Spring: 1944 v0.01 Alpha

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 23 Oct 2006, 01:05

what are the buildtimes going to be like? cuz TA:WD infanty are too spammy. SWTA infantry is imo a pretty good buildtime. is it going to be hordes or smaller scale?

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 23 Oct 2006, 01:09

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:what are the buildtimes going to be like? cuz TA:WD infanty are too spammy. SWTA infantry is imo a pretty good buildtime. is it going to be hordes or smaller scale?

Hordes, last I checked. Unless Nemo has completely changed things around.

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 23 Oct 2006, 21:47

You'll probably be utilizing anywhere from 50 to 300 infantry depending on the type of game and stuff.

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 24 Oct 2006, 03:29

The first British infantry (rifleman, with SMLE No. 4 rifle) completed, except for the uv map, because FLOZI LEFT.

Flozi completed the transport trucks so they will now transport either 10 infantry or 4 infantry + a light towed weapon (generally, a light AA gun such as German 20mm FlaK 38 or Soviet 37mm 61-K or Brit/American 40mm Bofors; a light infantry gun like the German 75mm leIG 18, US 75mm M8 Pack Howitzer, Soviet 76mm M1943, or British 25 Pounder; and an AT gun such as German 75mm PaK 40, British 17 Pounder, Soviet 57mm ZiS-2, and US 3 Inch M5; and lastly, light artillery pieces such as German 105mm leFH 18, US 105mm M2, and Soviet 122mm M-30. British don't get a light artillery piece per say, as their 25 Pounder serves as both a light infantry gun and a light artillery piece, as its 88mm). For the larger, heavier guns, a heavier tractor will be used (like US M5 HST, German Sd.Kfz. 7, British Matador, Soviet Voroshilovets). Yay!

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 24 Oct 2006, 04:06

Ohh, k..

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 24 Oct 2006, 04:14

As in went offline. He's still around.

Anyways, with the british in production we're nearing completion of the infantry. Which is cool. Once they're done, we'll essentially have a working infantry alpha. And despite annoying things like s3o units losing their texture while cloaked, that should be good fun to get balanced. Mmmm. Commandos.

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 24 Oct 2006, 10:39

A man has to sleep!

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 24 Oct 2006, 12:44

Sleep is for the weak, Insomnia builds character

Good to know.

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 24 Oct 2006, 19:57

BTW, 25pdr is going to be huge overkill compared to the 75mm inf guns.

It's comparable to the 105's, in terms of lethality (if not in actual weight/explosive power)

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 24 Oct 2006, 21:41

aRe the two sides diffrent balancewise? like diffrent advantages and tactics etc. WD has same sides. diffrently balanced sides make for goo fun.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 24 Oct 2006, 21:53

we'll have four sides when we finish, and rest assured they'll play very differently.

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 25 Oct 2006, 00:18

Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomgggg new version of Upspring fixes shading!

LOOK HOW SEXY THEY ARE WHEN PROPERLY SHADED. They look like completely different models!

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 25 Oct 2006, 00:19

This izt truth. Excelent, and I mean excelent, work.

scottdog · Post by **scottdog** » 25 Oct 2006, 07:38

WoW they look great!they look like fun to controlls.

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 25 Oct 2006, 08:19

They are fun to control, very human... I must say, with this new & improved shading, and all the scripting done to them, they're quite nice.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 25 Oct 2006, 08:25

Wow, that's awesome. Gonna have to run the Springer through 1.4 and see if I can't fix the artefacting... nice

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 25 Oct 2006, 21:39

Just to show the difference close up...

maestro · Post by **maestro** » 26 Oct 2006, 04:07

congrats then :)
how big the map size are ? 256x256 ?
dont look very crisp ?

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 26 Oct 2006, 04:10

Indeed, thats quite a difference..

SpikedHelmet · Post by **SpikedHelmet** » 26 Oct 2006, 05:43

The maps are 512x512 (though Spring halves that) so yes, essentially 256x256. I'm actually thinking of dumbing down the infantry models incredibly. After extensive testing I've learned that the sheer number of pieces on the models is extremely detrimental to performance. I tested it in a variety of ways, firstly by taking the infantry model, merging all the pieces into one, and giving it an empty script. Doing this, performance almost doubled. Testing with 500 infantry onscreen, fully-articulated and animation-scripted infantry moving gave me 5-7 FPS. 500 Single-piece non-animated infantry moving gave 12-14 FPS. Now you may think 500 is a bit much, but they ARE only infantry and because 1944 is rather "epic-scaled" and not "squad-based" there will usually be quite a lot of them. In any case, this performance loss is unacceptable and things are being done, plans being made, sandwiches being eaten, that will fix this very important problem. IMO, we simply can not go ahead with this happening. Not unless we want to make a squad-based game with a few dozen infantry, maybe a handful of tanks, an airplane or two and no ships. And we don't want that.

Spring RTS Engine

Spring: 1944 v0.01 Alpha