Evolution RTS implementation roadmap

[Forboding Angel]

Pardon any spelling mistakes. This "document" is mainly intended for the team members to discuss. Other discussion is permitted, but if it starts straying off topic, I'll split it into another thread.

At current, this unit list is only geared for t1, so keep that in mind. If you would like to suggest sweeping changes, either quote this post and change what you want and repost, or pastebin your suggested changes.

If your suggested changes are minor or small, just post them and we'll debate.

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Roles:
Raider
Skirmisher
Support
Assualt

Unit weapontypes by class:
Hover - Moderate AOE, Single projectile
Amphib - No AOE, Higher damage
All Terrain - High AOE, Multiple projectiles, low damage per projectile

Starting unit: Hover Factory

Hover factory t1 unit list:
Engineer
Lighttank - Raider
Flametank - SKirmisher
AAtank - Support
Medtank model - Assualt

Amphib Factory t1 unit list:
Engineer
Buggy - Raider
(no model yet) - Skirmisher
rock - Support
Medtank - Assualt

All-Terrain t1 unit list:
(no model yet) - Engineer
(no model yet) - Raider
(no model yet) - Skirmisher
(no model yet) - Support
(no model yet) - Assualt

Aircraft t1 unit list:
(no model yet) - Engineer
Scout
Fighter
Carpet bomber (low damage, high aoe)
Transport

Engineers:
Solar
Mex
Storage
Radar Tower
Geothermal plant
Lightning turret
Plasma Turret (Long Range)
Barricade
Teching Tower

Teching Implementation:
Teching towers will be ranged. You can of course build multiple teching towers (for the purpose of unlocking multiple tech trees). If your tech tower is destroyed, any tech provided by that teching tower will be re-locked.

Tech 2 Implementation:
Tech 2 will implement units that perform their t1 counterpart roles in a more specific manner. Where t1 can perform cross roles to an extent, t2 is rigidly locked within their roles, however, t2 will perform those roles better than their t1 counterparts at the expense of being only good for that which they are designed.

More teching:
I propose that teching for each factory be separate. Teching towers will have the option to be morphed into 1 of 4 choices (air, hover, amphib, all-terrain). Once teching to one of the 4 choices has been achieved, teching to t3 will be allowed. Additionally, teching to t3 will also unlock t2 for all 4 previous choices, making it a very worthwhile investment. T3 will house the more "odd" unit choices, most notably, the sawtank and others of that nature. T3 will also provide the ability to use "Ancient Technology".

Ancient Technology explained:
Ancient technology will be comprised of the perviously proposed "Terra" units. We have shittons of models from bumblebee. Kaiser and I both would like to see them in use.

To aquire ancient technology, a luagaia unit will be spawned in the center of the map. This unit must be captured before ancient technology can be built. There will only be a single ancient technology building spawned, meaning that only one player in the game will have access to ancient technology at any given time. This unit will not be able to be reclaimed nor destroyed, but it will be able to be captured by engineers.

Ancient technology will not have any defined "tiers". It will have multiple units designated to single roles or even multiple roles. Some of the units involved will be bumblebee's bi-ped mechs. Ancient technology will by default be better than the base faction units, but will not obsolete them.

If you lose control of the Ancient Technology building at any time, ancient technology will no longer be available to you.

[KaiserJ]

yes. its that list.

allterrain factory is what i need to maek. everything else i think is at least half skinned.

* wow.

i tend to rant.

*endmessage!*

*edit. any input is welcome and will be considered.

[Forboding Angel]

Obviously this is muchly behind schedule. I've been working my ass off IRL (it's actually not really a valid excuse, but it's all I've got).

ZWZSG has agreed to help with the all-terrain scripting, so that's a huge weight off of my shoulders (there's no way in hell I could ever hope to do it myself).

Jay_Sound has revamped pretty much all of the sounds in the game (and they sound really really awesome )

I have most of the models and textures needed to finish out the t1 stuff. The only ones I don't have are I believe one of the drones, the air con, and the allterrain factory (correct me if I'm wrong kaiser).

I won't promise anything, but I will try to get some stuff to Z this weekend so that we can get started.

[Neddie]

Is there anything I can help with?

[Forboding Angel]

Would you be willing to look into figuring out how to implement ZWZSG's save/load system?

Additionally, could you look into how to do a simple KP style LuaAI for evo?

Building upon the LuaAI idea, it would be neat if there were a "Survival" sort of single player mode where it worked sort of like the random enemies script (except less fail, more random, and levels(waves)... savory delicious levels).

[zwzsg]

Would you be willing to look into figuring out how to implement ZWZSG's save/load system?

Merge GUNDAM1.21SP4.sd7 into evolutionrtspatest25.sd7

Also, get a dev to fix http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=25

[Neddie]

I can't make head nor tails of lua, but I'll try.

[zwzsg]

Hmm, there's also a couple files that were here only to patch Gundam, and that need to be removed. And it would be cleaner to remove the Gundam-specific modoptions.


As for AI, even a simple one would be a huge ton work. But with my save/load system comes missions, and with missions, you can have single player without AI.

[Forboding Angel]

I can't make head nor tails of lua, but I'll try.

Nonono lol, I didn't mean make one. I was basically asking for an answer to what zwzsg jsut answered.

Answer being, ton of work, therefore, luaai not gonna happen.

Ok, next question. Random enemies script via lua (because I never cared for the actual script). I'd like to have a gamemode that spawned random units at intervals and ordered them towards the human player(s), increasing over time units spawned with a sort of scoring system (score x amount of points per unit killed according to it's metal value) and ramping in difficulty depending on how many human players in the game. Easily doable? Tough to do?

Look here is the long and short of it. If most people are jsut gonna play this in single player, I'd like to have a few things for them to actually do. Once teching is implemented in all it's glory, RAI is only going to be able to use t1 (unless it happens to get lucky and build the right structure in the right place...), which means single player vs RAI is going to immediately suck more than it already does.

At least random enemies lua + scoring would be something remotely interesting to do.

Edit: Didn't notice what z said about missions. Intriguing, I'll have a look

[CarRepairer]

Building upon the LuaAI idea, it would be neat if there were a "Survival" sort of single player mode where it worked sort of like the random enemies script (except less fail, more random, and levels(waves)... savory delicious levels).

Ok, next question. Random enemies script via lua (because I never cared for the actual script). I'd like to have a gamemode that spawned random units at intervals and ordered them towards the human player(s), increasing over time units spawned with a sort of scoring system (score x amount of points per unit killed according to it's metal value) and ramping in difficulty depending on how many human players in the game. Easily doable? Tough to do?

CHICKEN DEFENSE. I MEAN REALLY IT'S NOT LIKE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF IT.

[Forboding Angel]

I don't want chicken defense. Yes they are very similar, but the key difference would be that there are no "Bosses", and there are no "Strange" units, just regular old smatterings of units already in the game. Also, survival is something that you never "Beat" or "Win".

If you've ever played l4d survival mode, then you will understand what I would like.

[CarRepairer]

The difference between chicken defense and what you want is very very miniscule. Sorry I had to yell and scream. The answer is yes. It's configurable to use whichever units you want.

[smoth]

gundam uses chicken defense for a survival mode.

I can honestly tell you it would not take much to essentially loop the waves.

[zwzsg]

Would you be willing to look into figuring out how to implement ZWZSG's save/load system?

Now my save/load system is fully generic, and I mutated EvoRTS with it as an exemple: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 00#p407800

Hehe nice! Quick question, can I actually add the code stuffs to the mod instead of using a mutator? It seems like it would be a bit more "elegant" as a built in sort of thing.

[zwzsg]

Looks like someone got confused between the Edit and Reply button.

Hehe nice! Quick question, can I actually add the code stuffs to the mod instead of using a mutator? It seems like it would be a bit more "elegant" as a built in sort of thing.

Yes, of course!

I only used a mutator so anyone could see clearly what are the new files.

[Forboding Angel]

Gotcha, sounds epic, I'll be maeking add to svn soon. Well by soon I mean as soon as I have a chance to independently test it to make sure that everything is all gravy (which I'm sure it is)

[zwzsg]

to make sure that everything is all gravy (which I'm sure it is)

Uh-oh, don't try loading a too large game then.

[Google_Frog]

Any recent advancements?

(Seriously, what is going on?)

[Forboding Angel]

Hehe nice! Quick question, can I actually add the code stuffs to the mod instead of using a mutator? It seems like it would be a bit more "elegant" as a built in sort of thing.

I guess I never actually answered this... yes of course!

Any recent advancements?

(Seriously, what is going on?)

Yepo The all-terrians are ingame (yet awaiting their weapon assignments... I figured you and I would hash that out and I would apply the appropriate effects and so on.

What I don't ahve (that I really need before I can go further) is a factory for the all-terrain units. Once I have that I figured then you and I could redo the balance (me being a supportive role).

The other snag is that Zwzsg hasn't gotten back to me yet on adding the ability to turn off units depending on tech with the teching gadget, so that part of it is still up in the air.

Other thigns I'm waiting on are:
All-terrain con
Air con
All-terrain drone
Amphib drone
Ground decals for the air plant, minifac, and all-terrain lab

However, like I said, the only thing really holding me up at this point is me not having the all-terrain factory. THe other stuff isn't so dire that I can't do anyhting else, but regarding effects and weapons, I need your input. In order to have things together enough for you to really be able to work without hassle, we need the all-terrain lab... Circular

However, kaiser told me the other day that he had the lab modeled and half textured, so it shouldn't be long now. As far as content goes, we don't need hardly anything more to be able to put out a beta, but we do need polishing, and a heck of a lot of testing.

I've been working my ass off on evo for the past few weeks (slowed down this past week due to the above reasons), and I'll be hitting it really hard again as soon as you and I can get rolling. I'm dying to implement the stuff that we talked about and see how it plays