Spring RTS Engine

*bump*

Bump.

I think we have a majority among those who bothered to vote?

Well me and Masse have alomst finished the website. It will be located at http://battletech.tauniverse.com/ when its working, although at the time of this posting it wasnt yet up. Thats all I know about whats happening, but im sure someone else will be happy to inform people of any more changes.

stuff is happening, I thought I'd just keep quiet till it had already happened though.
However, this 'stuff' is going very slowly, since I think I'm the only active modeler or texturer working with us. and I just can't help it, but I'm a procrastinating, lazy git. That said, if anyone hits their head really hard with a rock, and discovers they can texture, just let me know , because I'm able to do modelling at an acceptable speed, but the UV'ing slows me down, and texturing daunts my worthless art/graphics-impaired butt quite terribly.

Well, the website may not be fully working just yet, but we do have forums! http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=142
Further discussion should be taken there, as that is where info on updates will be. Though release info will be stated here as well, of course.

*Bump*

Whats going on with this mod? Any new work or anything?

Arch's forum isn't good enough? He wants to make updates there. I'd appreciate a status report every now and then but it's up to him

There isnt anything happening there either. Masse and I make a website for them, but then they die. How depressing.

finals are happening (for me at least)

grumble grumble,

only active what..

but the UV'ing slows me down, and texturing daunts my worthless art/graphics-impaired butt quite terribly.

well actually im not bragging but i have experience with UV maping, how ever trying to port any models into s3o prooves very difficult for me. if we could get maybe a hand in some one who is expereinced in s3o i think we could move much faster. so pretty much asking around the spring modding community or, even if any fans out there want t give it a shot..?

If you can get on teamspeak some time I can try and walk you through it.

In other news, one of the things needed for a first release is a resource system (don't get to excited at those words just yet though).
Well, I'm wanting to get away from TA style resources and adding to the mod a magical building technology that, frankly, doens't exist in Battletech. So, I'm looking for alternate resourcing methods that are possible in Spring's current resource system (you know, the 2 resources, the various methods of acquiring them). Any ideas would be nice (even "how about copying TA and having magical building technobabble!", but as you can see, I already have that one so no need to repeat it).

After some thought, I've come up with one possibility. It should promote very mobile oriented and aggressive gameplay. I also think it is truer to Battletech than trying to use a TA resource system, while still making it possible to have massive battles of atrocious death counts (on maps designed for it)

First Part: Construction (not including tech tree)
I was thinking instead of construction buildings, you have "drop-points". You'd start with a smallish one where some basic light units are "carried" in by a dropship. They would be instantly built, with only the carry time of the dropship to bring them to ground. You'd also have some kind of constructor which could set up other drop-points for the different unit types. Elementals, tanks, mechs, heavier classes. These drop-points would be handling full scale dropships, so an assault Mech drop-point would require a good bit of space. Also, getting the drop point destroyed means that dropship can no longer land there. They would take time to set up, bigger ones of course take longer.

Aircraft would be somewhat different. Perhaps you'd build an Air Control Tower that you can use to call down aircraft from the Jumpships.

And Now: Resources
The resources to build your mobile units would come from "control points", drop points could be so in some small fashion (the first one more so), and then maybe metal spots would be substituted to be so as well. Thus, you'd have your starting drop-point as a control point, producing an amount of "resources" (they aren't named yet). Building other drop-points also show control of an area, so they'd give some "resouce" as well. Those things you know as "metal deposits" would be used to signify important locations. You'd take control of an area by "flagging" it. This "flag" would actual be a metal extractor as you know it, when placed on one of those important areas it would provide an amount of "resource" (which could be scaled to the areas importance with ease by the mapmaker). Thus, controlling more of these areas would mean you can get more units more often.

The "flags" would be incredibly weak while being built and take a while, thus he opponent could easily stop you if he has units in the area. Once built we can give them a high damage modifier with self repair so it is harder to lose them once you have control of the area. They would also be virtually free, at least in metal, they just mean you have established control of an area.

Either, we could have the "flags" be built by every combat mobile (and maybe some static) unit. Because of the nature of the flag, you would only be able to set one up in an area with no resistance, a stray machine gun bullet might blow one away if it isn't finished and you'd be detracting from your fighting force to try (but if you have the enemy sufficiently overwhelmed, it would be possible to do). Once actually finished, they would take quite a beating, so it wouldn't be wise for someone trying to wrest control of the area to attack it first, but rather wait until after they have secured the area (wasting precious seconds, ammo, and heat on something that does not directly affect the battle would not play well unless you have the enemy overwhelmed anyway).

Or, you'd have to bring a constructor to the front line to setup your flags. It would slow down the rate of taking important areas considerably.

Or, make some combat mobiles, probably the more assault oriented ones, set up the flags. This would slow the game down some, but not as much as the second option. It maintains some of the more realistic "area control when you control the area, not when some constructor walks in later" of the first option. It prevents the initial game just being scout units zipping around the map dropping flags as fast as they can, but without forcing you to babysit some constructor type unit.

For the static units, we might need a separate resource (or perhaps not).
I'm thinking something like a "prefab factory", that "builds" parts to quickly setup buildings, ammo cases, and parts of various units. They'd generate a static amount. This resource would then be used to build everything that is actually built (and not brought in via dropship). Some for your drop-points (gotta have landing lights and control towers!), defensive turrets, even the "flags". Things that reload or repair units would also drain some amount continuously as they stockpile ammo and replacement parts. And of course you don't have to micro exactly what they are building as they do so automatically and perfectly (so no worrying that your prefab factories aren't making enough ammo to keep your ac10's running)! Unless you don't have enough to provide parts for everything (your problem, not mine:)).

I would encourage you to make your suggestions on our forums though.
http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=142

Some Work-in-progress texturing i'm doing on Bob's Timber Wolf.

Comments, and more importantly (constructive) criticisms please about how to improve the texture.

* the "lines" will be removed, ignore those please*

Is "very nice" constructive critisism ? :) It could use some reflectivity at some parts or maybe its just the lighting not showing that.

And Now: Resources
The resources to build your mobile units would come from "control points", drop points could be so in some small fashion (the first one more so), and then maybe metal spots would be substituted to be so as well. Thus, you'd have your starting drop-point as a control point, producing an amount of "resources" (they aren't named yet). Building other drop-points also show control of an area, so they'd give some "resouce" as well. Those things you know as "metal deposits" would be used to signify important locations. You'd take control of an area by "flagging" it. This "flag" would actual be a metal extractor as you know it, when placed on one of those important areas it would provide an amount of "resource" (which could be scaled to the areas importance with ease by the mapmaker). Thus, controlling more of these areas would mean you can get more units more often.

possibly make it so the drop-pads have a low building tolerance and need to be built on almost perfectly flat areas (as this mods going to need spefic maps anyway) which the mapmaker sticks in. This would be pretty awesome IMO

it seems this model(in picture)have the same quality level as mechwarrior4 released
very impressive(i wait for vulture model:my favorit)
if only you can modelise for the internal view its will a wonderfull

Nice looking madcat. Would love to see a Marauder IIC.

That's gorgeous, like SJ says, work on the 2nd texture map so it has some nice reflectivity in spring, but other then that I'm very impressed.