Spring RTS Engine

Hey dudes,

I'm going to play some CA games. But I never did it befor, 'cause until now BA was my favourite game here :D

My question:
What does the differnt coloration around the MEXs and solar collectors mean (green / red)?


Thank you :D

If two circles overlap they become green i believe. There's some benefit to having them all overlap but i cant remember what it is.

Ah those circles are your energy grid. Instead of metal makers, excess energy can be pumped into mexes for extra metal output (at a decreasing rate), which is known as overdrive. However, this only works between mexes and energy connected to the same grid.

The color of the grid tells you how much overdrive is occuring.

Purple = no overdrive
Blue to red means less to more overdrive.

As a general rule, once you are overdriving yellowish you want to try to connect more mexes if you can, because it is more efficient to overdrive more mexes, although it is also more risky to have your energy structures spread out to connect them.

The size of the grid depends on the energy structure, with cheaper ones like solars and winds having small grid radius and fusions having a larger radius. So you can connect with lines of winds and solars or else a few well placed fusions (the standard fusion is much cheaper then ba, kind of a middle ground between fusion and adv solar).

However, the only advantage to connecting is more efficiency. If two grids are the same color there will be no bonus to connecting them. You want to connect weaker grids to stronger ones.

luckywaldo7 wrote:Ah those circles are your energy grid. Instead of metal makers, excess energy can be pumped into mexes for extra metal output (at a decreasing rate), which is known as overdrive. However, this only works between mexes and energy connected to the same grid.

The color of the grid tells you how much overdrive is occuring.

Purple = no overdrive
Blue to red means less to more overdrive.

As a general rule, once you are overdriving yellowish you want to try to connect more mexes if you can, because it is more efficient to overdrive more mexes, although it is also more risky to have your energy structures spread out to connect them.

Thanks for your answers.

First of all, why is it more "risky to have the energy structures spread out to connect them"?


2. How do I get formations like this?




thanks

First of all, why is it more "risky to have the energy structures spread out to connect them"?

I think by "spread out to connect them" he meant spread over your entire territory to connect any mex you own. This is of course risky because the structures are outside your base

2. How do I get formations like this?

Type "/cheat" in singleplayer or "!cheats" if you are an admin to an autohost. Then type "/give 25 armpw" and you will be given a formation of 25 Glaives at your mouse cursor .

Basically the only way to get the units to line up nicely is through spawning them. They bump each other too much to move them into a formation like that.

Deutscha wrote:2. How do I get formations like this?




thanks

You clearly cant micro/effectively use, units in a block like that. Sure it looks pretty. If youre going for pretty, over decent gameplay, try

thanks again...

now last but not least, what does the red circle around the commander mean?

2. Where can I see what the Awards at the game's end stand for?

thx :D

Red circle is boost (free resources/fast build at game start).

you should really create a tutorial mission :)

manolo_ wrote:you should really create a tutorial mission :)

Ingame there is already a tutorial, but this cover not all the points you have to know...


Back to my initial question about the circles which give your mexes overdrive: Do I need to connect all the collectors to get an overdrive? And does this steal energy from my collectors to overdrive the mexes?


2., Is CA = Zero-K? But why is it here still called CA and not Zero-k?


thanks

You don't need to connect everything, but it usually becomes more efficient the more you have connected, so connecting when you can is generally a good idea. And only the overdrive that excesses from your storage is used; if your energy storage is not full, no overdrive is going to occur.

And, uh, well CA is kind of dead, Zero-K is the rebranding of the CA 1-faction fork and all of the programs and content to be associated with it. It hasn't been 100% officially rebranded yet; I think Licho wants to wait until at least the gui is more complete. Although at that point ideally we would have our own forums and the CA subforum would not be needed anymore.

luckywaldo7 wrote:You don't need to connect everything, but it usually becomes more efficient the more you have connected, so connecting when you can is generally a good idea. And only the overdrive that excesses from your storage is used; if your energy storage is not full, no overdrive is going to occur.

And, uh, well CA is kind of dead, Zero-K is the rebranding of the CA 1-faction fork and all of the programs and content to be associated with it. It hasn't been 100% officially rebranded yet; I think Licho wants to wait until at least the gui is more complete. Although at that point ideally we would have our own forums and the CA subforum would not be needed anymore.

1) But the Zero-K Lobby will download the newest version automatically?

2) At the beginning of a new game, there is always the question which faction I want to choose? But after the countdown of 3 seconds
is over and I do not choose anything, which faction do I get by default?

3)Does this mean No 1 + 2 are connected and 3 is not?


4) And if there are two mexes in one field is the overdrive splitted between these two mexes?

CA is a very nice game, nice graphics (I like the napalm bombers ;D).


Thanks :D

1) Uh, dunno

2) Random I think? Not sure on that either.

3) The energy grids around 1 and 2 are the same color. All this tells you for sure is that they are overdriving at the same rate. So, they are probably connected, but if they are not connected there is no advantage in connecting them. (In this particular case they are clearly connected)

The energy grid around 3 is greener, so it is not connected and it is overdriving less. You will get more metal by connecting it to the rest of your grid.

4) Yes, the overdrive is split between the mexes. But while each of the two mexes overdrives less then one, they overdrive more efficiently, so they produce more metal overall. Connecting more mexes always produces more metal then less mexes.

Feel free to keep asking questions; probably my explanation needs more pictures so I will probably whip up a guide for the current overdrive system.

luckywaldo7 wrote:1) Uh, dunno

2) Random I think? Not sure on that either.

3) The energy grids around 1 and 2 are the same color. All this tells you for sure is that they are overdriving at the same rate. So, they are probably connected, but if they are not connected there is no advantage in connecting them. (In this particular case they are clearly connected)

The energy grid around 3 is greener, so it is not connected and it is overdriving less. You will get more metal by connecting it to the rest of your grid.

4) Yes, the overdrive is split between the mexes. But while each of the two mexes overdrives less then one, they overdrive more efficiently, so they produce more metal overall. Connecting more mexes always produces more metal then less mexes.

Feel free to keep asking questions; probably my explanation needs more pictures so I will probably whip up a guide for the current overdrive system.

thank you :)


Do the aircraft need to charge new bombs after ervery bombing?

thx :D

yes, which is why its a good idea to have a couple air pads built if you want to heavily bomb the enemy, so they don't have to wait in line to recharge/heal/etc...

Afaik they are ,,abusing" the Fuel amount as a ammo and for its fly
This means you cant let a Plane fly for hours in a circle

Karl wrote:Afaik they are ,,abusing" the Fuel amount as a ammo and for its fly
This means you cant let a Plane fly for hours in a circle

The bombs are incredibly volatile when not properly stored. This storage is too heavy for a plane so if it flys around for too long the ammo decays and it needs to reload.

Google_Frog wrote:

Karl wrote:Afaik they are ,,abusing" the Fuel amount as a ammo and for its fly
This means you cant let a Plane fly for hours in a circle

The bombs are incredibly volatile when not properly stored. This storage is too heavy for a plane so if it flys around for too long the ammo decays and it needs to reload.

Thanks, but can I see how many bombs the selected aircraft still has?

2., Sometimes, i build a lot of energy around the mexes, but there is no overdrive?! Why?

thx

Thanks, but can I see how many bombs the selected aircraft still has?

Planes only carry 1 load. The non-default tooltip shows this as 0 or non-0 fuel. This should be added to the default tooltip.

Another way to tell is if they don't have bombs your planes will act stupidly and fly through enemy AA.

2., Sometimes, i build a lot of energy around the mexes, but there is no overdrive?! Why?

Because OD only uses excess energy. If your team is using more energy than it is producing nothing with be overdriven.