Aircraft woes

[Forboding Angel]

The other thread should not have been locked, if you want gota to shut up then delete his posts, the rest of us are trying to come up with a solution here.

Forb, as you make this request are you aware that it basically give you gunships that aim away from their targets for extended periods of time unless you micro them to stay still and shoot more?

That's a really good point, and one I hadn't considered. The reason I prefer to deal with gunships is the fact that their behavior is ALWAYS consistent. Perhaps the better option would be to use transport airtypes to achieve what I am wanting? Perhaps we could get some sort of ability to define a unit as a transport while being able to hide the load/unload/whatever buttons? I realize that it could be done with lua, but that seems kinda messy to me.

Surely I'm not the only one that gets annoyed with how wonky fighters are, they are a bitch to control movement. Maxaccel helps but it introduces it's own set of irritations at the same time. Interestingly enough, transports and gunship flight behavior has always been quite easy to control.

I suppose what we want is just a way to make air behave in a way that is sane.

[Pressure Line]

The other thread needed locking because it was [yet another] a thinly veiled request to bring OTA fighter dancing into Spring. Or to ask for something preposterously insane, that being fighters that can turn around almost on the spot while moving, but not while attacking.

As to your problems Forb... What part about fighter movement are you unhappy with? And how would having fighters that move like gunships (with ALL of their downfalls like stopping midair and turning around etc) fix those problems?

[KDR_11k]

And if they can hover why shouldn't they just hover while attacking too? Yan's goal was to add pointless micro, I'm sure that's not yours.

[Gota]

WTF...
Seriously...
GAH...
(bangs head at wall)
FACT:OTA fighter control is more fun!!!!
I dont care about it cause its OTA i care about it because its more fun.
Why not take the best of all worlds...?
ITs not about more micro!!
ITs about allowing fighters to move like gunships so they are controllable yet allow them to behave in a "sane" manner while attacking....
I have tried using all air tags and combine them...
If you take a fighter's movement and you make
the fighter turn real real sharp without making him a gunship,using the gunship tag,the attack phase of a fighter becomes crazy cause it does not need to fly away from targets thus it all becomes one tiny ball of cluttered clipping fighters...
I have proposed another solution:
Since fighters CAN be made to turn real sharp without turning them into gunships another solution is to add a tag or use a gadget to stop fighters from attacking targets or following targets that are inside a certain radius from the fighter itself.
This way the fighter will have to move away from the target and only than engage it.

I said that at some point other modders will want this but some of you just feel the need to deny anything.
The way fighters are now is silly for an rts.
Micro is fun...having all your units behaving automatically is not fun unless that's what your game is about.
OTA mods are about micro and microing fighters in OTA is fun.I don't care how you call it...fighter dancing or whatever but its fun so why not allow it?
I haven't heard anything decent from you except "whine whine gota wants OTA".
Must it be personal every time?


KDR why am I required to micro in Kernel panic?why shouldn't units just work automatically so you only need to send them on patrol and that's it?
So what if they will act less efficiently at least there wont be any "pointless micro".

Who the hell said that the way aircraft work in Spring is the best way?
Its just the default,leftovers of earlier plans...

It's just like the pathing...over complicated.
It's good for games like s44 where planes need to act realistically but completely useless for OTA mods.
OTA mods and other modders that want to allow microable fighters should be able to do so.

[Regret]

My opinion:OTA fighter control is more fun!!!!

fixed

[zwzsg]

KDR why am I required to micro in Kernel panic?why shouldn't units just work automatically so you only need to send them on patrol and that's it?
So what if they will act less efficiently at least there wont be any "pointless micro".

FACT:KP is so devoid of micro that with the proper widget I can play and win an entire game without a single click past the choice of start point and readying. They act less efficiently, but I don't have to sit in front of computer.

[Otherside]

Gota has made a one man MTR GJ!

[Hoi]

I have proposed another solution

A solution to what? To get what you want?

Just stfu and make it yourself.

[KingRaptor]

FACT:KP is so devoid of micro that with the proper widget I can play and win an entire game without a single click past the choice of start point and readying.

In fact, I once beat zwzsg in a 1v1 KP while disconnected.

No joke!

[Argh]

Here's another idea. I just tried it, and it works, although it may need to get refined.

Set up a Unit with a Footprint of zero. Give it a movetype that ignores all slopes and water. Give it a large enough turn radius that it's not completely obvious it's still trying to dodge buildings and trees.

Voila. A Unit that can travel anywhere except underwater, that obeys micro commands. So long as it's high enough, it'll even appear to be flying.

How to keep the illusion going, when it's attacking or idling, instead of stopping, like ground units usually do? A few solutions, and a few cautions:

1. Give it a Weapon1 that has a very short range, so that it keeps approaching targets. Maybe give it some random Fight commands via Lua. Probably the first part is sufficient.

2. Use some Lua to issue a random Patrol command any time the Unit goes Idle, to keep it from ever stopping in "mid-air".

3. If it needs special animation support (barrel-rolls, etc.) you'll have to code it via MoveCtrl. No way around that.

4. If it needs to dive or otherwise change its flight pattern when attacking the ground, you need to code that via MoveCtrl or COB.

5. You cannot make a true bomber this way. You can fake it though, by triggering a bomb weapon via COB when another weapon is in range and has a valid target.


The relevant TDF settings:

UnitDef;

Code: Select all

	//Pathfinding and related
	FootprintX=0;
	FootprintZ=0;

	//Movement settings
	CanMove=1;
	CanHover=1;
	TurnRate=200;
	turnInPlace=0;
	Acceleration=0.5;
	BrakeRate=0.5;
	MovementClass=HOVERALL;
	MaxVelocity=6;

MoveInfo:

Code: Select all

[Class14]
	{
	Name=ALLHOVER;
	FootprintX=0;
	FootprintZ=0;
	MaxSlope=60000;
	BadSlope=60000;
	MaxWaterSlope=60000;
	BadWaterSlope=60000;
	CrushStrength=25;
	slopeMod=4;
	}

[Gota]

But what would happen to such a unit when it tries to attack?It would just stand there shooting...
Won't it?

[Argh]

Read the directions.

[Gota]

That seems like a more complicated solution...
and hackish..

[Argh]

<shrugs> I think it'd be fine, if you put enough time into polishing the behaviors. In my initial test, the Unit behaved pretty well- it just needed minor refinement.

Perhaps you should sit down and do some experiments with this, it's very easy BOS / Lua.

[Neddie]

The other thread should have been locked for the following reasons - the discussion was repetitive, unproductive, fraught with flames and any "solution" was no longer a matter of the engine but rather, as discussed in the thread, a matter for lua scripting.

You are not supposed to circumvent moderator action. I closed the thread and invited the discussion of this ill-advised feature request where it belongs, in the lua script section of the forums. Consider yourself warned for either Felony Six or Felony Seven.

As for the discussions of pathing, it is in fact not complicated enough, in that it does not deal with all the data it ideally would, like objects moving. Yes, aircraft behavior is flawed and often awkward, but this is due to the systematic oversimplification of a complex model.

Your distance tag idea, while interesting, Gota, essentially inserts a simple secondary pathing system into the engine, wherein all units transmit distance to all others. This would be, presumably, computationally expensive, to say the least.

[lurker]

The OP request is better air movement with finer variables, which I would put under engine. Anyway
Gota, you need to calm down and avoid ranting. How is the pathing overcomplicated in your opinion?
Argh, what does your unit plan do to improve on gunships?
Forb, what do you like about transports that only transports have?

[Forboding Angel]

The trouble is the fact that i can't really answer this stuff with any reasonably tangible answers but I'll try.

The fighters in evo as lurker and a few of you know, are very fast and highly maneuverable. They fire fast moving projectiles (lasers), but even when shooting at static ground objects fail to hit.

I discovered some time ago that this was caused by them not tilting enough towards the ground to aim straight at the target, it's always been a few degrees off. That's all fine and good and can be circumvented with tolerance, but tolerance allows bullets to come out at increasingly odd angles.

More than just the firing at stuff issue, their movement is tough to control. I don't complain about it much anymore cause I'm just used to it, and that's the facts of life I guess. However that said, lightspeed fighters and stuff isn't exactly what I was originally going for, but it works in a pinch I guess.

Back on the weapons front, said fighters have a lot of trouble hitting aircraft flying below them (i.e. gunships and transports) because of the tilt issue. It really is a bad problem but none of the devs seem to give a shit which is more than a little frustrating.

Could the turnrate multipliers be tuned down to make more sense?

What about the max accel bullspunk? Seriously, that stuff shouldn't even be there, they should obey acceleration and maxvelocity just like everything else, but instead they don't. SO we used maxaccel 0.3 which introduces it's own set of retardedness (most of which isn't seen because I'm fairly good at covering it up), but I would jsut like to see aircraft behave correctly, no matter if they are 100 elmos high, or 1500 elmos high, it shouldn't make a difference, but instead it does.

I had to convert bombers to fighters jsut to get the to operate correctly. Ergh, it's a lot of frustration compiled into one little ball that's waiting to explode. I would like to have different types of fighter combinations, but what's the point of only one of the combos work properly?

[Gota]

Lurker the pathing issue was discussed and this is not the place to reminisce.
The discussion about how units should just walk in a straight line as a default behavior instead of trying to circumvent hills.

Ill rent less...

[KDR_11k]

Argh, 0 footprint still collides with larger stuff.

[Argh]

Argh, 0 footprint still collides with larger stuff.

It flew through buildings with 8X8 closed footprints. And centroid collisions can and will happen, and of course the pathfinder still tries to dodge no matter what. Haven't tested with anything really huge.