this post? or the forum?

well, for this post, you gotta look at it, in a positive way.
If theres no discussion, they wont know how the fan base feels about serten things.

on topic:



In homeworld 1, i was introduced to the 3D movement in the tutorial, i found it easy to manage.
But that was also very easy to get a overveiw of it all, since it was alot smaller.
By adding more 3D movement the game, it will become more complex.

So in my opinion, what WedgeHG suggested, is a fine balance between Hardcore gamers and the avg Joe.

Wedge was adressing a completely different topic.

I dont see this issue. its a lot smaller because instead of having 1 HW type disk, you have many.
adding 3-D as an accessible thing like from HW will not compromise the simplicity of the game.

As it was already stated in this topic, Homeworld didn't need any 3D maneuvring if the player chose not to use it. The ships were capable of using the 3. dimension by themselves when given an appropriate command and this was more than enough to play and win the game. But some chose to go into details.

yeah, why would the AI use the 3-D anyway if using it has little tactical effect?
sure it would allow them to go around defenses, but the AI hasnt done that yet anyway. beyond that someone playing in 2-D wouldnt have an issue.

Then why do you want it so badly?

I actually agree with the devs on this one. Adding that kind of 3D movement is like adding a level of complexity, and then pretty much nullifying it by factoring it into the AI. I don't personally understand how so many of you have time to babysit your fleets to that degree. Playing beta 1 is fast and furious in a small or large galaxy. Personally, I find that the fleets move around almost too quickly and building my empire while managing 3 or more battles at a given time while colonizing, researching, and managing my other fleets becomes a big effort. The only real benefit to true 3D would be structure placement, which is understandable. Perhaps it could be added later, perhaps not. Regardless, since the AI has so much power in this game in order to keep things from overwhelming you, it becomes an exercise in futility. My $0.02. Also... I find the game to be quite addictive as is, despite all that is missing thus far. From what I'm reading, beta 2 is the gameplay beta, and I'm looking forward to that!

Bacause it's COOL.   Let the ones who are unable or unwilling to learn the use of the third dimension make it up with numbers.

Is it really so bad to see the better man win - speaking about MP - because he was able to maneuvre his fleet better?

you missed my point.
if the AI is programmed to work in 3-D in the case of running into a 3-D player, then it can easily go into 3-D and fight that way. but fighting someone in 2-D by using 3-D strategies is practically shooting yourself in the foot.

if the AI goes into 3-D while fighting someone completely placed in 2-D, I will shame the Devs for their lack of capable programming.
fighting someone who works in 2-D by going 3-D is like trying to explain the shape of a square by making a cube and then pointing at the side, its a useless waste of energy. the AI should not fight like that unless it actually gives it an advantage (which it will not)

pff
I'm ignoring this.

to sum this up: fighting in 3-D vs. someone else in 3-D creates a skill based game. if either person, however, plays in 2-D there is little benefit in fighting in 3-D (excluding going around defenses, which I have not seen the AI do anyhow).
the point being, there isnt any real benefit that fighting in 3-D does except giving depth to the game, one can just as easily fight the AI in a 2-D plane.

now, the only thing you would need to keep the AI from building in 3-D is a small toggle that says "complex AI check here -> [_]" or even just put it under "hard" ai.

Schem, I'm going to have to disagree with just about everything you said there... thanks for being on my side and all but what are you talking about?

A person utilizing the 3-D space has a serious advantage over the person who is not. By entering a system above or below the centerline you would be able to completely bypass their defenses. You would only have to worry about fighters and any local frigates/cap ships. You could run right in over the north or south pole of the planet, bomb it into the stone age, and move on without ever tangling with the enemies gauss cannons.

From a defensive perspective, I suppose you are correct: against a 2-D person it would be more effective to stack gauss cannons at the phase lane exit rather than to spread them around like you would against a 3-D player, but it's not like the AI does that anyways. It tends to cluster them together around its other orbitals... which works just as well in 3-D as it does in 2-D.



That part I did agree with.

while this is all nice and dandy, it would be far MORE nice and dandy if you understood the qualifications of my arguement.
I'm talking about the AI.

either way this aleady is possible, just including 3-D in even its rudimentary form is begging for the need to bring in 3-D defense placement, how else do you expect to defend?

again irrelevant.

anyway, aside from missing everything I said. your point brings up a nice subject: just having 3-D already allows someone to get around defenses and bomb the living daylights out of a planet without anything but a fleet to worry about. this alone demand the inclusion of 3-D orbitals.

An AI is just an artificial person. I fail to see how the distinction has any bearing on what we are talking about.



Excellent point. The only reason I don't do this now is because I get experience points for killing their stuff and can be stealing 300% of their income while I'm killing their stuff

ok, this is plain naive.
the AI has no tendancy to avoid turret defenses AS i've noted. in fact, more than anything else they go straight for them.

believing the AI has the intelligence and same tactics as a person is oversimplifying things, this AI works completely differently, and as thus its strategies fit right in.

the AI already works by this principle, therefore 3-D placement and strategy will not be too much of a stretch for it. if something is in a 3-D placement, it will go after it regardless. (as long as its not programmed to avoid 3-D movement, which would be game crippling.)

You're ignoring what I said alright. If they add a true 3D space battle system a la Homeworld, they automatically have to make the AI fight well in 3D as well, thus nullifying the whole reason for doing so in the first place (aside from a hardcore gamers fetish?). Someone tried to compare this game to homeworld earlier in this thread, and that is just not a good comparison. This game is a new genre, taking bits and pieces from a couple others. I'm sorry I'm not so hardcore like you that I don't feel like micromanaging numerous battles in 3D while I'm building an empire. If you read my post, I didn't say I disagreed with the idea... only that I can see where the devs are coming from since I develop myself. If you think that adding 3D, then making the AI COMPETENT (key word there...) at defending/attacking/placing on its own as the game was designed to do with the current system is not time consuming, then I'd only have to say you are a super genius or have no programming experience whatsoever. This feature has a low cost-to-profit margin (though I'd really guess a negative cost-to-profit margin...) and is not even practical because 95% of the userbase will either not use it all (like me) or would use it and discard it once they realize that if they spend that much time on ONE battle, they've lost the war.

you seem not to understand that this isnt a stretch.
HW2 is a great example, most times the enemy fleets worked in 2-D, but they would go into 3-D if you did.

there is a way to keep it both.
namely not making the AI super-fancy.

its a damn straight on comparison. the only differences arise at a higher level, HW2 is a great comparison for the 3-D of grav wells.

I dont see how telling the AI to attack in 3-D in the same way it attacks in 2 is any different, the only specifications that change are "go there if need be"
now, perhaps I dont have any programming background, but I'm quite certain that this isnt a hard thing to program. competence in a third dimension (as I noted) is going to be absolutely nescessary anyhow.
competence isnt a question here anyway. 3-D doesnt add any changes to the AIs strategy, lines are still lines whether drawn on paper or strung out. working in an higher dimension game is exactly the same as a lower dimension game, excluding that there are multiple ways around objects, and the area of movement is drastically increased. neither of those have to do much with the way AI should move within the gravity well.

only the stupid part about babysitting fleets.

now seriously, answer my question. does getting a fleet to attack in three dimensions instead of two (no extra level of strategy, just a different direction) really all that hard? because if it is I think that there needs to be a serious change in the way systems are formatted, it cannot possibly be that difficult. thats completely impractical
if the AI can attack a fleet that is already above the plane of battle, thats all that is nescessary for a 3-D battlefield. if it cant then someone needs to radically change the system of the game because then just hopping over the AI becomes a win-all strategy.

its either include the ability for the AI to draw lines and follow them, or you take out the already limited 3-D.

let me put this puppy to rest

battle in 3-D does not imply any improvement in AI strategy. tactics merely has to do with target choice, something not affected by the inclusion of an extra dimension.
the AI may not be taught how to use the third dimension for its construction, this is regretable, but acceptable given the alternative. beyond that the AI will not need any major upgrade that you programmers appear to be fretting, 3-D has less effect on tactics than most people realize. going over a planet or around it has little effect, the only difference being that you can hopscotch around defensive structures. but hell, you can do that already.

for an AI to be adapted to a 3-D environment it simply needs to leave the planar standard in order to attack various targets, beyond that how the AI reacts is almost negligible.

I think this was a failed arguement to beggin with, without any tactical advantage based on whether you are on top or below a certain ship would make 3D movement completely ridiculous.

I guess I will have to *gulp* label Schem's post as insightful.... *finger trembles and falls to dust*

Oh darn, maybe when my finger grows back Schecm

This is not an argument at all. When you will want to get rid of someone fast you will go around these defensive instalations.

This game can only be fully 3D or 2D. Everything "in between" is not an option. And we already have plnety of 2D games...

the ships simply orient themselves on a slant, seen it before.

I pretty much avoided this thread until this one sentence caught my eye. I feel the impelemnted system in the game is fine, 3d as it is presented currently works like I would want it to, and keeps the game simple.

Let me also say that there is no way in hell this game will sell less than 75k units... With the quality of the game/ advertising / and word of mouth, I am guessing it will easily sell over 100k. 400k now that is another story... I recall reading somewhere that Company of Heroes, one of the best RTS games EVER, which came out last September has to date only sold around 130k units. Which is really good for an RTS at least in my opinion.

I guess its sort of an off topic comment, and no insult to anyone's intelligence or time spent in the industry. It seems as of late FPS, SIM, and MMO's are the only type of games to really push past 400k sales... I might be wrong as I am not a inside player, I just have friends who work at companies that trickle down information to me sometimes.

Anyway this topic seems to be pretty much discussed out, stop beating a dead horse...

Why, it can't complain...   Joking. I'm sure the devs have a clear picture on this by now so I agree with you.

"That's true, the Internet opens up possibilities. However, break-even means no Sins 2 and possibly no more Ironclad. We need to aim for profitable. "

Hmmmmmm. . . . well maybe I should have waited for Sins2 - I mean glad to know I'm getting into 'another' game w/ sequals (and we all know how that turns out).   
What about 'expansions' instead of sequals? It would be good to know that my game could grow to over 100GB worth of info/expansions (like Unreal Tournament) 'let's say' 10 yrs down the line while still making money off the original from new users.
"oh - its not like Homeworld" - well it will be if you plan on sequals!   
And you mean to tell me that IronClad has nothing better to do than make sequals??   

http://www.darkstaroutpost.com

I dont exactly like the idea of a game that builds on the same old same old

thats not what they meant.

@space voyager

yes space, in order for you to even give me or any of my clanmates any kind of decent challenge (meaning killing more than a dozen ships b4 losing) you would have to practice your little heart out for a year


and to the rest of you that are talking about the hw series: both hw:c and hw2 (not so much hw1) are good examples of the benefits of going 3D, now i'm not talking to multiplayer n00bs who i already dismissed by pointing out that the majority of consumers are not out there for a mind-challenging game, but for those with some degree of intelligence cast your minds back to hw:c and hw2 (some of you still play them), 3D was essential for sneaking mimics and missilytes around to resource ops in cata and was wonderful for similar bombing runs and anti-BC tactics in hw2 - i just don't see anything close to these kinds of quite simple tactics in soase yet

  I hope so! It just means that there is tactics and that it can be perfected.

I wouldn't like to see Sins become a game where it wouldn't matter whether you played for a day or a year... EDIT: and I hope the difference wouldn't stem from the fastest clicking but strategy/tactics.