real_tabasco_sauce

I think they are just in skirmish maps and scenarios. They are designed to test gameplay and performance, so I think its important that they are in the game and not atlas.

Yes, we have this, but I think we can do a better job of organizing.

I'll start with river archipelago. Ship pathing up and down the rivers is pretty terrible, the rivers make the flanks of the map much less accessible which would be ok if only they provided an advantage.

Hello random map players, There are new some random maps in the works, but we want to avoid cluttering the random maps menu with too many maps. So the idea is we should add good maps but also remove some of the very worst maps. I think we should have pretty substantial agreement to fully remove a random map. Lastly, I'd like to float the idea of adding a new random map category where players can find some of the more crazy random maps that are overlooked but loved by few. I think an example of this would be snowflake sea rocks. Perhaps the name could be "Random Map Experiences", or something like that. So, please comment a random map or two, maybe with a screenshot and a couple arguments why you don't like it.

It can't move while the animation is ending anyways, right? Does it need to know its destination frames in advance to move on time? I bet what you are referring to as "the animation finishes" is actually the unit going on to finish a new attack. Currently, animations will be cut short if need be.

@Philip the Swaggerless sure its simple, but its limited. <<<<<%>>>>>>>>>>>>!<<<<<<<<<<<<<%>>>>>>>>>>>>!<<<<<<<<<<< ..........O------------------|-----------------O-------------------|----------------|O In the above (for pikemen) if you don't check immediately after the attack (|), the unit must wait a whole second before it realizes it needs to move to attack the unit again. This would be really bad. Have you played it yet? The pikemen really don't look bad at all, its spearcav and swordcav chasing that look a bit weird. There can certainly be improvements to try and fit the animation better, but timing it perfectly would be tough as all units have differing animations, repeat times, and prepare times. You would end up doing some crazy mathematical gymnastics to try and get it to work! Up to a point, it would be easier to tweak animations and audio (except I haven't done that yet XD).

this one is hard to explain. I think it could be ok for a unique unit. One time I gave units buildingAI, to see how strong spreading out damage perfectly would be, and being able to deal damage without stopping was far more impactful. Allowing units to attack while moving would basically make mobility in general even stronger than it already is. i'm down to try it, but I don't think it should be a priority.

yes, it is now. 1 sec of overshoot vs 2. But I wouldn't want a pike to stop, thinking it can attack, and then not be able to because its target ran away during the prepare time. There are certainly arguments to change prepare time for some units, but then you start to run into issues with animations.

You might be observing overshoot in the prepare time. Pikes take i think a second to prepare. I intentionally avoided checks during the prepare time because if the unit entered the attack range, it should be attacked. If you add checks to the prepare time, you could have attacks get canceled before they happen, which is not possible in the current setup. Also, are you testing the new version or the one in the com mod? The first version had a means for units to overshoot if they kill the unit they originally targeted. This was fixed in the later versions.

The range check is done in vanilla immediately after an attack, so right before the repeat time takes place. The consequence is that the unit can go anywhere during that repeat time and the attack still goes through. ..... = prepare time ---- = repeat time | = attack O = check if the target is in range vanilla: ..........|O-----------------------------------|O-----------------------------------|O With patch (ie pikeman): ..........|O-------O-----------------O---------|O--------O---------------O----------|O

It might be a nice capability to have, but I don't think its necessary in general. Units stopping to attack is important for gameplay. When is the last time animation ppl have helped out? I think the right thing is to do a little work in the animations and sound department: with more brief animations and sounds, things would look and feel smoother. Its similar to https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7113. Since swordcav already have their animation cut short when chasing sometimes, it seems this problem is only made more frequent by this patch, not caused by the patch.

well, too late on the first part XD. I can't say definitely what the effect on performance is. https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7178 In here you can see the profile of the more recent version and it appears to be a net improvement for some reason. This performance test is based on the "combat demo huge" which is 630 units vs 630 units all fighting at the same time. If the affect isn't detrimental to a27, i would hope its not terrible in a26, but we will find out. It is indeed making a major difference for bolts and catas, and my suspicion is it will make bolts much weaker and less frustrating to play against. However, you are wrong in thinking other units are unchanged. Certainly it is more noticeable for low fire rate units, but pikemen, crossbows, and in particular ram ships will be noticeably less able to attack beyond their intended range. I will be curious to learn if retreating in general will become less punishing because of this change. This patch increases these situations a bit, with animations and sound being cut short when chasing. I will need to find a solution for this in the long run. yes and yes. Good questions. Actually part of question 2 is no: prepare time is only involved for the first attack. If the last repeat time is unfinished when a new order comes along and the remaining repeat time is longer than the prepare time, the remaining repeat time is used. I did 2 as a test, but the current version adds as many checks as the number of seconds in the repeat time rounded up. So 1 for swords, 2 for slings, 3 for crossbows, 6 for bolt shooters. In this case, you would often have a unit trying to shoot something, only for it to realize right before attacking that it needs to instead move closer to the target. If you just get rid of the first one, the unit won't know that they need to chase the target until it is time to attack again. Well, the animations don't cause the prepare and repeat time, the animations are adjusted to keep in sync with what the unit is doing. What happens here is that the animation and sound is longer than the prepare time, and since a unit might decide to move before the animation plays in full, the animation is cut short.

There is someone working on something better: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7047 As a mod, fine. However, in general i don't like the unit sharing idea because: 1) Each civ has a limited unit availability on purpose as part of civ design, so that they have strengths and weaknesses. 2) Transferring units to a new player has risks of combining disastrously with other bonuses: Ie fanatics + any speed hero, ptol bolt shooters + mace siege hero.

Its more about making sure that units obey their designed ranges.

Ok thanks to those who helped test! This is the final testing version before release. Lmk if there are any errors or bugs. I'll try to do a couple multiplayer tests today. community-testing.zip

Now, i think the only remaining thing is to add a bit more player color to the basic spearmen. @wowgetoffyourcellphone any chance you could make new unit portraits with the new shields? I added them to the mod.

I made the wood color palette match the fort. I think it is fitting.

overshootFix_v2.zipThis new version based off of the com mod version 13 includes range checks during the leftover repeat time after a new target is acquired.

in order to do some testing with multiple players, here is a mod with the overshoot change. It is based off of the current version of the community mod for a26. community-mod-overshootFix.zip

also coming: a fix to food gen infinite loop in badosu balanced maps, larger forests in badosu balanced maps, foothills improvements.

Could do some ptol vs roman naval campaign, like the battle of Actium

In part of a multi-mission campaign, you can have some section of it be very similar to a 1v1 vs ai, like a scenario. That is a nice bridge to how civs are played in multiplayer. Also, on bridging to multiplayer, its good for some campaign missions to explain how mechanics and balance works (like naval units, damage types, auras). Then why not just use the civ as is? Why are new civs required? If some historical group is important, you don't have to represent it in totality (Ie protagonist can be ambushed by Thracian units on the way to Persia, even while we don't have a complete thracian civ). Well it completely changes the way 0ad works, so even if the ideas were excellent, having to start from scratch would mean a ton of balancing pains. The design is questionable: some civs can evolve with each phase, while others like the Han or Mauryans cannot? How do you balance that? If the Greeks can become athenians, spartans, thebans, corithians, and syracusans how on earth do you plan to play against them when any of their options can be completely different after a single phase-up? Let me explain the one click strategies part too: if strategy boils down to "I clicked syracusans but you clicked spartans, i win", this is very lame gameplay. In aoe4, casters talk less about build orders and more about which monuments players chose to beat the other. It makes it almost like a card game. Lastly, here is the worst part. Campaigns are a huge effort, i understand. But TONS of creativity is allowed! So why completely rework the multiplayer side, which depends on intricate balance and multi-layered civ design in order to supply a more rigid framework for campaigns? So, i still don't see why this system is required, unless choosing between Spartans and Athenians is an important part of a mission? <- which also makes no sense

I also fail to see why completely reworking the civ design benefits campaign design. If you add on the massive detriment this would have for multiplayer in exchange for this supposed improvement to campaigns, and the work this would involve, it becomes clear that frankly this isn't a good idea.

Hannibal's trip to Rome would be cool. Perfectly suited for a campaign, we have the civs, and its famous.

Well it’s not prevented 100% it’s just that there is less time for the unit to travel past the max range and therefore it’s not so egregious. ie overshoot by 0.5 sec isn’t as bad as overshoot by 1.5 sec. For bolts, it’s overshoot by 1 sec versus 6.