Multi turret how-to

[Rman Virgil]

Also, if anyone has played TA before,  would be nice if we had a Krogoth type unit--though it would be even nicer if they released THAT game as open source.  Can you imagine the possibilities with combining the best of both of them? 

And before you say it, I know there is TA-Spring, but that isn't the same.

* Big fan of both the original TA & TA: Spring. (Supreme Commander also has some sweet advances).

* There are some things that I'd like to see in WZ from TA, no doubt, that would only add to and not detract from it's unique identity.

* However, IMO, open-sourcing TA (which will not happen anytime soon 'cause the brand is considered  quite valuable) is not at all essential to advancing WZ along some of those desirable tracks-features. Same holds with some stuff 'bout Spring & SC.

* Actually WZ already has quite a bit imbedded to one degree or another in nascent form that sets it apart such that in a very real sense it can become THE Uber RTS.

* This cannot be said of any other RTS past or present, IMO which is what makes WZ so attractive developmentally speaking as well as simply enjoying the evolving gameplay.

- RV

[Deus Siddis]

isnt the firing ark limited on vtols?

Yes, I think 180 degrees. Multi-turrets would probably be limited to something more like 270.

[psychopompos]

Also, if anyone has played TA before,  would be nice if we had a Krogoth type unit--though it would be even nicer if they released THAT game as open source.  Can you imagine the possibilities with combining the best of both of them? 

krogoth was a pussy, karganth however...

* EDIT: BTW.... a case can easily be made that the "Maus 2" was the most ill-concieved military piece of equipment in the entire WW 2 era.

* Actually only 2 were ever built and neither had armaments added. At 207 tons it would have been more sitting-duck than fearsome tank.

* I must say I do like the sense of humor behind calling this behemoth a "mouse".

- RV

tell me about it, though, if it was made with modern turbine engines & armour it might have perpose.
+ if you could have the wyvern & dragon models in wz, a maus 2 body wouldnt look ut of place.
L4 project body?

[Rman Virgil]

author: psychopompos

tell me about it, though, if it was made with modern turbine engines & armour it might have perpose.
+ if you could have the wyvern & dragon models in wz, a maus 2 body wouldnt look ut of place.
L4 project body?

* I don't honestly know the answer to that question psychpompos.

* Scale wise I would guess it to be somewhere between the Troop Transport & the Unit Transport.

* In WZ you can explore / implement anything you might find interesting and somethings you have to go the next step beyond concept to in-game play action to truely see how it would work in the context of everything else & if it would have an enduring value beyond a passing fun novelty that became boreing upon repetition.

* Personally I very biased towards schema for aquiring an Intelligence edge and then using that info adavantage to deploy combined arms forces in high-velocity, multi-vectored, maneuver. That's just my thing and something like the "Maus 2" just doesn't fit into that type of battle plan.

* My feelings towards the Wyvern & Dragon bodies is that I think they are visually very attractive - I like 'em - but that their power-plants are grossly under-powered.

* And frankly I think the underlieing premise of heavy-bodies is flawed in the sense the that it is assumed that the ability to take a lot of punishment (hit-points) leads to high mass-density-weight and that this is all advantageous over an equivalent weap punch but greater speed and maneuverabiltiy. To me that's horseshit. I would prefer to distribute that mass & weaponery over multiple highly maneuverable units instead of just the one.

* The analogy would be a pride of lions surrounding a sluggish elephant or a pod of orcas swarming a solitary blue whale.

* Then the question really boils down to your style of fun.

* Do you like playing the role of Bruce Lee in that classic tunnel sequence in "Enter the Dragon" where a solitary super fighting machine takes on lesser hordes and hands out cans of whup-ass left and right ?

- RV

[ouch]

yes rman, but you have played supcom right? the super units can cause quite a bit of damage but if you take that same unit and surround it by regular smaller units, you have quite an force to contend with.

To me this is what the multi turreted bodies are in warzone... super units capable of dishing out incredible amounts of fire power but still have weaknesses of thier own. (usually in speed and hitpoints/armor) thier staying power greatly depends on what you put on them, and what units you put around them. and because of warzones trademark unit modularity you can fine tune them for your specific purpouses at any given moment in time.

and with that, I would like to propose that we need a unit "assist" command of sorts. you know how the builders can be guarded? well we need something like that for all units...

oh, there is a severe balance issue with multiturreted vtols however. You can wipe out half a base with 1 dual pulse laser vtol. each weapon doubles it's ammo count and/or damage allowing for prolonged, powerfull strike attacks... Not very fun in multiplayer I would imagine considering most anti-air weapons inefficiancies...

[Rman Virgil]

yes rman, but you have played supcom right? the super units can cause quite a bit of damage but if you take that same unit and surround it by regular smaller units, you have quite an force to contend with.

To me this is what the multi turreted bodies are in warzone... super units capable of dishing out incredible amounts of fire power but still have weaknesses of thier own. (usually in speed and hitpoints/armor) thier staying power greatly depends on what you put on them, and what units you put around them. and because of warzones trademark unit modularity you can fine tune them for your specific purpouses at any given moment in time.

and with that, I would like to propose that we need a unit "assist" command of sorts. you know how the builders can be guarded? well we need something like that for all units...

oh, there is a severe balance issue with multiturreted vtols however. You can wipe out half a base with 1 dual pulse laser vtol. each weapon doubles it's ammo count and/or damage allowing for prolonged, powerfull strike attacks...

* Yep & I see your point in how to utilize such a unit.

* Do you see it as resource intensive-expensive & way up the tech tree sorta like TA's Kragoth ?

* The one time I went for the Kragoth outta curiosity I did enjoy playing with it. But it never stuck as a habit. Same with Star Craft's fully loaded Yamamoto..

* I don't really know how it would turn-out in-game.

* Having enjoyed your "Acid Rain" Mod for many hours over the years it's quite possible that if you created such a unit I could fall in luv with it and end-up worshipping the ground you walked on for making such a fun new WZ toy to play with.

* At this time, simply as a concept, it doesn't stir-up in me the kind of passion that is central to making it a reality. That passion exits for me in entirely different areas of development which in-turn is where I put my time & energy.

- RV

[Deus Siddis]

* And frankly I think the underlieing premise of heavy-bodies is flawed in the sense the that it is assumed that the ability to take a lot of punishment (hit-points) leads to high mass-density-weight and that this is all advantageous over an equivalent weap punch but greater speed and maneuverabiltiy. To me that's horseshit. I would prefer to distribute that mass & weaponery over multiple highly maneuverable units instead of just the one.

I think the feeling is more that super heavy weapon platforms fill a particular role, like surviving fire aimed at lots of smaller units or delivering super-long-ranged artillery, rather than being altogether advantageous over the choice of a smaller chassis. It is just another tool in the toolchest, perfect for a certain mission.

* The analogy would be a pride of lions surrounding a sluggish elephant. . .

Actually, the elephant would swat those kitties as if they were mosquitos. It would mop the floor with those lions and there would be nothing they could do to retaliate- their only option would be to RUN.

Large Land Mammalian Herbivores > Barney > Large Land Mammalian Carnivores.

It is strange when you think about it, how much we mammals have failed in the land carnivore department compared to reptiles and dinosaurs.

[Rman Virgil]

I think the feeling is more that super heavy weapon platforms fill a particular role, like surviving fire aimed at lots of smaller units or delivering super-long-ranged artillery, rather than being altogether advantageous over the choice of a smaller chassis. It is just another tool in the toolchest, perfect for a certain mission.

* Perhaps.... I remain open-minded as I indicated in my response to Ouch's post..... especially if "Lines of Supply" are completely removed from the equation... In other words, a fun fantasy.

Actually, the elephant would swat those kitties as if they were mosquitos. It would mop the floor with those lions and there would be nothing they could do to retaliate- their only option would be to RUN.

* You sure 'bout that ?

* You should know me better by now Deus - I don't make claims I can't substantiate. I'm very evidence based, esp in RL Biz. (My formal early training was in the microbiological diagnostics of infectious disease..)

* Check these refs out...

* RL Video HERE

* Expert Testimony HERE

- Regards RV

[Deus Siddis]

Check these refs out...

Hmm, something's definitely amiss with that video. When they show a chase and then suddenly- Bam, hunters at a kill site, that kind of stuff has been known to be staged (alot more than people think). If those folks shot that elephant, then I would rather watch a video of lions eating them.

As to rather or not elephants or at least mature elephants can or ever do get eaten, I'll just say that based on what I have seen (albeit possibly corrupted as mentioned above) I would have a really hard time believing that this is even possible. But I agree to disagree for it seems that my digression on this subject has started to derail this good game-related topic, so my bad.

[Rman Virgil]

------>

* Hmmm, Deus... I see the animal correlation as fruitful & not a derailment. We humans are very much inspired by the natural order in so many ways that it would take an encyclopedia purely dedicated to such to cover the ground.

* I look at this way. Most speciation is niche specific.... just like most single turret units. However, a case can be made that the species parallel to multi-turrets is on the continuum to omnivours.

* Btw- the most elegant solution to the multi-turreted unit concept in a strat game (utilizing player invoked customization-design) has to be hands down the recently released Universe At War: Earth Assault....

* Now here's the kicker.... we can emulate the elegant approach of the aforementioned "UAW: EA" in Warzone. Not only that but Pumpkin has already provided much of the code going back to '99 !! .... it's in the original source release... just turned-off. With some modification commitment and work (as with "Drive Mode") the 2008 approach could be realized in WZ.

- RV

[Chojun]

On the topic of the S/H bodies...  I remember when those patches were first released.  It seems that those bodies were meant to fill the imbalance ravine left by Pumpkin's late T-3 tech tree.

However, due to the gross miscalculations as mentioned before, the S/H bodies just end up being eaten alive.

I don't mean to troll the Multi-turret thread, but I can't possibly imagine adding this GPM where things are already incredibly imbalanced.

[Rman Virgil]

I don't mean to troll the Multi-turret thread, but I can't possibly imagine adding this GPM where things are already incredibly imbalanced.

* Yep.. no doubt 'bout that.

* Member Ouch pointed out just one of the many glaring imbalances and that was enough to give one pause:

oh, there is a severe balance issue with multiturreted vtols however. You can wipe out half a base with 1 dual pulse laser vtol. each weapon doubles it's ammo count and/or damage allowing for prolonged, powerfull strike attacks... Not very fun in multiplayer I would imagine considering most anti-air weapons inefficiancies...

- RV

[EvilGuru]

Actually my experience in multi player games is that AA is *too* effective. A small amount of research goes a long way to ensuring that VTOLs have a hard time getting to you.

Furthermore, a multi-turret version of a unit is probably less effective than two non multi-turret versions. Take a look at the total HP for two individual units and compare it with a single multi-turret unit. The multi-turret unit will nearly always loose. Then look at the price. You pay a lot for that extra weapon.

Two units would:

• Be harder to hit (twice as many targets, splitting your AAs firepower).
• Loose one, you've still got another (not putting all of your eggs in one basket).
• Faster to produce; two factories could contribute (one working on each unit).
• Faster to rearm, as two pads can be used.
• Faster with regards to movement speed (I do not have time at the moment to go into depth about how movement speed is calculated in Warzone, but if people are interested, I shall). In short is *not* a linear relationship between weight and speed.

Multi-turret weapons are poor value, the only things in their favour are:

• Only a single unit, so take up one less slot.
• Contribute to congestion less than two units.

But the second point is moot for VTOLs anyway.

In the 8+ months I have used multi-turret units (back when medium bodies = two turrets, heavy bodies = three turrets) there were only ever a couple of designs which were worthwhile economically. 95% of combinations were ineffective, expensive and slow to produce/moved slowly.

Regards, Freddie.

[Rman Virgil]

Actually my experience in multi player games is that AA is *too* effective. A small amount of research goes a long way to ensuring that VTOLs have a hard time getting to you.

Furthermore, a multi-turret version of a unit is probably less effective than two non multi-turret versions. Take a look at the total HP for two individual units and compare it with a single multi-turret unit. The multi-turret unit will nearly always loose. Then look at the price. You pay a lot for that extra weapon.

Two units would:

• Be harder to hit (twice as many targets, splitting your AAs firepower).
• Loose one, you've still got another (not putting all of your eggs in one basket).
• Faster to produce; two factories could contribute (one working on each unit).
• Faster to rearm, as two pads can be used.
• Faster with regards to movement speed (I do not have time at the moment to go into depth about how movement speed is calculated in Warzone, but if people are interested, I shall). In short is *not* a linear relationship between weight and speed.

Multi-turret weapons are poor value, the only things in their favour are:

• Only a single unit, so take up one less slot.
• Contribute to congestion less than two units.

But the second point is moot for VTOLs anyway.

In the 8+ months I have used multi-turret units (back when medium bodies = two turrets, heavy bodies = three turrets) there were only ever a couple of designs which were worthwhile economically. 95% of combinations were ineffective, expensive and slow to produce/moved slowly.

Regards, Freddie.

* That's very intereting. I never played with em but my intuition told me that if you just combined what already existed in WZ as is, it would be mostly ineffective

* What I think some of the guys were suggesting here of late was a complete re-design from the ground-up. And that pehaps this approach would be fruitful

RV

[EvilGuru]

I wholeheartedly agree.

I am a big fan of the modular system in Warzone, however I do not think it is particularly effective for handling multi-turret weapons. This is because what you are effectively doing is combining two primary weapons.

In real life you would not walk about with an M4 and an AK-47, you would have a primary and a secondary weapon. A soldier with an M4 and an AK-47 is going to be less effective than two individual soldiers one with an M4 and another with an AK-47. This 'Rambo' style solider would also need to be trained in the use and maintenance of both. Not effective.

I think Warzone should differentiate between primary and secondary weapons. For example a tank with a cannon as its primary weapon, but also a short range rapid-fire secondary weapon for dealing with cyborgs. (cf. mammoth tank in C&C.)

Regards, Freddie.