Spring RTS Engine

So yeah I've been saying I'd do this forever and just keep procrastinating / evading it.

What it is:
A series of hierarchical templates for Spring Games:

• A(lmost Minimal) - Basically just empty directories and a working ModInfo.lua, EngineOptions.lua, ModOptions.lua, Gamedata/Resources.lua and base-content gadget handler inclusion.
• B(are Bones) - A + Gamedata/{ArmorDefs.lua, MoveDefs.lua, SideData.lua} skeletons with links to relevant wiki articles, as well as inclusion of base content unit_script.lua, game_spawn.lua and game_end.lua
• C(hili UI Framework) - B + Chili (2.1) & associated files to make it work

Most people will want to use B or C, A isn't much use to anyone.

What it isn't:

• A replacement to SimpleTutorialGame (but perhaps to PTSnoop's EmptyMod, which was in turn based on the original A.sdd)
• A repository of example units and scripts, none are included whatsoever
• Worth waiting for

Cool! May be it should be on wiki

maybe add to Templates & Examples? (edit: ninja-ed )

Though the noob in me, so to speak, was disappointed there was nothing to see in-game.

I've asked and have been asked for these kind of example-games over the years, and I think they are considered very valuable to someone inspired to make a spring game. (More valuable than any other spring-game file or asset.) If you start with BA for instance (as i once did, because I felt most familiar with it) it could very well be that one doesn't see the forest for the trees, so to speak.

I hope people will realise the abc-games hold no "trees" at all.

And I'm surprised, because I believe some example-game (with units and with useful comments in the files) that I use for my current experiments was made by you.

In any case I think it is a good supplement.
(for me personal especially C.sdd )

The original A.sdd had a 'cube' unit as at that time it was required for a game to have a unit in order to run, PTSnoop used that version when creating EmptyMod and built onto that for EmptyMod plus Tank and ExampleMod.

I think knorke's SpringTutorialGame may then have sprung from ExampleMod?

At any rate EmptyMod and it's derivatives are used in http://springrts.com/wiki/The_Complete_ ... pring_Game

IMO it would be nice if someone rewrote such a guide using SpringTutorialGame or using B.sdd with additional examples in the pages themselves, such a guide should be broken into appropriate sections rather than being all in one page and covering superfluous stuff e.g. modelling in wings.

As stated though, I don't see this as a replacement to tutorial games but rather a supplement - gajop stated something like 'I used Toolbox as a base [to scenario editor] just because it had a working Chili setup'. ABC is meant as a clean slate foundation to build your game on, not an example of how to do so - yes I acknowledge the latter is perhaps more pressingly needed, but that is the purpose of knorke's STG.

edit: Now on wiki; http://springrts.com/wiki/Gamedev:SpringABC

Awesome job, its actually useful to me as well because I only ever worked on developed mods and never knew exactly what bits were bare bones and what weren't.

Silentwings wrote:Awesome job, its actually useful to me as well because I only ever worked on developed mods and never knew exactly what bits were bare bones and what weren't.

Well, really all you need to run these days is a valid modinfo.lua, and a cursornormal as springcontent.sdz fills in all the blanks, but I felt it was more useful to at least supply a working LUS environment and mod/engineoptions skeletons.

Can we get a Link besides the Download button on the frontpage.

"Make your own Game"

Think I commented on that before but could not find old thread.

ABC is meant as a clean slate foundation to build your game on

Kind of like "new project" template in some IDEs or whatever office text editors and some basic stuff is already filled in.
Imo somewhat useful, but only to modders who want to start a new project. Those are likely not completly "new" but have already some experience.
They will probally already know what files are needed/not needed. Or maybe they want to do things in non-standard ways? Either way I see little use to create examples for people who already know what they are doing.

skeletons with links to relevant wiki articles

Think there is the risk of just re-creating info such as http://springrts.com/wiki/Game_structure packed as .sdd folder.

C chili already has a tutorial: http://springrts.com/wiki/Chili
that explains how to copy the files etc. Such mod will also become outdated vs the chili files on github unless you update it all the time..

'I used Toolbox as a base [to scenario editor] just because it had a working Chili setup'

I think problem might be that either:
a) the chili tutorial is maybe lacking, in some way
b) the tutorial was not found
c) too much chili stuff/widgets is altered and thus incompatible with each other

A thought... Once I get all the evo stuff legoed, you could take all of the models and textures from evo (and scripts I guess) and and have it as an optional download (mutator perhaps?), so that newbies could hit the ground running.

Or you could include the stuff for that matter, but I was assuming that you were wanting it to be a small file or whatever.

I know you think it is pointless knorke, thanks for letting me know, again.

Yes it would be better off on github with chili as a submodule.

FLOZi wrote:Yes it would be better off on github with chili as a submodule.

Can be done. The only restriction is that then the user must use git, and cannot download the automatically generated master.zip as it won't include the chili submodule.

gajop wrote:

FLOZi wrote:Yes it would be better off on github with chili as a submodule.

Can be done. The only restriction is that then the user must use git, and cannot download the automatically generated master.zip as it won't include the chili submodule.

Ewwwww

There are also subtrees. I heard those zip up nicely.

'A' will be useful for bug reports.

Seems to be missing a GameData/ModRules.lua that returns a table.

Also it seems not to load any unitdefs until you specify a side in GameData/SideData.lua. Maybe put a default value there so people don't waste too much time searching for errors?

gajop wrote:Also it seems not to load any unitdefs until you specify a side in GameData/SideData.lua. Maybe put a default value there so people don't waste too much time searching for errors?

Wasn't aware of that. Whoops wrt modrules.lua, will update when i get a chance.

Any chance you could put this on github?
Would be useful to reference to it: "This is how you do X in Spring".

Will do, and fix the above issue... at some point. Hopefully soon. ish.

Flozi, you might consider grabbing the generic unit and shell explosions that I've created for evo (the are pretty nicely formatted for the most part) and sticking them in there. It's an excellent place for new modders to start with CEG effects.

The downside is that they are tdfs