Absolute Annihilation Realistic (concept)

[hawkki]

Yes and no. Yet another mod you might think. But hear me out before any judgements are cast.

I was half a year studying the art of warfare in the Finnish defence forces and came back home some weeks ago. Now its' time to adapt what i learnt there to make the most realistic ta conversion yet

It will basically be Absolute Annihilation (uses aabase datafile) with the unit specs modified. The gameplay is going to be quite different from AA, and you either will like it or then you will hate it. TA freaks might dislike it but if you are in any way keen of a more realistic approach you will definately like it.

I am not going to make any new units for this project. This will save me huge amounts of time. I am only trying to make a more realistic modification of AA by eliminating some of the things i think are ridiculous. All credit to Caydr for his great mod he has put countless of hours of work in. I am not trying to steal any of your work, in fact i would be glad if we could work on this together and i could release this as some kind of "official mutator" for AA

Concept:
(all changes are in relation to AA 2.11)

• Radar vehicles, radar kbots, radar planes and radar towers will get a 3x increase in the LOS. The hyper radar will be removed.
• Metal makers ? Sure making mass out of energy might be possible in theory, but in practise it also ruins the game as it is a race to who can get more clicks out of his mouse to continuously whore up the resources while still microing units at the front line. So lets say this technology is not invented yet. The key will be to keep control of metal patches, they are absolutely vital. This will make the game more straight-forward combating.
• Geo patches will bring a much heftier boost to your economy then they are at the moment doing. I am just not yet sure of how to implement this.
• All weapon ranges get beefed up to match reality better. Ever heard of a cannon that fires only ten times it's own barrels length? Or a missile that flies as far away as a battletank drives in 5 seconds :D ?
• The plasma projectile will be converted into a cannon in many units. Don't you think it looks silly when a tank sneezes out a ball that flies slower then your sister could throw it?
• Punisher/guardian... Ever heard of a cannon that could fire like a mortar ? The guardian/punisher could be made a mortar tower and the popup equivalents could be made into cannon towers.
• Nuke - do you call that a nuke? The nuke will get a 5x AoE and 2x damage. The cost of one will also be increased, and the delay from attack-order to fire will be much longer. The cruise missile/emp launchers will take over the role of the current nuke and will be called cruise missile launchers. They will be interceptable.
• The stealth fighter will be made to something like they were in ota, hard to hit. Bombers are going to get a great deal of damage increase. The gunships will get more effect as well. To balance this anti-air will be made more like it is in reality. A flak cannot hit a stealth fighter but it shreds gunships into pieces with only a few shots. Missiles fly very far away and hits anything but fighters.

And countles of other things i cannot remember right now. Probably i am going to come up with new ideas as i am working on this project, so lets see what it will turn into (if it will ever turn out to be anything)

[Snipawolf]

I think I'll try this, I ALWAYS was disappointed that one tank with microing could DODGE another tank shooting at it, and more range would pwn...

[Felix the Cat]

Punisher/guardian... Ever heard of a cannon that could fire like a mortar ?

Some Soviet artillery pieces were gun-howitzers, could fire both above and below the 45* line.

Not nearly as high trajectory as a mortar, though.

[FireCrack]

Hmm, i think it was concluded somewhere that while units are in scale to eachother, they arent in scale with the enviroment, i think some calculations were made that said somthing like if the krog is 100m tall then the BLoD has a range of 70km....

Either way, i cant find this now, and you may as well do this for just the balance reasons anyways....

[emmanuel]

realistic yes
but for icbm with a range of 1600km need a bigs maps
i agree
some one want to modelise a continetal map???
maybe a 32000x32000 can is suficient???
without joking i try to do this for light weapons....
the game engine not permit to have angular corect values
speed is related to range for ballistic
a gun can fire next him if this speedis high
and what is a realistic line of sight=
perso i see a jet in sky at 5000m maybe and a tank at 2000m ...but a krogoth then???
don t forget about nuc= at same weight a atomic device is 20 000 000 more powerfull than a tnt
for exemple 1mt standard mirv burn a tree to 10km near impact....
and ground effect is a hole 200m large; 30m deep
maybe 5 nuc for a 32x32 map???
some krogoth can surviv if not directly under
all reality is related to his context world=size of the map

[AF]

nuking the enemy, yes, but nuking a mod before its even been made? What where you thinking?!

[SwiftSpear]

Nukes are a bit problematic because they explode full size when struck with an antinuke. That's just not realistic and does annoying things like you get to lose your whole defence line when your nuke gets hit mid air because with 5 times the AOE your defence line isn't far enough below the nuke to survive.

[Snipawolf]

The solution, make units 10x smaller...

[emmanuel]

make smaller had be ended in other posts
for solv the antinuke problem the weapontimer can be increased (vertical flight for vlaunch missiles)but the intercept will be in high sky
and the problem stay if anyone(me for exemple)make a cruise missile with low alt fly
i think about it =
a unit with a bmcode=1 kamikaz vtol is builded in silo or by a mobile erector/builder same for the landmine but mobile
maybe the soluce for solve the problem of mrv /sub munition

[Gnomre]

Nukes are a bit problematic because they explode full size when struck with an antinuke. That's just not realistic and does annoying things like you get to lose your whole defence line when your nuke gets hit mid air because with 5 times the AOE your defence line isn't far enough below the nuke to survive.

If he's fretting over mass to energy conversion, I don't think antinukes will be a problem honestly (we don't exactly have workable antinuke tech today, which seems to be his point ).

[Zoombie]

well we're closer to anti-nukes then we are to matter/energy convesion. We don't have replicators yet. We also don't have holodeck's yet, something that I'm sure has irritated millions of Trekie's.

[Neddie]

well we're closer to anti-nukes then we are to matter/energy convesion. We don't have replicators yet. We also don't have holodeck's yet, something that I'm sure has irritated millions of Trekie's.

You've never been to my lair, then.

[Zoombie]

I want to though.

[jcnossen]

What about unit speeds? all the decent AA tanks move too slow to be realistic IMO... (and it would be faster gameplay)

[hawkki]

What about unit speeds? all the decent AA tanks move too slow to be realistic IMO... (and it would be faster gameplay)

I was thinking of this and probably the max velocity is going to increase but then also acceleration will be added (they will work in a similar way as the commander in the nuclear test mod)

I am not talking about absolute realism here, this you must understand. I know a normal tank cannon could fire across the bigger maps in spring if you relate the distance to the size of the tank/explosion

All in all i think the experimental unit size halving patch that existed some time ago should be implemented in spring, as a selection possiblity when hosting a game.

One idea i'm thinking of is to make the laser weapons close-range only, but then again their effect would be increased to compensate for this.

Also the bigger tanks&kbots should be able to crush wreckages but iirc this was calculated by the units mass and increasing the mass of these units would also alter other properties. we must look into this.

[hawkki]

Nukes are a bit problematic because they explode full size when struck with an antinuke. That's just not realistic and does annoying things like you get to lose your whole defence line when your nuke gets hit mid air because with 5 times the AOE your defence line isn't far enough below the nuke to survive.

The current nukes in AA fly alot higher then before, the explosion is higher up in the air and thus it should not that dratically affect whats underneath. IIRC the altitude had to be lowered at some point because the too high flight caused problems for the antinukes to hit the nukes. (has any dev looked into this and fixed it, or is it just left unsolved and accepted as a feature of spring?)
Also i would increase the antinuke flight speed if it is possible to make it reach the nuke faster.

[mynthon]

ctrl+c ctrl+v

i had similiar idea (but no skills to do that), so i hope you will not abandon this project.

I will wrtote few words about my ideas:

As everyone knows most played mod is aa but i dont like it. It has some very good ideas, new very good units (especially naval units are awesome) but for me kills all the advantages that ota has over other rts games.

my idea was to scale down all units. half size, half range, half speed. Now base weapon range unit is "guardian range" (1GA) - original guardian range from AA (divided by 2).

in my mod
medium range cannons (guardians, punishers) range = 5-6 x GA
long range mobile atilery = 4-6 x GA
merlins (missile units) = 5-6 GA
heavy tanks/kbots (bulldog, fido) = 2-3 GA
light tanks/kbots (stumpy) = 1-2 GA
rapid fire units (peewee) = 0.5 - 1 GA
rocket units = 1-3(maybe 4) GA

lasers - i dont know. have no idea.

naval units - 5-6xga - naval battles should be really LONG distance



move speed unchanged
line of sight (los) i dont know. maybe range/2. depending on unit type. airplanes shoul have very long los.

things that i dont like in AA but were very good in OTA
every unit cann shoot every unit.
jethros can shoot ground units (now 1 peewee can kill 30 jethros - its stupid)
ground units can shoot air units (1 brawler can destroj 100 samsons )
wheres the difference? - in damage modificator. jethros should be more powerfull against air units than ground units (for example).

bulldog will hit plane by accident becouse its turret rotation is to slow but it will have chance against brawlers or similar units.


(strange thing: i was playing AA last sunday. I had 5 brawlers and ai had 1 brawler - guess what: brawler couldnt destroy brawler (maybe its bug or something - havent read changelog)

etc. In OTA few times i lost my swarm of brawlers becouse of betha. i dont know if its possible in AA.

i dont know what to do with bombers and fighters. Those units should be more powerful but it will destroy game. its hardest thing to balance IMO. remember that rocket units will have very long range so airplanes should be faster, maybe invisible.


ok. back to work. maybe later ill wrote more.


ps. i think metalmakers should be available but energy cost should be increased. there are some maps where if you owned all metal patches you still have no metal for single bulldog ;( i like when there is a lot of units/explosions and wreckages so lot of metal = lot of fun

ps2. i cant download this mod any mirror?

[Cloud_Flakker]

Listen up...
i have some ideas that maybe u can scavange and use..
1. i think the idead of making the units much smaller is a verry good idea..
it allows u to make sizes realistic.. meaning buildings will be much bigger than units.
2.what if the units are built in groups straight away and not as single units.. if it can be accomplished in some way..why we need it?? well cause if sizes,shooting ranges will be mre realistic .. it means ull se ur units from a much further perspective..so to avoid crazy micros.. grouping them straight from the fac outomaticly would be very usefull..
3.maps will need to be changed and made more soft.. so craters will be easier to create..
4.i think this game should be less about static bases and more about keeping certain points like geos and metal patches..
u need to make the game more tactical.. meaning make more difference between certain units and remove many units.. ull have a smaller amount but each units role strictly defined.. like in tactical war games..
......i hope u can use my ideas....

[Fanger]

why does this sound vaguely like EE to me..