DTA Bugs and suggestions, Superb mod! Options

[SMIFFGIG]

Ok I have just been playing DTA 1.04 for quite some time, great mod, it really just like TD

Well anyway like any mod which is work in progress it has bugs and tweaks needed, I have been noting everything whilst playing to hopefully help you out



Here goes:

- Dead bodies do not appear, when you do implement this, they should stay on the ground for some time

- Old Eva/CABAL for Bulding on/off line and building captured

- Projectiles simply disapear if the unit cloaks or is destroyed before they reach target, SSM Launcher and other rocket projectiles are good examples, they should keep going and explode when they hit the ground

- Tiberium does not do as much damage as in TD, needs to deal MUCH more

- Some of the Explosion anims do not have attaching sounds, check the map with civ buildings, they make no sound when destroyed, nor does the Mammoth tank shells when exploding AFAIK

- SSM launcher and Flame throwers do not cause forest fires !?

- APC does not have a turret (it did in TD and RA1) the image is there but it does not move thus the entire vehicle has to turn to fire

- I think airstrike should be a crate goodie

- Roads look very odd on the minimap (due to them being buildings) they seem to clutter it rather then add any use, maybe they should not be viewable on the minimap as they are just a nuicence and make it harder to find units on the map

- I have only played on Easy, but the AI often target random units around the map rather than take out my buildings with there Ion Cannon. Threat values and/or Ion Cannon targetting .ini settings need fixing

- A-Bomb caused a weird tile bug in the strike location when launched (not when detonated). Also its spread damage seems abit buggy, I targetted enemy base between 3 buildings and a building on the other side of the viewable screen exploded ?!!?

- I think a-bomb launch anim needs to be longer (now with ppl playing TD on Hi-Res same applies to Nod airstrip

- The turrets (turret) seems to have some weird black pixels on it, most noticable when facing TS N or TD NW

- There is no water animation, in TD/RA1 the water had animation, subtle but noticable

- Flame throwers dont seem as effective as in TD

- Chem spray infantry, did they not turn inf into viceroids, if not, what is the difference between them and Flame throwers, also didnt you need to build the "Chem Research Facility" which was cut from the game, thus the unit was only available in certain Covert op missions ? If they are to become useful i think they need to have some additional features

- Chinook has no select/attack etc voice

- Bridges dont seem to be destroyable nor properly targettable, also as bridges are not techinically bridges anymore but buildings, i think the "Destroyable Bridges" option in the menu needs to be removed, unless u plan on making bridges using the TS bridge logic

- Artillery is very bad vs buildings and very inaccurate, it needs more spread damage and needs to deal more damage to buildings, it cant even destroy sandbags in 1 hit sometimes taking 3 or 4 due to inaccuracy and low radial damage

- Commando sniper seems to have a larger than normal radius damage ?



All in all it is a very good mod indeed, the air unit voxels look like the TD shp's which is amazing (minus the rotors) and every else seems pretty much spot on
I hope this helps you for upcomming versions,
I really do hope you manage to suss out how to get 32 facings on units, this is the only main thing missing from this mod (and rotors but lets not get into that). Its weird how .shp turrets can have 32 facings but the unit itself can only have 8 !?

Once again great work on this mod, in a few more versions this could definitly be a classic, also I view it as "Tiberian Dawn" which will finally be moddable
When you have perfected and polished the TD Game you could even make a TD mod if ya get me


Thanks

Almost forgot here is a screenie which explains some of the bugs better

-SMIFFGIG

Attached File(s)

 DTA_bugs.JPG ( 115.13K ) Number of downloads: 2

 

[Bittah Commander]

Thanks for the bugs report, SMIFFGIG, I'll see what I can do about them

- Dead bodies do not appear, when you do implement this, they should stay on the ground for some time
I'll try to implement this with the next release.

- Old Eva/CABAL for Bulding on/off line and building captured
Nyerguds just sent me an edited version of the "GDI/Nod building captured" speech, so I'll implement that one with the next version of DTA.
Edit: Nyerguds also just managed to make the "building on-/offline" speeches, so I'll implement those as well

- Projectiles simply disapear if the unit cloaks or is destroyed before they reach target, SSM Launcher and other rocket projectiles are good examples, they should keep going and explode when they hit the ground
I'll try to do that (I take it this is done by removing "Proximity=yes"?).

- Some of the Explosion anims do not have attaching sounds, check the map with civ buildings, they make no sound when destroyed, nor does the Mammoth tank shells when exploding AFAIK
I didn't know that... I'll check it out.

- SSM launcher and Flame throwers do not cause forest fires !?
I never really payed any attention to that, but I'll make sure to fix that for the next release.

- APC does not have a turret (it did in TD and RA1) the image is there but it does not move thus the entire vehicle has to turn to fire
Like Carno and Nyerguds said, it isn't an actual turret (there isn't one that can rotate in TD and RA either).

- I think airstrike should be a crate goodie
That's not a bad idea, but I'm not sure whether I could get that to work. I do know of a way to get it to work without the A10 being destroyable however...

- Roads look very odd on the minimap (due to them being buildings) they seem to clutter it rather then add any use, maybe they should not be viewable on the minimap as they are just a nuicence and make it harder to find units on the map
Yeah, I noticed that too. Unfortunately "RadarInvisible=no" doesnt't seem to work... I already got Gangster working on some real roads (as in terrain roads, not building roads) for me however, so this should no longer be an issue once Gangster finishes.

- I have only played on Easy, but the AI often target random units around the map rather than take out my buildings with there Ion Cannon. Threat values and/or Ion Cannon targetting .ini settings need fixing
I actually pretty much copied those values from TS, but I'll look into it.

- A-Bomb caused a weird tile bug in the strike location when launched (not when detonated). Also its spread damage seems abit buggy, I targetted enemy base between 3 buildings and a building on the other side of the viewable screen exploded ?!!?
The weird tile bug is most likely terrain deform and there are no new graphics for slopes (so you get to see the TS slopes with the wrong palette)... The reason it occurs is that the map you were playing on doesn't have its height set to 0 (this isn't Warlord's fault, since I didn't mention this in mapping topic).
The damage spread for the Nuke is indeed very buggy(it uses a particle system), but right now it's the only method that seemed to give it a proper spread and doesn't guarantee to destroy whatever building it hits (this does happen when I use debris for the spread, like the nuke in ROTD does). I'm hoping to find a better method for this...

- I think a-bomb launch anim needs to be longer (now with ppl playing TD on Hi-Res same applies to Nod airstrip
I might make the launch anim longer in the future (though I'm not sure whether too big SHPs would cause problems), but for now it's not that important. I can't make the animation longer for the air strip, because that would mean it'd take longer for the plane to arrive and currently the time for the plane to arrive already causes every second cheap unit to be built (like the buggy) to be canceled (so if you queue up 5 buggies, only 3 will be built). This issue is also present in TD, aside from the fact that "Ready" will appear over the buggy's cameo and you can click it after the plane dropped off the buggy you previously built (I'm not sure whether it's possible to do this in TS as well, though it would only slow down the production even more).

- The turrets (turret) seems to have some weird black pixels on it, most noticable when facing TS N or TD NW
I never noticed that. I'll take a look at it.

- There is no water animation, in TD/RA1 the water had animation, subtle but noticable
According to Nyerguds this animation was actually made by the palette itself (the colors the water uses constantly change back and forth). It isn't impossible to do for DTA, but it might cause a lot of lag for people and would certainly cause reconnect errors online.

- Flame throwers dont seem as effective as in TD
I actually thought I got them exactly right... I'll compare them again.

- Chem spray infantry, did they not turn inf into viceroids, if not, what is the difference between them and Flame throwers, also didnt you need to build the "Chem Research Facility" which was cut from the game, thus the unit was only available in certain Covert op missions ? If they are to become useful i think they need to have some additional features
According to the TD manual the Chem Warriors were buildable in multiplayer. The chemical spray is indeed about as effective against infantry as the flame thrower is, but it's more effective against buildings and units. Making Chem Warriors turn infantry into visceroids actually isn't such a bad idea, but I think they're a little too cheap for that.

- Chinook has no select/attack etc voice
I guess I looked over that... I'll fix that.

- Bridges dont seem to be destroyable nor properly targettable, also as bridges are not techinically bridges anymore but buildings, i think the "Destroyable Bridges" option in the menu needs to be removed, unless u plan on making bridges using the TS bridge logic
Bridges weren't destroyable in TD either, so there isn't really a reason why they should be in DTA. I was indeed thinking about removing the "Bridges Destroyable" option from the multiplayer options, but I decided to leave it because I do have plans to add real bridges in the future.

- Artillery is very bad vs buildings and very inaccurate, it needs more spread damage and needs to deal more damage to buildings, it cant even destroy sandbags in 1 hit sometimes taking 3 or 4 due to inaccuracy and low radial damage
I'll look into that. I don't think I can make walls destroyable in 1 shot of anything however...

- Commando sniper seems to have a larger than normal radius damage ?
It does? I'll take a look at it...

All in all it is a very good mod indeed, the air unit voxels look like the TD shp's which is amazing (minus the rotors) and every else seems pretty much spot on
I hope this helps you for upcomming versions,
I really do hope you manage to suss out how to get 32 facings on units, this is the only main thing missing from this mod (and rotors but lets not get into that). Its weird how .shp turrets can have 32 facings but the unit itself can only have 8 !?

This indeed should certainly help upcoming versions of DTA, so thanks again for the bugs report. I also really hope I'll get the 32 facings to work one day, it would really improve the mod a lot.
You got Muldrake to thank for those aircraft voxels in TD btw

Once again great work on this mod, in a few more versions this could definitly be a classic, also I view it as "Tiberian Dawn" which will finally be moddable
When you have perfected and polished the TD Game you could even make a TD mod if ya get me
Thanks

That was actually the idea I was having myself for the early releases of this mod

[SeekSomethingNew]

This indeed should certainly help upcoming versions of DTA, so thanks again for the bugs report. I also really hope I'll get the 32 facings to work one day, it would really improve the mod a lot.

I still cant work out that dam calculation it does

EDIT: It does some strange division... We need to test this more Johan.

This post has been edited by TSHyper: Nov 13 2007, 10:11 AM