1. Fixing the broken military flags
The military upgrades for both sides cannot extract because of engine issues in Spring. Basically, the imperial one is a transport, and the rebel one is a factory. Both of those classes cannot be metal extractors. So we've faked extraction by spawning a fake extractor using lua, reading what is mined there, and running the value through the real upgrade unit.
For some reason this works perfectly fine when running through spring.exe, but breaks when you start a game using the lobby.
Currently (in 032), I have faked metal extraction using the metalmake tag, but this is only an approximation and does not make sense on all maps.
2. Capture Enemy Flag orders
There needs to be a way for a player to issue a 'capture this flag' order to their units. This should make units:
- move to the flag
- ensure they are within the flag capture radius (if possible)
- position themselves defensively around the flag (not strictly necessary so long as they are all within the radius - but it shouldn't lock up their ability to fire at the enemy)
- not register as having completed their orders until the
flag is in their possession. Currently if you want to capture an enemy flag, you neutralize it (becomes neutral
), and then you capture it.
- Units then carry on with whatever other orders exist in their que
- This should fully integrate with the existing spring UI. If it is the 5th order in a que, it should show a line from the 4th order, and a line to the 6th order, etc. It should trigger a 'yes sir!' vocal response.
- Ideally it should have support for a custom cursor, though just using the attack cursor is acceptable
- Also, it would be good if units automatically moved to capture flags in their LOS when set to 'roam'.
3. Imperial Construction / Dropships
Most imperial units, and almost all imperial structures are delivered from orbit via dropships. We need code that animates these dropships delivering the units and structures. These dropships are duplicated repeatedly, so it would be inefficient to make them part of the structure model.
On top of this, implementing some sort of visual indicator that explains to the player how long it will be until his structure is delivered is needed (it needs to slow for stalling, etc, just like a normal construction).
Ideally there should be some way for players to see at a glance what is being constructed as well as how far along it is.
An idea is to have a thick teamcoloured (or just blue) circle that slowly completes, perhaps with the ghost of the building being delivered indicated in the position where the building will go...
Another way is to use the nanoframes, but make them blue (like a hologram) - and never fill in the texture, just keep it glowing blue. When it is fully filled in with blue, the structure is delivered by the dropship. We're happy to listen to ideas here though.
But it does mean that we need something a bit more reliable then a once-off commitment to get work done.
