Allied teleporters should be able to be linked

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by tesseracta, February 26, 2015.

  1. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. In the late game it can sometimes be near impossible to build enough storage to ensure no wastage, and if what you are saying is correct then this would help my allies considerably and this is not what I have experienced.
    Last edited: March 5, 2015
  2. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    Nope this is true, it's helped me so much in the past. I've been at 0m And 0e all game at times.. xD
    cdrkf likes this.
  3. Bgrmystr2

    Bgrmystr2 Active Member

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    I was actually just thinking about that, and realized I didn't state that team games have eco overflow while shared games have actually shared eco. Thanks for noticing that.

    The great thing about this, is that because these forums aren't team-based at all, and are 100% free for all with alliances turned on, I can turn down your offer because I wouldn't touch you on my team with a 20 meter pole. xD

    Just because a game can go one way or the other does not dictate whatsoever whether or not either view is correct. That won't solve the debate with actual facts, it just forces the viewpoint of the person who happens to win the game. We can't play games with a "my teleporters work, yours don't" scenario anyway, and that would be pretty unfair if only one team could do that. Testing results solve debates. Internally-empty ego-fueled challenges do not. It's actually kind of childish to think that would actually solve the problem. xD

    Also, not only is my mouse broken (internal scroll wheel mechanical parts shattered), but I haven't played seriously for more than half a year because of this. To be fair, ranked competitive came out after my mouse broke, so I haven't been able to touch it. I'd probably lose because it's already bias to begin with. That and I'd never accept those terms in the first place. I'm not stupid.

    Let me be very specific since I've missed a few points with the last post.

    I've been talking about solid Team Armies the entire time. Pre-set teams, cannot be changed mid-game, period. I'm for overflow-economy (not shared eco, since this is a unique feature to shared armies)
    IE, if you have extra resources and are wasting them, they can instead fuel into your allies' pools who don't have full bars.

    For Free-For-All games with mid-game alliances and breakoffs turned on, I'd rather each person have their own economy, with overflow being an option by default turned OFF. That way, they can't ride on your eco unless you flip the switch. If they turn overflow on, you can benefit from their full bars, but they cannot benefit from yours unless you do the same. In FFA, one needs self-preservation. This stops people from stalling and then turning shared on to steal eco from others. You can't dictate how others share their eco.
    tatsujb likes this.
  4. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    "I can turn down your offer because I wouldn't touch you on my team"
    Who said anything about me being on your team?
    cdrkf likes this.
  5. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    why is noone mentioning that you can USE enemy teleporter but can't link ALLY ones?
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  6. Bgrmystr2

    Bgrmystr2 Active Member

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    Sounds to me like you did.
    Or that's what these two lines imply. English is hard sometimes.

    Actually, I already did. Lemmy find it real quick..

    Edit : Found it.
    tatsujb likes this.
  7. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    I was implying your team vs my team.


    And moving enemy/ally units through an already linked teleporter is totally different from linking allied teleporters.
  8. Bgrmystr2

    Bgrmystr2 Active Member

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    That's not how English works. I know what you meant, I just find it very funny how different what you said was from what you meant. xD

    Yes, that's true. They are different. I would presume that my units can use my own as well as my allied teleporters, but I would not automatically presume they can use enemy teleporters that are active too. Wouldn't they have some type of internal computer to tell friend from foe..? Guess enemy units are more important to teleporters than allied units.

    Question for anyone who knows. Is it possible to send your units through a linked allied portal? I presume this is a yes, but this whole thread makes me question teleporter mechanic logic.
  9. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    That is not how English works? Enlighten me! LOL

    I'm sorry but when someone accepts a challenge, they would almost certainly be talking about against each other.

    Your scenario reads as follows
    Person 1: I challenge you to a dual
    Person 2: Okay challenge accepted
    Person 1: Okay great, who are we challenging? Let's go team!
    Hahahahahaha

    This whole thread is making me question your ability to think logically.
  10. EdWood

    EdWood Active Member

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    .
    Last edited: March 6, 2015
  11. Bgrmystr2

    Bgrmystr2 Active Member

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    Hahahaha, sorry to break your bubble, dude, but I had a college level English comprehension in the 6th grade. Post-college graduate in the 8th. I'm breaking 27 y/o in a few months, so I've improved a bit since then. Here, let me break it down.

    This indicates I do not want "X". "X" equates to you being on the same team. This is not a challenge, it's simply me stating I do not want to be on the same team.
    Your reply is insinuating that the statement in quotes was seen as a challenge, (to not want you as a teammate) and accepts this challenge of having me as a teammate to make me think otherwise. This cannot be construed as being on a different team because of the wording used in the direct quote.

    This is English comprehension, pure and simple. Like I said, I know what you meant, but what you said means something entirely different.

    Thanks.

    One, I do know of the mechanic. I'm just confirming it was still in play since it's been a while. I can't be sure if it was removed since we can't connect our own portals to an allied portal. I don't personally see an effective difference in gameplay between using an allied portal or connecting mine to theirs, so my viewpoint stems from this.

    Two, It also brings up the question why force both players of a team to build a teleporter in each respective base instead of being able to simply link them and streamline the process that's going to happen anyway. It just delays the inevitable, and you can't remove your allied buildings if you don't want them there. You can remove the power to a teleporter if you don't want their units coming through yours. It gives more control.

    Three, did you see the point where I said my mouse's scroll wheel was broken? It basically breaks any hope that I would be able to get out of the original camera point, nevermind play an actual game. I've made do with a Q and W as a keyboard shortcut to zoom in and out, but I can't actively control the speed of zoom since keyboard keys are not analog.
    tatsujb likes this.
  12. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    My previous post:
    ----
    "God forbid if I had to have you as a teammate haha."
    Challenge accepted. Best of 5 (2 game lead required).
    You decide 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5
    -----

    Of course you wouldn't want me on your team, you had stated that "God forbid if...", therefore why would I be asking to be on your team? So obviously I was challenging you (accepting your offer of a challenge which wasn't directly being offered but indirectly through your previous comments) to a game where someone other than you has me on their team and we are challenging you and your team. Thus proving (once we beat you) that in fact the opposite is true, "God forbid if I had to have YOU as a teammate".

    Your "God forbid" comment and other subsequent comments were insinuating that I shouldn't be playing team games and that you would pity the fool who was teamed up with me. So obviously my "challenge accepted" comment was against you and not to be teamed up with you. The context of our discussion should have made this pretty obvious, especially since you have such an amazing grasp of the English language.
  13. tesseracta

    tesseracta Active Member

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  14. iacondios

    iacondios Active Member

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    There is absolutely no (good) reason [as far as I can see] why Team Armies - not shared - should not be able to link teleporters. Now, FFA dynamic alliances, I would hesitate (though it would make for gleeful backstabbing opportunities), but when you are specifically playing in a dedicated team game mode? It seems obvious to me.

    The solution to all this teleporter linking confusion / stealing is really simple:
    When an teammate attempts to link to your portal, you get a popup confirmation window with [Accept, Deny]. It's already in the game (unit deleting). To make it better, you could add anti spam measures (like with the pause button) and have a "ask me again for this player" checkbox, depending on your level of confidence in them.

    I will admit I did not know about excess resources being sent to allies. Perhaps this is how you manage over 100% resource utilization?

    What is the difference between an FFA with a gentlemen's ceasefire agreement (or a dynamic alliance with shared victories enabled) and a non-shared team battle? The units won't autoattack each other in a team battle, and you get some extra sight (and the excess resource thing, I suppose). You also gain the benefit of seeing your partner's pings, and a team chat to covertly strategize. You cannot control each other's units or resources in either (again except for the excess eco thing). Essentially, you are playing two separate free-for-alls with some extra sight.

    Shared armies team mode allows you to control and influence both your teammates' economy and units. This has an implicit trust and increase cooperation for the team. I think these should be defining features of shared army mode. So then, what should non-shared team battles be, if not ceasefire agreement FFA's with extra sight and some communication features? Having teleporter linking abilities allows you to make use of separated positions. It allows a well off or less pressured player to send assistance to one who is struggling or surrounded. Now yes, you could just send in your own orbital fabricator or unit cannon a combat fab. But those are mid-late game solutions, or at least not suited for early game. Not to mention the waste of space of building an extra teleporter.

    I feel that without linking of team army non-shared teleporters, the entire game mode becomes kind of pointless. As a person who often hosts matches and then does team battles with one of my friends in mumble, we always go shared army. I feel that it is generally unfairly balanced to have equal size teams not have equal sharing status in a team map. But, if we have linkable team teleporters, I would feel more like the "share" option is the individual team's choice as to whether they want to be able to control each other's units in a pinch or split the eco workload or not; not a choice as to whether they want to cripple their team play or not. I feel that joining a random team battle, I would generally prefer to go unshared, to have control of my own economy.... but unless you specifically invest in setting up your own teleporter on their planet and spend the attention and resources to maintain it (did the battle line move? Proxy base setup? Maybe they hopped planets?), you can't really intervene or assist in your ally's battles. God forbid if you have more than one teammate, and they all want to help each other out...
    cdrkf likes this.
  15. tesseracta

    tesseracta Active Member

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    Ok, first of all, this entire barrage of comments is just pointless because we all know in the end I'm going to win.
    Second of all, being able to link to allied teleporters causes these things to arise:

    I. Help your teammates destroy an enemy and protect them, if they are noobs then at least you might have a pro on your team to protect the noob. Of course if you were the enemy, you might not like that then because it hinders their ability to be able to take out the weak, and that might ruin game-play. So, I argue against that to say that the point of teams is to have both persons benefit to be able to achieve a goal. If you can't (or don't have the opportunity to) help your teammate, then what's the point of teams? And, how come you can use other people's teleporters but still not be able to link to them? (Of course, just so it doesn't ruin game-play, you can't link your teleporter to an enemy teleporter, and again also of course, it would be an access denied thing anyway, logically.)

    II. It doesn't matter whether shared armies exist or not, because they are two separate game modes, one game mode does not dictate what the other game mode will be.

    III. It wouldn't ruin game-play for an ally to be able to allow access to another allied teleporter, all it would do is allow another aspect of the game to arise which may prove to make the game more exciting and possibly more intense for the attacker/defender, as I last recall, it's not fun to get blown up when your ally might have a teleporter which it might make you rage when you see that the ally might have been able to help you, but still couldn't place one near you because he didn't have a construction bot available. As in all game-play, you still have the teleporter which you are supposed to protect to get re-enforcements (or to speed up transportation), and you can still move through it by both sides, and you can change the links of teleporters.

    IV. It would be illogical to not have the option of linking one end of space-time to another part of space-time, since no one owns "space," you can only own the stuff in it. (Even if this isn't space time, it is still a type of 3-D space [in-game]) To have proof that these ethics exist in the game, just try and move your slammers through an enemy teleporter, they don't own space (and space isn't apart of an army) so they can't block you unless they turn it off, and which that means that the person who is using the teleporter should have the discretion of linking the teleporter to the place he wants to, unless there is some sort of "access denied" thing. Of course, to avoid the problems of noobs trying to troll you or control your army when you are the one who is supposed to do that, then you should probably make it an option (perhaps in the drop menu in the top right) which says "Link" and you can check and uncheck that to allow/disallow allies to use your teleporters. There is another option though if you still don't find that acceptable, which I will mention below this list.

    If you still are an unbeliever, listen to either of my solutions or argue with ignorance against everything I have said.

    a. Have an option in the top left drop menu DURING game which says "Link" and you can check it and uncheck it, and it would be beside your ally's name, just like the "resc" box if you are in dynamic alliances FFA, but if you are in team armies, then you would also have a box there that would be the (-->) "resc" box (<-- which is a completely different suggestion, which is irrelevant) and the new suggested "link" box.

    b(condition i*). Have an option BEFORE you start the game with FFA, "allow shared teleporters", which can be checked/unchecked in another box if dynamic alliances is allowed, just like allied victory except they have different functions.
    b(condition ii*). Have another check box if you are playing Team Armies, and have it say "Allow Link Allied Unshared Army Teleporters" (or something similar and shorter) where the options of dynamic alliances/allied victory would be if it were FFA, except this is an option for team armies.
    *both can be implemented, or just one of them can be implemented.

    c. (PLZ NO) Ignore this entire chain of posts and likes and keep the stupid teleporter system as the way it is.

    d. No restrictions on linking allied teleporters, troll time.

    e. Some random idea that didn't occur at the time I was writing this post
    tatsujb, iacondios and cdrkf like this.
  16. tesseracta

    tesseracta Active Member

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  17. tesseracta

    tesseracta Active Member

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    I realize that there might be some game changes that should be made sooner than this one, but eventually I would like to see this not just as a mod, but the real thing so that all PA games have the opportunity to have linkable teleporters. One thing I might want to see sooner is the planet minimum size glitch in the editor...

    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/system-editor-broken-pte-78194.67998/

    And

    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/why-cant-you-place-unit-cannons-on-water.67837/

    But other than that, I think the game needs this change.
  18. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    The biggest problem with linking allied teleporters is this.

    Let's look at an example 3v3 with 3 starting planets.

    In this scenario there would absolutely no reason for your team to spawn on the same planet. In fact you would be at a disadvantage. In fact, you would always be better to spawn on saparate planets.

    For example.
    Team 1 spawns with one team member on each planet.
    Team 2 spawns with two team members on one planet and one team member on another planet.

    So we have
    Planet 1: Team 1 (x 1) (this guy gets a whole planet of resources to themself)
    Planet 2: Team 1 (x 1) : Team 2 (x 2)
    Planet 3: Team 1 (x 1) : Team 2 (x 1)

    So on planet 3 you pretty much get an even 1v1
    On Planet 2, Team 1 doesn't need to expand, they simply entrench themselves and build units to disrupt Team 2's economic expansion. Team 1 builds a teleporter beteen Planet 1 and Planet 2 and simply streams units through from Planet 1 (while they build up quickly on Planet 1 without any fear of their eco being raided). They also retreat the Team 1 commander through the teleporter onto Planet 1, so that both commanders are safe from early snipe, but still have the advantage of being on all three planets.

    The linking of teleporters makes the travel between planets too easy in the early game. The only way I would support linking allied teleporters, would be if they made the Teleporter a T2 building and only buildable by T2 fabbers.
    Last edited: March 9, 2015
  19. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Except we already have this in shared teams and it plays really well. Just watch the clan wars vids.
  20. planktum

    planktum Post Master General

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    So why don't you keep playing your shared team games, and we'll keep playing our non-shared games with non-linking ally teleporters. You guys keep talking about sharing teleporters and excess resources and all that stuff, yet your not happy playing shared-teams? Maybe you guys should ask Uber to change the shared-armies gameplay rather than messing with our non-shared gameplay.

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