Suggestions for CW-next

[4xC]

Interesting idea. I recall that units and buildings in the Starcraft series had that option; displays in the box and all.

Speaking of which, what I would like to know is if the characters of CW3 will be still prtraits, or something else when the lines are going?

[Grauniad]

Speaking of which, what I would like to know is if the characters of CW3 will be still prtraits, or something else when the lines are going?

Our current thinking is that there will be various levels - depending on the purchase price of the game. For the basic game, you will get a still portrait.

For a slightly higher premium, you will get some animated image.

At the "gold" level of the game, there will be film clips with actors playing the various roles.

At the "platinum" level, actors will come to your house and re-enact scenes as they happen.

[TrickyDragon]

i would take the platinum, but it would be weird letting actors into my house. so gold will do. :3

[Cavemaniac]

Speaking of which, what I would like to know is if the characters of CW3 will be still prtraits, or something else when the lines are going?

Our current thinking is that there will be various levels - depending on the purchase price of the game. For the basic game, you will get a still portrait.

For a slightly higher premium, you will get some animated image.

At the "gold" level of the game, there will be film clips with actors playing the various roles.

At the "platinum" level, actors will come to your house and re-enact scenes as they happen.

Any word yet on which actors?

I mean, it'd be a laugh to get William Shatner over, and Christopher Walken'd be cool, but would you really want, say, Chuck Norris to know where you lived?

:-\

[4xC]

Our current thinking is that there will be various levels - depending on the purchase price of the game. For the basic game, you will get a still portrait.

For a slightly higher premium, you will get some animated image.

At the "gold" level of the game, there will be film clips with actors playing the various roles.

At the "platinum" level, actors will come to your house and re-enact scenes as they happen.

When did levels like gold and platinum come in? Are these brainstormed marketing ideas involving versions of the game at different prices? And how can scenes be reenacted knowing the power of both sides and the lethality of the creeper?


Also, Might I suggest that for the unit hotkeys which were the numbers on top of the keyboard in 1 and 2, the hotkeys be specific letters in the names of the units like in the Starcraft series. It helped there so maybe it will help here.

[lurkily]

Well, what if you had to click on a single CN if it was on a seperate network from another one to see its graph and/or stats?

That's pretty much what I suggested earlier.

Then again, perhaps you could have 3 separate graphs for each CN all the time and they would have identical readings if their corresponding CNs were on the same network?

That's pretty much what I described here as what would be required to put these statistics on the screen for at-a-glance info - a full set of values for the network, multiplied by three.

I think right now, critical stats are available by locating a CN or storage - at a glance you have the state of your energy resevoirs, and in a moment more, you also know if they're rising or falling at a rate that's significant.

I think further stats should be accessible by clicking any economic structure.  CN, Node, relay, storage, reactor, mine, or siphon.[/quote]

for the display of status, there could be a small part of the screen that is blank, when you mouse over something in a net work the box will fill with the info from that net work, energy anti creeper production and usage

That would be the bottom portion of the UI you see now, which shows controls for the current unit when you select that unit.  As the game progresses, I'm sure the UI will develop as well, so it may later be divided into separate panels with more separate roles, like a specific panel for showing economic or unit data separate from the unit panel . . . we'll have to wait and see.

EDIT: Demand as a new value.  In CW1/2, energy spent per cycle could not show you how much energy was being requested - unless you had the energy reserves to supply every request.  If you were in deficit, energy spent was simply equal to the energy you produced.  I think the energy requested is a more important number.  The energy demanded by your infrastructure can help you balance additional demands and expansion against your production, while the energy you spent is only intermittently useful.

[4xC]

First off, I would have known that what I suggested is what you did, but I lost track with all the details throughout the page and got confused as to who was saying what because there are that many statements of agreement, disagreement, or neutrality and add-ons.

Second, even if there was enough energy in store to supply the needs, in some cases weapons may need so much energy after opening fire on a sudden new large threat or engagement, that the other weapons either on other fronts or that keep enemies at bay like capped emitters in CW1 or capped structures and emitters in CW2 without having the ability to nullify them like some of the custom maps make it would lose their energy because of the new large supply surge for the weapons on the new front(s) letting loose with all they got.

This is because packets are sent to 1 unit at a time regardless of how much demand they have. I still agree that demand is helpful to know. I must add though that deficit in CW2 was also a general overview of how much request there was without specifying what demanded it.

[lurkily]

This is because packets are sent to 1 unit at a time regardless of how much demand they have.

This was a concern in CW1 - CW2 had some limit that I can't recall, but many packets could be sent in the same instant.  I believe V has posted on the blog that CW3 will have no limit.  If you can supply it, and it's requested, then it's on the wire.

The problem with deficit as a meter of how badly you're in debt, is that you have to wait for it to reach a peak and stabilize, and watch to make sure it's stabilized, before you can have an accurate figure.  But that time, the usage of energy on your network has often changed.

A single number, negative or positive indicating how much energy you're netting or how much more is being demanded than produced, (rather than how much is being spent than produced - not always the same thing) will be instantly informative, no matter what your current situation.

[4xC]

CW2's limit from my perspective is that if you have a lot of weapons active all of a sudden when dealing with a new threat or making a large engamement, the amount of packets distributed to units with constant demand like techdomes, beacons, repulsors and weapons on other fronts, etc. would get less supply along the way. This is what happens even if you DO have enough energy in storage and enough being produced by reactors all the time to never be in deficit that this is happening.

If CW3 ends up without the described limit as you suggest, I will be extremely satisfied that all fronts will be safe and all energy-sucking infrastructure units and other weapons/titans will not lose their supply of energy.

[Wheatmidge]

CW2's limit from my perspective is that if you have a lot of weapons active all of a sudden when dealing with a new threat or making a large engamement, the amount of packets distributed to units with constant demand like techdomes, beacons, repulsors and weapons on other fronts, etc. would get less supply along the way. This is what happens even if you DO have enough energy in storage and enough being produced by reactors all the time to never be in deficit that this is happening.

If CW3 ends up without the described limit as you suggest, I will be extremely satisfied that all fronts will be safe and all energy-sucking infrastructure units and other weapons/titans will not lose their supply of energy.

As long as you have 1 crystal energy CW2 has theoretically no limit. the limit is more based on how much energy you can send out without your computer slowing down to a crawl.

[4xC]

Not so, frankly. The limit I'm talking about is something that comes with 1 and 2. if you have to keep an area capped off and you suddenly have to use up a large amount of energy for a new assault or threat, the capped areas become uncapped since the capping weapons lose their supply even if you have enough energy in production and in store.

[Wheatmidge]

Either I don't know what you are talking about or you don't. I think it is the second.

The packet limit in CW1 is 20 without storage and 32 with storage, so yes you can have more energy than you can send out.
In CW2 the packet limit is 60 without crystal energy but is unlimited if you have at least one point in crystal energy. So if you have the production or storage you can send out over 100 energy a second.

Virgil has already commented that he has worked on efficiency in the code so these limits will not be needed.
I assume there will be some limit eventually, and map makers will end up pushing it, because that is what many of them like to do. But more likely the limit will just be what makes a users computer slow down to a crawl.

[4xC]

For both games, we are pretty much saying the same thing as to the limits of how many packets could be sent at a time regardless of production and storage.

EDIT: I also have to add to this as an example the discovery I just made today that unless the LS from CW2 has crystals for energy, no more than 4 dark beams can be armed, activated, and connected at the same time, and that is without anything else receiving packets.

[lurkily]

For both games, we are pretty much saying the same thing as to the limits of how many packets could be sent at a time regardless of production and storage.

EDIT: I also have to add to this as an example the discovery I just made today that unless the LS from CW2 has crystals for energy, no more than 4 dark beams can be armed, activated, and connected at the same time, and that is without anything else receiving packets.

Why would you ever need 4 dark beams?  I can't remember ever needing more than one, unless a mapmaker specifically designed a map to be too constrictive to get one beam in and out of the places it needed to go.

[Nemoricus]

It made the final mission of CW2 go more quickly if you had that many.