Howitzers again!? Options

[Darky]

So I know I've been insistent about this topic, but I've been playing some Contra recently and I saw that the fuel tubes they have can be selected in multiples and grouped together. After seeing that drag select picks them along with the dozers, it appeared so that these are actually units that can't move. There seems to be no problem with them however, and they can use their ability just fine when grouped (pressing the button makes them all eject fuel) The only difference between that and the ECA Howitzer I can see is that the ECA Howitzer needs to target and has a limited range but if these are indeed constructed (by a dozer) units disguised as vehicles shouldn't they just try to get in range to fire their ability (even if they never will, so probably stunning because they can't move) and like, not be dysfunctional in general?

And then again I've been told that if making Howitzers more convenient was possible, it would have been done, but it doesn't seem like I can forget about my little theories until I get an explanation about why this won't work.

Thanks in advance..

[Svea Rike]

Howitzers in ROTR are structures.

[Darky]

Doesn't mean they can't be changed to be units though.

[Composite armour]

Can Dozers build units?

[Darky]

As I said they seem to do in Contra.

[Svea Rike]

Yeah well Contra is not ROTR.

[Darky]

Yeah well Contra is not ROTR.

And you're not contributing or making a relevant point.

[Svea Rike]

I think I am, because Contra and Rise of the Reds are too different mods and I do not know the parameters of unit construction in Contra but in Rise of the Reds they are produced by factories, not dozers. AFAIK, the ECA howitzer is a structure and structures cannot be moved, so what is your point behind this?

[teslashark]

Can Dozers build units?

Yes, you can build a structure that contains a unit and script to delete the structure when the unit is finished.

[Darky]

I think I am, because Contra and Rise of the Reds are too different mods and I do not know the parameters of unit construction in Contra but in Rise of the Reds they are produced by factories, not dozers. AFAIK, the ECA howitzer is a structure and structures cannot be moved, so what is your point behind this?

If so, you're deluding yourself, as all you've said so far has been negative. Their difference is irrelevant, it's the same engine and there's anecdotal evidence that units disguised as structures can be coded (the fuel tubes can be drag-selected and grouped while being built by dozers). This leaves out whether or not it's viable for the howitzer, and since a particular team member said that they would have made it more convenient if they could, I assumed that it doesn't work elegantly for the howitzer. Which led me to ask why.

[XCABAL]

I would agree with this. With the new bloodhound system that let's you target anywhere on the field that a bloodhound is at it would be great to be able to have fire groups of howitzers to put mass fire on a spot at a moments notice.

[Karpet]

I think I am, because Contra and Rise of the Reds are too different mods and I do not know the parameters of unit construction in Contra but in Rise of the Reds they are produced by factories, not dozers. AFAIK, the ECA howitzer is a structure and structures cannot be moved, so what is your point behind this?

AFAIK, you don't code for SAGE. You also do not work on mods such as Contra.

Anyway, I do really want to be able to make howitzers fire at once. I'm all for this idea.

[Pepo]

Claymores anyone?

[Darky]

Claymores anyone?

Single general availability in 2.0 anyone? People actually care that everything can be used properly and not be overly limited by the human factor, anyone?

Seriously, we know that Claymores exist. This doesn't mean that Howitzers should be non-groupable.

[Svea Rike]

Oh, you meant having all howitzers fire at the same time, I thought you meant being able to move howitzers. My mistake.

[(USA)Bruce]

I cant spoil all the details on how the howitzer works becaue Im a tester and because I dont know the full details.But Sage B*tchslaping as it is....The howitzer does not fire the shells itself...Plus howitzers are the Microintensive part of ECA you shouldnt take that away from them, Otherwise we could just let howitzers give you china gp like side bar charges for shellings and be done with it.(That would cause problems with the howitzer itself big time)

The_Hunter can give a better answer but in short If it was possible it would be in game before you mentioned it.The howitzer is not a normal defensive structure or building, As for the units able to turn into buildings or vise Versa; The Mobile HQ for GLA should be an example of this If I had to guess..Or the battlebuss because the bunker mode is targetable by molemine layers.

[Mr.Kim]

*Facepalm* Seems you did repeat same question.

http://forums.swr-productions.com/index.ph...mp;hl=Howitzers

[XAttus]

Bruce is right, many newer players go ECA, build a fuckton of howitzers and hope they can win the game for them. So it should not be made easier, the quicker they realize it will never work - the better.

This post has been edited by XAttus: 24 Mar 2014, 20:06

[Darky]

I think it should be taken away, because it's just monkey work. You're really condensing your barrages, making 5 barrages fire at the same place at the same spot more easily does not really reduce micro, you still need to micro each one if you want them to fire at different spots. All this will achieve is that you can increase your firepower by getting more howitzers, instead of having to go back and forth activating every single one. It's a problem, one that is exasperated when the game is lagging which happens quite often.

Also, since they don't have infinite range, they can't be on the sidebar. Asked that one before.

And Claymores can be grouped, and once again, a particular team member did say that they would make it more convenient if they could, so your concerns are quite frankly, pointless as that's the ideal form the howitzer can have.

[MARS]

I've said it yesterday and I'll say it again: The_Hunter has been working with this engine for 10 years at this point. He's probably spent more time bending it with all sorts of tricks than the actual Gens/ZH devs. If there was any way to make Howitzer management more convenient, he would have done it but the fact that he hasn't should make it evident that there is no feasible, elegant solution that wouldn't cause unwanted side-effects.

[Darky]

So what happens when you try making it like those oil tubes? This thread wasn't really suggesting anything, I simply wanted to know why this approach was considered unfeasible.

This post has been edited by DarkyPwnz: 24 Mar 2014, 20:23

[Karpet]

I cant spoil all the details on how the howitzer works becaue Im a tester and because I dont know the full details.But Sage B*tchslaping as it is....The howitzer does not fire the shells itself...Plus howitzers are the Microintensive part of ECA you shouldnt take that away from them, Otherwise we could just let howitzers give you china gp like side bar charges for shellings and be done with it.(That would cause problems with the howitzer itself big time)

The_Hunter can give a better answer but in short If it was possible it would be in game before you mentioned it.The howitzer is not a normal defensive structure or building, As for the units able to turn into buildings or vise Versa; The Mobile HQ for GLA should be an example of this If I had to guess..Or the battlebuss because the bunker mode is targetable by molemine layers.

I suppose it would make sense if a Battlebus was hit by a mole mine
And also terrifying

[Zeke]

So what happens when you try making it like those oil tubes? This thread wasn't really suggesting anything, I simply wanted to know why this approach was considered unfeasible.

If the howitzer was made to be a vehicle:

1. If you select it, then ask it to move, the move cursor will appear, even if you make it so that it can't move.
2. Dozers cannot repair vehicles.
3. Pressing Q to select your attack force will also select your howitzers.
4. Hijackers would be able to steal howitzers.
5. Neutron weapons would destroy howitzer's in one hit. (not sure if this is already the case)
6. Howwizer's will count as units destroyed instead of buildings destroyed in the scorescreen.
7. Jaeger's abilities will no longer work on the howitzer.

there are probably more, but these are the only ones I can think of atm based on how rotr is setup.

The point is, trying to trick the engine by changing one type of object to another often brings more problems than solutions, I understand that you're only asking because you want to understand, but you have to understand, we've been doing this things for years, we know what we're doing, and it may not seem like it to you, but to me it's very insulting whenever someone who doesn't even know how to mod insists upon their ideas as if they do.

If you really can't stand "not understanding" then maybe you should make your own mod, perhaps even just a mini mod that mods rotr (modception), so that you can try things for yourself and understand how stuff works. That's what I did. I wasn't very happy with some of the changes in ShockWave as well, before I thought the team just liked over complicating things, but while working on my own mod I learned that SAGE sucks balls, and most of the time you need to do really complicated things just to make even simple features in the game.

[BliTTzZ]

Do you remember the mission from the USA campaign, where you can bombard the coastline with battleships? On the right of your screen placed an image-button. It shows how many barrages you have and also you can order your ships to shoot by one barrage per target. So these ships are like units that can't move, or structures?

[Zeke]

Do you remember the mission from the USA campaign, where you can bombard the coastline with battleships? On the right of your screen placed an image-button. It shows how many barrages you have and also you can order your ships to shoot by one barrage per target. So these ships are like units that can't move, or structures?

Those are structures.

And before anyone thinks of suggesting that this be done to the howitzer's in rotr, let me prempt that by saying it's not going to work because howitxer's don't have unlimited range like those battleships.

If you use the battleship method you won't know which howitzer will be selected and if said howitzer is out of range it will not fire thus breaking the button for all the other howitzers since it will never switch to a howitzer that is in range.