What is Evolution RTS!?

[wilbefast]

When I first bumped into Evolution on the "Games" page I was intrigued by the description:

• A new breed of Game for Spring. Prepare to engage in a war that changes every week, with objective based missions, evolving units, fast paced combat and a compelling plot line that YOU alter with every mission!

So I went to the website to find out more about what the game was actually about, and I found: About/Storyline

Trouble is there's no *about*, only *storyline* - I still have no idea what Evolution is really
What I mean by that is - what are its goals and how does it accomplish them? What's its history? Is it related to TA? In reaction to TA?

Could somebody enlighten me?

Cheers,

William

[jeykey]

Evolution RTS is no TA derviat, it uses no OTA content and I think it's open source

look here: http://springrts.com/wiki/Games

[wilbefast]

Yeah, it's GPL - it's a TA style game that uses no proprietary content - it's the only one that's free of any licensing annoyances (unlike Imperial Winter or Gundam). That in itself sets it aside.

What confuses me is why it's called "Evolution", and what all this talk about altering plot lines and objective-based missions is. What makes Evolution unique, apart of course from being divorced from TA: d'ailleurs CA is working towards doing the same...

[Forboding Angel]

Ok well, first of all, Evolution RTS is free. Second of all, it is NOT gpl.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
It is however, open source in the fact that you can view it here: http://redmine.evolutionrts.info

Third, the text on the games page is rather outdated. Unfortunate, but I didn't realize it.

Missions were an experiment that I tried way back in the day. The missions were objectives set out in an online game. It was entertaining, but the results were entirely unpredictable and doing them never turned out that well (at least in my opinion). There is talk of resurrecting the missions, but atm all it is, is talk. I would like to, once we go to final release, but thats in the future.

We are a small team, and as such we can only do so much, so fast. The main thing we are working on at the moment is finishing the game.

The goals are the same as any other rts game. To be fun, ultimately entertaining, provide strategy and tactics, and provide a rewarding experience for the player. The pre-alpha is available, and is quite playable. Even the svn install can be played online.

Licensing annoyances? I assume you are referring to the fact that it is original content vs inspired content or blatant "theft" (keep in mind, there is a reason why that word is in quotes), in which case, yes, exactly. There have been too many contributors over the years to accurately name them all (Pretty much all the bigwigs around here have contributed something in one form or another), but currently we have 5 team members (working on getting a 6th as well). Me, kaiser, google, sabatui, zoombie.

[Neddie]

Last, plenty of other games on the engine are free of content problems.

Also, what ever happened to my involvement? It just seemed like you dropped off the face of the earth...

[AF]

lol as of yet nobody has actually answered the question ^_^

[MidKnight]

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19763
I recommend the above be stickied.

Also, AF, where are the cookies Forb promised us for reading that thread?
If you don't produce some cookies yesterday, I'll take out my ready-bought cookie dough and make some myself.

[KaiserJ]

the biggest difference between Evo and TA (apart from the current unit deficiency which is being addressed as we speak) is a logistical one. labs are cheap and fast to make, and units have extended movement options : you have hovercraft which can travel on land or sea, amphibians which can travel on land or beneath the sea, allterrains can climb up cliffs, and planes... well, they are planes.

the fact that you can move around the map with these units with ease from the outset of the game prevents the fails that occur in TA when you pick a vech lab on a kbot map etc... it's easy to get a mixed force, and success depends more on good command and micro rather than a lucky choice. allterrains and hovers suck in TA, because they have to be weakened by cost due to their extended range. since EVERY unit has extended movement and range, these units can all be balanced together, without having to suffer a penalty for having special movement.

most importantly on this vein; there are MANY maps available for spring which include sea. most *A players despise sea because of the logistical problems... entering a sea late? forget it. getting hit with LRPC while you're in the sea? you're screwed. teammate loses the sea on your flank? this way, you still have plenty of recourse. Evo treats terrain changes as enhancements to the gameplay, rather than barriers. it makes maps like Delta Siege original and Tabula 3 actually fun to play.

on the dev side : we're a small team... i do the models (well, ok... bumble also, none of his are ingame yet tho... and dinocool, i wonder what happened to that guy?)... google is our pro playtester who works on balance and gameplay elements... the coding aspect is handled by multiple contributors, (lurker, zwzsg, decimator and others have all contributed, sorry if i've forgotten or been unaware of a contributor, that would suck) and sabutai is our 2d artist in charge of logos and loadscreens as well as other things. zoombie keeps us all inspired and entertained by his literary contributions. everyone contributes ides, and the bottom line and final say of everything (as well as a massive chunk of work in terms of animation scripts, effects, balance, and coherence) is in the realm of forboding angel, our team leader!

we've got a good team of nice people who are all willing to listen to each-other and come up with amazing things. it's truly a pleasure to work with them. in a way, the whole spring community is part of the team; we listen to peoples ideas, and if they are good, we implement them and make them our own.

evo gameplay is a complication of simplicity; all of the logistical and tactical options you need are available; it comes down to whether or not you will take advantage of them.

[wilbefast]

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19763
I recommend the above be stickied.

That's got a lot about the team and organisation but not so much about the actual game - at least not at the start (and I only read the start)

the text on the games page is rather outdated. Unfortunate, but I didn't realize it.

Missions were an experiment that I tried way back in the day. The missions were objectives set out in an online game. It was entertaining, but the results were entirely unpredictable and doing them never turned out that well (at least in my opinion). There is talk of resurrecting the missions, but atm all it is, is talk. I would like to, once we go to final release, but thats in the future.

That more or less answers my question - it's that bumph there that had be confused...

the biggest difference between Evo and TA (apart from the current unit deficiency which is being addressed as we speak) is a logistical one. labs are cheap and fast to make, and units have extended movement options : you have hovercraft which can travel on land or sea, amphibians which can travel on land or beneath the sea, allterrains can climb up cliffs, and planes... well, they are planes.

Yeah, I remember that problem in TA - pathfinding nightmares...

To recap, we've got an entirely original and Open Source IP built specifically for Spring. Also it has music, which adds a heck of a lot to the experience - why none of the other mods though to add music I don't know...

[zwzsg]

the coding aspect is handled by multiple contributors, (lurker, zwzsg, decimator and others have all contributed, sorry if i've forgotten or been unaware of a contributor, that would suck)

Despite often feeling like I really ought to, I'm not aware of having contributed to EvoRTS coding effort, unless you count Forbodding Angel having been interested by my generic Tech Tree gadgets.

To recap, we've got an entirely original and Open Source IP built specifically for Spring.

Yes, but the general idea around the Spring forum seem to be about ignoring it and instead post a request for yet another collaborative effort to build an IP free mod claiming Spring desperatly needs one.

Also it has music, which adds a heck of a lot to the experience - why none of the other mods though to add music I don't know...

Due to popular request and MTRness, I added music to KP, as I already told you before realising you missed it because I only included it in the windows installer. I won't include it in the mod sd7 because that really isn't the place. I guess I could make a 100MB zip with the mod, the maps, and the music for linux people who want KP with music but can't get a music widget and some .ogg by themselves.

[wilbefast]

Due to popular request and MTRness[/url], I added music to KP, as I already told you before realising you missed it because I only included it in the windows installer. I won't include it in the mod sd7 because that really isn't the place. I guess I could make a 100MB zip with the mod, the maps, and the music for linux people who want KP with music but can't get a music widget and some .ogg by themselves.

Oh yeah, I had to reinstall Spring and purge all previous configuration information to get the luaUI to load properly - in the meantime I destroy alsa so had to reinstall the OS and somewhere along the line forgot to go back and try to the music widget...

Let's see... the one you linked in response to my noob questions locked up my whole computer each time I tried to use it. The other one doesn't seem to do anything - the widget doesn't appear in the men

I'll have another look at it tomorrow...

[zwzsg]

The music widget of EvoRTS is the same than the music widget of KP, as well as the same I linked you to in the 10 noob thread: only change is in a commented line, so does not count. Oh, so that make another thing I coded for EvoRTS :) So if EvoRTS music works for you, no need to try to get another music widget working. One difference though is that Forb put widget inside the mod, while I let it outside. I left it outside because:
- It needs external music files anyway.
- I felt it was more a generic widget, good for any mod, than a KP-specific widget.
- I thought the way I coded it would make it stop working on subsequent Spring engine versions, and wanted the ability to then fix it without having to release a new KP version.

[wilbefast]

One of them wants a music folder in the main directory, the other wants /settings/musicoverdrive/war||peace...

I don't know if this is a Ubuntu problem, but often the luas I put into the LuaUI/Widgets folder just refuse to show up in the F11 menu in-game. Some of them only appear for certain mods, others are never available. I think the music lua is being executed in Expand and Exterminate though, because it now locks up exactly 2 seconds after entering the game, and I have to kill -9 spring from ctrl+alt+f1

Maybe I'll upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit - I'm sure everything will work fine then

[zwzsg]

One of them wants a music folder in the main directory, the other wants /settings/musicoverdrive/war||peace...

That's Smoth's one.

[KaiserJ]

Despite often feeling like I really ought to, I'm not aware of having contributed to EvoRTS coding effort, unless you count Forbodding Angel having been interested by my generic Tech Tree gadgets.

michealangelo could not have painted the roof of the sistine chapel without a brushmaker, a paint mixer, a scaffold carpenter, or the holy roman church to tell a cool ghost story

[Pxtl]

The music widget of EvoRTS is the same than the music widget of KP, as well as the same I linked you to in the 10 noob thread: only change is in a commented line, so does not count. Oh, so that make another thing I coded for EvoRTS :) So if EvoRTS music works for you, no need to try to get another music widget working. One difference though is that Forb put widget inside the mod, while I let it outside. I left it outside because:
- It needs external music files anyway.
- I felt it was more a generic widget, good for any mod, than a KP-specific widget.
- I thought the way I coded it would make it stop working on subsequent Spring engine versions, and wanted the ability to then fix it without having to release a new KP version.

It's also nice because it means that I can download KP without the music if I just want to play by just fetching the SD7 over SpringDownloader and avoid the filesize-bloat of the music media... meanwhile, if you get the full installer, you get the music.

[wilbefast]

Can't get either music lua to work, but could I get a Linux to the KP music files? I'm interested to know what sort of music you chose for the game. Kernal Panic is still my favourite Spring mod - it's nice and simple and feel finished

[Forboding Angel]

Does the music in Evo work for you? I have yet to see it not work for everyone.

[zwzsg]

Music was chosen by MidKnight, TheFatController, exdeath, KDR_11k, not me.

The installer of KP was made by NSIS, and as such, can be opened with 7-zip under Linux even if it's an exe. Some files and folders are misplaced, but the /music/ folder is here with all the oggs.

Sorry for having hijacked the EvoRTS forum. Please use that topic if you have any further inquiries reguarding KP music.

Also, it's spelt Kernel.

[Forboding Angel]

hehe it's no biggie z ;p