Split starts

hehe acro...ur siggy....its from a far side comic...mine's from a book of quotes, this one's bai gorge washington

here we go! ... the exactish numbers .... sine = palp btw .. gotta love logs feb 2002 .. blast from the past!.



The game uses several software timers which decrement to zero and then wait. These include:
The main timer which many other routines refer to.
The timers controlling the reloading of pillboxes and the tank's gun.
The timers controlling the flooding of trenches and craters, and the propagation of chain-reaction explosions in minefields.
The timer which controls the refueling rate of a tank on a refueling base.
The timer which controls the rate at which a tank loses shells and mines when it is sitting in a lake or river.
The timer which controls the delay before a new tree can be grown.

To kill a base, you kill its armor by shooting it (1 shot required per armor unit). Hence, it takes 18 shots to destroy a fully-armored base. Although, you can often run over a base when you only pluck 17 shots into it, before it shows an "X" in the status window.

[21:14] <sine> Every twenty seconds refuelling bases replenish their stocks by one unit per player in the game. For example, if there are five players in the game, then refuelling bases will replenish by five units every 20 seconds.

This Occurs at a rate divided by the time so if there 5 players in a game, it will replenish ~1 unit every 4 seconds

Log
Session Start: Sun Feb 10 20:00:00 2002
[20:00] <Min> how does refueling in macbolo work
[20:00] <Min> in single player
[20:00] <Min> it gives one bullet every 20 seconds
[20:00] <Min> in two player
[20:00] <Min> it gives one bullet every ten seconds
[20:00] <sine> yes
[20:00] <Min> what about higher than that?
[20:01] <Min> my poor mac wouldn't load up any more clients so I couldn't test
[20:01] <sine> # players defines the rate
[20:01] <sine> it's propertional
[20:01] <sine> proportional
[20:01] <sine> directly
[20:01] <Min> umm
[20:01] <sine> players = bullets
[20:01] <Min> 4 players in the game
[20:01] <Min> does it give 1 bullet every 5 seconds?
[20:02] <Min> or 2 bullets every ten seconds
[20:02] <sine> well i'd have to look
[20:02] <sine> i don't count it very often
[20:02] <Min> would it be possible to check
[20:02] <Min> I want to tell elvis the correct numbers
[20:29] <sine> 90 units, with 6 players, took 300 seconds
[20:29] <sine> 90 units with 4 players took 450 seconds
[20:42] <Min> but I'm wondering how much it fuels in a 20 second period
[20:42] <Min> with 4 players
[20:42] <Min> does it add 2 bullets per 10 seconds? ...
[20:42] <Min> or 1 bullet every 5 seconds?
[20:43] <sine> well
[20:43] <sine> neither
[20:43] <sine> it varies
[20:43] <sine> some times it adds one bullet
[20:43] <sine> sometimes it adds two
[20:43] <sine> and it might be 5 seconds
[20:43] <Min> is that due to lag?
[20:43] <sine> or it could be 10
[20:44] <sine> i can't watch it closely enough to tell you exactly what it does
[20:44] <Min> hrm
[20:44] <sine> i can just average it
[20:44] <Min> ok
[20:46] <Min> does it ever put more than 2 bullets back at a time?
[20:46] <sine> nope
[20:46] <sine> not that i've seen
[20:46] <sine> i'd have to get more players
[20:46] <sine> i have 8
[20:46] <sine> it took about 225 seconds to regenerate a base completely
[20:47] <sine> which is right in line with everything else
[20:56] <sine> what i noticed
[20:56] <sine> what that it was putting 2 bullets more often
[20:56] <sine> i think with 16 players, it would add two bullets every refresh
[20:57] <Min> how many seconds is a refresh?
[20:57] <sine> so rather than refreshing more often based on the number of players
[20:57] <sine> it just gives more each time
[20:57] <sine> the refresh interval was irregular
[20:58] <sine> more than 10 seconds to less than 3
[20:58] <sine> but
[20:58] <sine> the max rate
[20:58] <sine> will be 16 units per 20 seconds
[20:59] <sine> that means the refresh is a multiple of 1.25 seconds
[20:59] <sine> rather
[20:59] <sine> 8 refresh intervals per 20 seconds
[20:59] <sine> so 2.5 secs
[21:00] <sine> that's yer answer
[21:24] <Min> due to the networking code .... latency can change how quickly the bases refuel
[21:24] <sine> a good test of determining what the "refresh" should be
[21:24] <sine> that's right
[21:24] <Min> and due to the way winbolo is
[21:24] <sine> in bolo
[21:24] <Min> that won't happen
[21:24] <sine> so they are not locked in the same
[21:24] <Min> so
[21:24] <Min> it will ultimatly be up to jm as to how he deals with the base refueling issue
[21:25] <sine> having some lag in bolo makes things refuel more slowly
[21:25] <sine> right
[21:25] <Min> making it exactly like bolo would be very very hard
[21:25] <Min> at least from my perspective
[21:25] <Min> ok
[21:44] <sine> the armor unit is defined like a tanks
[21:44] <sine> a base will fuel two tanks completely
[21:44] <sine> and have 10 units left
[21:44] <sine> oh shit
[21:44] <sine> i did that test too
[21:44] <sine> here t is
[21:44] <sine> with 4 players
[21:45] <sine> it took an x'd base 50 seconds to get solid again
[21:45] <sine> that's 10 units
[21:45] <sine> :)
[21:45] <Min> really???
[21:45] <sine> yes
[21:45] <Min> that seems weird
[21:45] <sine> that's two full armor units for a tank
[21:45] <sine> it's 5 pixels
[21:45] <sine> 8 shots on a tank means it has no armor left
[21:46] <sine> the last shot kills it
[21:46] <Min> units in the base are different than actual armor units
[21:46] <sine> 16*5 = 80 + 10 = 90
[21:46] <sine> right
[21:46] <Min> so 5 "units" = one unit of armor
[21:46] <Min> ok
[21:47] <sine> one "clank"
[21:47] <sine> so to speak
[21:47] <Min> I don't have sound :)
[21:47] <sine> so for 8 players
[21:47] <sine> it will take a base 25 seconds to show solid
[21:48] <Min> instead of what I just said
[21:48] <Min> every 2.5 seconds
[21:48] <Min> it would fill one "pixel"
[21:49] <sine> with 8 players right
[21:49] <Min> which is one bullet
[21:49] <Min> so before it would become un x'd
[21:49] <Min> you could suck 10 bullets from it
[21:49] <Min> ?
[21:49] <sine> sho nuff
[21:49] <sine> sure enough
[21:49] <Min> ok
[21:50] <Min> that isn't how winbolo works right now is it
[21:50] <sine> heck no


and there you have it .... what it should be.

Min

Min wrote:

Mad Scout wrote:

I think the way it is in winbolo is fine. I think that spiking should not be easy for someone to do without risking the life of his lgm.

I think winbolo is supposed to clone bolo ... shouldn't we then make an effort to have it made more like bolo? .... if you want a totally different game .. why don't we change the name to wintanks instead?

Min

Yeah, theoretically it's supposed to be an exact clone of the original bolo for mac. It hasn't been EXACTY, as kax stated earlier, and as a result, different styles of play are used.

Here's my sports analogy: hockey in north america vs. hockey in europe. Rinks in Europe are generally slightly bigger than the ones in the US and Canada. With the game played on the bigger ice, the speedier skaters and the better stickhandlers are the players that succeed the most, where as on smaller ice, the bigger and tougher grinder type players have more of an impact. Two slightly different styles, but it's all still hockey.

Also, baseball with or without the designated hitter. in the NL, without the DH, the pitcher must bat for himself, which means if he comes to bat during a clutch situation, you have to either let him hit and pray he puts it in play somehow, or take him out of the game for good so you can get a decent hitter in there when you need one. In the AL, of course, the DH bats for the pitcher, so you can leave your pitcher in the lineup and still have a decent hitter in there when you need him the most. Plus, many people believe that a NL pitcher would think twice about beaning a batter in the head since he himself has to step up to the plate later. But whether you have a DH or not, baseball is baseball.

1997 was the last time I played mac bolo, so I have since forgotten all of the little things that are actually very big things that make it so different from winbolo. I'm used to winbolo now, I've grown accustomed to its style of play. I'd rather not see it changed to become more like its mac predecessor. Even if it did change, though, bolo is bolo. But it seems we have 2 slightly different versions of the same game: One on European rinks, and one on North American rinks.

I'll end this post with a question. There are quite a few people who are former "macbolo vets". People who started out on macbolo and then made the change to winbolo and noticed they had to adjust a little. Is there anyone who did it backwards, starting out in winbolo and going to mac bolo???? If so, who are they and what kind of adjustments did they have to make?

Acro wrote:

Q, i'm sure you noticed if you ever played practice, a depleted base would fill up slower than death. If bases had a slow refill rate no matter what the number of players, then multiple player games would be damn near impossible.

I was refering to the pill thingy

so, after doing a bit more looking in logs, and some testing

[20:05] <Min> 4 players
[20:05] <Min> 4 bullets every 33 seconds

is what winbolo currently is. so ... if you look at the numbers, winbolo is actually still slower than it should be ...... figured you'd like that kax, feel free to test it out yourself.

Min

Min wrote:

so, after doing a bit more looking in logs, and some testing

[20:05] <Min> 4 players
[20:05] <Min> 4 bullets every 33 seconds

is what winbolo currently is. so ... if you look at the numbers, winbolo is actually still slower than it should be ...... figured you'd like that kax, feel free to test it out yourself.

Min

Bah.

:)

Kax wrote:

Bah.

:)

:) :)

I like hearing about inconsistancies that winbolo has btw, are there any others like the pills only get mad if they are within range thing?

Min

In terms of objective inaccuracies (not ones like splash and pills having fuzzy edges), there's one I mentioned earlier about trapping lgms. In mac bolo, if you pin a running lgm under a wall, you can't drive up to the wall and get it out -- you just have to kill it and wait. But if an lgm parachutes in and lands on something, the lgm runs around on top of that object and can be grabbed by driving up to it (or killed by shooting the object before you can get there to grab it). Thus, you can't as easily trap a builder by just building a block where the enemy tank was when his lgm died.

This makes a particularly big difference in the event that you lose an lgm while sitting on a base. In winbolo, if that base is raped out before you get the lgm back, you've just lost it a second time for no particularly good reason.

Another inaccuracy that's been mentioned from time to time (and that really screws up mac players for a while when they convert) is that the enemy pill range is 1 square too long. This causes lgm losses, messes with pilltakes, and also makes base raping harder. The base raping difficulty is because, in mac bolo, if an enemy pill is directly next to an enemy base, you could still shoot out that base by just hitting the edge of it. You'd be just beyond the enemy pill range. Here, that's not possible, and when combined with the "long-range piss-off" issue I described earlier, life is a lot more dangerous.

BTW, Mad Scout, I agree that winbolo should be played in a larger hockey rink than mac bolo.

Kax wrote:

BTW, Mad Scout, I agree that winbolo should be played in a larger hockey rink than mac bolo.

Hey Kax, what do you think about the designated hitter rule in winbolo?

im still confused why ppl would want split starts! On some maps it just wouldn't work!

Kax wrote:

In terms of objective inaccuracies (not ones like splash and pills having fuzzy edges), there's one I mentioned earlier about trapping lgms. In mac bolo, if you pin a running lgm under a wall, you can't drive up to the wall and get it out -- you just have to kill it and wait. But if an lgm parachutes in and lands on something, the lgm runs around on top of that object and can be grabbed by driving up to it (or killed by shooting the object before you can get there to grab it). Thus, you can't as easily trap a builder by just building a block where the enemy tank was when his lgm died.

splash? .. explain, fuzzy edges? you mean one side isn't solid? :P ok, I've noted the lgm thing ... its good to know these sorts of things.

Kax wrote:

This makes a particularly big difference in the event that you lose an lgm while sitting on a base. In winbolo, if that base is raped out before you get the lgm back, you've just lost it a second time for no particularly good reason.

ya, that can effect the game greatly.

Kax wrote:

Another inaccuracy that's been mentioned from time to time (and that really screws up mac players for a while when they convert) is that the enemy pill range is 1 square too long.

it is? ... is that the detection range of a pill, or the actually shooting distance of a pill?

[21:14] <sine> Pillboxes will shoot at you if you are within 8 map squares (2048 World units).

which after testing seems about right, the tanks range is 7 squares.

[21:14] <sine> Pillbox shots go nine map squares (2304 World units).

which after testing .. you are correct, pillbox's indeed shoot 10 squares in winbolo. that changes a hell of alot in my opinion.

Kax wrote:

This causes lgm losses, messes with pilltakes, and also makes base raping harder. The base raping difficulty is because, in mac bolo, if an enemy pill is directly next to an enemy base, you could still shoot out that base by just hitting the edge of it. You'd be just beyond the enemy pill range. Here, that's not possible, and when combined with the "long-range piss-off" issue I described earlier, life is a lot more dangerous.

please explain the long-range piss of thing to me again, I've noted your other concern. makes sense.

Kax wrote:

BTW, Mad Scout, I agree that winbolo should be played in a larger hockey rink than mac bolo.

I agree .... and sharper skates too ....... and maybe .... pucks too ...

Min