A Few Miscellaneous Suggestions from a Noob

[Anathema]

Hi, this is my first post! As I have a custom of doing, it shall be in the suggestions forum.

1. Animations for Propulsion
It feels a bit weird that the wheels don't spin and the tracks don't move. I don't know much about how easy this would be to implement, so I'm not sure if it's not there because it's difficult or no one has bothered yet. I think it would make the game feel a little less utilitarian.

2. Fight Delay
I'd like to see an option for skirmish and multiplayer to restrict all units to their equal portion of the map for the first [x] minutes of the game to allow some time for building up before it's all-out war.

That's all for now. I thought I had more, but I forget them. I'll add more if I think of more.

[Jorzi]

@1. The reason we don't have it is that warzone's animation capabilities are currently pretty limited (and have always been). It is, however, something people have been thinking about, see this thread.

@2: This feature is problematic in that it's essentially map dependent (which oils belong to who?). In cossacks they have solved this by only allowing it on generated random maps, which we don't have in warzone.

[Avestron]

Re: #2 - A modification of an earlier suggestion of mine (and I'm sure I've seen somebody else nail it in recent weeks) is a mode whereby logistics becomes just as important a part of the game as others.

Having vehicles potentially run out of 'fuel' (reducing them to a crawl) and ammunition/ resource load would discourage rush tactics.

Another possibility here (within this mode) would be to have trucks lay infrastructure tiles whereby each tile has a range of, say 3 tiles, expandable to 5 with research. Costing very little to implant, and effectively urbanizing base layouts.

Imagine a base with loose concrete and power infrastructure automatically included in the buildings themselves. Then simply surface the desired areas for roadways and your base is getting 'pretty' real fast!

It hurts to be an ideas person sometimes... ¬_¬

[Per]

Another possibility here (within this mode) would be to have trucks lay infrastructure tiles whereby each tile has a range of, say 3 tiles, expandable to 5 with research. Costing very little to implant, and effectively urbanizing base layouts.

Imagine a base with loose concrete and power infrastructure automatically included in the buildings themselves. Then simply surface the desired areas for roadways and your base is getting 'pretty' real fast!

That sounds like Dune2. It was just annoying, in my opinion. (Yes, I loved Dune2.) And you know what? Warzone most likely had player built concrete foundations in an early, pre-release version of the game, and some of that code is still to this day present in the codebase!

[Reg312]

2. Fight Delay
I'd like to see an option for skirmish and multiplayer to restrict all units to their equal portion of the map for the first [x] minutes of the game to allow some time for building up before it's all-out war.

great idea. i wanted it for long time.
Peace Time or Build Time. i've tried to implement this in warzone script

@2: This feature is problematic in that it's essentially map dependent (which oils belong to who?). In cossacks they have solved this by only allowing it on generated random maps, which we don't have in warzone.

i dont see problem
most of maps are symmetric
i think borders can be placed by map-makers, this is not so complex...

(cossacks was my favorite strategy game years ago, i want to see some features from cossacks in warzone )

[Iluvalar]

2. Fight Delay
I'd like to see an option for skirmish and multiplayer to restrict all units to their equal portion of the map for the first [x] minutes of the game to allow some time for building up before it's all-out war.

I dont think it's a very good idea (no opposed to add the option however). As I see it right now, each research line have it's own timing. Where it's better than others. T1 weapons are very good when they first come out, because it's most likely the first weapon you use. This is taken into account in the balance, so machine gun quickly become a 2nd tier weapon if not used agressively.

If you delay the game, the mg will be much more useless and will vanish from the game. Since light cannon borgs are fast enough to avoid flamers, they will have no more natural enemies to kill them. With a short peace time, all the game will resume to cannon borgs vs cannon borgs. And will soon become boring.

[Anathema]

If you delay the game, the mg will be much more useless and will vanish from the game. Since light cannon borgs are fast enough to avoid flamers, they will have no more natural enemies to kill them. With a short peace time, all the game will resume to cannon borgs vs cannon borgs. And will soon become boring.

Well, since it's optional, it will provide a lot of ways to influence the research path. Obviously you can still play a classic game.

[aubergine]

An easy way to implement a "peace time" would be to inhibit production of weapon droids until a set point in the game - either presence of some building, or a specific elapsed time.

There would be two aspects to this:
1. Keep design tool disabled until warfare is permitted (it's currently enabled by building a HQ)
2. Don't enable cyborg components until warfare is permitted (they are currently enabled at eventGameInit)

A rules.js mod could be created to try this out.

Iluvalar's point about the delay causing everyone to ultimately start with cannon cyborgs is still true with the simple approach to peacetime I describe above, so ultimately the research tree might also need some tweaks to create the Ultimate Peacetime Mod.

[Reg312]

Peace Time without possibility of unit production? bad idea

"Peace Time is bad because cannon cyborgs will be OP" - that is just wrong logic.
i think another tanks can resist to cannon cyborgs or may be there is some balance issue...

i'm saying about peace time option, in some cases this option can be very interesting.

[NoQ]

Newbies surprised by dying of rushes and wanting to disable it usually don't realize that it will make them die even more dramatically, for correct research is much harder to master than correct rushing. I've seen it many times: a newbie wants to play on a large map with a whole bunch of scavengers, so that i didn't rush him on the fifth minute, but then the first encounter becomes about heap bomb vtols evaporating his tmg viper halftracks. The longer you play, the more advantage the better player accumulates. In rush matches newbies have much better chances to survive and even win, because early game is much simplier: you just practice your build order, takes 10 games at most, learn a bit of tactics, and then you are as strong as a pro for at least the first ten minutes of the game.

For those who are just allergic to machineguns, T2/T3 options are a much better idea, cause they don't give so much extra advantage to stronger players.

Also, during norush you cannot monitor your opponent's research path choices, which adds more randomness to the game (related to the no preview as well).

[Anathema]

I promise I'm not too noob to understand that logic, NoQ, it makes sense. I've been practicing my rush tactics on AIs, and they are useful, and I didn't suggest this to get rid of rush tactics. Aubergine, I don't want to disable unit production.