Request: Allow footprints smaller than 1X1

[Warlord Zsinj]

I would really like to have the ability to make units with footprints smaller than 1X1.

MiniSpring showed what Spring could do with smaller units, and although that was shunned by the SY's, it was clear that for mods such as SWTA and WD (although I can't speak for my WD counterparts) were at a far better scale when they were run at their smaller scales.

Also, for SWTA atleast, we intend to make everything to actual scale eventually. Now, if the infantry can be made smaller (being the smallest unit in the game), it is much easier to scale all the other craft without pushing the limits of the game, and making maps increasingly cramped. It also means infantry will be more in scale with things such as trees.

[SJ]

Spring cant really handle footprint smaller then 1x1, sure it multiplies all footprint by 2 at load but thats because the alghorithms depends on footprints being a multiple of 2.

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

1x1 is just fine for me, WD infantry are in scale with Tanks and Buidlings now, infantry do keep distance from each other, but i'm not complaining.

Perhaps you could enlarge vehicles instead?

[jouninkomiko]

Yea SJ, I haven't checked out how its implemented... but wouldn't it be possible to make what was the original 1x1 footprint actually a 4x4 or something, to allow for smaller increments?

[Warlord Zsinj]

Yeah, jounin, that was sort of what I was aiming at, rather than footprints at increments of 0.5 etc. Sorry if the title was misleading.

GZ: The problem is that unlike WD, which has vehicles that aren't *that* much bigger than an infantryman, we over at SWTA have to contend with massive aircraft, ATST's and ATAT's. Once everything is scaled up completely, we effectively scale all the maps down. Many maps become "cramped" (particularly home bases), and we really start to push Spring's collision detection with some of the larger units.

Also, don't you think that your infantry look strangely scaled compared to the grass and trees?

Remember these shots from minispring SWTA?
http://www.fileuniverse.com/images/Screen6.jpg
http://www.fileuniverse.com/images/Screen7.jpg
(they are big, so I won't post them here)

The infantry looked *so* much better at half scale...

[SJ]

Well doubling the footprint size means doubling the pathfinding resolution which means doubling the cpu usage etc...

[AF]

I take it the green squares infront of the trees when they should be behind has been fixed...

But yah they look v.good

[t9999clint]

I'm not entirely sure if I'm understanding this correctly, but wouldn't the speeds not increase that much for the fact that the path finding only increases with the units?
If the maps are bigger that wouldn't necessarily mean that the troops would move to through the entire distance of the map, and you could still keep the sprite limit the same.
Also, y don't you scale down the path finding process in accordance with the scale of the footprint of the unit.
size 1x1 therefore the entire map is 1/1x1/1 the scale, but if the footprint is 4x5 for example the map would therefore be only 1/4x1/5 the size, allowing it to skip scanning around 1/3 of the map therefore reducing cpu time. if it detects another unit in the way you can dynamicly allow it to calculate into the decimals in order to move around it. It'll be really complicated to do so so I don't know if it's a good idea, but if it works it'll allow for a much larger map scale.