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December 2003 |
| Checkin' Out! | | - MooMan65 | December 22, 2003 | Well, I'm off! My family and I will be leaving for Arizona, USA by this time tomorrow for a three week holiday/family reunion and consequently I will not be around to do any project or website work during this time, nor will I not even be available for answering e-mails and chatting on ICQ/MSN. This will be my last newspost for the next few weeks (not that they come all that frequently anyway), and I'm posting this one day in advance so if people wish to urgantly contact me they should do so within the next 12 hours. Otherwise be prepared to wait a long time for a response otherwise.
I am aware that I did say I would try to get beta-testing invitations out before I went, but things happened that pushed back the schedule a bit. This is why I never want to give dates out as the release of vBulletin 3 Gamma earlier in the month caused me to spend a lot more time on the forums I was upgraded than I had originally planned. So needless to say the beta will be sorted out after I come back.
Since MooMan's Corner isn't the large site my previous site MODDEN was, me being away for three weeks will not really affect too much around here, as the majority of my work is behind-the-scenes anyway. You'll see another newspost from me here when I've returned. Also the current poll on the Chrono Miner will run until I get back.
Until then enjoy the rest C-GEN has to offer! | |
| New Month, New Poll! | | - MooMan65 | December 1, 2003 | And so December comes rolling along (has 2003 really gone that quick!?) and its as good a time as any to make a decision on the three units and structures that have been under the spotlight in the past month. I have made decisions for all of these options now (at least for the first beta) and the public opinion has helped dramatically.
-Prism Tank: Very nice result here, it seems most people shared my outlook on Railgun technology and prefer it in use to Prism lasers. As a result of this the Prism Tank will hereby be referred to as the Rail Driver! The actual specifications of the unit and weapon will for the most part remain the same as the Prism Tank (minus of course balance adjustments) apart from the image and sound of the weapon itself. Also now the weapon will not bounce off targets onto others (not that that was realistic with Prism tech anyway), rather now the Driver will actually damage anything it fires through with around the same damage as the fragments from it's predecessor, friend or foe so you will need to be careful as to how you group them. If you're played Tiberian Sun you should know what to expect.
-Mirage Tank: Now this was a tricky one, while the majority went for the Phase Tank option which is what I initially did myself, I can't ignore the fact that there still is a decent amount of people who want it kept the way it is. While it's unrealistic in it's current state, it DOES open up for a lot of neat strategies since it doesn't totally become invisible, while if it did you can just leave the tank anywhere without worry. I have decided for the first beta to actually leave the Mirage Tank as it is for now, as I'm not as sure about it as I am with the other options and I'd rather work on them for now and get back to this later on.
-Prism Tower: Finally we come to the other Prism contraption. As pointed out rather intelligently by Gario in the comments: One reason you didn’t like prism technology is because it was so sudden, you had the new Prism Tanks and Prism Towers at the same time, no idea of development. Why do the same thing with Rail Gun tech?. Quite rightly so, as the Rail Driver now exists I don't want to do the same thing as EA and make it widely available already, so keeping this in mind I have decided to go with the Gun Turret in this case. While the Rail Tower did receive the majority vote I just also thought about how practical it would be in practice considering you may end up damaging your own base rather badly if enemies just happen to be near them when they fire, it's much more practical to have it mounted on a platform that can adjust it's course to compensate.
So there you have it. Finally there's one more unit I need to decide. The reason why I did not include the Chrono Miner with the rest of them before was that I wasn't thinking too much that I wanted to replace it. Even now I'm still not sure even if I want to consider changing it as Chrono technology can be allowed to develop more widely since it was introduced in the last game, however I do want public opinion on this matter so to help me come to a conclusion. The new poll question is (just one this time sorry):
"What should the Chrono Miner be replaced with?"
The bottom choices are the same as the other polls in case you prefer the standard courses of action (keep it or suggest another idea), here are more detailed descriptions on the two top choices:
-Amphibious Miner: If you've played MooRules (or any of the other mods that include them) you'll know how this works. It's pretty self explanatory anyway as it is, if changed the Allied basic Miner will now be able to access any part of the map normally blocked or restricted by water passages. This allows Allied players to completely block off their base to normal ground units while they can still maintain an economy, as well as possibly accessing those hard to reach areas much more quickly than their Soviet and Yuri counterparts. The only problem here is that the effectiveness of this Miner all depends on the type of map you play on.
-Stealth/Phase Miner: If I were to decide between the choice of Amphibious or Stealth/Phase Mining it should be this choice, although this would only be nicely added if I were to change the Mirage Tank as well so the technology is developed. The Stealth Miner uses the Phase Tank technology from the last Red Alert game to allow it to collect resources unobserved by enemy forces. This fits into the Allied doctrine that they are less aggressive than their Soviet and Yuri enemies and allows them to gather ore and gems more effectively. Obviously if enemies looked close enough they would see the resources disappearing as they are mined but that's encouraged. Rather than easily knowing where resources are being harvested, if you're playing against the Allies that luxury becomes warped. The other disadvantage is, like Tiberian Dawn, enemy infantry if they are close enough can 'hear' the motor of the Miner and can pinpoint it's location for others to fire at it, but because it is cloaked by default is a major advantage in resource collection.
I've said all I can, now it's up to you to vote!
To make things easier, I've split up the Past Polls page into separate pages for each past poll as it's getting rather large. And here are the last poll results for those of you too lazy to click  :
"What should the Mirage Tank be replaced with?" [108 votes total]
-Phase Tank (40)
-Stealth Tank (29)
-Remove Completely (6)
-Other (comment please) (7)
-None (keep as it is) (26)
"What should the Prism Tower be replaced with?" [83 votes total]
-Gun Turret (22)
-Railgun Tower (38)
-Other (comment please) (6)
-None (keep as it is) (17)
"What should the Prism Tank be replaced with?" [79 votes total]
-A Rail Tank (51)
-Remove Completely (5)
-Other (comment please) (7)
-None (keep as it is) (16)
Also I actually want to specifically reply to some fan comments this time around rather than just list them. So those of you who posted them stand by!
Some Fan Responses:
-assassyn: Hey man, glad to see you're so excited to post comments.  Anyway, a Stealth Tank lover eh? To be honest the Mirage Tank's weapon is perfect enough for power. It's projectile is instant so if you weren't paying attention you wouldn't even know where it was coming from. If I end up going with the Stealth Tank idea the weapon probably will remain the same, although that can change. In response to your Prism Tower comment, aren't you glad you won't have to deal with the 'insane' power of a Prism Tower again! Then again you won't want to be sending only armour against Gun Turrets either.  Oh, and about the Parabombs, believe me if I do at all release another update for MooRules that's one of the things I'll rebalance!
-frost bite: Why does your antimatter idea scream 'STAR TREK!' at me? Well until that's actually developed properly in real life I think I'd rather go with more 'common' experimental technology like Railguns. Besides, all it'd be if I did put it in as a weapon would be a huge explosion, and people see enough of them when you have normal tank battles.
-Blade606: Sounds like you're all for Railgun technology!  I was thinking about your Hijacker idea when I was typing up my explanation on how Railguns could be used to kill off the drivers only. This would be great in Generals but the logic doesn't exist in RA2/YR I'm afraid. The closest probably anyone could get to it was when you fire the gun on a target it stops in it's tracks (like an EMP). However as soon as you fire on another target your previous target can be moved again by the enemy so it defeats the purpose of it killing the driver. I'll keep this note in mind if I ever get a better computer that can run Generals. Hehe.
-Zero: EMP Tech only freezes units though, so effectively it'll only be an infantry killer which is kinda limiting.
-mrruben5: Your idea about the two Prism units working together, well I don't quite get what you're meaning. If you wish to explain it better I'm available by email.
Sorry if I didn't reply to your comment personally, I'm mainly sticking to reply to people who have suggested or talked about things that could use feedback, rather than a simple comment. But I thank everyone for their comments in the last three polls!
One more to go now anyway, vote away! | |
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