Spring RTS Engine

Slope Tolerance
Alright, let the slope tolerance discussion sit for a while. We are at the point where not a lot of major contributors either way are coherent enough to argue their opinions and the facts of game play.

Forboding, I agree with your premise, but don't let the debate weaken the gameplay focus of the point.
Cabbage, the slope change is a relevant need - as maps diverge in slope and form we must either balance mods to support that or maps to support the mods. Are vehicles viable as is on most maps? Yes - with air transports. Should that be the only case? Not really.

That said, the other changes for vehicles could work in lieu of the slope tolerance alteration - to some degree. I don't like running cost against mobility as a balancing agent, but there we go. Drexion did put it very well. Wolf-In-Exile's statement on slopes swings it the other way, though.

Shields/Repulsors
Repulsors were more interesting, more powerful, and a lot prettier. The gameplay becomes before the rest, and I for one think that repulsors for the old cost were a little too powerful. The current shields are great for what they do, but somewhat poorly used.

I for one would like to see both in the mod.

Mavericks
Proposed changes look good to me.

And anyway, modifying slope tolerance now would just mess up the maps that were designed for the current settings.

I had a minute left so I thought I'd try it one more time:

Because of the number of things being discussed about this mod, I think it would be smart to move this thread to a other forum, so every problem/suggestion/whatever can have it's own thread! It would make stuff so much more organised IMO

In fact Absolute Annihilation already HAS its OWN forums waiting to be used: http://aa.planetannihilation.gamespy.com/forum.htm

And Caydr, if you are gonna drop gamesply or something, I'm sure it can be hosted somewhere else.

This is not because we don't want it here, but it would just be more organised so you will have a easier time, developing your mod.

Perhaps you can still have a thread here for Promoting/showing off your mod

The fact that the AA forum dosen't force you to confirm via email leaves you out of excuses! :O

the threads in the aa forum make me sad

neddiedrow wrote:Are vehicles viable as is on most maps? Yes - with air transports.

Now this is just a plain and simply wrong. Vehicles are very viable on most good maps without air transports. Those where they aren't viable are excessively mountainous, and expecting vehicles to work well there is like expecting ships to work well on a map with no water.

Regarding slope tolerance:
The problem seems to me to be between mods and different maps rather than the balance between units slope tolerances within this mod. I would suggest increasing the slope tolerances of all units on this mod by a factor of approx
1.1 or 1.2. (this is just a rough figure we can argue about that later)

In this way kbots would maintain their rightful advantage on steep slopes.
This would help to lean most maps designed for AA away from being excessively flat, and perhaps help to make it more consistent with the range of slope tolerances on other mods. (i'm not sure how much other mods differ by in this respect but the impression i've got is that they have a greater range than AA - correct me here if i'm wrong)

Hovers could be given a slope tolerance sufficient for beaches while still less than kbots because of the overall increase in range of slope tolerances.

I realize that is alot of changes to make and that the exact figures need to be worked out but i think the idea could help.

Ideally i'd like to see modders collaborate to find some kind of rough universal min max slope tolerance per unit type list so that mappers have an easier time of it. But with the number of mods and maps on the go now thats probably quite impossible because of the number of changes that would need to be made in maps and mods.

On Fusions:
After looking at the stats Trademark listed fusions will become pretty much useless - surely the whole point of them was to accelerate energy production further than you could with building normal or adv solars?
I do like the idea of Adv fusions being even more cost effective though. About 25% inc in cost and 50% inc in energy output sounds about right to me.

Drone_Fragger wrote:Caydr, Can you fix the uglyness on the shellshocker cannon? It looks like it has like 7 or 8 fire ports...

Hot damn. That's one ugly gun. Definitely not up to the par...

Argghh! Who modelled this thing! It's horrendous! There's like 20 faces on the tip of that barrel!!!

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Fixed.

Machiosabre wrote:the threads in the aa forum make me sad

Wow, I'd been told that it'd stopped working about 2 months ago... I guess it was just a gayspy bug.

You mean you didn't bother checking it again?

the best would be if admins here could create subforum for AA. After all its most popular mod and all players are allready registred on this forum.

Its 1 min work for forum admin tbh.

ty

ginekolog wrote:the best would be if admins here could create subforum for AA. After all its most popular mod and all players are allready registred on this forum.

Its 1 min work for forum admin tbh.

ty

Then EE, and XTA, and like the 10 other mods come demanding? Why stop at 3, or 15, or ect...


besides, it's 1 min work for us to register. No. Email. Confirmation.

Kixxe wrote:

ginekolog wrote:the best would be if admins here could create subforum for AA. After all its most popular mod and all players are allready registred on this forum.

Its 1 min work for forum admin tbh.

ty

Then EE, and XTA, and like the 10 other mods come demanding? Why stop at 3, or 15, or ect...


besides, it's 1 min work for us to register. No. Email. Confirmation.

Exactly!

It would make the discussion about diffrent topics much more organised. a lot of decent ppl just give up AA-discussion because this thread isn't a good location tbh. Now lots of ppl PM caydr or MSN with caydr or talk on the lobby with caydr, which kinda makes the discussion less public which could lead to misjugdements (I assume caydr is human).

yep, make subforums for AA and XTA . Other mods need to be played much more to gain it, we could say more than 100 games per day?

And why on earth do 500 players have to spen each 1 min (500min) when someone could spend just 1 and solve it all?

Or do i have to register in 10 diffirent forums just because i play 10 mods? nonsense.

I would undersand it if this web server is falling under preasure though.

as maker of another mod (you know one of the mods no one plays cause they play AA) Im all for a AA subforum or something.. wouldnt bother me I already have my own subforum in another place..

another advantage could be that only the serious ppl move along, and some ppl might drop..

KlavoHunter wrote:WHY ARE YOU BOOSTING THE COST OF FUSIONS???

Also, these "Clowns" harrassing you about "OMG MAKE SHIELDS REPULSE AGAIN" are idiots. A handful of those GUARANTEED absolute safety from an enemy Bertha, or an entire battery of them. It was the ultimate porc tool, and frankly, even more porc is NOT what AA needs.

If that's how the majority feels, shield change reverted.

I cannot in good conscience change AA's standards for slope tolerance on its units. I did this in the past and severely broke compatibility with a large number of maps, and I'm not sure but I think you may have even been one of the people who complained, Forboding. Slope tolerance cannot and will not be changed for this reason unless you can get a positive in the poll I'm about to create.

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Here it is: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... p?p=117628 Voice your opinion. Poll will remain open for 14 days, after which it will be decided and the next version of AA will be released.

Caydr wrote:If that's how the majority feels, shield change reverted.

I'd be in favour of dropping shields entirely, FWIW.

Couple of things:
Jethros like to wander into the line of fire attempting to attack ground units

Skuttles can't be transported by anything. Why is this?


I would prefer that AA got a subforum, rather than having to go check an additional forum.

Egarwaen wrote:

Caydr wrote:If that's how the majority feels, shield change reverted.

I'd be in favour of dropping shields entirely, FWIW.

Agreed. If shields are going to be in game, they need to be something other than "antinuke for berthas". I believe I mentioned this earlier, but my ideal shields would be effectively just a big recharging wall - nothing (not just plasma) shoots in or out. So then you couldn't use it to protect your defences, LRPCs, etc. - only for protecting resources.

Only catch is you'd need the AI to be smarter about them then - you wouldn't want units inside the shield to try and shoot out.

edit: thinking it over, I guess I really just want superhigh Bertha Shelter walls back.