Nitpicking, Typos, duplicates, missing features... Options

[White Cat]

A series of posts will be present on problems I saw with individual generals. This can be very minor issues like typos to more important other errors like duplicate upgrades.

First of I'd like to ask the deal with upgrades I was told of a limit but I am not entirely certain how restrictions apply. There seems to be a limit on how many upgrades can exist. Does this restrict the number of clickable boxes? Or does it restrict the total number of upgrades all units collectively can receive?

Second question is how does the strategy center work? Does it apply to every unit on the map? By this I mean do non-us units benefit from the strategies? There are a total of 5 US sides (4 generals + base) so if I pull of the feat of capturing all 5 of those tech trees and build 5 command centers and set them all to the same strategy... Does the strategy apply 5 times? There are mod maps out there (fan made) that you can capture civilian strategy centers so you could have a good number of them pretty fast... And I really didn't notice 10x hold the line effect...

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 6:03

[cryptkeeper]

The limit to upgrades is a limit to all items considered a upgrade by way beign defined in the upgrade.ini so flashbang upgrade tho on multiple factions is still one upgrade

it will crash the game and fail to run most likely due to data validation with in the zero engine of the defined limit for the script.


it apply's its effect to ever unit and structure except aircraft and a single strategy can only be applied once it maybe possible to be able to get all 3 tho by way of capture but I've never tried.

but this really should be in the modding section not shockwave.

[White Cat]

The limit to upgrades is a limit to all items considered a upgrade by way beign defined in the upgrade.ini so flashbang upgrade tho on multiple factions is still one upgrade

it will crash the game and fail to run most likely due to data validation with in the zero engine of the defined limit for the script.


it apply's its effect to ever unit and structure except aircraft and a single strategy can only be applied once it maybe possible to be able to get all 3 tho by way of capture but I've never tried.

but this really should be in the modding section not shockwave.

So why not use buildings for upgrades? For example the armor generals radar dome has no purpose but to provide what other US factions have their command center for. Having a radar dome eliminates the potential upgrade in the command center... China particularly has a lot of such upgrades...

Another problem I have is how some generals upgrades are restricted to those generals units. For instance if I play as the air force general and capture a laser generals airfield and buy the anti-missile laser upgrade... All my air units should benefit from it. Of course this would only work if I am able to capture some other generals buildings. Flares plus anti missile lasers would give me a serious advantage.

Also how does the upgrades work. For example what happens when I buy the Sentry Drone Gun? Is a flag toggled to "true" or does it determine the actual change directly? The laser general has a sentry drone laser gun upgrade. So that is two upgrades... If the upgrade itself was something like "arm sentry drones" both generals would benefit from the same upgrade which in turn would vacant an upgrade slot.

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 7:25

[cryptkeeper]

So why not use buildings for upgrades? For example the armor generals radar dome has no purpose but to provide what other US factions have their command center for. Having a radar dome eliminates the potential upgrade in the command center... China particularly has a lot of such upgrades...

Another problem I have is how some generals upgrades are restricted to those generals units. For instance if I play as the air force general and capture a laser generals airfield and buy the anti-missile laser upgrade... All my air units should benefit from it. Of course this would only work if I am able to capture some other generals buildings. Flares plus anti missile lasers would give me a serious advantage.

um most if not all except radar upgrade's can not be done like that as they are unit specific or building add-ons or enhancements. Radar dome is suppose to be unique for ironside and allows him to keep his radar if he decides to sell command center. it was never meant to be a upgrade. china's radar upgrade has been in there since zh and is a faction attribute that won't be changed to a building and all it would save by doing that is one upgrade slot.


rarely does one capture another factions tech in pvp as much as I'd like that as a easter egg of sorts I don't believe we have plans to make more cross tech like that.


what ? all it does is add the sentry gun turret model to the and appropriate weapons code. But yes we can consolidate upgrades like that and if shw ever needs to we will.

This post has been edited by cryptkeeper: 10 Mar 2010, 7:35

[White Cat]

um most if not all except radar upgrade's can not be done like that as they are unit specific. Radar dome is suppose to be unique for ironside and allows him to keep his radar if he decides to sell command center. it was never meant to be a upgrade. china's radar upgrade has been in there since zh and is a faction attribute that won't be changed to a building and all it would save by doing that is one upgrade slot.


rarely does one capture another factions tech in pvp as much as i'd like that as a easter egg of sorts I don't believe we have plans to make more cross tech like that.

I wasn't suggesting the change for changing how china works - was merely illustrating my point with an example within the game... But the truth is that Ironsides radar dome saves us an upgrade slot.

Now as for buildings for upgrades. How possible would it be (programming-wise) to for example make the sentry drone gun upgrade building specific. So the drones would be able to shoot if this building exists and loose the ability if the building is sold or destroyed.

[cryptkeeper]

I wasn't suggesting the change for changing how china works - was merely illustrating my point with an example within the game... But the truth is that Ironsides radar dome saves us an upgrade slot.

Now as for buildings for upgrades. How possible would it be (programming-wise) to for example make the sentry drone gun upgrade building specific. So the drones would be able to shoot if this building exists and loose the ability if the building is sold or destroyed.

well not really ironside would most likely start with radar were to we remove the dome like any other us faction but if we wanted to keep him without radar until a he buys it yes or it be vehicle like radar van .



to my knowledge not possible tho there may be way I have overlooked.

[White Cat]

Upgrade related bugs (US factions):
This post will be edited multiple times. Anything here is a "potential problem". I have no way to know if these are intended or unintended.

More general issues:
Laser general has a unique sentry gun upgrade unlike all other generals who share the same sentry gun upgrade.
Laser general has a unique humvee upgrade unlike all other generals who share the same sentry gun upgrade. Granted this does change the main gun of the humvee all together but never the less I sense a duplicate.
Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Aircraft carrier strike is too weak. It should be able to take out a US supply center on its own.

Complicated bugs:
Some special weapons timer sprites do not always properly charge. This seems to happen with multiple command centers of different generals. Carrier strikes are a good example to this problem. The icon to the right of the screen appears ready but the command center icon is charging. Some special weapons remain unusable until the right command center is clicked. To elaborate... If you select the air force generals command center you captured and try to deploy an aircraft carrier strike via the icon to the right side of the screen. It will not deploy even if you unselect the command center and will be permanently unusable until you click to a command center of a general that can deploy aircraft carrier strikes.

Having more than one colonel burton: If you put your colonel burton in your mech and then destroy the mech with the burton in it... You can build 2 colonel burtons now. One USA colonel burton and one some other generals colonel burton. Send another colonel burton in another mech and kill all existing ones after you destroy the burton mech. You can now build 3. Repeat the process to have 5 colonel burtons. In order to replace any killed ones... You would need to sacrifice all existing ones but all would become build able when all are dead. So if you repeated the process to have 5 colonel burtons and you loose one and then execute all the ones you have you can build 5 of them on the spot from the 5 respective barracks. A simple way to fix this could be to make infantry in mechs survive if the mech itself is destroyed. You have to give the build order before any of the burtons are fully built. I honestly do not know why there is a 1 colonel burton restriction. Having 5 burtons if you have 5 tech trees seems like a normal thing.


Base USA:
Upgraded crusader tanks physics is broken. A hover tank would be hard to stop and hard to turn much like a hovercraft.
Little birds yellow missiles is shown like comanchees and overlap with the green icon that shows up when it receives an infantry unit. So it shows one green icon and one yellow despite having two missiles.
Little birds lack fire-ports. I do not see any reason why they lack this. A single infantry won't mean much on its own.
Little bird should also detect stealth. Recon is the purpose of the actual aircraft.
Infantry should survive out of the mech when its destroyed much like the Chinese troop crawler.

Air Force general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but air general himself has no way to purchase this.
Skycrane lacks countermeasures flag. So even if you buy the upgrade, the skycrane will not use flares against incoming missiles.
Taunt on combat Chinooks do not seem to do anything. Also Wagner gets annoying after a while and I have no way to turn it off. A more silent taunt would work better. Consider how Chinese propaganda works... Now alter that color to blue for taunt. Also when you change screens Wagner starts to play from the beginning.
Little bird should be available to this general.

Super weapons general:
Mortar Humvees attempt to target aircraft. Granted they are upgradeable to this end but should not attempt such targeting unless upgrade is bought.
Pop up patriot missiles lack the EMP effect.

Armor general:
Laser guided misses are mislabeled in claiming they upgrade stealth fighters missiles. Armor general does not have stealth fighters.
Armor general lacks air-to-air fighters. Not sure if this was intended.
Star lifter's sound effect lacks that static all other air units give. Adding that in front of the sound effect would do the trick. Sound effect of star lifter starts to loop from the beginning if you change screens as if it was just built. The sound effects gives a starting rotor spin feel.

Laser general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but laser general himself has no way to purchase this.
Laser tanks no longer use reactor power but the in game speech reminds to player to "keep them safe back there".
Laser Burton uses a grenade as an upgrade. This conflicts with the laser feel... A more powerful laser shot would work better - like armor generals AT shot. Or how about a rail gun shot instead?

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 10:31

[Alias]

Fun fact: I can't remember the exact details but I believe many of the upgrades in ShockWave are coded in a such a way where the upgrade applies to multiple things, i.e. with the sentry drone gun upgrade it is one upgrade for every faction, the only thing different is that Laser general's upgrade has a different cameo and description text, I believe it is still the same upgrade. However, my modding knowledge is many, many years old though and I may be mixing several things together here and be completely wrong.

Also, I don't exactly see why you are whining that aircraft PDL doesn't apply to non-Townes aircraft but also whining when the exact thing you're asking for is implemented elsewhere, i.e. Microwave tank.

This post has been edited by Alias: 10 Mar 2010, 8:53

[White Cat]

Fun fact: I can't remember the exact details but I believe many of the upgrades in ShockWave are coded in a such a way where the upgrade applies to multiple things, i.e. with the sentry drone gun upgrade it is one upgrade for every faction, the only thing different is that Laser general's upgrade has a different cameo and description text, I believe it is still the same upgrade. However, my modding knowledge is many, many years old though and I may be mixing several things together here and be completely wrong.

Also, I don't exactly see why you are whining that aircraft PDL doesn't apply to non-Townes aircraft but also whining when the exact thing you're asking for is implemented elsewhere, i.e. Microwave tank.

You have to purchase them separately. Not sure if they take the same upgrade slot but that would be unlikely...

I seek consistency it is either one way or the other. Like I said, I have no way to know if any of the things I see as problems are intended. For example super weapon general's microwave tank lacks the potential of an armor upgrade whatsoever (makes sense it is a humvee after all). Hmm that reminds me, couldn't the microwave dish be a buyable upgrade instead of being a separate unit? Though the super weapons general humvee costs $850 while the microwave one costs $700 so I don't quite know.

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 9:39

[Stubbjax]

White Cat's Mega Issue List

My responses are coloured in blue.

More general issues:
Laser general has a unique sentry gun upgrade unlike all other generals who share the same sentry gun upgrade.
They are both different units and so both have different upgrades. Laser Sentry Drone != Sentry Drone
Laser general has a unique humvee upgrade unlike all other generals who share the same sentry gun upgrade. Granted this does change the main gun of the humvee all together but never the less I sense a duplicate.
As I said above. It would be too much work to change for very little benefit.
Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Only laser general-built Raptors will be able to use anti-missile lasers.
Aircraft carrier strike is too weak. It should be able to take out a US supply center on its own.
This general power is mainly for striking large groups of enemy units. Very good defence tactic in sticky situations.

Complicated bugs:
Some special weapons timer sprites do not always properly charge. This seems to happen with multiple command centers of different generals. Carrier strikes are a good example to this problem. The icon to the right of the screen appears ready but the command center icon is charging. Some special weapons remain unusable until the right command center is clicked. To elaborate... If you select the air force generals command center you captured and try to deploy an aircraft carrier strike via the icon to the right side of the screen. It will not deploy even if you unselect the command center and will be permanently unusable until you click to a command center of a general that can deploy aircraft carrier strikes.
I agree, this happens to me as well. Although this bug has existed since Zero Hour so I am not sure whether it's fixable.

Having more than one colonel burton: If you put your colonel burton in your mech and then destroy the mech with the burton in it... You can build 2 colonel burtons now. One USA colonel burton and one some other generals colonel burton. Send another colonel burton in another mech and kill all existing ones after you destroy the burton mech. You can now build 3. Repeat the process to have 5 colonel burtons. In order to replace any killed ones... You would need to sacrifice all existing ones but all would become build able when all are dead. So if you repeated the process to have 5 colonel burtons and you loose one and then execute all the ones you have you can build 5 of them on the spot from the 5 respective barracks. A simple way to fix this could be to make infantry in mechs survive if the mech itself is destroyed. You have to give the build order before any of the burtons are fully built. I honestly do not know why there is a 1 colonel burton restriction. Having 5 burtons if you have 5 tech trees seems like a normal thing.
There is only one Burton. It doesn't make sense if there are like five of the very same guy. Good find. Deserves fixing. It's not like it's important or anything... only bored players messing around in like sand-box mode would find that kinda thing.

Base USA:
Upgraded crusader tanks physics is broken. A hover tank would be hard to stop and hard to turn much like a hovercraft.
Reality physics != game physics. Hover tank is an upgrade. An upgrade should help a unit, not hinder it. Besides, the hover upgrade is cool.
Little birds yellow missiles is shown like comanchees and overlap with the green icon that shows up when it receives an infantry unit. So it shows one green icon and one yellow despite having two missiles.
Agreed.
Little birds lack fire-ports. I do not see any reason why they lack this. A single infantry won't mean much on its own.
Fair enough.
Little bird should also detect stealth. Recon is the purpose of the actual aircraft.
Sentry drones.
Infantry should survive out of the mech when its destroyed much like the Chinese troop crawler.
China = infantry survival upon vehicle destruction. USA = infantry death upon vehicle destruction.

Air Force general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but air general himself has no way to purchase this.
Yes.
Skycrane lacks countermeasures flag. So even if you buy the upgrade, the skycrane will not use flares against incoming missiles.
Nice idea.
Taunt on combat Chinooks do not seem to do anything. Also Wagner gets annoying after a while and I have no way to turn it off. A more silent taunt would work better. Consider how Chinese propaganda works... Now alter that color to blue for taunt. Also when you change screens Wagner starts to play from the beginning.
The taunt is fine as it is. An off button would be good though.
Little bird should be available to this general.
Why not just use a Chinook/Comanche/Acolyte Drone? The Generals should all have a good amount of diversity between them.

Super weapons general:
Mortar Humvees attempt to target aircraft. Granted they are upgradeable to this end but should not attempt such targeting unless upgrade is bought.
Agreed. Not sure if it's fixable though since it was present since Zero Hour. (all Humvees)
Pop up patriot missiles lack the EMP effect.
This is intentional. Stealth + EMP would be far too powerful.

Armor general:
Laser guided misses are mislabeled in claiming they upgrade stealth fighters missiles. Armor general does not have stealth fighters.
Yup. Not a big deal though.
Armor general lacks air-to-air fighters. Not sure if this was intended.
Armor has a lot of anti-air, so maybe it was. Armor General is designed to be a land-offensive General.
Star lifter's sound effect lacks that static all other air units give. Adding that in front of the sound effect would do the trick. Sound effect of star lifter starts to loop from the beginning if you change screens as if it was just built. The sound effects gives a starting rotor spin feel.
Not really noticeable unless you are searching for inconsistencies. Good find though.

Laser general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but laser general himself has no way to purchase this.
Yes.
Laser tanks no longer use reactor power but the in game speech reminds to player to "keep them safe back there".
Meh, doesn't really matter.
Laser Burton uses a grenade as an upgrade. This conflicts with the laser feel... A more powerful laser shot would work better - like armor generals AT shot. Or how about a rail gun shot instead?
I hope you realise that not EVERYTHING Laser General uses has to be a laser-based.

I hope that helps clear things up a bit.

[Shiro]

White Cat's Mega Issue List
My answers are in red.

Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Only laser general-built Raptors will be able to use anti-missile lasers.
I believe he was talking about counter measures.

Complicated bugs:
Some special weapons timer sprites do not always properly charge. This seems to happen with multiple command centers of different generals. Carrier strikes are a good example to this problem. The icon to the right of the screen appears ready but the command center icon is charging. Some special weapons remain unusable until the right command center is clicked. To elaborate... If you select the air force generals command center you captured and try to deploy an aircraft carrier strike via the icon to the right side of the screen. It will not deploy even if you unselect the command center and will be permanently unusable until you click to a command center of a general that can deploy aircraft carrier strikes.
I agree, this happens to me as well. Although this bug has existed since Zero Hour so I am not sure whether it's fixable.
Sadly, it is not. There is a range of 'enum' tags which work as slots, but can be used multiple times. However doing so crashes the shortcut logic which has not been upgraded from Gens, as there were enough enums in normal Z:H. It could only be fixed by giving all units with special abilities who are NOT using shortcuts the same enum, that way one could save a few of them. That is still no unlimited solution.

Having more than one colonel burton: If you put your colonel burton in your mech and then destroy the mech with the burton in it... You can build 2 colonel burtons now. One USA colonel burton and one some other generals colonel burton. Send another colonel burton in another mech and kill all existing ones after you destroy the burton mech. You can now build 3. Repeat the process to have 5 colonel burtons. In order to replace any killed ones... You would need to sacrifice all existing ones but all would become build able when all are dead. So if you repeated the process to have 5 colonel burtons and you loose one and then execute all the ones you have you can build 5 of them on the spot from the 5 respective barracks. A simple way to fix this could be to make infantry in mechs survive if the mech itself is destroyed. You have to give the build order before any of the burtons are fully built. I honestly do not know why there is a 1 colonel burton restriction. Having 5 burtons if you have 5 tech trees seems like a normal thing.
There is only one Burton. It doesn't make sense if there are like five of the very same guy. Good find. Deserves fixing. It's not like it's important or anything... only bored players messing around in like sand-box mode would find that kinda thing.
That is probably a bug of the buildrestriction logic used in ShW. Since the restriced units are in a container and killed off, the script malfunctiones and asumes the unit is both dead and alive and does not count for the restriction anymore. Did not happen in ZH obviously, because that logic was not applied. Indeed nice find.

Base USA:
Little birds yellow missiles is shown like comanchees and overlap with the green icon that shows up when it receives an infantry unit. So it shows one green icon and one yellow despite having two missiles.
Agreed.
Sadly unfixable.

Air Force general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but air general himself has no way to purchase this.
Yes.
It uses cross teching, such as Blue Anthrax for the Soyuz.

Super weapons general:
Mortar Humvees attempt to target aircraft. Granted they are upgradeable to this end but should not attempt such targeting unless upgrade is bought.
Agreed. Not sure if it's fixable though since it was present since Zero Hour. (all Humvees)
Is it not fixable in that way, as it is done for eventual AA infantry inside. If it would not do it, AA infantry would not attack upon order, because you could not give an attack order on air units. Chinese Outpost logic does not work, because EA made that one work via upgrade logic, which is honestly dumbness and lazy.

Armor general:
Laser guided misses are mislabeled in claiming they upgrade stealth fighters missiles. Armor general does not have stealth fighters.
Yup. Not a big deal though.
Could still be fixed, that is not hard at all.

Laser general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but laser general himself has no way to purchase this.
Yes.
As above, cross teching

This post has been edited by KamuiK: 10 Mar 2010, 13:48

[Destiny]

Great responses, stubbjax02. Those reality-related ones are a pain to deal with.

Q: Little birds lack fire-ports. I do not see any reason why they lack this. A single infantry won't mean much on its own.
A: Little Birds are meant to transport infantry like Commandos and Snipers.

Q: Armor general lacks air-to-air fighters. Not sure if this was intended.
A: A pure AA fighter would be useless when faced against GLA. (An old answer given by one of the SWRP members years ago...Hunter was it?)

Q: All the voice-related things and blablablabla
A: Want to be a voice actor for them then?

[White Cat]

Great responses, stubbjax02. Those reality-related ones are a pain to deal with.

Q: Little birds lack fire-ports. I do not see any reason why they lack this. A single infantry won't mean much on its own.
A: Little Birds are meant to transport infantry like Commandos and Snipers.

Q: Armor general lacks air-to-air fighters. Not sure if this was intended.
A: A pure AA fighter would be useless when faced against GLA. (An old answer given by one of the SWRP members years ago...Hunter was it?)

Q: All the voice-related things and blablablabla
A: Want to be a voice actor for them then?

#1: One solution, make them have two missiles by default and not display how many missiles are available at all. Much like the attack buggy.

#2: Armor general has two fighters one acting as a bomber other as a fighter. So what is the purpose of having two if one isn't intended to shoot at air targets? I am asking because I am curious.

#3: Umm... Some of the voices used are from red alert 2. I could even tell you which ones. Little birds voice is from the rocketeer. Star Lifters voice is from allied transport helicopter. It is an easy fix if you edit the sound and add the minor static in front. I don't like my voice.

[White Cat]

stubbjax02 responses are coloured in blue.
White Cat's responses are coloured in Green.

More general issues:
Laser general has a unique sentry gun upgrade unlike all other generals who share the same sentry gun upgrade.
They are both different units and so both have different upgrades. Laser Sentry Drone != Sentry Drone
I am fully aware of this but all other generals share the sentry drone upgrade. Unlike patriotism this isn't an upgrade over the other.

Laser general has a unique humvee upgrade unlike all other generals who share the same sentry gun upgrade. Granted this does change the main gun of the humvee all together but never the less I sense a duplicate.
As I said above. It would be too much work to change for very little benefit.
It is still a duplicate though.

Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Only laser general-built Raptors will be able to use anti-missile lasers.
Umm... My point was F-18s that you do not build that comes from off screen lacks any kind of anti missile system while B2 bombers do.

Aircraft carrier strike is too weak. It should be able to take out a US supply center on its own.
This general power is mainly for striking large groups of enemy units. Very good defence tactic in sticky situations.
In that case if your base is in the middle of the map they'd be far too late. I'd prefer to use the specter gunship for that purpose as I can actually target...

Base USA:
Upgraded crusader tanks physics is broken. A hover tank would be hard to stop and hard to turn much like a hovercraft.
Reality physics != game physics. Hover tank is an upgrade. An upgrade should help a unit, not hinder it. Besides, the hover upgrade is cool.
Idea is it should have an advantage and disadvantage. It should not trigger mines, float over water and not act as a tracked unit by lacking a level of control.


Little bird should also detect stealth. Recon is the purpose of the actual aircraft.
Sentry drones.
How about stealth detection if a sniper is in it
Infantry should survive out of the mech when its destroyed much like the Chinese troop crawler.
China = infantry survival upon vehicle destruction. USA = infantry death upon vehicle destruction.
Mechs are a different story though as mechs themselves do not rank. When a ranked us vehicle dies a pilot ejects. Not with mechs.

Air Force general:
Taunt on combat Chinooks do not seem to do anything. Also Wagner gets annoying after a while and I have no way to turn it off. A more silent taunt would work better. Consider how Chinese propaganda works... Now alter that color to blue for taunt. Also when you change screens Wagner starts to play from the beginning.
The taunt is fine as it is. An off button would be good though.
I never seen the enemy do anything about the taunt unlike taunt by other units like the smoke bomb.
Little bird should be available to this general.
Why not just use a Chinook/Comanche/Acolyte Drone? The Generals should all have a good amount of diversity between them.
True but this is the air general... Perhaps a stealth-able (with the comanchee stealth upgrade) little bird that has fireports? My point is air general lacks the ability to put snipers up in the air (and them not get shot down by any passing aa unit).

Super weapons general:
Pop up patriot missiles lack the EMP effect.
This is intentional. Stealth + EMP would be far too powerful.
So? Like alpha aurora isn't?

Armor general:
Laser guided misses are mislabeled in claiming they upgrade stealth fighters missiles. Armor general does not have stealth fighters.
Yup. Not a big deal though.
This thread is titled nitpicking for a reason. Nothing stated here is a big deal.
Armor general lacks air-to-air fighters. Not sure if this was intended.
Armor has a lot of anti-air, so maybe it was. Armor General is designed to be a land-offensive General.
I do not see why there are two planes for the airfield then.
Star lifter's sound effect lacks that static all other air units give. Adding that in front of the sound effect would do the trick. Sound effect of star lifter starts to loop from the beginning if you change screens as if it was just built. The sound effects gives a starting rotor spin feel.
Not really noticeable unless you are searching for inconsistencies. Good find though.
Of course I am "nitpicking".

Laser general:
Laser Burton uses a grenade as an upgrade. This conflicts with the laser feel... A more powerful laser shot would work better - like armor generals AT shot. Or how about a rail gun shot instead?
I hope you realise that not EVERYTHING Laser General uses has to be a laser-based.
No. But the unit already carries a laser rifle... And the grenade is boring. 2 other colonel burtons have the same thing. Air Force generals burton is quite badass and is second only to the armor general one.

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 14:02

[White Cat]

Answers by KamuiK are in red.
Answers by White Cat are in green.

Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Only laser general-built Raptors will be able to use anti-missile lasers.
I believe he was talking about counter measures.
I was talking about special weapons like aircraft carrier strike planes

Base USA:
Little birds yellow missiles is shown like comanchees and overlap with the green icon that shows up when it receives an infantry unit. So it shows one green icon and one yellow despite having two missiles.
Agreed.
Sadly unfixable.
You could simply not show the yellow icons at all.

Air Force general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but air general himself has no way to purchase this.
Yes.
It uses cross teching, such as Blue Anthrax for the Soyuz.
I like the concept of cross-teching but perhaps this could be applied more often. This instance seems to be a mistake. For example all aircraft (including Chinese) can benefit from counter measures, anti missle lasers, additional missiles but only specific generals would be able to purchase them. Would be a nice easter egg as stated earlier on this thread.

Laser general:
Microwave tank has the ability to have a composite tank armor upgrade but laser general himself has no way to purchase this.
Yes.
As above, cross teching
As above.

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 15:20

[Shiro]

Answers by KamuiK are in red.
Answers by White Cat are in green.

Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Only laser general-built Raptors will be able to use anti-missile lasers.
I believe he was talking about counter measures.
I was talking about special weapons like aircraft carrier strike planes
I know, but HOW to fend off missiles, i.e. counter measures. Those cute white glowing orbs

This post has been edited by KamuiK: 10 Mar 2010, 15:38

[White Cat]

Answers by KamuiK are in red.
Answers by White Cat are in green.

Upgrades to aircraft do not always affect general points aircraft. For example carrier strike lacks anti aircraft upgrades at all. At least not anti missile lasers.
Only laser general-built Raptors will be able to use anti-missile lasers.
I believe he was talking about counter measures.
I was talking about special weapons like aircraft carrier strike planes
I know, but HOW to fend off missiles, i.e. counter measures. Those cute white glowing orbs
Yes and F-18s do not get them even if you buy them.

[Destiny]

Q: Mechs are a different story though as mechs themselves do not rank. When a ranked us vehicle dies a pilot ejects. Not with mechs.
A: Coding problem probably, IDK

Q: Idea is it should have an advantage and disadvantage. It should not trigger mines, float over water and not act as a tracked unit by lacking a level of control.
A: This is not reality, why shouldn't it trigger mines, why shouldn't it not be able to float over water and why not act like a tracked unit? It's just an upgrade to give it more speed. The Inferno Cannon may gain an AT shell but it's still an artillery right?

Q: True but this is the air general... Perhaps a stealth-able (with the comanchee stealth upgrade) little bird that has fireports? My point is air general lacks the ability to put snipers up in the air (and them not get shot down by any passing aa unit).
A: Kingmanches are considered OP by the balance team already, and they're getting nerfed, stealth and all. AFG lacks the ability to put snipers up in the air. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha. Hahahahaha. Ask Kamuik or Raptor. Besides, why the hell would you put someone there alone sniping people with no AT support? Unless you're being asinine on purpose, yeah. And no, the fighters (Especially the KR) are made to kill aircraft and the itty bitty tanks. If this "passing AA unit" is a threat why would you even put him there alone in the first place without sufficient Avenger support?

Q: This is intentional. Stealth + EMP would be far too powerful.
So? Like alpha aurora isn't?
A: If you think the Aurora Alpha is overpowered [b]against anything other than antfantry and anything tougher than a dozer/humvee, ask the community who are not part of the team who have internal betas about what they think of the AAlpha, and those who play MP. Stealth + EMP is way too overpowered, no matter how you argue it.

Q: No. But the unit already carries a laser rifle... And the grenade is boring. 2 other colonel burtons have the same thing. Air Force generals burton is quite badass and is second only to the armor general one.
A: Boring or not, it doesn't matter. It's the gameplay that matters. There are only few who would go out of their way to watch that Burton stand there firing his grenades against the AI, and certainly none in a MP game will waste their time doing that because there is no time for eye candy.

Q: In that case if your base is in the middle of the map they'd be far too late. I'd prefer to use the specter gunship for that purpose as I can actually target...
A: Then don't get it in the first place...

[White Cat]

Response to post by Destiny. My reply is in green.

Q: Mechs are a different story though as mechs themselves do not rank. When a ranked us vehicle dies a pilot ejects. Not with mechs.
A: Coding problem probably, IDK

Q: Idea is it should have an advantage and disadvantage. It should not trigger mines, float over water and not act as a tracked unit by lacking a level of control.
A: This is not reality, why shouldn't it trigger mines, why shouldn't it not be able to float over water and why not act like a tracked unit? It's just an upgrade to give it more speed. The Inferno Cannon may gain an AT shell but it's still an artillery right?
Then why do GLA upgrades sacrifice armor? For example GLA tanks gain wheels which gives them extra speed but reduces armor. Consistency please.

Q: True but this is the air general... Perhaps a stealth-able (with the comanchee stealth upgrade) little bird that has fireports? My point is air general lacks the ability to put snipers up in the air (and them not get shot down by any passing aa unit).
A: Kingmanches are considered OP by the balance team already, and they're getting nerfed, stealth and all. AFG lacks the ability to put snipers up in the air. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha. Hahahahaha. Ask Kamuik or Raptor. Besides, why the hell would you put someone there alone sniping people with no AT support? Unless you're being asinine on purpose, yeah. And no, the fighters (Especially the KR) are made to kill aircraft and the itty bitty tanks. If this "passing AA unit" is a threat why would you even put him there alone in the first place without sufficient Avenger support?
I am not sure what you are trying to explain. But parking a little bird with a sniper hovering over unpassable terrain is a tactical move. Unless the little bird is cloaked it would be an easy target. Not sure what's so funny but I am glad you are entertained.

Q: This is intentional. Stealth + EMP would be far too powerful.
So? Like alpha aurora isn't?
A: If you think the Aurora Alpha is overpowered [b]against anything other than antfantry and anything tougher than a dozer/humvee, ask the community who are not part of the team who have internal betas about what they think of the AAlpha, and those who play MP. Stealth + EMP is way too overpowered, no matter how you argue it.
Stationary defenses are stationary... Against a human player stealth is a mere irritation if you know where everything is.

Q: No. But the unit already carries a laser rifle... And the grenade is boring. 2 other colonel burtons have the same thing. Air Force generals burton is quite badass and is second only to the armor general one.
A: Boring or not, it doesn't matter. It's the gameplay that matters. There are only few who would go out of their way to watch that Burton stand there firing his grenades against the AI, and certainly none in a MP game will waste their time doing that because there is no time for eye candy.
Why not make the entire game made out of white boxes then?

Q: In that case if your base is in the middle of the map they'd be far too late. I'd prefer to use the specter gunship for that purpose as I can actually target...
A: Then don't get it in the first place...
I will be ignoring replies like this one now on since it serves to no purpose.

[White Cat]

Chinese generals:
This post will be edited multiple times

China seems to have fewer bugs and modifications to upgrades. As before I have no way to know if what I see different is intended.

Starting with duplicate upgrades...
China Special weapons general has two upgrades (napalm and gatling) that suffers the duplication issue. They have to be bought separately. Since they have different sprites I am inclined to believe this was intended. I can't see why though. Don't they have the same effect?
Both tank general and base china have seperate autoloader upgrade

General issues:
I think all upgrades in nuclear missile silo should be migrated elsewhere. I like how nuke and tank general have their own upgrade structures but even without them propaganda center is for such upgrades. In multi-player particularly I have had games with "no superweapon" rule but would have to tolerate nukes for upgrade only. This is only unpleasant.

Base china:
Doesn't seem to have any special unit aside from two air units. There is nothing special about this tech tree... Thats boring.

Special weapons general:
Mig afterburner upgrade is available despite the general not having a way to purchase it. Like before I do not mind this being there but would like to see more of this cross tech between generals.
Transport helicopters have a capacity of 4 preventing the ability to carry dozers.
The range of Hellstorm cannon is a bit too short.
Temple of Gaia's shots cause earthquakes. Which is fine. But people fly sky high during the shakes. They shouldn't be flying far and they shouldn't be flying high. Infantry shouldn't be damaged from quakes and tanks should recieve minor damage. More fragile units like nuke cannons are a different story altogether.
Propaganda center has it's own speaker system but no way to upgrade it. Since this general lacks propaganda towers perhaps the propaganda center should lack them too?

This post has been edited by White Cat: 10 Mar 2010, 20:57

[Destiny]

The 2nd reply is invalid, Scorpion wheels upgrade will be removed to make space for a mechanic upgrade for the Ambulance...and why do you refuse to use the edit button?

[wb21]

Q: No. But the unit already carries a laser rifle... And the grenade is boring. 2 other colonel burtons have the same thing. Air Force generals burton is quite badass and is second only to the armor general one.
A: Boring or not, it doesn't matter. It's the gameplay that matters. There are only few who would go out of their way to watch that Burton stand there firing his grenades against the AI, and certainly none in a MP game will waste their time doing that because there is no time for eye candy.
Why not make the entire game made out of white boxes then?

This is ain't no high-end ZH mod like Cold War Crisis.

...and why do you refuse to use the edit button?

↑↑ This

[Shiro]

Chinese generals:
This post will be edited multiple times

China seems to have fewer bugs and modifications to upgrades. As before I have no way to know if what I see different is intended.

Starting with duplicate upgrades...
China Special weapons general has two upgrades (napalm and gatling) that suffers the duplication issue. They have to be bought separately. Since they have different sprites I am inclined to believe this was intended. I can't see why though.

Mainly because White Napalm and Beetle Targeting Computers are ADDITIONAL upgardes and improve weaponry even further.

[White Cat]

Mainly because White Napalm and Beetle Targeting Computers are ADDITIONAL upgardes and improve weaponry even further.

Ah. Nice. Very nice. Is this cross tech capable? Would all my units benefit from it?

[Shiro]

Maybe. Depends on how it is programmed, but it should be possible. Like on the Soyuz, it could or could not work, because the Soyuz can become blue but not purple.

This post has been edited by KamuiK: 10 Mar 2010, 18:56