My Thoughts On Panther Tanks

[CK9]

Most of my knowledge currently is within the design of the chemical processing equipment required to create a product.  Some of the surrounding subjects may come in useful for helping to explain some things (thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, etc.), but there are a lot of things that come down to basic physics that don't require special training to explain.

[Highlander]

I think the reason Panthers are unused is sort of two-fold.

First off, is that Tigers and Lynx offers "more" in one package than Panthers can do.
- With Tigers you get double the firepower and more armor. Both of these wins out against other units, primarily in defense but also in offense in the late game. (Going against a defensive line made up of or reinforced with Tigers either requires Tigers in return or massive losses before punching a hole. On offense, the Tigers are slow, but their Armor/Firepower has so much momentum that an advancing Tiger army is hard to slow down or stop)
- With Lynx, you get mobility and equal firepower to Panthers. Here speed really is the key. (Preferable to go around your enemy or attack a weak spot)


The other side of this issue is the cost. Like someone already said, once you can get Panthers, you can usually also start getting Tigers - if not right away, then soon after.
When Tigers are researched, you usually end up getting either Lynx or Tigers - depending on the situation and use, rather than Panthers, since Tigers only cost a little bit more Panthers.
(I don't remember the ore cost differences, but they always seemed small to me - at least compared to the benefits the Tiger chassis offers)



So my suggestion to balancing the Panther - and make it a more useable unit(*):
- Panther: Small ore cost increase, small Armor increase (?)
- Tiger: Increase ore cost (Significantly ?), Lower speed (By 1 or 2 levels ?, Researchable upgrade? **), Small armor increase (?, researchable ?)

* These suggestions should be easy to implement, with minimal coding involved unless I'm mistaken
** As I understand, unit speed is set on specific levels. So one could lower Tiger speed by 2 as a default, then offer a research which increases speed by 1.



EDIT: Details.

[Hooman]

I believe there is a slight technical problem with adding upgrades, in that the game only seems to support two upgrades per unit type. There is space reserved in the UI for two upgrade strings to be displayed when you have a unit selected. If the unit ends up having three upgrades, I believe the game can seg fault.

I suspect most units already have two upgrades available in the tech tree. In which case, you'd have to remove one to add another, or you'd be stuck modifying how much it upgrades.
 

[TH300]

So my suggestion to balancing the Panther - and make it a more useable unit(*):
- Panther: Small ore cost increase, small Armor increase (?)
- Tiger: Increase ore cost (Significantly ?), Lower speed (By 1 or 2 levels ?, Researchable upgrade? **), Small armor increase (?, researchable ?)

* These suggestions should be easy to implement, with minimal coding involved unless I'm mistaken
** As I understand, unit speed is set on specific levels. So one could lower Tiger speed by 2 as a default, then offer a research which increases speed by 1.

We could lower tigers' speed. But that is risky, because it can break existing missions, where you could be screwed if your tanks don't move to a certain position soon enough, or the ai messes up, because it assumes that tigers have a certain speed.

Increasing tigers' ore cost sounds good, but that could make certain missions pretty hard, where the ai will get the same amount of tigers, but you can only effort less.

Panthers' armor is (after research) the same as tigers' and hit points are only marginally lower. I see no room here.

[Spikerocks101]

Mind you, currently, the missions work with the current settings. Honestly, I believe we are generally talking about multiplayer right now.

[Highlander]

Yes, my suggestions are directed towards multiplayer - which is where the game needs balancing.


Hooman - The researches are minor details. Would be nice to add, but if it's hard, then it's better and easier to just focus on tweaking the #'s - be it for armor or costs.

[TH300]

Yes, my suggestions are directed towards multiplayer - which is where the game needs balancing.

Changing multiplayer while keeping singleplayer unchanged is a really bad idea imo. It eliminates the use of singleplayer missions as training for multiplayer (and, yes, although multiplayer and singleplayer are quite different, some tactics, including micromanagement of tanks, work the same way in both).

[Lugia3]

Someone could rework the menu, if it is possible without the source code.

An option to use Standard, mt2 (if applicable), etc.

[Highlander]

Well TH300, keeping the same mechanics present when the game rules are so different is really what creates the need for change..

[CK9]

I suspect most units already have two upgrades available in the tech tree. In which case, you'd have to remove one to add another, or you'd be stuck modifying how much it upgrades.

I'm not 100% sure, but I could have sworn there were 3 upgrades for the earthworker (increased speed, increased hitpoints, and a note about the special wall it can build)

and while attempting to confirm one way or the other, I found this:

http://strihm.darkbb.com/t78-outpost-2-guide

[Lugia3]

Is that... another "secret training camp"?

It seems that they know about Hamachi and other OPU advances.

[CK9]

A lot of games have been using ham, especially for making a limited-capacity private server.  If that topic were more recent, I'd invite them over.

[Hooman]

I don't think being able to build extra wall types counts as an upgrade to the Earthworker. I think it's more like how structure factories and vehicles factories can build more units when the unit's enabling tech is researched. There is a unit type entry for the walls, so they can be enabled/disabled just like other unit types.

The issue is actually more about the tech providing an upgrade string that's displayed in the unit details pane on the right side of the screen when the unit is selected. The text may be required for certain upgrades too.


@Lugia3:
Menus have been updated in the past, but without source code it can be a fair bit of work. It helps to have a pressing need and a well thought out plan before that happens. Also, how does this affect multiplayer games? How does the host select a rule set, and inform other players of it, or at least prevent cryptic checksum errors, or worse, game desyncs or crashes. I think you'd need to upgrade the network protocol for this to be possible, and work nicely. That's also a lot of work, and with a lot more potential for things to go wrong.
 

[CK9]

It would be nice if we could get that source code =/  I doubt it exists uncompiled anywhere anymore.

If I knew how to, I'd offer to spend some time looking at the multiplayer menu to see if it would be possible to add more options in any way.

[Lugia3]

Speaking of the source code, did Eddy-B rewrite some of it for Renegades?

[CK9]

I think he used the "traditional" method of custom .dll files to force the game to do things it really wasn't designed to.

[Hooman]

If I knew how to, I'd offer to spend some time looking at the multiplayer menu to see if it would be possible to add more options in any way.

You can check out the NetFix Client source code. It needs to modify the multiplayer menu. Mind you, in that specific case, they did have some nice hooks you can use to attach functionality to each of the buttons. Changing what they did was relatively easy. Changing the number of them may be a little different though. You might also change their text with a resource editor. I've done it once with a hex editor, but that limits you to strings that are no longer than the original.

Also, the menus after the protocol selection can be completely custom. I've had thoughts of updating the pre-game start window once. It annoyed me how you couldn't adjust certain settings, like the max number of players, without cancelling the game and booting everyone out. Mind you, customizing the pre-game setup window would likely also entail reworking the network protocol for the pre-game setup. At the time, I opted to just use the existing window to limit the scope of the project.


But this is starting to get a little off topic. Might need to split this thread if things go too far astray.
 

[CK9]

The problem isn't the availability, it's the background knowledge.  I only took a very basic C++ course, and while PHP is based on C, it's not similar enough (as I have found out previously) and I am far too much of a novice  to be able to read other c-based languages.

I guess I just chose the wrong major, heh