DFD-R3: 741 vs. 1009, 510 vs. 488

[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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[741] Helicopter tilt vs. [1009] A new logic: bodyguard logic

Fight 2

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[510] Multiple Voxel-Turrets (Battleships like in RA2) vs. [488] Cliff SHP sequences request

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.

[Deformat]

1009. Hard decision, tho I choose an expanded slave system than something which does already work on helicopters.I don't see what else could use it, so...

488. 510 looks waaaay too hard to implement and it will probably be a big headache to the coders. 488 on the other hand, looks like a pretty simple thing, just add some(?) optional tag(s) which will take into consideration slope frames and it will be done, doesn't sound too hard to me.

[Blade]

1009 should really be merged into all the other spawn enhancement requests in a similar way all the deploys into stuff should, but it seems a bit late for that. Hence I would support 741 on the basis that a better speced spawn request will hopefully win and will cover 1009 when implemented.

510 I would support. Not because I have any particular love for it, but its a highly demanded feature and because I really don't agree with cliff climbing. If you want the strategic benefit of infantry being able to traverse something that vehicles can't, make some marshland tiles that use an unused terrain type and adjust the movement speeds on it. You can do that without any extra fancy sequences.

Edit:
For fight 1 it seems none of the other spawns requests have made it through this far so i guess I'd better support 1009 afterall

Edit 2:
Damn it, I keep forgetting that the cliff one isn't what I think it is. Still I don't support it because I don't agree with modders who insist on creating vehicle units that are .shps, I don't care how nice they look. If you want to make them, fair enough, but deal with the limitations. Same way I don't agree with the 32 facings which got veto'd or would have been out in the smack down or the seqences for .shp units (which are already available in a limited fashion as the cyborg reaper uses and is carried into RA2). Also, the most implemented vehicle .shp type, the bipedal mech, wouldn't tilt on a slope anyway or it would loose its balance and so looks okay as it is.

[Nighthawk]

For fight one:
Helicopter tilt is a minor piece of eye candy, yes. However, that's all it is. There's little I can say to argue for or against it, it's not something I'm likely to make a lot of use of.

That said, the second issue seems like a subset of the already-assigned slave logic improvements, and I see it getting much less usage than helicopter tilt, regardless of how much more complex this issue is.

I've little to say on either issue, neither is something I'm utterly enthusiastic about, but for the sake of argument I may as well say support #741, kill #1009.


For fight two:
Hmm, two art-related issues. Again, not my main area of expertise. The first issue's title nearly threw me until I read the feature request. The title makes it sound like it's requesting that turrets can be composed of multiple voxels, but it actually means multiple voxel-based turrets on a unit. Outside of a restoration of the RA1 Cruiser and a mod using these irritatingly popular 'epic units', how often would this be used? Of course, personally I wouldn't mind something like this. It would mean I could put a secondary AA weapon on some tank units without them looking silly by rotating the main turret to fire the AA gun.

As for the second one, again, a badly named feature request. At first I thought it was something to do with climbing infantry, but evidently not. It's about the ability for SHP vehicles to have slope-specific frames. Now, compared to the previous issue, not a lot of mods use SHP vehicles (those that do are brilliant at it, of course), and I could see most everyday modders getting more use out of the first issue than this one. So while me saying this does feel like I'm potentially crippling the likes of Reign of the Steel, the first issue does have more appeal to me.

Therefore, my stance is support #510, kill #488.

[Deformat]

Edit 2:
Damn it, I keep forgetting that the cliff one isn't what I think it is. Still I don't support it because I don't agree with modders who insist on creating vehicle units that are .shps, I don't care how nice they look. If you want to make them, fair enough, but deal with the limitations. Same way I don't agree with the 32 facings which got veto'd or would have been out in the smack down or the seqences for .shp units (which are already available in a limited fashion as the cyborg reaper uses and is carried into RA2). Also, the most implemented vehicle .shp type, the bipedal mech, wouldn't tilt on a slope anyway or it would loose its balance and so looks okay as it is.

You forget that tanks, trucks and the others could be implemented too.For some its annoying that YR is limited to being 2.5D and not simply 2D.

Multiple turrets on the other hand could be tricky since I bet that a lot of issues will come out of this.

[Blade]

If you want tanks and trucks that look right on slopes, make a voxel! Otherwise make totally 2D terrain and stop complaining.

[mt.]

Fight 1:

#741
Kill this.

#1009
Save this.

Reason: Tilting is a minor graphical feature. It is limited to a few units (generally helis, which there is only 2 of in stock, and not too many in most mods either). On the other hand bodyguard logic expands gameplay. You could have lots of squads options, guns operated by people, and a drone carrier with drones around it. This can save micromanagement and add a lot to the way the game is played. Can helicopter tilt do that? No, helicopter tilt can at most give you the satisfaction that your voxel helicopters rotate a little while moving. For sure I'd use something like bodyguard logic though, so my support goes to it.

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Fight 2:

#510
Kill this.

#488
Save this.

Reason: Multiple turrets are nice, but can be hard to implement. Not to mention I can only see a few ships and perhaps some wacky land units with this. In a way though the multiple turrets can somewhat be done with SHP. SHPs, which are, by the way, capable of having a lot better quality than these voxels. Custom palettes, no annoying normal problems, nice moving parts which don't glitch into each other. To complement these the Cliff Sequences would be great. Not going up slopes is one of the few faults associated with SHP units (remember, SHPs go far beyond just mechs. SHP tanks and such are great too), and this has the potential to fix that. I, a modeller, will definitely use this in my mod, and I know others such as H_M who would be interested in this too. So definitely this SHP cliff sequences has my support.

[eva-251]

Fight 1
Kill 1009
What Blade says.

Support 741
It's just a graphical feature, being able to make helicopters tilt forward when flying is not only something that would see widespread use, but is also...well, really just part of what helicopters are. It makes them look more aggressive, more dangerous. (atleast in my books...)

Fight 2
Kill 488
While some, like Holy Master @ PPM would strongly disagree with me, the benefit to the overall community from a feature like this would be very limited. There's only a handful of mods and modders that actually use SHP vehicles to the extent this would be necessary. But as Blade said, voxels are here for a reason.

Support 510
This is a tricky feature to implement (how is that secondary turret used?- the secondary weapon? alternating bursts of the primary? do we support more than 1 extra turret? how will it be implemented as to not conflict with other special turret logics?), but one that I suspect has been desired since we got to flatten entire Soviet bases with Cruisers in RA1.

To answer the question of frequency of use- it's really a matter of how much value they place on ships. Battleships and Cruisers become a distinct possibility. WWII style ships in general, with multiple primary turrets could be used. Epic units? Maybe. It also opens up the opportunity to use Soviet multi-turreted tank designs of pre-WWII.

Despite all the possible complexities involved, it comes off as the more useful feature.

[reaperrr]

Fight 1
Kill 1009
What Blade says.

Support 741
It's just a graphical feature, being able to make helicopters tilt forward when flying is not only something that would see widespread use, but is also...well, really just part of what helicopters are. It makes them look more aggressive, more dangerous. (atleast in my books...)

Agreed.

Kill 488
While some, like Holy Master @ PPM would strongly disagree with me, the benefit to the overall community from a feature like this would be very limited. There's only a handful of mods and modders that actually use SHP vehicles to the extent this would be necessary. But as Blade said, voxels are here for a reason.

This, also: There are so many slope angles that need to be considered that this may turn out just as complicated to implement as #510. But #510 probably would see far more wide-spread use.

support #510
kill #488

[MRMIdAS]

[1009] because extending the slave logic is needed.

[488] ramp SHP sequences are a good thing, this would bring about more SHP builders making vehicles, and fix what is a daft limit.

[Holy_Master]

1# i love 1009 it seem to allow modder can make unit as squad but i cant see anything useful in 741. sure support 1009 and Kill741

2# personally i love multiple voxel turret thing better it's something i want to do it when i make the voxel mod. when i looking on 488 i saw many issue to make graphic with this [specialize for shp with turret or maybe i'm too stupid to think another way] and my old shp still woking ok with out it. but i'm glad to try on 488 if it get done but i think 510 is more useful.
Support 510 and Kill 488

@eva-251 : why you need to care about me since i can't do anything but cheer? i have only 2 logic i "real" want from ares but it's ok i know my position and no body care about what i want.

[eva-251]

I meant no offense, I was merely highlighting that your work is one of the few examples that could seriously benefit from this feature. Though you raise a valid point about the workload. It'd involve an unimaginable number of frames and animations that would hugely increase the size of the mod.

Each slope facing would require
-Frames for the unit facing each of the 8 primary directions
-Frames for the unit's smooth rotation (32 faced?)
-Frames for the turret's smooth rotation
correct?

[Holy_Master]

well i'm just kidding why so serious.

about tile shp.
you forgot about when unit tile in some direction their turret is possible to get hide by chassis part [specialize if turret is small ]. that seem like it need more specially way to deal with.
and this logic increase ton of work [ i think it too much for what i can do]. even this thing get done and working perfect i'm not sure to use it.
i'm ok with my shp and my beta tester said it's ok even my shp can't tile.

that make me think 510 is more realism and more useful to make it happen than 488.

[Beowulf]

Support #1009. This would make for squads and following drones. The only thing I can see being an issue would be handling how bodyguards die. Are they independent of the unit they're guarding or 'part' of it? I would prefer independent handling, but that might prove difficult so either way would be alright to me.

For the second fight, I abstain since I don't really care about either issue.

[Darkstorm]

Helicopter tilt is ridiculous IMO, this isn't Generals. I feel like this would just look stupid. I don't care a lot for bodyguards as they too would look awkward but they probably would look better than a tilted siege chopper. Feel free to your own opinion but this is how I see them.

Now as far as multiturret voxels is concerned, they'd be good if ramp SHP units is already covered by vehicle sequences. (Speaking of which, did you guys remove it?)