A Path Beyond Siege and Hostile Waters Check-Up

[Raap]

Just now, OrangeP47 said:

Isn't longbow to the pp a key strategy for the allies though? (I've only been allied once on the map).  That might make things a bit unbalanced.

The Soviets use it just as often.

[Raap]

Just now, Pushwall said:

Removing the PP is counterproductive if you want to make base destruction more feasible.

1. You eliminate an alternative method of bringing down the coil/gap, therefore making frontal assault even more difficult than it already is
2. The PP does not have to be destroyed to win the game
3. Destroying the PP causes all damage to other main buildings to be multiplied by 7/6

All fair points.

Well.

Then let's do the opposite and add a Missile Silo, because screw all logic!

Edit: double posterino because quote is broken.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

18 minutes ago, Threve said:

HW style of gameplay is to calculated with the ships and to long to recover or heal your ship/attack. There is no motivation for me to go out and attack

You know, at one point Raap teased the possibility of a "naval repair station" being one of the capturable things in the centre of the map. Sadly that never came to fruition - but now that I'm reminded of it I like the idea a lot more than the SD/refill pad which contradict the desire to devalue aircraft and besides the high speed of aircraft means they have no trouble just returning to base to rearm/repair anyway. As long as it's far away enough from the "beaching" spots on the icebergs that anyone in boats deciding to repair-camp has no hope of doing anything to prevent landings, it might not be too bad.

Trouble is again this is a lot of asset work that I'm sure nobody wants to do because there is no guarantee that this will magically fix everything wrong with the map and suddenly make it playable.

[OrangeP47]

I'd be down for either of those ideas just posted, silo or naval repair station.

[Threve]

2 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

You know, at one point Raap teased the possibility of a "naval repair station" being one of the capturable things in the centre of the map. Sadly that never came to fruition - but now that I'm reminded of it I like the idea a lot more than the SD/refill pad which contradict the desire to devalue aircraft and besides the high speed of aircraft means they have no trouble just returning to base to rearm/repair anyway. As long as it's far away enough from the "beaching" spots on the icebergs that anyone in boats deciding to repair-camp has no hope of doing anything to prevent landings, it might not be too bad.

Trouble is again this is a lot of asset work that I'm sure nobody wants to do because there is no guarantee that this will make the map playable.

I personally would just camp the repair spot and wait for other ships. Like I said with ship on ship combat being calculated I would be invincible untill I get gangbanged. If someone else captured the ship SD. I would just have to go a very long different route because I would guarantee loose any battle against them.

 

Also I’m down with the idea of a missile silo on Siege. Would encourage attacks more at least.

[Pushwall]

41 minutes ago, Threve said:

I personally would just camp the repair spot and wait for other ships. Like I said with ship on ship combat being calculated I would be invincible untill I get gangbanged. If someone else captured the ship SD. I would just have to go a very long different route because I would guarantee loose any battle against them.

What if a rocket soldier or shocky comes up onto the icebergs around the repair station then. Do you continue to sit there and rapidly burn money and rapidly feed points/money to the enemy since you can't exactly fight back and it'll take a while for anyone else to deal with that guy, or cede your position? Nothing says we can't give this station a reduced repair rate either, like 3.75% instead of 7.5% so it takes 27 seconds to full repair instead of 14. Sure you still win 1v1s but nothing's stopping multiple units from engaging you, whereas SD logic dictates only one unit can repair at a time (and depending on how the structure is designed, you may not be able to get multiple vehicles in position to fire from the repair structure). And as mentioned, camping that place can be a liability if you're being attacked by something that you can't retaliate against. Which could either be a rocket soldier, or a dest/missub taking long-range scratch potshots at a gunboat/attack sub while covered by a friendly gunboat/attack sub that prevents you from engaging them. A dest/missub camping on such a pad is still going to lose to a gunboat/attack sub too.

53 minutes ago, Raap said:

Then let's do the opposite and add a Missile Silo, because screw all logic!

41 minutes ago, Threve said:

Also I’m down with the idea of a missile silo on Siege. Would encourage attacks more at least.

This may not be a bad plan. Air + nukes may have been a bad idea in the past with Zama but that was in part due to Zama having difficult terrain around the bases, the fog/lighting making it difficult to spot sneaks, AA defenses just not existing, and the dreaded unstoppable rooftop flares. Now ladders make roof flares less of an issue, we can now block flares from being placed in completely ridiculous spots like the top of wall segments, and we're on a map that suffers from a low base destruction rate anyway and bases are surrounded almost entirely by flat land and all the ridiculous cliffs are in the out of bounds (where flares can't be placed) or too far away from bases to cause noteworthy damage.

Now the question is how to handle NBNW. I only added nukes to that because we had a shortage of nuke maps. Do people like how NBNW plays with nukes, or should I axe them from NBNW when I add them to Siege? I guess this should be its own thread.

[Raap]

On the topic on tech naval repair bays: I can quite quickly make a 3D asset for this, but here is the catch: It'd have to be an amphibious construction. Anything that requires terrain embedding would also require significant level terrain adjustments that I do not have the time for (plus changing the icebergs is a painful process due to how they are created).

The good news? Anything amphibious without terrain requirements could very easily be added, removed, or relocated across a water body.

Is there really enough interest in this? I could set it up as my current task priority.

[Threve]

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

What if a rocket soldier or shocky comes up onto the icebergs around the repair station then. Do you continue to sit there and rapidly burn money and rapidly feed points/money to the enemy since you can't exactly fight back and it'll take a while for anyone else to deal with that guy, or cede your position?

I’ve never in history of this map been afraid of any player attacking me from the ice bergs while i’m I’m a ship. Almost no one goes up there unless you’re a regular and if anyone goes up there then it’s because you’re an engi and have a pistol. There is no point for any infantry to be up there as there is no way to attack but the occasional hind and gun boat at which point they will just go around you on a longer route (adding to a longer boring gameplay). In theory, yes someone can get a rs or shockie and prevent that from happening but playing on the map it’s highly doubtful unless it’s a solid dedicated good player. In which case it makes the whole point of the SD irrelevant because i’m not going to travel with a unit to go take back this one spot and spend everything I have. Also repairing my ship isn’t an issue because winning battle after battle with sub or ship means I get $ and $ from the silo. I already have a massive cash reserve on coastal influence.mix and that map is attack with your ship, win and return to get repairs. Granted that does have an ore truck I still have massive $ left over. Also a 500 Credit replacement for losing my ship is nbd.

 

Also please keep nukes in NBNW. It is the only reason I go out and attack the other teams defenses without camping in my base. It also forces the team to be very alert, makes games not over till the very end, creates a lot of fun tense moments and gives a reason to attack the defenses.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Threve

[Raap]

I started to tinker with the idea of what an amphibious capturable naval repair bay would look like, and after some quick iterations I settled on a design, here is the draft:

It's missing a lot of work but this is the basic idea, enough space on two sides for a naval transport to dock, enough space near the repair crane for repairs, enough space below for subs to repair as well, and the control hub is covered in a little cabin. Any gaps in terrain would be cosmetic, you will be able to walk over this quite easily.

The few assets I plopped down are modular; A destruction animation wouldn't be out of the question and this structure could then even serve as naval equivalent of a Refill Pad, if demand for that ever existed (unlikely).

It could also be vehicle you have to deploy at sea to gain the repair functionalities, but that is a whole lot of animation work I'm not ready to delve into for just an experiment... So in all likelihood this would just be a static capturable objective.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Raap

[Raap]

So yeah I'm doing this Naval Repair Bay thing.

Core model complete, missing some detail props such as barrels and lighting, a capture terminal (I'm hoping to re-use some assets for this), and in-game logic implementation. All in all it is not far from completion.

I had to include two modified textures and two new ones as for example we had no fishing net textures.

Edit: I had to raise the scale by aprox 20% (included in the above picture), now a Naval Transport can fit into the repair bay completely.

 

Edited July 27, 2018 by Raap

[bakfiets]

Looks very nice, Raap. Can't wait to see it in the game.

[Raptor29aa]

23 hours ago, Raap said:

So yeah I'm doing this Naval Repair Bay thing.

Core model complete, missing some detail props such as barrels and lighting, a capture terminal (I'm hoping to re-use some assets for this), and in-game logic implementation. All in all it is not far from completion.

I had to include two modified textures and two new ones as for example we had no fishing net textures.

Edit: I had to raise the scale by aprox 20% (included in the above picture), now a Naval Transport can fit into the repair bay completely.

 

I think the lack of criticism is a confirmation to go for it! 

[Raap]

Hit a slight delay due to the insane tropical weather in my country, it is record-breaking heat and it hasn't rained a drop in three weeks, all of which is not normal for my otherwise rainy country!

I can likely deliver tomorrow, so this should be up for testing in a near-future patch. Lets see if increased naval staying power is the thing that pushes the gameplay more aggressively forward.

Worth noting is that this is my personal last attempt at solving the issues with HW. I've stated to Pushwall that I'd rather see the map put out of active rotation than to spend a lot of time changing the level geometry.

[Raap]

Delivered art and logic to Pushwall. It is now up to him to decide when this is added to the game.

Note that I created this building in a way that it is easy to implement in any map, so even if HW cannot be saved with it, it will still be a useful asset for level designers to spice up naval gameplay.

Edit: In-game shot for those interested.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Raap

[Threve]

On 7/28/2018 at 7:18 PM, Raap said:

Delivered art and logic to Pushwall. It is now up to him to decide when this is added to the game.

Note that I created this building in a way that it is easy to implement in any map, so even if HW cannot be saved with it, it will still be a useful asset for level designers to spice up naval gameplay.

Will it be possible to dock your ship, jump out, capture it and then get back in your ship? Like with an attack sub or a gunboat?

[Raap]

1 hour ago, Threve said:

Will it be possible to dock your ship, jump out, capture it and then get back in your ship? Like with an attack sub or a gunboat?

With Naval Transports, ships, and helicopters.

Submarines cannot dock, because their logic prevents functioning when unoccupied. However, theoretically speaking if that were to be resolved, then with a proper forward-facing exit transition and a basic 'submarine holder' mesh within the repair bay, you might be able to dock submarines at one point.

Submarine docking has always been a rough spot. Ship docking as well, as the exit transition is placed on the rear rather than the consistent left side that is applied to all land vehicles (with a right side being picked if the left side of the vehicle is blocked by anything). If it were up to me, I'd have ship models be altered slightly with a clear indicator of where the exit transition is (like an emissive piece of material), and likewise apply that logic consistently across vehicles that may have some similar identification issues.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

2 minutes ago, Raap said:

Submarines cannot dock, because their logic prevents functioning when unoccupied.

That's only if they fall too far below sea level (as in 1 or 2 metres below). If the docking area has a solid floor underwater, which is also entirely flat so that the sub doesn't "slip" down into the water, then yes you should be able to dock there. You may have to add some stairs leading out of the water though so that you don't have to be aligned perfectly with the shore to get your infantry out safely (as due to the way exit zone logic works it is impossible to have an exit zone for subs that is "logical" or is guaranteed to place you on safe land). However, I haven't had the opportunity to look at the repair bay asset (there is so much more on my plate right now) so I don't know if either of these are already done.

Honestly, now that the "what about OP Tanya" issue with docking at sub pens on CI is solved, I should probably get around to adding some stairs/ramps/ladders out of the docks for the sub pen too.

[Raap]

Sub docking is untested on my part for the asset. I could add a bottom to it with a stair though, these would be purely mesh changes and nothing mechanical. I'll follow up on this, this week, @Pushwall.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Raap

[Raptor29aa]

33 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

However, I should probably get around to adding some stairs/ramps/ladders out of the docks for the sub pen too.

Yes! I can sell my sub without suicide once I killed the Allied NY. Also it helps when some jokester who I won’t mention the name of (you know who you are) prematurely leaves the sub pen when I try to get into the Transport and then lols and then does it a second time. Sidenote: I should be more careful with the edge of the dock

[Raap]

I guess the side effect of more parked submarines is also more opportunities to steal one.

[Pushwall]

2 hours ago, Raap said:

Ship docking as well, as the exit transition is placed on the rear rather than the consistent left side that is applied to all land vehicles

It is very difficult to line up the port side of a gunboat or heaven forbid a destroyer with a pier, shoreline, NY etc while also making sure the very middle-left of your ship also has no space between it and the shore for your infantry to fall into, compared to just ramming said docking area with the stern of your ship. Figuring out just exactly where along the very long length of the port of your boat you will pop out would be a turnoff too. Having the exit be at the stern, which is much smaller, also makes it a lot easier to tell if your exit zone is lined up perfectly with what may very well be a very small piece of land to exit on.

Exiting at the stern also ensures that players with a combination of lag and impatience will not accidentally eject into deep water if they hit E one too many times while trying to get into their boat. A problem that subs don't suffer from because they have shallower docks that, when you accidentally eject, just allow you to get right back into the sub.

Exiting at the stern also means that boats docking at their own NY will occupy less space, leaving them far less likely to block purchase spots whereas exiting from the side could leave a boat potentially blocking both the gunboat and destroyer purchase spot at the same time.

You're really only going to make a mistake with exiting boats once, and when you consider that the only way to enter a freshly bought boat is from the stern (both in the regular and advanced ANY) it shouldn't be too much of a stretch for people wanting to get out to assume that you get out the same way you get in anyway.

2 hours ago, Raap said:

Sub docking is untested on my part for the asset. I could add a bottom to it with a stair though, these would be purely mesh changes and nothing mechanical. I'll follow up on this this week, @Pushwall.

The way the sub pens are currently set up, the floor of the ASP dock's sub collision mesh sits at precisely 4 metres below water level and this is just shallow enough for an unattended sub to sink to the bottom of without exploding. Any deeper and it will explode, and don't go too much higher either or you risk the sub getting permanently stuck when you try to dock there; the regular sub pen uses 3.5 metres which is good enough to avoid that and leaves more of the parked sub poking out of the water.

[Raap]

What I'm struggling with is creating a somewhat believable way of having subs 'float' on an invisible mesh to keep them above submerging-level, while making infantry able to easily get in and out of those subs, in a place where there has to be zero obstructions for ships and Naval Transports.

It was easy for the ASP; subs spawned there in a fixed location and no other vehicles could reach those spots, allowing me to build mesh around that.

So what will happen now is, you exit the sub in a small bay area, your character is ejected and lands below the water surface (with all the graphical problems that come with it), then the character has to walk to a stair to get on top.

So here is what I'm thinking now; Bay area, sub-holder mesh, and a stair mesh for graphical immersion purposes only. Instead, the bay area gets a teleport zone that teleports anyone that touched the water there to the top of the stairs, as if the character walked out of it.

I think this is the best I can do unless we somehow get infantry swimming (nope).

 

Edit: On paper I'm running into a logic issue however: AFAIK there is no script zone logic for teleporting infantry to a nearest instance of a preset. Most teleportation logic works by teleporting to specific instances, but I want this building to be easily re-usable so anything that requires specific ID's is just a no-go. I'll delve further into it this week, maybe I overlooked a script that suits this purpose.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Raap

[KevinLancaster]

4 hours ago, Pushwall said:

It is very difficult to line up the port side of a gunboat or heaven forbid a destroyer with a pier, shoreline, NY etc while also making sure the very middle-left of your ship also has no space between it and the shore for your infantry to fall into, compared to just ramming said docking area with the stern of your ship. Figuring out just exactly where along the very long length of the port of your boat you will pop out would be a turnoff too. Having the exit be at the stern, which is much smaller, also makes it a lot easier to tell if your exit zone is lined up perfectly with what may very well be a very small piece of land to exit on.

Exiting at the stern also ensures that players with a combination of lag and impatience will not accidentally eject into deep water if they hit E one too many times while trying to get into their boat. A problem that subs don't suffer from because they have shallower docks that, when you accidentally eject, just allow you to get right back into the sub.

Exiting at the stern also means that boats docking at their own NY will occupy less space, leaving them far less likely to block purchase spots whereas exiting from the side could leave a boat potentially blocking both the gunboat and destroyer purchase spot at the same time.

You're really only going to make a mistake with exiting boats once, and when you consider that the only way to enter a freshly bought boat is from the stern (both in the regular and advanced ANY) it shouldn't be too much of a stretch for people wanting to get out to assume that you get out the same way you get in anyway.

Is it possible to have the exit location be above the vehicle so that you would land on top of the sub/ship?

[Raap]

1 hour ago, KevinLancaster said:

Is it possible to have the exit location be above the vehicle so that you would land on top of the sub/ship?

Walking on vehicles is very messy over network play, you will most likely slide off slowly (and lose control over your character in the process).

No getting out of the submarine hatch to walk 'on deck', unfortunately!

[Pushwall]

9 hours ago, Raap said:

Instead, the bay area gets a teleport zone that teleports anyone that touched the water there to the top of the stairs, as if the character walked out of it.

So let's take a hypothetical situation where someone ejected their boat/sub a bit too far away from "land" for them to be able to jump on top of the sub or touch the boat's entry zone (because hey there's shallow water in the bay I don't need to be precise right?? Or just an accident) meaning the only way to get back in would be to walk underwater to get to it...

[Raap]

2 hours ago, Pushwall said:

So let's take a hypothetical situation where someone ejected their boat/sub a bit too far away from "land" for them to be able to jump on top of the sub or touch the boat's entry zone (because hey there's shallow water in the bay I don't need to be precise right?? Or just an accident) meaning the only way to get back in would be to walk underwater to get to it...

Save for making the script zone very small (which won't help since we got two different submarine models), I can't currently think of an elegant and thematic way of fixing that, unless the bay area simply no longer becomes accessible to non-submarines and instead gets two ASP-like submarine 'slots' with infantry walkways above.

But I don't like that, visually, for this asset.

I'll think more on it later.

[Threve]

I'm doing my  best not to sound like an asshole, but just to re-cap in order to fix both of these maps which have proven unpopular with the community we are doing..

 

Hostile Waters:

Adding a capturable ship repair facility

Possible removal of Tanya?

 

Seige:

??

[Pushwall]

42 minutes ago, Threve said:

I'm doing my  best not to sound like an asshole, but just to re-cap in order to fix both of these maps which have proven unpopular with the community we are doing..

Hostile Waters: Removed from rotation entirely because it can't be saved. As mentioned in the changelog I may look into an alternate take on the map.

On 8/5/2018 at 4:59 PM, Pushwall said:

If I can spare the time I might look into recreating the HW play space anew with basic visuals for the sake of testing how it might play if:

• the distance between bases was smaller
• the base layout encouraged attacking non-naval buildings for more reasons than just puntos
• the island layout allowed placement of AA in positions that could actually prevent a chinook from landing
• the icebergs were smaller and more spaced out so they could still be used as boat cover without suffering the current issue where they create passageways that force boats into single file and prevent them from turning around
• there was no "hold the middle" element

then if it tests well I can try to recycle Raap's HW assets for it or hand it to him and see if he can spice up the visuals. The naval repair bay might even get used for that as a teamed, killable structure so that there's another spot by your island other than just your NY where you can go to sell/repair.

Siege: Will add a missile silo when I can find the time. As the map currently stands, once we figure out what's "wrong" with Chrono Tanks and where they need to be buffed, they may make the map a bit more interesting once they're useful enough to warrant the price.

[Threve]

47 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

Hostile Waters: Removed from rotation entirely because it can't be saved. As mentioned in the changelog I may look into an alternate take on the map.

Siege: Will add a missile silo when I can find the time. As the map currently stands, once we figure out what's "wrong" with Chrono Tanks and where they need to be buffed, they may make the map a bit more interesting once they're useful enough to warrant the price.

My bad, Just read new update. Thank you. 

[TeamWolf]

Has the land route idea for HW been completely scrapped?