P.U.R.E. 0.8 RC3

[Julius]

Btw, (might have been answered already, sry I am new), but what is the license on the code and the media (I hope I don't mention a tuchy subject here )?

Edit.. is this info still correct (sorry still need to read that moster thread):
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15182&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=license+pure&start=20

[Forboding Angel]

The license is available on the second page of the installer iirc.

[Otherside]

Licenses in spring a touchy subject NEVA!!!!

(hides the 1000's of posts about GPL bawwing)

side note i made picture

[Julius]

The license is available on the second page of the installer iirc.

Can't read it since the installer is windows only, and I am here on Linux.

[daan 79]

would you guys be offended if i asked if i could use those houses features on my new map.

PLz

[Noruas]

The only decent way for to record things is to edit the particles and have low graphics on, is there any way to shut the damn lagggy rain off, so i could quickly make a teaser video?

[Otherside]

its not the rain that lags its the fog shader on some maps

[VonGratz]

Argh,
Its AMAZING!
GREAT!
Very well done man!
vonGratz

[Google_Frog]

Don't decrease the damage of the sky laser because if it didn't kill most things in one shot it would be unuseful. Try increasing it's reload (it's really short for a superweapon), increasing it's cost and reducing it's range slightly so getting shot down is more of a risk.

The rebs can expand and rush much sooner but in a 2v2 this shouldn't matter.

The overmind tank has less hp/cost and and damage for cost than the heavy mech. The heavy mech is OP and the tank doesn't have enough hp to be a tank.

Turrets are able to be spammed absolutely everywhere.

[Hoi]

[TheBigPK]

Holy nuts Argh, congrats on the moddb love . Instant free publicity wooooooooot!!!! The game rocks

[Argh]

I haven't had time / mental energy to address everything, but I must sleep now.

Stuff that's dealt with:

1. Heavy Mech's been nerfed on DPS. Dunno whether it's been nerfed enough, that's just going to take some playtesting.

2. Tank / MBT have both seen hitpoints raised, to make them more "tanklike". May have to nerf DPS now, dunno.

3. Issues with Ion Laser have been dealt with (lowered range considerably, raised reload time fixed issues with Interceptors, etc.).

May end up being too much of a nerf, but we'll just have to see. I found out, among other things, that the CruiseAlts weren't all standardized... and that aircraft on different CruiseAlts apparently don't detect each other as potential targets properly

4. Most of the turrets have had their build times double.

5. MetalMakers were basically totally screwed up by the grep process I used to make the numbers more "noob friendly". They're back to the way they say they are, on the tin- 300 Power buys you 5 Materials. Not 30 Power for 5 Materials. Major problem there, eh? No wonder people were complaining about that one...

6. Built two graphics for the factions, so that they look all right in TASClient.

7. Made the theme music a Widget, so that you can turn it off. You can turn it back on, will start right back up. Volume adjustment later, when I have time.

8. Overmind Commander got a substantial hitpoint boost.

9. Repair speeds lowered for all units except for the Overmind commander. Repair is now half build speed... let me know if that's too much of a nerf, but it should be all right.

10. Found errors in the auto-repairs for most units... fixed them. Another grep problem that went un-noticed, units are supposed to auto-heal if they're not hit by anything after awhile, and that wasn't working at all. Now it is. It helps defenses that aren't getting hit constantly, but also allows you to pull forces back and get them healed before attacking again, and this feature was broken ever since the noob-number fix, but I didn't spot it until now

11. Boosted Power costs for all Units by 2X, to make the Energy curve a bit less easy. I'm not changing Materials output curves at this time- if you're playing this game correctly, you should never, ever have spare Materials unless you've pretty much won anyhow.



Soooo.... other than the issues imbazcek pointed out (some of which, I should say right now, aren't really solvable- I can't do anything about Heavy Troopers flying about, they're aircraft when they fly, it's just how things are, short of doing some uber-complex MoveCtrl solution)... meh, I think that's it, other than vague stuff about specific unit balance / roles.

Sooooo... I have one stupid question, for now: if I make multiple desktop icons that start Spring and invoke different files that have game scripts in them, will that work? I.E., "game1.txt, game2.txt", etc.? That would allow me to deploy more "mission" like things for now, until TASClient has something a bit more ready-ready in terms of that- Satirik's working on that, but it's not done quite yet.

As for the team-display issues... meh, I'll go look at what the state of that Widget is. Last time I checked, it was in the wrong corner, wasn't adjustable, wasn't optimized and wasn't really up to the level of polish we're trying to achieve here, short of me taking a couple of hours to clean it all up.

That said, it's probably a lot better now, as I simply haven't had time to look it over lately, so I'll take another look at that.

Meh. I've said some stuff in various places, and I *think* that tomorrow, AM'ish even, I may be able to get a GZIP of the game files ready for Linux users... and make a fairly-close-to-damn-well-working version of Spring part of the installer, getting things cleaned up enough for RC2.

What does everybody think? Are there other major issues that I need to hit first, or is that list about it for the major goofs and balance problems? I've gotta sleep now (it's like, 3AM) but needless to say, I want to get RC2 wrapped up ASAP, while the going is good.

Also... I read various muttering about gameplay videos... where are they? Even loose AVIs that I could edit down with MovieMaker really quick is better than nothing, folks...

[EDIT]

Stupid Lua questions:

1. How the heck do I change the words "Energy" and "Metal" to "Power" and "Materials" like it should be, in the Tooltip displays?

2. Has anybody been able to find the time to try and look at the LockLuaUI.txt issues in regards to this game yet? I have not been able to get it to work, and would like it to... and obviously must be doing it wrong, but I couldn't replicate Lurker's results.

3. I would like to have a custom way of doing two graphical effects, which I need some help with. If anybody with OpenGL experience is interested in the problem and what I'd like to do, PM me. It's not anything terribly complex, I just don't have time.

More Stuff:

I would like to "hire" a mapper or five, to do some custom work. I've tossed around doing World Builder conversions, but that's probably just not a good way to go about things- I want some stuff that nobody's really done before, frankly.

GMN(and for that matter, anybody else who feels like it)... if you have time... I think that the most serious need that the project has right now is getting more World Builder stuff built / skinned, so that more demo maps can get made. The code side's not really hard, on my end, but content's the killer right now.

Probably need to start a thread for this topic... please, don't clutter up this thread with "is this model OK" stuff, people- the answer is that if it's below 1000 triangles and looks good, then YES, SKIN IT REALISTICALLY AND WE'LL USE IT, or try to drum up enthusiasm to get it unwrapped and skinned. If it's above 1K tris... it'll have to get reviewed. If you don't know, don't submit

If you want a laundry list, I can get into detail, but for now... here are ideas:

1. Greebly technological things. Buildings, small generation stations, ruined machines, stuff like forklifts, barrels, machinery. Moving parts are fine, just label it clearly, or explain it.

2. More plants.

Need a cluster of jungle foliage- 4-6 different bushes and other stuff, all on the SAME UVMAP. IOW, 4-6 different objects... just like a tank, or whatever, as separate objects, not just one mesh like static Features. Look at the .S3Os for World Builder stuff, if you're still clueless.

Need desert plants.

Need higher quality trees of all types. Mine suck, SpikedHelmet's are better on polycount, but aren't quite up to what I think that we should have in an ideal world. TBH, so long as polycount for a cluster of 6 trees (6 is the number- that's important) isn't over 1000, it's just fine, so don't skimp, it's not vital. I think I have one Wolf-In-Exile made sitting around somewhere, haven't had time to really do much with it.

Ideally... submissions would be S3O, properly set up, and would closely resemble the S3Os in World Builder in terms of model setups and scale. Please, don't waste my time by sending me raw meshes or whatever.

3. "Atmosphere" stuff. Street lights, where maybe we could even set up fake lights through Lua or something, or just some simple CEG stuff. Rocks that look really pro- not just low-poly blobs, but preshaded stuff that really feels good, including some big, detailed pieces that could be used on a map to lend a lot to the feel. Industrial objects, such as pipeline sections, walls/fence sections, etc.
etc.


Ok... now I'm definitely going to bed! I'll check back here in the morning...ish...

[Google_Frog]

Those changes look good. I've noticed that reb infantry die as soon as they are seen by an enemy but I don't know how you'd fix this without making them too similar to other units.

[quantum]

1. How the heck do I change the words "Energy" and "Metal" to "Power" and "Materials" like it should be, in the Tooltip displays?

Draw the tooltip with Lua (see gui_tooltip.lua, comes with spring) and, instead of Spring.GetCurrentToolTip(), use Spring.GetCurrentToolTip():gsub("Energy", "Power"):gsub("Metal", "Materials").

[Bartosh]

yea the infantry suck on the offensive. When they go prone there pretty good. it would be fun to see them marching in with the tanks and mechs. but the first shot of anything wipes out the whole platoon.

[Argh]

1. We're still, very improbably, at no. 1. Guess I'd better, erm... get things fixed asap.

2. Um, does anybody know how serious a request for article information from the editors of pcgames.de is? Checked their site... looks like a German GameSpy, but I don't read German, so I'm basically clueless... I'd like to know how much time to put into preparing answers and screenshots, basically- is this is as big as I think it is?

3. I'm working on integrating the team-info thingy. Should be able to release another build fairly soonish...

4. Where are the videos? C'mon people. Raw AVI == fine...

[Forboding Angel]

I can do the vid stuff. I can run the game at 1280x1024 adn still get about 45 fps while recording. However, I suck and fail at vid editing. I can do the footage and then just stick it in an avi at like 640x480, but someone will need to edit it into somethign useful. Will that help?

Also, the maps thing is easy, but I need to know how to tie worldbuilder into them.

[Argh]

I can take raw AVI at 640/480 and turn it into a final product, yes.

As for World Builder... meh.

Basically, you just need to have enough Lua knowledge to work with / make new versions of the following sections, from the example maps (see WorldBuilder.lua in the Gadgets folder). I've tried to make it as easy as possible, but as I've said, it's not documented worth a damn yet. So, here's a quick-and-dirty walkthrough.

First off, the main semi-random placers of things is accomplished by quick-n-easy code segments within the Main Loop, which I've called "solvers" (probably a horrible butchery of that technical term, but what the hell, it sounds cool):

Code: Select all

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Angle and Height-Dependent Tree Solver
				if (RandomNumber >= 39) and (RandomNumber < 45) then

                	MinHeight = 5
                    MaxSlope = 32
					SizeOfUnitX = 128
					SizeOfUnitZ = 128

					CenterX = RandomSizeX + (SizeOfUnitX / 2)
					CenterZ = RandomSizeZ + (SizeOfUnitZ / 2)

					ValidateMe()
				
					if Validation == 1 then

						if GroundHeight < TopY * 0.05 then 
							Spring.CreateUnit("SemiTropical_Trees", CenterX,0,CenterZ, RandomFacing,Spring.GetGaiaTeamID()) end
						if GroundHeight >= TopY * 0.05 then
							local Random = math_random(4)
							if Random == 1 then
								Spring.CreateUnit("GenericTrees", CenterX,0,CenterZ, RandomFacing,Spring.GetGaiaTeamID())
							end
							if Random == 2 then
								Spring.CreateUnit("GenericTrees2", CenterX,0,CenterZ, RandomFacing,Spring.GetGaiaTeamID())
							end
							if Random == 3 then
								Spring.CreateUnit("GenericTrees3", CenterX,0,CenterZ, RandomFacing,Spring.GetGaiaTeamID())
							end
							if Random == 4 then
								Spring.CreateUnit("GenericTrees4", CenterX,0,CenterZ, RandomFacing,Spring.GetGaiaTeamID())
							end
						end
							
						
					end	
				end
---------------------------------------------------------------------- End Angle and Height-Dependent Tree Solver

MinHeight is the minimum height at which it can be placed. I don't have a MaxHeight, but instead use the formula:

Code: Select all

if GroundHeight >= TopY * 0.05

Which you can see later on in that solver. That 0.05 is a percentage of total height (i.e., it handles maps with extreme distortion very easily).

MaxSlope uses my sloppy-but-fast slope determination algorithm, which basically does not let this object be put onto the sides of cliffs, mountains, etc. Setting it to a lower value makes it more aggressive- want certain things (like, say, houses) to only be on really flat ground? Set it to a value of 8 or so.

SizeOfUnitX,Z is the size of the unit, in elmos. Very important, that. And usually, I buff that size out a bit... larger than the actual footprint of the final object (and, in the case of trees, they have no footprint per se... use the setups in the examples for guidance).

CenterX/Z are formulas that should not be altered, unless you want to bork it. Same thing with ValidateMe() and the if --> then loop for Validation. Long story short, ValidateMe() is the function that makes sure that the object meets all of the criteria. Don't remove those, you'll regret it

Lastly... then we have the if --> then loops for actual placement. In this case, it's a height-dependent solver, so I've set it up so that at different heights, different types of trees may be randomly generated. Should be pretty easy to figure out how that works, as I know you've done programming, Forb.

Ok, that covers Solvers (crappily). By adjusting all of that stuff, you can get things placed very, very specifically, if you want. By using the GroundHeight formula, for example, you could place trees within a very narrow band of height values, for that weird "ringed" look you see in desert flora... meh... I digress.


So, what about specific stuff, like how I put the houses / barns onto Swamp Mountain?

There is a section before the Main Loop and Validation(), with four lines that look like this:

Code: Select all

Spring.CreateUnit("OldFarmHouse", 2030,0,1190, 0, Spring.GetGaiaTeamID())

That's it- just set the location (2030,0,1190 ... and that value of 0 for Y should remain 0 btw) and the direction (that last 0 ... values of 0 through 3 correspond to South, East, North, West, IIRC). World Builder handles the rest.

What objects can currently be placed? Look at the list of Units in the WORLD_BUILDER_CONTENT.SDZ... or just look at this list (caps count):

Skyscraper1
Skyscraper2
Skyscraper3
Skyscraper4
Skyscraper5
Reactor
Apartments1
Apartments2
Govbuilding
Shopfront1
Oldfarmhouse
Oldbarn
Gull (see the Gull code in Swamp Mountain, if you want to mess with "automatic animals", it's a huge fascinating area I simply haven't had time to get into)
Flora
TropicalShrubs
Rocks
Rocks2
Rocks3
MiniForest
PalmForest
Semitropical_Trees
GenericTrees
GenericTrees2
GenericTrees
GenericTrees4
Conifers
Conifers2
Conifers3
Conifers4
GenericBushes

...and hopefully this list will expand a lot, as people make and donate content to this program...

All right... gotta go. I'll be back, to finish the build, etc. this evening.

[Argh]

Ack! Forgot... stupid Lua question: how do I determine when a Camera is in FPS POV? I'd like to fix that bug with FPS'ing stuff and the team-platter thing...

[Kloot]

Spring.GetCameraState()["name"]