More details on upcoming Asteroids update!

Indeed - most explosions we have have never really been changed since alpha, save for some color correction.
I was hoping we'd get volumetric explosions much like the nuke explosion for every unit. It looked great in the kickstarter previs, it looks great ingame with the nuke mushroom cloud. Why not do something similar (but of course smaller and less over the top) for ingame unit explosions?

Also, almost all projectiles look like first-pass programmer art and most have also not been changed since the alpha days. The only exceptions I can think of are the sniper bots (which don't look that great) and the anchor lasers.

Hell even the laser towers have muzzle flashes for all their barrels even though only one of them is firing at a time which looks plain ridiculous. Why hasn't this ever been changed?

I am sick and tired of the "just install 246 mods so the game is what it should be in vanilla".

The "more pew pew" mod is a prime example of how nice effects can be done with the existing system. The point is that 95% of all players will never see it because people don't know how to get mods. Why should they even have to mod basic effects to make the game halfway decent looking?

Last I knew it was an engine limit. As someone who would love to design some really interesting units I was crushed to learn of this really awkward limit/quirk.

Mike

and such the question arises what of those is more effiecient (requires less time / work for its cost while giving the best result)

@KNight first off WB

isnt that a similar problem what you guys hat with missing hooks?
one thing i wonder what is with the anchor rotating cannon does that as well have multiple muzzleflashes ..couldn't you work arround with that?

No idea/I wouldn't know, like I said before, "last I knew". ;p

Mike

Ace i forgot terrain! I just feel no rts game has truly captured war yet due to terrain. Why have no rts games utilized different terrain that directly effects gameplay? Like if my 50 tanks are facing 200 yet I got the terrain advantage I overcome. I feel sup com really is the only game that came close to a next Gen rts but yet the terrain did not affect gameplay enough. The planets in pa are cool but the terrain is garbage and is literally the same as terrain from rts games in the 90s,totally flat. If Uber had only gone the way of the early concept art this game would have ended up being epic and a true spiritual successor to both ta and sup com. I would honestly rather pa lose the 5 planet wars and focus more on varying the terrain to make each battle more strategic andexciting. The battles in socom were so awesome bc of all the different strategies youcoulduse. Sup com really is the only rts game that held its weight for years pa has already died off. Our hopes for Uber focusing more on each unit, making them special and distinguished from another adding hover tanks, adding terrain that affects gameplay and better overall map design/look with mountains, hills, plateaus etc with better effects etc prob never going to happen...asteroids are cool but it's just going to be like a scaled down planet that is not going to enhance gameplay much....

Wargame: European Escalation.

I guess I forgot to mention a game in the style of sup com ta pa ...

TA's terrain then, as it's height map made some weapons better then others.

Please name the achievement for smashing an asteroid "Dino Hunter" or "K–Pgow!" or "Cretaceous–Paleogene Killer" or something dino-related.

Cuz dinosaurs.

rawr.

Earlier in the thread it was suggested that asteroids cripple a planet without completely destroying it and reserving total planetary annihilation for planet on planet collisions that create new asteroid fields. I think it would be sweet if an asteroid impact left behind a lava world. This could be a deformation of the original planet, or possibly a completely new world generated in it's place. What ever is more efficient, but it has potential and uses a lot of existing game assets.



I'm just brainstorming... If a deformation from earth type world to lava world was possible, what would be involved?

Right now planets have a surface geometry, and a water/lava geometry. Each has a skin applied.

If the impact has an effect that replaces the original skin with the lava world skin that would be a good start, even better if it's applied by a firewall or shockwave similar to the original video. If it had to be done in a single large pass it could be hidden by particle and light effects.

For the transition from water to lava would it be possible to shrink the scale until it's hidden entirely, change the skin, and then scale back up? With some surface particle effects it could look like the ocean boiled away and lava escaped from the core. Most render engines have model scale changing as a default feature. It doesn't *sound* hard, but I don't know what else may be tied to those meshes.

For craters and terrain deformation is it possible to offset the current terrain mesh in real time? If a height map can be applied to an existing mesh then it should be possible to have an impact template (or several) that has preset offsets, including basic crater shaping at the impact point, reveins and cracks added around the back of the planet, and some noise to offset everything just a little randomly. The existing terrain would be raised or lowered by the specified amounts in the template. The new lava planet would resemble the original planet, but with slightly offset features and a lava ocean ringed by hills where the asteroid hit.

You would have to remove any separately modeled terrain features and doodads in the processes. I'm not sure how to implement new ones. Features like rocks and little volcanoes could possible be spawned during the "wave" over the planet... or maybe the existing plateaus and rocks could be preserved, but replaced with "lava versions" during the transition? Maybe a mix of both. Removing some completely while swapping others to lava skinned versions.

I'm not certain, but I vaguely remember a terrain heightmap editor having been mentioned in patch notes. I haven't checked for myself though. If this is the case how much *new* engine functionality are we really talking about? Applying both skins and fading between them would be completely new... but if Uber is aiming to reproduce the effects in the original video then something similar has to be implemented to get the transition in anyway. If there is a terrain editor that lets users paintbrush the height map then we have real time heightmap deformation already, this would use much of the same code, but applying it programmatically from an offset template.

Terrain passability maps (for pathfinding) would have to be regenerated. We know this can be done programmatically because the system generator already does it, though it does take time. Upon impact the whole planet could be tagged as "non-pathable" and then once the terrain transition is complete we rerun the pathing tools on the new geometry.


As I said above, I'm just brainstorming. I made sure to phase nearly everything as a question, and I'm not trying to make it sound trivial, because I know very well that it isn't. But I do know if existing objects and methods can be utilized it helps a lot with implementation.

@Pendaelose

i don't think it being so much a case of IF it is possible
but rather how much time and work is required for it ...

@KNight ... .... it can't be THAT long ago, no? ... can it?

PendaeloseI doubt they are going tomake it that cool...

I certainly don't *expect* it... for me it was just more of a fun brain game to imagine the best way to do it.

i still have planetside-annihilation-zone kind of dreams ...

Given what Jables has said, this sounds like the best feasible implementation for asteroids leaving craters. Might not make it into the game, but depending on how accessible the old crater code will be I could see this being moddable.

this game was created in the pursuit of awesome

Yeah... I still can't figure out how this solution is less fun and more expensive in a point that it isn't viable.

All I can say is there are many different feasible solutions to the asteroid problem and Uber would be stupid not to consider them. Uber would also do themselves credit if they were to explain why certain things are not feasible, why they are going with a certain idea over another, etc. even if the reason is cost of development is too much.

It has been clearly said that any sort of terraforming crater system basically requires them to use the current extremely hacky system and they want to get rid of it. Understandable from a technical perspective imho.

Going to miss the craters...always thought it was awesome to be able to wage war on a planet full of destruction, another shattered dream thanks Uber.