DFD: 337 vs. 376, 601 vs. 849

[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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[0000337] AltNextMission vs. [0000376] Weather Effects

Fight 2

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[0000601] Temporary Side change logic vs. [0000849] Several Improvements of Buildup Logic

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.

[Beowulf]

Kill #376. It's already possible through map triggers and doesn't lag. Support #337 because it would open up a world of options for missions. While not many mods use them, this might spur more use. The choice here is a bit obvious...

I don't like either in Fight 2. Build ups are a rather minute part of RA2 and #601 is a variation on mind control logic. I'll go with #601 anyway though, since it's at least a weapon change. But I really, really don't like either request.

[Blade]

The AltNextMission (or scenario as I think the tag is actually called) is confusing, because the request deals with reactivating the click map to select from several missions and requires quite a lot new graphics as well as entries in missionmd.ini and mapselmd.ini, but actually has nothing to do with the AltNextScenario which is an override for normal mission selection based on actions within the map. I support the restoration of both features of course.

[MRMIdAS]

[0000337] could be used in multiple ways, via a mission select, ala tibsun, or, say you fuck up in a mission, and lose tanya, the next mission is different, compared to if she had been kept alive. could be activated by a map trigger saying to use the altnextmission flag instead of nextmission.

based on the difficulty of the other feature to implement, versus the reward for doing so, [0000601] gets my vote

[WoRmINaToR]

Well for fight 2, even though 849 is my own issue I can let it be suspended for now, because no death is final and 849 wasn't going to be implemented any time soon anyways. When the time is right I'll vouch to get it revived, but that will probably be towards the end of Ares' development, around the time 1.0 is coming out.

[Renegade]

Administrative Notice:

Given that there have been no new posts in the past three days, it is assumed this discussion is finished; we will proceed to consider the arguments.

[AlexB]

Fight 1
Obviously nobody likes the Weather Effects. Even if AltNextMission isn't a descriptive name for the feature requested it gets my vote.

Seeing the map progression screen in RA1 gave you a clue how far you progressed in the campaign. Allied countries falling into the hands of the enemy. Or the soviets being fought back more and more -- and you got alternative missions. In TS it was a nice feature: "I we take that supply base out first, it will be a lot easier to get to the crash site".

Fight 2
The temporary side change logic could be used to recreate the Deviator or to have a balanced long-range mind-control weapon. It should be comparatively easy to do this.

[Renegade]

Fight 1

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Comments like Beowulf's would be a lot more convincing if they included actual examples. Had the issue gotten a comment showing a lag-free implementation of the exact effect requested, that issue would have been closed a long time ago. The way it is, there's no such proof, and since I myself haven't tried it, I can't take that single claim into account.
As Blade has pointed out, contrary to the implication of its summary, AltNextMission involves more than adding a single INI flag - it involves the recreation or restoration of an entire menu + functionality.

Add to that that #563, Ability to Show/Hide Campaigns just won its DFD, and would provide the exact same mission-functionality, only through a different menu, and #337 looks like a lot of work more than anything.

Personally, I think that weather effects would enable mappers to greatly improve the atmosphere of their maps, and I'd like to see stuff like howling snow storms on Arctic maps.

Kill: #337
Support: #376

Fight 2

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#849 is a lot of work for no gain. Oh great, now we can build our buildings...slower! Yaaay! The excitement knows no bounds.
#601 is a cheap request for just another way to change owners, but given that #979 MakeOwner= has also been requested, and KillDriver is implemented as an Owner change to Special, it might be best just to implement #979, add the temporary component of 601, port KillDriver over to use that system, and just be done with it.

So while I don't think that Yet Another Way To Change Owners is an awfully creative request, it seems obvious side-changing weapons are somewhat desired, and since KillDriver already has half of that logic, a #601/#979 combination would be far easier to implement, and, more importantly, far more useful than #849.

Kill: #849
Support: #601

[DCoder]

Support #376
Support #601

[Renegade]

Result:

Survivors #376 and #601.