Goddamnit why doesn't datarealms release screenshots of new content regularly :/

Have they been known to be friendly to their fanbase?
They are better known for being detached, very detached from the fan base.

It was more of a wistful comment than anything. It seems a little decadent to call it "too hard" to screenshot something, write a paragraph and hit "post" on a blog.

Or, according to the "main person", being to busy to spend two minutes in doing so.

1.) How fast should the game go? If you're familiar with the term "timescale", then tell what value would work the best?

Your opinion: Well I'm not sure about values, but I think that the AI moves too quickly. The player is only able to command 1 body at a time, along with the semi-retarded go-to, sentry, and digging AI, but the enemy AI commands all of its bodies smarter than the player's AI units but not as good as the player. Of course there is strength in numbers. So, either make it easier for the player to command more and get stuff more quickly, or make the AI a bit slower. I do like some long games, but if it gets too repetitive then I hate it.


2.) How resilient should weapons/tools/grenades be? How many hits can they take before breaking?

Your opinion: Well most weapons are made mainly of metal right? Gun barrels are the major part of a gun and are always harder than bullets. I think weapons should be resilient to most bullet and kinetic based weapons (high powered shots like the heavy sniper rifle should break them a lot easier), but be very vulnerable to explosives and melee weapons/tools that can be used for combat (i.e. the MDC plasma cutter or vault-tec steel saw). Tools are not built for the strains of combat, but are built for the strains of industrial work. They should be somewhat tough. Grenades and bombs are very flammable and should explode when shot once or twice.


3.) How should items and objects be priced? How to determine the cost of objects (guns, units, bunker pieces/modules)?

Your opinion: Pass.


4.) How should weapon range work?

Your opinion: If you are prone or crouching and aiming, weapon range should be increased somewhat over standing and aiming. Otherwise I like the way it is.


5.) Should craft/transport be expensive instead of cheap?

Your opinion: Definitely. I find myself all too often just suicide bombing with craft. Expensive craft will motivate players to get their refund.


6.) Should bunker concrete be impervious/invulnerable/resistant to diggers?

Your opinion: Bunker concrete should be very very resistant to diggers. I'm talking it will take a lot of time for a heavy digger to get through a small amount of concrete. It's not even worth using light and medium diggers on.


7.) How should we name stuff? Should we use serials/code/type/acronyms/other conventions within the names of units, weapons and craft? If so, how would they look like? Any cool ideas on naming? Share!

Your opinion: Well, I would say each faction have a sort of distinct naming. The Ronin, more rebel types would give their equipment nicknames or keep the same old names of the weapons. The Coalition, the military type faction would might have acronyms for their weapons. The Whitebots/Dummies would have serial codes, along with the general type of the weapons (i.e. DH21 Laser Rifle)


8.) In what style should item descriptions be written?

Your opinion: Well I think they should point out the pros and cons of the weapon so players know exactly what they are getting.


9.) What would the best visual style for projectiles be? Especially bullets. Like what colors and how long the trails should be if visible at all?

Your opinion: I like the current bullet style. Projectiles from and explosion like an exploding craft might have a smoke trail, but most other projectiles would just be plain flying around.


10.) What resolution is Cortex Command made to be played at?

Your opinion: The default resolution works just fine for me.


11.) Should diggers be effective only against terrain, but do nothing to units/objects? Should they be harmless against soldiers?

Your opinion: Yes. Diggers are diggers, not face blenders. They should be harmless against units, maybe have some pushback force. I think diggers should be weaker against objects.


12.) What would be the best style for explosions and fire? Minimalistic and realistic effects or over the top smoke and flames? Or somehow else?

Your opinion: Pass.


13.) Should soldiers collide with each other?

Your opinion: Yes. Some parts currently are kind of annoying like when you accidentally step on your commander's head and it explodes, failing the mission. Units should be more resilient to collisions and not just fall over like a bag of sand.


14.) Should jetpack emission be deadly/harmful to others?

Your opinion: No. There've been plenty of spots where someone in a group of units decides to use a jetpack and kills everyone as they lift off.


15.) Should bursting with jetpacks be kept the same or limited with delay between bursts?

Your opinion: Bursting should be unlimited.

=SURVEY END=

1.) How fast should the game go? If you're familiar with the term "timescale", then tell what value would work the best?

Your opinion: Its fine as it now.


2.) How resilient should weapons/tools/grenades be? How many hits can they take before breaking?

Your opinion: Its fine as it now. Just fix the bug when grenades explode in hands for no reason.
On the other hand i think a slight durability buff wont hurt.


3.) How should items and objects be priced? How to determine the cost of objects (guns, units, bunker pieces/modules)?

Your opinion: Grenades=5-10, RemoteExplosives=15-25, Pistols=10-25, SMGs=25-40, Shotguns=40-60, AssaultRifles=50-75, SniperRifles=50-75, Machineguns=75-85, GatlingGuns=90-100, Flamethrowers=75-100, GrenadeLaunchers=75-85, RocketLaunchers=90-100, LightEnergyWeapons=50-100, HeavyEnergyWeapons=100-200, Shields=15-30, Diggers=15-30
Thats the price for basic particle sprayer weapons.
Weapons that have some special function must cost more.
Bunker Blocks imho should be free cause we can only place them before skirmish mission begins.


4.) How should weapon range work?

Your opinion: Bullets should use Air Resistance + Life Time, i used them both in my mod and i liked the result.
The catch is to make bullet dissapear before the bullet completely lost all its velocity.


5.) Should craft/transport be expensive instead of cheap?

Your opinion: Crafts expensive, durable and safe to use (maybe with some guns to fire back), crates cheap and risky to use.


6.) Should bunker concrete be impervious/invulnerable/resistant to diggers?

Your opinion: Every material should get increased resistance. MegaMetal should bounce off most of the projectiles. And if i may add, make new terrain types such as redsand, and black mud.
BTW make undestructible material aswell, who knows where we can use it =)


7.) How should we name stuff? Should we use serials/code/type/acronyms/other conventions within the names of units, weapons and craft? If so, how would they look like? Any cool ideas on naming? Share!

Your opinion: Leave it as it is, but give every unit/item ID parameter so that we could have units with same names but not conflicting with each other.


8.) In what style should item descriptions be written?

Your opinion: Both, parameters: weight, rate of fire, clip capacity, range, damage (VeryLow/Low/Medium/High/VeryHigh) and some backstory. I Think it would be cool to have description window to be seperated in 3 parts. First show it stats, second show weapon history, and third some promoting commercial.


9.) What would the best visual style for projectiles be? Especially bullets. Like what colors and how long the trails should be if visible at all?

Your opinion: Current projectile colours are too bright make them a bit more orangy and the trail length, it depends on the weapon itself (small arms - smaller trail, heavy weapons - longer trail).


10.) What resolution is Cortex Command made to be played at?

Your opinion: i play on the lowest resolution, on high resolution everything is so small you cant see sh*t.


11.) Should diggers be effective only against terrain, but do nothing to units/objects? Should they be harmless against soldiers?

Your opinion: Please make deal smaaaaaal damage to units.


12.) What would be the best style for explosions and fire? Minimalistic and realistic effects or over the top smoke and flames? Or somehow else?

Your opinion: Grenades should use more realistic explosion, while Remote Explosives and Bombs could use some extra boom.


13.) Should soldiers collide with each other?

Your opinion: Yes they must, thats one of the best part of the game, though maybe remove collision with friendly units if possible. Anyways this feature one of those that requires a "on" and "off" function.


14.) Should jetpack emission be deadly/harmful to others?

Your opinion: Please make them harmless, lost count how many times i died of someone jetpacking over my head.


15.) Should bursting with jetpacks be kept the same or limited with delay between bursts?

Your opinion: Fine as it is now. But i would prefere different units to use different jet packs.

1.) How fast should the game go? If you're familiar with the term "timescale", then tell what value would work the best?

It depends on what gameplay you have. If you play one-man-ninja-hero, just like in earlier builds, than current game feels veeery slow. Especially when you're walk somewhere. That's why I always flying with burst everywhere. When you operate in with a dozen of units in RTS style, then you need more time to give orders or look over battlefield. Personally I'd like little more speed, because I usually have ninja-style gameplay with other units waiting in background / guarding. That would make AI more dangerous even in it's current state. And reduce the amount of unnecessary jetpacking.


2.) How resilient should weapons/tools/grenades be? How many hits can they take before breaking?

Weapons should last more than bodies, so you can pick them up after killing someone. Currently you hit weapon 3 times and then finish unarmed actor. Grenades should take a single hit to explode.


3.) How should items and objects be priced? How to determine the cost of objects (guns, units, bunker pieces/modules)?

I think that auto mining would fix the issue with prices. Something simple like "Dig directly from here to there" would be fine, because currently you send unit somewhere in the ground checking if it selected a suicidal path or not.

4.) How should weapon range work?

So many potential problems... Maybe greatly increasing air resistance once bullet flies beyond weapon range?


5.) Should craft/transport be expensive instead of cheap?

Cheap and dangerous rockets and 3-4 times more expensive and safe crafts. Price penalties for crashed crafts maybe?


6.) Should bunker concrete be impervious/invulnerable/resistant to diggers?

Resistant but not totally invulnerable.


7.) How should we name stuff? Should we use serials/code/type/acronyms/other conventions within the names of units, weapons and craft? If so, how would they look like? Any cool ideas on naming? Share!

Bare codes are confusing. I think every faction should use it's own naming convention. [modifier]<WeaponType>[code/name] scheme should be enough. Ex: [Heavy] <Shotgun> [M9], [Long Range Turbo] <Laser>, [Ultra Long Range] <Sniper Rifle>, [Big Bertha] <Cannon> (swap type\name when totally necessary). Name parts: M and X codes for coalition (like in US Army, M-16, X-10), nicknames for ronin (Sakura, Bertha, TommyGun or whatever), Type (Like chinese and korean weapons) HEX for dummies (Type 0A, Type FF).

8.) In what style should item descriptions be written?

Commercial and humorous but truthful would be great.


9.) What would the best visual style for projectiles be? Especially bullets. Like what colors and how long the trails should be if visible at all?

Everything is ok now.

10.) What resolution is Cortex Command made to be played at?

1024x768


11.) Should diggers be effective only against terrain, but do nothing to units/objects? Should they be harmless against soldiers?

Agree with you. Maybe harmful at a very close range.


12.) What would be the best style for explosions and fire? Minimalistic and realistic effects or over the top smoke and flames? Or somehow else?

More destruction, less effects. Terrain particles will have more CPU to spend.

13.) Should soldiers collide with each other?

Yes.

14.) Should jetpack emission be deadly/harmful to others?

No.


15.) Should bursting with jetpacks be kept the same or limited with delay between bursts?

Keep the same. At least you have a cheaty way to fly constantly if you don't have enough patience to walk.

I don't actually play a lot of CC (I mostly just '♥♥♥♥ around'), so take this with a grain of salt:


1.) How fast should the game go? If you're familiar with the term "timescale", then tell what value would work the best?

Arne: Feels good to me as it is, but this is because I prefer to play with few actors. See my next comment. I can imagine that it gets real hectic with tons of actors out. Minimap / overview screens could make it more manageable too.




2.) How resilient should weapons/tools/grenades be? How many hits can they take before breaking?

Arne: Personally I don't like the faster paced, busy, expendable actors/weapons gameplay much... but for a slower pace to work, the CC engine needs to not kill valuable guys in quirky accidents. I'll mention this again in my later comments.

I also agree with WeeGee above.




3.) How should items and objects be priced? How to determine the cost of objects (guns, units, bunker pieces/modules)?

Arne: I don't know, but if a weapon has a good mechanic, and feels good, I'd balance the price rather than the behavior of the weapon.
The cost of the bunker modules is calculated by counting material pixels (and cost) now I think. Or did I implement that in my bunker cutting program? I don't know. Maybe it just very stupidly calculated area. Displacement of terrain might have to be considered too?




4.) How should weapon range work?

Arne: It's not a good thing that you miss out on most of the cool action when shooting off screen hoping to hit stuff. Wide screen resolution has alleviated this problem a little, but I'd really like to see some shorter weapon ranges. Yeah, some kind of friction could lessen the speed and thus damage of a bullet to the point that shooting off screen is a waste of ammo.

Infinite ammo really adds to the problem here. I'm not really a fan of the infinite ammo mechanic because it feels like I should be shooting all the time and so should my AI comrades. On the other hand it's annoying to fetch ammo, and the AI comrades would be too stupid to do that. Again, since I prefer a game with less actors out it's not a huge problem for me to nanny a few actors.

Uh. Reloading could use Gold, like arrows in Zelda 1 uses Rupees? I can't think of anything else. I'd think twice about spamming bullets all over the place if there was a cost other than the tactics of reloading. I find it just frustrating having to wait for a magazine change. I don't like being frustrated!




5.) Should craft/transport be expensive instead of cheap?

Arne: More expensive, and more reliable. I can even imagine cheating here and making the jets harmless to friendlies. I don't like the frustration of losing cargo due to bad drops, especially since I want the game to be more contemplative, with fewer units involved.




6.) Should bunker concrete be impervious/invulnerable/resistant to diggers?

I think that the concrete needs to hold up pretty well against both weapons and diggers (especially against antiques like an AK-47). Remember that a pixel is about 5 cubic centimeters, and we're talking sci-fi concrete here. The bunker metal is even more resilient. However, it's a problem that you can sometimes flip a guy and easily remove terrain this way, and if that's easier than using a digger or explosives, then something is wrong.

I imagine that a light digger is for dirt, a medium can slowly go through concrete, and a heavy slowly through the bunker metal parts. Slowly meaning... like when they bust a big safe in movies, that kind of feeling. Bunker busting explosives would be cool too. I'm talking about some kind of guided thing that pops a neat hole. (Someone have probably already made this.)




7.) How should we name stuff? Should we use serials/code/type/acronyms/other conventions within the names of units, weapons and craft? If so, how would they look like? Any cool ideas on naming? Share!

Arne: I was thinking that the white bots would use energy weapons or something which looks like it (DaTa doesn't like energy weapons), so they could use more exotic energy weapon names and you'd know what faction the weapon belongs to from the name. The Coalition guys would use kind of standard weapons. Still, it's a tricky question:
Generic: Shotgun
Affectionate: Shotty
Code: SG-70
Person name: Wimbleton-70
Mythology name: Zeus
Cool word: Devastator
Artsy: The Clavian spectacle
Emo: Nocturnal death




8.) In what style should item descriptions be written?

Arne: I remember thinking about this, but did I write anything down?

SG-70 "Zeus"
The SG-70 is an old reliable medium size shotgun which was given the nickname Zeus by the Eminence Taal-Bax of Procyon. The Dignitary grew fond of the weapon during his Wumpus hunting trip on Cursa.*

Note that this is a reference to a story that I wrote elsewhere, I like tying things together a little, but still keeping it loose. Anyways, something to add fluff, perhaps text from a fake encyclopedia with trivia?




9.) What would the best visual style for projectiles be? Especially bullets. Like what colors and how long the trails should be if visible at all?

Arne: Personally I'm not a fan of fast/hitscan weapons. I believe that it's fair to allow the other player to at least react a little to incoming fire. I think DaTa prefers more realistic weapons though. I'm OK with the look of the trails. Actually I haven't even thought about them.




10.) What resolution is Cortex Command made to be played at?

Arne: I play it in 840 * 524 x 2 in my iMac 24". I quite like 2x. It would be neat if enemy actors are only drawn if within a certain radius of friendlies and sensors, but that's a brain fart. I think a larger problem is weapon range as discussed earlier.




11.) Should diggers be effective only against terrain, but do nothing to units/objects? Should they be harmless against soldiers?

Arne: I don't like how diggers are insta death for most actors either. Perhaps an new type of acid digger can be devised? Feels inconsistent to make actors invulnerable to some physics effects. I guess one could excuse it with... no, if troopers have been made invulnerable to diggers, then they would've made bunkers that are too, and only loose dirt would be vulnerable.




12.) What would be the best style for explosions and fire? Minimalistic and realistic effects or over the top smoke and flames? Or somehow else?

Arne: I'd like the game to be more held back, leaving 'Excessive' to the modders. I think it's important to show the radius of damage well, so a few larger explosion sprite anims or just more particles at the center would be welcome. Also, sometimes I shoot stuff and there's an explosion and nothing takes much damage.

Oh yeah, I'd like to see a smoking... little thing that lies there... smoking, puffing. A little longer I mean. It would make crash sites look atmospheric and tie them into the present, rather than pushing them into the past after a short while. It could be like a small piece of ember or whatever that works as a long term emitter.




13.) Should soldiers collide with each other?

Arne: Tough one. Sometimes it's nice being able to stand on things, and sometimes it's frustrating getting stuck and dying. Also, I think the engine draws stuff in the material layer so I'm not sure if you can detect friendly flagged actors easily. It would be neat with a game setting for it, I guess.




14.) Should jetpack emission be deadly/harmful to others?

Arne: See my opinion on the dropship. I think it should be harmless, even against enemies. It doesn't add a lot to gameplay being able to squirm around over an enemy and kind of haphazardly perhaps kill him. It's certainly annoying to kill friendlies this way.




15.) Should bursting with jetpacks be kept the same or limited with delay between bursts?

Arne: I'd like to be even more grounded, perhaps puffing around, making tall jumps. Also, losing the legs shouldn't allow you to hover around forever (then why would actors have legs at all?). I don't know if this could be fixed by lowering the weight of legs and increasing the weight of torsos (remember that the heavy jetpack is mounted on the torso). The infinite fuel is contributing to the problem. Legs could still make sense if the fuel for flight was expensive/limited. I hate fuel in games though.

Thanks Prom, finally get to hear your side of the gameplay.
Your answers really gave me some good food for thought about all the things that were covered in the survey.

Thanks! And thanks to all others that are taking time to answer this survey, I'm going through every post personally to see what the people think.

1.) How fast should the game go? If you're familiar with the term "timescale", then tell what value would work the best?


I like how it is

2.) How resilient should weapons/tools/grenades be? How many hits can they take before breaking?

A couple shots should disable most but it would need to depend on the type of guns involved.

3.) How should items and objects be priced? How to determine the cost of objects (guns, units, bunker pieces/modules)?

No opinion


4.) How should weapon range work?

Depends on how much you are moving.


5.) Should craft/transport be expensive instead of cheap?

Yes and much more durable I think it would be nice to have a few crafts with guns too. Also you should be able to land drop ships It annoys me to no end that they must hover instead of safely landing.


6.) Should bunker concrete be impervious/invulnerable/resistant to diggers?

Yes but breaching weapon should exist


7.) How should we name stuff? Should we use serials/code/type/acronyms/other conventions within the names of units, weapons and craft? If so, how would they look like? Any cool ideas on naming? Share!

No opinion


8.) In what style should item descriptions be written?
No opinion


9.) What would the best visual style for projectiles be? Especially bullets. Like what colors and how long the trails should be if visible at all?

No opinion

10.) What resolution is Cortex Command made to be played at?

640x480 although I wish it was clearer and had more detail


11.) Should diggers be effective only against terrain, but do nothing to units/objects? Should they be harmless against soldiers?

Less damaging on armor but otherwise just as deadly.


12.) What would be the best style for explosions and fire? Minimalistic and realistic effects or over the top smoke and flames? Or somehow else?

over the top


13.) Should soldiers collide with each other?

Yes


14.) Should jetpack emission be deadly/harmful to others?

Only to unarmored like the zombie otherwise there should be no damage.


15.) Should bursting with jetpacks be kept the same or limited with delay between bursts?

Stronger than they are now but less bursting.

Added the results of the survey. Tell me what you think of them.

Seems relatively ok, I like the 'diggers are heavy duty tools' thing.
Woulda been cool with some missions where you have to do the impossible with five of the most hardcore soldiers you can get hold of.

I think your results are great numgun.

Personally, I think that jetpacks should damage actors, because there IS fire spewing out the back of the guy, but that's just my opinion. Other than that, looks good!

Very nice, I'm definitely looking forward to the finished product.

I like the results very much. The flexibility of the organics being able to pass through each other is very useful.

Also, I have a question about the explosions (excluding flammability):

Are the explosions going to be modeled after the Crobo explosions? Because by far, it seems to be the most realistic and aesthetically pleasing explosion animation.