What's good unit scale to use for RTS game?

Questions & Answers
1

Hello all, quick and easy question, no code involved, eh :slight_smile:
What is the best unit scale to use for RTS game or in other words what dimension of terrain would reassemble the maps from popular games - Starcraft, Generals, etc?

For example, does it makes a difference if my terrain is 100x100 and my units are 0.10 in scale, or if if I have 1000x1000 terrain and 1.00 units in scale, performance-wise? I’m unclear how to proceed?

Thanks!

2

There is no performance difference when it comes to scale. It just it what it is. You can have a very large number or a very small one. Either way they’re still floating point values. :slight_smile:

3

As a general rule of thumb, you should size your objects similar to the size they would be in “real life.” If your unit is average human size, it should be about 1.8 units ( 1 unit = 1 meter = 3.3 feet). If your tank is 33 feet long, it should be 10 units (meters). This tends to produce a more realistic feel for your physics simulation. If your human sized character is 18 units, and it jumps/falls, it will feel very floaty, and if it were .18 units it would appear to fall extremely fast.

Edit:

Also as a general rule, you should avoid scaling things by the transform scale factor. If you need to change something’s scale… do it in your 3d package and reimport. Scaling things with transform scale prevents them from being batched, leading to additional draw calls and drops in performance.