Upcoming features, predator ramblings, and so on

[Abbysynth]

Hi, just thought I'd check in because I haven't posted in a bit.

I've been working on a lot of upcoming new stuff. It's hard to believe sometimes that we're still barely a month out of a completely new codebase, and much of the new stuff we have is written from scratch! Everyone's shown a lot of support for Alpha but we've still got a pretty long way to go yet before I'm satisfied with what we have.

Here's some stuff I've been working on, and should be finished in about this order:

* A new xeno caste! They will be a somewhat flimsy ("glass cannon") tier 3 praetorian alternate evolution. They are big, obvious targets - they even glow in the dark - and many of their best abilities require them to stay still for significant amounts of time. While xenos are not traditionally a "hit things from a distance" species, it's fair to say they would adapt in the face of large, open spaces, and no doubt there were many exotic species on LV-624 at one point to evolve from. It might be breaking lore a bit, but xenos need something to get marines out of their comfort zone.

* Distress calls! When marines are starting to lose, instead of just retreating back to the Sulaco and squatting there for an hour, they should have alternate choices. Some new admin toys will be in this update as well.

* Projectile rewrite. Projectiles currently are.. a little messed up. Bullet pathing is crude and often results in missing targets you should hit, and hitting targets around walls or corners that you shouldn't be able to hit. Not only that, but bullets & casings (deleting them, specifically) contribute to most of the end game lag. I have a rewrite already planned out that should hopefully deal with most of these issues.

* Which brings us to one of the biggest projects: Optimization. After the last few features are finished, I'm going to be going over the vast pile of code we have and making as many optimization and efficiency fixes as I can. This means culling out a lot of unused code, scrutinizing our game profiler for inefficiency, and possibly removing some of our features in order to save on CPU cycles. The biggest culprits are BYOND's garbage collector (deleting objects), atmospherics, and powernet machinery processing.

* Eventually we'd also like to have random map cycles - randomizing the planet Z-level so that we go to other places instead of just seeing the jungle every day.

* Other gamemodes are also planned as well, not just aliens vs. marines all the time. More maps will open up the possibilities for this, but mapping takes a lot of time and hard work. Most mappers have a great idea for a map, work on it for a few days, and then completely forget about it when they get stuck somewhere. Dedication is the key!


Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to talk about Predators.

I'm not happy with how they turned out, and I know I'm the worst of everyone when it comes to sticking with the Predator lore (which we don't actually have anywhere other than the honor code, which nobody was consulted with when it was written by Apop). I think the largest issue is that they really have nothing to do besides kill things, which makes it far too easy to get used to just massacring things all the time. They are supposed to be powerful, that's why there's only a limit of 3 of them that spawn. I think when Predators get their own ship with things to do on it it will alleviate this. But I also think if we are going to finally open the Yautja for public consumption, then they need to be a lot weaker. Whether this means weaker armor, weapons, or abilities is hard to guess at this point. I've been toying with ideas of making their cloak not just an instant toggle, and that's probably the direction I'll go, but in that case they also need ways to not get knocked down so easily, which opens a whole new can of worms. Things will change with them, that's for sure.


Colonial Marines has always been a game about stories. Classic CM was crude in its ability to display an atmosphere to players-- you had to suspend your disbelief much more often in order to get into the mindset of either a xeno or a marine. I think Alpha's atmosphere has improved significantly, but there's still a lot left to do. Balance will go back and forth depending on the changes we make and the current metagame (I mean the current overall strategies, not in the breaking-immersion sense), and will be constantly tweaked until we find as perfect a balance point as we can get.

Keep those suggestions coming, keep playing the server, and there's no reason we can't be #1 on the hub for months more down the road. Things have improved a lot and they're only going to get better, just show some faith.

Abby

[K0NFL1QT]

Good stuff, except this.

It might be breaking lore a bit, but xenos need something to get marines out of their comfort zone.

Not like Ravagers and Crushers can already destroy all marine defenses, with Spitters and Praetorians harassing with acid spits from afar or generally circumventing entire defended areas. Not good. Not good at all. Unless, of course, Marines are getting the combat exo soon?

[Sargeantmuffinman]

Okay.......

[Keyword]

Good stuff.

[TopHatPenguin]

What exactly will you be changing about the bullet paths, abs ?

[Jeser]

Good stuff, except this.
Not like Ravagers and Crushers can already destroy all marine defenses, with Spitters and Praetorians harassing with acid spits from afar or generally circumventing entire defended areas. Not good. Not good at all. Unless, of course, Marines are getting the combat exo soon?

Agree, I tensed a bit on reading this sentence.

[AncientV25]

* A new xeno caste! They will be a somewhat flimsy ("glass cannon") tier 3 praetorian alternate evolution. They are big, obvious targets - they even glow in the dark - and many of their best abilities require them to stay still for significant amounts of time. While xenos are not traditionally a "hit things from a distance" species, it's fair to say they would adapt in the face of large, open spaces, and no doubt there were many exotic species on LV-624 at one point to evolve from. It might be breaking lore a bit, but xenos need something to get marines out of their comfort zone.

Completely unnecessary. With the current castes, xenos can already curbstomp the fuck out of marines. They don't need anything more just to hammer that extra nail in the coffin.

[Abbysynth]

What exactly will you be changing about the bullet paths, abs ?

I made a diagram explaining how bullets work:



You can see the difference right now in the pathing differences between bullets, and flamethrowers. Flamethrowers use get_line, which draws a line using Bresenham's line algorithm and returns a quite accurate and efficient list of turfs - the flames are dropped each on these turfs and it's done, where projectiles use Byond's built-in "step_towards" method, which tries to take a cardinal direction (or diagonal) step between each turf to try and reach the target. Problem is step_towards is really bad at drawing actual lines, and so bullets will smack into walls even when you can see the target perfectly fine, or depending on your facing will curve around walls that you would never expect them to.

Completely unnecessary. With the current castes, xenos can already curbstomp the fuck out of marines. They don't need anything more just to hammer that extra nail in the coffin.

You are incorrect, marines currently win the majority of games.

[TopHatPenguin]

SO basically you will be fixing this problem https://gyazo.com/3a30ca657db300f2c4751a12a7978e8a ?

[Steelpoint]

What are the win rates between the two sides?

Furthermore do you have stats that differentiate based on certain factors such as population size, time of day and the date (to account for balance changes).

[Dalavi]

You are incorrect, marines currently win the majority of games.

Abbs, I'd quite like a citation here, because it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. Though good work with the other stuff, the new bullet pathing looks lovely especially.

[Gentlefood]

Abbs, I'd quite like a citation here, because it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. Though good work with the other stuff, the new bullet pathing looks lovely especially.

Personal experience statistics do not make. I'd say marines have won 70-90% of the rounds I've played recently.

[Abbysynth]

Rahlzel recently added a tracker that keeps track of rounds, I don't remember the exact numbers but marines are definitely in the majority the past week or so especially.

[speedybst]

I started that round_stats log 5 days ago - Marines have won 24 Major Victories. Aliens have won 7.
This was Rahlzel just two days past. I'd say that's fairly clear.

[Lostmixup]

what about alien minor victories? that's what they mainly get

[Abbysynth]

Alien minor victories only happen when there's an evac shuttle, which very rarely happens anymore because you need admins to call it.

[Artyom]

Just make it so the bullets go in straight lines, diagonally, vertically, and horizontally.

[Lostmixup]

Just make it so the bullets go in straight lines, diagonally, vertically, and horizontally.

I like the strait lines, but having a tiny bit of curvature doesn't hurt.

[GingerCultLeader]

I like this promise of better bullet pathing. Sometimes they don't go where you aim.

[Snoopy11]

Alien minor victories only happen when there's an evac shuttle, which very rarely happens anymore because you need admins to call it.

I think it should be tracked, though. Just to make sure that the numbers are there.

[Abbysynth]

I think it should be tracked, though. Just to make sure that the numbers are there.

As I already said, it is tracked.

[Rahlzel]

As of 2015-08-20 (~6 days):

Alien Major: 11
Alien Minor: 6 (Evac)

Marine Major: 30
Marine Minor: 0 (Both sides die - rare)

Draw: 0 (Nuke)

[apophis775]

Yea, however, from what I understand, most marine victories are from turtling.

[spheretech]

marines turtle long enough to kill alot of aliens then just counterattack