New Installer Package: The Small Pack

[HeavyLancer]

Right, I have exams coming up in about a week or so, and after that school has finished for me. I need something to tide me over the metric fuckton of spare time I will most likely have. I also want to help promote the community, and am very interested in Neddie's Community Promotion Initiative. My solution is this: make another installer package.

Proposal

The package will be called the Small Pack, and is intended to be an add-on installer for Spring. It's audience will be new players that use Windows, and will provide enough material to set up single player games and to get started them with the multiplayer side to an extent as well. I am aiming for a package size of about 50 Mb.
It will contain:

Mod

I am still deciding on the mod, and I am open to discussion on the best mod to introduce new players to Spring with besides XTA. Factors to consider are:

• License- It would be preferable to have have an Atari IP free mod for legal reasons.
  
  Multiplayer- A capable multiplayer that is fun and vets are willing to play online with new players.
  
  Fun- A competitive mod with excellent balance is great, but if it is really bland and has no exciting features or good-looking units then it is just not a good mod for new players to use.

The mods I have in mind are PURE, EE v30 (when released) or an OTA based mod such as BA/CA. Permission from the mod's creator will be asked before implementing it.

Maps

I would like small maps, as I will put big team maps in a different package. I need good 1v1 - 3v3 maps, preferably small in file size as well to make the package lighter. My current ideas are:

• Cooper Hill (1v1)
  Flooded Valley (1v1 Sea)
  Darkside Remake (1v1/2v2)
  Small Divide Remake (1v1/2v2)
  Imperfect (1v1/2v2)
  Brazillian Battlefield (up to 3v3)
  Red Comet (1v1 upwards)

I basically need a 1v1 sea map, at least 2-3 1v1/2v2 maps(preferably one dedicated to 1v1 such as Cooper Hill) , a good 3v3 map that can be used for multiplayer that is popular, such as a Comet Catcher variant. The rest of the maps can be good 2v2/3v3 maps. Variety is essential, as this needs to show off to some extent the capabilities of the spring engine map-wise.

AI

I would like to put in either RAI or NTai with suitable configs. The AI must be fully compatible with the mod of choice.

User Utilities
I would like a simple lobby with good functionality to be implemented in the package. The candidates are the updated TASClient, AFLobby or SpringLobby. SpringLobby looks very strong here for its simplicity and single player integration.
Another definite feature would be Spring SP v0.91 and a launch icon for it in the desktop, unless it is integrated into the next release of Spring.

Single Player Missions
Single player missions should be able to correct any simple gameplay mistakes made by new players, and they also provide a good and easy way of playing offline. I would like to have 1 mission for each map in the pack, and for each mission to be different in some way to the others. Educational value should be seriously considered. Mission ideas for the maps I have in mind for inclusion in the pack are:

• [Small Divide Remake] Intro mission with 1-2 AIs against you and an allied AI to start off.
  
  [Imperfect or a low metal map] Acquire a certain amount of resources to teach resource management skills.
  
  [Darkside Remake] Protect the commander to teach commander control skills.
  
  [Cooper Hill] 1v1 to teach strategies for that variant of gameplay.
  
  [Flooded Valley or the 1v1 sea map] Naval tactics against an AI in a 1v1 situation.
  
  [Brazillian Battlefield or a 2v2 map] Hold out for a certain amount of time against a superior opposition to teach delaying strategies and suchforth.

I am also considering making a simple launcher app for these tutorial single player missions to make it even easier to start playing.

Conclusion

I hope this is well received by the community. All criticism of the idea will be noted and factored into the process, and a large amount of community input in the design phase will be very much appreciated. I have the capability to do this practically by myself with exception to the single player missions, but any offers of help will be appreciated.

So, any comments?

[LordMatt]

I think this is a great idea, and contains aspects of things that I wanted to do when I had some free time as well.

Mod

This has to be BA, that's what people play, and you want new players to have no difficulty getting into the game. Besides it's a great mod.

Maps

I was going to make a map pack similar to this several months ago, but ran out of time. For your small maps, I would suggest:
Aquatic_Divide_TNM05-V2.sd7
Battle for PlanetXVII-v01.sd7
Brazillian_BattlefieldV2.sd7
CoastToCoastRemakeV2.sd7
Comet_Catcher_Redux.sd7
8862_Cooper_Hill_TNM02-V1.sd7
HundredsIsles.sd7
4886_Lowland_Crossing_TNM01-V4.sd7
Sands_of_War_v2.sd7
[46MB]
These maps have a wide variety of terrains and you could probably learn how to use almost any unit or strat by playing these maps.

I think your going to have a great deal of difficulty stuffing everything into 50MB, so you should raise the limit to 100MB. I don't think that's too much to ask people to download. I left out a few maps that I really think should be in anyone's initial download pack.

Single Player Missions

Something that Noize and I have talked about is the fact that there really is no good way that nubs are trained to play the game properly. Either nubs get pwned and say fuck it I'm going to play something else. Or they start playing team games and never learn how to play on their own (and then get bored of the 175th game of 8v8 DSD and say fuck it). What we really need are some single player missions that train nubs on the basic aspects of the game. Some missions could be very short, for example give them a few jeffies and make them attack some enemy mex patches while defending their own, to more complex. The point is we need missions that break the game down into individual components, which can be learned on their own, and then applied to new situations. I have quite a few ideas for missions, and what they need to teach new players, but lack any skill or knowledge of how to actually make the missions. When I have more time (starting hopefully in a couple of weeks, but even more later, I was planning to either try to recruit someone to help me code the missions (and teach me how) or start learning it myself. If someone was willing to code the missions with lua, I would be happy to write the briefings and story boards of how they will unfold. Otherwise I'd have to learn to code them in lua also, which I won't have time for for several months in all likelihood. Also Noize had offered to make some custom maps for the missions, should they be needed.

[AF]

cooper hill is biased towards the western side. More rocks and they're also closer to the starting position, and 2 mex spots that are close enough for a single mex to cover them.

AFLobby 3.9.7 has integration options for springSP and settings.exe/settings++. You just need to setup settings.tdf correctly. However its small enough that it and spring lobby could both be bundled.

[LordMatt]

Cooper is not badly biased IMO, though the two close together mex are nice.

[Pressure Line]

Tombstone Desert is nice for a 1v1 or a very intense 2v2...

[ianmac]

For a map, I would suggest "small supreme battlefield", thats the way I learned the units and stough. Yes, it does encourage porking but it encourages you to make a good defensive line, not to mention good choke point control and flank manegment by sea.

[Felix the Cat]

HeavyLancer, my advice to you is to pick whatever you feel is best for mods, maps, AIs, and whatever. Certainly be open to suggestions and comments, but if the map/mod selection becomes democratic there will never be a consensus.

[HeavyLancer]

LordMatt, I am very interested in working together with you on the mission side of things, PM me your storyboards or ideas when you have them done. Also, I think your suggestion of Coast to Coast remake instead is good, it was a toss-up for me between those two.

Maps

Also, for everyone else, please read the whole post. I would like suggestions for small maps. SSB is out of the question, as it is a 16x16 that requires at least 8 players to work properly.
Also, I am aiming for about 6 maps in the pack, and about 5 missions. For this I think that 50 Mb for the entire package is quite a reasonable size.

Mod

I think that BA satisfies one factor for consideration. It is very balanced and people are more than willing to play the most popular mod on the server. However, I would like to see more mods besides BA being played. I like the sound of CA so far, especially with regards to ridding it of Atari IP.
I also like the sound of PURE. Could anyone (preferably argh) give me a brief idea of PURE's gamplay?

Oh and the AI has been decided. RAI should be sufficient for most mods out there and so I will include this.

[Neddie]

I think you need to include BA, but merely because it is played, not for any intrinsic merit. E&E and PURE both sound good, and the CA installer makes inclusion of said content package fairly easy and lightweight at the outset. May I also suggest KP, which is one of the few games to get positive feedback on the whole in the small focus groups I've tried to run.

[Forboding Angel]

you should include KAIK as well, just because rai and kaik are my favorites and each has it's own strengths and weaknesses.

[KingRaptor]

Unfortunately the inexplicable popularity of large team games in Spring mean that you'll have to include big maps anyway regardless of other considerations. :/

AI-wise, since AIs are so small there's probably not much harm in including all of them in the package.

[Tobi]

With regards to maps/mods/missions, recently I was experimenting a bit with turning the Spring installer into a partially online install (it downloads stuff while installing), not in the least to be able to include a lot more without having to wait insanely long for the installer to compress everything everytime some core component needs updating.

(Not that I exclude an offline installer variant, it seems it should be fairly easy to make a script that takes a working online installer and generates a huge offline installer off it, for e.g. distribution on CD or mirrors.)

So if you (HeavyLancer) finish this list of maps and mods I could just add a section for them to the regular installer, which downloads them all at install time (if you select them).

Locally I already have the OTA content as an online thing in the installer, and I plan to make the TA-based mods included a dependency on the OTA section (just like the desktop shortcut to the battleroom requires battleroom section to be selected).

So it would also be nice if, when you make a list of mods, you could say for each of them whether they need OTA content or not, and maybe whether they have another common dependency that could be shipped with Spring.

Wrt SpringSP, the last time I checked it wasn't open source or the source of the last version wasn't available IIRC. That's about the single reason I didn't include it yet... Ideally the source should be in SVN, for it makes the source package generation a lot easier.

Newest KAIK and AAI are in next Spring installer, so RAI and NTAI remain for your package I guess.

[DJ]

does anyone have access to the Unknown Files code? If we could make Unknown files expose a map/mod list as XML then the installer could present a user with an easy interface to pick and download the maps they want.

[Tobi]

You probably don't want to code that in NSIS

Also I think users are too used to click next->next->next without reading anything so they'd get 7 gig of content... (besides that the selection list would be way too huge to be practical, nevermind all the broken content that would be included etc).

[theHive]

You probably don't want to code that in NSIS

Also I think users are too used to click next->next->next without reading anything so they'd get 7 gig of content... (besides that the selection list would be way too huge to be practical, nevermind all the broken content that would be included etc).

We would also be able to make it separate from the installer, though. For lobbies, or even as a standalone.

[Tobi]

Yes, that would be a better idea.

Though in that case getting cup to enable direct downloads and enabling in-lobby map/mod download again would be better I think.

[HeavyLancer]

I have also got a preliminary list done. This is incomplete and is still able to change.

• Mod
  Balanced Annihilation with PURE on the side hopefully to get people introduced to it.
  
  AI
  Both RAI and KAI
  
  Maps
  Aquatic Divide OR Lowland Crossing (1v1)
  Cooper Hill (1v1)
  Coast to Coast Remake (1v1 sea)
  Darkside Remake (1v1/2v2)
  Imperfect (1v1/2v2)
  Small Divide Remake v04 (1v1/2v2)
  Brazillian Battlefield (1v1/2v2/3v3)
  Red Comet (1v1 upwards)

The Maps are 40 Mb in total, so a total package size of 50-55 Mb is realistic atm.

Neddie, I believe that KP should have its own package, as it is quite different to the other mods out there. I like KP a lot, but it just wouldn't fit with this sort of package. I might do one for KP later on.

Also, Tobi, roughly how long will it be before 0.76b1 is released? I would like to know so that I can get a rough deadline for this package, as it would be nice to have a synchronous release

Oh, and a question. What are the gameplay differences between RAI and KAI?

[MightySheep]

the small pack would have to be updated all the time since BA updates all the time and so does other mods. and for maps why not include the maps which everyone plays like Delta Seige Dry, Greenfields, Altored Divide, Small supreme battlefield v2, Speed Metal.

[HeavyLancer]

[Rant]
Mighty Sheep, do you seriously have either A) a pair of working eyes or B) a functioning brain? Have you read every post in its entirety in this thread? Honestly. I have explicitly stated that this is for small maps and not the huge team maps like those you have stated. I will make another package later with those sorts of maps in it.
[/Rant]

However, you do bring up a point with BA though. However, I can justify re-uploading it every month or so just to do that. 55 Mb is small.

[LordMatt]

HeavyLancer:
Can you code the missions in lua already, or are you planning on learning it? I'm probably about two weeks away from being able to work on missions, however when I do, I'll place units ingame with .cheat .give, draw and use markers for motion and orders, and then take screenshots for the story boards. Also I'll send a description of how the mission will unfold and a briefing for the user.

There's probably no reason to include small divide as I think most people will already have it. I know you like red comet, but comet redux is a better map and is only a couple MB larger in size. If you asked Noize which to include (he made both maps) he would likely say redux.