Alpha26 feedback and suggested changes

[Yekaterina]

It's just my normal handwriting and the conclusion helps you to calculate the bonus range.

[Lion.Kanzen]

39 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

It's just my normal handwriting and the conclusion helps you to calculate the bonus range.

Handwriting is no longer practiced as in the past, women have always had a nice technique to create handwriting.

 

With age and lack of practice this art is being lost.

 

Returning to the topic, I am an artist and I am not very interested in all the formulas of the game.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Yekaterina nice calculations. I think the main issue with the current system is determining the height "h" in the situation. There must be some reason why it is not measured with each ranged query and instead established as a constant by comparing the building location with the average of the entire map. Maybe it is for performance purposes? I don't have a good idea of what calculations are too intense to be done for each ranged attack, but I have to assume having a constant "h" is easier even if it is frequently wrong.

[Silier]

Its not constant. Height difference is calculated each time.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, Silier said:

Its not constant. Height difference is calculated each time.

Could be updated onvaluemodification? And cached

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Could be updated onvaluemodification? And cached

It's calculated each time because you're putting defense towers at different terrain heights dynamically throughout the game. My point is that why isn't this enough? Why the extra component in the template to add elevation bonus to the towers?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

yeah it makes no sense to me to distinguish the height of the window as part of the "elevation" bonus. It is more of an inherent property of the tower, and any "elevation" bonus should be actually due to elevation.

Coincidentally, I just had players asking me if the tower range is accurate.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

4 hours ago, Silier said:

Its not constant. Height difference is calculated each time.

for each ranged attack? Sorry if I am misunderstanding. 

[Stan`]

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It's calculated each time because you're putting defense towers at different terrain heights dynamically throughout the game. My point is that why isn't this enough? Why the extra component in the template to add elevation bonus to the towers?

My point is that it could be computed on placement and at each subsequent tech.

No particular answer, I just think it's cool to take the terrain into account.

 

[Silier]

If you calculate range of tower on placement from base elevation and then use that result to calculate range for elevation the result will be wrong.

 

Anyway if majority is in favour to ditch out the base elevation in templates for towers i don't care that much

 

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

for each ranged attack? Sorry if I am misunderstanding.

Yes, because height difference between target and attacker is different for every target if the map is not flat.

[Stan`]

2 hours ago, Silier said:

If you calculate range of tower on placement from base elevation and then use that result to calculate range for elevation the result will be wrong.

I mean you wait for construction to be finished to compute the range once. Then update it as needed? Since it's not moving. For moving entities we could have a flag like static that defines how much it needs to be recomputed?

Seemed like a nice feature for me.

[Silier]

To paraphrase elexis, it is nowhere said buildings cannot move.

Also there is already diff for it somewhere 

[Gurken Khan]

4 hours ago, Silier said:

Anyway if majority is in favour to ditch out the base elevation in templates for towers i don't care that much

Maybe not without replacing it with anything?

I don't care about the details, all I care about is that the extra range allows the tower to protect the foot of the neighboring tower. (Since we have that arbitrary minimum distance of towers.)

[Gurken Khan]

Why do I have a line at ~80% to the top of the screen that makes shadows appear/disappear? Is it my settings?

[Obelix]

[Yes and] No, I have the same problems since versions. Isn't this #6221 resp.

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Obelix
'clarified'

[Yekaterina]

23 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I think the main issue with the current system is determining the height "h" in the situation. There must be some reason why it is not measured with each ranged query and instead established as a constant by comparing the building location with the average of the entire map. Maybe it is for performance purposes? I don't have a good idea of what calculations are too intense to be done for each ranged attack, but I have to assume having a constant "h" is easier even if it is frequently wrong.

height is specified in the template files. You don't have to calculate; you can just estimate. For example a human archer is 1.7m tall, a tower might me 10m

using this height and default range and my formula we can obtain the improved range.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

16 hours ago, Stan` said:

No particular answer, I just think it's cool to take the terrain into account.

I think we are talking past each other here

[Stan`]

Hmm. I suppose the point of the extra component is to mimic the behavior you would have with visible garrison (aka turrets). This way a tower would/could shoot as far as a unit on a wall next to it. Does that make sense?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 hours ago, Stan` said:

Hmm. I suppose the point of the extra component is to mimic the behavior you would have with visible garrison (aka turrets). This way a tower would/could shoot as far as a unit on a wall next to it. Does that make sense?

Right, but that extra range could just be added to the standard range, especially if that extra range is just a standardized 13 meters for all defense towers (lol).

Edited April 7, 2023 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[alre]

what's the point? parabolic range would be computed every time anyway.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

On 02/04/2023 at 3:55 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

has anyone noticed weird inconsistencies with bonus range on buildings?

It seems towers, ccs and other buildings with arrows frequently get 13 bonus range even though they are not on a hill.

@alre the point is in this picture.

Towers have a range of 60 meters, but this range is actually 73 meters because the additional range due to window height is treated as elevation bonus.

Because of this, tower range overlays are incorrect, with more range than visually indicated.

It would be much more intuitive to include these 13 meters of range as part of the tower's innate characteristics, so that the final range remains 60. This way, additional bonus range would be 100% due to elevation.

I actually couldn't find where bonus range is in the templates. Is it because of the 15m y origin of the arrow?

Edited April 8, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

48 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

@alre the point is in this picture.

Towers have a range of 60 meters, but this range is actually 73 meters because the additional range due to window height is treated as elevation bonus.

Because of this, tower range overlays are incorrect, with more range than visually indicated.

It would be much more intuitive to include these 13 meters of range as part of the tower's innate characteristics, so that the final range remains 60. This way, additional bonus range would be 100% due to elevation.

I actually couldn't find where bonus range is in the templates. Is it because of the 15m y origin of the arrow?

[Silier]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

It would be much more intuitive to include these 13 meters of range as part of the tower's innate characteristics, so that the final range remains 60. This way, additional bonus range would be 100% due to elevation.

Will not work if you place tower at hill. It wil not be 13. You cannot make it constant. its constant 13 only on flat terrain. Additionally if you place tower lower it will be minus x.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Silier

[alre]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

@alre the point is in this picture.

Towers have a range of 60 meters, but this range is actually 73 meters because the additional range due to window height is treated as elevation bonus.

Because of this, tower range overlays are incorrect, with more range than visually indicated.

It would be much more intuitive to include these 13 meters of range as part of the tower's innate characteristics, so that the final range remains 60. This way, additional bonus range would be 100% due to elevation.

I actually couldn't find where bonus range is in the templates. Is it because of the 15m y origin of the arrow?

I don't see nothing problematic in that picture, as long as you are capable to add 60 to 13. Are you talking about something else in that picture, or something not visible in it? Do you mean the circles visible around selected towers? Because those cannot be reliable with this engine.

Edited April 8, 2023 by alre

[ChronA]

I think the point is, if towers always have a +13 elevation bonus on top of whatever they get from terrain, why not just bake that into their default range? It changes absolutely nothing about the game balance, but it makes life easier for data miners and makes the stat card more accurate at a glance to the thing people actually care about.