DFD: 609 vs. 343, 911 vs. 707

[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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[0000609] Researches vs. [0000343] Prefix / Suffix

Fight 2

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[0000911] Different images on same structure. vs. [0000707] Leech Weapons

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 #343. I don't feel that its all that useful since you can achieve the effect multitudes of other ways. RequiredHouses and ForbiddenHouses come to mind right away. If it were another opponent, I would say otherwise but #609 is brilliant. It's one thing I've wanted in RA2 since the day I played StarCraft. It's an astounding way to improve armies without adding billions of units. It can also make or break the game. Support #609!

Kill #911. Alternate and negative prereqs. Seriously. I support #707. It is a far more useful request than "different images for the same building." Leeching weapons are an awesome idea, which can easily lead to some very cool weapon effects, especially for Yuri.

[Nighthawk]

I suppose it's about time I started commenting on a bunch of these topics.

For fight one:
The prefix/suffix system doesn't sound like all that much of an improvement to me. Especially given that with the current new sides/countries logic, filenames aren't limited in the same way that they were with the RockPatch - the current tags basically let you use any file name, thereby rendering such a system where you have to use prefixes and suffixes instead a step backward... unless I've misread the request.

Researches sounds like a brilliant idea, from what I can tell. From what I can tell, it would work an upgrade that you don't physically build, but it can act as a prerequisite (negative or normal). It would open up a lot of options to modders in terms of army expansion. Imagine something like an armoury upgrade that would enable you to build improved versions of all your units. At the same time, you could use negative prerequisites to make it cancel out the original units from the build menu, thereby making it look like a real upgrade. Personally, I've been using a combination of BuildingTypes and negative prerequisites to achieve the same effect so far, but it tends to clutter your base a bit if you have all these pointless structures dotted about.

Thus, my stance would be support #609, kill #343.

For fight two:
The different images request sounds a lot like something that I think came up in a DFD not that long ago. As Beowulf says though, the same effect could be accomplished through toying with Prerequisites. Only issue I could forsee with that is the AI's handling of it all. While different country-specific images for structures does sound like a good idea, since the same effect can be done superficially with Prerequisites and a bunch of coding, all it's really doing is saving the modder time. The only case I can see for #911 is that it would solve any AI-related side effects of such a complex AlternatePrerequisite/NegativePrerequisite system, since each structure would still have the same ID at heart.

Leech weapons. Now, these sound interesting. There are probably many uses modders could come up with for these, most of which I could see being used with Yuri, TCs or a new side altogether (one example could be a Floating Disc that *really* leeches from its target building). I don't have any major arguments for this one, the request is pretty straightforward, there's no convoluted logic involved, I could see more modders taking the time to use this than creating country specific images for everything and anything, and I simply like the idea.

Therefore, here I would say I support #707, kill #911.

[MRMIdAS]

[0000609] is another feature present in later C&C games, that was originally going to be a large part of yuri's tech tree, so yuri could have several "countries" built from a common starting point.

[0000707] Leech weapons would be cool for yuri, and would add a greater degree of strategy, as opposed to "chuck a shedload of expendables at it, and hope they kill it"

[Lt Albrecht]

I agree with the previously stated arguments, 609 allows us to actually have researches/'upgrades' - AOE or SC style - without having to use a dummy upgrade/structure. This is a leap forwards that I personally will use quite a bit and can foresee others using (non-
TCs can use it to revive Yuri's pre-release ideas or add extra flavour to existing sides, TCs can base sides around it or have it play any role they chose in their new sides.

911 is a shallow cosmetic difference, especially compared to 707, which at least offers some gameplay changes.

[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.

[Renegade]

Fight 1

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#343 sucks. It's as simple as that. Even if it didn't, both in this DFD as well as on the tracker, #609 has enjoyed great support, so the choice is easy.

Kill: #343
Support: #609


Fight 2

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Again, the support distribution speaks volumes.
Nighthawk, I think you were thinking of #375.

Kill: #911
Support: #707

[AlexB]

Fight 1
Prefixes and suffixes are outdated. TD was the first C&C and since then, the engine has evolved. Ares supports per-country filenames for load screens already, but leaving it to users to fill in the "%d" and "%s" gaps in C format strings is usually a bad idea.

But I concur that the Researches are the better issue. It adds much to the game, not like the Prefix/Suffix one. The advantages have been named already and the issue gathered many supporters. It's even in the ICS Top 12. Prefix/Suffix is really not needed.

Fight 2
If you look at the sheer numbers, Leech has as many supporters as Optics has opponents. The arguments here coincide. Leech weapons.

[Renegade]

Result:

As in either judgement.