Terrain Elevation, Eyesight, and weapons fire simulation

So in Total Annihilation, there was small hills, big hills, deep canyons, etc. all very gradual.

In other RTSs there are multiple levels of land with ramps.

So far from the visuals I've seen in PA (admittedly a work in progress) it's looked mostly flat with mountain cliffs, and craters, but not a lot of actual hills.

Will there be more gradual hills? or does this not suit the blocky art style? Also, if there were hills, would units gain eyesight range if they are on top of a hill like in Total Annihilation?

Also will units shots be simulations like in Total Annihilation so that a slow firing unit will have difficulty hitting a fast moving target.

If so, how does this new pathfinding system effect this simulation. Could a fast unit be given a command to move unpredictably to have a better chance of avoiding enemy weapons fire?

on steep hills, will Kbots be able to traverse where tanks cannot? from what I heard in the livestream it sounds like Kbots and tanks are considered to be the same kind of unit, but it would make more sense if bipedal kbots would be able to go over more extreme terrain than tanks.

Also, will you be able to tell a large mass of your units to huddle together and block an enemy from getting through?

for example, there is a bottleneck canyon, if you send your army to clog the bottleneck, even if the enemy kills your army, they'd have to reclaim it before they could come through, this would effectively stall, and buy you more time, even if the units you filled the canyon with were weak/cheap.

This could be a great tactic.

I'm also happy to hear that aircraft won't be able to fly over all mountains if mountains are high enough, this could really change the game in a great way and add more strategy rather than aircraft trumping all.

It'll also give some edge to orbital units, which is great.

Some questions can only be answered by devs, but I'll answer two that I can:

Yes, projectiles will be simulated

Flowfields don't directly allow this behaviour, but don't prevent it either. It probably wont be present though.

That's more so dealing with Automation, not flowfields, Neutrino has stated he doesn't like Automation much at all, so it's not looking likely, but of course you can easily give a series of move orders that replicates this easily and fully under your control.

Mike

The best part about deep waypoint systems is that you can set the orders to "move erratically" right away without having to babysit the unit.

I like having a lot of flat ground and then having a lot of obstetrical structures. I do not want a big hill that is blocking unit fire... ever...

This is an RTS paradigm we're all familiar with, but is completely artificial. Line of Sight for an entity is physically unlimited when not obscured; I'm pretty sure I can see the Sun (1 AU, or 150 million km away), and I can also see the light from Sirius unaided (8.5 light years).

Circular line of sight (aka Fog of War) is a gameplay mechanic to afford advantage to certain units with a larger LoS, or require scouting to happen to make good use of other units (e.g. artillery) which has a far greater attack range that the unit LoS radius. Does this actually need to be enforced in an RTS? Could we achieve a playable, fun, and balanced RTS game without a fog of war, and instead use terrain obscured vision?

To be clear, I have no issues with the Fog of War as a game mechanic, but I am wondering if we've reached a hardware capability point where actual raytraced LoS is a viable alternative without bogging the engine down drastically. Is it feasible to create an enginge that offers both as options?

I'm gonna go search to see if this has been broached on another thread...

Now, think in 3D and put yourself on the surface of a sphere. You can't see forever... the horizon gets in the way.

Boom. Naturally LOS ring.

Exactly :mrgreen:

What it does do is give your artillery automatic targeting to the horizon (modified by some artificial "is it big enough to see yet" variable based on the incoming unit) before you have even built one radar. Scouting then only becomes useful beyond the horizon, and since radar is also limited by LoS (it will only go through so much rock before it stops working) it also limits the usefulness of radar vs sight.

At that point you need satellite surveillance to extend your intel range.

You are going to be so disappointed with the standard Planet Generation.

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Also, "Obstetrical" is probably not the word you're looking for.

Pretty sure you meant "Obstructive".

TA didn't have larger LOS on higher elevation. Artillery units did, however, have longer range when firing (a natural result of projectiles having longer to fall).

If you focus on the sealevel in the vid of the latest lifestream you see altitude changes.
But they are imo too smooth.

It's an abstraction for limited acuity and other obscurances at a distance. It's usually small to make it actually relevant on the smaller battlefield.

The 'maxium range' ring as we know it should be obsolete. We have planetary curvature now.

That would be a little boring since almost every unit would have the same range.

Aside from all the different Ballistics, Beam and Missile types you mean?

Mike

I do think that very different weapons technologies should act and play very differently. The basic weapons category allows for great visual distinction and clarity, and good justifications for their different properties.

A coherent beam would be able to hit any target you can draw a perfectly straight line toward, and would have effectively zero travel time regardless of distance. However their damage might fall off gradually over long distances, especially through a medium like an atmosphere. Still, perfectly accurate weapons at any range. A tactician's dream, but a foot soldier's worst nightmare. Giant laser cannons from space, anyone?

Mass drivers of various kinds, possibly including chemical-based guns or cannons as we know them, as well as railguns or something even more advanced. Mass drivers launch a projectile that can fly at variable speeds along variable trajectories depending on weapon size, muzzle velocity, projectile weight, etc. Solid slugs are cheap, damaging, and efficient, but relatively slow and either short-range or inaccurate. They can also launch complex ordnance, including explosives or other payloads, and could be quite damaging. Limited range and slower than beams. Mass drivers have ballistic trajectories, meaning they have more range from high altitude, etc. etc.

Plasma weapons could be a slow projectile like mass driver type weapons. Using compacted superheated plasma instead of solid slugs or complex ordinance would be superficially similar to a mass driver. However superheated gas is comparatively very lightweight, exchanging kinetic impact force and heavy penetrating power for thermal radiation and hot gas splash potential. Unlike slugs, plasma damages with heat, and could melt a target unit's frame.

Missiles could vary widely in size, range, guidance, and payload. Missiles generally being the most expensive and least efficient weapon type, they would have the best range/accuracy dynamic, and can be guided. Missiles might be interceptible by missile defense, allowing a player to defend against long-range, high-accuracy missile bombardment. Which of course prompts a BIGGER simultaneously massed missile launch to overwhelm the defenses. And of course very large missiles would have the capability of carrying nuclear payloads to wipe out entire bases with a single missile. Missiles are independently powered, and can navigate above/around and thus completely ignore terrain, planet curvature, etc.

Simple neutonion physics allows for plenty of variation between the different weapon systems (beams/guns/missiles) and even within each weapon system without the need to impose arbitrary limits on range or whatever. However it may be necessary to place some arbitrary limits on weapons for the purpose balanced game play.

For example, a medium tank should not be able to fire as far as a large artillery piece just because he fired at a 45 degree angle into the air. Now whether this should be done via a "range" attribute on the weapon or via a calculation involving the mass, velocity, and initial angle of the bullet, and gravity is up to Uber.

how it worked in sup com was that range was essentially a value created for use by the unit AI, in my modding attempts i created units incapable of firing at things inside their weapons range (low muzzle velocity). Generally however to stop the game from breaking (for instance, firing uphill) weapons are capable of putting shells further than their range.

At the end of the day the range statistic on a weapon might as well just diagetically be called effective range, a point at which the round can no longer be counted on to hit or effect its target. This could be accuracy, velocity, plasma dispersion or laser refraction. The 'arbitrary' limit is the best way to express this range to the player.

It seems like an interesting concept though, on smaller planets and asteroids it does not seem unlikely that a shell could go into orbit or even escape.

There could be corrosive guns that eat though metal, and emp bombs! :twisted: