Spring RTS Engine

Caydr wrote:I'm going to make a variety of structures in 2.2 no longer flatten the ground beneath them. Here's the list I have so far:

Dragon's teeth/eyes, mines, extractors, geothermals, fort walls no
longer flatten the ground beneath themselves when built

The idea is to reduce the exploit of building DT on a hill to make it flat, then an LLT or whatever on the flattened ground. Also make it more difficult to detect where things like dragon eyes, or common targets like metal extractors have been placed.

Would anyone like to suggest other structures to have this change?

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JOO KILL SCULPTING :[ :[ :[ :[.

It's a fun thing, Keep it :<.

Terrain deformation is one of the great, unique things of spring! It allows you to intuitively know the power of weapons. Apart from the craters, you can feel the power of annihilators and the dgun by the trenches they dig in the ground, for example. Don't practically remove this feature

+1

Hehe, I considered adding a modified Beamer laser to AA E. It can make moats like mad .

Is there a way to reduce impulse without having to reduce the ground deformation, or are is impulse and ground deformation the same thing according to the code?

You can define them seperately.

Foxomaniac wrote:

Caydr wrote:

Das Bruce wrote: They're all pretty ugly too.

I hear Core is looking for a fashion designer ever since the commander's skirt was voted off the island. You seem to be just the type, bruce, why not apply?

Oh snap, and I'm the one who's always been telling people "THE CORE COMM IS WEARING A KILT/SKIRT".

=P.

I did redo the commander, but nobody used it.

Oh. That... Right. Ehh....

It does seem a shame to be reducing the amount of cratering so much. I've played some pretty intense games wher the grounds been shot to hell and it's never caused a slowdown on my machine.
Ok so I'm running an AMD 3200 but another year and that'll be practicaly legacy equipment.

Oops, you blinked: it's legacy equipment now

It's not so much for the sake of performance, as for the sake of gameplay. IMO an uncrossable trench (easily done with 2.11 heavy mines and many other things) shouldn't be possible without massive investment (nuke, sustained bertha fire, etc)

on most maps its not that easy though... I dont think cratering is a problem as it is now really.

I maintain that deformation adds to gameplay. It forces the use of indirect and direct fire units, rather than the reliance upon any single form. The very mutability of the landscape becomes something to change or exploit to advantage.

neddiedrow wrote:I maintain that deformation adds to gameplay. It forces the use of indirect and direct fire units, rather than the reliance upon any single form. The very mutability of the landscape becomes something to change or exploit to advantage.

That sounds nice in the forum but rarely, if ever works out like that in actual gameplay. Ground deformation is just a gimmick that doesn't add constructively to gameplay.

they create unit specialised just for terrain "flatting" ...

capable build some 1x1 2x2 and 4x4 concrete plate

thus from "exploit/bug" became handy and fair feature

I just watched a game (2.11) where wolverines (core L1 arty) were in -15 elevation water and were shooting, but they were unable to be targeted by arm l1 gunships.

lol

jackalope wrote:

neddiedrow wrote:I maintain that deformation adds to gameplay. It forces the use of indirect and direct fire units, rather than the reliance upon any single form. The very mutability of the landscape becomes something to change or exploit to advantage.

That sounds nice in the forum but rarely, if ever works out like that in actual gameplay. Ground deformation is just a gimmick that doesn't add constructively to gameplay.

I disagree, as I must based on my experience.

One crater can force a player to supplement his direct fire (Let's say... L1 missile trucks or Rockos... both used extensively by skilled players to break a foe at direct range) with indirect fire, giving artillery a significant role in the gameplay. Or numerous craters can butcher that one geo spot, delaying use. What about breaking a chokepoint by breaking the land that forms its basis?

It promotes constant reevaluation of the battlefield as well as those fighting on it, something not seen in any other game.

Dwarden wrote:they create unit specialised just for terrain "flatting" ...

capable build some 1x1 2x2 and 4x4 concrete plate

thus from "exploit/bug" became handy and fair feature

I'm going to test out a unit with a null 3do model that has footprints of various different sizes. All they'll do is deform the ground and put down a decal texture. If any of you guys think something like this specialized to terraforming the ground would be nice in gameplay, tell me about it. I could balance it out with massive build times and energy costs I suppose...or even make a specialized unit that can only do this type of terraforming.

EDIT: Wait a minute, terraforming isn't affected by buildtime...is it?

Caydr seems hellbent on making AA only playable on ota typish maps, which is all fine and good, until you consider that factories for example in AA have a pretty low maxslope (10 last time I checked?), making some/many maps unplayable (assuming all structures are made non deforming).

DT deforming terrain isn't exactly a bad thing...

Consider the amount of time it takes to deform the terrain on a hill with dt's then reclaim and then put up a guardian, not to mention the micro involved. Also, don't forget, all you have to do is pound the area with some sort of big weapon and restore the ground using cons.

Ya know, you could solve it a different way by simply giving dt's a crappy maxslope (10 for example). They may be dead once they are built, but before they are built and while they are built they are units, so maxslope does effect them too.

Now a concrete plate unit isn't a bad idea at all. Simply have it drop a grounddecal, and die upon birth leaving no corpse, viola, problem solved while making everyone happy.

Caydr doesn't want "terraforming". Applying those plates to a slope would create much harsher ceases on its borders which could be uncrossable for most units. That means you have to send in con units to restore the ground. Now send those con units to a trench that's covered by enemy gguardians and other fun stuff.