DFD-R3: 957 vs. 292, 556 vs. 976

[eva-251]

Fight 1
Kill 292
Deformable terrain wasn't that great of a feature in Tiberian Sun. It was more an annoyance than an actual gameplay element (and as SMIFFGIG references in the feature suggestion, even Isgreen didn't really like it). In regards to RA2, I just see it being a load of work to look convincing/good and be functional.
For it to look right, you'd need to have the default terrain type be dirt for all theaters. Would the bottom and slopes of a crater in an urban environment, or grassland environment be more pavement/grass? No- it'd be dirt, with perhaps some crumbling concrete for the former. This ups the workload for mappers considerably unless the terrain setup was like that to begin. It looked extremely cheesy in Tiberian Sun on Snow environments for this same reason.

I highly doubt people would want to redesign their terrain and maps to make this effect look convincing, nor would it be fun for the coders to make that aspect unnecessary. (IE a "crater" terrain type)

Of course, that assumes that those who would want this feature also want it to make sense visually. Other than that, it's a fine feature request that thanks to RA2's support for range modification from height variances, could actually mean something in a battle. (IE putting your base that was originally on flat ground on a pseudo high ground)

Support 957
This feature request isn't much better, but I couldn't help but think of Advance Wars when it comes to attribute modifying weather. Snow lowers your movement speed. Sandstorms drop your attack (or range depending on game). Rain drops your vision and creates fog of war. The problem is of course that these effects were global, while this request obviously aims at localized effects.

Nonetheless, having more power over what "weather storm" type super-weapons/events do is something that could be extremely useful.

With that said, I have to just barely give the edge to 957.

Fight 2
Kill 556
This is a fine feature if you ask me. It's an annoying shortcoming of the drained weapon ability. The issue really isn't that this is a "bad" request, but rather that the potential benefit is much less than what 976 offers.

Support 976
What's been said about 976 still pretty much stands. Giving the modder control over this opens up many more attack options for aircraft instead of the 1/2 missile affair. It allows modders to solve balance issues with aircraft in ways other than messing with core stats (like damage, cost, strength and speed), and also means that aircraft can be more distinguishable from each other.