Spring RTS Engine

I think any torpedo ass launcher would be pointing forwards if players had the choice

d_b wrote:

Gota wrote:LoL yeah let a noob mod your mod guys.

GTFO YOU DONT EVEN PLAY XTA WE DONT WANT YOU AND YOUR TROLLAGE YAN.

I kind of like the tactical upgrades idea from supcom. It would be cool to morph a torpedo asslauncher or something like that when you do a sea start. I think it should be tested, becuase it may change the gameplay too much. However, it is key that the commander play an important role in the battle. He is the ultimate combat machine, and should be useful in the beginning as well as in the end of the game.

It would be lolz to give him a little bubble shield upgrade rofl.

1) yeah tribulex is our troll and he fullfill his role perfectly
2) yeah, i would like to see a torpedo com, maybe he will loose his dgun then, or it will be less effective

Can we get a sash made for tribulex?

One last thing to end this kind of debate.

That's taken from the wiki.

What makes XTA Special, unique and addictive?

XTA has an authentic OTA feel. One of, if not the closest mods in Spring to OTA. With only a few extra units added in the mod is seen as a mod with no "turbo speed" and easy fix solutions. Players must rely on thought, carefully and tacticlly playing the game and thinking about what your opponent may do to counter you. The mod is not about spam and every unit counts.

The mod has been balanced for over 5 years and every unit has been carefully balanced to make sure no unit is OP, or "Over Powered". No mod is perfect, but XTA has been debated the most balanced TA mod of all time, even more so then Balanced Annihilation.

We believe XTA should remain true to the bare roots of OTA while still being able to open up new dimensions using the Spring Engine and modern ideas.

Beefing air cons BP, and cost correspondingly, would kinda nerf reclaim rush expand, and make those low hp cons even more painful to lose. Not sure how this would play out.

Hai guise, this may be of some interest, its a string of emails between myself (I've contributed somewhat rarely to XTA) and the original XTA devs:

Hello, I have a few questions about XTA.

I understand you were one of the main balancers of the mod back in the old glory days of XTA. I'm wondering if you can aid me by providing your thoughts on the mod, its direction, its original goals and vision, purpose as an OTA modification, etc. Also, if you can remember what it was like, what do you think could be improved on your last version 0.66se?

Thanks,
Sheekel

The only version of XTA for Spring that I was involved in was the initial. All changes after that were made by various Spring players and I have no idea what its current state is, most likely totally fucked up. The problem with XTA and Spring is and was that Spring isnt TA. SJ decided to add stuff he thought was cool which the mod simply was not balanced for (like units being unable to fire trough each other, autotargeting, 2x los range and more).
I simply did not have the energy to start over again from the beginning, but I have continued work on XTA for the TA engine.

XTA started out as a haphazard improvement upon TA but I eventually realized that it was impossible to know if I had any balance unless I developed a balancing system which then enabled me to diversify the units a lot. Unlike other OTA mods like Uberhack, XTA does not make missile units air only,most other mods went the way of disabling or weaken them. If you want to I can send you the current version of XTA for TA and some demos. You might have to use the .resync command on some due to the demo being recorded with old data, remember that .sonar doesnt work after you have typed .resync.

Units in OTA does not fire automatically on radar targets unless you have built the radar targeting building. SJ introduced this for some reason among with other things and it really penalized L1 units. XTA is still being developed after a couple of years of downtime, if you have TA installed you can join us in an XTA game.

When you develop a mod the most difficult thing is to calculate the correct unit pricing, when SJ introduced his changes he invalidated my previous scheme and I would have to start over from the beginning which I did not have stamina for. IMHO it was a major mistake to not make TA:Spring to have identical game mechanics as TA from the beginning.

I suggest you call your derivate of XTA for something else than XTA, perhaps "S(hekel)TA" or whatever you find suitable, there are too many XTA variants already that I havent had any hand in creating and I cant really answer for them. As I wrote before, the only version of XTA for spring that was made by me was the first one.

(in reference to .66se)

maybe a good idea with the target facility, did manually aiming worked at ota?

manolo_ wrote:maybe a good idea with the target facility, did manually aiming worked at ota?

In ota, you had (have) to attack manually until the targetting facility is built, but there is on the other hand no inaccuracy between radar and visual targetting.

Gah....
I have been saying for ages we need to disable auto radar targetting and get back to OTA glory days where you had to fight for LOS so that your units would fire while the enemy's units cant...
XTA is slow like OTA and is perfect for this!
I have started several threads about making this system,where you have no auto targeting unless you have the facility but it needs more people saying its a good idea in LUA scripts forum.
Its a serious system and some work to make it happen so several people must be interested in this for any lua coder to actually think about starting to make such a thing...

This was a core reason for why OTA was so fun.
I seriously suggest that those that dont know how this plays check out OTA and play some multiplayer.

But that's also one radical change to make, to go back that much. I'm just saying how it is in ota, I don't mean it has to be the same way in xta.

Gota wrote:Gah....
I have been saying for ages we need to disable auto radar targetting and get back to OTA glory days where you had to fight for LOS so that your units would fire while the enemy's units cant...
XTA is slow like OTA and is perfect for this!
I have started several threads about making this system,where you have no auto targeting unless you have the facility but it needs more people saying its a good idea in LUA scripts forum.
Its a serious system and some work to make it happen so several people must be interested in this for any lua coder to actually think about starting to make such a thing...

Well i made a gadget for this, pretty simple really. Then I immediately made a lua widget that autotargets radar dots. So basically, go ahead and try to implement this. Its easy to force fire on radar dots anyway, and making a widget is trivial. Spring's widget support makes this not such a great or valid idea. Try TA3D or TA engine instead maybe, Yan.

I do respect the idea but you must understand its not particularly viable in any way on this engine.

It is viable.
So wait,you made a lua widget that disables auto radar dot targetting?
If so,can you still force fire the dots?CAuse i need that to be possible.
I want no auto radar targeting but allow players to force fire individual dots but not do area attack on dots.

Gota wrote:It is viable.
So wait,you made a lua widget that disables auto radar dot targetting?
If so,can you still force fire the dots?CAuse i need that to be possible.
I want no auto radar targeting but allow players to force fire individual dots but not do area attack on dots.

yan, read my post 1000 times. It answers these questions.

I made a gadget that works. Then I made a widget that automatically forces fire of my units on the radar dots. So basically, you can get the same functionality as before with a simple lua widget. What i am saying is, your idea wont stop skilled players from changing their playstyle at all.

If you want LOS be more important without locking user widgets, increasing the radar wobble seems like an option.

Personally I can't stand the current wobble either and try to always have los while fighting.

d_b wrote:

Gota wrote:It is viable.
So wait,you made a lua widget that disables auto radar dot targetting?
If so,can you still force fire the dots?CAuse i need that to be possible.
I want no auto radar targeting but allow players to force fire individual dots but not do area attack on dots.

yan, read my post 1000 times. It answers these questions.

I made a gadget that works. Then I made a widget that automatically forces fire of my units on the radar dots. So basically, you can get the same functionality as before with a simple lua widget. What i am saying is, your idea wont stop skilled players from changing their playstyle at all.

OK please post your gadget and widget.
Johan-Its not only about that its about adding a completely different feature to the game.

gadget is just unit entered radar, add to table, unit entered los, remove from table, unit left los, add to table, unit left radar remove from table.

Then use allowcommand and disallow targeting those units in the table.


im not posting my widget. i never post my widgets.

Can anyone knowledgeable comment on this?this sounds like a bad way of doing it.

Radar
Taking away the radar auto aim and fire would have an increased micro effect. An additional strain that noobs will not find entising.

Relying on LOS will slow down an already conparativly slow mod [comparison to BA/CA game play.] Players will be forced to "spam" low level units or vtol labs on infinate build of peepers etc, in pre-set nomansland situation. A common effect in RTS.

Renouncing a feature that SJ added to the game ow so long ago doesnt seem to be benifital at all IMO. The changes advised here would only appear to hinder the growth [lol] of the mod, and take pretiouse micro managment from frunt line tactics to manage LOS more effectivly.

The radar buildings [IIRC i spoke to Sj about this or had an email from him concerning the matter] decrease's the radar "wobble" by 33%, so in game you would need 3x this building to make vipers/snipers viable in a non LOS enviroment. i.e nomansland scenario

Xta is eXtended to OTA, i dont feel that reverting to age old game mechanics would benifit the mod. The fact that it plays differently and has globally far higher LOS and auto radar dot firing enhanses the game play IMO. I dont want to have to manually target and fire every cannon i got when i have the technology to know theres something there, but cant see it. Firing on long range radar targets has been around since before my gradfarther! so why the hell would giant mechanised robots and laser mounted tanks not be able to shoot at what there equipment tells them to?

It doesnt seem to "me" that changes to radar targeting would make any logical or benifitial changes; to the already well accustomed game mechanic.

Even though i am unable to play sping, when i do return i dont want to see such drastic changes forced upon me. If the majority of people would like such radar changes, PLEASE only make it OPTIONAL in the battle room.

Coms
As far as the com upgrades go, iirc the only way to make this actually happen was to follow a linier upgrade tech tree. I.e no branching to other specified advantages was available. Only 1-2-3-4 and not 1-3-8- and so on. I dont know how the currant developments have changed this option for developers.

Hammers
Personally a change to Hammers would be nice. The only real use for them i had was having a line of them defending a bottleneck, with my com building a DT line infrunt. Storm rockets were absorbed by the DT where the Hammers could Arch fire over them. [I can hit you, but you cant hit me]. Using them in the open field is folly as they are too easy to out-flank and other class of units can doge there slow amunition. Not to mention their speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed, it takes TIME and consideration before applying any tactic with the hammers.

Noruas made an intereting fork, XTAIDS, which had heavier T1 units available. Applying that theory to hammers would make for a refreshing change, but such changes will never be accepted by such a small and protective community.

Perhaps renaming XTA to something anew, such as that guy sheekel spoke to suggested, is the way forward? As long as the "xta is the closest thing to ota in spring" stigma! is forced on the mod, being able to break away from OTA and be more enhanced, in newer and more diverse way will always be hindered. Even "that guy" skeekel spoke to said that XTA wasnt like OTA/XTA.

I suggest you call your derivate of XTA for something else than XTA, perhaps "S(hekel)TA" or whatever you find suitable, there are too many XTA variants already that I havent had any hand in creating and I cant really answer for them

XTa is too slow as it is for most people, a faster enhanced version, being able to initiate battles sooner, but with similar unit cycling [hp low at back] would be imo a better way to go. I say XTA has had its time now, its time to let the old dog die in piece and bring on a lively puppy with its dads eyes to get the mix going on.

Basically a similar but refreshing interpritation of the game mechanics we all know and love. XTA's development has been pinned down by its OTA roots for too long.

Fuck the boundaries, give me (XTA)-TWISTED
[with all new shiney models from sheekel that is] *hint* *hint*

oh how I missed your misspelt but wise ramblings giz <3

BS....
Go play OTA!!!!! to see how this works instead of coming up with stupid theories.
It does not slow down gameplay.
You just have to adjust los correctly for units and turrets since till now you didn't even notice it was there.
Keep going in the same rout for even less players as oldfags like Pintle eventually leave.
XTA is dying.if you have balls make a drastic change if you don't fall into oblivion and kill the mod,at least for spring.
This has nothing to do with new models,that's a completely different decision and i actually support adding new models as long as they don't look completely off beat.