TA game engine TABA mod move to Spring!

[Ba-]

Hello, I am the creator of the TA engine mod, TABA. Recently I have decided that I would like to make the move to Spring because of its capabilities over the TA engine.

One thing is for sure, I'm going to need some help. If anyone has experience in porting TA mods to Spring I would appreciate assistance.

The TABA mod website is located here: http://taba.tauniverse.com

An About TABA guide is located here: http://tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39945

The forum is here: http://tauniverse.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=154

And you can download the latest TABA version for TA here:
TABA Version III

For those concerned, my mod is a rev31.gp3 mod, meaning the changes I have made are included in that file. Also, my mod uses the xon dlls for TA, which is included in the installation file.

Thanks and I'll ask later if I have any questions!

[Regret]

Hello! I think you'll fit right in. Join #moddev channel in the lobby if you have any questions.

[MidKnight]

Sounds very cool! I wish you luck, and hope I'll get to play the game on the Spring Engine sometime soon!

[smoth]

What does your project add to ota?

What kind of upgrades have you done to the unit appearances?

Good luck with the conversion, it can be a bit of a bitch, luckily a lot of the ota content is already ported so unless you have custom content this ought to be fairly quick.

[==Troy==]

Looking at description it claims to be BA. Would have to go for a rename, since spring already has BA. Looking at screenshots, there are no new models.

[Beherith]

Welcome to the spring engine!

[MidKnight]

http://tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39945 was the best description I could find. Sounds pretty cool.

[FLOZi]

Converting will be a fairly lengthy process, though most work will be deceptively simple. Probably your biggest issue will be with what additions xon provides vs the capabilities of Spring.

[Saktoth]

Good luck. Do you have much of a playerbase on OTA that you'll be bringing across? Spring has a pretty competitive environment among its mods, especially OTA ones, so if you're hoping to get your playerbase mostly from among spring players, you may have trouble finding the market. It would help you a lot if you already have a playerbase willing to switch.

[Ba-]

What does your project add to ota?

What kind of upgrades have you done to the unit appearances?

My mod adds some variations and cool concepts to OTA such as found in the thread MidNight linked to: http://tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39945
The main topics there:
Adjusted Balance - Class System
Multiple Commanders
Moho Mines, no Metal Extractors
Stronger Defenses + Automatic Radar Targeting
Added Espionage Tactics and Mobile Cruise
Expanded T3 Tree
More Powerful (and bigger) Ships
Unit Upgrades

Additionally, my mod uses high poly evolva models, which I believe are common on the Spring engine, but not as common in OTA mods.

Upgrades show hidden pieces in unit models when they find an upgrade has been built (or unit achieves 5 kills). Most of the time the visual effect is an extra turret (and increased rate of fire), and some base changes (and armor boost). One of the biggest reasons I want to move to spring is to utilize the upgrade capabilities Spring can allow.

Looking at description it claims to be BA. Would have to go for a rename, since spring already has BA. Looking at screenshots, there are no new models.

Perhaps I could use the name "TABA" rather than "BA". I am open for a rename if necessary however.

And there are new models, but there are many evolva ones as well. I believe most if not all are 3d capable though, so there shouldn't be too many problems there.

Converting will be a fairly lengthy process, though most work will be deceptively simple. Probably your biggest issue will be with what additions xon provides vs the capabilities of Spring.

This could be a huge problem. Around 1/4 of all of my units use the Xon scripts, specifically the detect script, which allows for the upgrade concept, as well as the multiple commander option during start up. What exactly happens to these scripts when run in the Spring engine?

Good luck. Do you have much of a playerbase on OTA that you'll be bringing across? Spring has a pretty competitive environment among its mods, especially OTA ones, so if you're hoping to get your playerbase mostly from among spring players, you may have trouble finding the market. It would help you a lot if you already have a playerbase willing to switch.

Actually my mod is not very popular in the online community :\. I never got around to the real advertising part of making a mod. My friends all play it however, so that's like 10 people who will switch to the Spring engine and play.

I was thinking since there are so many more people who play mods on the Spring engine that my playerbase could do nothing but increase after the switch, but I could be wrong.

[Gota]

I was thinking since there are so many more people who play mods on the Spring engine that my playerbase could do nothing but increase after the switch, but I could be wrong.

he
hehe
hehehe

welcome to spring.

[Saktoth]

A lot of the features you describe arent exactly innovations to Spring, since Spring allows for a much, much larger range of features than OTA: However, a lot of the scripts and tricks that exploit bugs and loopholes in the OTA engine simply wont work in Spring. They are pretty trivial to program if you know how in Spring itself, in lua if nothing else, but that does require some more work, you cant simply port them over.

A lot of its fairly plug-and-play though, such as the morph gadget.

Try War Evolution for an example of script-based upgrade systems.
http://www.springfiles.com/show_file.php?id=1417

As for models, Evolva isnt much of an improvement when Spring is capable of stuff like this:

(Which are free to use for your mod if you are so inclined, BTW).

So yeah, everything you can do in OTA you can do in Spring: You just might have to do it differently rather than as a direct content port. Chances are, it will probably actually be much simpler once you know how.

On playerbase... well if you and your friends are regularly hosting and playing, then you will get a few people joining in, as downloading and trying new mods is easy in spring. But its a tall order competing with the other spring mods for a serious playerbase: BA holds a virtual monopoly, while there are a lot of feature-packed, intensely developed mods competing for those players willing to play something other than BA. So dont expect a massive player influx, but if you're happy to play with your friends and the occasional drifter, then Spring is just fine.

[zwzsg]

This could be a huge problem. Around 1/4 of all of my units use the Xon scripts, specifically the detect script, which allows for the upgrade concept, as well as the multiple commander option during start up. What exactly happens to these scripts when run in the Spring engine?

If you use get MAX_ID, it should be okay. Though I think the origin changed (first ID is not 0 but 1 or the other way around). However, those CPU consumming detect scripts would benefit of being changed into event-driven Lua gadgets in the Spring engine.

[FLOZi]

I was about to say ask zwzsg, as he will know about xon better than most Spring modders. But there he is already.

[Licho]

I was thinking since there are so many more people who play mods on the Spring engine that my playerbase could do nothing but increase after the switch, but I could be wrong.

he
hehe
hehehe

welcome to spring.

The more player spring has the less play alternative mods.
Thats empirical results.

I don't know what the cause of this is, but i suspect its simple snowball effect.
The more people you have in your game the more join it. If you start to host mod X at peak time, there are 3 BA DSD games with 16 people where you can just jump in and play. At this time its hard to get a game of mod X.
If you do the same when there is lowest number of players, suddenly your game with mod X does not look so bad idea and it quickly fills up.

[Pxtl]

Looking over the gameplay thread, what I noticed is the armour-classes. All of Spring's TA-derived mods have given Kbots a boost to slope-tolerance and vehicles a boost to speed, placing vehicles and kbots in completely different usage classes - vehicles are almost always superior, except in very tight quarters, or in hilly maps.

I notice your mod already gives vehicles a big buff - they live in their own armour class. Will you be conforming to the Spring convention of slope-tolerances and speed as well, or breaking from it?

[JohannesH]

What does taba stand for?

[Ba-]

A lot of the features you describe arent exactly innovations to Spring, since Spring allows for a much, much larger range of features than OTA: However, a lot of the scripts and tricks that exploit bugs and loopholes in the OTA engine simply wont work in Spring. They are pretty trivial to program if you know how in Spring itself, in lua if nothing else, but that does require some more work, you cant simply port them over.

If you use get MAX_ID, it should be okay. Though I think the origin changed (first ID is not 0 but 1 or the other way around). However, those CPU consumming detect scripts would benefit of being changed into event-driven Lua gadgets in the Spring engine.

I will have to first learn lua before I can use its features. I caught on pretty quick to TA scripts though so I don't suspect it will take too long. However, my unit upgrade scripts are the most common detect script that I use, and they do not consume too much CPU because they only check for an upgrade when they are created. As for the rest of them, I will have to test and see if its necessary to convert to a lua-styled upgrade. I suspect any new upgrade I create will use lua or Spring features but it'll be too much work to convert all the scripts I already use.

As for models, Evolva isnt much of an improvement when Spring is capable of stuff like this:

(Which are free to use for your mod if you are so inclined, BTW).

I feel like my models were pretty solid for the TA engine, a huge step up from OTA. I'll take a look at them in Spring but I think most will suffice if not compete with the models some Spring mods use. And the stance I've taken as for models is that modeling takes too long and so I either let someone model for me, or borrow models like suggested .

On playerbase... well if you and your friends are regularly hosting and playing, then you will get a few people joining in, as downloading and trying new mods is easy in spring. But its a tall order competing with the other spring mods for a serious playerbase: BA holds a virtual monopoly, while there are a lot of feature-packed, intensely developed mods competing for those players willing to play something other than BA. So dont expect a massive player influx, but if you're happy to play with your friends and the occasional drifter, then Spring is just fine.

The more player spring has the less play alternative mods.
Thats empirical results.

I don't know what the cause of this is, but i suspect its simple snowball effect.
The more people you have in your game the more join it. If you start to host mod X at peak time, there are 3 BA DSD games with 16 people where you can just jump in and play. At this time its hard to get a game of mod X.
If you do the same when there is lowest number of players, suddenly your game with mod X does not look so bad idea and it quickly fills up.

Ah weird. I guess I see how that works. I will just have to port my mod to Spring and see what happens. I imagine for at least the first four months my mod will not see much popularity.

Looking over the gameplay thread, what I noticed is the armour-classes. All of Spring's TA-derived mods have given Kbots a boost to slope-tolerance and vehicles a boost to speed, placing vehicles and kbots in completely different usage classes - vehicles are almost always superior, except in very tight quarters, or in hilly maps. I notice your mod already gives vehicles a big buff - they live in their own armour class. Will you be conforming to the Spring convention of slope-tolerances and speed as well, or breaking from it?

Very interesting question. First off, I have moved toward such principals as kbots utilizing slope-tolerance (all construction kbots in TABA are all-terrain) already, and probably will continue to do so. Additionally, most vehicles move faster than kbots on average (zipper and freaker are still way faster though). However, the armor-class system perhaps is deceiving. There are many units that have armor classes that are not distinct to what factory they were built from. Example: the strongest combat unit in TABA is the Zeus and the Can, which have Very Heavy armor class and Heavy weapon class. It is a kbot, but because it has so much armor its armor class is Very Heavy. I admit the class system is a bit sketchy to new players, but if you try to counter Heavy armor with Heavy weapons and Light armor with Light weapons you're on the right track. In the OTA engine, I posted a unit's class as a gui when a single unit is selected. (Can be seen on this thread: http://tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39945) <- just updated the information so it is consistent with the TABA Version III release.

Anyway, the answer to your question is yes, I like the idea of kbots which can move in tricky terrain (seems realistic to me), but additionally, unless I am convinced otherwise, the class system will also be moved into Spring.

[Ba-]

What does taba stand for?

TABA stands for TA: BA or Total Annihilation Bad Ass. The name was generated after my nickname Ba (Ba-) but most will just call it TABA and leave it at that.

[Forboding Angel]

Oi, more alphabet soup. Can't wait. Well, maybe you'll "do it rite" and everyone will then play TABA and not BA.