Recomendations

[DiogenesDog]

I think the Grasslands level layout was actually just as Bomber friendly. Four things made it less effective imo:

1) Respawn timer was something like twice as long. Increasing the respawn timer always rewards the team that stays alive longer and makes suicide offense less powerful.

2) The Biplane secondary did a lot more damage to buildings. Add in the ammo powerup, and this was probably more damaging than a normal Bomber run. Why ever make bombers when you have a much more versatile option available?

3) Stars allowed defenders to wipe out incoming bombers more quickly, often before reaching attack range.

4) Bombers were just straight up buffed. More health in particular is a huge one since they can soak more damage while bombing.


Not saying that I think these are all bad changes, but I disagree that it's the level layout that's to blame.

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

I think the Grasslands level layout was actually just as Bomber friendly. Four things made it less effective imo:

1) Respawn timer was something like twice as long. Increasing the respawn timer always rewards the team that stays alive longer and makes suicide offense less powerful.

Yeah, the timers need to be tweaked with. Someone can essentially pick up the nuke, do a suicide run on the base, and the nuke will respawn a few seconds after they do.

2) The Biplane secondary did a lot more damage to buildings. Add in the ammo powerup, and this was probably more damaging than a normal Bomber run. Why ever make bombers when you have a much more versatile option available?

I think the current Biplane has a slightly more powerful recoil. So long as you don't have anyone or any turrets firing on you, a Biplane can just bounce around the base destroying it. I don't quite recall how it was in the old version. Could a Biplane do that, or would eventually get destroyed?

3) Stars allowed defenders to wipe out incoming bombers more quickly, often before reaching attack range.

I didn't realize that stars gave planes any advantage, I thought they were just for show. Interesting.

4) Bombers were just straight up buffed. More health in particular is a huge one since they can soak more damage while bombing.

Yeah, plus they can go straight up forever and never stall.

Not saying that I think these are all bad changes, but I disagree that it's the level layout that's to blame.

The level layout certainly isn't to blame, but by tweaking it a little, it could become less bomber friendly.

[Snowsickle]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

2) The Biplane secondary did a lot more damage to buildings. Add in the ammo powerup, and this was probably more damaging than a normal Bomber run. Why ever make bombers when you have a much more versatile option available?

I think this is the biggest one. It wasn't just biplane secondary but yeah. I'm not positive but I think theres a damage reduction on all incoming damage but bomber bombs and the big bomb now. In oldschool biplanes you could fly in circles and fire full bars of the biplane primary and do a good chunk of damage each time - more than a bomber spamming on a base. Not saying this is ideal either, though at least when you went up to attack biplanes doing this you werent flying through a massive cloud of falling bombs.

I think bombers just need to have the same reduced damage against buildings that everyone else has and the plane just needs to be reworked to be a decent combat plane. Having a plane whose niche is to deal damage to the base is pretty retarded, since most players don't find it amusing to suicide repeatedly and deal damage to a stationary object, and it's going to be even stupider when cave/deathmatch is out. Better to fix the plane itself than worry about changing map layout/turrets. Its going to end up becoming a huge hindrance to player made maps if you have to have a specific formula to prevent bombers from raping the base.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

Some random feedback from most recent patch:

• I forgot to accept a friend request and then completely forgot about it. Would be nice to get a reminder each time you log in until you accept/decline.

I checked the code and then tried to repro... every time you log in you DO get the friend invite request...

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by Snowsickle

I think this is the biggest one. It wasn't just biplane secondary but yeah. I'm not positive but I think theres a damage reduction on all incoming damage but bomber bombs and the big bomb now. In oldschool biplanes you could fly in circles and fire full bars of the biplane primary and do a good chunk of damage each time - more than a bomber spamming on a base.

Well, a Biplane's primary seems to do the same amount of damage to turrets as before, but yeah that doesn't seem to be the case when attacking the base. The same thing goes for other weapons, including the Bomber's rear fire.

Not saying this is ideal either, though at least when you went up to attack biplanes doing this you werent flying through a massive cloud of falling bombs.

Or you could fly around the bombs.

I think bombers just need to have the same reduced damage against buildings that everyone else has and the plane just needs to be reworked to be a decent combat plane.

Agreed, it sucks in 1v1 combat, and it's even worse if two Bombers are fighting each other. But I think that's always been the case, which is why it has more climbing power and more health. I don't know how it could be made a better combat plane unless it were given a gun facing forward.

Having a plane whose niche is to deal damage to the base is pretty retarded, since most players don't find it amusing to suicide repeatedly and deal damage to a stationary object, and it's going to be even stupider when cave/deathmatch is out. Better to fix the plane itself than worry about changing map layout/turrets. Its going to end up becoming a huge hindrance to player made maps if you have to have a specific formula to prevent bombers from raping the base.

While the bomber sucks in 1v1 combat, it's decent in team combat and in FFA when people bunch up. Though, I guess a lot of people hate it because of the kill-stealing aspects, but that's always gonna be present when four or more people are bunched up.

[DiogenesDog]

Originally Posted by Karl

I checked the code and then tried to repro... every time you log in you DO get the friend invite request...

Yeah, I couldn't repro it either when I went back and checked. Maybe I just missed it originally. Sorry about the false report.

[Vi*]

I didn't get any friend invite request thing when I logged in; I got it when I finally remembered about it and clicked on "friends." Is that what's supposed to happen?

[Karl]

Originally Posted by Vi*

I didn't get any friend invite request thing when I logged in; I got it when I finally remembered about it and clicked on "friends." Is that what's supposed to happen?

my guess is that you just missed the notification popup window. (or maybe they are broken in low resolutions? i havent checked that)... if you got the allow/deny window under friends menu then you got the notification message.

[DiogenesDog]

I'm pretty sure you're right - if you already have a bunch of friends online it's easy to miss since that window just looks like the rest. I'm not sure what your plans are for the final UI, but it'd be nice to have different types of notification windows have different background colors or something so they're easy to tell apart.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

I'm pretty sure you're right - if you already have a bunch of friends online it's easy to miss since that window just looks like the rest. I'm not sure what your plans are for the final UI, but it'd be nice to have different types of notification windows have different background colors or something so they're easy to tell apart.

I'm thinking icons will be the best. I played around with colors and it's just confusing.

[DiogenesDog]

First impressions from last night's patch and some old stuff I had written down:

• Big Bomb powerup pickup should be team color-coded so new players know they can't steal the enemy's bomb.
• Game pauses for a very long time if an internet connection isn't available - maybe throw up some kind of message so players know the game didn't crash?
• Rolling Hills start positions should be mixed up so you can't spawn camp
• It'd be cool if the server creation screen had a nice little thing for picking maps with a description & picture.
• Game would really benefit from a LAN play option I think. Not sure if this is left out for anti-piracy reasons or what, but it might be nice!
• Runway needs to turn you around, obviously. :P
• Needs a line in the plane selection screen saying what bars do for that plane.
• Explodet mine ammo cost seems just a teensy bit too high.
• Maybe try slightly longer powerup respawn times on Adv Lost City?
• Mixed feelings about this, but maybe official servers should hve a lower max # of players? Games get pretty silly at more than 5v5, but the community isn't quite large enough to expect to have mult servers going so I dunno.
• Did missile get better immediate tracking? I swear it feels better, but maybe I'm nuts (I like this change).
• When selecting the team for a turret in the editor: options include "Tie"... is this supposed to be neutral?
• Turret aoe can damage themselves. Doesn't come up often, but psh it's still a bug. :P
• Did the font for player kills change? I swear it looks nicer now, but I'm probably just crazy.
• The XP messages are a little spammy/intrusive, but I can't think of a better way to do it really that's clear. You could go War3 style and just pop a litlte "+30 XP!" above your head, but then you don't know why you got it... maybe add the specifics to the kill thingy in the upper left? And only show assists to the person who got them? Not sure if this is a good idea, just throwing it out there.
• It'd be cool if any messages involving you in the upper left corner were in BOLD.
• I remember you talked before about changing the text color for your own name above your plane... what happened to that? Thought it was a good idea.
• Would be nice to have an XP progress indicator on UI (see screenshot).

[Karl]

# Game pauses for a very long time if an internet connection isn't available - maybe throw up some kind of message so players know the game didn't crash?

What do you mean? Where? When you log in?...

# Game would really benefit from a LAN play option I think. Not sure if this is left out for anti-piracy reasons or what, but it might be nice!

Requires code... no other reason than that really. This is planned.

# Runway needs to turn you around, obviously. :P

This requires art... Either a hanger that hides you turning around or all the frames for a taxied turn

# Turret aoe can damage themselves. Doesn't come up often, but psh it's still a bug. :P

This was added in last patch... intentional.

# Did the font for player kills change? I swear it looks nicer now, but I'm probably just crazy.

Still Verdana, just pretty colors now

# Would be nice to have an XP progress indicator on UI (see screenshot).

All UI stuff is programmer art and will be redone someday.

[DiogenesDog]

Quote:
# Game pauses for a very long time if an internet connection isn't available - maybe throw up some kind of message so players know the game didn't crash?
What do you mean? Where? When you log in?...

I honestly can't remember... wrote this down a while ago. I think maybe it was in the "searching for updates" screen? I'd try just yanking your ethernet cable and running the game, see what happens.

Quote:
# Runway needs to turn you around, obviously. :P
This requires art... Either a hanger that hides you turning around or all the frames for a taxied turn

I think a hangar would be ideal, but in the meantime I don't think it'd be so bad to just teleport people around so they're facing the right way.

Quote:
# Turret aoe can damage themselves. Doesn't come up often, but psh it's still a bug. :P
This was added in last patch... intentional.

Oh. Heh. Out of curiousity, why?

Quote:
# Would be nice to have an XP progress indicator on UI (see screenshot).
All UI stuff is programmer art and will be redone someday.

Yah I know, but this is more about adding _more_ UI rather than redoing the existing UI.

[Karl]

Quote:
Quote:
# Turret aoe can damage themselves. Doesn't come up often, but psh it's still a bug. :P
This was added in last patch... intentional.
Oh. Heh. Out of curiousity, why?

It was added for consistency sake. Explo, homing missiles, etc (all area of effect damage weapons) do self inflicting damage. What we didn't think through, until now, is that turrets will steal the kills on themselves.

[leiter]

make the ammo get used slower, and recharge slower. Also in terms of graphics, bring back the stars instead of the lines, and make all text the same size as the ping and fps in the bottom left hand corner.

[porpus]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

I honestly can't remember... wrote this down a while ago. I think maybe it was in the "searching for updates" screen? I'd try just yanking your ethernet cable and running the game, see what happens.

I ran into this problem too. I'm on a wireless connection that craps out every now and then. So when its down and I start the game it sits on the black screen for quite some time.

[DiogenesDog]

• Would be cool to have explosion fx more closely match actual aoe size.
• It might be worth experimenting with making the black outline on planes be 1 pixel thicker... make it look a little more cartoony.
• I think it'd be good for the overall "feel" (tho prolly not balance) to reduce the delay between pressing up and getting the Miranda dash.
• Would be nice if afterburning didn't cost energy for Miranda so you don't fruitlessly burn ammo when you don't have enough energy. Would need to increase cost of dash to compensate.
• Mass Bomber is still too hard to stop imo.
• Would be nice to be able to have a map where you have pickup powerups but planes drop health on death. Maybe just have a bool for both "Planes drop powerups on death" and "Planes drop health on death" so mapmakers have complete freedom with this, even if the official maps never use it.
• Never noticed the friends list extra functionality until today... I really like the "click to join friend's server" thing!
• Hm, actually maybe burn the friends list into a column on the right side of the screen anytime you're not in a game?
• emp would be more noticable if the electricity were a brighter blue.
• Can't remember who mentioned it, but someone suggested adding gfx to show that shield is about to expire. Thoguht this was a good idea. (Prolly should be on all limited duration powerups if this is done, though.)
• allow mapmakers to let powerup spawn times adjust by # of players? or just burn this in...?
• maybe allow mapmakers to set respawn time (or was this purposely pulled because ppl were being retarded before and setting it to like 1 sec?)
• double-clicking on a special object (eg, powerup) should select all similar special objects.
• Ctrl-click should also multi-select objects in map editor ala windows
• maybe add ability to "weight" how often certain powerups appear (kind of a silly little feature, but I figure it'd probably take 20 minutes to add so why not?)

EDIT: And for ****s and giggles, I squashed the explodet vertically since ppl were complaining about that. Here's what it looks like if you just do it in an image editor (as opposed the theoretically much cleaner version you'd get if you changed the art):



Not terrible imo!

[Snowsickle]

Yeah, I definitely support the explodet going on a diet.

It's already more than long enough to make it a massive/easy target; I don't really think it is necessary to be even close to as wide as it is. As it is, I don't think the fatness really makes it much easier to hit the explodet, just quite a bit more frustrating to fly one with current map design. On the other hand, where else are we going to get our inspiration for making fun of King's mom?

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

[LIST][*]Mass Bomber is still too hard to stop imo.

Making bombs hurt its bomber double might be a good way to balance it out. I don't mean that the bombs would hurt when they're dropped, but when an enemy gets right under you and you drop your bomb, if it hurt double, it might be easier to destroy bombers.

Or possibly make bombs hurt team mates.

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by Snowsickle

Yeah, I definitely support the explodet going on a diet.

It's already more than long enough to make it a massive/easy target; I don't really think it is necessary to be even close to as wide as it is. As it is, I don't think the fatness really makes it much easier to hit the explodet, just quite a bit more frustrating to fly one with current map design.

Yeah, I agree. I'm always grazing the roofs in tunnels and whatnot when I fly an Explodet.

[Karl]

Need a good way to reply... inlined responses as A.

• Would be cool to have explosion fx more closely match actual aoe size.
  1. I thought they did... I know for sure EMP does
• It might be worth experimenting with making the black outline on planes be 1 pixel thicker... make it look a little more cartoony.
  1. Lams plans on playing w/ plane sizes etc soon
• I think it'd be good for the overall "feel" (tho prolly not balance) to reduce the delay between pressing up and getting the Miranda dash.
  1. o_O
• Would be nice if afterburning didn't cost energy for Miranda so you don't fruitlessly burn ammo when you don't have enough energy. Would need to increase cost of dash to compensate.
  1. i pointed this out when Lam implemented it. It doesnt actually take ammo until it goes off... just super confusing IMO
• Mass Bomber is still too hard to stop imo.
• Would be nice to be able to have a map where you have pickup powerups but planes drop health on death. Maybe just have a bool for both "Planes drop powerups on death" and "Planes drop health on death" so mapmakers have complete freedom with this, even if the official maps never use it.
  1. planes not dropping health on death was a sideeffect of Lams wrapping everything in a big IF statement... I.E. it was not intentional to keep planes from dropping health on death
• Never noticed the friends list extra functionality until today... I really like the "click to join friend's server" thing!
  1. you can also click the pop up notifications
• Hm, actually maybe burn the friends list into a column on the right side of the screen anytime you're not in a game?
  1. interesting...
• emp would be more noticable if the electricity were a brighter blue.
  1. yea, glow blend is super map background dependant
• maybe allow mapmakers to set respawn time (or was this purposely pulled because ppl were being retarded before and setting it to like 1 sec?)
  1. This is going to be a server configuration... unless convinced otherwise
• Ctrl-click should also multi-select objects in map editor ala windows
  1. doesn't shift+click work? (I know lam is weird)
• maybe add ability to "weight" how often certain powerups appear (kind of a silly little feature, but I figure it'd probably take 20 minutes to add so why not?)
  1. Hmmz

[DiogenesDog]

* Would be cool to have explosion fx more closely match actual aoe size.
1. I thought they did... I know for sure EMP does
Just checked the nuke (which I was almost positive was wrong), and it turns out I was just insane... I thought everything was using the same standard explosion fx, so I assumed it was off. Looks like it's scaled up though, so whee. I dunno, maybe it's that the gaps between the spikes get bigger when they're stretched, so it's harder to tell if you're "in" the fx radius? Probably a non-issue, especially since I imagine that the nuke at least will eventually get its own custom explosion fx.

But anyway, I need to start reading through these before posting so I can filter the **** I clearly need to test. This is like the third time I've posted something that isn't true because I didn't bother to check it out before posting. :/


* Would be nice if afterburning didn't cost energy for Miranda so you don't fruitlessly burn ammo when you don't have enough energy. Would need to increase cost of dash to compensate.
1. i pointed this out when Lam implemented it. It doesnt actually take ammo until it goes off... just super confusing IMO
Well... this is sort of true. It does takes the ammo off, but it just replenishes ultra fast to where it "should" be once you let go. But if you're out of ammo and you're leaning on the up arrow, it prevents you from firing until you finally dash. Not that this is super common or anything... :P But yeah, definitely confusing.


* emp would be more noticable if the electricity were a brighter blue.
1. yea, glow blend is super map background dependant
I think it's actually more dependent on the color of the plane... just checked it out, and it shows up more clearly for me on the blue than the silver guys. I think maybe the best way to go is to make the lightning out of two (or more) contrasting colors (or outline it, like text). Shrug. Not like it's bad right now though!


* Ctrl-click should also multi-select objects in map editor ala windows
1. doesn't shift+click work? (I know lam is weird)
Shift+click works, but ctrl+click is the standard for "add one more thing to selection". Shift+click is usually used for "add everything that is physically located in the list in between your original selection and the click", although it often also mirrors ctrl+click functionality in places where you'd never need the standard shift+click concept (which is what I think makes sense here - just have them both do the same thing). And for some reason most RTS games uses shift+click instead of ctrl+click (I guess because ctrl+number is already used for control groups? I dunno.)

Btw, at this point I think I've already posted everything that I think actually matters, so everything I put up at this point are nitpicks. Don't be surprised if much of it isn't worth addressing... I'm just throwing up anything I notice, big or small. And if you'd prefer I stick to bigger ****, just lemme know and I'll filter out this kind of silliness.

[lamster]

This kind of feedback is very useful -- please keep it coming. For example, your instinct that the explosion graphics are off is exactly the kind of direction I rely upon outside sources to provide. It's something everyone will subconsciously react to -- usually with annoyance and frustration if the graphical effect does not intuitively demonstrate the underlying gameplay element. Meanwhile I have painfully tweaked and refined the effect over hours of iterative testing and in so doing have lost anything resembling an unbiased intuitive perspective on said agreement. In this iterative haze I chose to make the outermost edge of the gameplay effect line up with the outermost edge of the explosion image star (at its most extended point). Slowing things down and scaling the effect way up I can see that this results in an odd effect for large explosions -- there are regions within the overall blast effect which, due to the variance in the length of the "arms" of the explosion star, are never drawn on by the explosion effect but are effected by the blast. I have since tweaked the effect scale so that the area of gameplay effect very closely matches the core of the blast animation at its most extended point (the stars actually reach slightly outside the gameplay blast radius). Hopefully people will find the new representation more intuitive; if not it's easy to roll back.

On a related sidenote I've tweaked the big bomb's blast radius (slightly decreased its radius and significantly changed the damage distribution within the blast) to fix the very strange-feeling "death at edge of big bomb's enormous blast radius" issue.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by tmm3k

Making bombs hurt its bomber double might be a good way to balance it out. I don't mean that the bombs would hurt when they're dropped, but when an enemy gets right under you and you drop your bomb, if it hurt double, it might be easier to destroy bombers.

Or possibly make bombs hurt team mates.

I'd prefer not to go this direction. Bomber is already a horrible plane that manages to be useful in just ONE area. Hell, if it weren't for bombers I don't think anyone would even bother to cross the "middle" of the map without a big bomb.

Friendly fire damage on bombers = lol. You'd finally give me a reason to play the bomber, and that reason would be to kill King whenever he's on my team repeatedly.

[Snowsickle]

A few things I've probably mentioned on AIM but will record here anyway.

Snows misc suggestion post:

• Landing feels too forgiving right now. There is an almost painful amount of room for error, and it feels like theres almost no risk for the reward. Old biplanes had a much more sensitive landing strip, which I feel was better.
• Bars/stars/whatever the hell people call them now are not as easy as stars were to distinguish at a quick glance. My suggestion would be to have the color shift from white/bronze/silver/gold and having 5 bars replaced with a single star.
• Friends list boxes seem like they could be changed to roughly half the size they are now. Dunno, having a scrollbar for only a few friends is kind of annoying.
• Projectiles reflected by a shield still need to change team color.
• I'm also not sure how I feel about homing missile AI. On one hand its kind of frustrating when you fire one near two targets and it gets confused and doesn't hit either of them, but on the other it kind of adds an element to knowing when to use them and when not to. Their unpredictability is kind of funny sometimes too. On the other hand, I feel like they're the least useful of the 3 current powerups. Could possibly make it acquire a single target and stick to it unless it flies out of range. More opinions needed I guess.
• Probably mentioned before but big bomb feels like it spawns too fast. You can fail a bombing run and have a new one waiting just about when you respawn. More time between spawns would possibly put more emphasis on protecting/escorting the bomb carrier.
• Also, bonus exp for killing a bomb carrier.

[Karl]

Bars/stars/whatever the hell people call them now are not as easy as stars were to distinguish at a quick glance. My suggestion would be to have the color shift from white/bronze/silver/gold and having 5 bars replaced with a single star.
They will most likely be a nice pretty picture... along the lines of Air Force insignia.

Friends list boxes seem like they could be changed to roughly half the size they are now. Dunno, having a scrollbar for only a few friends is kind of annoying.
agreed. i think they are currently so huge because of the Icons used for showing when your friend is in a game or hosting a chat room. As i've said before the whole UI needs to be overhauled.

Projectiles reflected by a shield still need to change team color.
coming soon

Also, bonus exp for killing a bomb carrier.
indeed

[Blank]

1- The only "risk" in landing was someone walling you/bombing you while you landed. You shouldn't (regularly) be dying on the landing strip. Increasing it's sensativity only hurts newbies which isn't something this game needs.

2- Like current homing missile AI. Dunno why everyone seems to want this thing to be auto-hit.

3- I'm okay with big bomb spawn rate. What needs to be fixed is plane spawn time. It's too fast (IMO) and doesn't compensate for uneven teams. A slower big bomb spawn rate would just lead to more side camping, which is ****ing boring.

4- Bonus XP for killing the easiest target in the game (no afterburner giant ****ing arrow pointing out where he's at) doesn't make sense.

If anything, you should give bonus XP to your entire team (not just the bomber) whenever a big bomb is successfully dropped... because THAT is a ****ing accomplishment.

Of course, that's all pointless at the moment because bars/stars are basically meaningless :| Bonuses far too smal/unnoticable.

[Snowsickle]

2. I'm not advocating any quicker homing ability or increased accuracy, it would just be nice if my missile didn't go absolutely bat**** insane and try to track 4 different targets at once and end up flying off into the sun when there are multiple people onscreen, which in a larger city game can be basically anywhere on the map.

4. This is a design decision - reward exp to people who do something that takes some skill, or reward exp for people who do something that helps the team. The current system seems to be more focused on the latter, with the existence of assist exp.

[Blank]

Only big bomb should be able to DESTROY a base. Kind of anti-climatic when someone pisses on the base when it's low on health and it dies.

[King!]

Originally Posted by Blank

Only big bomb should be able to DESTROY a base. Kind of anti-climatic when someone pisses on the base when it's low on health and it dies.

I like this idea. Only problem is that it's not intuitive, but it wouldn't be that hard to explain in tutorial.

[porpus]

Originally Posted by Blank

Only big bomb should be able to DESTROY a base. Kind of anti-climatic when someone pisses on the base when it's low on health and it dies.

I wouldn't mind if there were maps where you could make the big bomb be the ONLY thing that does damage to a base. Making the teamwork to get bomb runs together more important.

[Snowsickle]

I really like that idea too. Its a good compromise between bomb-only base damage and what we have now. I've kind of supported the big bomb only thing for a while but this would probably achieve a lot of the same goals and would contribute something to solving the mass bomber issue.

[DiogenesDog]

Just as a thought, a decent way to implement this might be to break the bar up into two sections: a small bit that can only be affected by the big bomb, and a larger, different-colored part for the main bar. I think Lam was considering giving the base an energy shield at one point too, which would work well with this. You have a shield that recharges and can be easily hurt by anything, and a hardened interior that can only be affected by the nuke.

And if you REALLY want to get fancy, you could have the base look like a wooden structure or something, then once the main bar is destroyed it falls apart to reveal the hardened bunker underneath. (This probably works best if you separate the base from the runway.)

[Karl]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

Just as a thought, a decent way to implement this might be to break the bar up into two sections: a small bit that can only be affected by the big bomb, and a larger, different-colored part for the main bar. I think Lam was considering giving the base an energy shield at one point too, which would work well with this. You have a shield that recharges and can be easily hurt by anything, and a hardened interior that can only be affected by the nuke.

Well it's more along the lines of the shield takes close to the amount of damage a full bomber payload can drop. that way a solo bomber cant do much damage *unless* all the turrets are down.

[DiogenesDog]

oh, I wasn't really talking about his original intentions. was just commenting that something similar would work nicely with blank's idea.

[DiogenesDog]

more stuff:

• I might be alone in this, but I really miss the anti-blank. My suggestion: if the health pak gets added into the powerup rotation, make this look _almost_ like a health pak, but with a black cross or something. (Or maybe like a skull & crossbones or similar so it's less subtle).
• Love the "bomb stopped" X-out thing.
• New missile art is improved (no longer looks like a dildo), but now it kind of looks like an indian arrow or something.
• Did missile tracking get nerfed? I think I liked the super crazy tracking from the last patch better. (Or actually, here's a weird thought: give it super awesome tracking, but with a very low initial speed that accelerates up to a top speed that's slightly less than the current. Basically, the idea is that it actually gets more of a chance to follow people around, which is always pretty fun. This probably wouldn't work out the way I'm imagining, but you never know!)
• Green glow on deflected projectiles is a very nice feature, but too subtle. Are there tech reasons why you can't change the color of the projectile itself? If so, maybe have there be a team color glow on it that's a little more dramatic.
• I realize this was a community request, but I really dislike turret kills. Drives me insane when I'm tailing someone and do 75% of their life just to get the assist to a non-player. I do like the time limit on getting kill credit, though.
• map: <mapname> in lower right corner that shows while dead shows the name of the map that was there when you joined the server. if you votechange, it doesn't update to reflect the new map.
• Most Robbed award should maybe be changed to Most Assists
• The 5. Close option in the player votekick bubble doesn't work.

[lamsbro]

Minor bugs I noticed:

-the /mutePlayer command is case sensitive, (if you type muteplayer it doesnt work), all of the console commands should be case insensitive
-replying to dio does not work, it fails to insert the quotes around his name causing the reply to fail

[lamsbro]

Few more suggestions:

-a vote shuffle teams command that rearranges the current teams
-ability to add or remove bots through console
-make muteplayer permanent
-make 1 normal plane kill = 1 star, its much more intuitive
-implement tie, so if both bases die within a certain short time period, like 2-5 seconds, the game ends in a tie

Balance suggestions: In general the strongest planes (not counting kami bomber) seem to be loopy and biplane

-log kills/deaths/team wins by plane, pilot, and matchup or conduct controlled studies, its not only interesting and fun for the player its also helpful in balancing
-make miranda charge up beam thicker, last much less time, and do less damage (than a normal full blast)
-make miranda afterburner thingy require less ammo (hard enuf to use as is)
-make miranda secondary require less ammo (nothing more annoying than being unable to use this skill)
-up explodet's speed, decrease his size (he is ridiculously slow and big, so much so that any survivability bonus he has in terms of raw health is way offset by his crappy handling, plus he's a horrible bomb carrier)
-make explodet's afterburner more unique, perhaps with a giant cone of fire coming out the back that does damage
-decrease loopy's size, that was one of things that used to make him unique


Other stuff:
-I like missile more when its something you can actually target, not something with such ridiculously tight turn radius that u can shoot it and it will hit the guy flying behind you, maybe if you got a little lock on graphic like you did with loopy, and the missile was faster but turned slower
-point blank missiles don't feel fun, maybe make it have a minimum range
-missiles shouldn't boost planes forward when they hit the enemy plane from behind, nothing lamer than shooting a missile at a guy running the bomb in, and when it hits him it actually makes him go faster and helps him close the distance to the base so he can more easily land the bomb
-same thing with bomber bombs, they shouldn't drastically speed up or completely stall enemies, its largely determined randomly and it feels lame

[tmm3k]

This isn't related to the game, but a changelog or something would be nice.

Also, is there a command to list all the maps a server has? I tried maplist and it didn't work.

[DiogenesDog]

There's not a command, but the autocomplete thing will show you a list of maps if you type in the command to vote for a mapchange.