Spring RTS Engine

Sure, Ground Deformation add drastic change to the gameplay. But is it such a bad thing and should it be removed immediatly? I think not. It was fun to go in FPS mode and digging a canal toward Stealth682 with my crusie. Sure it can drasticaly change the gameplay from OTA, but Spring isn't exactly OTA. I'm not sure ground deformation is that bad, it brings better look, fun, and new strats. Can't we leave ground deformation for a while, until we really see how it's used online, and only then think about whether it should be limited and how? Beside, I noticed that even if cons can't build on slight slope, they have no problem leveling a deep trench made with dozen of dgun shots.

Deformed ground is counted as soft, and therefore does not obstruct building even at extreme levels.

Who ever said it should be removed?

It should be tuned down a bit. That's the only single thing I've been saying all the time, while flamed by people that think I wanted the deformation gone.

Units are able to damage themselves in spring, it seems. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

In TA, you set a cannon to fire on the ground and then move a peewee into it, then it will die there too...

Yes, but tell a nuke launcher to nuke itself and it will be the only thing standing for a screen around.

Also: it appears transports don't work quite right. Naval transports can load things but not unload. Air ones can load once, unload, but never load again.

If you build large rows of MT's for instance. They don't seem to be able to move laterally so they don't fire. When you self-d a couple in between it works fine.

So far, only one person has a decent enough graphics card to run the shadows, reflections, and smoke trails that graced the videos with such great beauty. Without these features, the game looks rather bland, and, quite frankly, a bit ugly--if I might say. Something should be done to implement low-level shadows and reflections on lower end, 64MB graphics cards.
If I can run Half-Life 2 with a GeForce 4, and still work some of the dynamic lighting and special effects, then I cannot see why lower-end graphics cards cannot run the programs that make Spring pleasing to the eye.
As for the game itself, I too am in agreeance with the idea of having an option that allows player to use the OTA mouse configuration.
It has already been suggested that there needs to be some sort of function that warns people when a server is already in the middle of a game, but what has not been posted is the fact that, if a server is set to hold four people, more than four people can enter the server, and crash the game.
Also, why is it that sometimes, when I enter a server, I cannot see the host type? Sometimes I can, and sometimes I cannot. The same applies to the "check-in" functions. I have entered games where I cannot see who has checked-in, but can see the host type, and visa versa.

Syffer Bidan wrote:So far, only one person has a decent enough graphics card to run the shadows, reflections, and smoke trails that graced the videos with such great beauty. Without these features, the game looks rather bland, and, quite frankly, a bit ugly--if I might say.

You really need to die.

some sounds when playing at once are going over acceptable rate (in that moment it's better to not have headphones ) ...

also litte reguest for settings table, can you add numeric values for actual position of slider ...

rant!

I love deformation, I just wish we had tools or bots to "dig"
See, dig your own trench!



w00t!

Caydr wrote:

Syffer Bidan wrote:So far, only one person has a decent enough graphics card to run the shadows, reflections, and smoke trails that graced the videos with such great beauty. Without these features, the game looks rather bland, and, quite frankly, a bit ugly--if I might say.

You really need to die.

+1

el_muchacho wrote:

Caydr wrote:

Syffer Bidan wrote:So far, only one person has a decent enough graphics card to run the shadows, reflections, and smoke trails that graced the videos with such great beauty. Without these features, the game looks rather bland, and, quite frankly, a bit ugly--if I might say.

You really need to die.

+1

My own commment : sure there is still work to be done (and I'm sure there always will be), but let's face it, so far Spring is far and away the most ambitious and amazing open source game project ever made. Lots of people dreamt it, most of them probably believed such a thing would never come out. Yet SJ, Fnordia and the team did it. Kudos to them for this.

Buggi wrote:I love deformation, I just wish we had tools or bots to "dig"
See, dig your own trench!

Why, we do have a vehicle to "dig" moats, it's called a mine layer :D

You should try my patented mine moats, short ranged high damage mines in a nice line works best, resulting in a nice trench!

That reminds me I have try my bulldozer in spring. It'll most probably be an instant sea-maker.

Beh, not only the effect was very low, but spring ignored my custom damage list and the bulldozer blew itself.

half life 2 also had alot of money put into it, and probably a shit load more people coding it

I REALLY like what's accomplished so much, all the criticism isn't fair to the designers guys :)

However I do agree with alot that is said, the standard camera is akward to say the least, I LOVE the First Person mode, something I have always dreamed of, it's awesome flying my own personal hawk or my custom units, however, the missile rarely if ever track their target, a lock on function would be sweet, how about a little radar viewer if the aircraft has radar?

It felt like playing Wargasm having control of all those units in both an RTS style and FPS style mode, but much better, even if the control were awkward, how about a reverse driving function? even though it's not in the original game, it would be a very nice function.

Something I also like to see is a damage indicator, so I could see how much damage is dealt to a particular unit, kinda like a developer's help and just some info as well, since not all hits in TA are direct and it would also be interesting to see the extra damage done by experienced units.

All in All, this is a great addition to the RTS scene, period...

considdering this is version 0.4b, it's really good! I just hope everything will be more user friendly and that .gaf files will be read instead of awkward .bmp conversions :)

zwzsg wrote:Beh, not only the effect was very low, but spring ignored my custom damage list and the bulldozer blew itself.

Hahaha, I was just going to say...

I'm working on figuring out the armor values file... maybe i'll post a tutorial on that too if I ever find an easy way to move the OTA values to this file. Your bulldozer will work then.

GrOuNd_ZeRo wrote:I REALLY like what's accomplished so much, all the criticism isn't fair to the designers guys :)

However I do agree with alot that is said, the standard camera is akward to say the least, I LOVE the First Person mode, something I have always dreamed of, it's awesome flying my own personal hawk or my custom units, however, the missile rarely if ever track their target, a lock on function would be sweet, how about a little radar viewer if the aircraft has radar?

Definately needs a better lock on system for all tings with tracking missles, and AA too. Really hard to take them down right now.