Spring RTS Engine

Firstly, good luck to the Balance Commitee which seems to have control now that Floris resigned (sad to see you go).

But while I'm here, I thought I'd comment on the latest BA versions because… why not. I don't know how the comitte plans on moving on, so I thought I'd give it

Firstly, I just noticed that air constructors' wings are weird. See attachment. Secondly, I've got a few (hopefully constructive) comments

Buildrange (as everyone seems to have mentioned) is a potentially big issue. I like what it does for air cons, but apart from that it seems too big a change, as with buildspeed of labs.

It's now difficult to select the airlab, guessing that's to do with the new hitshpere stuff?

Air cons get stuck on eachother a lot more now that they're slower.

The /nocost cheat is something I use for testing stuff. Unfortunately, buildspeed is only partially reduced. I'd like to see that fixed, for ease of testing stuff.

The new explosion animations, rocket animatinos etc. are too busy. Too much going on, and don't feel realistic anymore, no matter how fancy they are.

And as a last thing, it would be really nice if it were easier to turn of music, and if once turned of it didn't attempt to start again every time that BA is launched (turn it off and then re-launch BA to see what I mean.)

Finally, it's a bit since I was last there, but BAStable1 seems to be promoting into Newbies? Does that need to be fixed?

So, how exactly is dev'ment of BA going to go on? Balancement only? Because there are other issues that need to be fixed. Is that something the Balance comittee is also going to adress?

Thanks for your time,
MasterBel2

Thanks for the feedback MasterBel2.

Just fixed the aircon wing issue.

Buildrange (as everyone seems to have mentioned) is a potentially big issue. I like what it does for air cons, but apart from that it seems too big a change, as with buildspeed of labs.

I 'm aware of the buildrange/buildspeed is potentially too big of an influencing change. Its something that needs to be tested. And yes, aircons in particular.

The new explosion animations, rocket animatinos etc. are too busy. Too much going on, and don't feel realistic anymore, no matter how fancy they are.

Possibly, but imo undeniably better than what we had, and things can be adjusted and improved.
Its hard to create effects that are small in size, it can drive up particle count more than using a bigger effect.
There is also a problem with particle gaps when using small missile trail particles. Then you will see gaps between each frame/particle. (but making particles stretched between each gap could be a fix)

And as a last thing, it would be really nice if it were easier to turn of music, and if once turned of it didn't attempt to start again every time that BA is launched (turn it off and then re-launch BA to see what I mean.)

Music doesnt start here if you have it paused it the previous game.

It's now difficult to select the airlab, guessing that's to do with the new hitshpere stuff?

I dont know, they were hard to select before aswell.
The hitsphere changes are only there when modoption firethroughfriendly is enabled (default disabled)

The /nocost cheat is something I use for testing stuff. Unfortunately, buildspeed is only partially reduced. I'd like to see that fixed, for ease of testing stuff.

Yes I noticed /nocost will build things slightly slower than before, I 'm not sure what caused this. Yes we did some buildpower/100... but effectively also *100 later. Maybe the engine thinks its /100 and this slightly affects cheat nocost buildspeeds.

Air cons get stuck on eachother a lot more now that they're slower.

When I cheat in 50 aircons they behave as should, just slower than before.

Finally manged to do a test play on ba-V9.54

Request for future versions: player colors were assigned by the game and changed from the ones set in the lobby. Could this automatism be turned into an option(*) in future versions?
The color choice was unfortunately than what was set in the lobby (automatism: 4 players, 2 ally teams -> turquoise, green, yellow, light orange -> each 2 colors that are hard to distinguish).



(*)If it is togglable, I a least didn't find out how.

Better is to play at the testhost than to play 9.54

Teamcolor changes are toggable via Options window (dunno if 9.54 offers that)

Thanks for the quick help!
Though in 9.54 it's not (yet) in the option menu...

Was just trying out with friends(*) one of the newer versions. Therefore I did not use the testhost.


(*) in general I'm not a too big fan of open online gaming. In my experience you encounter too many -and one is already too annoying- players that behave as if they have just spotted their first pubic hair. And what was posted here after the newer BAs didn't exactly convince me otherwise.

just got a couple more comments

The buildranges seem to be okay now - the newest tweaks mean that it's not massive, and close enough to what it was before that it doesn't seem to change gameplay.

I (and a couple others) don't particularly like the new explosion sounds - they just don't sound right.

I really don't seem to notice the difference in lab build speed anymore - doesn't seem to be a gamechanger.

The music bug I used to get is (thankfully) no longer there

I found it a little weird that the spacing keys are no longer b/n but z/x. I couldn't find a widget for it. I guess it'll be nice to get used to not having to reach across the keyboard, but the fact that it's for other keybinds aswell feels … wrong almost?

I think that's all for now. Thanks for the effort of the devs. (and balance comittee, if it was involved in this)

MasterBel2 wrote:The buildranges seem to be okay now - the newest tweaks mean that it's not massive, and close enough to what it was before that it doesn't seem to change gameplay.

https://github.com/Balanced-Annihilatio ... s.lua#L163
Nothing was changed.

MasterBel2 wrote:I (and a couple others) don't particularly like the new explosion sounds - they just don't sound right.

BA has historically used only 3 sounds for almost all unit/building deaths. That's probably why it strikes you as being so different. Because now it draws from a pool of like 20+ for unit deaths making a much more audibly dynamic game.

MasterBel2 wrote:I really don't seem to notice the difference in lab build speed anymore - doesn't seem to be a gamechanger.

https://github.com/Balanced-Annihilatio ... ab2996c658
That's because there isn't.

MasterBel2 wrote:The music bug I used to get is (thankfully) no longer there

That was caused by your local widgetry. The problem would have been on your end. That said, Floris removed music entirely from BA.

MasterBel2 wrote:I found it a little weird that the spacing keys are no longer b/n but z/x. I couldn't find a widget for it. I guess it'll be nice to get used to not having to reach across the keyboard, but the fact that it's for other keybinds aswell feels … wrong almost?

Use uikeys.txt to set it to whatever you like: https://github.com/spring/spring/blob/1 ... uikeys.txt

MasterBel2 wrote:(and balance comittee, if it was involved in this)

It wasn't.

Thank you for the feedback

Thanks to Forb for being spokesperson on my behalf. I appreciate his clarifications.

I must add that the old commander explosion sound should be back, but isnt working atm.

The ones involved are the ones testing it, thank you for testing.

MasterBel2 wrote:Thanks for the effort of the devs. (and balance comittee, if it was involved in this)

Hi MasterBel, just to clarify the balance committee was never approached by Flow and as such has no involvement in his decisions.

The role of the committee was to establish the framework for community driven balance.

The majority of post 9.46 changes remain a cause for concern. A quick inspection of github reveals over 100 unlisted balance-impacting changes since 9.46 and rising. However the committee consensus was to give Flow more time before taking any action.

In the event such a framework is needed in future it can be called upon.