: Here's some thoughts on the AN plug.
: First off, Milk Man. That movement thing is HORRIBLE;
: causes bad lag, OOS, and he seems not to move at all
: sometimes. Kill it, make him walk. Then, those pimpin
: sounds drive me crazy, their play frequence should be
: turned down to normal levels. The new unit-peasants
: instead of projectile-peasants are actually MORE prone
: to friendly fire, and don't do what you tell them to.
: He should switch back to the old way, and just keep
: away from friendlies (cept his Hos).
Did MM come to AN? I turned the sounds back up because that's what he asked for, but it seems like if he's not coming that often, we might as well obey the majority feeling of the group and make them more infrequent.
Yeah, I thought his movement would lag. Just wanted to give him a chance to try it out. And I agree now that the peasants should change back. Adding enough actions to make them really intelligent would probably lag quite a bit, and it's not really worth it. He's supposed to be an überpowerful but incredibly clumsy unit.
: Secondly, Ducky. More specifically, Bobo the Scari
: Skwirl. He must die as well, as his damn script is
: horribly laggy. Let Ducky just be almost-unhittable
: and throw firey heads and stuff, but that Skwirl must
: die.
Is he laggy? I really haven't noticed. His script is highly modular, though, so I can prune it down without getting rid of it completely. For instance, if I cut the number of head types he retrieves in half, it *should* cut the amount of related lag in half. Maybe I'll reduce the number of head types so that there's only enough to ensure he always has some heads to throw on any level. Ducky, if you're reading this, talk to me about that.
: Next up, me, Forrest. I've recently noticed that I have
: TWO force field units, which sometimes get stuck in
: various places (usually on models) and can't follow
: me; and they stay after I die. That sux0rs. And I want
: to be able to cast my Insanity on the ground; when I
: do it now, it casts on ME and the units surrounding
: me, and I usually don't click the ground intentionally
: but by accident, winding up Crazing WW or whoever is
: nearby ME, instead of nearby where I clicked. And I
: just want my force-field to look like a shrunken
: version of that thing around Soulblighter on The
: Forge, is that too much to ask?
Lemme explain why you have two force field projectiles. They work by releasing contrail projectiles at a very high rate; the contrails immediately explode and kick stuff away. But a single projectile can't reliably release contrails fast enough to give the illusion of a steady deflection. Things would be pushed away jerkily, and some projectiles (like arrows) would get to you before a contrail detonated and pushed them away. So I needed two to make sure there would always be an explosion going off whenever any incoming suff was approaching.
As for their getting stuck on stuff and staying after you die: sucks, but there's not much I can do. They stay after you die because a constantly-detonated "chooses nearby target" field would randomly jump to other people, and a field with a limited lifespan could live no longer than--umm--15 minutes, I think the max is. They shouldn't really get stuck on stuff, because I've got all the immateriality shiz checked. There's not really anything else to be done to make them less solid. Now I could give them a limited lifespan, so if they got hooked you could wait for them to expire and make a new one, but then you'd have to constantly renew your field, probably with a short-range special (so if you hit T and hit yourself, you give yourself a field instead of berserking yourself.) Would you want that? I can do it if you want.
To be able to cast your Insanity on the ground would require taking the "centered on target" check off. This would have two effects--number one, you'd have a substantial delay (at least two seconds for distant enemies) between firing the spell and them being berserked. This would in turn make you have to increase the minimum distance at which you can use the spell; otherwise, if you attack a close and approaching enemy, they might get near you before getting hit by the spell and then you'd be berserked too. Number two, if there was anything in the way--a friendly unit, a tree, too-bumpy ground--the spell would be set off by it and berserk anyone there instead. Again, it's up to you which disadvantages you want.
So you want your field to look exactly like Soulblighter's spell, but smaller? Done.
: Joy shouldn't use lightning to teleport/posess, but an
: extremely-fast, extremely high-arcing projectile for
: teleportation and a centered-on-target thing (like a
: Dispersal Dream derivative) for posession. This way
: models won't get in the way like they do with light
Having two separate teleport/possession projs would add to the projectile limit and create map action conflicts--what do you do when both projs land in different places? Which one do you teleport to? Adding map actions to resolve this problem would definitely increase lag (and delay the teleport).
: SiliconDream's Intractable Logical Muddle flames have a
: tendancy to be there, fade out, then reappear again.
: Despite what SD says, this isn't just my machine; I
: have a friend over right now and it does the same on
: his.
I'm still not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean the sprite flicker? Of course the animation fades out and reappears--it's simply a slowed-down version of the campfire animation seen, for example, on "A Murder of Crows." It's supposed to flicker slowly; the projectile itself (and the barrier effect) is working fine. Since I usually create long walls of them, it's not hard to see where a barrier is even if the animation is currently off (especially because it reappears in a quarter-second). I wanted to slow down the animation because I thought it'd probably be less laggy on most computers.
: WW, to fullfill his wishes, should have his melee attack
: use mana, and be really, really powerfull; adjust the
: mana used and the rechage rate so he can take out huge
: enemy armies, but has to wait quite a while between
: each army he takes out.
Melee attack use mana, hmmm? That would make sense. I also want to slow him down some. If he's just going to wade into enormous piles of enemies, he doesn't need to (and shouldn't, for balance purposes) be able to outrun them easily.
: The script should pay SOME attention to Nick; win/loss
: conditions should allow his survive to postpone a
: loss, and World Knots should teleport him.
I *can* do this, but again it's a matter of cheapness. Do we really want to be able to win by having everyone die except Nick, who can just walk through the level unnoticed and reach whatever goal he has to? (Of course, this isn't applicable to all levels). Permanent invisibility (coupled with high speed, so you can outrun anyone who does notice you) is an very powerful--uh--power; I figured it should have *some* disadvantage associated with it. Nick, what do you think?
: Ducky needs a flavor.
: WW's flavor isn't very interesting.
: Neither is Plague's.
: Joy's flavor could stand to be longer.
: MM's HO flavor needs to be shorter (not everyone runs in
: 1024x768).
: All unit names & spellings should be remodeled after
: the M2 Fallen Lord naming scheme. That is, spelling is
: their common name, and names are their other names.
: So, you would have a list something like this:
: (Forrest, Forrests)
: Forrest Cameranesi
: Forrest of B.org
: Pfhorrest
: Owner of the Universe
: Geek of All Trades
: (SiliconDream, SiliconDreams)
: Source of the 500 Physics Posts
: Anton, Patron of the Danged
: (William Wallace, WWs)
: Will Atterson
: Son of Scotland
: Mad Zerk of the Asylum
: (Joyeuse, Joys)
: Shadow Warrior
: [Joy's real name]
: [etc]
: (Milk Man, Milk Men)
: Cedric
: Pimp Daddy
: (Plague Bearer, Plague Bearers)
: Nick O'Keefe
: Shadow Wolf
: (Blackhand, Blackhands)
: PHAT KUNG-FU TRO BOI
: [BH's real name]
: [etc]
: (Duckyjo, Duckjos)
: [duck's name]
: [duck's other name]
: [etc]
: And so on.
: So, any disagreements? Compliemnts on a post well
: thought? TEL ME DAMIT OR I KIK U!
I'm happy with my name/spelling/flavors the way they are, currently. I guess everyone else should respond to this separately and say what, if any, changes they want made to their texts. Ducky has a flavor in the latest beta, btw--you must have overlooked it.
Good post, good post. **pats head** :-)
--SiliconDream
