarife" IM CALLING YOU OUT

Oh no I've been called out by a drunk Australian.

Warlord Zsinj wrote: We have had a working ATAT for about two and a half years now. We just don't have a good looking ATAT or a balanced ATAT. There will be no ATAT in our next release, but possibly the release after that.

You haven't released anything in two and a half years now. At your current rate I can look forward to the "release after that" in Q2/2012.

Anyway, rather than registering a new account let me just say that having the entire tech tree available at one building at the start isn't such a great idea. This means people can skip past the early TIE units and go straight for Defenders or Advanced once they get the economy. You should make the more advanced models built at a prototype TIE lab or something. Additionally, all the fighters from the TIE to the Defender all felt the same except for cost and HP. There wasn't really any distinguishing features to tell them apart, like ion cannons on the Defender.

Flaming sws breaks my heart.


SWS can look really cool. There was some cabbage video or something on youtube (I think it was actually spring trailer 2) that had some reallly really cool looking battle screens. When I first played spring, all I would play was sws vs ai. It was fun

Dont make baby jesus cry, its his birthday.

El Matarife, you haven't released anything of value, ever. This includes your post, which is entirely bereft of any factual accuracy. Or really anything remotely constructive other then unhelpful flaming - which I clearly instructed you to take to my forum so we did not take this thread off-topic.

You are welcome to come help us work on the mod, but sitting from the sidelines sniping simply reflects badly on you. As can be seen from our screenshots, we have clearly not been sitting on our arses doing nothing for two years. With essentially less then a handful of people - for a long time just two people working on the mod with such a large scope at any given time, well, what can you expect?

Finally, I don't know which mod you were playing, but in SWS1.0 there are two air labs, a basic airlab and an advanced airlab.

Further, the TIE Defender Does have ion cannons, as well as concussion missiles to separate it from the standard TIE fighter.
There was a little bit of redundancy in both of the labs, which is why we culled one or two fighters (TIE/ad and TIE/v are no longer buildable in 2.0) - but on the whole each fighter had reasonably defined roles, which have been far tightened in SWS2.0, especially with the removal of those other units.

Really, I'm not sure where you are getting your information from, because your post really contains hugely inaccurate statements, which really doesn't help your belligerent stance. Which I can't work out how you arrived at - I don't recall doing anything to you in the past, and really you could've communicated all of the above information in a far more level-headed manner, which would've really achieved a lot more.

What you've done in the past isn't what he's after, its what you'll do to him in the future that he's thinking about

Sheekel wrote:People put hundreds of hours of work into mods that never get played.

I play gundam, and that is all I need

quantum wrote:
This can only mean two things:
1) Not enough work is put in marketing.
2) The mod is not fun (enough).

Players are just there to have fun. They don't care about rewarding man-hours, nor should they.

Correct, I do not advertise gundam. Although I am surprised that in both of those lobby shots people are playing it. That is pretty neat.

I don't care about all the baaaaaaaaw, people don't play enough non-ta stuff. If you like it, play it, if not, don't. Honestly, I am pleasently surprised when people are playing the one off game of gundam. In my eyes, the non-ta mods are more promonent. Maybe some people may think the lobby is all that matters, but to me the fact that we have several mods being created and featured in the screenshots page, that means people like them.

So, I still think the non-ta stuff is getting played, I have seen it. Sure they are not wildly popular, but who gives a fuck. Honestly, I am not getting paid for making gundam, and even if I did I wouldn't care. You do right by you and make something you like. Past that popularity isn't a concern. If popularity is your concern, and your only reason for making a mod.... I have nothing to say.

smoth wrote:

Sheekel wrote:People put hundreds of hours of work into mods that never get played.

I play gundam, and that is all I need
and moar stuff truncated

Amen...If I were making SB with the sole intention of getting a large player base, I would have moved elsewhere ages ago.

Peet wrote: Amen...If I were making SB with the sole intention of getting a large player base, I would have moved elsewhere ages ago.

Well said, the intrinsic rewards of making a mod...

Hahah forget that, we'll stop only when we took over Spring! Mwahahahah! Now, where did my white cat go?

quantum wrote:Hahah forget that, we'll stop only when we took over Spring! Mwahahahah! Now, where did my white cat go?

Here is your cat sir, sorry about the delay, it was busy eating the last sp... erm guest and needed cleaning.