DFD-R3: 504 vs. 650, 375 vs. 316

[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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[504] Make the units fire two weapons at same time vs. [650] 8 facing wakes for water travel

Fight 2

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[375] BuiltAs= function for units to randomly give you one of several variations (see description) vs. [316] Ammo= on 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.

[reaperrr]

Fight 1:
This is a no-brainer to me. #504 is the 2nd most popular participant of DFD, and there are several reasons why this is very useful and should be implemented, as I pointed out in Round 1.
On top of the reasons I mentioned there, here's another one: It can be used to combine several visual effects. For example, out of issue 523 which is already assigned but not scheduled yet, only Beam.AltPlane=y/n would be needed if 504 is implemented, as the rest can be emulated by giving the unit two weapons that behave identical except for the AltPlane. On top of that, 504 allows to combine effects that normally can't be combined, by giving it several weapons that all have the same FLH and ROF but use different sfx. This would allow to perfectly recreate the "solid laserbeam+heatwave" effect lasers had in TS, without the need to meddle with the drawing code.
You could also combine a small, normal laser with little damage, and a missile weapon with an FLH so high that missiles appear off-screen, so it looks as if the unit was using the laser to designate the target for artillery from orbit.

Well, and #650 is nothing more than a purely cosmetical thing, and a really small and minor one at that. With exactly 1 supporter on the community ranking right now.

Support #504
Kill #650



Fight 2:
This is the complete opposite of Fight 1, as both requests are about equally popular.
Personally, I think #316 is much more straightforward and useful, though. #375 may sound nice, but I HIGHLY doubt it would see even remotely as much use as Ammo= on weapons if it were implemented. #375 just has a bit of a gimmick-ish nature to it, it sounds fine on the surface but I don't think it's really useful. Ammo= otoh will become even more valuable now that "More than two weapons on a unit" is going to be implemented, because if Ammo is set on the vehicle it applies to all weapons.
Therefore,
Support #316
Kill #375

[Deformat]

Support 504. Indeed, a no-brainer.
Support 316. I don't see the point for the other one, so..

[Nighthawk]

For fight one:
There are bound to be many people within the community who want to emulate that firing mode of the Generals Commanche, which fires both rockets and a machine gun simultaneously. Of course, while this wouldn't truly emulate it, it would still go a long way to achieving it. Modders could also use this to create something like the laser-lock missiles in Generals. Basically, this seems to appeal to everyone that wants to (for whatever reason) put Generals stuff in YR. Compared to the second issue, it has a much wider usage case, and likely would be used much more.

The second issue is handy for those who make mods that rely heavily on naval units, but outside of that, I don't see it getting much use. I mean, I don't pay that much attention to the little plops of water behind my Destroyers as they advance menacingly on a poor unsuspecting island. Compared to the first issue, this is much more limited in its application and is really only good for graphics-intensive mods who also make use of naval units.

Therefore, my stance is support #504, kill #650.


For fight two:
And again with Generals stuff. Both of these issues could be used to emulate Generals logic in YR. The first issue could be used to create stuff like the GLA Technical, which uses several different models ingame that are chosen randomly when built. Again, it's something for graphics-intensive mods, or those that just want some additional eye-candy. However, with the size of RA2's voxels and SHPs, there is a slight chance people could get their units mixed up.

This issue, combined with the first issue from fight one, would truly emulate the Commanche weapons. It's also just handy for those mods where a unit has two weapons, but only one needs to be limited by ammo. It does make little sense when you have a unit that has a five-shot anti-building death ray cannon (or whatever), but yet can also only fire five shots from its piddly anti-unit pop gun.

Therefore, my stance is support #316, kill #375.

[MRMIdAS]

[504] as wakes are fine as they are IMO.

as cool as builtas= would be, [316] would probably get more use.

[Beowulf]

Kill #650. Not nearly enough support and #504 is just... great. I don't have a lot to add since reaperrr and Nighthawk summed up my own thoughts fairly well.

Support #316. While #375 would be sweet, #316 is quite a lot more usable in the cases where one weapon needs ammo and another doesn't. I never quite understood why ammo was placed on the unit and not the weapon.

[Marshall]

We already have ammo that is specific to a unit, and with the various weapon options implemented and coming you can make sure that ammo applies to the specific weapon you want. I also imagine additional ammo instances being a pig to code.

For my planned TC, I plan to have a realistic army pool from which each soldier comes from and I plan to have female variants of every soldier. Without the BuiltAs function, I cannot do it.

Support 375. I don't really want to call for the death of 316, but if I must then I must. Kill 316.

[Augusto]

For my planned TC, I plan to have a realistic army pool from which each soldier comes from and I plan to have female variants of every soldier. Without the BuiltAs function, I cannot do it.

This is very good idea, also the modders can create units with some variants like Technical from Generals... Agree with Marshall and support 375...

The 504 extend modding limits, more complex and elaborated units are possible... Im support this

[Black Shadow 750]

Kill Fight 1, support Fight 2.

[Renegade]

Administrative Notice:

Since the last post in this discussion was two days ago, it is assumed to be over. We will proceed to judgement.

[AlexB]

Fight 1
Ok, here's nothing for me to do. It isn't hard to see you guys don't like 8 facings wakes. Two weapons firing at the same time are indeed more useful.

Fight 2
Ammo= on weapons is more versatile than than having various units build randomly. Yes, it is a nice idea to have Technical like units and female soldiers and whatnot. Having a Commanche firing some missiles while endlessy shooting a machine gun is just cool.

[Renegade]

Fight 1

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Yeah. Obvious choice.

Kill: #650
Support: #504

Fight 2

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Not quite as obvious, but there was more than twice as much support for #316 than for #375, and, what's more important, #316 has far-reaching balance consequences and makes things like [976] Aircraft-specific reload times obsolete.

BuiltAs is kinda neat, but it doesn't do much for the game on a technical level. It's nice variation, but nothing more. #316's changes will make an actual difference to the game.

Kill: #375
Support: #316