Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[auron2401]

I don't think he meant maximum possible pop cap

I think he meant when you go into matches - it's at maximum by default (300), and this should be reduced to 100/150 so that anyone who just clicks play without altering game settings will be at 100/150.

[Spahbod]

I don't think he meant maximum possible pop cap

I think he meant when you go into matches - it's at maximum by default (300), and this should be reduced to 100/150 so that anyone who just clicks play without altering game settings will be at 100/150.

I know.

[raymond]

I think 150 pop cap is a good default value when starting a single or multiplayer game.

[sanderd17]

Hi all, here are my suggestions:

1. Chariots need more power (especially the britons chariots as at the moment there is no point in building them cos cav skirim are better as they cost less resources and have the same amount of power ).

There's a planned improvement to let them shoot while moving.

2. Catapults need to be dubbed down (or have a set limit on how many you can build) because it is very hard if you are a civ who does not have catapults to defend against a civ who does (more so when they build like 30 catapults guarded by lots of archers and spearmen as well as a fort).

30 catapults means they take 150 population. In a default game, that's a lot. That player won't have many archers left to defend the catapults.

And catapults are easy to take down. Just attack them with melee troops, the catapults will fire at those melee troops, and kill themselves.

3. Forts need to stop gaining so much territory because people are just forting their way to victory which is stupid (you should be destroying your enemy with army's not buildings).

Forts are already limited in maximum number you can build and minimum distance from each other. I think the territory gain is only good.

4. Please let the AI do something if a player/teammate leaves half way through a game.

Yes, that'd be nice.

[Donner]

Something that i noticed while playing as the Bretons was that the units with shields,when collecting resources,they disappeared.

I think a cool feature would be that when a soldier collects a resource,his equipment (weapon,shield,etc...)would go on his back,instead of disappearing.

I would suggest that working soldiers take two identities; a disarmed worker and an armed soldier. The soldier, if ordered to work, would discard his equipment at the nearest resource drop off or military facility, transforming into an unarmed worker capable of working but incapable of attacking, and subsequently perform the order. When the soldier is ordered to attack or given a transforming command, the soldier in his worker state would run to the nearest of the aforementioned buildings (it doesn't have to be the same building that the soldier dropped his equipment off at) and transform into his soldier identity. The soldier, now in his armed state, is capable of attacking but incapable of working.

Such a transformation can be triggered by the same function that orders the female workers to garrison. The arming action can also be triggered automatically, such as if hostile units approach to within a certain radius.

Overall, I think this option is more realistic than the arms that always seem to be conveniently lying in the fields for instant arming.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Donner

[av93]

I suggested a similar concept in the past.

http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16708&hl=

[auron2401]

As much as we would all like this, it's probably not good gameplay-wise.

I mean, that would just give raiders MORE bonuses towards them. they already have shock and speed (assuming you are using cavalry to raid. Lol.) The ability to cause confusion would be devastating.

[Radagast.]

For this to work in a generic way, we need to resolve inventory weapons when fighting, tools when gathering. Each weapon/tool would have a simulation template that defines its stats (of course techs can modify those stats). We experiment with that in the Bronze Age mod that has gone completely experimental and will be used as base for the 0AD Extended project.

For a start we will use garrisoning for the inventory, that means we check the GarrisonHolder component for garrisoned items. Those items' boni have to be considered by the attack / defence components. For example attack then has to be calculated from base_attack (e.g. fists or hooves) + weapon attack value (e.g. sword damage) + armor value (e.g. shield protection).

This also allows to have weight influence your units' UnitMotion speed.

All that may later be put in a InventoryHolder component which is a specilization of GarrisonHolder (just like TurretHolder).

Having those garrisoned weapons in other entities using the visible garrisoning by Sander is not possible yet if the weapons don't have to move with bones (i.e. the animations). Though there might be a way to synchronize prop-point position with a weapon/tool entity but static garrison points are enough for now (and still allows you to attach lances at the sides of your chariot or horse).

[lako3000]

how often are updates? im wondering when the next update will come out alpha 17 because cav skirim is making the game a little boring cos i either smash the ai or lose to real people because of that stratergy

thanks

[auron2401]

Alpha 17 is due in a few weeks

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/roadmap

You can track the progress via that.

Edited August 18, 2014 by auron2401

[FeXoR]

"If a player leaves half way through a game":

1.) This player should gain a "leave" (statistic for his account, or a loose independent on the games outcome).

2.) (Since this might cause anger against the voting players - who didn't do anything wrong in the first place - it might be better to just skip this)

A choice window could pop up asking if the game should end as a draw that only is accepted if all players of the "non-leaver-side(s)" accept it.

For the mates of the leavers a "give up" choice could appear and, if accepted by all those players the game ends (if no draw accepted with victory for the non-leaver-side)

3.) The AI should take control over the left players faction if no draw was excepted and the leaver side didn't give up (so the game continues).

If a player leaves in a game that's always a hard decision what to do.

1.) The player should be "punished" for not playing the game he "silently" accepted to play by joining it (counts for the player as leave/loose) and potentially destroying it for the remaining players.

(An "unstable" connection sadly can't be an excuse here because that player should be considered responsible for his connection also)

2.) The remaining players should be as less effected by this as possible (which is quite hard) without taking the win from the "non-lever-sides" (though potentially from the leavers allies - not much to do about this). So the AI should not be an "extremely hard" one for example (In fact I think it should be voted upon by the "non-leaver-side(s)" which AI is put in place).

In short: A leave, however caused, counts as "give up" (to prevent players avoiding a loose by plugging their connection).

I'm not that sure if a satisfying solution for the remaining players can be achieved at all.

Some examples:

- The game just ends as a draw: Players can avoid loosing by plugging

- A loose for the leaver, otherwise a draw: A 3 vs. 3 game lost would only count as one loose for the 3 players (So plugging is still a "rewarding" behavior)

- A loose for the player and continue the game without an AI/with an AI voted upon by the non-leaver-side(s) could be used by conspiring players on opposing sides

- A loose for the leaving players, continued game with a fixed AI: The outcome of the game (if undecided before) now depends on the strength of the players (If weaker than the AI the AI grands an advantage to the leavers mates, otherwise a disadvantage)

...and so on.

Edited August 18, 2014 by FeXoR

[blakehaswell]

This needs to be fixed:

:-)

Edited August 18, 2014 by blakehaswell

[lako3000]

i would like to see a graphics system for the game so that different computers can run the game.

example: low

Medium

High

or even a: Very low

low

medium

high

Very high/ Ultra

this would help improve the lag on movement of units and the game itself i hope but i know it will take time to change that so i hope in future this will be implemented because i have a mate who wants this game but his computer is to slow and old to play it as it is so hes waiting for an update to smoothen it out but anyway hope this happens

[lako3000]

i also have another idea or suggestion about the heroes from the fortress.

i thought you could give the hero levels and attributes but not abilities

the heroes ability could be to build a specific building or buildings, or even to build a specifc building quicker than 5 villagers

the calvary could mabey be able to train other cavalry just slowly or something. calvary are hard to think of for an ability cos they cant build but yea

hope you guys like my idea of giving the heroes attributes and a ability.

i dont know about how many levels the heroes should have, mabey 10 or 15

you might have a hard time thinking about attributes but i think you can have,

building speed

streangth/hp

Agility/ Movement speed

Attack

Defence

thats just what i thought of but you could make them into mabey 3 different attributes but 5 makes for more customisation but you will still need another fo the calvary if you like this idea

[Stan`]

I was thinking of giving the player the choice between three heroes like he chose gods in Aom.

There is a ticket for high medium ultra. But thing is it´s not wise to implement that until pathfinder has been rewritten

[iNcog]

I think that one of the most pressing issues with 0 AD is actually multiplayer command lag. I'm not sure how stuff works when connected, but I will say that it's extremely laggy. Playing 0 AD offline feels quite nice, playing offline, even against AI opponents, is very laggy. It almost feels like 1000 ms of command lag, which is 1s, which is huge; I think that 150 ms command lag should really be maximum.

Is there LAN in the game? Could you not have a feature that directly connects players between them? I'm not sure how any of that works, but I will say that it's in dire need of fixing.

[Stan`]

You can do lan by using local ips ie 192.168.0.3. Νο ports needs to be open for that. You can do that by ethernet wifi by ethernet between two computer and wifi between two computers.

[iNcog]

Would there be a way to use LAN for online multiplayer though (tuungle or hamachi?) ? I feel that a good connection would do so much for the game. From what I understand, the hosting player on 0 AD hosts an actual server.

[Stan`]

You could try somebody did on the forums years ago.

But you ´d have the same lag unless your close geographicaly with a good bandwith.

[iNcog]

Why would I have the same lag? This is the most important question to answer.

In starcraft 2, I can play with American players, while being in Europe, with very little command lag. The same can be said for aoe3, which is a dream to play with few players. Latency and connection issues kill 0 AD much more than skirm-cav ever did.

This isn't a whine or anything. I'm just saying, the most pressing issue with 0 AD is the multiplayer performance. When I play with my units offline, they respond very nicely and the game feels very nice. When you hop online, the amount of command lag you get pretty much kills the experience and pleasure of playing, not to mention it makes micro irrelevant. Which is something quite horrible in an RTS. Is it due to the way commands are transmitted?

In a sense, does anyone know how games are hosted in multiplayer? If it would be possible to use some other way to connect?

[Stan`]

Input lags depends on a lot of factors. Keyboard connection distance internet provider length of the cable type (copper) and mostly computer running it. Ie 8players games of aoe3 are as laggy as 0ad

[iNcog]

i'm talking ping

[Radagast.]

Before rewriting the pathfinder, I'd still like to see how the ES31 20% performance boost plays out. The pathfinder rewrites are too big a task to simply finish if you have not the full picture of how it works (I think only Philip has it as he already rewrote the long pathfinder).

LAN works, and it even works to start several 0AD instances on the same machine. 0AD is really great in comparison to commercial products that mostly require you to enter keys, and only allow online connection and not even LAN anymore at all. But that may depend.

If it will help against the command / order lag is a question, I'd like to ask Josh. I remember Josh, scythetwirler and Alpha123 talking about the command delay some time ago and there was some reasoning but hopefully we can get rid of the lag soon.

I think Europe and America is connected via pretty thick glass fiber cords. So I think that the physical distance is misleading and not a significant factor for the speed of light.

[Radagast.]

Btw. we already have graphics settings, though that doesn't include resolution and such or does it?

[Stan`]

i'm talking ping

What is ping ?

Ping is the time the pressed key takes to get through all computers.