Spring RTS Engine

If you play AA variants, say so. Otherwise I'm considering axing them... they're kind of a pain to keep up-to-date with the changes to the standard AA mod. In general, I see that between 1/20 and 1/50 games run the variants. Back when we had server stats, there would usually be less than 5 games played per day on all the variants combined, compared with generally somewhere around 100 with the standard version if I remember right.

The (B) variant seems to get occaisional play. I'm surprised how many players don't play the (F) variant, given how many people would like vehicles to be easier to get to. Overall, though, I see maybe 1 game in 20.

However, I'm working on an app to that lets you script the makings of generated mutators where the change is primarily just hacking FBI files. That would make parallel maintenance easier, since you'd simply run the app to update the mutators, assuming there are no completely incompatible changes.

there needs to be another option, 'I like to play them occasionally'

That'd be handy, yeah... I probably would've added one if somebody hadn't voted the instant I initially posted the topic >_>

Oh well. I guess all I'm trying to accomplish here is see whether anyone would actually care if I removed them.

The (B) variant is no problem maintaining - I haven't modified it in any way except to change the version number in... I dunno... months.

The hassle I don't like is updating the build trees of S, B, and A every time a unit gets added, removed, or just moved. I guess I brought this upon myself...

It would help if i knew what the hell the varients were. I must have missed something, cause I have no idea what they are!

Zoombie wrote:It would help if i knew what the hell the varients were. I must have missed something, cause I have no idea what they are!

IT'S CALLED THE GODDAMN README!!!!!!!!!!!! AAARRRGGHHHH!!!!!!! WHY WON'T ANYONE READ IT??!!!!!

[2] Variants:

In addition to the Absolute Annihilation you're used to, the Spring version also
comes with the following variants or "mutators". You can choose which one you want
to play when starting a TA Spring game. Here's a summary of what each variant does:

A - Action - In this variant, there are no resource creating/extracting units, but
your Commander produces a fixed +25 metal and +500 energy.

B - Barebones - This variant basically includes only the units you'd find in OTA.
As such, Core has a superweapn, the Krogoth, while Arm does not.

F - Forged - This variant has kbots and vehicles combined into a single factory.
There is an extra tech level since level 2 units are spread out through two
techs to help make it more fair.

H - Hover Commanders - This variant replaces the standard walking Commanders with
hovercraft ones. They have no d-gun but can build very fast and also don't
explode huge like normal commanders.

I'm sorry Cyder. Thanks for the info... A mode sounds like fun though.

wow, straight from the horses mouth

Caydr... The -A varient doesn't work... Still Solars/Mexes... Otherwise, I'd play with A exclusively. (KAI R0X!) I still play -B and -H regularly, and your hard work is VERY appreciated! So much so, I present you with not cookies, but this warm plate of snickerdoodles.



Enjoy. And get -A working right. 8D

Zoombie wrote:

I'm sorry Cyder. Thanks for the info... A mode sounds like fun though.

smooth, very smooth

I'd play the variants occasionally. However they are rarely on offer, which means I've only played once or twice. I like the idea of the hover commander variant. Forged and Barebones I don't like. I liked the idea of an action mod with mexes better. I have tried action against an AI, and am kind of curious playing against a human, but haven't seen one hosted.

i miss the i play them every now and then option

I like (F), and I have not yet played the others. I think you should keep them, as they are fun and do spread the game to other arenas.

Slamoid wrote:Caydr... The -A varient doesn't work... Still Solars/Mexes... Otherwise, I'd play with A exclusively. (KAI R0X!) I still play -B and -H regularly, and your hard work is VERY appreciated! So much so, I present you with not cookies, but this warm plate of snickerdoodles.



Enjoy. And get -A working right. 8D

Well I might be able to axe solars, but if I kill mexes, it completely eliminates the reason you have to expand. Are you sure that's what you want? I'm willing to make the change.

I like the (F) variant, thought it's a shame that many people think it's just plain annoying.

FizWizz wrote:I like the (F) variant, thought it's a shame that many people think it's just plain annoying.

It's a bit weird at first, but i have no problem playing with the F version. It gives you a nicer variety of units at each tech level.

What is the logic behind axing solars in A? Economy is basically limited to available mexes anyway. I suppose it makes geo spots slightly more interesting, but may be a problem on maps without geo spots?

I played a couple games last night and I had fun. The first game was raid and counter raid where I relied on level 1 kbots + air to defend against level 2 vehicles until I was able to mass a level 2 air force and kill the other guy's com. The whole game took maybe 20 minutes and was quite fast paced, and seemed to put a lot of pressure on my micro. Right at the end I was shocked to see the other player had built a few mexes as I was convinced they had been taken out of the geam.

In the second game I was frustrated when I tried to expand, but my opponenet stayed in one spot, dug in with units and built berthas and made life nastry for me. Not sure if my economic advantage of around +30-40 metal (depending on how many mexes had been killed by bertha/replaced by com) instead of +25 metal would have made up for this as while I was trying to counter this a 3rd player (it was a FFA) had been hiding in a corner, finally finished a juggernaut and walked it through my base.....

The logic behind axing solars is that, as long as energy is finite, there's a certain critical limit that can't be built past... So even on crap like Speedmetal, there's only so much you can do, so it's a game of heavy emphasis on not losing what you build.

Another reason I removed solars is because from the beginning I thought it'd be interesting to see what players did with their limited amount of energy income - it's enough to power one, maybe two factories. But then you have no laser-based defense, which will hurt you against many types of attack. Lots of stuff uses energy, like radars. You'd build a radar normally without a second thought. Heck, I'd probably build 3, just to be safe. But if those three radars just removed a small piece of a finite pie, is it worth it to you?

I left mexxes in because this means that there's still a reason to expand, which is a good thing. If a player who porcs has no disadvantage, why do anything else? It's perfectly safe.

I left geos in for two reasons: one, it's not such a bad thing to be able to expand your energy income by a reasonable amount by holding strategic locations. Two, many maps are designed with geothermal locations being very strategic... difficult to hold... all that good stuff. So why kill that?

Oh... so that's what A does. Funny coincidence, I was planning exactly that as a test for my batch-mod program. Very cool.

Only problem is that it's hard to know what units take energy to do what - I mean, it seems hard to know which units are going to stop firing if you hit e-stall - this effect would be much worse when rationing energy.

And personally, I often build radar towers for sighting and then just turn them off.

All lasers except the comm's use energy. Red/pink ones are usually about 5-25, green ones about 50-100, blue ones vary widely but are generally upwards of 2000.

Radar uses energy, as do jammers. Extractors also use a tiny amount, about 3 per tick, I think. That's pretty much it, IIRC.