Tiberium style resource

[Das Bruce]

Script operations? All it needs is a pass that, for every "block" of the map, reads the metal amount and uses that as the probability for spawning a feature that gives a certain amount of ressources (map-definable with a sensible default, same should go for what value means 100%)

But it could be much better if it had such things, spawn animations, ground decals, general animations, varying levels, it could attack!

[KDR_11k]

Yes but the smaller the change the more palatable it is to the devs.

[Argh]

I might be willing to look at that. It's something I think Spring needs very badly for a wide variety of reasons... starting with the fact that the division between Features and Units never made any sense in the first place. It made some sense in OTA, where many Features were just glorified bitmaps... but no sense at all in Spring, where everything's 3D, and we might as well use a unified object model to promote simplicity of mod design, instead of the horribly over-complex way that it works right now.

[Peet]

I agree. Features should be map-defined units controlled by a Gaia player.

[BlackLiger]

I agree. Features should be map-defined units controlled by a Gaia player.

Civilian buildings and vehicles.

Civilians that run away when you approach, for WD

[KDR_11k]

Civilians that, when killed, give you penalties for causing news reports of collateral damage in your homeland? Conflict Zone had those.

[MrSpontaneous]

If features are going to get their own script, you should be able to create features that, are not defined by the map but a mod. I can think of some good uses for these, and considering some one is going to go to the trouble of scripting features, it should be flexible.

For instance, what if a side built a feature that, say spawned units for them every X seconds or something to the like. Features could be scripted to change what they rez into based on the unit(s) around them perhaps :), allowing for "special" units that can only be rezed either by a certain unit, from a certain feature, or both together. Units could be made to "resurect" themselves after a certain amount of time (watch as the krogoth rises from its wreck . And a whole host of other life after death crazyness.

Perhaps moving walls could be created that patrol an area? getting in the way of all who they come across .

Features could become weapons and utilities when having units preform such tasks would be inapropriate, or impractical.

just a vouch for flexibility and utility

[BlackLiger]

Features that can SEMI load and unload stuff, so they give an armour boost to anything in them, to allow trenches.

[SinbadEV]

With the new map format, when it's finished, I belive it's planned to have the positions of features be defined in the map's deffinition text file... so in theory you could acctually release a map-patch that would place mod specific arrangement of certain features while only taking up a few dozen k of additional space... this would also allow for the use of additional resource types... or "capture the flag" style gameplay...

you could also include a "default" mod feature overlay in the mod, if it was supported by the engine, for each map size (2x2,4x4,8x8 etc.)

I like this idea... hopefully JC will have abstracted the new map format suffciently to allow future additions... another good thing is that you could just throw an extra line into the map patch for the tiberiummap.bmp or whatever... or spice-blow cycle deffinition... or whatever...

[MrSpontaneous]

Would that work with features that are created by units/death of units?

Seems a little redendant to have a definition of each special corpse for each map size (how many combinations of map size are there again? lets see 1x1 , 1x2, 1x3. . .2 x 40. . .40 x 39. . .) thats 40 possibilities on 2 coutners. . .so 40 ^ 2. . .atleast 800 repeats of mod specifict features for each map . that is asuming that 40 x 40 is the max map size (which I dont think it is). that seems like way too much effort for something that has nothing to do with the map being played.

[SinbadEV]

you misunderstood...

not mod specific features, mod specific placement...

so yeah you would need 40 default overlays, but they would only contain the positions of the gold mines, vespene gas deposits, mineral crystals, and sand worm generators...

[MrSpontaneous]

I am not talking about map features (which work just fine for what you mentioned) I am talking about features that, are created during play by the player. Such as say, a unit's corpse will rezurect all corpses around it to the player's side who's unit that corpse belonged to.

Or even a gia feature that a player creates to disrupt their opponents (some sort of enhanced creature nest that spawns units in an area, which makes it hard for either player to get at that area, but useful if ones resorces are stretched)

Specific map features for mods sound great, I am just asking that it be taken one step further to allow for features that are created by the mod, during play, to have interesting scripts.

[SinbadEV]

ah, well then, we were speaking of completly different things... basically features can already be built by users so when we fix the "features arn't units" issue, then this option will be teh awsoms... building mines that you can run over with your own units for massive damage because they turn into features when they are build for example...

[MrSpontaneous]

That is a rather cynical outlook on the relms of possiblilty.

Edit:
actually, if a mine was a feature that spawned resorces, it could add a level of stratagy to have a specific unit that can "crush" certain units in an on state. (don't know if its possible for a script to change a units mass, but asuming).

Just because it does not seem immidiatly useful, does not mean that feature scripts should be limited to the use of the mappers.