Random IRC Discussion summary: 2013-4-02

[Ishq]

Today we had a long and in-depth IRC discussion. Here are the results that I want to specifically highlight. If I forgot something, someone who was there should definitely remind me!

1) In response to the dretch hiding endgame, if the RC or OM is down, the respective team will show up regardless of motion. This code has already been comitted by ds.

2) Repairing human structures will no longer cost money. Courtesy of Viech.

3) gimhael suggested Alien regen will no longer be a static value determined by location. Instead, alien regen will start at a given value and decrease via some reasonable function over time as long as the alien is off creep. This is a potential idea to help check alien mobility. Technically, it will also have the side effect of making it difficult for aliens to win a game if their OM is down. Granger is to be excluded from this because we can think of granger as "having creep inside" <-- Just on explanation. I'm sure kharnov can come up with another if he wants.

4) Toy with the idea that both Repeaters and Drills will provide power. This seems redundant, but repeaters have the obvious advantage of not killing your mining rate if you build one outside a power range but within a drill mine range. Uncertain what to do about drill power overlaps. Allow them since drill penalizes building them too close? Since there is no longer a local BP pool, overlapping powerzones should no longer pose an issue.

5) For the tutorial interactive mode, a new mascot, hesitantly named "Grangy" by Tim, will offer commentary and advice as a player completes the task assigned in the tutorial. The idea is to give the players a physical form for them to concentrate all their rage and anguish because our tasks will require too much skill to complete.

[Viech]

1) In response to the dretch hiding endgame, if the RC or OM is down, the respective team will show up regardless of motion. This code has already been comitted by ds.

This isn't an optimal solution as the logic of the radar is changed in midgame. Whatever fancy lore we will come up with, this will stay unintuitive. One alternative idea that came up was to use approach (3) and make the health regeneration rate negative if an alien doesn't visit creep for a longer period.

2) Repairing human structures will no longer cost money. Courtesy of Viech.

yay. I will deimplement™ this as soon as Tim finished merging entities.

3) […] Just on explanation. I'm sure kharnov can come up with another if he wants.

I think he will love it. :p

4) Toy with the idea that both Repeaters and Drills will provide power. […]

This is an important topic. Norfenstein originally wanted to remove power zones and creep as a limit for building stuff alltogether. Ishq agreed to give it a try but still wants aliens to be tied to some form of creep. I don't want humans to get a strong advantage above aliens that way because their forwards would not only be easier to build but also lose their weak point, the repetear. The main reason whyIshq and me want to loosen zone limits now is that you should not be forced to build a repeater/egg for your generic RGS forward.

I have an alternative idea for this: Redefine both creep and repeater in distinct ways (stressing the difference between the teams for extra awesomeness): Alien buildings are weaker if you build them alone. You have to build a few of them closeby, so that "creep" grows between them, increasing their max health until it reaches its full value. In contrary, human buildings draw power from their environment and in order to build more than a few in the same spot in the absence of a close RC, you have to build a repeater.

Alien example: Granger builds a leech, it will grow to full functionality but don't generate (initial) health above 1/3. Granger builds a close acid tube, now both buildables share creep (we can even display the link with a decal) and generate up to 2/3 of their maximum health. Now granger builds an egg, finishing the forward. All buildings will be at full health. If one structure gets destroyed, the health of the others will decrease (instead of heal) to their new limit.

Human example: Bob builds a turret, a drill and another turret. Now the forward has reached a threshold (here: 20 BP). Since Bob doesn't build close to RC, he can't build another structure closeby unless he builds a repeater first. For every repeater, Bob gets another 20 BP worth of local power. If he builds a single repeater as well as a medistation and an armory and the repeater gets destroyed later on, buildings will randomly unpower until local power consumption is below limit.

This removes the zone restrictions for both teams (admittedly, it removes it mostly for humans) while keeping an individual weak spot for forwards. Humans will need extra BP to stack their turret defense of doom, introducing an additional explosive "power switch" every n buildings. Aliens can still spread eggs but they would be easier to hunt down. If they want structures at full health they have to clutter at least a few of them, which makes it easier for human splash damage weapons to kill them.

Both ideas would be rather simple to implement if we do it similar to the way RGS operate and adjust their efficiency independently. I'd like to give it a try.

[velociostrich]

5) For the tutorial interactive mode, a new mascot, hesitantly named "Grangy" by Tim, will offer commentary and advice as a player completes the task assigned in the tutorial. The idea is to give the players a physical form for them to concentrate all their rage and anguish because our tasks will require too much skill to complete.

I could possibly see this working maybe if perhaps the voice/dialogue is humorous. Maybe. Something like Frets on Fire's absurd tutorial character, whatever-his-name-is.

[Anomalous]

This isn't an optimal solution as the logic of the radar is changed in midgame.

True… we should keep it until we have Something Better in place, though.

[…] I have an alternative idea for this: Redefine both creep and repeater in distinct ways (stressing the difference between the teams for extra awesomeness): Alien buildings are weaker if you build them alone. You have to build a few of them closeby, so that "creep" grows between them, increasing their max health until it reaches its full value. In contrary, human buildings draw power from their environment and in order to build more than a few in the same spot in the absence of a close RC, you have to build a repeater.

That means re-adding power zones.

Alien example: Granger builds a leech, it will grow to full functionality but don't generate (initial) health above 1/3. Granger builds a close acid tube, now both buildables share creep (we can even display the link with a decal) and generate up to 2/3 of their maximum health. Now granger builds an egg, finishing the forward. All buildings will be at full health. If one structure gets destroyed, the health of the others will decrease (instead of heal) to their new limit.

I'd not decrease it, instead having the building not be healed above ⅓ or ⅔ or whatever as appropriate.

Human example: Bob builds a turret, a drill and another turret. Now the forward has reached a threshold (here: 20 BP). Since Bob doesn't build close to RC, he can't build another structure closeby unless he builds a repeater first. […]

Why not have turrets and tesla generators fire less accurately/often if there are not enough other support buildables of the right kinds within range? (Other turrets and tesla generators, sharing sensor data; repeaters and reactor, perhaps – think overclocking; defence computer, for processing the info more efficiently.)

Or the reverse – too close and they interfere with each others' tracking, taking a little longer to fire or being a little less accurate?

[kharnov]

I could possibly see this working maybe if perhaps the voice/dialogue is humorous. Maybe. Something like Frets on Fire's absurd tutorial character, whatever-his-name-is.

Maybe we can get Darren Salt (Anomalous) to voice granger in his British accent.

[Ishq]

1) Agree with ds. I'm all ears about changes to radar.
Random idea about radar
Show all objects in vis and within range, and show objects in visvis within a much lower threshold compared to that within vis. This will show people and play sounds around corners but not those in other rooms...unless they're really really close.

@Viech's proposals:
Interesting. I'm not too thrilled about adding back local limits limits for the humans since they're already limited by resources. The creep thing adds a "weakness" to alien bases by killing something, but I think this is a bit unbalanced as humans have range and they can heavily harm the alien base from far away without letting the aliens defend. Plus, instead of needing to kill the egg, any building they kill will do more harm than it originally did.

[Viech]

Show all objects in vis and within range, and show objects in visvis within a much lower threshold compared to that within vis. This will show people and play sounds around corners but not those in other rooms...unless they're really really close.

I think vis² was introduced to counter blind spots, for example the one in the main entrances on atcs. These blind spots will usually not happen on short distance, as it needs more than one corner between you and your target. I believe our current sound issues are worse than the blind spot problems we had previously. Using vis² for radar and vis for sound would probably be wise.