Spring RTS Engine

"The only version of XTA for Spring that I was involved in was the initial. All changes after that were made by various Spring players and I have no idea what its current state is, most likely totally f*** up. The problem with XTA and Spring is and was that Spring isnt TA. I decided to add stuff I thought was cool which the mod simply was not balanced for (like units being unable to fire trough each other, autotargeting, 2x los range and more).

I simply did not have the energy to start over again from the beginning, but I have continued work on XTA for the TA engine.

XTA started out as a haphazard improvement upon TA but I eventually realized that it was impossible to know if I had any balance unless I developed a balancing system which then enabled me to diversify the units a lot. Unlike other OTA mods like Uberhack, XTA does not make missile units air only,most other mods went the way of disabling or weaken them. If you want to I can send you the current version of XTA for TA and some demos. You might have to use the .resync command on some due to the demo being recorded with old data, remember that .sonar doesnt work after you have typed .resync.

Units in OTA does not fire automatically on radar targets unless you have built the radar targeting building. I introduced this for some reason among with other things and it really penalized L1 units. XTA is still being developed after a couple of years of downtime, if you have TA installed you can join us in an XTA game.

When you develop a mod the most difficult thing is to calculate the correct unit pricing, when I introduced my changes I invalidated my previous scheme and I would have to start over from the beginning which I did not have stamina for. IMHO it was a major mistake to not make TA:Spring to have identical game mechanics as TA from the beginning.

I suggest you call your derivate of XTA for something else than XTA, perhaps "S(hekel)TA" or whatever you find suitable, there are too many XTA variants already that I havent had any hand in creating and I cant really answer for them. As I wrote before, the only version of XTA for spring that was made by me was the first one."

lolwut?

I concur, what is your point?

Any mod without auto radar targeting is a failmod since it is so easy to write a widget to do the targeting anyway. I'm also suspecting that LOS cheats will eventually become large enough a problem that we will be forced to switch to global LOS for everyone.

I think your assuming knowledge we dont have. We do not know anything about XTAs history between the last OTA release and the first public spring release.

All we know about the SJs internal development of XTA during this time was that it and spring heavily influenced eachothers development, and that it was the primary game used to test the engine. We know that aside from the SYs, at least neuralize had access.

Was the whole post in quotes because it was a discussion from somewhere else?


Oh, also

Zerver wrote:I'm also suspecting that LOS cheats will eventually become large enough a problem that we will be forced to switch to global LOS for everyone.

What!? For real?

I would actually quite like a global LOS option, and it is doable, its just taboo. For example, it would make AI development easier in that I could both spectate my AIs progress, while actively probing and testing it, without going to the hassle of cheating.

I think he was quoting sj

Sheekel, you're a poor communicator, next time please provide context for your quotes.

zerver wrote:I'm also suspecting that LOS cheats will eventually become large enough a problem that we will be forced to switch to global LOS for everyone.

That's a terrible solution. That completely fucks any game that relies on fog of war as a significant gameplay mechanic.

Das Bruce wrote:That's a terrible solution. That completely fucks any game that relies on fog of war as a significant gameplay mechanic.

I.E. Nearly every single RTS game in existence.

Sheekel wrote:

babbles wrote:I think he was quoting sj

So? Why are you posting this here? Was this something SJ said recently or something he said 6 years ago?

This isn't even relevent to current XTA developement :D

Howlers the lot of you.

He was apparently asking sj about branching xta into his own version and this is odds are, part of the convo. It is xta history and noting how if someone want's to take over xta sj would prefer they make note of it being a variant in the name.

This has some stuff about sj's thoughts on spring but mostly xta related. I actually requested this thread be moved to the xta subforum but do care enough to make any fuss.

XTA (as a TA mod) was not made by SJ but by Yxan.
The post Sheekel quoted was not made by SJ but by Yxan.
These are Yxan thoughts and wishes, not SJ's.

Howler to you Smoth.

screw you z, I went to the mall for shoes and you stood me up :'('''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

AF wrote:I would actually quite like a global LOS option, and it is doable, its just taboo. For example, it would make AI development easier in that I could both spectate my AIs progress, while actively probing and testing it, without going to the hassle of cheating.

OTA has a global LOS option, as well as a 'circular LOS' option. The argument that it would facilitate cheating is a poor one, we have to trust our members to have higher moral integrity than that, or just not play with those that cheat. Same with autotargetting, I agree to the points in the first message, and it would be interesting to have an option to turn that off, because it really changes the mechanics (and makes the targetting facility obsolete).

It is an easy mod option to code. Does not need to be engine feature.

Jools wrote:(and makes the targeting facility obsolete).

This part might seem like a weak argument, seeing how mostly d/dx TA mods use these?

What's d/dx mods?

derivative