And they aren't already useless? Assuming my ships weren't stupid enough to jump in right on top of them, just fly around the cannons. To really be effective, cannons should be placed right up against whatever they are protecting, preferably a few repair centers and a bunch of hangars.

I'm pretty sure they already can? I'm pretty positive I've seen 'em firing off-plane.



Huh? This has pretty much nothing to do with MP -- if there's an advantage to using the Z-Axis, it already *will* be exploited in MP. I was just looking for the AI to use it itself.

Yeah, they can. I'm guessing that Nova seriously misunderstood the point.

Yep.

I replied to the following.



Then obviously you aren't going to be able to avoid them if they, as Kryo said, can fire in all planes.

Secondly it further invalidates the call for z axis movement if both ships and turrets can reach you by simply turning a little, irregardless of where you're moving at.

Schematicninja argues that it adds tactical depth.



And I just don't see it. None of you have made any examples so far throughout this thread, towards what you would like to be able to accomplish, that you can't already do in Sins, given how the gravity wells are setup currently.

As the game stands, 3D won't really add much tactical depth.

Modders will make maps that WILL take advantage of 3D though. Let's just hope the game supports the kind of modding that involves random placement of planets/stars on the z axis, as well as z axis building options.

You don't quite understand. He's used to thinking in a 2D format that lets you put a "ring" of defenses around an area. But if you can fly over that ring, you're now inside the vulnerable parts of the base (what he's talking about).

Problem is you can't ring your system with these, so thats a moot point anyway. Its far more effective just to place the cannons on top of anything that needs defending.

In a the proper, spherical environment of space combat, volume, relative velocity, and comparative axis would be MAJOR factors when assaulting a system. if the planet defenses are on the far side of the planet from you, obviously they would not be able to fire on your fleet. If you made it full 3d, these would all become large factors.

die

No, that wasn't was I meant. The problem is imho the following: For what are you using gauss cannons? Either to defend orbitals or to defend the planet.

If you're defending orbitals, you have to clump them together or I'll just fly around them (over, under, left, right, whatever) and go for the planet first or I'll snipe the gauss cannons with bombers and LRMs. For this case gauss cannons are slightly effective in protecting.

If you want to defend a planet with gauss cannons, I'll just fly to the north/south pole of the planet and bombard it from there with siege frigates. Gauss cannons can't reach me there. Of course I could also fly around the planet and attack it from behind.

Of course you can't ring your grav field with defenses effectively anyway, but a third dimensions gives two more ways to avoid gauss cannons.

there are plenty of examples, you just happen to be disregarding them.

by the way: I dont see what "complexity" could POSSIBLY be added by making the system far more INTUITIVE. I swear, the first thing that is going to be noted in articles is that 3-D is both a huge flaw in game mechanics and is simultaneously a HUGE pain in the ass to pull off if you want to go through the arduous process of crossing your hands to hit the tilde key. I know for a certain fact that those two things will piss off 90% of space RTS fans, then all you are going to be left with is the 4x fans, who already dont seem to like the idea of the game.


you sacrafice tons to run this gamble because you dont see the simple facts:
1) the system needs to be reworked entirely anyway, making 3-D intuitive is the least of your problems, and stands also to be the best of your gains (or, rather, the best loss of a stupid failure)
2) building in 2-D is an unbalanced system when movement is possible in 3-D, again I can send my siege frigs around on a planet with an unbelievably heavy defense and, unless there are supporting frigs around (which there probably will be, even if there are, I could use my fleet to kill those) I could dump on that planet all day without an issue.
3) combat is simply not photogenic in 2-D, I rather despise the fact that all of the photos released to us are so obviously staged. I mean, even as a consumer that simply pisses me off.
4) now for the tactical reasons: combat in 3-D allows for more holes to be chosen in the attacking of a system, currently making a planet a fortress (forget the 3-D movement for now) is as simple as ringing it with 3 repair platforms, a shield battery, two or three hangers and a shitload of gauss. I can reduce the largest fleets of mine enemies to wimpering ashes without even having to look at the grav well, LAME. that turns defensive battles into either the smart kind, where all my defenses are completely bullshit useless, or are so effective taht they are worth 10 times their weight in gold.
5) battle in 3-D is by far more depth based. currently ships do not move beyond a certain "close in" range, in 3-D depth is important because ALL angles of a ship's firing can be used even if the ship isnt completely surrounded. this makes tactical moves like rushing instead of sparring while hanging back important tactical decisions.
6) it allows the battles to be more fluid and lifelike than simply sparring semicircles, which look like crap I might add. not to mention when you work in 3-D working by sparring off one ship at a time is not nescessarily as effective as spreading damage out or attacking a specific, backline target
7) while ships do not have front/side/back armor, they do have ark ranges, and attacking from one direction sometimes proves more effective than simply going straight in at your enemy
8) it also allows you to dodge your enemy fleet if you dont want to nescessarily come into contact with them. say you're running to the opposite side of the grav well, your enemy (either on autoattack or moving to keep you from supposedly bombing his planet) goes around one side of the planet, basically your options are: charge through his line or go the other way around. if the 'other way around' is gauss cannons then you're stuck. 3-D allows you to try and make minimalist or maximalist decisions that are not otherwise utilable in 2-D

not to mention I seriously thought we were promised 3-D after the disaster that was SotS

ha,ha,ha,ha ... sad but true ...

I actually feel there should be less 3D not more. Since I don't they will implement a good and true 3D and even they did I think its overall impact is low, since its a 2d solar system, that they should just cut it out entirely. The only strategems I see possible are mostly abuses that the AI won't handle well. Take out the ~ key and bingo things work fine.

If you can't do 3D right, scrap it. I would love 3D I would, but right now I feel that since most games evolve into a process of one big fleet hitting one spot at a time, there is little need for such nuances in combat. There should be, but this only becomes needed with superior AI, which will suffer from 3D implementation, not benefit.

Currently I find my ships occasionally drift up or down anyways, which slows them a little bit, and annoys me more than anything.

but they can do it right! easily!

if you can do it well...
no, **** that. if you can do it at all, DO IT!!!


I stand by what I said earlier: this game completely alienates pure 4x fans, and has as of now very little enticement to RTSers, if it wants to get a serious following it needs to do its BEST at BOTH. right now its purely failing at RTS for some really really basic and easily fixed reasons.

I'd disagree with both of those statements. I agree it needs serious work, but its not as bad as you portray it to be.

oh hell, its not bad in any way that I can think of. but it does alienate people, and lacks quite a bit of face value because of its dual nature.

thats why I say you have to incorporate as much of both as possible, not just a little of the two.

I don't think the game alienates people, I've been showing it to gamers and its been getting a few doubts, but when they see the graphics they say ooooh, when they see the scale they say ahhhh, when they play it they have fun.

I think your being overly critical, firstly I think it has a solid grasp of RTS, its missing other factions and a competent AI thats it.

As to 4X it only has the scale. So you could argue its not living up to that, but I think allot of things are not implemented yet that could fix that.

I'm quite certain of it. Left and right I see skeptics, its a matter of fact not opinion. it is a classical mistake to chase two rabbits, but I'm saying they can do so well as long as they put effort into chasing BOTH rabbits.

i had an idea, iunno if it has been mentioned before since i havent been reading all the posts (bad eet!)

anyways, what if the ships used the Z-axis to do dodging maneuvers? they would, of course, have to use slight x and y axis movement to make it not look stupid, but most of the moves could be done with just the z axis.
also, the number and size of ships in the radius of a ship should determine the amount of 'jinking' allowed. Dodging should give a SLIGHT decrease to accuracy as well as a SLIGHT increase in the chance for enemies to miss.
the fewer and smaller the ships, the more dodging allowed which would increase the strategy of guerrilla warfare, which would be nice to have.
I don't really care if the ships CANT miss, the gameplay element introduced by adding tactics using smaller ships (note: TACTICS, not MICRO) and the visual element by reducing ships just sitting there and shooting each other, should more than balance it out.

any opinions? i thought of this in the shower so its prolly got some holes in it

In the features section of this website it says that Sins will have a fully 3D envrionment. Now I know that wouldn't mean a promise to add in the z-axis, but isn't that a little misleading to people who have played space games with z-axis movement?

Well, since we *do* have z-axis movement... no.

The no-Z-Axis structure placement... maybe.

how many ppl here have ACTULLY played HW long enough to understand it?


anyone who opposes adding the z-axis, apparently has nvr played HW long enough to understand it.

the z-axis is extremly usefull in ver sutil (spelling) situations.

cool thing about it is (in HW at least) if you don't know how to use the z-axis, then YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE IT!!!! you CAN play it like a 2-d game. (just be prepared to lose)



I am currently one of the RTS players who feel alientated by a bad z-axis system, althoe I can't say too much about the game itself, i will not be able to play it untill beta 3 comes out.

The Z axis in HW was important because their were important things both up and down from your position, in Sins currently there is not. There is no true open field, where below me a wonderful resources is located and above and to the left is a small enemy encampment, everything is directly ahead behind, to the right or left. They would need to change the galactic plain to be say at least 3 layers of height, and put systems up and down, affecting the Z axis of phase entrances. This would add allot to Z axis potential, even in our very small maps, then add Z axis defense placement with an absolute height of course.

I also find think it would be vastly enhanced if we had fog of war inside a gravwell. You enter a system from elevation set 3 (the top layer) You can see that a large enemy fleet is above the planet, and decide to go below...

when you reach below you run into something you didn't see, a massive defense line!

Thats not possible without fog of war, and I think it would greatly enhance in-system tactics.

So I think for Z axis to be done competently we need a Z axis on the galactic/solar system level, to change and vary what plane fleets enter a system on, and Z axis building placement of course. Finally Fog of War would make these issues important enough to really warrant the change.

i just want to make sure that when i move my carriers upward that it's fighters would be there to cover any existing threat from it's carrier. also any ship for that matter that when i use (~) to move, it should auto target any enemy ships while moving within range.

btw. tmho i don't feel alienated for any reason about this game regarding of it's rts 4x content. this game can be played like hw with eceptions of not having formation tactics such as sphere, wall, claw or aggressive and evasive actions. the 4xtype would be exploring, managing both economy and military units.

on it's own, i say that it's pretty much all in equal terms as in rts and 4x all in one without having to spend too much time on each of the following intity.

I dont know whats wrong with other peoples games, but my ships line up in wall formation all the time. I love it when they do too, it looks like a giant wall of doom when they fire together.

Um How would flying over or under a gauss cannon stop it from firing at you. I expect that since it floating in space I am going to guess it can rotate whatever way it wants to.