DFD-R3: 640 vs. 724, 322 vs. 360

[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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[640] AI Player Random Name Generator vs. [724] Additional flag for cameo sort order

Fight 2

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[322] Restore NonVehicle= function vs. [360] Make the bullet Efect

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]

640 looks utterly useless and...wasn't there already a tag to do what 724 does already?...
360 looks useless as well, so I say 322.

[Blade]

Support 322, don't care too much about the others. NonVehicle being improved/split fixes several almost working features that already exist so should be a priority IMO.

[mt.]

Fight 1:

#724
Kill this.

#640
Save this.

Reason: Cameo order is... visual. But Wait! So is Random names! Then look at the visual impact. Cameo order can affect one throughout a game, Random names are seen after game and rarely in game. Ok, so look at gameplay. Cameo order can help gameplay a bit, in making things easier to access. Random names not at all. So Cameo Order beats Random names in both of these.
Then why do I support Random Names at all? Sounds more fun to me. Personal preference, .

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Fight 2:

I don't care which makes it through. They both have valid uses, neither of which I prefer over the other.

[Speeder]

Support 322. It would finally be possible to make ships not carryable and block hijackers from entering units they shouldn't enter (like robots, organic units, terror drones, etc.).

Further suggestions provided in issue 322 also seem more useful when compared to another one.

None of from the first fight seem useful so I'll just see what's the majority's vote on that one.

[eva-251]

Fight 1
Kill 724
It really isn't that useful. Tech level based sorted does it good enough already. So what if the Grizzly Tank and Rhino Tank aren't side-by-side?

Support 640
Not really that useful either. In a battle of the crappiest, this wins out largely because flavor text can always be an amusing addition.

Fight 2
Kill 360
If issue 302 (straight-firing projectiles) is implemented, this feature is rendered redundant and useless. A projectile image using a line trailer could perfectly simulate the tracer fire.

Support 322
Being able to invoke the intended effects of NonVehicle=yes, either by a singular tag (NonVehicle) or by a series of tags, NonVehicle.Carryall, NonVehicle.Thief=, NonVehicle.Repair= offers obvious and copious usage cases. Special units that can't be repaired or stolen; huge units that can't be lifted by a carryall; organic units that can't be fixed like vehicles, or stolen; terror Drones that can't be stolen, for a few examples.

[reaperrr]

Hm, 3 out of 4 are just visual and don't enhance gameplay at all...

Fight 1
I agree with mt. here, except for the vote I think #724 is the less useless of the two.
Support #724
Kill #640

Fight 2
#360 is just a minor visual effect, and there may be ways to come very close to that by using either #302 or a very high Gravity value once that is de-globalized.

#322 is the only issue of all 4 that has some gameplay value, so I think it should survive.

Support #322
Kill #360

[MRMIdAS]

[724] being able to order cameo's (even if it's not totally rigid) is a worthy feature.

[322] used primarily for hijacking immunity, this is a better feature than it's opponent.

[Marshall]

724 came about because of the ugly nature of cameo sorting that occurs when capturing multiple sides' tech trees. I discussed the problem in the extra features section of the UMP and tried to resolve it but it doesn't seem possible without this extra control. Being able to sort the order more explicitly, independently of side, removes this ugliness. It also gives modders control over how they want their build options to appear - remember that Ares is providing more and more prerequisite options, so you may have various different groupings that you want to achieve.

This is far more useful than some random gimicky names for AI players - names that you almost never see in-game in any case. Further more, there is a reason not to support 640: in a multiplayer game, it might be difficult to distinguish between humand and AI players.

Kill 640, support 724.

[Beowulf]

Support #640. A little silly humor adds that extra touch that a lot of projects seem to lack and it would be amusing to include a silliness in otherwise serious projects. Not to say that #724 isn't useful, it's just not really all that necessary.

As much as I want to see #360, #322 has far better uses. Rather see existing logic fixed than a new one added that can mostly be simulated.

[Darkstorm]

Why the hell would you go for a 'fun' feature over something that is entirely needed!!! No one is asking for the flag because they need a power plant below the battle lab, it is all about capturing enemy construction yards. Allied and Soviet buildings line up acceptably, but Yuri's are not as neat. Then add 5 more buildings?

Visual effects need to be considered. Why don't we just make a square for a tank and a small circle for a infantry? Now little effects can be disregarded for a feature of worth but Random AI names is worthless.

NonVehicle wins fight 2 pure an simple. Not hard to see why.

[Black Shadow 750]

Why the hell would you go for a 'fun' feature over something that is entirely needed!!! No one is asking for the flag because they need a power plant below the battle lab, it is all about capturing enemy construction yards. Allied and Soviet buildings line up acceptably, but Yuri's are not as neat. Then add 5 more buildings?

Calm down dear, it's only a Feature Deathmatch.

Besides, it's in no way entirely needed. What's wrong with Yuri's buildings not lining up exactly right?

And also your strawman arguement is pathetic. Tanks and infantry get seen onscreen all the time, and if they're shitty it makes the mod look bad and people wont want to play it. However, how many people are going to say "Oh no this mod is such bad quality, I'm not going to play it! I mean just look at the build menu, it's out of order! Oh the tradagy! (spelling fail)"? That's right, none/0.000000000001%

[Darkstorm]

True, but it annoys the hell out of me when I here that people want to see "Vladimir has been defeated." over an actually useful feature. All I was saying about the circle and square was people are taking features that effect game play no matter to what degree over ANY graphical change.

[Beowulf]

Anyone who plays RA2 and YR regularly sort of expects the cameos to be in a certain order. I tend to dislike mods that alter the cameo sorting too much since it disrupts my play style. I think a lot of you forget that players play mods, not other modders.

[Marshall]

The whole point of 724 is to make sure that cameos are sorted in the correct order, NOT to change the order to something nonsensical.

If you add 4 new buildings that are all the same tech level (because there are precious few of those) and the same cost (because they are all the same usefulness), how do you make sure they appear in the correct order? For example, you may have special power 1-A, 1-B, 2-A and 2-B. Using PrerequisiteNegative, the player can pick either the two 1's or the two 2's or the two A's or the two B's, but they aren't allowed to pick 1-A and 2-B or 1-B and 2-A - you need to make sure the options appear in that very specific order otherwise this would look confusing and cause the options to jump about.

Further more, total conversions may have a very real need to layout the build menus completely differently.

I've already covered the reasons why AI names are less useful. Don't get me wrong, I can see why some people might want them, I just don't think their usefulness even begins to compare to cameo sort ordering.