A Path Beyond Subs and Sub Pens

[JigglyJie]

I've wanted to post this for a while but I've never really thought about it much until navy got re-introduced and there's just a few things that just niggle at me that's kinda important as it actually puts me off using the Soviet navy at times.

 

1.) As far as I'm aware, you still have to jump on the sub and then press E to get in. This in itself is highly irritating, especially if you've got lag and then you fall off and it's pretty much gg. I've tried simply walking very near it (and even then you can still slide off the platform and die) and you can't enter them like how the Allies do. Can this be changed in anyway?

 

2.) If nothing can really be done about that in a feasible way, then can we at least have ladders in the docking/creation bay so that infantry can easily get out and try again without having to spawn in a really far away building? (Again, something the Allies don't have to worry about) Plus, maybe a small grace period in that area so fallen infantry won't start drowning immediately. (emphasis on small so it can't be abused)

 

 

[Einstein]

This has long been a complaint that has been brought up on occasion. In RA_HostileWaters, Raap addressed this in the Advanced Sub Pen by placing grated walking platforms over the water where the sub spawned. Because you have to actually jump on top of the sub to get inside (don't know if the entry point can be easily changed because of water logic in W3D, I feel like there might be some funky reason why not), he decided to make the opening in the grate small enough that you could safely stand on the sub without falling in the water. I have yet to see someone lag into the water while trying to enter a sub in that particular building. Maybe its possible that the standard Sub Pen could undergo a slight overhaul in which some similar grates could be added to prevent this in a similar fashion? Shouldn't be too difficult. As far as the ladders underwater, that might also depend on how well the logic for those components play together. I don't have any knowledge of how these things work, I just remember past instances in testing where water totally screwed up something that otherwise worked absolutely fine, ie gap clouds.

 

I'll let pushwall or someone else more knowledgeable than myself speak on this though

[delta]

I'd say ramps leading out of the water would look and function better than ladders. Or just teleport the guy back into the Sub Pen, like how Forest of Illusion has teleport zones. Or just forcibly place the player into the sub when they buy it, like it's done with the Cyborg Reaper in Reborn.

[JigglyJie]

In RA_HostileWaters, Raap addressed this in the Advanced Sub Pen by placing grated walking platforms over the water where the sub spawned.

 

 

It does still happen, albeit not as much but yeah that can work too.

 

I'd say ramps leading out of the water would look and function better than ladders. Or just teleport the guy back into the Sub Pen, like how Forest of Illusion has teleport zones. Or just forcibly place the player into the sub when they buy it, like it's done with the Cyborg Reaper in Reborn.

 

Ramps can work as well I suppose. I did think of this but problem with the latter, is that it would exclude Spies and other Allied infantry from stealing, so you'd probably have to do the same for Allied ships (even though they have no problems in that regards) for fairness, I guess.

[Pushwall]

Ramps can work as well I suppose. I did think of this but problem with the latter, is that it would exclude Spies and other Allied infantry from stealing, so you'd probably have to do the same for Allied ships (even though they have no problems in that regards) for fairness, I guess.

 

I feel the "fairness" angle makes sense in that, if you spawn on the opposite end of the base from the sub pen, buying a vehicle that you teleport into allows you to instantly defend the sub pen, so it'd only be fair for that to apply to the Allies too.

 

However I think cyborg reaper logic also forbids you from leaving the vehicle - which can be particularly annoying if you're a submarine, kill the naval yard, and then game mechanic-savvy Allies refuse to kill you so that you can't get a missile sub or contribute to land/air offense/defense - and also causes you to die when your vehicle dies, and honestly I really like being able to swim to shore after losing my ship. I'll have to check how this really works with the Reborn team though.

[FRAYDO]

The teleport idea sounds like a good idea and could be beneficial to players, newer players especially.

[Raptor29aa]

I prefer the grating idea. I mean how hard is it to moddel a 1 meter squared (or longer) entrance piece (considering the hardest part would just be the texture)?

I feeling adding a new script/ feature and then tailoring it to APB might take longer and this delay the problem getting solved.

[gammae102]

Teleporting players into the subs also solves the (minor) problem of subs stolen by spies that can't be damaged by the Soviets when submerged...

[delta]

Speaking of unkillable stolen subs...what if attack sub had a bot turret just like the gunboat's depth charges, where it automatically shoots a short range homing torpedo at enemy subs?

[Pushwall]

Because how's it supposed to know to shoot specifically at subs? The only reason the current depth charge bot turret works is that it's a cone pointed directly downwards. The only things that are ever going to be below a gunboat are subs, or infantry that have escaped from subs/aircraft who are basically dead anyway. If you want to apply the same logic to subs, then stolen subs could just sit as close to the surface as the game allows them without being considered surfaced, and never have to worry about the possibility of a sub ever being above them to fire auto-torpedos at them because subs can actually collide with each other and can't be above water level.

 

The depth charge bot turret is hopefully going away soon anyway, to be replaced with manual depth charges that can actually be aimed, since I've been told of a script that can be used as a substitute for two turrets, and if I had a penny for every time I saw "how do i fire the depth charges?" or "what the depth charges are gone?" you know the rest. The two-turret substitute also means we're one step closer to Cruisers (there's still the issue of models though).

[Einstein]

HOLY CRAP CRUISERSSSSSSS AAAAHH!!!

 

 

Thats cool that the logic might actually be possible one day! I bet if you ever got it working as intended and got a model, you could probably stop work altogether

[NodGuy]

Maybe have a walkway that goes over the water, from one side to another, (or from behind the submarine) so you can easily drop down onto the submarine? At least until a more permanent solution is found?

[Pushwall]

On another note, the scripts team have just delivered a version of the cyborg reaper script that doesn't have the downsides I mentioned before, so we can totally have people teleport into the naval units they just bought.

 

I'll still see about making some sort of exit from the docks (either ladders or ramps) so that players can actually get out of their subs at their base without risking dying or having the sub die (which also means spies will still be able to steal them in different circumstances).

 

There's also the issue that Soviet LSTs can be tricky to board from the sub pen since they are just slightly small enough that you can fall into the water when trying to enter from certain sides depending on the map - I'll add some blockers to prevent accidental deaths when boarding.

[delta]

Hrm, going back to the auto-torpedo thing. Perhaps it won't be a problem if the damage is low enough that it won't allow a sub to win against a gunboat using it, but enough to let subs fight each other underwater? And like I said, it'd be a short-ranged weapon. Don't know if there's a way to keep auto-torpedoes from flying out of the water to hit aircraft, but then you can probably answer that one

Edited May 2, 2016 by delta

[Pushwall]

Don't know if there's a way to keep auto-torpedoes from flying out of the water to hit aircraft, but then you can probably answer that one

 

Nope. This is why the area the depth charge turret can "see" within is so restricted. And it'd be shooting at land infantry/vehicles too if it was unrestricted enough to target aircraft.

[delta]

Well the Mammoth Mk.2 has the missile turrets that only target air, so I guess the auto-torpedo could be the same and only target VTOLs? I guess it would still be really weird to have a torpedo that shoots at aircraft, but at least from the gameplay perspective it shouldn't be so broken as to be hitting land units.

[Pushwall]

Well the Mammoth Mk.2 has the missile turrets that only target air, so I guess the auto-torpedo could be the same and only target VTOLs?

 

Subs may have VTOL physics but are still treated as ground units by the AI - see how turrets and pillboxes shoot them but AA guns do not.

[Raap]

I missed this topic.

 

This has long been a complaint that has been brought up on occasion. In RA_HostileWaters, Raap addressed this in the Advanced Sub Pen by placing grated walking platforms over the water where the sub spawned. Because you have to actually jump on top of the sub to get inside (don't know if the entry point can be easily changed because of water logic in W3D, I feel like there might be some funky reason why not), he decided to make the opening in the grate small enough that you could safely stand on the sub without falling in the water. I have yet to see someone lag into the water while trying to enter a sub in that particular building. Maybe its possible that the standard Sub Pen could undergo a slight overhaul in which some similar grates could be added to prevent this in a similar fashion? Shouldn't be too difficult. As far as the ladders underwater, that might also depend on how well the logic for those components play together. I don't have any knowledge of how these things work, I just remember past instances in testing where water totally screwed up something that otherwise worked absolutely fine, ie gap clouds.

 

I'll let pushwall or someone else more knowledgeable than myself speak on this though

 

The Sub Pen interior took a lot of tuning. It's not perfect, the Missile Sub can still let you walk off into the water if you stand on it without pressing E, because the model's collision mesh is smaller than the Attack Sub, but I couldn't raise the spawn position any further due to a few reasons related to the water logic and Sub Pen itself.

 

Adding a ramp is possible but it would make the interior more confusing. A backup teleport zone directly below the sub spawn points might be the safest route to do.

 

One more thing to note is that on some maps, freshly spawned subs don't stop moving (even if you don't see it, the game still considers them to be moving), which results in players sliding off the top of the subs at high speed, leaving you with milliseconds to quickly press E to enter the sub before falling off it. This particular bug is hard to reproduce in local test environments as it depends on network latency and a live server environment, neither of which can be emulated via local testing.

 

Either way, Pushwall knows that if he wants to use the 'Advanced' Sub Pen interior for all maps, he is free to do so. My opinion might be biased, but I prefer the HW interior to the default one, it is more logical and less camp-able. The only problem is, the Allied Naval Yard cannot receive a similar treatment without tripling the size of the building like I had to do with HW, and very few current naval maps can support the 'Advanced' Naval Yard design's scale.

Edited May 17, 2016 by Raap

[Alstar]

>auto teleport to sub when you buy it

 

So those are the Anti-Alstar countermeasurements i've been hearing about lately, huh?

[Pushwall]

Extra gratings or altered entry zones really won't help in preventing entry issues, because the worldbox of the sub is entirely underwater (which it has to be or else it'll just get stuck) and the game checks if there's any colliding surfaces/objects between your infantry and the vehicle and denies you entry if there's any blockage. This also holds true when exiting vehicles, which is why an Allied LST that wedges itself between the sub pen's docks will just doom everyone because it can't deposit them through the fence. And the floor obviously has to be a collidable surface or infantry would just fall through it. So the floor is what gets in the way of trying to enter from the dock, so adding extra floor does nothing to help. However, since the LST is above water, the floor doesn't block entry, so the side docks of the sub pen are being given grates that extend out just enough to ensure that you can't drown yourself trying to enter LSTs.

 

A mercy teleport zone or ladders in the water will just make it even easier for Allied engys/tanyas to get into the sub pen.

 

Automatically teleporting to the naval units solves the problem at the minor expense of spies. But when we get the sonar pulse working, there'll still be a purpose to them.

[ganein14]

How about making submerged subs cloak when you guys get the sonar pulse working? That way only a radar signal and the trail of bubbles would be the only method of seeing subs coming.

[GeneralCamo]

That was attempted. But it causes some weird issues with Gap Generator logic, which cannot be fixed very easily.

[Raap]

That was attempted. But it causes some weird issues with Gap Generator logic, which cannot be fixed very easily.

 

But it can be bypassed on maps without Gap Generators, similarly to how I made stealth crates work on HW (prior to their removal)... Not an ideal solution, I know.

 

Teleporting into submarines on purchase seems like it would break gameplay consistency. Unless I'm mistaken, you can set up teleport scripts to only teleport players from a certain team? In which case the fail-safe teleport zones could be set up for Soviet players only, solving the easy entry exploit from Allied players.

 

One last way to make teleporters work is to use the 'Advanced' Sub Pen interior and make the sub spawn bays inaccessible to infantry that walk into it from outside the big door, by adding an infantry-only collision blocker or other creative terrain changes that don't interfere with the sub spawn bays themselves.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Raap

[Pushwall]

Another solution I just figured out: extending the entry zone of the submarines further beneath the sub itself, so you can still enter your sub if you fall into the water. On the other hand, this will make stealing subs easier too, but people should be buying from the pen PTs anyway. I've tried this with the normal sub pen and it works but given how deep the advanced sub pen docks are I'm not sure how well that would pan out.

[MPRA2]

Another solution I just figured out: extending the entry zone of the submarines further beneath the sub itself, so you can still enter your sub if you fall into the water. On the other hand, this will make stealing subs easier too, but people should be buying from the pen PTs anyway. I've tried this with the normal sub pen and it works but given how deep the advanced sub pen docks are I'm not sure how well that would pan out.

That honestly seems like a more practical solution instead of giving the subs "reaper spawns". Because soviets will have a slight naval deployment time advantage over the Allies if you buy a sub anywhere and just teleport into it at the pen. It could also be used as a possible exploit if there are enemies inside the pen, or nearby structures, where a group of soviets could purchase a few subs, telespawn at the pen, get out, and try to eliminate the threat.

[Raptor29aa]

My issue is shouldn't the allies get teleported to their ships to make it fair?

And would this include naval transports? And why/ why not?

And if not wouldn't it confuse newbies

[Raap]

Another solution I just figured out: extending the entry zone of the submarines further beneath the sub itself, so you can still enter your sub if you fall into the water. On the other hand, this will make stealing subs easier too, but people should be buying from the pen PTs anyway. I've tried this with the normal sub pen and it works but given how deep the advanced sub pen docks are I'm not sure how well that would pan out.

 

Merge the (bottom) sub spawn bay collision mesh with the normal underwater interior mesh so all normal collision rules apply to it. I think it will look less interesting to have subs spawn right on the surface of something however, but that's a very minor visual concern.

 

Just don't move any of the collision meshes, as you can see, they are set up in a very specific way in order to funnel out the subs (same reason a part of the interior doesn't have camera collisions).

 

It took quite a few hours of fine tuning. If only I was able to set up a spawner proxy in Max for the subs, but there is no way to copy positional data (XYZ distance from the origin point of a specific mesh) from Level Edit to Max, then the whole thing would be a one time setup process.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Raap

[Pushwall]

How about making submerged subs cloak when you guys get the sonar pulse working? That way only a radar signal and the trail of bubbles would be the only method of seeing subs coming.

 

I'd prefer to just have water mask bubbles (and water wakes/smoke/transparent glass) properly, so that spotting a submerged sub from far away is very difficult and the same applies to subs spotting boats. As long as the bubble effects are easy to see, the sonar pulse won't even be worth the effort, and making subs invisible will also not be worth it. There's issues with static sorting though; those will have to be solved first.

[System Error Message]

Have any of you played battlestations? Whenever a sub enters a ship's sonar you hear a ping. The sonar is just 360 degrees around the ship/sub with a specific radius. In subs fighting subs they made it so to get the torpedo to go to the right depth you have to target the sub but the torpedo doesnt home. You can implement this by getting what the mouse cursor is pointing and and have the torpedo adjust its depth based on the object but not go above water.

 

Teleporting is a better idea if lag is an issue. It could reduce animations but it would mean players could teleport in and out of vehicles as a way of dodging and confusing. Introducing a small delay after the player first enters the vehicle to when he can teleport back out and in again could help as well. Nothing like lag ruining gameplay.