Wee Spring - Page 2

Wee Spring

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Nemo
Spring 1944 Developer
Posts: 1376
Joined: 30 Jan 2005, 19:44

Post by Nemo »

I was thinking of just adding to zwzsg's OTA patch, adding shrunken models to it.

I'm pretty sure that none of the models have a 1x1 footprint o_O
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

I really can't think of adverse gameplay effects (you mentioned the spacing out of metal, but that just forces expansion even more ^^)
Actually, the spacing out of metal was intended to be a good thing, rather than a bad thing. It would encourage territoriality, expansion and just generally up the scale of encounters, as metal patches become far more important.
maby need some edting of movespeed and stuff like that.
Some jiggling of stats may be necessary, but you'd have to see how it plays out. Frankly, unless it looks silly with units travelling so fast, I would like to see the speeds kept roughly as they are, because it would alleviate some of the large map issues.
wtf! that would suck!!! discourages rushing as enemy takes like 4-5mins to get A WEASEL into your base...by then...advanced radar and like 10 flashes X(
Well, only if you played a larger map. You just have to think 3 times bigger. I wouldn't expect to be weasled on PD, so it just means you shouldn't expect to be weasled on something like Altored Mars. Flashes wouldn't be any less important, they would just appear in larger numbers. Remember, a missile tower and samson is also 1/4 its usually size!
Whether ranges would be kept or reduced would have to be a result of testing, although I think ranges should be kept, because it makes more sense in terms of realism; many people were complaining that ranges and LOS were far too short. This would fix this.
But the units in the game are also big. These aren't costumed humans tromping around on the battlefield, they're giant war machines.
That's all conjecture. Noone knows really how big anything is, we've just guessed roughy at heights. Who knows what alien creatures lived in the shattered streets of the city world maps? Perhaps they were giants? Who knows if those trees are relative to earth trees!
I remember someone once made a 'micromachines' tileset, which was a map that took place on a childs table top, with with units the size of coins. For all we know, that is as right as anything else. (Anyone remember the bit from Hitchhikers with the alien fleet eaten by a dog?) My suggestion simply takes a different tack to unit sizes, and I think the results would be better gameplay and more fun.
People, stop talking about changing the engine or making additions to the engine, you kinda forgot that such things are modding things, and if you want a miniTA mod, go make one!
I realise that this is bordering on a mod then a general discussion, but the modding section discussions are generally very different to this, and the forum is more or less bereft of readers anyway. Not to mention that this could well be easily turned into an option at the flick of a switch, if it proves popular.

Dragon45: Do you know where I can get hold of that conversion? Or what it was called?

To those discussing the old tree conversation: It was stupid then, it's stupid now. Keep it out of this thread.

To those in the know: What I would really like to know is whether there is some way for me to attempt this using some quickly assembled .bat file or something, rather than individually going through every TA unit, resizing it, jiggling its stats, then repacking it...
User avatar
Nemo
Spring 1944 Developer
Posts: 1376
Joined: 30 Jan 2005, 19:44

Post by Nemo »

Well, if you can find the method that 3do builder uses the resize models, you might be able to throw that into a batch and hope for the best.

Are you thinking of recompiling the standard .ccx that comes with spring, or making a .ufo (will the .ufo tiny models override the normal ones?) so you can easily switch between normal sized and tiny TA?
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

Either way it can be rather easily changed between mods, although I would seek for as much vanilla compatibility as possible. Whichever is easiest would be the way to go...
User avatar
Gabba
Posts: 319
Joined: 08 Sep 2004, 22:59

Post by Gabba »

Warlord Zsinj wrote:
maby need some edting of movespeed and stuff like that.
Some jiggling of stats may be necessary, but you'd have to see how it plays out. Frankly, unless it looks silly with units travelling so fast, I would like to see the speeds kept roughly as they are, because it would alleviate some of the large map issues.
Yep. Besides, it would be nice to see units moving at the speed of real-world vehicles - by shrinking them but keeping the speed the same, we are getting a bit closer to real scale.
SatiatedGakidou
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 May 2005, 20:51

Post by SatiatedGakidou »

Well, I think that the best option would be to modify the engine to rescale the units with respect to the maps when loading the unit models; there shouldn't be any need to clone the units exactly with the exception of smaller sizes. However, while resizing the unit models would probably be (relatively) easy for the engine to do, assuming that the engine can handle 3D stretching of models and such forth, it might be more difficult to get things such as lasers, plasma shells, etc. to be scaled as well. Furthermore, Spring's units might just not work below a certain size scale; the engine doesn't appear to have been crafted with anything smaller than TA mines in mind.

Still, it might well be possible to get the engine to do these rescalings for us. And even if we can't shrink the units much further due to engine limitations, if we could hack in the ability to resize units (either on a global scale or, which would present other interesting possibilities, with individual units), we could always go in the other direction: SuperSize TA.

If such an engine modification would be very difficult or troubling, however, I suppose the only solution would be to create (yet another) mod consisting of rescaled .3do files. This would have the disadvantage of requiring a TinyMod for every mod you wanted to play with small units, however, requiring a TinyOTA, TinyXTA, TinyAA, etc. Honestly, if it is at all possible to have the TinyMode be a toggleable checkmark in the battleroom which is handled by the engine itself, it would be MUCH, MUCH better for compatability.
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

I agree.

It would be far easier if there were something tweaked in the engine to scale the units, and it would help for compatibility reasons too.

However, this would require either the SY's, or someone with enough experience to sift through the source and do it themselves, which I don't have. Resizing the .3do files is entirely feasible, and doable without such experience; although as you said, there would be compatibility issues, not to mention the large workload of converting all the models manually (which is why a quick batch file or something similar would be awesome).

Weapon issues would be minor, I believe. It would look a little strange, but not horrendously so. And if the idea took off, it wouldn't be hard to either scale Spring's weapons, or make new weapons.

Don't forget TinySWTA ;) Having small troopers would alleviate many of the blockhead issues...

And I think you may well be thinking smaller than I'm thinking. I doubt any of the units (perhaps the flea) would be smaller than TA's mine's. The units are only being reduced to about 1/4 their original size.
Kickban
Posts: 62
Joined: 03 May 2005, 18:34

Post by Kickban »

Hi there. I love this idea, smaller units, bigger armies, and huge maps.
I will go take a look in sources tonigth, and will see if this can be done there (maybe it is just a formula to change.)
10053r
Posts: 297
Joined: 28 Feb 2005, 19:19

Post by 10053r »

Hi there. I love this idea, smaller units, bigger armies, and huge maps.
I will go take a look in sources tonigth, and will see if this can be done there (maybe it is just a formula to change.)
I second this. There are 5 things that need to be changed to make this happen.

1) Spring needs to render all the models smaller.
2) Spring needs to scale all the units to be smaller. Remember that while us humans look at pretty models, as far as the game is concerned all units are spheres. It won't do any good to make the models smaller if the unit spheres remain the same size.
3) Weapon accuracy will need to be upped, to compensate for the fact that all units are now one quarter the cross section they used to be (assuming we decrease unit sphere radius to .5 what it is now).
4) Walking units will need to have their animations changed so they don't skate.
5) Weapon effect ranges (not firing ranges) will need to be scaled proportionally to the unit spheres. Otherwise nukes will be 4 times as powerful as they used to be at blowing holes in bases (again assuming a scale change to .5).

Leave ranges and speeds the same. This change will singlehandedly up the realistic factor while not changing the gameplay at all. It will mean that weasels (which in my mind ought to be going 200 km/hr) are going a more realistic speed. It will mean that artillery covers something more like the miles it should.
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

To the SY's, is there any way for you to do this rather easily, without impeding your work too much? Or should we just go in and do it the long & hard way, slowly editing units and files?
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

An update; excuse the double post.

Gnome was pottering around in the Source and managed to get this:

Image

Now, don't get too excited. He says it has a number of issues, in particular yardmap problems. At some point it crashed as well.

But its pretty cool! Look at the commander next to that tree!

Gnome says it really does make the hills look like mountains; its a shame it doesn't have a better shot showing hills, but its pretty close...
User avatar
[K.B.] Napalm Cobra
Posts: 1222
Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 06:15

Post by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra »

Nice
CaptainExo
Posts: 57
Joined: 01 May 2005, 03:18

Post by CaptainExo »

So far so good!

Lookit the little baby Commander.. who wants to pet the Commander? Go on! It won't bite!

*someone pets it* "AARRGH! MY HAND!"

I forgot to mention the D-Gun. ;)
Gnomre
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 1754
Joined: 06 Feb 2005, 13:42

Post by Gnomre »

I'm pretty much done with it. I'm just going through and making sure I documented all the changes, then I'll give you guys three versions: 1/2 scale, 1/3 scale, and 1/4 scale. You'll also get my GUI whether you like it or not :D
CaptainExo
Posts: 57
Joined: 01 May 2005, 03:18

Post by CaptainExo »

Solid GUI = Good. Looks like the old TA GUI. :-)
Gnomre
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 1754
Joined: 06 Feb 2005, 13:42

Post by Gnomre »

Unf.

MiniSpring download

Units are scaled to half their original size. Works with OTA and SWTA, I didn't test any others, but I don't see why it wouldn't. I tried making a 1/3 scale version, but the game didn't seem to like that much. I lost motivation to try 1/4 scale at that point :P

Here's a changelog with all the parts of the source I changed for shrinking things down (a changelog for the GUI can be found in the Dev forum). Basically, here's what I scaled:

3DO model
"move"s in scripts
Builddistance
Weapon Range
Weapon Area of Effect
Radar, Sonar and jamming distances
Unit Line of Sight distances
Footprints
Yardmaps

Everything else is the same. Damage, speed, you name it. Have fun.
User avatar
AF
AI Developer
Posts: 20687
Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Post by AF »

Sorry to burst your bubble but for a long time there was a micro TA mutator, probably already mentioend further up though. Ahk I've been away for ages and I've a mountain fo posts to read
Gnomre
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 1754
Joined: 06 Feb 2005, 13:42

Post by Gnomre »

Well no shit. No one, including yourself, seemed to take the initiative to find this elusive mutator though, so it's kind of pointless to mention it again. Hey, maybe it's in the Lost fucking Ark! We'll go get Indiana Jones on the job right away to find this missing mutator!

Besides, I haven't run across a mod yet that this doesn't work for. Being a change on the engine itself, that's how it rolls. I'm sure even the Absolute Annihilation mod so many people here find precious would work. The mutator, if it is even found, is likely a hard mutator, and is likely only designed for OTA and nothing more because soft mutators can't handle 3DO files, they have to be replaced...
User avatar
Storm
Posts: 443
Joined: 12 Sep 2004, 22:23

Post by Storm »

Burst your bubble? Go fucking shoot yourself in the face, Alantai, no one will miss you. This man just made an engine conversion and you try to claim it was pointless because there is a fucking mutator out there somewhere? Ever got a single of the existing mutators to work in first place?
User avatar
[K.B.] Napalm Cobra
Posts: 1222
Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 06:15

Post by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra »

I'm sure even the Absolute Annihilation mod so many people here find precious would work.
It does, tested it with your beta.
Post Reply

Return to “General Discussion”