Spring RTS Engine

Gota wrote:Maybe the texture should be at a higher res?

No.

You won't see it bigger as that ingame...

Gota wrote:Maybe the texture should be at a higher res?

what for?

thesleepless, do you use a tablet?

bobthedinosaur wrote:thesleepless, do you use a tablet?

yep, i use a wacom tablet for texturing, which i do in artrage
i don't find it useful for modelling

Awesome sleepless, sexy as shit. The plate lines could be bevels though, rather than lines.

Also the turret wont be able to rotate freely around the y axis. Again, like your hover scout, we could make the whole body of the unit rotate- but to get it to act coherently it would require heavy scripting or lua.

Probably quite possible though, and would give hovers a different way of behaving that might be cool.

Saktoth wrote:Awesome sleepless, sexy as shit. The plate lines could be bevels though, rather than lines.

Also the turret wont be able to rotate freely around the y axis. Again, like your hover scout, we could make the whole body of the unit rotate- but to get it to act coherently it would require heavy scripting or lua.

Probably quite possible though, and would give hovers a different way of behaving that might be cool.

i've tested the rotating around y axis thing, it works quite nicely, just need to use

mainDir = [[ 0 0 1 ]]
maxAngleDif = 35

causes the whole unit to rotate to aim

doesn't require any extra scripting or lua

however it does make them quite easy to flank with bots, which is quite fun if you can get behind them

mainDir = [[ 0 0 1 ]]
maxAngleDif = 35

causes the whole unit to rotate to aim, ...

...reaim in case there are more shots available and the target was destroyed and engage new enemies properly.

What kind of wacom do you use and how much did you get it at?

rattle wrote:

mainDir = [[ 0 0 1 ]]
maxAngleDif = 35

causes the whole unit to rotate to aim, ...

...reaim in case there are more shots available and the target was destroyed and engage new enemies properly.

err what?

What kind of wacom do you use and how much did you get it at?

it's a wacom graphire 2 5x4"
quite old now, at the time i got it for AUD 200
can get them much cheaper now i think
the small size is fine, the bigger ones are annoying to use

I was thinking to get one of these Intuos4 A6, it costs about 190 euros right now.

A restricted turret arc on light, fast, mobile units like that is probably not ideal. It makes it very hard to use movement orders (you must use attack/fight/patrol), painful to micro, and units with restricted fire arcs sometimes have difficulty turning to face their targets properly. This would essentially turn them into move-or-fire units ALA Starcraft. It might be interesting for gameplay but it would probably just end up frustrating.

Micro'ing subs is some of the most demanding and often frustrating in the game- and subs have a 90 degree firearc, not a 35. They also cost 600.

So, not the best solution, but there are others.

why not create an empty root object just below the base? and then the base would strafe in the direction its moving.

Eh I think it is neat if theywon'tt use just keep going I tried to to argue ways it is useful sak wouldn't have them. I think it would work fine as a unit!

maackey wrote:why not create an empty root object just below the base? and then the base would strafe in the direction its moving.

this does work (and doesn't even require an empty root object) you just have to rotate the base
but it looks kind of silly and you can't tell what direction the unit is really facing

if people want to give it a turret they can, but i prefer it without.

Try playing with it competatively sleepless you'll probably change your mind.

Still, could try it.

The units base can be made a turret but as has been said: you cant tell which direction its 'really' facing. The only real solution to this is to have its facing be irrelevant in regards to its direction of thrust- like a gunship. This would require scripting/lua, as i said.

The units base can be made a turret but as has been said: you cant tell which direction its 'really' facing. The only real solution to this is to have its facing be irrelevant in regards to its direction of thrust- like a gunship. This would require scripting/lua, as i said.

Uh, why not just conceal it with effects and minor COB?

I mean, it's a hovercraft, so the problems are a lot less annoying than with a tank- just show some "retro thrusters" firing in a way that would cause the spin, and slow it down at the same time, so that it's not so obvious that it's skating. That would produce interesting gameplay effects as well as being cool visually.

how about giving it two parts: a small, roundish lower 'hoverpad' that faces where the unit really is facing, and the much larger 'shell' that makes up the bulk of the hover and acts as a turret?

also, it's be cool to have banking hovers.

MidKnight wrote:how about giving it two parts: a small, roundish lower 'hoverpad' that faces where the unit really is facing, and the much larger 'shell' that makes up the bulk of the hover and acts as a turret?

also, it's be cool to have banking hovers.

Uhm because that would require model changes which defeats the point because you could just ensure the turret has a free range of movement then.

Anyway, we need to get these in CA, one way or another.

so... enough blah blah, what's next sleepless!!!?!?!?!

The fact is that Spring does not have the features needed to make these units fun-to-use. Forward firing units are a pain to micro, and unit-is-a-turret-with-invisible-base is ugly since the unit has to have a hyper-fast rotation rate.

A long time ago KDR asked for units that don't rotate (like Protoss Dragoons) and so you can hide the base and the turret will rotate smoothly. Something like that would work for these hovers... but such a feature does not exist.

I think they'll be fine to use, though I wouldn't say no to more features.