Re: Friendly Fire, an open letter to feature-requesters

[Caydr]

Chris Roberts

This, on the other hand, deserves a lifetime ban

[alik83]

I think Argh had a good point about S3Os, and unit designs and scripting.
So I think those things should be done first:
-Make the fire points of defense structures significantly higher and set their center somewhat below groundplate to allow other high units to fire through their top part.
-Do the same thing but on a less scale with other offensive units to allow some over-unit fire.
-That means remodel all units in S3O
-Next step would be to implement collision meshes for unit parts to allow more accurate fire around/below/above units.

[Argh]

-Make the fire points of defense structures significantly higher and set their center somewhat below groundplate to allow other high units to fire through their top part.

Yeah, that'd do things for S3Os, to some degree. Do it too much, though, and it will be obvious that shots are passing through things. Done subtly, it will work. Maybe I should do a screenshot of my new NanoBlobs units firing around one another- it can be done without too much lameness, and without being obvious.

Better yet would be to require anything that launches missiles or projectiles that IRL would have to be launched at an angle... to launch at an angle, and live with the problems when it comes to lasers or things that shoot very fast shots- that's an issue of ... y'know... that little thing called game design. With the force-fire (linked weapons) feature, we can do a LOT of things that weren't really practical (or non-buggy) in OTA...

-Do the same thing but on a less scale with other offensive units to allow some over-unit fire.

There, it's more an issue for serious, thoughtful game design. For example... if rockets fire at 60 degree angles, and have a slightly toned-down guidance (or use other tricks), they'll still work nicely and go over things just fine, whereas lasers and other direct-fire weapons won't. So... duh... make lasers more effective over time, so that it makes up for the fact that your entire horde can't engage, just like most games make things that are inherently shorter range or slower more powerful to compensate for the obvious disadvantages. I think that most of the major modders working in Spring right now are all taking steps towards this basic realisation, or compensating in other ways.

-That means remodel all units in S3O

Yup. This is less painful than you'd think, folks. You can import 3DOs into Upspring, set the texture group (which, thanks to certain people, are already available for OTA units)... adjust the collision spheres, etc., and export. It's really that simple. For things like rocket launchers that need to angle... OK, that isn't simple. But many OTA units can be converted to S3O with 10 minutes' worth of work, if you know what you're doing.

-Next step would be to implement collision meshes for unit parts to allow more accurate fire around/below/above units.

I brought all of this up (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's brought this up) a while ago, and went into detail about how to make it work. The only really big snag, besides the modest increase in processing horsepower it'd take, is the pathfinding issues involved, if hitboxes can interact. I suspect that we may eventually have hitboxes where shooting is concerned, but probably not for unit/unit or unit/ground collisions. I hope we eventually get all of that, because I want bridges, hand-to-hand combat that isn't entirely fake, units driving over rubble as opposed to crushing it, and large units that don't obviously clip on terrain as much, but I'm not holding my breath

[Warlord Zsinj]

Sorry, I should have been more specific:

I was implying that the new friendly fire system would be implemented through tags, so that mods can use them, but might also work as a lobby option.

[kujeger]

Sorry, I should have been more specific:

I was implying that the new friendly fire system would be implemented through tags, so that mods can use them, but might also work as a lobby option.

This is pretty much what I was thinking of.

Code: Select all

+Advanced options
 |-+Friendly Fire Settings
     |-(*) Mod settings (DEFAULT)
     |-( ) Force FF on
     |-( ) Force FF off

[Cyberwal]

I know nothing about the way spring works, but one could have a group of units shooting effectively of they could use different firing arcs, so that a unit located behind another one can shoot above it. Of course that's only theoretical

[Warlord Zsinj]

Having units use different firing arcs wouldn't work for all units; and it wouldn't help SWS at all, because it would look strange for a deadfiring laser to all of a sudden assume a parabolic arc...

[Cyberwal]

Well imho a unit shouldn't be able to fire when it certainly couldn't fire in real life (yes I know this is a game and set in a sci-fi setting and all that, but maybe you get my point). One solution might be formations.. Also, how does spring calculate whether a firing path is blocked or not?

[Torrasque]

I know nothing about the way spring works, but one could have a group of units shooting effectively of they could use different firing arcs, so that a unit located behind another one can shoot above it. Of course that's only theoretical

It's already like that, look the stumpies in AA. (But as I've heard, it's not easy manageable.)
ihmo, having it as a lobby option is not very good, because mods are not desinged for.
I think having tags for weapon is the right way. Like that, mod like OTA could have all his weapon with FF, and mod like AA could have some strange weapon wich use it.