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AA's included Lua

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Caydr
Omnidouche
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Joined: 16 Oct 2004, 19:40

Re: AA's included LUA

Post by Caydr »

Yeah... probably right. I'll see about it.
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Caydr
Omnidouche
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Joined: 16 Oct 2004, 19:40

Re: AA's included LUA

Post by Caydr »

Does anyone use Team Color Platters at all? I'm feeling a bit tempted to remove it:

1) It does not really serve a purpose in AA, since it is easy to see team colors
2) It may interfere with an experimental widget I'm working on

If anyone at all uses it in BA or can put forth a reason why it might be used, I'll still include it, default off obviously.

Thanks
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MidKnight
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Joined: 10 Sep 2008, 03:11

Re: AA's included LUA

Post by MidKnight »

LUA.
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JohannesH
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Joined: 07 Apr 2009, 12:43

Re: AA's included LUA

Post by JohannesH »

Caydr wrote:Does anyone use Team Color Platters at all? I'm feeling a bit tempted to remove it:

1) It does not really serve a purpose in AA, since it is easy to see team colors
2) It may interfere with an experimental widget I'm working on

If anyone at all uses it in BA or can put forth a reason why it might be used, I'll still include it, default off obviously.

Thanks
Maybe it adds clarity to see where units are when zoomed out but not in symbol range yet, something like flea is possible to miss. And no harm includiing it, so why not.
Andrej
Posts: 176
Joined: 13 Aug 2006, 18:55

Re: AA's included LUA

Post by Andrej »

Every time unit visibility is brought up there are a lot of
'works for me if' trolls. (see: gundam and e&e's all units look the same)
(yes pointing out the 2px with rgb difference < 10 makes you qualify)

I have a lot of trouble telling which unit belongs to which team in the left picture:
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1288 ... latter.png
and not at all for the right with teamplatter.

I think i wasnt very unfair with zoom distance and color choice of darkblue/yellow/brown.

Use it all the time.
Would cry like a little girl if it got removed:/

Next 10 replies will contain "works for me i can see everything get glasses ecks dee" or gundam/ee offtopic so probably ignore them.

EDIT:
More preventive: I am NOT trying to attack anyones personal opinion about visibility in any way, or saying that you/anyone can/cant see or any group of any kind of users can or cant see or trying to give an example of what is easy to see and what isnt or trying to comment on other mods visibility OR trying to tell anyone how to make their own mod or saying i am qualified to judge color visibility or implying i know what qualifies someone to judge about color visibility or affiliated with any color visibility lobbying faction.
disclaimer maybe subject to change as people cherry pick flaws in this post
eyu100
Posts: 182
Joined: 05 Jul 2008, 04:10

Re: AA's included LUA

Post by eyu100 »

You seem to be saying that the included Lua will be the only allowed Lua. Is there a reason for this besides making the mod file smaller (edit) and the obvious reason of preventing cheating (/edit)? If not, you could get someone to write the widget signing gadget that I described (if it is possible to write such a widget) and allow lots and lots of other widgets.
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Caydr
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by Caydr »

Alright, if there are people using it I'll leave team platters in, no big deal. Next question, is there any valid use for the x-ray widget or is it pretty much just a demo? The only thing I can come up with is making units more visible on a map with low lighting, and in my limited experience I've only seen one of those.

The main reason I'm disallowing other widgets is the cheating factor, and I don't anticipate it being a problem. All the major widgets will be included, as well as quite a few minor or niche ones. If someone tells me, "hey, I want this widget included," then I will include it.

Even if some sort of signing system were possible, it would not correct the second reason I'm disallowing other widgets: to create a level playing field. Newbies shouldn't play at a disadvantage just because they haven't dug through every lua script in every archive on every site. I can't imagine that being enjoyable.

Including all the major lua scripts also affords me the opportunity to ensure that they all work together seamlessly with no work required on the part of the end-user.
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Otherside
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by Otherside »

no1 really cheats atm. your just being overly defensive and it will probably end up hurting your playerbase. Mods that block widgets havent been overly popular.
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JohannesH
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by JohannesH »

Otherside wrote:no1 really cheats atm. your just being overly defensive and it will probably end up hurting your playerbase. Mods that block widgets havent been overly popular.
A lot of people use widgets that are cheating in a mod where theyre disallowed. Some mods even have such things on by default. Naturally they are not cheating in a mod where theyre allowed, duh.
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Caydr
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by Caydr »

Check out Ghost Radar, which at present has been downloaded at least 1300 times, and which provides the player with information they could not possibly know without computer assistance, in other words, cheating. It is, at least theoretically, also the 13th most-used widget.

I'll gladly allow all widgets at such a time when the engine doesn't make the system so easy to exploit. Until then, my current "suggest, review, include" system should work perfectly fine.
Google_Frog
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by Google_Frog »

Doesn't this all seem like a bit too much work just to stop one widget that uses radar unit ID's which is probably fixed in the next engine version anyway? I suppose collecting a lot of the common widgets and including them is good from a level playing field standpoint but that doesn't mean you have to block everything else.

For example; could you include my custom UI widgets? I doubt anyone else would want to use it and it's hardcoded to my screen resolution.

Edit: Tested and it doesn't seem to be fixed in latest, that's really annoying.
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Caydr
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by Caydr »

Sent you a PM.

There are other, less severe "cheats" that I'm aware of, and surely other more severe "cheats" that I'm not aware of. I've been told about quite a few things that make me cringe though, things that mod-makers and lua makers have known about for a while but are purposefully keeping quiet.

If anyone else has concerns about their custom widgets not working, say so. Odds are I can implement your custom changes - and if you're not willing to share your work or ideas, than my policy (force a level playing field) is having its desired effect. The only reason I couldn't include changes from custom widgets would be if they cheat, in which case mission accomplished.

In the near future I'll take another round of screenshots so people can see what my own custom UI modifications do. I do have some user interface design experience, so I am hoping that at least the majority of end-users will be satisfied with what widgets I've included, and in what capacity I've included them.

-----

My definition of cheat:

Anything that gives a player the ability to do something that a normal human with a reasonable amount of experience could not possibly do, or to get knowledge that is impossible to get normally.

A script which automatically d-guns for you is borderline. I could probably be swayed either way by a good argument.

Defense Ranges is not a cheat, since it is possible to find out firing ranges of structures by various methods, and you can always just draw on the map once you know where they are. All defense ranges accomplishes is to eliminate hassle.

Ghost Radar is a cheat since it keeps track of radar dot positions flawlessly, simultaneously tracking every unit you've ever had LoS on. No human could do that. Maybe one or two dots could be tracked with a reasonable degree of certainty, but not hundreds or thousands. Moreover, it makes use of data which is hidden.

Auto factory rotation isn't a cheat since it does something even a child could accomplish - figure out what direction your units will most likely need to travel in, and turn the factory that direction.

Air Transport AI isn't a cheat but from a technical standpoint it could almost be called one. But all it really does is eliminate some tedious micromanagement. Moving your units around the field of battle should be extremely easy.

Auto micromanagement widgets aren't really cheats but IMHO they automate part of the game that's supposed to be fun. I could probably be persuaded to add them though if there were enough people asking, since it's hardly something that will turn the tide of a battle. Once a player knows his opponent is using one of these it's not hard to trick it into doing stupid things anyway. This one's almost a moral choice, really - I don't want to encourage the development of things that in effect "play the game for you", regardless of how effective they are or how effective the might become.

There are a few exceptions I'm making, like the metal maker AI. IMHO this isn't a cheat but it falls under the same sort of category as auto micromanagement except that there's no downside whatsoever to using it. That doesn't mean I like it, I've just accepted that people have become accustomed to having it available, so there's nothing I can do about it.

I hope this clears up any misunderstandings about the sorts of things I intend to allow and the reasons why or why not. If I'm not including something, odds are I just don't know it exists, so please tell me what you want and why it's useful. Unless I can come up with some reason it will ruin the game, I'll include it.
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Caydr
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Re: AA's included Lua

Post by Caydr »

one of my new and improved scripts wrote:-- Note that I hacked this to death to achieve a certain functionality, most or all of the optional elements are broken now.
-- What remains teters on the functional side of the brink of collapse, by the power of kittens and positive thinking.

-- I try not to do this normally, but I found this particular script to be utterly beyond my "limited" comprehension when
-- operating within the bounds of good sense and reason. I forsee this script becoming completely broken when whatever engine
-- bugs it's now relying on are fixed. But for now... - caydr
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