Better SP launcher

[zwzsg]

I'm making a better SP launcher:



Duel means 1v1.

• Beginner's Duel pits you against one Fair Lua KPAI (the one with autoleveling).
• Standard's Duel pits you against one Lua KPAI.
• Veteran's Duel pits you against one UltraONS'ed BaczekKPAI.

Team games use Lua KPAI unless specified so, and always give you at least one ally bot.

• In Easy Team there is one less foe than you+allies, and you but not your allies have HomeBase-only ONS.
• In Medium Team the enemies has as many bots as you+allies
• In Hard Team there are more enemies than you+allies, from one more to some map-specific maximum. Also, half the enemies is a BaczekKPAI. The smaller half in case of uneven numbers, so like 1 BaczekKPAI if 3 enemies.

Challenge are when you are alone against more than one AI.

• In Tough Challenge you are against 2 Lua KPAI.
• In Difficult Challenge you are against 3 Lua KPAI.
• In Insane Challenge you are against 4 or more Bots (unless map is too small), half Lua KPAI, half BaczekKPAI, they have Ultra ONS, you have SoS (BaseFaith sized according to map), and there is a ColorWar TimeLimit.

Note: Yes, for KP3.6, ONS and SoS can be team specific.

The empty space on bottom right could be used to display minimap, if I CBA to import minimap pics in the KPL.

Have I made that new KPL too complicated and full of text, should I revert to the previous simple one? How could I make it less boring and more pleasant to use? Other remarks?

[imbaczek]

it is a bit busy. maybe add an "Advanced" button in the simple launcher that opens this?

[zwzsg]

Good idea, will do.

[Zoy64]

it needs a KP theme to it, not just a grey box

[zwzsg]

I could tweak color a bit, like I did for S44SPL. I could use little pictures next to items, like I did for previous KPL. But with what I build this launcher thing, I'm rather limited with the GUI, making something totally custom and awesomely pretty would be too much work.

To make something really pretty with ease, I would need that.

[Pxtl]

Well, this is where I toot my AppLauncher again I made for Argh. It's totally skinnable and configurable, so you could re-skin it for KP.



Only catch is that it's written in C#.

[Zoy64]

why cant any of this be written in XML?

if it was, i could do it

[zwzsg]

why cant any of this be written in XML?

AppLauncher reads everything from an XML.

Well, this is where I toot my AppLauncher again I made for Argh. It's totally skinnable and configurable, so you could re-skin it for KP.

AppLauncher merely points to a couple static startscripts. My launcher actually understand what startscripts are made of and dynamically generate them. AppLauncher can only run always the same 4 scenarios, my launcher can generate over 10x3x3x7 ones. I don't like how AppLauncher drops thirty files in Spring's root, and much prefer have my Launcher made of a single file.

But it's true that from an end user point of view, AppLauncher looks better thanks to its skin. I guess if I tried, I could use pictures for all frames and buttons. But I'm no artist, so it would still be ugly. And all I'd have gained is making it more difficult to maintain since I'd have to redo all the pictures elements whenever I touch up the GUI, while now I can just resize an element by a mouse drag and let VCL automatically handle the implications.

Anyway, anyone with some drawing skill feel like making me a skin? Just give me one (or more because I need the different button states) .png (not .jpg, .jpg is lossy, yuck!), I'd handle the cutting and rebuilding of the GUI.

[Neddie]

I think I could, but what precisely do you want in it?

[zwzsg]

Now that Spring.Rehost has been implemented, I work again on the Integrated launcher.

It has the potential of being much prettier, and cross platform, if only I eventually manage to compose a GUI properly.

[knorke]

is this build into the spring.exe?

imo a map preview is important because the mapnames mean nothing to new players. if possible also display the startpositions.
then by clicking on the startpostions a popup/menu appears to set team/faction for the player on this location.
see c&c zero hour for example.

[zwzsg]

is this build into the spring.exe?

• The first one is not, the first one is an external independant application.
• The second one is, the second one is a Lua widget that triggers when you run Spring.exe without passing through a lobby.

imo a map preview is important because the mapnames mean nothing to new players.

I could add a map preview to both. Not by actually decoding the map archive (which is out of my league), just by manually importing the eight pictures of the KP maps into my application resource / mod archive.

if possible also display the startpositions.
then by clicking on the startpostions a popup/menu appears to set team/faction for the player on this location.

I'm not redoing SpringLobby! The aim of both these launcher is not to entirely replace the full featured lobbies, but simply to bridge the gap between the non working spring.exe hard coded start scripts and the very powerful but very intimidating lobbies. We already have like 3-4 competing lobbies, no need to make another one! However, I found those feature-rich lobbies are sometimes so complex and so full of possibilities I was afraid newb people would get lost in all the options and fail at launching a simple skirmish.

if possible also display the startpositions.
then by clicking on the startpostions a popup/menu appears to set team/faction for the player on this location.

I could do this, since again it could do it while avoiding the need to actually parse the maps, and simply add the map sizes to my hand written map list and then do some proportionnality to calculate the start pos coordinates. However! The goal of those launcher is to have newb proof-ways to start skirmishes. If I let people pick their startpos, they will pick unappropriate pos, like they'll start on cliffs, or have the friendly AI spawn next to enemies, or stuff like that. While I do know that, with all the even numbered teams allied against all the odd numbered teams, the startpos will always be right on my maps.

[knorke]

Thanks, I meant the new one.
So kp needs a new spring.exe that starts your lua right after running?

If I let people pick their startpos, they will pick unappropriate pos, like they'll start on cliffs, or have the friendly AI spawn next to enemies, or stuff like that.

I did not mean the chose ingame of spring with the startboxes but that players can decide at which pre-defined startposition they want to start. Like which corner of marbemadness for example. But maybe its really better to let the game place the players as far from each other as possible.

I was trying to describe a system like C&C Red Alert 2 uses for singleplayer:

Thats a very noobfriendly UI imo and you could still have buttons like "Duel" set presets.

Extra pictures instead of the actual minimap would actually be better because some minimaps dont look that good, cant see cliffs&sockets etc.

[zwzsg]

So kp needs a new spring.exe that starts your lua right after running?

To relaunch Spring, this ingame menu needs either:

• A spring.exe version < 0.79
  Then it self extract a .dll from the mod archive and binds to it with package.loadlib (Win32 only and a tad hacky, but also allow launching settings or multiplayer.) If you have a Spring 78 exe lying around, you can test it now with KP3.5 btw. (as that integrated launcher is actually old new).
• A spring.exe version > 0.79
  Then it uses Spring.Rehost (should be cross platform and cleaner). Could not test as Spring > 0.79 does not support ATI cards anymore.

I did not mean the chose ingame of spring with the startboxes but that players can decide at which pre-defined startposition they want to start. Like which corner of marbemadness for example.

I though you meant like SpringLobby's choose-before-game, where you can place startpos anywhere on the map, with snapping to map .smd defined startpos.

I think I could, but what precisely do you want in it?

I don't know exactly what kind of menu and button I want in it. I guess I would do with the usual items such "campaign", "skirmishes", "options", "credits", "exit". Part of the problem is that I implement my Gui before deciding how I want it to look. What I'm trying to say, is that you have to decide what to put in it and how to organise it and the GUI will operate. Then hand me a bunch of .png. I could do the re-cutting myself. Don't forget buttons needs two to four states (normal, pushed, mousehovered, ticked). And better make me extra buttons and Gui elements, than too little and then me being unable to recreate graphics with exactly the same fonts/colors. Also give me the unedited base element of what you make the pic with (like button background without text, text without background, etc..) of the pics.