Expand and Exterminate version 0.42

[Neddie]

Yes, but the scale here, as in 1944, will probably not change. In 1944 it is a matter of preserving some sort of relative scale given our present map sizes... we could just force your camera farther in, though... it gels with our commitment to realism balanced with gameplay... we're just not going to have larger men unless we have a much better map format.

[luckywaldo7]

Actually i think the scale should be reasonable to see he units themselves, icons should be reserved for the radar map. We don't have a 3D engine here only to be forced to play with icons in order to keep overview. Same reason i quit playing Spring 1944 for.

Somebody hold me back

[Gota]

???
I'd probably play s44 10x times more if it was normally scaled myself.

[Neddie]

It IS normally scaled. What do you want us to do, cut the number of units on a map by a factor of five and increase the size of every unit by the same factor?

[R-TEAM]

Hi,

Actually i think the scale should be reasonable to see he units themselves, icons should be reserved for the radar map. We don't have a 3D engine here only to be forced to play with icons in order to keep overview. Same reason i quit playing Spring 1944 for.

-OMG-

We DONT have a 3D engine here, only the noobs can say he play a 3D game,but all units have nearly the same size to avoid in/out zooming,
so a 2D game would be the same ....

IF you have many units and IF the map big this could be happen ...
(sarcastic is not my best thing in english ... )

Please leave the NO-Zooming-Fans on TA mods and give use mods for real strategic players that not only need to build mass units and push on the front all it have.
If you play a strategic game NOT as a action game you have the Time to zoom out/in ...

Regards
R-TEAM

[knorke]

Please leave the NO-Zooming-Fans on TA mods and give use mods for real strategic players that not only need to build mass units and push on the front all it have.
If you play a strategic game NOT as a action game you have the Time to zoom out/in ...

uhm sorry, what kind of arguement is that?
If the game is so slow-paced you could probally also do without waypoints, buildques and all the other stuff that make the spring engine so awesome.

In EE (as in most other somewhat complex rts) there is always something to do: reclaim, build sensorthings with the scouts or just focus artillery fire.
Identifying units is THE important thing in rts, its fundamentaly important to gameplay.
How can you use a tank best if you do not know what kind of tank it is?
Atm the graphics stop me from doing so.
I dont need a micro-buttonmashing game like starcraft at pro-level but I don't just want to a-click a blob of mixed units either.

Imo a increase of unitsize and decrease in ranges is unavoidable.
Of course not to C&C ranges: Tanks sitting 5 meters from each other and shooting each other are laughable. But really large ranges only works in tactic games like groundcontroll (1) or SuddenStrike with fewer units.

Also I do not think reduced ranges would appear too short to players, if something shoots out of the screen it already seems impressingly far.
I would even say that with reduced weaponranges maps would feel "more epic" because armies have to drive larger distances to get in range of each other.
For example, if there is a path up a hill and a tanks range covers the whole ramp, the path appears small. But if the tanks range is shorter, you need maybe 2 tanks to cover the area or the enemy will get past. That makes for "epic" feeling imo. Large range weapons that just shot across rivers, chokepoints, canyons, etc. make the map less detailed, gameplay-wise.

Realistic unitsizes might seem impressive the first time you see the game, but a ship would have to be 28 times the size of a tank. (Bismarck: 250m, Tiger 1: 9m)
That just does not work ingame imo.

[Neddie]

This is why the Bismarck doesn't appear in 1944.

[AF]

Just use the following basic mechanism:

give each size of mobile unit a shape.

give each weapon type a colour

Make the icon the shape, and give it a pulsating border of the weapon colour.

You can tell from size and shape what class of unit it is, and you can tell from the colour what type. You could even use shape to differentiate the faction too.

[Google_Frog]

Pulsating unit icons would be much too busy, player's teamcolour would get confused for unit role (and vice-versa) and you would need about 10 colours that can all be easily distinguished from each other.

[Neddie]

You described what I already planned AF, unless you meant simple shapes, in which case you described what everybody else seems to be arguing for.

[BaNa]

the few games i played with EE seemed enjoyable and fun, and to be honest i didnt have trouble with the scale (then again i dont recall what the version number was). If there was a working version and a game with a few players up I'd play it.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

OK, by the looks of it optimal icon distance is about 75. I know s44 and a few other mods have widgets that autoset the icon distance ingame (to about 300 iirc). one of those would be very helpful here

my proposal for a replacement of the large ? icon previously used for unknown rader contacts.

iconz.jpg

(161.45 KiB) Downloaded 30 times

Its small (at the distance icons render, its about 1.5x the size of the unit where the question mark was about 3x the size of the unit) and legible at a distance, while looking more like the kind of thing you'd see on a radar.

[BaNa]

I was hosting this for about an hour last night

nobody joined

does it work with current spring? is dere some link?

[AF]

Too busy? Next you'll be saying we shouldnt use 3D models with textures on them....

A shape with a coloured border... perhaps a fine white line inbetween the colour and the shape so that green border on green player isnt weird

[1v0ry_k1ng]

no AF, remember that an icon is going to be *tiny* on your screen, and there will be loads of them onscreen at once, often overlapping. bold, simple shapes and symbols work best.

[AF]

The blips already have borders, changing the colour of he borders wouldnt be much of a complication, and the overlapping arguement can eb pushed against anything that isnt a simple circle.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Attatched is my icon scheme so far

shown here are (clockwise) Some AA units, some cannon units and a number of unknown radar contacts (the '!' icon needs a darker outline, I know)

megalulz.jpg

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[Neddie]

I find those icons harder to parse then the actual models. They're small, use arbitrary non-representative shapes and include both text and symbols internally. The symbols themselves are not intuitive, either.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Agreed, redone cannon icon
all other icons now higher res

unknown contact icon improved

screen037.png

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as to letters on AA icons, yo dawg I heard you like s44, the mod where the AA guns have "AA" written on the icon

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Rocket icon needs thickening up in line with new cannon icon, and cannon icon needs to have the end shortened so it dosnt look like a missle, but this is otherwise looking how I intended