Wee Spring

[Warlord Zsinj]

How difficult would it be to shrink all the (OTA) units in Spring down?

Frankly I don't like the current scale in Spring. I know it makes logical sense (based off the common guess at unit heights), but I want tall mountains, huge trees with units that go underneath, and massive oceans, with massive battles with hundreds of units surging around these landscapes.

Now, Spring can't quite do all that at the moment, though people are trying. But there is a much easier solution: Just shrink everything down!

Yes, I am serious about this. I don't say it should be done as a default for Spring; because I know some people won't like it (perhaps most), but I would like to see my battles on a far grander scale, which some people believe lies in epic maps, which I feel is the wrong solution.

Right now I am proposing to reduce units somewhere between half and three quarters in size, although that would have to be rejudged depending on how well it plays.

To sell it to you more:
If I Shrink units down, those hills aren't hills anymore, they are mountains. Any mountains become enormous ranges which units must toil up and around. The small seas are now gigantic oceans. Territory becomes innumerably more important, and the general scale of encounters increases, even on smaller maps.
Not only that, but effects and details become more impressive. A nuke sized explosion is effectively three times bigger (no intended zoolander reference ); unit detail and texture become less of an issue; Trees are no longer irritating obstacles, they dwarf units, and a forest can actually hide units from enemy view, or have cloak and dagger operations happening beneath their canopy. Any map currently out immediately becomes three times bigger, in terms of gameplay, while the metal positioning remains similarly spaced. Consider the implications of that on gameplay for a moment.

I also feel that all the above advantages would shine through, and that any disadvantages, such as the fact that the units are now much smaller would be done away with by the fact that you can zoom in the camera. Just preempting some criticism there. I think given that the battle would take place on a far grander scale, even far zoomed out you would be able to control the sway of the battle, just on the large scale, rather than closer zooms, where you can take control of tactical engagements.

It's not for everyone, and I'm not saying it is, so don't come at me with "I hate that". I think its a good idea, and I'd like to find out the feasibility of whether it could be done or not, and how many people agree with me that it would be a nice idea.

[Zoombie]

That actualy dose sound like a spif idea. Maby it sould be a slider bar when the game opens in the lobby (Unit scale type thing) and then the host gets to set the epicness of the map. Another way to make it epic is make a single unit TEN units that move together like total war THEN shrinkm. That will also decrees the need for mass producition (witch is a pain to execute... for me at least) and waiting around for your single factory to produce the units you want. Also you can vary the size, depeding on tech level. Aritllery lvl 2 might come in size's of three, becuase of their inherint expence and insane usefull ness. THat way you could have several battierys of say... ten "units" of three aritllery supporting Five tank divisions that are backed up by several light infanty divisions. Maby you sould also be able to make a division by queing up... lets say 10 Pewees, 5 Hammer and 5 Jethro's for anti-air. Then they are all produced at one, in the same group, with the pewee's in front in a piket formation, backed by a line of hammers with the Jethro's providing air cover. Simplifyes the whole deal AND you can make ten of thease. Then when plasma aritllery hits, units bunched together can go flying across the map. massive army's will degenerate in to sprawling melle's. Artillery fire will arch acrosse teh battle feild as units kill each other!

[Delta]

This would be great, epic earth maps in more realistic sizes (commander not the size of norway), units with more realistic range, etc

Great idea!

[Warlord Zsinj]

No Zoombie, just as I said it. Same as TA, but units are reduced in size.

I want to keep it as TA as much as possible apart from the changes in size. Any more and you are basically making a mod.

And no Variability! Variability makes different possibilities, and users in general are stupid and cannot deal with so many possibilities! Planning for such possibilities are twice as hard!

And I'm glad you two like the idea (atleast I'm not on my own), but I was thinking more that large sized maps now become epic maps. Epic maps would be something altogether different, like a world map of impossible size...
Map download sizes would also seem far more reasonable.

And yes, a side effect would be that unit range and LOS would make far more sense.

EDIT: appologies for the grumpiness, its late. I do mean what I said though, I don't intend for the idea to be hijacked by needless complexity. As it is it is a completely possible project. What Zoombie proposes is of a scale completely unfeasible.

[Nemo]

Very nice idea, I completely agree o.O

I really can't think of adverse gameplay effects (you mentioned the spacing out of metal, but that just forces expansion even more ^^) and really..everything you said seems like it would work out well enough.

would this be as simple as just resizing all the models?

[Delta]

maby need some edting of movespeed and stuff like that.

[Nemo]

well, i think the speed should be fine...you can just turn up the gamespeed if you feel like units are taking too long to get places, any change to the units' moving speed would have to be universal, so that the balence was maintained

[DMonaghan]

It think this a is great idea

Warlord Zsinj, have you ever played Operation Flashpoint. I was thinking of a map with scale similar to that. The maps are so big that to run from one end to the other on foot takes quite a while, along with that the mountian and forest regions are very realistic and terrain high makes such a difference.

but how can this be done in spring, and how much work is it potentially

[SinbadEV]

I was thinking this would be a good idea myself... I was just thinking we could make BIGGER maps, and the tree objects appear to have the possibility for scaling in the code so you'd also make bigger trees, bigger map+bigger trees=smaller units... but if it was possible to shrink down the units to about krog=half as tall as a tree, or smaller that would be good... you can just build more factories... group factories and give them build orders together and mass produce instead of building it into the game as was mentioned erlier... I like the idea of stuff being smaller...

[Min3mat]

wtf! that would suck!!! discourages rushing as enemy takes like 4-5mins to get A WEASEL into your base...by then...advanced radar and like 10 flashes X(

[Storm]

I second this idea... and due to the extractor radius, nothing would needed to be chhanged to make a whole new map of an old.

And min3mat... if we make this function switchable, it would mean we would have two maps for every map.

[Zoombie]

I also think we sould incress the tree size a massive amount. Cuase trees are big!

[BeeDee]

I also think we sould incress the tree size a massive amount. Cuase trees are big!

But the units in the game are also big. These aren't costumed humans tromping around on the battlefield, they're giant war machines.

[SinbadEV]

These would then be giant, redwood forest, alien, HUGE trees... I mean, they do exist... commanders arn't much taller then a 2 story house and I've seen trees twice that height.

[Sean Mirrsen]

People, stop talking about changing the engine or making additions to the engine, you kinda forgot that such things are modding things, and if you want a miniTA mod, go make one! Yes, it will work if all units are scaled down. I, for example, had some interesting battles with PeeWees and EDF infantry that are half their height. The infantry look quite well compared to trees.

[aGorm]

These would then be giant, redwood forest, alien, HUGE trees...

Ummm Trees... Yes... Bigger Trees. And Perhaps they should grow to? Just a thought.

*aGorm Ducks and runs for cover... (oldies will understand...)*

aGorm

[Min3mat]

hehe i'll burn those tree's and they'll burn for 2x as long (another way of looking @ it :))

[Dragon45]

There is/was either/or a TA:M mutator and/or a mod for OTA that did precisely this. It was quite interesting to see commanders half the size of metal patches and defintely modified game dynamics to see a weasel take twice as long to get to the other side of comet catcher. Very interesting.

Its floating out there somewher: If its a TA:M mutator, you'll have to activate the mutator, then pause the game and extract the recompield .gp3 that TA:M makes, and walllaaa, you'll have all the units shrunken. If its a mod in terms of different models, it would be easy enough to downlaod.


At any rate, i am very sure its already there for OTA.

[[K.B.] Napalm Cobra]

Slight problem, Anything with a foot-print of #x1 wouldn't be scalable.

[BlackLiger]

Take cover. If alantai spots the word... dare i say it? Yes

TREEEEE

He goes on the warpath!