New to Spring, question about its flexibility.

[Foxmoan]

The title pretty much says it all. I was wanting to begin developing a game simmilar to the MechCommander series but in doing so I plan on having a feature similar to the "Mechlab" as a feature. So my main question is this, is Spring capable of that level of flexibility with work? Or is that just beyond the grasp of this particular engine?

[smoth]

give more details please.

[Petah]

Spring can make any thing that is similar to Total Annihilation. Anything apart from that your pushing your luck.
Even missions and single player are hard pressed on the Spring Engine.

[smoth]

Spring can make any thing that is similar to Total Annihilation. Anything apart from that your pushing your luck.

if you go with the engine out of box, with no custom lua

Even missions and single player are hard pressed on the Spring Engine.

if you are unwilling to do any work.

[Foxmoan]

Um... sure. In the mechcommader series of RTS games, you did not build a base, or gather resources to build units. Instead you would gain points (RP in the first game, cash in the second) by completing objectives that you would use between missions to buy your battlemechs. From there you would assign the mech a pilot with there own stats for piloting, gunning, sensors and so on. The big meat and potatoes though was the mechlab. There you can take your mechs and one by one change there weapon and armor loadout and on some mechs mount jumpjets (limited flight). Thing is, all of this is done between missions. You cannot build or buy any new mechs out on the field. I was wondering if this engine is flexible enough to add that level of depth to a game made using it with added/modded code and scripts.

*EDIT* and of course, multiplayer games would let players diddle about in the mechlab before a match.

[smoth]

you can it would be a LOT of work though. I don't think a persistent rts would be fun but some might be into it. as a small game you take the risk of running into having a hand full of players always dominating the server.

[Foxmoan]

you can it would be a LOT of work though. I don't think a persistent rts would be fun but some might be into it. as a small game you take the risk of running into having a hand full of players always dominating the server.

Eh. Was never planning anything persistent like that. But I would wanna make a single player campaign. Multiplayer would probably only have skirmish and ctf at most.

[smoth]

singleplayer would be fairly easy, saving such data into files isn't hard. the part you would have to figure out is the weapons etc. We recently had advances in attaching models onto units.

[FLOZi]

Having played the MechCommander demo back in the day (200mb!!!) I'd say it's possible in spring but a great deal of work.

[PicassoCT]

Did you know that mc 2 is open souce?

[Foxmoan]

Having played the MechCommander demo back in the day (200mb!!!) I'd say it's possible in spring but a great deal of work.

Ya know, if you enjoyed the demo, you might like to know that both MechCommander games are freeware now. You have to use some work arounds to get the first one it to install on any 64 bit system but it is still fun and there is even a fairly decent multiplayer community still. The second game is even more fun, but the net code is utter crap so good luck on multiplayer.

Did you know that mc 2 is open souce?

Yeah im aware of that. Its also almost pointless. Instead of fixing the net code they just removed it and on top of that they give it to you already compiled with no real way to edit it anyway and I've already stated I want multiplayer. On top of that my team and I are looking to be a bit more ambitious in terms of playable units, so unless you wanna devote a couple years just to tear down the code line byline to figure out the format of models and units your stuck with the rather small list of copyrighted ones.

[hoijui]

you should try ZK. they have stuff like this, and they have it in multiplayer and persistent.
if you want the persisten stuff to only be for singleplayer, it shoudl be easier, as smoth said. but.. just so you see what is possible.
the persisten part of ZK only works well/nice if you use their lobby (which is basically windows only). you would not be boulnd that way of course, but... just saying.. you should test on windows with their lobby.

[gajop]

you might like to know that both MechCommander games are freeware now.

Yeah, but iirc the new version is the same as that "Gold edition", when they made everything much easier. I recall playing MC1 as a kid, and you'd often be outgunned - in particular I remember how you'd often face mechs of higher tonnage than what you had - f.e hollander, hunchback, catapult and mad cat would all be introduced by the enemy rather early - was scary! :p

Anyhow, spring is probably a pretty good choice for anything mech based, as most games already have a lot of robots, so much of the stuff has already been done by someone. What's your team like? How many modelers/animators/programmers do you have? And yes you will probably need a programmer or two, as you would with any other engine except for perhaps MC2.

[Foxmoan]

you might like to know that both MechCommander games are freeware now.

Yeah, but iirc the new version is the same as that "Gold edition", when they made everything much easier. I recall playing MC1 as a kid, and you'd often be outgunned - in particular I remember how you'd often face mechs of higher tonnage than what you had - f.e hollander, hunchback, catapult and mad cat would all be introduced by the enemy rather early - was scary! :p

Anyhow, spring is probably a pretty good choice for anything mech based, as most games already have a lot of robots, so much of the stuff has already been done by someone. What's your team like? How many modelers/animators/programmers do you have? And yes you will probably need a programmer or two, as you would with any other engine except for perhaps MC2.

Well yeah the first one available free is gold but it bring easier is a common misconception. Gold added difficulty levels ad for some dumb reason it defaults to easy. Normal is the same as MC classic, and hard will tear you a new one if you not ready. The mechs you face don't change though. Even on easy there is a mad cat as early as op 1 mission 3.

MechCommander 2 though is exactly the same when it was made free so, do with that what you will.

As for my team, I don't have too much.

[Foxmoan]

Sorry bout the double post but for some reason my browser decided to not let me scroll on this forum. Anyway my team is a couple handfulls of guys all new to game making. Were all just doing this for fun and to add something to our portfolio as we learn the trade. I have 6 coders and 2 guys on modeling plus one guy wanting to do the AI for now and 3 guys wanting to do artwork.

[gajop]

seriously? that's more than enough for anything, most games here have only a few people doing anything actively - even zk has only like 4 active devs

[Foxmoan]

seriously? that's more than enough for anything, most games here have only a few people doing anything actively - even zk has only like 4 active devs

Eh. To be honest once the work starts I don't expect half of them to stay. I know them all irl lol. Hence why I said for now. When all is said and done I kinda expect myself to to most if not all the coding hence why im window shopping engines.

*EDIT* also, im checking out zk now and it looks nice, ill put it on my list of possibilities but to be honest I'd rather work with an engine then mod an entire already built game.

[SinbadEV]

seriously? that's more than enough for anything, most games here have only a few people doing anything actively - even zk has only like 4 active devs

Eh. To be honest once the work starts I don't expect half of them to stay. I know them all irl lol. Hence why I said for now. When all is said and done I kinda expect myself to to most if not all the coding hence why im window shopping engines.

*EDIT* also, im checking out zk now and it looks nice, ill put it on my list of possibilities but to be honest I'd rather work with an engine then mod an entire already built game.

I think they were saying "look at how ZK does stuff and copy it because they've already figured out how to do a bunch of stuff you want to do"... general wisdom is to find a Game that already does the think you want and figure out how they do it and copy it because then work isn't duplicated... you will still be "starting from scratch" but you won't be "reinventing the wheel".

[PicassoCT]

actually reinventing the wheel is overrated. just put a log under it, payload rolls, fix the log, having a barrel drum... break the log.. saw the two pieces short, glue the under the payload, wooden wheels.

[Foxmoan]

I think they were saying "look at how ZK does stuff and copy it because they've already figured out how to do a bunch of stuff you want to do"... general wisdom is to find a Game that already does the think you want and figure out how they do it and copy it because then work isn't duplicated... you will still be "starting from scratch" but you won't be "reinventing the wheel".

Oh I get it. I didn't notice that ZK was made with Spring at first. Yeah that should make things easier. At any rate I think I know what engine ill be using now.