*Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for tablets

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

You are looking the recreation of a 15 year old game on a modern tablet. Tablets nowadays are significantly more powerful than computers at that time. What is being suggested here is that a game built to use existing computer technologies be implemented on tablets when their hardware is nowhere near comparable at the present time. Sure in 15 years (probably much less if Moore's Law keeps remaining valid) tablets might compare to computers we have today. As of right now during development? this is not the case.

This is without addressing people's comments on how the UI would be handled and the development time/money (which you do acknowledge).

I would doubt that when you bring keyboard shortcuts into the mix and as mentioned above there would have to be significant development time spent on producing a touch friendly UI (even more if you want to include Android and iOS), even if we assumed the hardware in a tablet would be up for it.

[Edit]: Altered for accuracy, as pluisjen has stated modern tablets are much more powerful than PC's of 15 years ago, rather than comparable.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I personally hate keyboard shortcuts... they slow me down quite a bit... Unit groups are pretty easy to manage with buttons, not keyboard shortcuts.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

What exactly are you proposing when you mention buttons instead of keyboard shortcuts? to have buttons on screen in the UI? Also be careful not to pose something you personally have issues with as something that is universally true for everyone.

I get faster at an RTS when I become more competent at using the keyboard shortcuts, I can jump between structures and unit groups at the push of a key rather than having to move over with the mouse and look at it. I am sure that many would agree with me. If you wanted to have the same level of shortcuts available on a keyboard as something visible on your screen? then you are going to get a very cluttered screen. Take a look at the shortcuts for supreme commander

http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=47952&tab=controls

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I was referring more to the limited specs and screen size of tablets compared to a modern PC.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I don't think all of them are necessary, if I havn't mentioned it before... unit groups in Rusted Warfare are handled perfectly, perhaps if a few more buttons to select factories wouldn't clutter it that much... or what about a slide style interface, you have 3 small buttons on the bottom, and one could slide them to get more options.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

Okay it is your opinion but I think you would find many RTS fans disagree with you in terms of what is useful, I know that I use keyboard shortcuts extensively. Your suggestion to have a slider to reveal more options? that will not make things faster, it makes it slower because there is an extra step between the player and the control they wish to use.

To be clear I am not arguing against a tablet oriented RTS, I have played a few and they can be a lot of fun. But they are games that are exclusively designed to run on a tablet. I just do not think that the control schemes are readily interchangeable, in the same way as a console controller is not a ready replacement for an RTS built to use a mouse and keyboard. There is a reason that RTS games have never really took off on consoles.

PA looks to be more taxing on hardware than a current day tablet can handle and I do not think that you would be getting the intended experience if you made a cut down version for tablets with a touch screen limited interface. In addition to this there are constraints on time and money. All of these factors I think exclude having tablets as a viable platform to run a full version of PA upon release.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I like the thought of observing games and watching replays from a tablet, but can you imagine using a touch screen and trying to compete against someone who has a mouse and keyboard? You would get destroyed if the person was competent at all. I know the game shouldn't depend solely on APM but speed has to make some difference.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

While we're at it let's port it to 360, ps3, wii u, ouya, and my tv.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

[sarcasm]
Dont forget the Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita
Maybe we could even get a version for the old gameboy advance?![/sarcasm]

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I had to respond to this, because no one else did, but... no. Hell no. A tablet blows a 15 year old pc out of the water. A 15 year old-computer ran at maybe 500mHz on 64MB of video memory. Modern tablets can do a lot better. Tablets run a 1.0gHz or up with 512MB of internal memory.
Not comparable to a pc in the slightest, but definately better then an old pc.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I see your point but I feel that you might be missing the point I was trying to make. I suppose I should have worded that better but I didn't dig around to see what the average specifications were on computers 15 years ago and you are 100% right there. The point I was making is that showing a modern tablet play a port of an RTS game from 15 years ago is not at all comparable to a tablets capacity to play a modern PC RTS. The point of my argument is still valid.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

When a tablet can do right-clicks that are both; 1) easy, and 2) accurate, then I'll start wanting games on them.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I don't know what you're smoking, but tablets get up to 1.5ghz quad cores and 1.7 ghz dual cores with 2gb of RAM.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

you can... try a 2 fingered tap or a long tap, or the galaxy pen's buttons.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

SupCom was ported to android, but it's a very bad port

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I don't see any reason why the game couldn't eventually be playable on a tablet. The engine itself is very portable. That being said it's not something we are worrying about at the moment.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

Mobile version would be kinda freaking awesome imo.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I agree

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

That two fingered tap: how does the click position work? I can't imagine it being very accurate.

And the long tap is something I was aware of before I posted. It's not easy. It takes too long to do, and if you speed up the time to register a right-click then you run the risk of confusing rather slow left-clicks with it.

Re: *Important suggestion!* Planetary Annihilation for table

I don't know how feasible this is or if it has even been considered. But would it be at all possible to have a tablet app as a companion controller for the game?

It could maybe display statistics, a production tab, selection buttons for battle groups etc.? You would not be able to play the game on it and it wouldn't be displaying the 3D rendering, but for those of us with tablets, it could make an excellent addition to the command and control options.

Am I mad or is any of that even possible?