Annatar's pretty much got the ideal solution down, and the way he proposed it shouldn't be too ridiculous to make work (still a waste of time IMO, but...) and it will look good with very few mistakes.

eh someone beat me to the punch, but removing or not removing animated turrets would not in any way effect game play if one person has it on and another does not.

The cacualtions it would take to do such a triggered event are so minor , the game may take another 30k of memory to do it. Flagging objects in a game is as simple as an on/off switch.

What the true issue here is time and money it would take to add this edition to the game and as the dev said, not at this time.

Last, the one thing I have noticed that I and others have asked is for more details in the game, there is that running theme that people as myself want to see a breathing universe and the devs in our chat on IRC a few days ago hinted they want the exact thing. Never say never and if this game is a hit, you will undoublty see an expansion with such wishes added.

Who am I? just a coder for years and years doing these kind of things daily, it is very possible. There is nothing in gaming that CAN'T be done, it is the matter of time and money and finally priority. Give me enough time , I could make a ship dance and do a giggle if I was a dev on this team, but in the end it really comes down to what is a want and a need. I want turrets to rotate to target, it would be dam cool! But I need to have the ships actually work in the game first


salu!

chaintm AKA xnode

Begging your pardon, sir, but the problem with adding this as an option is not the memory or processing power, it's the problem of desync in multiplayer matches. Following the assumption that a turret may only fire when lined up, the desync will be inevitable - as I see it, this isn't a matter of coding, it's of practicality.

It's been established, though, that this assumption isn't necessary, and as long as this assumption doesn't exist (or an alternative one such as Lightzy's suggestion with a fixed delay before firing so that an option isn't necessary in the first place) I agree with you. I don't know much about coding, but I'm sure time and money and sufficient petitioning could grant changed meshes and movable turrets.

(Alternatively again, the option could be made only to be available in single player matches.)

Like I wrote in my post, this is the misconception. The physical appearance of the turret has absolutely nothing to do with the particle effects/damage dealing of the shot itself.

Actually, an easier solution than lizzies would be to just make weapons firing a purely graphical occurrence, which can vary from ship to ship, and have damage be unlocked from the shots. (Which they already almost are...) There would be a slight oddity as the first and second salvos would be closer together than the rest, but thats negligible -- and gives the "turrets don't move OMG WTF" group their moving turrets.

That's already how it works The weapon fire itself is nothing more than the engine drawing particle effects. Ships taking damage is not directly tied to it (or, shouldn't be).

For easy proof of this, remember that missiles do damage to moving ships even though often you see the missile still in flight after the damage is dealt.

It works *almost* that way, but don't forget that the graphics are tied to weapons "firing", which does the damage (am I making sense?). You'd have to re-write the code involved to include bringing the turrets to bear.

Then I back down


and


You guys know more about coding and whatnot than I do. Thank you for the rational argument
Can't wait for that expansion then

That's what I thought too... now I'm confused...
Annatar said (the way I interpreted it) that the appearance of firing is completely independent to the firing itself.
But Ron says the delay in the appearance of firing affects the calculation of firing, and the time before damage kicks in etc.
At least the way I see it.
Am I right here?

"Annatar said (the way I interpreted it) that the appearance of firing is completely independent to the firing itself.
But Ron says the delay in the appearance of firing affects the calculation of firing, and the time before damage kicks in etc."

Technically the graphic bullets/rockets/whatever we see fired off are just that, a graphic. We could disable the graphic entirely and the game would still calculate that there was a shot fired, that the enemy took X damage, etc. So Annatar is sort of right, the graphics are independent of the firing. But his idea is rather goofy. To leave the firing as is and just adjust the visuals to match the slower tracking... you are going to have the first wave of smaller ships in every encounter spontaneously explode with no visuals fired at all, very lame. It is slightly annoying to see bullets firing from wrong-facing turrets, but to allow the bullets to fire without playing the animation at (until a few secs later when the turret catches up), that's just sloppy. Better to see a muzzle flash fom the wrong direction than not see one until after the shot has killed you, especially in an alpha strike scenario.

I am fairly sure none of the other suggestions so far have even hinted at purposefully messing with the firing/calculation synch. For the "realism first" folks complaining about wrong facing turrets this graphicless/delayed-graphic shots should also be unappealing.

You could always delay the blow up graphic until after the shot impacts

Ron, that solution is pretty ugly I think, and not more simple than mine. It creates 'visual desynch'.. a ship loses hitpoins and can actually die without anything even being seen to fire at it.
It can create a whole host of ugly situations.

a 1-2 second delay between acquisition and first fire is an elegant solution, I feel. Extremely easy to calculate, makes the turret rotation graphic optional (and would not be noticable to anyone who has it turned off. after all, its 2 seconds), *should* be relatively easy to implement no matter how the code is written (just delay the whole graphic and event for 2 seconds).
The downside is that turrets will move at varying speeds, but thats not really a downside. It might actually look cooler since turrets on different ships and different places will be moving at different rates of rotation, creation a richer visual experience

Making moving turrets an option isn't an option for reasons already stated.

I think the animation code is in the game, but we will need the dev's to confirm this. I'm sure in a future expansion, or mods rotating turrets will show up.

The developers said the main reason the animations were left out was so that the game can be played on the widest range of systems possible. Read the post about the dev's wanting the game to be sold. It wont sell if most of the target audience cant play the game due to high end system requirements like Sup Com, or Crysis. Im sure people who are stuck with AMD Athlon 1900+'s, and gf6600's are just rushing to go buy those games. Hell people with top of the line systems still have trouble playing Sup Com at decent framerates.

Most of the computer "leetist" here will just say "upgrade" your computer then. WHY? If that were the case we would have to upgrade, or buy a new system for every new game that is released. That is exactly what the "other" big name game developers want you to do. Not Stardock. The sad part is most people are stupid enough to waste their money upgrading their systems for that shiny new game. Then turn around, and diss the people that refuse to do it.. Hence the term "leetist"

Another thing they'll say is "don't buy the game then". That is probably the smartest comment i've seen about this issue. If only a small percentage of high end hardware can play a game at a half ass decent framerate THEN DON'T BUY IT. Stop the damn cycle of force upgrading.

Major Stress provides a neat summary of what I think, adding of course the reasons stated for making the moving turrest an option.



I still think Lightzy's idea is an excellent, neat, and practical solution to the problem. His way leaves the option for an option, in my opinion, since no extra CPU processing would be required and any further rendering from the GPU would be minimal; it's so elegant to delay every craft's firing for, say, 1 second exactly from acquiring a target to give time for turrets to move to the required position. If such an option were disabled, say by a low-spec player, the firing delay might remain at 1 second with no renderings - this would eliminate the desync risk, since the effect would cancel out on all ships.
I don't know about you other guys, but I think this is the only real option to accomodate all players, and leave the option for an option, so to speak.
I think I overused the word "option" here

But even then we are talking about a 1 second delay until fighting starts when ships move into range, and an additinal 1 sec delay for any ships needing to acquiring a new target after an old one is destroyed. It might look nice and seem simple but suddenly long range attack craft have their balance screwed up since other ships can get ino range quicker.

And there will be no stopping fighters/bombers if this goes into effect.

I don't really mind the nonrotating turrets becasue there are not that many blatant turrets sticking out of ships. The only ones that look really weird to me right now are all those little guns on the flak ships. I kind of wish that, since the devs knew they were not going to rotate turrets, they make them liss high profile on some of the ships

If the 1 second delay were universal, the effect would cancel out except, as you say, for the fighters and bombers. And 1 second really isn't all that much of a difference, is it? I mean, sure you might say "every second counts" in tactical combat, but in the end it comes back to the fact that it all cancels out.
Could you please explain how the long range attack craft have their balance screwed up? I don't quite understand your point there, though I see fighters and bombers (especially bombers) would have a slight advantage on flak frigates.
I think any further balance issues might be resolved with time, or with development of the animation - remember, this is a somewhat theoretical discussion, isn't it? Though it does all seem like much ado about nothing, if you'll pardon the expression.

Yeah, I'm not too cut up about non-rotating turrets; it's just an interesting exercise trying to figure out a practical solution

Hi all one thing I think we forgetting is in home world the cpu did not have to also deal with income from a vast empire and all the ai that goes with that as well as pirates and black market as well.
The map size of home world and home world 2 and home world cataclysm well local,

ie you jump into a prerenderd map and that’s it you did not go from different planet to planet or have defence turrets to deal with or economic infrastructure as large and as complicated as this games as well as all the ai the poor cpu has to do.
I’m sure if it was plausible the devs (not being idiots) would have put it in, BUT since not everyone has uber dooper super gooper machiens it makes since that they dropped it to get more sales
Yes it would be nice BUT id rather they make a successful game that allot of other people without uber dooper super gooper machiens can play.

Just my 2 cents and no I’m not a game dev or a moder but thing Ron Lugge and Kilumanjaro made very valid points

(Sigh).......The devs didn't put it in because they felt it wasn't necessary, not because it wasn't plausible. And I've never heard of economic management (on any scal. perhaps hundreds of ships) lagging a game, that's definitely a new one for me.

hi there hefly
when combined with the scale of the game it is something else that the cpu has to calculate.
what i was tiring to say is that, the scale of this game is far larger than the scale of any home world game and as a result it has allot more to calculate, so, it makes the moving turret theory taking up to much calculation time on a slow machine plausible, when combined with all the other things the cpu has to do.
Then add the sheer scale of armies in this game compared to home world and there might be a good reason for it not being implimented
As for why the devs have not implemented it i cant say as i was neither a beta tester and am not in contact at all with the devs.
yet another two cents   

ps do enjoy the humer on these forums as well as the debates

I’m sure that is a reply to the request for a patch to animate the turrets after the game has been released and not as to why they left it out in the first place

I knew it, everybody loves animated turrets!
What I said earlier, polishment is what you need when you want people to stick with your game, so if not in a patch then maybe in the 1st exspansion?

Ah, but the visual desync exists anyway. We're just taking advantage of it.

Try playing a solo map with 30-40 planets, and stuff 'em all full of trade centers. Watch the lagging begin.

Doesn't that sort of answer your own statement?

That game IS five years old, you're completely right. Less Graphically demanding, Less demanding on the CPU (It's AI is nowhere near as good as SOASE' by all accounts)

To keep all the features we know and love about Sins, animated turrets are going to have to be sacrificed as they'd add extra strain on GPU (Rendering) and CPU (Computations)

Then obviously you haven't read the "entire" topic, but are trying to justify the absence of turrets by any means necessary, with only a few, experienced individuals providing any real concrete info. Random people have provided reasons that run the gamut, from "my computer is too slow" (no matter the graphical settings or one's processing power, since the game supposedly can accommodate some pretty outdated contraptions ) , to turrets bringing computers to their knees (worse than the first argument), despite EvilJedi (who I wish would return) providing information the contrary; to players saying the a.i. can't handle it, and now people are speculating if even the developers consider it plausible (despite the fact that they clearly intended to put in, but considered a waste of resources and unnecessary.....




Doesn't that relate more to having too many ships on the map, as opposed to the a.i. struggling with the economic side of things? (number crunching)?




Computers were also infinitely slower at that time, turrets (contrary to the argument) didn't bring the game to a crawl, there is no proof that turrets would've seriously affected anything (speculation), but to the contrary. etc. Less "demanding" is also subjective, since this game is intended to run on older machines. Also, HW2 had some pretty impressive a.i. at the time, and still does. Just reasons why someone might have brought that up. I don't have an answer either.



As I said previously, this discussion really isn't going anywhere, is it? The developers aren't going to put it in yet (perhaps never), and some one (if feasible) might have to mod it in.........That's about the gist of it. This really wasn't that significant.