Some changes in how we use PTE

Please do not hamstring PA for a small subsection of players that are only one aspect of the game. Modding is one of the three main pillars of PA and is a fundamental part of it. (nervous inflection)

Just tried again and it worked correctly, for first turret ... after that, unable to make it work again
And I tried hard :

I used to be a pro at that back in the time, something changed to the algorithm ?
Anyway, this seems to require too much time now for competitive match

PS : Total thread hijacking

That is utter bull coming from someone who is in love with their mods.

"That means you have to read into mods as well" - are you serious? What about a mod which isn't publicly available. People who make mods don't have to publish them.

"know how to equip yourself to play at your best ability" - So when you play scrabble do you sit there with a dictionary in your lap?

Yes modding is a key element of PA, but that doesn't mean it should be allowed in competitive 1v1 ladder play. I'm not saying remove modding altogether, just remove it from the competitive environment (ladder and standard custom games). If people want to create other custom games with modding allowed and the fact that mods are being used is visible to everyone, then I have no problem with that.

Fair enough as long as it doesn't harm anything else. As it stands right now Uber would have to commit a major amount of resources. In order to put in the infrastructure that would be required to support that functionality. They're better off putting those resources into the missing or incomplete KS features.

I think this thread fulfilled it's purpose so time for some more derailing. Really we should all get a warning for this, but ColaColin is too nice

I've used mods that I haven't published that aid my style of play in teeny tiny ways (like... a different icon set, minimized UI, bleepy hotkeys before they were added into vanilla), AND I've used macros to do things like remove the rolloff time from factories when I held a button down. If it's in the game, I'm using it. If I think it gives me an UNFAIR advantage, I'll write about it and try to get Uber to do something about it, like what happened with the rolloff thing (which by the way, wasn't THAT helpful, but it still felt exploit-ey).

Currently I don't think there's anything in PA that can be seen as giving a player an unfair advantage with a mod, it's all about personal preference, like do you use WASD or arrow keys or mouse for camera movement? UI Modding just gives those who desire them a few more options. I feel like I should point out that I don't use Hotbuild, as that's one that's often seen as giving people an advantage, and I'm still winning quite a few games.

Getting what mods you're using to display before a game starts so your opponents can see would be pointless, because the user could just change the display name of the mods if they didn't want them to be seen, or if they were actually "hacking" and getting an unfair advantage by doing something clever, they're probably also clever enough (or the creator of the hack is clever enough) to hide the usage of that mod.

EDIT: I like Scrabble. UI modding in PA is like changing the colour of the board in scrabble for just one player who is colourblind so that they can see the triple word scores better, or gluing the letter holders to your hat so you don't have to look down to see your letters, it's not like giving a player the OSW.

Played alpha and beta then cpu blew up, I'm quite familiar with the economist balance builds.

There was also a **** ton of metal back in those days.

How many maps you guys uploading tomorrow, and will there be match making in pte?

One thing I recall from TASpring was the concept of mini-AIs, that looked after a couple of units or buildings. I think the main one was the metal-maker on/off.

If a UI mod can control units in PA, whats to stop either small or big AI help during games? Say a small AI that grabs spare fabbers and sends them off to grab safe metal, while you're battling someone. Its a simple thing to do, but would give a fairly big advantage because the other player is too busy to do it manually.

With a fairly serious AI, letting it control attacks on a unit by unit micro basis could be a big advantage.

In the end, I'd love to have these, but making it fair will be tricky.

Yes and Yes.

make coding ranked games. two players both with AI that know nothing. and they have to play the game by just writing the ai and how to play would be kinda fun

Looking forward to see what other terrains changed, and even if it is just the desert planet i'm still excited

Custom games would be fair game for mods, if there is a note indicating which mods are being used. It's sounds like the player base in PA is highly skewed in favour of mods, so I'm obviously fighting a losing battle. But a game which is so highly skewed towards the modding community will never get mainstream (eSport) popularity.

You'll take my Hotbuild2 from my cold, dead fingers.

I tbh don't see why using the best UI available should not be part of being a good player. The best formula 1 pilots drive the best cars as well, don't they? FA has even more UI-modding ability in the sense of gameplay-effecting stuff, like i.e. a mod that automatically turns metal makers on/off depending on your energy. There is direct API in FA to do that kind of thing.

Helper-AIs are btw not really possible. If you remove ui mods from any game type you'll basically remove all players used to their ui mods from that game type, as it is a massive difference to play i.e. without hotbuild. It's completely different hotkeys after all. Nobody wants to learn 2 different sets of them.

I don't think there is a need to display what mods are used. All players use the PA client. The PA client has known API limitations. What a player UI does with them is their thing, not mine. Ofc if they find cheats (so basically bugs that allow clients to do too much), like many modders did in the past, they should report them, like many modders did in the past.

@Fr33Lancer imbawalls works as long as you use alt and shift to queue them up, I have no issues with it.

You are just not going to be able to prevent it any more, no matter what.

It comes down to an old, simple argument:
Trivial micro actions are a horrible measurement for skill in RTS since any basic script can solve these problems. As long as the game is relying on attention as the primary limiting resource, users who automate stuff will always have an significant advantage. An automation of trivial tasks is essential in the stock client in order to create a stable base level for the micro performance which as a result allows you to compare the quality of higher level decisions. This also means that it is dangerous to ever include any mechanics which require micro to use them, like manually evading projectiles with Dox, but it also means that the lack of certain default behaviors can be an huge issue, like auto-kiting.

Sorry @Planktum, but you lost. Micro focused competetive online games will never be fair outside of a locked down environment, and such environments simply do not exist as you could e.g. tell from the sheer existence of client mods for Starcraft 2, even though they claim to have a locked down environment and they have tried to mark these mods as cheats, which by the way created an rather toxic environment for any type of client mod.

As we approach 8AM PST, the world awaits the arrival of the PTE to the public.

!patch ?