Spring RTS Engine

Hey. Just wanted to bring this up for discussion and see what you all thought about it: on most maps, the player playing from the north has a slight tactical advantage. This is due to the fact that most buildings build units that exit the buildings to the south. This simplifies the bases of northern players, and allows for less "traffic jams" within their bases.

Playing from the south, the player's units have to (with only a few exceptions) have to walk around the building to engage the direction of threat. Players playing from east or west have an additional disadvantage, because they cannon build (even with small to moderate spacing) a line of construction buildings facing their mirror opponent. They have to either space their buildings out significantly (if built in a north to south line) or build them out toward their opponent (in an east to west line) which can reduce base defend-ability.

I recognize that this may seem like a slight issue, but I hope you will agree with me that it does give north a tactical advantage - all other things equal. Chess games, after all, are often fought for dozens of moves to gain the advantage of a pawn, which turns the outcome of the game.

There are two (not mutually exclusive) solutions I have to offer. I'm not sure how hard they would be to implement or if anyone has better suggestions (feel free to voice them):
- 1 - make buildings (when being placed for construction, spinable - 90 degrees at a time.
- 2 - make the board and map spinable. Allow a person to change the position of the map so that whatever direction they chose is north (90 degrees at a time, of course... I'm not looking to modify the basic grid of the game). Their buildings will, then, naturally orient to that direction, allowing them (if they choose to take it) equal tactical advantage.

Well, feel free to leave feedback - also feel free to email if you want further input from me.

Best luck - agentdz015

We have talked about it, most found it a good idea, but it will proably not happen very soon.

MTR'ed

Yeah... I totally agree that there is a signifigant advantage to the north... most people play in such a way that it doesn't matter...

I would choose option 1.

Go for 1, its the OTA/OUH (Origional Uberhack) Solution...

Play West vs East!

I'm with BlackLiger. In fact, I had just been thinking about lobbying Caydr for north-exit factories for AA 1.45 or AA 1.46

zwzsg wrote:Play West vs East!

That's my solution.

well unfortunatly maps are balanced north vs south with metal placement etc

Leaderz0rz wrote:well unfortunatly maps are balanced north vs south with metal placement etc

Some are. Not all.

FizWizz wrote:I'm with BlackLiger. In fact, I had just been thinking about lobbying Caydr for north-exit factories for AA 1.45 or AA 1.46

In OTA AA, Caydr had factories that pointed in all directions. I'm still not quite sure why he removed it...

I t is usually a good idea to set a waypoint from all your factories, even if you are north, but espescially if you are south. Strategically, if it is a good place for units, it is probably a bad place for a factory, and vice -versa.

This is an efficient setup for a group of factories... and it's only really good when used in the north because of the south facing exits.


* = Con
[X] = Factory
:.=path units go

Drone_Fragger wrote:

FizWizz wrote:I'm with BlackLiger. In fact, I had just been thinking about lobbying Caydr for north-exit factories for AA 1.45 or AA 1.46

In OTA AA, Caydr had factories that pointed in all directions. I'm still not quite sure why he removed it...

UH did it first. In any case, it used a method which is impossible in Spring, since we have absolutely no control over the GUI. To do it in spring, each factory would have four different buildpics in each menu, instead of the one buildpic with the arrows.

So... New GUI=Directional Buildings?

SinbadEV wrote:So... New GUI=Directional Buildings?

Sortof, the new GUI will hopefully make it possible for a modder to potentailly create multiple copies of the same structure with different origins and rather then needing 4 different icons have one icon that can switch between them.

FizWizz wrote:I'm with BlackLiger. In fact, I had just been thinking about lobbying Caydr for north-exit factories for AA 1.45 or AA 1.46

I'd have no problem with doing it, except that this would mean a truckload of extra buildpics. I don't like clutter. Maybe if it was like OTA where you could make fancy menus with multiple arrows and such, but not as it stands now.

The ultimate solution is the 90-degree rotation thing, via some kind of keyboard shortcut similar to the building spacing shortcut... or whatever. Maybe a key that's held down, like tab or something which allows you to drag and set the default rotation of buildings.

Caydr wrote:The ultimate solution is the 90-degree rotation thing, via some kind of keyboard shortcut similar to the building spacing shortcut... or whatever. Maybe a key that's held down, like tab or something which allows you to drag and set the default rotation of buildings.

good solution indeed. I remember it was placed on the feature list of the new GUI. Only I cannot find the list anymore (it was on the wiki some time ago).

Using kbot factories or any other such factory with that sort of exit (most Arm factories, soem core) you can just manually direct untis exit path by ordering the factory to move in the direction you want be it north south, thus meaning that the onyl sufferers of this are people using core adv kbot labs and gantries etc...

However for non TA based mods and krogoth lovers, I point you towards Arghs Autofac, from which units can exit at any angle in any direction.

I also think that an engine side solution should be available in re-orientating buildings 90*

What about Vehicles? they mostly have south-only exits.

*points at the last sentence of previous post*