Handling Wreckage - The SUPER POLL

I wasn't trying to stir up confusion or anything, I was just consolidating the opinions in the previous wreckage thread into a poll. The devs want feedback, so I think voting is the easiest option to lay it out visually.

And it was a good idea to do the poll.
Every possibility changes the gameplay a bit. Uber listens and maybe they can get an idea whats best for all of us. They're the experts here

I dont like any of the options on the poll... there's lots of good ideas in many of them, but I don't like the idea that ALL walking units can climb over ALL wreckage.

Similarly, that ALL rolling units can push ALL wreckage.

Krogoth wreckage is going to be too big for anything to move or climb over. On the other hand, Flea wreckage should be small enough for pretty much any normal tank to push aside.

I'm all for bulldozer units as well...

But really, things should make sense. Total Annihilation, and presumably Planetary Annihilation are going to be big on realistic (or at least, plausible) physics. Projectile trajectories, gravitational wells, etc.

Consequently, wreckage should be handled in a plausible if not realistic fashion: Spider-units can climb over most if not all wreckage (perhaps, slower), walking units can get over a lot of small wreckage, at a reduced speed -- tanks take little to no speed reduction from small wreckage... etc.

And again, if there's no one-size-fits-all solution, then just make blocking wreckage a toggle in game options.

Bulldozer units? You must be joking. I don't understand why you think it's good idea to spend development time on something that promotes babysitting micro.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy actually microing fighting units, not playing simcity. I mean, while we're at it, let's require the commander to have a three-course meal being prepared at certain intervals by three different kinds of units and served by a 4th... :roll:

IMO this game should be made very simple in base management, with solid and responsive micro capabilities for combat units and a well-balanced unit range/power/cost/capabilities(land/air/water)... and then when that works perfectly start adding "bulldozing" units.

I'd rather micro my fighting units than babysit wreckage, repair buildings, refuel, rearm, reenergize, etc. etc. etc.

Oh great, lets give those lower end PC processors a heart attack and turn pathing into a complete mess when you got larger armies having to move through the area.

while I think it would look cool if units would push wreckage aside, I dont think, it is something the devs should spend their time on

Then make it pure-blocking. Hell, make three options for games:

1) Blocking wreckage
2) Physics simulation (wreckage blocks / slows down depending on the wreck and the unit)
3) Non-blocking wreckage

Exactly, either make it an option, or choose between blocking and non-blocking. While I agree it would be cool to have physically realistic interactions with wreckages, it would simply be too complex for low-end PCs.

The physics simulation is the solution for pure blocking. One does not exist without the other in that case.

Unless you want mass air transports having to constantly lift your ground units over the gigantic convoluted mass of tank carcasses that engineers are having trouble clearing thanks to gunship interference. It would really slow down the game with blocking wreckage.

Better to have non blocking non-physics, and at the most have wreckage slow units going through them.

Let's try and keep things civil here, folks. We're just talking gameplay opinions, ultimately it's up to the devs anyway.

This is one of those cases where you kind of need to apply the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid!), which is why I'm not terribly happy with this poll in general since it just kinda throws a bunch of wild ideas out there, some of which may not be all that possible to implement.

Here's a simple method, that I think most people would be reasonably happy with. Categorize your wreckage as Small / Medium / Large and do the same thing with your units as well. In addition to being different categories of wreckage, they are different sizes as well as diagrammed below.

Small / Medium / Large

Code:

X.. XX. XXX
... XX. XXX
... ... XXX

a Small unit, is blocked by all wreckage, but because of the shape of wreckage, is also likely to be able to find a path between wrecks in most cases, since it will be able to squeeze through diagonally between any possible gap.

A medium unit can move over small wreckage slowly, but is blocked by medium or large wreckage.

A large unit may move over small wreckage quickly, medium wreckage slowly, but is still blocked by large wreckage.

And lastly, like in other versions of TA/SC weapon fire can downgrade wreckage to lower levels, even down to crushed rubble which doesn't obstruct any units at all.

A solution like this would be pretty easy to implement, which is the entire point really. Now, I do like the idea of being able to push wreckage as well, but I also recognize that it could be a complicated feature to include in a physics engine. If it is possible to implement it, again, I again suggest keeping it as simple as possible. Simple rules make games run smoothly, and are also easier for the end user to wrap their head around.

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I'd say I agree with this, including the keep it simple part I never intended to make things complicated with a poll, I was just trying to consolidate information from another thread. This sounds like a good solution to me though.

I went with the SupCom way, because it is a simpler implementation and pushing wreckage to the side is basically realistic deadweight and doesn't really add anything fun or awesome.
(For some reason I like using the expression "realistic deadweight" xD)

Not necessarily. Improved reclaim patrolling would be a good solution for pure blocking too.

Actually, like I said in another thread, if you play TA online these days (like on Warzone), you will never see too many units littered because everyone knows how valuable that metal is. I do remember the days when there where more wreckages than living units though.

Guys, the players' computers will not be calculating the pathfinding or the physics in this game. The monstrous 32-core 64 GB RAM servers will be doing those calculations in parallel and sending the results to your wimpy Core 2 Duo boxes with beefy video cards to render it on the screen. The game engine is not only going to be parallizable, but distributed across multiple machines.

All previous TA-family games, and to my knowledge all other RTS games, have been distributed where each player's computer does part of the work. This is the first time that's going to change, and the scale will be immense.

I like it! Or... in general, a system like this. Could base it off 'mass' or 'hp' or whatever either, too.

Actually no. From what I understand TA and SC were the exception, they were actually asynchronous which is no doubt a large part of why it was even possible to crank the army size up as high as they did at that time.

You are right about pretty much every RTS in existence though. The usual model is that every machine duplicates the same processing at the same time, effectively making the slowest machine the tempo for the entire game.

Question for all those advocating push-able wreckage adhering to at least some basic physics model:

How do we handle log-jams?

Choke-points tend to naturally become hotly contested battlefields.
That means an awful lot of corpses littering a small area.
You can only shove so much before it all locks up.

Good question.

Thus why I said big tanks (or construction units) can simply smash it all to pieces.

On the other hand, if you've sent so much crap that you have that big a problem with wreckage, you kinda deserve to be jammed up. You're fighting on a sphere, attack from somewhere else. Or just blow it all up. Jeez.