Scale Megathread

............................................OLD POLL RESULTS :
.......................

PLEASE READ THROUGH THE OLD POSTS
mock-up of scale variations :


to put everybody up to speed here are some links, and in anycase you should read the thread, I guarantee you it is interesting.
Here is Neutrino's first response to the thread :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-5#post-754683
Here is his second :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-6#post-756169
Here is Zepilot's suggestion : ( read on after the suggestion, the input was interesting.)
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-10#post-764253
Here is Zep's reaction on the turndown :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-15#post-775333
Here is Neutrino's third post :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-16#post-775652

just taking the time to humor this.

the one thing that matters most to me in "fixing" or "changing" PA is that it be regarded as an engine and not a game, as I had originally understood by subtext in the Kickstarter, was the original intent.

this would mean making it run.
making it run fluid.
and making it run fluid while doing alot.

Measuring Schwartzes here (since I have decided, is the theme of the day) we'd want to see :

• how far you could zoom in and out (total scale)
• size of units to their planets (relative scale)
• how many units run and fire simultaneously (unit cap for 1.0 simspeed)
• how many players you can have
• 64/32bit
• multi/single core
• how many graphical technologies (point light, HDR, 3D FX, tesselation.. ect)
  
• what graphic libraries
  
• server-client/float-point P2P
  
• scripted AI/neural networks AI
• ect.

and out of those, obviously the element of the engine that I find to be most lacking in PA is the scale.

And seeing by experience I have learned that a loving community and much time can fix a game and make it amazing but no amount of community love or time can fix a game's engine, this is what worries me the most in PA's current engine (which comparatively with all of the other elements of another simulated-projectile RTS engine, say FA, for example is pretty damn well-off ) : scale.


As the title says I intend to make this thread the main thread for all talk related to scale in PA.

There have been many threads talking about this topic but these threads have been sparse and dispersed. If we want to attract uber's attention we need to unite and focus our efforts.

(old)
First of all I suggest we make this thread lucrative instead of just a display of hopes, wishes and opinions by all asking that the next release in alpha patches there be the full planet generation tool or at least the slider for planet size, which would allow us all to finally evaluate for ourselves if yes or no there is a problem with scale by playing on the largest possible planet and determining if this this is enough.

It was said the biggest planet available on the alpha is one third of the way on the planet size slider but this does not represent anything since the slider could grow in size irregularly or exponentially or just regularly, we don't know. Is the biggest planet on the slider 5 times bigger than the biggest one in the current alpha or 40 times bigger? no idea.

It has in any case so far been my experience that PA is an absolutely wonderful King Kai planet simulator. wanna know what being on King Kai's planet felt like for Goku? play PA.

This honestly needs to be part of the final release, small planets are cute, allow for fast 1v1s and are a must.

As of patch 50742 we have the system editor yaaaaaaaaay

what is my new opinion on the scale after having tried biggest planets?

scale should still be reduced for units and features, it would be much more real, much more war-like. trees should definately be shrunken alot to make mountains feel bigger, mountains shouldn't feel like they reach space and chasms should be smaller in comparison to mountains.

A lot of us came here because we were told of scale. “massive scale”.

Hello

When i did hear about PA it was all my wet dreams becoming true. Almost everything i heared sounded awesome and i was very excited when the alpha finally started.

But when i played my first game, it felt very wrong to me. While i really like the terrain, the units look to me like they are placed in a wrong universe. They are just so big, my first thought was some kid placed his monstrous toys in the model railway landscape of his father. That may sound a bit harsh, and i don't dislike the units itself, and even though i'm no big fan of the comiclike unitdesign, i don't have any issues with it either.

But in relation to the size of the landscape, they just feel like giant toys. I think if they were about 4 times smaller, it would have a much better feeling, like you fight actual wars on a planet, and not play with toys.

I realize the sphere nature of the planets is having quite a big effect on this, and they look smaller then they actually are, but i'd appreciate very much if there can be found a solution. (if units get smaller, but faster, it might provide the same gameplay).

I also realize bigger planets may come, but the size of the planet is not really the problem to me, its the gap between the visual size of it, and the actual gameplay size.

So far i wasn't able to enjoy the game at all. :cry:

It is way to early to be talking about scale. The priority right now is on finding bugs, not working on look and feel.

I wouldn't go as far as to say the current scale totally removes the enjoy-ability of the game, but I would agree that for me at least, it is a disappointment.

The buildings and units feel ridiculously large. I know we are only on small planets at the moment, but even compared to terrain features, they are HUGE.

Furthermore, I loved the size variation in the buildings from games like Supreme Commander. Tech one power plants were small. Tech three ones were huge in comparison! Really gave some nice variation to the game.
Everything in PA so far feels constricted to two sizes. Large and Extra Large. I would like to see more size difference in Tier 1 and Tier 2, beyond just the factories. Then again I may simply be trying to shoehorn PA into being more like Supreme Commander in all aspects; because I would like there to be a third tech level too...

Oh well. Damn it why did Supreme Commander 2 have to be such a massive steaming pile of shi...

cm dandy... couldn't agree more.

Jon Mavor just wants there two be only two techs for release same as shields he doesn't want shields for the release but he wants them as an addon pack, so we could hope for a tech three too.

I think right now they're limiting scale severely until it gets more stable. There's still issues with pathfinding, units getting stuck inside planets, suddenly appearing on the other side of the world. These become magnified a lot when the scale ramps up.

Scale, styling, and pathfinding are probably my 3 biggest concerns with PA (or any RTS game for that matter).

I agree with the others regarding the scale of PA alpha. Units are either large or X-Large and simply don't seem to fit with the scale of whatever planet they're on.

Hopefully, these issues will be worked out before Uber runs out of money.

First off in my opinion ships are far far too large and should at least be half the size.

I think the majority of scale problems come from the terrain decals and biome sizes. The tanks and factories would look less weird if they were in a very large biome of gently sloping green hills rather than being 1/8 the size of a mountain driving across minecraft sized biomes. Uber need to make the biome transitions smoother and the biomes themselves larger as well as including more gradual inclines rather than sheer cliffs. Many of these problems will probably be resolved by having larger planets.

Having the option to grid your buildings will also go a long way in reducing the "urban sprawl" effect we see now.

Alternatively you can half the size of every unit as a test and see how it feels.

That's just my two cents.

There's not enough considering of the effect of "scale" or larger planets on the gameplay in this thread. You can't juste make stuff smaller (units) or bigger (biome features) without large effects on gameplay itself.

There is no real gameplay at the moment. It's better to experiment with such large changes early on rather than leaving them until the game is basically finished.

Totally agree with this. Surely scale should be something that gets sorted in the Alpha at latest, when lots of things are still in flux.

But the scale of planets is completely mutable and always has been. The Planet Generator essentially supports any scale, so it's not like it can't be changed later on or that having to change it later on will be a huge waste of resources.

Normally the overall scale WOULD be important to nail down at the Alpha stage so Maps could be created, but that's not needed with Procedural generation, so we can keep playing with it as needed as the game evolves, which is good, because we still don't have a proper feel for the game play yet, maybe as we get closer to the end of Alpha we can start to really get to grips with the gameplay, and maybe that'll bring some changes to the scale, maybe not, all we can do is keep pushing forward and be ready to make the changes as they're needed, because we all want what's best for the game.

Mike

UPUPUPUPUPUPUPUP ....and awaaaaaaaaay

That doesn't address the planetary terrain features feeling too small. All you would end up with is a bigger world, where the tallest mountains are still only like a third taller than your commander.

The better solution is to scale the units all down. This would allow terrain to play a bigger role, instead of many terrain features simply being annoying dead zones in the center of your sprawling hemisphere-sized base, and without the performance impact and increased loading times a larger world would demand.

I agree with this post. When watching PA alpha videos, I feel like I'm watching supersized legos battle each other. I know this is just an alpha, but there are MANY prospective buyers like myself who are influenced about buying/supporting PA financially by what we see about PA on YouTube (for better or for worse).

I have to come down on agreeing with the opinion that the planetary features are too small. And it has much less to do with the actual planet size, and more to do with the relation of the units to the features & decals on the planet.

I mean, take a quick look at the biome concept image: https://smnc-cdn.s3-us-west-1.amazonaws ... public.jpg

Look at the T1 tank compared to the trees, and the base in the desert biome compared to the mountains.


Now, this may just be the way it is because to scale the features up to 'proper' size will make the small planets look VERY small.. and Uber may start shifting that scale upwards as the engine is optimised.

Exactly Pawz, I think the concept image has the right idea too.

Agreed, agreed. I like the concept scale as well. Large terrain features are the important thing, not decals or trees. It's possible that terrain features may scale with the planet size, that would not be impossible.

By the way, this is what 33% reduction in size looks like: http://imgur.com/a/jy15P#0

Normally this area would be so cramped it would be suicidal to try to build anything in it as pathfinding would result in a huge logjam of units. The reduction in scale turns it from a uselessly cramped area to a little retreat

awesome, thanks.