WIP mod wishlist...

[SwiftSpear]

Some people may have seen me testing my mod with it's working title... Rest assured it will be changed if it ever manages to do any of the things I would like... Anyways, I've ran into a few problems in the design theory stage. I'm more then happy to use a workaround to solve them if it's currently possible, but I suspect that most of these are currently impossible due to engine limitations. If I run into more block-ups I figure I'll just update this list and post a note in the topic rather then creating new topics unless someone objects. That way I can personally use this topic as a third tier to do list removing anything that gets fixed or I figure out how to do so I can put it in my primary to do list.

I want to make it very clear that I'm not trying to strong-arm the SYs into working excessively for me here. This is exactly what it says it is, a wish list. I understand that your frustrations with the tonnes and tonnes of work you do with this awesome game are at least as valid as my frustrations with what I can't yet do for my mod.

- Texturing limitations: I plan on using mostly already existing units for my mod. The problem is what I want to do is represent different armor types with different texture tints on the armor of the units. For instance, a Kbot resistant to piercing weapons will have blue tint armor. Practically this means I need at least 4 sets of most of the existing textures with very very minor changes to each, but I could go as high as 9 different texture sets all doing the same thing. I want the option of assigning any unit the armor set I want him to have. Does spring have the capability of storing that much texture information? Wouldn├óÔé¼Ôäót it overload the 2048x2048 limit?

- Nuclear missiles: The idea here was to increase the dynamic of the current nuclear missile system without adding 5 types of different silos. What I WANT to do is add no less than 4 types of constructible nukes each with different hitpoint values, projectile speeds, damage properties, and generally just properties and roles. The anti-nuke would also look more like a missile turret then it currently does. Smaller range, but less cost and projectiles firing with simply a solid energy cost per projectile rather then stockpiling. One anti-nuke could no longer individually outpace several nuke silos; especially if the nuking player threw armored projectiles at his opponent. I've explored possibilities but none of them seem like they could pan out as plausible.

- Blue Plasma: All I want is a blue and green plasma effect that doesn't have to be a shaded model projectile. Shaded model projectiles are just hideous for energy weapons. It would also be great to define a sprite trail to follow the projectile, or just have more possible particle effects to work with. I'd love it if players would go "wow my tank is shooting blue plasma" rather then the current option of "wow my tank is shooting blue beach balls"

- Kamikaze aircraft: Sometimes I don't want my bombers to miss 80% of their shots and then swoop around for another pass, sometimes I want those f***ers to crash into that big frigging aircraft carrier and take it out in a flying hail of glory. My aircraft aren't no pansy American fighter pilots, I've got true to the cause loyal servants of the state in my cockpit. Those dudes are going to do what they are told no matter what.

- Unit switch-mode: This could really add dynamic to the micromanagement game play of my mod. I'd love it if units simply had an arbitrary command box that I could define a hotkey for in game and when activated it would put the unit in "switch mode" for an amount of time defined by me (so I could run a switch mode animation if I wanted too) and then in the end would simply call a totally different FBI for the switched unit. Other triggers should also be able to activate switch-mode for modability sake. The primary idea is to have units switching into a variety of different attack types and functions. For instance, I switch-mode my kbots from attack mode to sprint mode, in which they move twice as fast but will not fire. I switch-mode my aircraft from assault mode to kamikaze mode in which they crash down as their primary attack rather then doing an attack run and flying around. I switch-mode my super units so they are entirely different weapons platforms. The secondary idea is that a repair kbot of some type could switch-mode armor types for any unit in the game by spending X amount of res and X amount of nanolathe time. Maybe they could switch-mode weapons mounts on universal platforms; like removing the laser and installing a missile head instead.

- Nano attack: I'd like some of my heavy field construction units to treat the nanolathe as a weapon innately. Some of these guys might be real big bruisers or just known for being extremely tenacious little buggers. One way or the other there is no reason why a rough and tumble field unit should have to be told manually by the user that he can do damage with his nanolathe. If I want him to ignore attackers and just mindlessly build his little mex or LLT like the current constructors do I can just set his attack orders to hold fire.

- [oct 26, 2005] New Metal System: I need the ability to override map specific variables for metal extraction, specifically extractor radius, and probably metal income rate as well. I plan on making a new metal system that works somewhat similar to the starcraft zerg creep. However the purpose will be extracting metal any place it expands to, rather then making a feild over which structure construction is possible. The AI also obviously doesn't exist for automatically expanding creep type units, but hopefully with the unit lua scripting I can define my own default script AI's for any units that might need a special behaviour type to minimize stupid style micromangement.

[zwzsg]

There's already the on/off button. It can't change speed, but it can change armor, weaponary, appearance, and couple more things.

I'm sure I could make some buildeable weapon and armor upgrade. Heck, with regular scripting, Gnome has already done a TA TC built around the idea of weapons you have to build and equip on your tank: http://wormhole.tauniverse.com/index.ph ... battletanx

[SwiftSpear]

There's already the on/off button. It can't change speed, but it can change armor, weaponary, appearance, and couple more things.

I'm sure I could make some buildeable weapon and armor upgrade. Heck, with regular scripting, Gnome has already done a TA TC built around the idea of weapons you have to build and equip on your tank: http://wormhole.tauniverse.com/index.ph ... battletanx

"off" units can't move though can they? On/off works for only a very limited ammount of things I would like to do with switchmode, but it does for some. for the primary switch mode I don't really want to include it unless I can get everything I want done under the same hotkey keystroke. The principle runs along the same lines as secondary fire for unreal tournament weapons. A standard secondary that all units can use. It might do something totally different for one unit as it does for another, but the principle is that the player doesn't have to remember an array of hotkeys for the most useful functions for his units, they are all under the same primary trigger.

If I can acctually get field armor requiping to work via a hack I'm intested in pursing that right now. Any ideas as to where to look for information on how it was done before? Gnome did it the last time it was done? If I have a working prototype I can set it asside until I need it and beef it out to work for all my units.

[edit] you must admit, having triggers able to make a unit spontaniously call a totally new FBI would be pretty frigging cool for modding. Maby it's something lua scripting can beef out more in the future...

[AF]

The arm and core sea carriers can be turned on and off, and still move, it just affects there radar abilities.

I think that the ability to change those palsma weapons is a brilliant idea.

I think that the ability to change the colour and density of the nanolathe particles would be nice, seeing a thin stream of smaller blue particles might be nice for a mod or TC.

[SwiftSpear]

List updated, take a look at the oct 26 entry.