XTA Development discussion - Page 15

XTA Development discussion

Discuss game development here, from a distinct game project to an accessible third-party mutator, down to the interaction and design of individual units if you like.

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Better then v7?

Poll ended at 08 Nov 2006, 03:04

Yes
23
82%
No
5
18%
 
Total votes: 28

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rattle
Damned Developer
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Joined: 01 Jun 2006, 13:15

Post by rattle »

Even though this doesn't belong here, how about updating/continuing the documentation a bit with some more actual examples and explanation? I'm probably not the only who's rather clueless.

All I want is a reference document explaining what every single tag does (and the side effects, if there are any) and not only half of it. Also some explanation when to use what would be cool as well. Last time I've taken a look at any buildtables is several months ago, guess why. Neither Lindir's XTA or Argh's nanoblobs table gave me some insight back then and the XE7 doc is incomplete.

I think documentation is one of the most important things what ever you do, let it be mod or AI or a full game.
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PauloMorfeo
Posts: 2004
Joined: 15 Dec 2004, 20:53

Post by PauloMorfeo »

Chojin wrote:Foe, maybe you should update your knowledge of weapons.tdf and armor.txt, before you scream like that, here:
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Mod_Development:Armor

So, what did that :%g /ARMBRAWL/d on weapons.tdf exactly do to the balance of XTA? right, nothing...
You are wrong.
And that wiki info is stightly wrong. That wiki info explains what it should work like (at least in my opinion. Some others disagree), not how Spring works.
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The_Big_Boss
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Joined: 17 Jul 2006, 04:00

Post by The_Big_Boss »

The fleas are fine. If you let them spam fleas u screwed up. The fleas is the ultimate anti porcer and can easily be countered with flak cannons and dragon teeth.

Its hard spamming fleas and a person could easily build zueses or warriors at a much faster rate. The fleas were a key choice in defeating the turtled porcers who hangout in only a small part of the map. If you would spread out ur base and expand u wouldnt have that problem. Most of the damage from a flea rush comes from the base turning inside and shooting onitself missing the fleas and hitting their own buildings. If planes cant reach inside the base because their is flaks everywhere inside the base, the fleas will run in and the flaks will damage the base because of the area of damage. Same thing with purple lasers, same thing with green, same thing with missels, whatever. Build outside of ur base and build units to counter the fleas. Build some gunships whatever. Or attack the enemy. Fleas arent very good at defending since flea power relies on the enemies weps to be turned inward. Simplest solution is dragon teeth perimeter(something I think in past exta versions that has been neglected.)

The new version of xta is fine in my book. The planes have me a little worried, but its to early to tell. I could tell earlier if their was an abuse if people would stop 1v1 ais or only the knox clan was on when I was.

I do think every, I mean every change, should be with recorded in the change log. Not to prevent xta to turn into a knox conspiracy theory, but to keep the knox conspiracy theory out of the question and for some people who wish to compare the new list with the old. We should weigh the argument by the argument, the fact by fact, not on the agendas of individuals.

There has been past arguments on what xta is or what it should be. If there was a written standard applied to xta, we could bash or praise the new versions, but if there is no standard applied to xta it will change by the creators opinion(creator may listen to others, but the creator has the authority of creator and he chooses what helps or huts. No one said it had to be a democracy.). Gizmo has a vision different from others and similar to others. To suggest Gizmo is changing xta into his own mod is incorrect, for that is your standards of xta versus his. He may very well be thinking what he has here is the best xta version ever, not the best knox mod ever. Or it could be the best knox mod ever. Speculation with no hard facts. What should probably be done is make a written standard of the game to keep it on track. I know it sounds like over kill, but I dont think wed have as much as a problem as we do now with xta.

I dont know about the ai situation. I could care less. I would care if someone explained to me the importance of having ais, else I dont owe any praise or concern about a third party institution. Last time I checked xta development and ai developmenet were to seperate things. It so happens that ai development needs xta development to not change all the time. Last time I check any organization doesnt owe any relationship metioned above jack squat. It would be nice, but u dont have to be nice in the world to be in the right.
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The_Big_Boss
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Post by The_Big_Boss »

Let me be clear with above about the flea counter.

Flak cannons are a good counter against the flea only if outside of the base, not inside.
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AF
AI Developer
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Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Post by AF »

I dont know about the ai situation. I could care less. I would care if someone explained to me the importance of having ais, else I dont owe any praise or concern about a third party institution. Last time I checked xta development and ai developmenet were to seperate things. It so happens that ai development needs xta development to not change all the time. Last time I check any organization doesnt owe any relationship metioned above jack squat. It would be nice, but u dont have to be nice in the world to be in the right.
AI development is not the creation of user configs for a mod, that is mod development.

AI development involves C++ or C# or some other compiled or interpreted language dealing with actually playing the game.

Saying that buildtrees and AI configs are an AI developers responsibility is like saying models maps and loading screens are an engine devs responsibility.

And any attempt to pin your responsibilities as mod makers on AI devs is pure selfishness.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

the flea is avaliable from the about 11 min mark on most maps. at its current low cost, its perfectly feasable to say, they will be able to get a 10 strong group up by the 14 min mark. what, at the 14 min mark, can stop 10 fleas owning all things economic? virtually nothing hits a speeding flea. they fine late game im sure, but there is no krogs or mass HLT or flak cannons or time for a DT wall so early, and its at this point where flea spam will own so bad. thats why I say +E cost, cuz you wont have enough E to assist-build fleas until you got a few minifusions then (the 18-20 min mark).
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The_Big_Boss
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Post by The_Big_Boss »

Could pyros counter and could missel tourets spead out help? Thanks for the minute times. If its that early... I dont know. Ill have to play a game or two. I still think it can be stopped.

AF I dont think I argued that the mod devs are responsible for the ai devs. If I did I said it wrong. I do think that the ai devs depend on mod devs for the naming of units and such. If the mod dev changes all the time, then the ai dev has to change all the time. I dont think its the mods devs job to work with the ai dev. I think it may be kind of him to consider, but its not his top priority. His priority is his mod, maybe his mod could do better with ai, that is always a factor. Are we on the same page?
Chojin
Posts: 141
Joined: 04 Oct 2006, 11:22

Post by Chojin »

I just talked to Yeha:
<Napkin> so, if there was no group called "ARMBRAWL" in armor.txt, ARMBRAWL=N was ignored all along?
<Yeha> yeah
but:
<Yeha> a damage entry in the weapon can point to unit name in a armor.txt section though
<Yeha> that might be where the confusion is
<Napkin> ok, let me check the old armor.txt, whether ARMBRAWL was in a group
<Napkin> [LandAir]
<Napkin> {
<Napkin> ARMTHUND=13;
<Napkin> ARMBRAWL=13;
<Napkin> ---
<Napkin> so, that means, ARMBRAWL=N was used.....?
<Yeha> that means armbrawl=damage would give the damage to everything in LandAir
And finally:
<Napkin> http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... /XTAPE.sd7
<Napkin> fixed :)
<Yeha> allright, i'll get it included tomorrow
So, my bad. I got misled by that wiki entry and fixed my mistake.

I'll write a perl script tomorrow to rename files and to search & replace within files, according to the new naming scheme.

Next I would like to state, that Gizmo is doing a great job on arguing and modifying and testing, arguing, arguing and modifying and testing! I like v8.1 a lot. Apart from my restructuring work, I think it has all the show-stoppers fixed, many useful changes and aGorm's pictures as sugar-pie on top.
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Lindir The Green
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Post by Lindir The Green »

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:that basicly is Lindirs buildtree which is numerous notepad files containing ordered lists of unit names for the old xta. it could actually be changed in about 20 minutes by copying it into word, and using the "FIND AND REPLACE WORD" function. ie, find corcom, replace with cor_commander etc and whacking it back into files. hell id do it if someone sent me all the files just to stop this fecking up XTA development.
I would say that it would take more like an hour or two, because there are so many files and because I neither have all of the old names nor any of the new names memorized.

But, as I have stated repeatedly, it is not the work to convert to the new standard that upsets me. It is the fact that I find the new standard far inferior to the old standard.

About forking XTA... Well, it just might be neccesary if the minority in charge doesn't start listening to the majority of other XTA players who disagree with them. The problem would be that then there would be a huge war about which one is the "official" XTA that gets both the name and the space in the default Spring package.
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Noruas
XTA Developer
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Joined: 24 Feb 2005, 02:58

Post by Noruas »

Heres a version of 8.1 with anti air fixed, http://www.unknown-files.net/index.php? ... &dlid=1957
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The_Big_Boss
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Joined: 17 Jul 2006, 04:00

Post by The_Big_Boss »

"It is the fact that I find the new standard far inferior to the old standard." Inferior to whom? You or the mod dev? Let alone explain how it is inferior.

"minority in charge" Point out who that is please. Lets stop using ambigous terms and drop the hidden blame and anger.

"majority of other XTA players" Point out who they are please. I want to see if I ever played them in xta.

"doesn't start listening" Explain, give me an example.

Cut the crap. Im on peeking through the chat server and I see xta players playing ai. I see very few games when I am on and I never get to play any of those ai xta players. Frankly its embarrassing. The Majority, (if we mean numbers) play ais 1v1. Pathetic. Then having them have a right vote so they could improve their odds against ai? Last time I check xta was for people. (and yes I do see groups of people playing every now and then, but they are far outnumbered by ai xta players. AND I have never played these groups of people.)

And there you have it about the planes. Drop the dumb thing. The 'Knox Mod' had no evidence backing it up. It is insulting and shaming. I think everyone should apologize to knox for making such a stupid remark. El barto had nothing to do with it anyway. (Mainly Myg and Gizmo) And the Plane thing had nothing to do with Gizmo. An ERROR with the wikie situation. This guy has been working so fricken frantically and you bash him for doing things so fast, and yet you guys are so fast to put blame. If Things were double checked on both sides then the error would of been found and NO BLAME would of been placed. The only difference was that Gizmo nor 'the evil Knox Clan' used cheap tactics to prove a point.



Just because things dont go your way doesnt mean no one isnt trying to please you.

Blarg.
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Argh
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Post by Argh »

I've read through the rationale for re-naming everything. Lindir, absolutely no offense meant to you, but I agree with the current XTA developers.

8-character names for units are a legacy of DOS. The processing overhead associated with nice, long, descriptive names is trivial these days. So why not use long names?
Chojin
Posts: 141
Joined: 04 Oct 2006, 11:22

Post by Chojin »

Noruas wrote:Heres a version of 8.1 with anti air fixed, http://www.unknown-files.net/index.php? ... &dlid=1957
Please use this file instead:
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... /XTAPE.sd7

as it will be included in tomorrow's installer.
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aGorm
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Post by aGorm »

Can everyone jus thold on for a mo? Were like on teh verg of having to XTA forks, and that wont work. Its hard enough to ge ta game of XTA as it is. Maybe the dev team needs a few new members or somthing, to represtent the other half of the players? Theres a lot of Good in this XTA V8 you know, and we cant afford to fork just because of a few changes.

aGorm
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

WHAT IS BORKED THAT NEEDS FORKING? the names can be fixed for the AI in about 2 hours. the balance is perfect. this IS the players XTA. half the changes are around because of things discussed in this forum. for example: scouts, bombers, spiders, cans, stumpies/raiders, AA bots, Riot tanks... all decided by players. if you have an issue, complain, with mathmatical and gamplay evidence and if its aok it gets changed. there are damn few issues left anyhow.

foethebee, what is wrong with the current version?

edit: knox conspirancy lols
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AF
AI Developer
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Post by AF »

AF I dont think I argued that the mod devs are responsible for the ai devs. If I did I said it wrong. I do think that the ai devs depend on mod devs for the naming of units and such. If the mod dev changes all the time, then the ai dev has to change all the time. I dont think its the mods devs job to work with the ai dev. I think it may be kind of him to consider, but its not his top priority. His priority is his mod, maybe his mod could do better with ai, that is always a factor. Are we on the same page?
No, you totally dont get me at all.

Unitnames are only relevant to AI devs who hardcode unitnames in their source code. NTai hasnt had that for nearly a year.

And generally AI development is contineud regardless fo unitnames.

This issue is not a flaw in NTai, it is a flaw in XTA and the files it gives to NTai, not the other way round. It is the XTA config for NTai, not NTais config for XTA. The buildtrees and configuration are the modders responsibility not the AI developers. AI developers only responsibility that is in anyway near is the maintenance of the formats functionality in their AI project.

Thus it isnt my responsibility to create and maintain buildtrees, but rather it is my responsibility to make sure that everything in the buildtree does what the buildtree maker tells it to behaviour wise.

So far you've been lucky that lindir has taken the time todo the work for you, but ultimately it isnt lindirs responsibility, its the XTA mod teams, and most of the modders in spring just dont realize that they've been leaving out AI completely and that its upto them not the AI devs todo the configs.

This is bad because your players are being forced to make them and in a lot of cases they dont do very well because they dont understand the mod as well as its creator, and its not particularly nice for them to do the modders work for them.


As for "XTA is made for people", yes it is, but that doesnt mean it was made specifically for multiplayer, it was originally an OTA mod and most OTA players who played mods did so offline versus the AI. Skirmish functionality in a mod is very important, and I would argue that XTA's better AI support has been one of its saving graces. Where do you think ti would be if all the AIs had good AA support and no XTA support?

And what about the huge XTA player divide? Why should a total noob go through the demoralising and humiliating debacle of fighting you? In XTA your either pwned by a pro or wipe the floor of a noob who doesnt know howto queue units in a factory. The only midfield XTA option there is is the AI.
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rattle
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Post by rattle »

Argh wrote:8-character names for units are a legacy of DOS. The processing overhead associated with nice, long, descriptive names is trivial these days. So why not use long names?
Because typing them out takes ages and shorthand works as well. My opinion though.
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aGorm
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Post by aGorm »

Its a bit liek giving a web page the name "shortsynopiseswithcastpage.htm" as oposed to "ssynopcast.htm". Ones long and dificult to type and teh others short and easy. As long as everything is based on some sort of standard, short hand wins everytime. Its only because a few XTA units had obsucrue names that you considered changing them in teh first place, but if just those had been updated we would prob all be fine.

Not that it realy affects me so I dont care if we go long or short, just which ever it is I dont want to end up with 2 XTA's.

(Also... can someone just give a stright answer... how long would it take to change them back to the old names? last time I checked you had made the mod, and changing names was teh last thing you wer edoing. Surly someone has a backup?)

aGorm
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

I joined XTA about 9 months ago max. as long as you have a brain you can play acceptably after the first 10 or so hours. the key is to listen to what people tell you and not to be annoying. annoying noobs just get kicked. start playing as the techer (stay our of trouble and tech to fusion then spam) and once your pro play as the attacker (furious attack from moment to go to protect techers) I dont see why XTA is so much harder to get into than AA. its just that a far higher proportion of the terrible players go straight to AA from onset.
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aGorm
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Post by aGorm »

Who were you replying to?? :-)

aGorm
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