Spring RTS Engine

This is a bit of a controvertial idea.. so please don't flame the fuck out of me. I'm just trying to raise some issues that I feel should be adressed.

With OTA on medium to large maps things tend to end with tons of dancing hawks, combined with either sea or land offense. People can bring all kinds of different strategies into the mid-game to throw your Hawk production off balance.. but both players are ultimately working towards the same "end game" strategy.

Now, you take AA and air units are still effective.. but mostly if there isn't much in the way of air defence. When people have massed air defence (as is normal in the late game) it becomes utterly obsolete.

This means that on maps like Altored Divide your end game strategy becomes much like GD2 - build Krogoths. The only difference is AA has 3 or 4 types of different Krogoth which all perform much the same function.

Now, I'll be the first to say that a map like Comet Catcher plays differently. But the choke point maps tend to be a hell of alot more popular than the open maps.

I'd like to hear what peoples expectations for AA endgame are? Do you want a variety of superunits that bring the game to a conclusion quickly.. or do you want the battle to rage on with primarily level 1 units?

I've been thinking alot and I've decided I'm going to remove all L3 units from AA permanently. This seems to be the most popular choice from what I've seen. It's already done, better get used to it. I'll be posting AA v2.00 tonight, lots of exciting changes - for instance I've remodelled all L1 units in ultra-high poly (1000 triangles average, looks JUST like the glamour shots!! Working on the L2 ones in the future ) Anyway that should keep things in L1/L2 a bit longer, so problem solved.

If you remove the L3 the L3 defencive structures become unpenetratable. I hope that's an april fools joke.

No, most of them are being removed too. Annihilators, DDMs etc are such cheese.

Wonderful news Cadyr. I think that you've made the right decision by keeping things to two tech levels (much like OTA). Three introduces way too many variables. You could be working for years and you'd never balance them.

Notice how AA is getting less like Uberhack and more like OTA by the week? It seems to be simplifying the balance every update (and getting immensely better as a result I might add - bravo Cadyr), making things more logical. Less specialised units with unique tolerances.. more straightforward common sense.

This whole Uberhack concept of "making every unit uselful" is completly self defeating. You can't have 350 units with unique abilities. In the end you're going to end up with 50 brilliant units, 100 units that are useful in certain situations.. and 100 units that are utterly shite (the other 100 units are buildings/structures).

Ok, but how will you assault really heavily defended points?
I mean massed doomsday's and flack and anti-nuke and repulsor and some sort of terrain choke point makes a nigh on impregnable deffence even against l3 stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I'd be sad to see the kroggie and co go but it is extreemly hard to ballence them. On the other hand don't they curently do a job, and what would take their place when they're gone?

Option A: Build a superunit.

Option B: Build Lv2 land units, Lv1 land units, Lv2 aircraft, Lv2/3 artillery. Co-ordinate attack.

Cadyr, i think he's suggesting anti-air may be too powerfull, prehaps it should be removed?

You know, I think AA was always ruined because it had so many units, I suggest to properly fix late game you should remove everything except the pewee and the solar collector.

My point is that it is possible, given an average map with choke points to build defences that are reativley impregnable unless you have a large enough advantage economically to overwhelm them.
In maps with cluttered terrain it is all too easy for the wreckage of previous attacks combined with terrain advantege to giv the defender a massive advantage.
Obviously it must be harder to attack then defend but at the moment, because of the relative size of the units to their range a large scale assault will get nurfed because the attacking unit's won't get there, or will only get there in a trickle, and this is where l3 mechs have come in.
As I said I'm not saying they don't have problems but will their removal improve gameplay or just lead to WWI style battles where huge ammounts of forces are used to gain small advances because they can't move forwards quick enough to exploit any gains.

(disclaimer: any parts of this post that do not make sence can be attributed to it being 2.30am )

Deathblane wrote:My point is that it is possible, given an average map with choke points to build defences that are reativley impregnable unless you have a large enough advantage economically to overwhelm them.
In maps with cluttered terrain it is all too easy for the wreckage of previous attacks combined with terrain advantege to giv the defender a massive advantage.
Obviously it must be harder to attack then defend but at the moment, because of the relative size of the units to their range a large scale assault will get nurfed because the attacking unit's won't get there, or will only get there in a trickle, and this is where l3 mechs have come in.
As I said I'm not saying they don't have problems but will their removal improve gameplay or just lead to WWI style battles where huge ammounts of forces are used to gain small advances because they can't move forwards quick enough to exploit any gains.

(disclaimer: any parts of this post that do not make sence can be attributed to it being 2.30am )

Crawling bombs clear wreakage

I'm with Flint. Just have commanders build Peewees and solars. Both sides.

Ok ok, a little side differentiation. Arm Commander builds solars and Core Commander builds wind generators. Oh, and take out the d-gun. Its imba.

cady any chance of a level 3 unit exta thing with AA because while it may be best for balance removing them some of us are rather fond of unbalance lol

SwiftSpear wrote:Crawling bombs clear wreakage

Plus, y'know, it's pretty obvious that the "removing L3" post was an April Fool's joke.

Also remember:
- Crawling bombs can climb most hills.
- Spiders, Recluses, and Termites can climb any hill, and unless your opponent has defenses everywhere, can give you that economic advantage on Altored Divide. (At least)

Blasted time zones.. it was April 2nd when Cadyr posted by my clock.

Hehehe, Gnome posted a really nice comment on tha TA Zone forum that I agreed with 100% as well.

The primary reason for those groundwars is, shock horror, the firing through friendlies thing. Send 5000 units if you want--unless more than 10 at a time can fire, they're going to do jack shit against any decent form of defensive line. Of course, the AAers would claim this is the bestest form of balance ever, because everyone just loves 8 hour games where 10 people porc out on metal maps until all but one have fucking pinged out.

But we all know suggesting firing through frendlies around here makes everybodies blood boil, despite the SWTA and OTA mod fans being highly interested in such a feature.

Remember kids - realism is more important than fun, dynamic gameplay.

Molloy: Most level 2 units that're useful for assaulting defensive lines (tanks, artillery) will fire over other units. Those that won't (Zeuses, Reapers) generally have such a short range that they'd gain no advantage from it.

But hey, it's different from OTA. It must be bad.

Of course, if you're playing on a metal map, you're going to have a bad game. That's to be expected, and blaming the mod for it is like blaming a hammer for hurting you when you hold it over your foot and let go.

Blasted time zones.. it was April 2nd when Cadyr posted by my clock.

Ditto, but it would be nice if massed units wouldn't nurf themselves so much in so many situations.

All-time greatest backfires...

Anyway, back to the thread's actual subject, what do you suggest is done Molloy?

well firstly i suggest he learns the mysterious land of scouting, followed by unit mixing and intelligant countering.
he has a load of flakkers but few land defenses
get EMP planes or EMP planes with a land assault or a land assault followed by a bombing campaign
he has a load of ground defenses but few AA
bomb-the-shit-out-of-him
he has heavy land and air defenses which are virtually impregnable
you are probably playing a metal map. pls die.
if not get jammers nearby and swarm him or use tech 3 or nukes or BBs or cruise missiles (which are now non-interceptable ^.^) or spam zippers and run round his flank, take out all his e production then own him
there are plenty of ways (on a non-metal map) to stop ur opponent porcing. learn them through play :) the best is a pre-emptive strike of course and the second getting air ASAP (he will find it hard to counter at first since he hasnt expanded much)
seriously if u think a defense line (on a non metal map) is impregnable go play super mario coz thats as tacticla as u can be. i mean as a last resort just jam the area get scouts and push him back with artillery, both mobile and immobile, supported with AA and anti-land.
AA FTW

OTA-style gameplay is dead in Spring, for technical reasons that we've already explained, in depth.

It's not coming back. Putting it back would be a royal pain, and we don't need it anyhow. It wasn't realistic in the first place, and as modders switch their 3DO models over to S3O, the hitbox issues will be relieved substantially. Be patient... and show support for newer mods, with newer gameplay. OTA is dead. Long live Spring.