New Dev Diary is up...

[Rantz]

over at gamespy. Combat shots as well.

http://www.gamespy.com/devdiary/october02/moo311/

[Atragon]

The last combat shot looks ok.

In my opinion, when zoomed in, the combat looks like crap.

But zoomed out, with large numbers of ships, it looks half-decent...I'd really love a 3d combat engine in an expansion pack.

Of course, all those ships look identical, please tell me that isn't the case?

Edit: Cleaned up sentence structure.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Very nice Rantz!

Side note:
Star generals prefer combat from a distance.
Fighter pilots like the close-ups.

[moomin]

I can't shake the impression that combat should either have been in 2D or that accelerated graphics should have been supported from scratch. Can't even recall last time a 3D game without was released...

[wervdon]

I just hope that you have a large amount of control over combat, and don't just mostly watch it play out and give very little input.

[Mahdimael]

The ships look ok. They're not going to beat out anything 3d-accelerated, of course, but I've seen worse.

One thing, however- they are much too dark. The colors should be brighter, like the weapon fire. Also, I think the distant view is too cluttered, especially with all those explosions. The ships also look very very similar- perhaps they should have different colors or a colored marking ala most RTS games(They all appear to be a dark tan)

If anything, there should be an option to turn off all the graphical chaff (explosions) so we can see clearly what's shooting at/hitting what.

It seems to me that you take one of two approaches to graphics:

A. Clean 2d graphics
B. Visually stimulating 3d graphics

I think the game is trying to accomplish both, but it's only partially succeeding.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by wervdon
I just hope that you have a large amount of control over combat, and don't just mostly watch it play out and give very little input.

Hear Hear. I do not care for real time combat if it means I can not really do much more than start it.

[danminster]

Originally posted by wervdon
I just hope that you have a large amount of control over combat, and don't just mostly watch it play out and give very little input.

I agree with both vmxa1 and wervdon. I believe that this was one of the main problems with RftS. You basically started the combat and watched it go w/o any real control by the player.

I also hope that the option for greater control exists in MOO3, since this was one of the strengths of the previous games in this series.

[SeanV]

Mahdimael

I think the reason that all of the ships look alike in that picture is that they all are Melkar ships. After all can't there be more than one empire per race in this game? That shot is just a picture of the bloody robots dealing with a minor internal disagreement.

Cool!

[Straybow]

When I tried R4TS I didn't like the combat engine because it was too stilted. Ships or formations couldn't manuever independently, and the player input was schlock. Combat devolved into a spruced up version of rock-paper-scissors.

Being able to µmg the whole battle isn't necessary at all. Needing to µmg the whole battle is a drawback rather than an advantage.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Straybow
Being able to µmg the whole battle isn't necessary at all. Needing to µmg the whole battle is a drawback rather than an advantage.

I am not in total disagreement, but if you can not make an impact with some better tactics (real microMG), then we do not need to even have combat. I mean it sounds good to be able to have the game fight well, but if I can not make any impact other than sending a better fleet than them or a smarter formation, yuck.
Something like I do all the stuff until I am sure I can not suffer any damage and I can auto resolve and the combat in Space Empires IV, where if you attack planetary defences you have to do every move and every unit or a no lose win turns into all ships lost. The battles were very painful in SEIV as the formation moves stunk and ships would do crazy things like all move when the leader moved and not go to a useful spot This made a battle take forever, just to move into target range.

[playshogi]

I know from the earlier data dumps that 1) you can't control individual ships and 2) you can only give general orders to task forces therefore combat will play out similar to the Stars! model.

[vmxa1]

Yeah the Stars combat was just a non input affair. Ships engage and you see the results. SEIV was ok once the units were actually fighting. Moo/Moo2 combat was good because it took no time to get into action and you could have an impact. Moo2 the players tactical skills were not the level as Moo. In Moo you could manage to win a battle against better/bigger fleets with tactics, in Moo2 you really could only make an impact on the edges. By that I mean you had an impact, but often only a small one. It would depend on the fleets. Missiles with fast racks could be used to a big effect, but not so much with beams.

[Barshy]

Maybe you should copy and paste it on your site? The gamespy link is down.

[Mahdimael]

Ah, roger that. That would make sense

It would really suck if we couldn't control combat directly.

Originally posted by SeanV
Mahdimael

I think the reason that all of the ships look alike in that picture is that they all are Melkar ships. After all can't there be more than one empire per race in this game? That shot is just a picture of the bloody robots dealing with a minor internal disagreement.

Cool!