[T:V] The sensor system

K

KineticPoet

Veteran X
Each team has one sensor. If your sensor is active, all enemies show up on your radar and all enemies have indicators over their heads. If your sensor is inactive, no enemies show up on your radar and no enemies have indicators over their heads; however, all friendlies will still show up in your radar.

This is a simplification in some respects but a complication in others. It's a simplification because it's easy and intuitive to understand. Your single sensor is either on or off. If your sensor is off, your radar will have a slight static overlay to communicate that fact to you.

It's a complication because suddenly your sensor becomes extremely and obviously important, much like your generator. It becomes another secondary objective that you can attack and defend strategically.

Much like the generator, mapmakers have flexibility when placing each team's sensor. They can place the sensors in exposed areas. They can place the sensors in protected areas. They can place the sensors off the map so that everyone can always see their enemies on the radar. Or they could not place any sensors at all, so that nobody can ever see their enemies on the radar. This can differ from game type to game type. For example, Arena probably wouldn't use any sensors.

Now the flag indicator. Currently it's always on, regardless of the state of your sensor. I agree this removes intelligence from capping and chasing, but the current implementation is just a simple one. We're discussing improving it so that if your sensor is destroyed and an enemy has your flag, you won't see a flag icon. This will give more incentive to destroy the enemy sensor (and perhaps keep it destroyed) in order to aid your flag cappers. If your enemies don't have an active sensor, they'll need to track your flag cappers using their raw awareness and intuition (which is an aspect of T1 that I adore).

You can cycle the resolution of your radar by pressing a key, allowing you to customize how much you see depending on what you're doing.

T:V still has a command screen. It's a large square version of your radar. You press and hold 'C' to view it. It doesn't take up the whole screen and it's slightly transparent. It also summarizes the current map and game type objectives on the right-hand side. All information on your command screen mirrors what you see on your radar.

The same screen is used when respawning. If you have multiple spawn areas from which to select, this is where you select where you want to respawn. Spawn selection doesn't slow down the game...T:V CTF still has a 2 second respawn time (same as in previous Tribes games).

There is currently no manual waypointing. Multiple primary objectives automatically stick to the edge of your radar and will display a range in metres so that you have some idea where they are at a glance. Important objects like your generator and deployed inventory stations are automatically marked on your radar and command screen. When your generator goes down, its icon (a lightning bolt) flashes, much like in Sim City.

That's about all I can think of for now,
KP
 
Sounds good, I like that the sensor network is now more useful. It will be especially useful with the inclusion of sensor based 'happyflag' (which I think is a good thing ... it adds depth to the game).

I will kind of miss being able to set up a sensor network, especially now that it seems like it's useful.

ps. IE was the first team I saw that used sensors in competitive matches.
 
how about, remove the sensors all together and do it LOS

if someone can see the enemy within x meters he shows up!
we're still supposed to be fighting for flags, right?
 
If you don't like it, please say why. Based on what I've seen the past several years, many Tribes players have little to no appreciation for how the system used to work, so I'm curious to hear details,
KP
 
Satan- said:
Flag finder is horrible for gameplay.
Click to expand...
The idea is that if you don't want the enemy to have a flag finder, you destroy their sensor. Or if it turns out that people never want enemy indicators or flag icons, mapmakers can remove sensors from maps altogether,
KP
 
Mangle-Me-Elmo said:
how about, remove the sensors all together and do it LOS

if someone can see the enemy within x meters he shows up!
we're still supposed to be fighting for flags, right?
Click to expand...
True LOS in a game with far fog distances covers a lot of ground. With, say, 10 people on your team you'd cover the majority of the map most of the time with your collective lines of sight.

If you meant T1-style LOS, then yeah, that's a possibility. But do you know how T1 LOS actually worked?
KP
 
Here is what i think should be done.
-Keep the iff/sensors same as t1/t2 style.
-Have no flag iff, unless your within visible range.
(Hell is thats too hard, then just remove the flag iff. Since they are smaller maps.)
 
when you say all enemies have indicators when the sensor is on, does that mean happy style (through buildings or very far) or normal t1 style (when you see them they have a triangle)
 
Can I suggest that your new implementation sounds okay, but what concerns me is that you cant see red arrows above players when they are close to you (LoS) - this is irritating because I _HATE_ games that you cant tell if its a friend or foe right off the mark, its just annoying.

You should be able to (even when the sensor is down) see red arrows on players around you and in the distance a bit (once again, LoS).

Maybe if the sensors are down, reduce that LoS, and make the command map not show anyone (friend or foe?).
 
Plasma said:
Can I suggest that your new implementation sounds okay, but what concerns me is that you cant see red arrows above players when they are close to you (LoS) - this is irritating because I _HATE_ games that you cant tell if its a friend or foe right off the mark, its just annoying.

You should be able to (even when the sensor is down) see red arrows on players around you and in the distance a bit (once again, LoS).

Maybe if the sensors are down, reduce that LoS, and make the command map not show anyone (friend or foe?).
Click to expand...

since your teammates always have green, its just a matter of elimination isn't it?
 
I have some negative and positive thoughts on the idea... it should definately be left as an option for map makers, but I'm not sure out of the box it should be an option.

The fun of tribes is not about guessing whether the person a mile infront of you is a friend or a foe. Tribes is already an insanely complicated game, especially when compared to the likes of UT, Q3, or CS. Adding the player indicators helps to simplify an overly complicated game so at least even in the most hopeless situations, you'll be able to quickly identify friend from foe. By clearly labeling enemies, fighting becomes much more common. How many times have you played a match where you were skiing to the enemy base, and you pass an enemy skiing over to your base? With the red indicator present, a fight is much more likely to occur, and well... fights are fun.

No matter how much IG, you, or even Dynamix want(ed) Tribes to be an insanely team based teamwork game, forcing such teamwork elements like keeping a sensor up is just plain not fun, unless you are a super fan of defense. We already have inventories, turrets, and generators that we should be paranoid about protecting when rapes occur. This just adds one more elements to that list. Without invetories or turrets or generators, you can still fight and see the enemy and have a ball. But without sensors, you even lose the motivation of fighting the enemy. You know as well as I do that if you see two people, one without an indicator and one with, you'll go for the one with first. They are more threatening, hence more motivation to fight.

This kind of leads to my other point of TKs... I'm sure you've thought about it, but with indicators, being able to tell who is a TK and who isn't is quite easy. You know that the person who is tking can clearly tell the other person has a green thing over their head hence they are purposely doing it. Without indicators, I see TKs happening more often accidentaly (which could cause false accusations and kicks) and the people that really are TKing could get let off the hook more often ("there wasn't an indicator! I couldnt' tell..."). I dunno I just see this as presenting a problem.

Other than that, maybe this whole sensor idea should be gametype based. In a CTF map I don't think I'd particularly enjoy it in the least bit. There are already too many things to focus on. But on other gametypes it could be fun... I couldn't really say cause I havn't played a lot of the new ones though.

T:V is a team game with jetpacks and guns, but that doesn't mean teamwork should be forced on a player preventing the cowboy from killing his fair share of enemies. If you guys want a larger audience, focusing the teamplay more tightly won't help. Bf1942, UT2k4, Americas Army, CS all have teamplay elements, but you have to admit that the majority of all those players only pub and are to a large extent cowboys. They wont' want to pick up T:V if it hinders their ability to cowboy. Tribes1 and 2 were filled and still are filled with cowboys that work for themselves in order to help the team as a whole, and I just see this sensor thing as taking away from the whole "random duel in the middle of the game" occurence. For the teamplay lovers, this idea is a godsend, but the pure teamplay finatics are few compared to the majority, though they are quite the vocal ones. Adding this sensor setup will either increase teamplay or make the cowboys mad. I forsee the latter.

I'm big on teamplay but when I'm on a pub, I like to cowboy. I think this is an extremely intruiging idea and honestly if it is implemented fully, I won't be too upset and it won't keep me from playing the game. I just think it could hurt the game in other ways and bug a lot of other people, and even bug me at certain points during the game.

This might be one of the things we should wait till Beta to see whether it's good or not.

EDIT: I realize green IFFs will still be in place even if the sensors are gone. I just have a hard time trusting that when I shoot someone without an IFF, they won't be friendly. I need identification! haha...
 
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Plasma said:
Can I suggest that your new implementation sounds okay, but what concerns me is that you cant see red arrows above players when they are close to you (LoS) - this is irritating because I _HATE_ games that you cant tell if its a friend or foe right off the mark, its just annoying.

You should be able to (even when the sensor is down) see red arrows on players around you and in the distance a bit (once again, LoS).

Maybe if the sensors are down, reduce that LoS, and make the command map not show anyone (friend or foe?).
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more.
 
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