Spring RTS Engine

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 02:32**

That is a neatO flamer effect.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 02:36**

Yeah, no more polygonal crap...

Damn it, there's lightning outside. I might have to shut down. Beta 2's virtually finished, I just have some testing left to do on my most recent changes.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 04:19**

Axel, I have implemented an UW popup cannon in AA E already. As for missile subs, I might take new [or old and now exposed] Leviathan missile concept mentioned in that one other thread...

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 05:50**

I've been told there's a new version of Spring coming in the very near future, so I'm going to post the second beta in a few minutes.

I've had to revert perimeter cameras to land-only for the time being.

...oh boy. I think I'm about to get banned.... here comes the slopes discussion again.

~~~

I'm completely at a loss as to what to do with slope tolerance. I'm currently leaning towards adopting the XTA standard for vehicle movement, with a maxslope of 16. This way, all TA based mods will have consistent movement abilities. Most maps I've looked at in the last hour won't be affected by this at all. It'll basically just mean that vehicles are slower to climb hills while faster on even terrain, and vice versa for kbots. It will also make it *dramatically* easier on map makers.

If I'm going to make a change, it has to be now, before SM3 maps start to come out with terrains AA can no longer be played on.

My original plan was to drop vehicle tolerance down to 20. This eliminated much of the problem I saw on the maps I was looking at, at the time. There were no longer hills clearly meant not to be climbed, benig climbed by vehicles. But now I look at Small Divide and Mars, and even with reduced tolerance, tanks can climb into the most ridiculous places you can imagine.

This has been a real eye-opener for me. I think it would be negligent and irresponsible of me to not reduce slope tolerance on vehicles, regardless of any initial criticism of the change.

I'm going to spend tomorrow morning fine-tuning things, THEN finally post this second beta I've been talking about for so long.

Overall, I'm very pleased with 2.2's gameplay. Naval balance seems to be much-improved, although I'm sure it's still rough around the edges, but we can clear that up in time. The only thing holding me back from calling it 2.2 final, not beta, is that I want people like Revenge to have an opportunity to update their stuff to work with the wide variety of changes. For instance, all movementclasses have been renamed more logically. Tanksh2 is now just tank2 (Tank 2x2). tankdh3 is just atank3 (Amphibious Tank 3x3). 3x3tank is now just htank3 (Heavy Tank 3x3)... and so on.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 07:08**

That's very interesting, looks like I have some MORE work to do, thanks

. But really, if you've pretty much finalized the new balancing, I will balance my new units accordingly. This will allow me to finally implement the new hovercraft build tree [I have most of the units I want, just not a satisfying balance yet], which is probably the most significant part of my work so far. As for overkill, no news from his side so I'll just assume hes too busy uh working to reply to my pm spam

.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 07:19**

Sounds good, it will be nice to try the new sea balance.
Looking forward to it

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 15:53**

Caydr: The small rockets on the Banisher which show up after reloading got broken geometry, at least one of them... just use the FPS cam and zoom in, you'll notice it. Not a big deal but I felt like telling you anyway...

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 17:27**

Oh Yeah, about the bulldog 100 range buff.....

Really a typo?

Think it's a wise idea to buff the already-evil bulldogs?

I hate those things with a passion...

.

and buffing their range will only give more headache when a bulldog arrives

.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 18:14**

Alot of times those Banisher Prop rockets never return after they fire the first time.

But you're right, its not a big deal and even if they're visible do you really notice them?

Wish Spring had screenshake like OTA though, I remember a couple mods that used that banisher tank and each time a rocket exploded everything would shake

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 19:08**

No typo on the bulldog range buff. L2 tanks are now more logically balanced.... when I update the unit guide you'll be able to see better. The best part is, amphibious tanks even factor into the way they're balanced. There's a lot of newfound variety to be had.

Edit: oh, never explained my reasoning on the bulldog buff. Remember that bulldogs no longer have the power to fling units across the map at will, and the same is true of goliaths. So now I compared the bulldog vs goliath stats and found that not only did goliath have a hefty damage advantage, its range was also about 150 units longer than the bulldog's!

I'm a little disappointed that Argh hasn't gotten back to me about the way his flamethrowers work. I've certainly improved the look of them tremendously by studying his pictures and trying to replicate the effect, but ideally I would've liked to get an idea of exactly what values he was using and then tweaking those to suit AA. I wonder if I've done something to upset him? Anyway, here's the 2.2b1->2.2b2 changelog. Download coming shortly, I'm posting it now. No password this time, but still let's try to keep this release reasonably small. I'd like to wait until .73 is posted before I make the wide-scale official 2.2 release. I've removed the "BETA" note from the version name, so there will be confusion if people get this file and then can't play with people who get the offical file when it's available.

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2.2b1 --> 2.2b2

 Fixed lingering Claw/Maw bugs
 Maverick weapon reverted, speed reduced to 1.65 (1.8)
 Fixed a missing texture bug
 EMP spider weapon given paralyzetime
 More slope tolerance and maxwaterdepth adjustments
 Sumo walking animation sped up slightly so it doesn't look like it's
  skating or something
 Commando walking script fixed (thanks to Archangel)
 Commando minimum cloaking distance increased
 Aircraft plants' yardmap adjusted, units should no longer get stuck
  in them (thanks to TradeMark)
 Janus, Leveler weapon impulsefactor increased
 Jeffy, Weasel, Flea energy cost reduced
 Carrier handling improved
 Vanguard weapon velocity increased by 40
 Morty weapon groundflash size increased
 Floating radar can no longer be built on land, given range ring
 Many mine stats adjusted, models shrunk on the Y axis to make them
  look less silly
 Minelayers can no longer do anything but build, given short-range
  jamming, speed/handling improved, build distance reduced
 Minesweeping bug fixed (how long has it been like that?!)
 Air LoS boost eliminated
 Radar tower LoS reduced a little
 Increased nanotower workertime to 200 (150), removed "move" button
 Mobile Annihilator aiming cone increased to 180 degrees (135)
 Sniper is now manual-fire only
 Removed a TON of useless FBI/TDF tags
 Dot Of Shrouded Mystery removed from beneath Dragonfly
 Hold Fire bug fixed
 Bombers (Liche included) now only attack the target assigned
 Hurricane buildpic redone
 Transport hovers leave wake again
 Subs should no longer go underground
 Zeus fold/unfold animation speed increased
 Underwater nuclear mines removed
 Flamethrower graphics improved with new FX system (thanks to Argh)
 Pyro now has a proper pilot light, not that polygonal stuff ^^
  (thanks to JCnossen)
 Units can no longer damage themselves with their own weapons
 Laser corethickness adjusted for more color
 Viper FPS exploitability reduced
 Naval balance finalized
 Perimeter cameras are no longer amphibious (to remove an exploit)
 Commander in (A) has proper resource stats
 New buildpic for core floating mine
 Movementclasses completely overhauled

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 19:17**

Argh's got other troubles atm and is busy, he stated that in some other thread.
PS: The exhaust flame could work as a flamer too, you only need to remove the smoke2 (or make it smaller, what ever) and increase the heatcloud count. It's not particle count friendly though (at least I don't think so)

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 19:18**

Units can no longer damage themselves with their own weapons

aww i loved going right next to something like a gollie with some weak cheap units :*[

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 19:36**

If Min3mat only has one sarcastic complaint, you know it's a good set of changes.

Couple questions:

Caydr wrote: Sniper is now manual-fire only

Does this mean like the D-Gun, or that it only fires at things when given an attack order?

Caydr wrote: Bombers (Liche included) now only attack the target assigned

If they don't have an assigned target, will they still blow up everything they can find?

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 19:43**

Bombers, Liche, and Sniper are will now only attack the targets they are given, and then stop attacking, even if they're being attacked.

Doesn't necessarily sound like a great change until you think about it. How many times has your sniper wasted a shot on something because you forget to set him to hold fire? How many times has a Liche attacked the first thing it sees, wasting the bomb that was meant for a nuke factory or something? How many times have bombers refused to obey orders, even move orders, because they want to attack something instead? All that is resolved now.

2.2 Beta 2: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ta-a ... p?download

Again, NOT a final release but we're on a tight schedule now so bug reporting better come fast!

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 20:36**

Just wondering, as this means that you can't use the left-overs of a swarm of bombers for a general "terror campaign".

Still, I suppose being guaranteed to blow up the target they're given is better.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 21:01**

Caydr wrote:
Doesn't necessarily sound like a great change until you think about it. How many times has your sniper wasted a shot on something because you forget to set him to hold fire? How many times has a Liche attacked the first thing it sees, wasting the bomb that was meant for a nuke factory or something? How many times have bombers refused to obey orders, even move orders, because they want to attack something instead? All that is resolved now.

Well, untill the devs fix the buggy aircode it's the best solution i guess...

But leaving bombers alone after the important targets are done is VERY Effective FYI. They'll target one thing each and then bomb it to oblivion! :D

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 21:27**

Kixxe wrote: Well, untill the devs fix the buggy aircode it's the best solution i guess...

But leaving bombers alone after the important targets are done is VERY Effective FYI. They'll target one thing each and then bomb it to oblivion! :D

I also hope this is temporary.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 21:46**

Units can no longer damage themselves with their own weapons

why?

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 21:50**

Probably because airlifts now fly really low and people were exploiting them to make defenses shoot themself.

Posted: **28 Sep 2006, 21:52**

Because units could be tricked into destroying themselves... for instance, llts and such... was stupid. For some reason it doesn't even work with all weapons.

Things I've changed already:

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2.2b2 --> 2.2 - "Buy a Wii or I'll Set You on Fire" Edition

 Removed quasi-baseplate from Core Solar
 Arm moho mex is no longer cloaked by default
 Radar LoS ranges fixed
 Implemented gradual reclaim and multi-reclaim

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation 2.11