One of the things I loved about TA and something SupCom really evolved in many awesome ways was the building interface. PA seems destined to go down this path, already seeing things like snapping and rotation. Given that though, I thought I'd blurt out a few ideas I've had and see what else people can come up with: No snap modifier: Whilst snapping can be great some of the time, other times it becomes a little annoying when you want to have a little more freedom, so a keyboard modifier, or a settings preference to turn off snapping might be useful. This would cause blueprints to completely ignore existing structures so you can find the pixel-perfect sweet spot. Snap to nearest acceptable placement modifier: Conversely, the ability to just place a building at the nearest acceptable location closest to the cursor might also be ideal for quick situations. Persistent rotation: This would cause current blueprint to remember the previous rotation as long as shift is held down. This doesn't necessarily require that a structure was just placed, and would even remember rotations created as a result of rotating a red blueprint, allowing the user to create the rotation on a bad location, in order to get the ideal alignment and then paste the blueprint elsewhere. An example where this would be especially useful is when placing a shipyard, where the exact placement may not be immediately obvious even though the desired rotation is known. Another method of achieving the "rotate first, place later" might be the ability to abort a placement by clicking the right mouse button whilst the left is already pressed? Exit indicators: Most fabrication structures have fairly obvious exits once you get used to them, however one place I think they'd be especially useful is in the shipyards as the correct rotation here is vital since you want them to set sail in the right direction. This could just be a different color arrow sticking out from the blueprint.
In case you didn't know with the factory exits, units will be built facing the exit closest to the factory's rally point, so you can force it to use one or the other by setting an appropriate initial rally point. Otherwise good ideas.
Hi there, exit indicators would be great for antiair- and laserturrets .. .. the snapping needs some tweeks thats true .. I would like to see another way for this: - not snapping to the building itself but snap/copy the axis of the nearest building (similar to your "persitent rotation idea) .. but I`m very confident Uber will get to this sooner or later with their own ideas *hopesooner ;-)* .. not realy "exit indicators" but the facing of the turrets
I'm not sure we think "exit indicators" means the same thing? I was referring to the exit of a unit as it leaves the fabrication plant that created it. I suppose this could also apply to a turret's forward face. Nice idea with the snapping to axis.
1. +1 2. +1 3. +1 4. I don't think their should be exits from buildings, just annoying. Really I think SC2, 'units leave from edge of building (they can clip through walls until they've left)' works a lot better. Sick of having units get stuck inside buildings or accidently placing a building facing the wrong way. Seeing as how this is a Macro oriented game I don't think having to micro the direction of buildings is a good thing.
Well there's no way they'll ditch the unit building animation given this games ancestry, so having units appear at the edge of buildings is clearly not happening. The best we can hope for is factories designed to allow exit on all 4 sides I think.
Yes, because that's how you improve a product, keep the bad features which are counter intuitive and go against the modus operandi of the product (macro).
Actually the build animation and roll out time is a balance mechanic. Because rollout is upwards of 9 seconds, it is far more efficient to build multiple factories than it is to assist a factory with engineers. This is a significant step forward from both SupCom and TA, where it was often more efficient to build 1 or 2 T2/T3 factories and just pour Air Engineers on top (T1 Engis for SupCom because they had effectively infinite range for factory assist).
I have noticed this and I think it is a great design. It encourage you to expand more. But it will cause trouble and unfair situations sometimes. Like when you do not have enough space to build a lot of factories. But on the other hand I think I like that to. It is one thing that is kinda unique about this game. I mean the spawn locations can be a bit unfair.
I have nothing against build animation and the rollout times, just don't see why they can't clip through the building on rollout. Edit: I can see that having the units having to roll out of a ramp, then navigate around the buildings to get to the destination makes sense.I've attached an example of what it is like now and an example of what I think would work better, bear in mind I think the clipping should only happen once, when the units are first leaving the building:
Because it looks unpolished and subpar. It would be a much better idea to simply have arrows on the blueprint showing where the potential exits are when building the factory to begin with. Building placement should matter and having them clip through the building in anyway looks tacky IMHO.
Well that is what happens in sc2, they have some code which figures out if an exit is blocked and then pumps the unit out of the nearest unblocked space. Also the units can come out from any 360 degree position from a building.
Yeah I have played starcraft, starcraft 2, Company of Heroes, etc. This game comes from the core of TA and doesn't ignore the improvements SupCom made. Units get built, which you get to see, then they roll out of the factory. Building placement is a strategic choice, especially on a sphere where the rotation matters. No need to undue what looks amazing now and take a step backwards.
And that will be fixed closer to release. We are still in alpha. It keeps getting better with each iteration. Also seems like a bit of a sidebar over the orignal convo or even topic, of which I agree. Arrows showing the exits while placing buildings would be useful and there really isn't a reason to add it. Changing how the buildings produce units altogether to make up for incomplete pathing is just the wrong direction to take.
The whole point of this sub-genre is real time simulation. Having weird gamey quirks like clipping detracts from the experience. TA , Supcom and PA are the only RTSs in which real world common sense like "Maybe I shouldn't put this artillery on an inclined slope" or "Maybe I should intercept the opponents nuke by flying my experimental flying saucer over it at launch" can actually matter. No clip promotes good base design and essentially adds "space" as the third resource.
So hang on, are you saying all projectiles are actually fully simulated, for instance I could intercept a nuke with a plane? DAFUQ that is ******* amazing!
Yep. That's why games like Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander and this are so awesome. In TA, I've seen artillery hit a passing plane in mid-air. I've seen AA missiles that missed their target fall back to earth and land on enemy units. In Sup Com, I've seen nukes and long range artillery hit flying experimentals, and out-of-control aircraft take out an opponents under-construction building.
