Letting fortresses be built next to each other?

[Kacen]

I think it would potentially make defenses way to powerful, so that would have to be offset by increasing the cost. More importantly, the Ai should be tested to see if they don't make a huge mess of their base with it as well.

The advantage would be very slight to be honest, it won't throw the game off balance.

[Zarel]

I meant flat in the literal, visual sense. I thought it was smart making it so they didn't obstruct a vehicle's path because honestly visually it looks like a vehicle could drive over them.

Erm, I'm using just as literal of a definition of flat.

In fact, I'm using the first three definitions:
"horizontally level: a flat roof."
"level, even, or without unevenness of surface, as land or tabletops."
"having a surface that is without marked projections or depressions: a broad, flat face."

[-Kosh-]

For the record, I think building rearm pads next to each other is far worse of a change (and that was done with no discussion whatsoever).

I think it throws off balance especially in the campaign.

[KukY]

Wow,first votes against this change.
For ones that want the change,but don't like editing game files:

New_Fortress.wz

It only changes Fortresses structure type,nothing else.
Try this change before voting for/against it.

[Per]

For the record, I think building rearm pads next to each other is far worse of a change (and that was done with no discussion whatsoever).

The patch was added in ticket #569 on trac, cc:ed to the mailing list, then I gave it 6 days to wait for responses before it was finally committed.

[Deus Siddis]

I think being able to put together the vtol pads and fortresses are both great changes, I don't see any way they could create problems.

What's the worst that could happen?

[Zarel]

The patch was added in ticket #569 on trac, cc:ed to the mailing list, then I gave it 6 days to wait for responses before it was finally committed.

I meant no forum discussion whatsoever. I suppose I didn't make that much noise about asking users first, but I remember staying silent on it because I was unsure whether or not it was a good or bad thing. Then again, I still am.

[-Kosh-]

The reason I say it throws the balance off is that in campaign games before you would have to think a bit on where to place it. Now you just plop it down anyplace. Look how the original developers pre-built the bases for the AI.

[Zarel]

Erm... "arbitrary restrictions" isn't the same thing as "balance", and I, for one, am glad it isn't.

[Deus Siddis]

Erm... "arbitrary restrictions" isn't the same thing as "balance", and I, for one, am glad it isn't.

But then how do you explain the vehicle-artillery-sensor dependency? They can't use their extreme range unless they're "assigned to a sensor", which makes them impossible to maneuver in battle and leaves you dependent on fragile sensor droids on the frontlines to keep them on the attack.

Meanwhile artillery emplacements just fire on anything visible to any of your units.

Seems like vehicle artillery has an arbitrary restriction there, probably as a handicap to create somekind of balance (albeit a user unfriendly one).

[Zarel]

True, some arbitrary restrictions can be good for balance, such as the one you just mentioned. But I mean that not every arbitrary restriction is done for balance reasons, and Kosh's objection is to a restriction that isn't.

[Deus Siddis]

True, some arbitrary restrictions can be good for balance, such as the one you just mentioned.

Are you sure about that, btw? Because, what's the difference if I bombard you from field artillery or from a firebase? It takes a really long time to move heavy artillery around the map, and it doesn't take so long to get some trucks in there and establish a quick firebase with artillery emplacements.The firebase is the same risk, takes about as long to deploy and is more durable.

[Duklaham]

There counted as buildings because when you click on them they tell you what there called but when you click on an hard point it says nothing.Plus you cant build a fortress next to a factory for example just like you cant let fortresses be built next to each other.

[zoid]

Although much discussion has taken place concerning fortresses, it appears that very little in-game testing has been done. Therefore I downloaded the fortress mod and did some testing of my own. The testing has shown several problems with treating fortresses as regular defenses.

wz2100_shot_083.png

The multiple build tool displays the fortresses as only one square wide. In fact, if you drag to form a 2x1 strip, your trucks will build one fortress and then stop.

wz2100_shot_094.png

The stock AI still built its fortresses a space apart, but did manage to permanently trap this poor Super Cyborg. It's possible this isn't due to the fortress mod, but most likely it is.

wz2100_shot_100.png

I also managed to create some lovely graphical glitches, such as these trucks building a fortress that is half inside a cliff.

It seems that several areas of the code assume that all defenses (meaning type DEFENSE) are 1x1, and serious issues result from having 2x2 defenses. While side-by-side fortresses is an excellent idea, successfully implementing them will require more effort than changing DOOR to DEFENSE.

sincerely, zoid

[Zarel]

Hmm. Okay, maybe we should just modify how DOOR works, instead of just switching it over to DEFENSE. I'm glad someone actually tested this. If I were using WIndows, I would've done so myself, but this kind of stuff is so much more complicated on Mac OS X. :/