Spring RTS Engine

No need to be sad, just tell you I can read. Here.. /me pats steve on head.

I believe we're talking on the same page now, smoth.

why get so worked up in this thread bout graphics


why not make gameplay more strategic ...

Cause the mod is about tactics, not strategies. Duh!

But what about the I MAEK GATER :,(

Ishach wrote:why get so worked up in this thread bout graphics


why not make gameplay more strategic ...

This sort of thing is what I am talking about. Ishach, I am tired of explaining it. Look, it IS always about game play but graphics are important as well. I get worked up because I am tired of people thinking that I am only on about graphics.

smoth, yhbt.

yhbt?

smoth wrote:yhbt?

You Have Been Trolled. There's no way that Ishach was serious in that last comment.

then why say it. what is his point? I am trying to get to the issue here. I want it to be over, I am tired of it.

I can see where the complaint comes from - it's wrong, Gundam has very specifically designed gameplay, but I can see where it comes from.

Coming from TA, the Gundam experience is:
1) it looks way better, and
2) it makes no freakin' sense at all.

I've played a couple of games, and Gundam defies all reasonable expectations. It's got an L1 and L2.... but the initial (L1-looking) factory gets replaced in the first five seconds by all the players I've watched.... Then there's the high-power maker-economy, that I ram out, and yet teammates who're fighting better out-econ me (reading over the docs, it may be caused by my non-use of the L2 energy building).

It's not bad, but it's very confusing. Even reading the guide, I still don't understand what I'm supposed to be doing (granted, I've only played 3 games of it). Do I build the regular airport, or the big one?

Even if I could grok all the units (which often have only subtle differences), I'd still struggle with putting it all together in my head. Gundam is as intricate as TA (if not more), but without over a decade of experience to make it familiar.

Gundam, more than any other mod, needs a nice single-player campaign to introduce you to everything gradually.

This foreignness, combined with the prettier graphics, leads players to quickly discard Gundam as "ooh, shiny... but crappy" rather than trying to understand it.

I've looked over the docs, watched replays and spectated while asking questions, checked up some stats, played a few games against humans and a few against AI, but I still don't get it. In 1.1 expanding and nicking metal extractors is way more efficient than metal maker economy which doesn't make any sense, although there's a limit being put on mexes next version to stop this. Pretty much everything dies in a couple of shots from anything it's own tier. There are some seemingly totally arbitrary things and inconsistencies, like the T2 constructor being called a guntank but doesn't seem to shoot.

It all looks very nice and I'm sure it's fun but I don't know how to play.

These are interesting points. For example: tomboms mention, the construction guntank. As I designer I thought the construction part being first would help the odd canonical name. Another thing, like the odd economy design is actually explained in 1 paragraph labeled economy in the gundam release.

Another interesting thing is the level 1 units have one of the highest damage over time ratings. That is pretty funny because it is countered by ranges, move speed and accuracy. The level1 units serve well as swarms if that answers your question pxtl.

Another problem is a lot of players coming from the spring TA:S mods are under the impression that con spamming a factory is how this game is to be played. In gundam and a few other mods con units give no energy bonus to their existence. So it is better to just build a factory(because it builds faster anyway). So what you have is low production numbers. Where if you just build 2-3 lvl1 factories you will find quickly that you can support them just fine :).

here is another tidbit of interesting things. Anything using the trajectory height tag(which gives a medium arc). They NEVER miss, always hitting with at the worst a slight offset. Unlike high trajectory which does have a drift but frankly looks silly.




so let's imagine that there were single player missions but a player wants to join a pickup game? What are question they would ask? what are things they need to know? What if they have not even played BA?

How can the mod makers help you guys better?

That is what I want to get out of this thread. It isn't about just gundam, I just use gundam because I know that example the most.

For example I was in the lobby last night and mecha sonic said he wouldn't play XTA or EE because XTA was "slow" and EE was "too shiny." Players can have their opinion and frankly crappage could just turn unit reflection off *sighs* but anyway. What else are cheif player thoughts that also lead to the sort of conclusions?

I know pxtl got it pretty down with:

paraphrase ptxl wrote:foreignness, combined with the prettier graphics, leads players to quickly discard "X mod" as "ooh, shiny... but crappy" rather than trying to understand it.

Last time I played it (a month or so ago...) it wasn't very confusing, I was like.. "Spam is possible... This unit has longer range than theirs, rape time!"

Needless to say, it didn't take me a long time to catch on...

Snipawolf wrote:Last time I played it (a month or so ago...) it wasn't very confusing, I was like.. "Spam is possible... This unit has longer range than theirs, rape time!"

Needless to say, it didn't take me a long time to catch on...

Oh, the basics are simple... but I feel like a lot of it is guesswork. Spring isn't as good as, say, StarCraft for showing you onscreen unit-stats, so as a player I never know how units measure up to each other. I just ended up spamming out the L1 combat unit backed up with random longer ranged units and the recon-truck, not really knowing what I'm doing... once the higher-level stuff became available I was completely lost as to what to build and how to use it. The wiki is helpful if you study it before playing, but unless I print it and mount it on my wall I'm not going to remember how each unit measures up to each other one.

Really, the only non-OTA mods that don't seem to suffer from this completely-lost feeling for me are EE (since it's a permutation a very short, simple list of units and weapons) and Kernel Panic (by virtue of having like five units).

I just wish Spring supported a bigger tooltip - something like a full stat-dropdown, something like this:



I mean, mods where units are more heavily specialized don't suffer from this as badly... in KP you only have to worry how many Bits it takes to bring down a Byte. But one of Gundam's main design goals was having a wide spectrum of similar-but-distinct units allowing for your own personal style to affect how you build squads... which is cool, but if you don't really know how your selections measure up, it's hard to figure what to do.

Obviously, all these problems exist in TA-based mods, but to a lesser extent since, as an experienced TA player, you have a better idea of how each unit handles, what they're for. Presumably if we'd all played Gundam first, we'd be saying the same thing about AA.

get back in my slave shield earthling. Before you go, what was the coordinate for the yehat planet... I have slaves..er thralls to collect.

Did the squad suggestions in the wiki help? or is it more of a tactical diagram that is needed?

smoth wrote:get back in my slave shield earthling. Before you go, what was the coordinate for the yehat planet... I have slaves..er thralls to collect.

Did the squad suggestions in the wiki help? or is it more of a tactical diagram that is needed?

Heheh, if I ever get off my lazy duff I've a plan for an SC mod (of course, I work long hours and I'm about to be a dad, so it's not like I'm expecting to have lots of time in the near future).

The squads are helpful, but squad info is mainly used after you have a good idea what each unit _is_. I know I should mix this team of units gotether, but I am only dimly aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this squad I just built. For example, ALEX is a fierce warrior... but how fierce? How many Zakus can it heroicly demolish before needing to retreat for repairs? I think it's just more a desire to have detailed information on each unit, personally. Others may have different ideas. TA has always had this weakness - I was always more of a StarCraft man myself, and SC always had much more rigid, numerical rules and readouts than TA's ambiguous "spam stuff out" approach.

Really, it's mostly just laziness - the info I need could be found crawling through the ModWeb. I just wish a compact summary-and-tips version of the ModWeb info was available in-game.

For example, the wiki describes several units being good against mechs, or defenses, or aircraft. How is that enforced? Unit-specific damages? Or is that just a guideline based on the accuracy of their weapons?

Spring mods all involve a large amount of trial-and-error "feeling out" of the units to find out what units are good for what purposes. The more combat unit options you have, the harder it is to do that feeling-out. Gundam and TA are similar in that the feeling-out process is lengthy because they have a tremendous list of combat units.

Of course, I'm nto really one to talk, since i haven't even tried '44 or WD.

<3 <3 <3 Star Control 2. Easily top 3 for my favorite all time games.

Ontopic:
I agree Pxtl; it would be great if we could have better tooltips.

On my to-do list for 1944 is to add something like this to every unit's description: Where each of those represents Anti-Personelle, Anti-Tank, Anti-Building, and Anti-Air effectiveness on a 0-100 scale. That listing would fit a rifleman, for example. Just so new guys can tell at a glance what each unit is generally good for.

pxtl what does good against what is part form and function.

for example:

goufb:
it does good damageover time, nice hitpoints, good range, rate of and speedy aiming while still. These characteristics make it GREAT for handling swarms of light units. One of these was able to hold off loooong lines of tanks and gms from knorke.

However, it has a hard time aiming while moving and it also does small damage per shot so it is not a big aoe guy. This makes it bad for hit and run it is also bad against stronger mechs.

It ultimately is a level 1 mech with a good pilot and weapon. Good pilot represent by higher reaction speed, movement speed and higher damage. Movement and aiming represent his ability to better use his suit. The higher damage reflecting a better since of where to hit a target.

Alex(NT-1):
This unit is good at pushing through large clumps of medium mechs. It has a shot that is devastating the level 1 swarms and can destroy aircraft in 1 shot. It has high reaction time and armor. It's problems exist only in it's ability to be overestimated. In game sense The armor only serves to warn the player that they are about to lose it. It can do decent against a building but better against units.

It is piloted by a novice pilot but is an amazing suit, it's penalty is that is limited on it's front arc and frankly if you lose it's armor that thing is on the way out.


I could use a few others but it really falls down to a few things:

weapon/pilot
Rate of fire
accuracy
Direct/indirect
fire arc
area of effect

unit
reaction time(aiming)
move speed
terrain difficulty
sensor range(radar)
Optics/heat etc(sight range)
How difficult the production of the unit is(techlevel/cost)
readying a weapon(xamel for example)

Like kdr was asking about the rx79 zook and beam(since they are the same mech with very similar weapons):

smoth wrote:zook versus beam rifle:

Description=Ground artillery mech;

BuildCostEnergy=2200;
BuildCostMetal=1100;
MaxDamage=4000;

zook range:600
Zook damage:600
Reload: 2.2

Description=Medium Longrange mech;

BuildCostEnergy=2800;
BuildCostMetal=1400;
MaxDamage=4000;

beamrifle range:750
beamrifle damage:600
beamrifle: 2
accuracy:800

So in short, the beamrifle is less accurate, faster reload with a longer range. I use the zook guns for assault because the range is not as necessary but I like the accuracy, it is really more a preference thing. Beamrifles also can shoot air. Which is a big difference.

so for example... take the bazooka gun and beamrifles together... you assault.. the beam rifles get distracted with aircraft. Hence why I like the zook for assault but the beamrifle's antiair ability IS nice. It depends on the situation really.

*edits* as a note about zeon and feddy...

Feddy late game economy uses energy... zeon uses metal... that is one thing that makes zeon harder.. the zeon units also require more micro. A kampfer and 3 doms is harder to use then a rx78 and 3 sniperIIs.

what is "balance"?

we should start looking at the "fun factor" of mods now... which is the one thing thats responsible for a mod's mass popularity

imo balance is limited to eliminating exploits and stale gameplay (eg. ridiculous spaem/use of OP (for cost) units and nonexistance of UP units in your average game)



(much respect though for instituting balance from scratch)



im pretty sure mainstream developers go into it thinking about making a fun game above making a perfectly balanced contest tuned for tournament level gameplay o.O

TA.... i found it loads of awesomeness because of the sheer unit variety and unit uniqueness not because i could pore endlessly over cost-effectiveness/performance ratios between samsons and slashers



i can see how graphics play a large part in the fun-ness of a mod, a butt-ugly mod would probably not keep my attention for long, but i think AA/BA is far from butt-ugly :D, whereas i can not say the same thing for gundam and EE -_- *hides*, possibly due to unit design alone

if youre gonna put aesthetics forward as part of why ppl should play your mod, you should accept the fact that ppl have widely varying tastes (and no, its not just about the colour of the explosions O.\\\ )

i really like nanoblobs, both for its aesthetics and its wildly divergent gameplay that forces you to "think differently"

imo, fun!