Spring RTS Engine

I really enjoy this game and have played most of the mods that are out there. I do have one general quip about the way that units are balanced. Why is it generally accepted that a major balancing factor in level 2,3 and l4 units is the unit's speed?

It seems that each tech level gets larger, more powerful, but less and less mobile. I don't recall this as being as big a factor in the Gundam mod, but I could be wrong.

Are there not other ways of balancing higher-powered units? I'm not putting out a general call for realism or anything, but this is more of a practical matter.

It always seems that as a game drags on and people tech up, the action gets slower and slower.

I don't mean to be inflammatory, but I was just wondering about this.

isn't that just generally the way it's done to keep the lower tech units useful for longer?

There is no valid reason for this, from a game design POV.

There's no reason, for example, why you couldn't have a Level Three mech that had fairly weak weapons and mediocre armor, but a movement speed that made a lot of other heavy units much less useful against it. Or a unit that combined a very hard-hitting weapon and high movement rate with high energy use and very weak armor.

NanoBlobs features a lot've this "speed is just another factor" in its design. The Knight, for example, is fairly mediocre on a lot've levels- it has a weapon with a very short range, and non-exceptional top-end hitpoints. However, its movement speed and health regeneration allow it to very frequently close with defenses that other units can't touch, making it much more powerful than it first appears.

The reason that this is a common convention... is, I think, rooted in people's somewhat-cockeyed viewpoint on Reality. People associate large-sized animals with ponderous movement IRL, even though the Space Shuttle, which flies at many times the speed of sound, is quite a bit larger than an F16. I think it's part of people's poor perception of what is physically possible... and our weird perception of actual motion. For example, elephants frequently move faster than people do. However, because of their larger scale, the movement appears slower, because humans don't generally percieve speed as the motion across the ground so much as we percieve the speed at which the animal's limbs are moving (which is probably a deep-rooted survival thing with a real purpose, even if it leads to distorted perceptions in some circumstances- our ancesters probably weren't worried about elephants). Therefore, the uneducated person assumes "elephants are slow", because that's the appearance.

there are plenty of games that don't use it, true. Starcraft and warcraft 3 have most units moving at a standard rate - just the base wrecker/artillery types moving slower to stop unbeatable retreating arty attacks & harassment. the speed thing is probably a symtom of higher tech units generally outranging the lower levels. high speed would make them all but invincible without something with even higher speed to take them down.
of course there are no hard rules...but speed and range are generally linked together

I actually suggested something in relation to speed and range with the new Final Frontier build earlier today... one wanted to increase the range of larger vessels, and I countered with a statement that in terms of balance the smaller fighters needed to remain viable and thus have a greater speed.

you have not played gundam. In general the converse is true. you fail sir.

smoth wrote:you have not played gundam. In general the converse is true. you fail sir.

Wait, to who was that directed?

Oh, and I'm looking through the AAI CFG file stuff. Sub has set it up quite well, so I may make a good Gundam AAI CFG soon.

that was directed at the origonal poster.

Smoth? So you're saying that Gundam also does the "more powerful = less mobile" thing? I'm not sayin that it doesn't I just remembered that it seemed like it used the whole platform based thing... (same gundam, but different weapons)

as opposed to "this thing has 5 guns and moves 15 kmph and this thing has 10 guns and moves 10 kmph"

But I haven't play gundam that much. I know that it has sweet unit animations and it would be cool if people played it more on the server.

yeah, all sorts of large animals are much faster than they would seem. I think elephants can run upwards of 40 mph. Not bad for being the largest land creature alive.

How fast can a rhinocerous run? i'm sure even faster than an elephant.

Are you aware that people actually race cows? It's kind of weird and the cows don't always want to run, but they can move at a fairly good clip.

perhaps another way to balance the speed issue would be to have a burst speed. (in the way that a cheeta can run incredibly fast, but practically burns out in only moments) but a horse can run at a medium pace for eternity. If units could have a 'turbo' button or something which burns up at different rates and then takes different amounts of time to recharge.

Basically, i'm sick of all the slow moving units. Especially vehicles... I mean, Kbots are understandably slow.... they have legs. But there is no physical/aesthetical reason that a wheeled vehicle can barely move faster than a giant mechanical spider.

I am in no way intentionally attacking anyone, I am honestly curious about this at all (and on occasion frustrated at the speeds of powerful units late-game)

In AA there is the level 2 Zipper bot, which is level 2 but the fastest land unit in the mod.

Also the level 3 mechs are faster than some lvl 2 mechs and tanks like the Sumo or Goliath.

The general consensus is however, that a unit is slower than other when these have less range and hitpoints. This can be found in most commercial games also.

The reason for the high-end games of TA being so slow isnt only the unit speed, but the fact that most players are tempted to porc hard with the level 2 defenses, which are hard to beat with land units, especially when most players are in favour of head on assaults.

On the other hand, high end units, such as bombers or mechs, are so expensive that it takes too much time to use them without having a proper l2 defense yourself, yet most ppl think that lvl 3 is a game ender, which it isnt necessarily.

If you want quick games, play on smaller amps, oviously, and play to win on lvl 2 at most. If you cant win it quick, go for aircraft rather than l3 to circumvent the speed issue, scince aircraft are the fastest, which is their greatest power.

The real reason for slow games are map-szie and porcage, not some slow individual units.

I've seen a replay yesterday of a guy who did atlas drops most of the time, that's fast paced action never the less. Was effective against a mediocre AA and porcing too. And I don't think the speed should be nerfed because that would ruin games on smaller maps. You usually build front factories on larger maps to cut travel times.

Hrrmmmm....

I dunno, this is pretty annoying, maybe thats why I don't build level 3 units.....

You know, with AA specifically... I've lately been playing the ARM more... I have noticed that in generaly all of the ARM's units are faster than COR's... maybe that was part of my problem.

Though, in another of my favourite mods, Expand and Exterminate... pretty much all of the L2 and L3 units suffer from the more powerful=slower bit.

And I can't not build these units, because if i don't, a few upper level units that my opponent has will completely devour my L1 units.

I mean, I love these mods. Don't get me wrong. But, I can only play on small maps so often. Some times I just need a huge map and an epic game.

really it is one of the generically accepted principals of balancing in Spring mods and how humans percieve reality as Argh said. People assume that something with more armor and armaments will be slower.

While its all well and good that the units could/should be faster at high techs (since along with weapons tech propulsion tech should get better), speed is used as a balancing factor cause it works for some mods. If a Ural (GD's lvl 3 cannon tank) was as fast as a lvl 1 tank it would be really hard for someone lagging behind in tech lvls to stop them. With high speed the Ural could go around defenses (be they units or structures) and hit the juicy innards of a base.

If your making a mod that isnt "magic" in terms of technology so far advanced as to be unrecongizable from magic then yes you can avoid the whole more armor = slower thought process, however if your making a mod based on post modern tech with some random stuff thrown in, or a mod based on modern tech or even on ww2 or some at then having fast heavily armed units is not reasonable cause in those situations they dont exist..

Also AA/XTA etc.. are based on TA and to be somewhat recongizable in that format they use the same concept of bigger = slower..

jense1rk wrote:Smoth? So you're saying that Gundam also does the "more powerful = less mobile" thing? I'm not sayin that it doesn't I just remembered that it seemed like it used the whole platform based thing... (same gundam, but different weapons)

converse means the opposite...which means, many of the units are FASTER

I am used to it thought, my mod despite the work put into it is one of the more unknown mods.

Ack, IRL the tanks go ~100 mph, and jeeps go bout the same! Why, great Snipa?

Cuz tanks have stronger engines, much stronger, we can go 145 in a ton or so of civilian vehicles and engine, tanks go 100 with 20-40 damn tons of steel! It's all in engines, and CORE and ARM don't upgrade much eh?

Snipawolf wrote:It's all in engines, and CORE and ARM don't upgrade much eh?

Well, have you seen fuel prices lately?

Haha, that one made me lol...