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RTS Battle Of The Sands (from KoTC developer)

Johannes

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There is no problem with how HPs work in RTSs as is. Really. Even the ones where there's no armor values or damage classes or such, tactical depth can still very much exist. And when you look at SCBW with its armor values and Small/Medium/Large vs concussive/normal/explosive categories there's a lot to consider. Or AoE2 having 2 armor types against melee and ranged attacks.

Adding randomness to damage rolls wouldn't add much really. When it's a large scale battle it's mostly inconsequential, while in a small one where 1 hit can decide who dies and who gets to retreat for repairs, it can critical. But what it doesn't still do is add tactical depth.
 

wergle

Educated
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Apr 11, 2013
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174
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Boston, MA
Rather than have damage be random why not simulate projectiles so that combat is chaotic (and impossible to master) while still allowing a skilled player to use TACTICS to his advantage
 

DraQ

Arcane
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I wonder how he can live under constant threat of suffocation due to all the air randomly collecting in upper left corner of his room.

Because the air is replaced by a cold fresh air. It's called a natural air circulation. You'd need a high energy state to create low pressure area, it's called turbulence, but it will not create vaccum by definition.
Temperature, pressure, even the second law of thermodynamics itself are simply results of macro scale statistics of micro scale events (still, I wouldn't count on second type perpetuum mobile, unless I was DR that is).
For any given air molecule stuff like pressure or temperature is meaningless. It's flying around, rotating, oscilating and bumping into stuff.
If it is possible to have a roomful of air disperse from single corner to fill a room-sized vacuum, then the inverse cannot be strictly forbidden. Only statistically so, thanks to it being very low probability event.

I probably should't talk about stuff like a supersonic shockwave propagation, but...
Ah yes, the aftermath of such situation (air rapidly expanding again) would likely kill Damned Registrations much earlier than suffocation, thanks for pointing it out.

ITT DraQ has problems with physics.
Not really.

Considering majority of RTS don't use number of amounitions
Easy enough to fix. May be amended by some sort of supply line mechanics, and not even invoked explicitly if supply lines are present depending on how little PITA do you want it to be for the player.

Even if explicit, why not have supply vehicles (deliciously vulnerable supply vehicles) coursing back and forth between base and your army just like resource harvesting units go between resources and your base?

For example tank may have 6HP, but antitank weapon may do 2d4 damage (some overkill against that tank type) this without considering any form of damage reduction and damage adjustment.
I also propose some way of adjusting for weapon effectiveness against given target, whether by simple x can damage y matrix, or DT
So 6 infantries with 1 damage would kill it in one second... I'm developmentally impaired and cannot into reading comprehension.
Apparently.
I also propose some way of adjusting for weapon effectiveness against given target, whether by simple x can damage y matrix, or DT, though DT would be trickier to adjust while maintaining the possibility of 1hit kills.
Hardcoding imunity against weapons is invitation to bug fest
How so?
If you encapsulate properly it's just the matter of damaged object checking internally if the damage source can damage it before calculating damage.
and unrealistic.
Less than killing shitload of tanks with a bunch of dudebros spraying them with ARs.

What's hard on "enemy needs at least 30mm DU to penetrate back armor on 90 degree angle"?
You need to calculate impact angle for every impacting round in a clusterfuck of possibly hundreds of units firing at each other, and then the results probably won't be distinguishable from pre-baked statistics for the player who is managing those hundreds of units.

You see, I'm the last person on this board who would object against realism and detail in mechanics, but I just don't see the reason for it if the game is played at such a large scale. Of course, if you can and are willing to make it work, then more power to you - it won't make the game worse (apart from maybe boosting the hardware requirements through the roof).

Also, this too would involve vulnerability matrix (albeit slightly more complex) you've just scoffed at.

I think the reasonable way of checking for damage would be rolling with weapon's AP modifier against AP threshold (modified for attack direction). Small arms, for example would never be able to cross threshold of tank's armour, regardless of roll, but 30mm cannon could do so for certain percentage of rolls with threshold adjusted for attack against weaker armour in the rear.

Well real world tanks don't have one hit kills in majority of situations, as long as they are not Russian "it popped the tower" tanks.
But you wouldn't have *majority* of one hit kills. Plus you could always add subsystem damage for large, more relevant units, stuff like checking for crew evac and so on, then pile it on top of the basic system.

Why are people thinking when user would need to protect his own hide he will not do anything stupid like leaving lying ammo on floor, or stuff like that?
Wait, what.

Rather than have damage be random why not simulate projectiles so that combat is chaotic (and impossible to master) while still allowing a skilled player to use TACTICS to his advantage
Again, it's good, but in the case of an RTS with large scale battles, I'm not sure if it would be practical to implement (a lot of calculations) nor particularly noticeable for the player (then again, Myth).

If it was an RPG, then yeah, by all means - stuff like that definitely improves gameplay, plus it adds possibility of more control, which is welcome if you only control 1 to 8 units that are not expendable and die pretty easily.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
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Messages
22,506
Considering majority of RTS don't use number of amounitions
Easy enough to fix. May be amended by some sort of supply line mechanics, and not even invoked explicitly if supply lines are present depending on how little PITA do you want it to be for the player.

Even if explicit, why not have supply vehicles (deliciously vulnerable supply vehicles) coursing back and forth between base and your army just like resource harvesting units go between resources and your base?[/quote]
http://www.wargame-ab.com/ This uses ammunition and fuel, though they managed to do it in bit silly way.

If you encapsulate properly it's just the matter of damaged object checking internally if the damage source can damage it before calculating damage.
And then test all cases to find if someone did a typo.

Also what would happen when they would have hybrid cases? For example weapon that can penetrate from back.
You need to calculate impact angle for every impacting round in a clusterfuck of possibly hundreds of units firing at each other, and then the results probably won't be distinguishable from pre-baked statistics for the player who is managing those hundreds of units.
Well, you need to calculate trajectories anyway to show them on the screen, it's trivial to use the same data.

You see, I'm the last person on this board who would object against realism and detail in mechanics, but I just don't see the reason for it if the game is played at such a large scale. Of course, if you can and are willing to make it work, then more power to you - it won't make the game worse (apart from maybe boosting the hardware requirements through the roof).
Well you are person who is last to complain unless it's trivial to implement.

Simulating 600 000 sims in Sim city properly is much worse.
Also, this too would involve vulnerability matrix (albeit slightly more complex) you've just scoffed at.
Really? How would it involve any hardcoded "vulnerability matrix"?

But you wouldn't have *majority* of one hit kills.
Why not? When 500 kg warhead torpedo hits the ship, it goes splat (the ship goes splat). Top hit of 150 mm artillery is one hit kill for majority of tanks as well.
Again, it's good, but in the case of an RTS with large scale battles, I'm not sure if it would be practical to implement (a lot of calculations) nor particularly noticeable for the player (then again, Myth).

If it was an RPG, then yeah, by all means - stuff like that definitely improves gameplay, plus it adds possibility of more control, which is welcome if you only control 1 to 8 units that are not expendable and die pretty easily.
You didn't receive more units in ground control, thus I wonder how expendable these units were.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Except for the large scale battles, Close Combat already does more or less what is requested here :
Simulationist combat model, with the potentality of high spike damage.

In Close Combat, you had random elements, and few units, and it worked rather well. I don't get the "I need to win because I am better" argument. If you are a better player, not being guaranteed a win is a much more interesting situation than being guaranteed one, and you will still win a very high percent of the games, if
1) The outcome of an individual random event is not too important compared to the game in general.
2) The game mechanics do not make a slight advantage automatically turn into an overwhelming one.

But even without point 2), having a randomized outcome is not automatically a bad thing : The randomness is the heart of a game like Blood Bowl for instance, where preparation for unlucky rolls, and their mitigation are key skills of the game.

(anyway, top hit of a 150mm artillery round is not very likely, even though the probability of one hit kill AFTER a top hit of 150mm is very likely, so it does not make the point about not having a majority of one hit kills invalid, unless factoring guided artillery shells).
 

wergle

Educated
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
174
Location
Boston, MA
Rather than have damage be random why not simulate projectiles so that combat is chaotic (and impossible to master) while still allowing a skilled player to use TACTICS to his advantage
Again, it's good, but in the case of an RTS with large scale battles, I'm not sure if it would be practical to implement (a lot of calculations) nor particularly noticeable for the player (then again, Myth).
Supreme Commander does this and it is quite noticeable. You can position tanks with higher firing arcs behind hills, lure laser tanks (which have no firing arc, but do tons of damage) into uneven/rocky terrain, build turrets behind cover, use cliffs and mountains to protect valuable units from bombings, give your units erratic movement commands to dodge light artillery fire, and so on. The game is, of course, CPU-heavy due to all the projectile calculations, but it adds excellent depth to combat beyond standard rock-paper-scissors fare.
 

Johannes

Arcane
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Messages
10,487
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casting coach
Total Annihilation did projectile physics already in 97 or 98, and there it actually mattered a ton unlike in SupCom where there's much less meaningful micro and more just spamming masses of identical tanks.


Again, all these physics stuff and armor stuff has been explored a lot but most games did find that introducing extra randomity to damage rolls doesn't add much anything to the game and therefore didn't include such a thing.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Again, all these physics stuff and armor stuff has been explored a lot but most games did find that introducing extra randomity to damage rolls doesn't add much anything to the game and therefore didn't include such a thing.

You mean, except for about 100% of the tactical scale wargames? Company of heroes does too, to a certain extent.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
32,828
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Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
If you encapsulate properly it's just the matter of damaged object checking internally if the damage source can damage it before calculating damage.
And then test all cases to find if someone did a typo.
Enums? Why yell at someone if you can have compiler do it for you?

Also what would happen when they would have hybrid cases? For example weapon that can penetrate from back.
I think the reasonable way of checking for damage would be rolling with weapon's AP modifier against AP threshold (modified for attack direction). Small arms, for example would never be able to cross threshold of tank's armour, regardless of roll, but 30mm cannon could do so for certain percentage of rolls with threshold adjusted for attack against weaker armour in the rear.

Well, you need to calculate trajectories anyway to show them on the screen, it's trivial to use the same data.
There is a difference between calculating overall trajectory and doing collision and angle checks for complex collision volumes of every unit hit.

Well you are person who is last to complain unless it's trivial to implement.
No, I'm the last person to object as long as I see the point.
And I'm not really objecting here either, just doubting if it's practical.

The more units you involve the less attention needs to be paid to per-unit mechanics and more abstraction can be introduced without crippling the gameplay.
If you are lone hero or a band of six, then you will be vitally interested in controlling what exactly you can do to avoid dying to random chance so you need detailed mechanics you can use to tip the odds in favour of not dying a stupid death.
If you control vast number of interchangable units, then some dying randomly don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Really? How would it involve any hardcoded "vulnerability matrix"?
Well, you specified explicit, case-by-case conditions.
But you wouldn't have *majority* of one hit kills.
Why not? When 500 kg warhead torpedo hits the ship, it goes splat (the ship goes splat). Top hit of 150 mm artillery is one hit kill for majority of tanks as well.
You consistently miss the point. Again.

If a weapon can harm your tank with, say, 6HP, and it does 2d4 damage then it would only kill tank in one hit in 3/8 cases. Another weapon, for example doing 6d something damage, and also effective against tank would instakill with every hit.

You didn't receive more units in ground control, thus I wonder how expendable these units were.
I would consider RTWG quite different from RTS, and even in RTWG like Myth or GC units weren't nearly as irreplaceable as party's thief in the middle of trap riddled dungeon.

Finally, do mind that we are discussing simplistic game where unit is effectively a sprite with HP bar that goes down when hit here and improving from there.
It's not "how to make perfect tactical wargame" it's "how to make derpy simpoistic RTS less derpy while keeping it simplistic" - we are discussing botched Dune II clone, FFS!
 

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