DFD-R3: 932 vs. 732, 991 vs. 283

[Renegade]

DFD: Daily Feature Deathmatch

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The Cruel Fight For Implementation

This is a Daily Feature Deathmatch post. If you are unfamiliar with the background of this event, please read the announcement, the adjustment and the schedule.

Fight 1

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[932] Improving of Alpha Light feature. vs. [732] CnC Gen Troop Crawler

Fight 2

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[991] New tiberium/ore tree types vs. [283] Allow upgradable cloaking towers like gap generators

After the fight is over, two of these issues will be suspended, while the other two move on to the next round.
Remember that the coders will not take part in the discussion, so make your arguments complete, concise and convincing - when it's over, it's over.

Part of that is clearly marking what outcome you support for which issue.
There should be no ambiguity in the issue you're talking about, and it should be clear what outcome you support. Feel free to put your stance in bold, and use simple terminology like "kill #69" or "I want #42 to survive".
This use of simple terminology should be part of a larger argumentation - if this is all your post consists of, it will be ignored. We are interested in argumentations and details to consider, not votes.

A decision will be made either way, a lack of discussion will not cause all issues to live.

Be friendly, be civil, be logical.
You are allowed to try to deconstruct the arguments of those arguing against your candidate, but remember that they don't make the call - there is really no point in getting personal.

The discussion should be contained in this thread, argumentations elsewhere will be ignored, but you are allowed to transfer and adapt points made elsewhere in the past.

We want a good, clean fight.
Let's get it on!

These fights are largely automatically generated - if an issue turns out to be unfit for combat, it will be disqualified and the opponent will go into the queue.

[reaperrr]

Fight 1:
I don't really care about either, but I'm slightly more inclined towards #732, so I'll just vote.

support #732
kill #932

EDIT: After reading Beowulf's comment, I want to "strengthen" my support for #732. We need as many AI enhancements as possible, and #732 would be another thing that would help improve the AI.


Fight 2:
New ore/tiberium tree types allow for a more diverse resource system, you could even have several factions that each need their own unique resource.

Combined with the fact that #991 is much more popular, I'd say

support #991
kill #283

[mt.]

Fight 1

#932
Kill this.

#732
Save this.

Reason: Preload-able transports saves time and reduces micromanagement.
In stock loading the battlefortresses and such is annoying, but preloaded would be great. Alpha lights on the other hand can perhaps spice up visuals a bit. But not many mods even seem to use these much. So all in all, I support 732 a lot more.

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Fight 2

I don't care, I wouldn't care if you killed them both either.

[Black Shadow 750]

Support: 732, 991

More tib types are needed, and I can see varying uses for them. For example, you have a tib/red alert crossover mod, you'd probably want both tiberium and ore. Or something else entirely.

[Blade]

Fight 1 I don't really like the troop crawler feature, seems a bit superfluous to me, but the main problem with the alpha lights, not being hidden when tunneling/cloaked, has apparently already been fixed. The remaining issue, animated alpha lights is IMO less compelling really only allowing moving cones that cannot be done in other ways.

In fight 2 I think both would be nice, but upgradable gap isn't used that much anyhow so if I had to choose I'd go with additional ore/tiberium spawning trees/whatever given that it allows the restoration of an FS feature.

[Nighthawk]

For fight one:
Now, I normally vote against graphical changes and for gameplay ones. However, the first issue makes a lot of sense. If your Mirage Tank's cloaking field can disguise the whole mechanical hulk as a small poplar tree, why can't it stop the small poplar tree from emitting a beam of light? Also, it simply solves an irritating bug for those who use AlphaImages. Additionally, multi-framed AlphaImages might come in handy for modders. Even as a mere map scenery enhancement, multi-framed AlphaImages could be used to create something like flickering lampposts. The comments on the tracker issue also point to a bug that occurs when you combine AlphaImages with the subterranean locomotor. That could probably do with some attention too.

Pre-loaded transports are a handy little gameplay enhancement, but for some reason the AlphaImages issue has more appeal to me. But, I like both issues, I may as well provide some positive argumentation for this one too. There's the obvious emulating-more-Generals-stuff argument, but if you combine this thing with the Operator logic, it takes on a whole new level of gameplay. You could make your unit come pre-loaded with a driver, but if you take that driver out or he gets killed, your unit suddenly becomes vulnerable.

I'm a fan of both issues, but the AlphaImages one gets my attention more, therefore my stance is support #932, kill #732.


For fight two:
New ore types are something that modders have tried to create in the past, but you can only really create one new one with some bugs (and even then, I might just be thinking of TS). I can see how such a thing might have issues with FinalAlert 2, given that it only really supports placing ore and gems. However, this could add more strategy to mods, or even just be a cosmetical thing. For example, one mission or map could play out in a place of sparse resources, like a barren desert or even the moon, and the ore type present there doesn't provide you with as much money as standard ore, forcing the player to rely on other methods of income. It could even be used to create some kind of limited rare resource on maps, like a miniscule pocket of extremely rare minerals (no, not gems, rarer) that one player could scoop up in one or two harvester runs to get a major boost to their economy. Something like that could force gameplay back towards resource domination and territory control.

The second issue is handy, but the game's transparency effect causes quite a bit of slowdown, especially if you were to have several of these cloaking towers spread out around your base. Not many mods implement cloaking towers because of this slowdown, so I don't see this getting much use, especially not more than new ore types.

Therefore, my stance is support #991, kill #283.

[MRMIdAS]

[732] building full transports is a superior request for me.

[283] gap generators can do it, why not cloak towers? and yes, cloak can cause slowdown, but if it only happens by building too many cloak towers, put a build limit on them.

[Beowulf]

Support #732. But for a different reason honestly - the AI. This will benefit the AI more than players really. Presumably, it would allow the AI to easily handle multiple loaded transport scripts, saving AI scripters like me heavy amounts of headaches trying in vain to make this work. Seems like a very worthy feature indeed.

Support #991. The request is a lot more straightforward than #283 and it would seem to benefit a few more people. Besides, if the documented limits on upgrades were lifted, it would make #283 redundant to be rather honest. Let's see some new ore and tiberium tree types!

[Darkstorm]

Preloaded transports seem like a must, especially for the operator logic. Though it isn't great, it has more uses IMO than animated alpha lights that hardly anyone uses. The most out of alpha lights I'd care for is headlights, but other than that, they are a confusing mess.

New ore types gets me here, the lag makes upgradeable cloaking towers redundant. To make it viable you would need the upgrade radius to be small which means that the starting radius is tiny. And no, its not the amount of cloaking towers, its the amount of things cloaked. So you can only really cloak a small outpost, not your base. New ore types would be an interesting feature to play with.

[¥R M0dd€r]

Fight 1:

[932]: Honestly, alpha images look good, they could use improvment, but the improvment are not more useful than [732]

[732]: Another request by me
New strategies, helps AI(make them harder), and is useful. Note if this is ever going to be added, it should support vehicles to!

[Renegade]

Administrative Notice:

Since the last post in this discussion was four days ago, it is assumed to be over. We will proceed to judgement.

[AlexB]

Fight 1
My vote is on the pre-loaded crawlers. Creating a bunch of infantry and putting it in the crawler when it is build should be quite easy to do. It wouldn't allow various combinations of infantry, but you can create clones for that. This feature could shift the focus of YR a little more to infantry as there is up to no micromanagement involved to attack with an army of rifle men.

Alpha lights should not be visible when a unit is cloaked or disguised. Really. But most likely this small feature will slip in somehow.

Fight 2
More ore types would be good. Most people here want them, thus they get my vote. Cloak gens are also ok and there is no reason there shouldn't a SuperCloakRadiusInCells, but it's a smaller issue. And for most people not an issue at all.

[Renegade]

Fight 1

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#932 kind of shoots itself in the foot by being two in one - #932.1 could easily have passed as a bug, rather than a feature request, and wouldn't require approval. Alas, that's the way it was filed.

The main arguments for #732 seem to be less micromanagement and "improved AI". To that I say: Meh. If loading passenger-dependent units is too much micro-management for you, don't create/build them. It's as simple as that. Having passenger-dependent units with pre-built passengers completely defeats the purpose of the system - customizing the "payload". Sure, you can always eject the pre-built passengers and put others in, but do you realize what that means? That means you have reduced micromanagement by increasing micromanagement if you want to use OpenTopped or IFVs for their intended functions. It's as simple as that. The Troop Crawler logic doesn't "reduce micromanagement" in general, it reduces micromanagement if you don't want to use the passenger-carrying unit for its intended purpose.
The moment you build an IFV or OpenTopped unit for its intended purpose, customizing the content/weaponry, the Troop Crawler logic adds micromanagement, because you have the additional step of getting rid of the pre-built passengers and utilizing them.

Speaking of which: It also adds the additional modding step of fixing up the balance. Because if you add this to a Battle Fortress, the Battle Fortress suddenly provides (assuming you pick GIs to fill it) 1000 additional credits of value. If you just do that with no further changes, the player can pretty much generate free money - buy a BF, sell the GIs in an obtained Cloning Vat. So you have to account for it. What does that mean? It means the player who doesn't actually want the goddamn GIs, but wants to use the BF for its intended purpose, customizing its payload, has to pay a penalty of $1000 for daring to want to use the unit as intended.

Great gameplay improvement right there.

As for the AI improvement: I'm all for AI improvements. But AI improvements should be implemented as AI improvements, not as "features" that affect the player just as much, and fuck up his gameplay.
In addition, this isn't really a fix or improvement in the first place. It's the equivalent of hanging a picture in front of a hole in the wall. Sure, the problem isn't visible anymore - but it's still there.
Entering vehicles for the AI would still be broken. All you'd achieve is that the AI wouldn't have to enter vehicles in the first place. And for that, you'd either have to force the player into a bunch of collateral bullshit, or create clones for every passenger vehicle, leading to a bunch of "same type...or not" issues.

All in all, it'd be a messy "fix" at best.

So yeah...both supposed advantages of #732 are completely bogus, the gameplay value of it is questionable, and half of #932 is a necessary fix.
The decision is clear.

Kill: #732
Support: #932

Fight 2

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New Ore types have by far the most support on the tracker of the four issues in this thread, and, as Beowulf points out, if the limits to upgrades are lifted, an upgrade can feign the radius increase for cloak towers.

Not quite the same as the easy expand/shrink of advanced gap generators, but it's undeniable New Ore is more popular, and at least it's a way to achieve a similar effect.

Kill: #283
Support: #991

[DCoder]

I disagree with Renegade's assessment of 732 , but still strongly support #932.