script/coding help

[Makreig]

hi, i'm new to spring and have been looking through the development pages. long story short, i'm on a game design course in college and i am trying to make an RTS for my main project. the difference being that i don't want any bases in my game and i wan't the multiplayer to work like that of cod4.

to explain further, it would be servers like cod4 answell as spawning, however instead of spawning a single character it would spawn an army that was chosen by the player in the menu (like in cod4 when you create a class).

from what i have read, i believe i would be fine making all the assets, however i wouldn't know which game would be easiest to mod and also i don't know much when it comes to the code.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

[AF]

Take BA, with the deployment mutator, and remove all the buildings, and hey presto, you have your idea given some minor tweaks to the deployment system.

Basically game/mod + deployment (with tweaks) - all the buildings == your idea.

EE/P.U.R.E may suit best if you wish not to deal with the hassles of Total Annihilation. Kernel panic I don't know since KP without structures of any kind may be wierd, you'd have to ask, and theres a lot of lua magic going on there.

Argh may have a lot to say on this

[Pxtl]

If you want a free set of unit assets that are unencumbered by stolen content or licenses (EE and PURE are terrible examples, because in both cases the authors reserve some-to-all rights) you should look at KDR_11k's work, or Nanoblobs.

Unfortunately, those are much less "general-purpose" units, since they're all very thematic, abstract mods. However, I assume the work here is more focussed on gameplay than artwork, so Nanoblobs should be a good place to start - it's practically nothing but a pile of mobile units.

MidKnight was putting together a nice listing of free Spring assets. It's not as long a list as we'd all like, but it's a place to start.

[Makreig]

i'm not after units, i'm happy to make them (hopefully with a little help), its mainly the coding that i'm after, i think i'll look into that BA game though.

[AF]

For academic purposes I would avoid BA. The deployment mutator is not originally from BA, but is a CA gadget which can easily be ported to any game.

I would use EE or PURE for acedemic purposes, nanoblobz may well be of interest. If you wish to distribute the end game I would advise making your own units or using games with desirable licenses

[FLOZi]

If you are planning on making your own content, start from scratch and pull in bits of code as needed, don't mod an existing game.

[Hoi]

Spring has support for lua, Lua can do a lot, look at kernel panic, THIS (search on the forums) micro modules. It's possible to entirely change the game logic with lua, so what you want is probably possible

[zwzsg]

Spring support Lua! Lua can do alot!
is akin to saying:
Spring is open source! C++ can do alot!

Either way, yes, it's possible, but only if you're a confirmed programmer and have loads of time to spend coding. Which I am annoyed to be now expected of any newbie modders. I mean, look at Total Annihilation! Some of the most productive modders there barely knew how to program, what they excelled was making 3D model, bitmap texture, and changing numbers in spreadsheets. The only bit of actual programming needed for TA modding were the animation script, which about no one knew how to modify: modders just made sure pieces were named the same in 3do and then copy pasted scripts whole.

instead of spawning a single character it would spawn an army that was chosen by the player in the menu

It is said that CA has such deployment (toggleable in modoption), coded in Lua like usual.