Spring RTS Engine

Otherside wrote:I voted no, one of the main reasons i like CA is because each factions feels and plays differently. And it would involve culling many units and basically dumbing down CA aswell as having a total mismatch of style of units with core and arm units looking totally different.

I agree with the quoted text.

MidKnight wrote:

Otherside wrote:I voted no, one of the main reasons i like CA is because each factions feels and plays differently. And it would involve culling many units and basically dumbing down CA aswell as having a total mismatch of style of units with core and arm units looking totally different.

I agree with the quoted text.

I also agree with this very quote.

1 faction is the single most effective way to significantly push this project forward.

- it would allow us to reach OTA free nirvana in weeks instead of years (current projections)

- it would free us - both modelers and game designers - and allow more interesting units/gameplay expirements


What we lose? Artificial restrictions on units you can build (you can always share or ress or capture)..

2 factions are needed for meaningful story, but you can always twist it there a bit - like simply putting humans into control of factions and visualising it using different commanders, colors or logos.

1 faction will actually lead to more in-game diversity and more varied units than we have currently.
Unless you define diversity as having slightly slower and bulkier tanks on core side..

Well, if it does go ahead it would be rather fun to be involved in.

Licho wrote:What we lose? Artificial restrictions on units you can build (you can always share or ress or capture)..

Always? Only if you have allies, or your enemy gives you the opportunity to rez/capture.

And at that point you've got a 1 faction game.

Factories function as factions in enough ways to keep it exciting, as long as there is more than one option for a starting fac you still have some of the faction-feeling gameplay.

Licho wrote:1 faction is the single most effective way to significantly push this project forward.

- it would allow us to reach OTA free nirvana in weeks instead of years (current projections)

- it would free us - both modelers and game designers - and allow more interesting units/gameplay expirements


What we lose? Artificial restrictions on units you can build (you can always share or ress or capture)..

2 factions are needed for meaningful story, but you can always twist it there a bit - like simply putting humans into control of factions and visualising it using different commanders, colors or logos.

1 faction will actually lead to more in-game diversity and more varied units than we have currently.
Unless you define diversity as having slightly slower and bulkier tanks on core side..

I am for the OTA push but that is all.

I don't see what's interesting about it because I enjoy the dynamic of having a limited set of abilities and playing against someone with a different limited set of abilities.

I can turn those artificial restrictions into a real restriction using this idea (please don't bash it so hard in its infancy, it is brand new).

With two factions like Nova and Logos, you feel like you're somehow playing out a story when you're playing the game. Having 1faction and telling me there's different people inside it, really doesn't have the same feeling.

The diversity is that Logos uses impulse cannons, laser blasters, heat rays, gravity guns, flamethrowers, tracking AA missiles, firey rockets, shields, flak and jumpjets. Nova uses emp, beamlasers energy machine guns, teal aa lasers, stealthy jammers, cloakers and scramblers, all terrain spiders, and whatever else. The diversity is knowing you have a character with a set of abilities, and knowing that you have some stuff your enemy doesn't, and your enemy has some stuff you don't.

Would you find it fun to also allow commanders to build chickens nests too?

Pxtl wrote:And at that point you've got a 1 faction game.

Factories function as factions in enough ways to keep it exciting, as long as there is more than one option for a starting fac you still have some of the faction-feeling gameplay.

Why not make each fac represent a faction ? Story wise..

CarRepairer wrote:I am for the OTA push but that is all.

I don't see what's interesting about it because I enjoy the dynamic of having a limited set of abilities and playing against someone with a different limited set of abilities.

I can turn those artificial restrictions into a real restriction using this idea (please don't bash it so hard in its infancy, it is brand new).

With two factions like Nova and Logos, you feel like you're somehow playing out a story when you're playing the game. Having 1faction and telling me there's different people inside it, really doesn't have the same feeling.

The diversity is that Logos uses impulse cannons, laser blasters, heat rays, gravity guns, flamethrowers, tracking AA missiles, firey rockets, shields, flak and jumpjets. Nova uses emp, beamlasers energy machine guns, teal aa lasers, stealthy jammers, cloakers and scramblers, all terrain spiders, and whatever else. The diversity is knowing you have a character with a set of abilities, and knowing that you have some stuff your enemy doesn't, and your enemy has some stuff you don't

There aren't any restrictions on what you can build in a team game. Your team and the other team have exactly the same unit set and abilities. It doesn't matter if you prevent unit sharing. Within team unit sharing changes nothing in a game, the unit is on the same team just controlled by a different player. Without unit sharing people would just have to co-ordinate.

The story makes no sense to me. One problem thought; what if you're playing Nova vs Nova or Logos vs Logos? (You as in your portion of the map defensive line which seems to be how you're thinking about it.)

Would you find it fun to also allow commanders to build chickens nests too?

Chicken isn't really a faction. It would not be fun for the same reasons chicken isn't used in teamgames.

In the suggestions thread, I voted against the one faction suggestion. But now i'm beginning to reconsider.

If this is implemented, could creating two factions become a future goal? Once OTA free-status is achieved, and game play is fairly balanced/workable, it should be easier to redivided new/old factions out without the dozen tweaks every time one unit on one faction is changed.

Pxtl wrote:@Licho

You have to understand, that's why I suggested you make _all_ the bots in the regular Bot lab "radar-stealthy". By giving each of the 4 "bot" labs a special power, you can balance them for strength. You don't have the one "vanilla" bot lab and 3 inferior "special" bot labs. You just have 4 bot labs, each with a lab-wide power - underwater-combat amphibs, all-terrain climbers, jumpers, and stealth. For open land, you're going to use tanks anyways... but for varied terrain, you have 4 options. 4 ways to get the drop on the opponent - the jumpers that can punch through _any_ *small* barrier, be it water or defenses or a cliff. The climbers that can take any vertical barrier, the swimmers that can take any naval barrier, and the radar-stealthy bots that you can't see coming until they're in sight-range. In most bot-maps, you'll have at least 2 viable options. For example, on DeltaSiege Wet Upper, you could find use for all 4.
.

The advantage of the one vanilla factory is it's economy- you can cheaply produce units to toss around. If they were all radar-stealthed, it would probably drive the cost up, or play all weird. And why one jumper factory, one AT factory? if you need one, It's unlikely you'll build the other. Amphibs, I am not so sure, but I'd have both movement-modified bots at one factory. If you *really* need to build both all terrian bots and jumpjet bots at the same time, building a second factory that does both would still make more sense than having a factory that you won't need to build in any other scenario.

Other than above, i haven't seen much discussion on the tactics of this cohesive faction? Like would we be dropping bandits in favor of glaives, or creating a unit that has a cost/hp/speed/dmg between two t1 raiders?

Or handling faction specialities... EMP is balanced now, but if it was given to logos it'd be overmuch, with the stronger, more damaging unit.. of course, nerfing it too much would effect the use of capturing. And cloaking +shielding would be.. crazy, unless shield generators couldn't be cloaked- which would make sense


Probably painfully obvious stuff, but i'm a noob and don't see as much discussion on those points. Like the thoughts given for naval warfare, but interested in hearing more about the powers/tactics of a single faction

i vote for one faction...

although it'll take some good planning...
although it makes style a harder problem.
what style should this one faction have?
should it go the nova style or logos style or something completely different?

We will be aiming for style consistency without factory (if possible). Overall consistency is impossible given the model sets we have atm.

Google_Frog wrote:It would not be fun for the same reasons chicken isn't used in teamgames.

The fact that they're very weak?

[quote="CarRepairer"]
I am for the OTA push but that is all.

I don't see what's interesting about it because I enjoy the dynamic of having a limited set of abilities and playing against someone with a different limited set of abilities.

I can turn those artificial restrictions into a real restriction using this idea (please don't bash it so hard in its infancy, it is brand new).

With two factions like Nova and Logos, you feel like you're somehow playing out a story when you're playing the game. Having 1faction and telling me there's different people inside it, really doesn't have the same feeling.

The diversity is that Logos uses impulse cannons, laser blasters, heat rays, gravity guns, flamethrowers, tracking AA missiles, firey rockets, shields, flak and jumpjets. Nova uses emp, beamlasers energy machine guns, teal aa lasers, stealthy jammers, cloakers and scramblers, all terrain spiders, and whatever else. The diversity is knowing you have a character with a set of abilities, and knowing that you have some stuff your enemy doesn't, and your enemy has some stuff you don't.

Would you find it fun to also allow commanders to build chickens nests too?[/quote]

agreed. this junk about one faction somehow adding to the game is crap.

I don't see what's interesting about it because I enjoy the dynamic of having a limited set of abilities and playing against someone with a different limited set of abilities.

quote for massive massive truth. imagine a fighting game with only one character- a character with 10000 moves- but one character. alternately, a game with 30 or 40 assymetric characters. which is more exciting? duh. RTS is the same. c&c ZH was a good example. SC- the choice of faction is interesting. EE- your choice is dependant on personality. dumbing it down is just removing this, and personally I think you should be looking to have more than 2 factions, rather than dropping to one.

World of Warcraft had a great system, why not copy their race systems

I think you should cut it down to one faction, get that one right and well done, THEN add a new faction that's very different, not just a copy and paste job

we have 2 different factions with 2 different art styles why kill that just for ZOMG IP FREE RUSH.

it will just dumb down and ruin CA.

Imo its main point of appeal or one of the main points for me at least over other *A titles was the choice to make factions more diverse.

CA wont attract a playerbase if its a dumbed down generic RTS.

CA needs a moddb profile (with its new name) to attract attention maybe we can get a modeller or two or some concept artists on board.

Otherside wrote: CA wont attract a playerbase if its a dumbed down generic RTS.

It's a dumbed-down generic clone of OTA at the moment, to the extent that it still uses OTA content in parts. The most innovative things that I have seen in CA is the mex overdrive function, which is a natural extrapolation of the convertible resources system that OTA had (metal makers etc.); and the flat balance implemented a while back.

Now look, I love OTA and I still love CA for all it's designed-by-committee faults, but CA has to innovate or it will stagnate and die. The OTA-IP free push has little steam at the moment, as people infrequently replace models that end up stylistically inconsistent within a faction (maackey's models vs. MR.D in Core/logos anyone?). What's the point of keeping 2 factions for "style" reasons when the models between factories within those factions are inconsistent?

CA needs a big project push to keep everyone focused. I think that 1 faction is that big project we need. If anyone else has a better way of stopping CA/0-K from a slow death, please elaborate. I'm open to suggestions, and so is CA.

CA is inovative (at least alot more so than the other *A mods) hardly a dumbed down generic clone of OTA.

and Core and Arm in OTA were very cloney in alot of area's CA has tried to make them more diverse.

Having one faction isnt going to make CA any more diverse or any better it will just ruin alot of the work that has been put into having 2 different factions.

apart from the total art inconsistancy of the spherebot style vs the Mr D core style.

And the Core bots like pyro for example dont look out of place next to Mr D's stuff they still have a general look and feel (the evil eye look which unifies all the core models atm). Were as spherebot has a cleaner model style which is reflected with other models like the gunships fighters and archangel.

It seems the crowed has spoken.