Spring RTS Engine

Caydr wrote:All three of your ideas are flawed, just as you said.

Actually, he didn't mention flaws in any method except the third, which is the one he assumed you were using. If you feel there's flaws - gameplay flaws, that is - in the other two methods, please enlighten the world.

Sorry, I misread. Actually I skipped a lot of the middle part because, based on the introduction, I'd assumed it wasn't worth reading.

1) S3O isn't always perfectly reliable (it has some eccentricities that may or may not affect you) and is... I dunno, 20 minutes of work, per unit? Remember you've gotta UVmap, make a texture... etc... hopefully make it resemble the original very closely.

2) Doesn't get around the fact that ground units which in OTA could fire over DT can no longer do so in Spring.

3) has the obvious flaws.

My method: one step and corrects all the problems. 30 seconds tops. And this works for many, many other units that aren't quite the way they ought to be, for instance the Annihilator can't aim worth sh!te unless you perform a similar procedure, but the opposite. Take your pick, I'm just trying to help out, PKM Although we're competing, there's clearly no need for that sort of attitude when I'm just offering my reasonably educated opinion.

Caydr wrote:Come on, you're taking me wrong. Besides, if I'd said "yeah, let's cooperate", I doubt you would've let me. It would've been either my near-finished mod rolls over and dies, or we compete. Really, be honest. What would've happened if we were collaberating and we had differing views? The majority of the TAU community would support you, and the majority of the Spring community would support me. And since it'd be your mod, basically it means that all you want from me is to shut up and let you make the mod. Think about it...

Take this as a peace offering, since it'll help you in ways beyond just dragons teeth: All three of your ideas are flawed, just as you said. But there's a much better, much easier way. The only thing you need to do is create a dummy object and move it a few units downward from the main model. This will have the effect of pulling the hitsphere mostly underground, allowing DT to function just like in OTA.

If you have any specific questions like about DT, just ask, I'm willing to lend a hand. :)

The only subjects we would have likely disagreed on would have been the Bugfix-style things. Now, I'm sure no one gives a shit about giving the Necro his real name, and I'm sure people will understand if some glitches (like multi-reclaiming) simply cannot and should not be reproduced, but Bugfix really is a rebalancing mod. I wouldn't have stopped you from packaging a "Bugfix port" with it though. It would have used what, an extra 100 KB zip file to include it?

Sure, that method of fixing the turrets will work, I'll give you that--it's sloppy, more laggy though perhaps not noticable in most cases (remember, pieces in spring are quite costly), and quite lazy. It's effectively the EXACT SAME solution anyway--I'm just doing it the correct, natively supported way. Like I said, I have the manpower, and the units need remodelled anyway. The s3o method is more ideal because it uses less pieces than the Cavedog models (instead of adding more) and it uses a built in function of the format. There's no chance of it backfiring if the way 3do hitspheres are handled is changed. And on the plus side, if I want to later, it would be simple to put these remodelled units in a TA mod for supcom. Meanwhile you still have a hacky method with a collective polycount of 12.

[edit]

Sorry, I misread. Actually I skipped a lot of the middle part because, based on the introduction, I'd assumed it wasn't worth reading.

I'm not Min3mat, kthx.

1) S3O isn't always perfectly reliable (it has some eccentricities that may or may not affect you) and is... I dunno, 20 minutes of work, per unit? Remember you've gotta UVmap, make a texture... etc... hopefully make it resemble the original very closely.

It's more reliable than expecting a hacky "add a point" method to work 100% of the time. I haven't seen a problem yet. Porting the 3dos to s3o only takes around 5 minutes (depends on the overall number of pieces whose origins have to be reset) if you know which tools to use. Well worth the extra 4.5 minutes.

2) Doesn't get around the fact that ground units which in OTA could fire over DT can no longer do so in Spring.

Funny, Thuds work fine. So do morties. And every other artillery unit. It works like it should, this was the first thing I tested before deciding to redo all the turrets this way. Do you think I'm daft?

My method: one step and corrects all the problems. 30 seconds tops. And this works for many, many other units that aren't quite the way they ought to be, for instance the Annihilator can't aim worth sh!te unless you perform a similar procedure, but the opposite. Take your pick, I'm just trying to help out, PKM Although we're competing, there's clearly no need for that sort of attitude when I'm just offering my reasonably educated opinion.

Don't know what's wrong on your end, but I haven't seen any problems with the Annihilator. Hunh.

Meanwhile you still have a hacky method with a collective polycount of 12.

Heh heh heh... yeah... I'm screwed...

Funny, Thuds work fine. So do morties. And every other artillery unit. It works like it should, this was the first thing I tested before deciding to redo all the turrets this way. Do you think I'm daft?

Absolutely not, I've said before I have the highest respect for you and your work. SWTA is a very impressive feat. My point was just that, granted in an earlier version of spring, DT couldn't be shot over by things like they could in OTA. If this has been resolved, paint me red and stick a crowbar up my nose.

I'm not Min3mat, kthx.

tehehe
admitting you don't read a post because its written by a certain author makes you worse IMO gnome ^_^
appreciate the negative publicity though >;D
e:
oh and gnome you are making a OTA port too? sweet
playing BT and CC missions i never took the time to finish today, amazing how fun OTA can be :D

Like it or not, you'll probably have to use my horrible hacky method to fix seeing the Annihilator's or Doomsday Machine's health bar when they're open IIRC.

Or they could just set the unit height in upspring above the top of the open turret O_o.

Eh... that doesn't work for 3DOs, last I checked. That WAS a few versions ago though...

You missed the part where we aren't using 3DOs.

Ah, right, you mentioned something about remodeling turrets. So just the turrets then, or everything? TA could use a facelift.

You also seem to have forgotten the bit where Gnome pointed out how fast and simple it is to convert from the original 3do to s3o, once you know how.

Don't jump to conclusions

Huh. I guess a lot happened while I was away a little while ago.

Not really, it's been possible ever since Upspring came out.

I know I got here late, but I swear...

Caydr. Gnome. I personally plan to play and enjoy both your versions - now stop wagging your tongues offensively for each other before you bury public interest in the mods with drama.

Bah, I am innocent, I didn't hurt nobody. Gnome stomps on kittens.

So... does S3o work with per-polygon texturing as well? I've never tried anything with it besides resizing S3Os and renaming objects, tbh.

no, it doesn't work with per poly texturing. I'm fairly sure that gnome and company are reskinning things as well, or at least just converting them to s3o+UVmapped skin format.

You're accusing our beloved lawn ornament of murdering kittens? How could you?

And no, s3o only supports proper UV mapping. However, that ain't a problem - there are several ways to bake any other type of texturing into a UV texture in several of the popular modelling programs, and redoing them is always an option. Of course, it requires a little more care and talent.

Hmm... come to think of it, that does sound pretty beneficial if you have the time to spare. Best of luck to you then.

Look, Gnome and PKM, you're really getting your back up about nothing. I don't want to co-develop with you, because it would take creative control out of my hands. I want to make my own OTA mod. This doesn't threaten you in any way. I'm nowhere near your skill level and mine will almost certainly be inferior to yours in many ways. Stop taking my every word out of context and finding ways to take it as an insult or a personal attack on you or your work. I have nothing but the highest respect for you. No sarcasm here or when I said it before. When I offer my assistance, I'm not implying that you'll need it to survive, I'm saying if you can't figure out why the hell spring just won't work when do you X, you can feel free to ask me since I've probably already seen the problem you're having and found a workaround.

People seem to think that because AA is so popular, it's given me a big head, a big ego. Well here I am, telling you I'm just a guy with good problem-solving skills. What can be more humbling than thinking that you can take a break for a while, only to find that in a matter of weeks a todo list the size of the one for 2.2 has been compiled? I don't think AA is suprior to any other mod (except UTASP ant TAUIP, ugh). The only reason AA is so popular, IMO, is probably because it's very familiar. A real OTA mod (no pun) would probably be even more popular. I've said before on several occasions that I wish it would be less popular, because it is discouraging for other developers and would-be developers. I want to see Spring flourish, and I'm honored to be a part of that, but I wish I could have a smaller role. over 3/4 of all games played are on AA. I feel terrible knowing that other quality mods are left unplayed because it's hard to find a game that's not AA.

But what am I to do? If I never make a new version, what will this do? Someone else will make a new version. Really, tell me a way I can force people to play something else and I'll readily do it. In a heartbeat.

What happens with units like the Rocko/Storm shooting on a DT'd heavy laser tower? In OTA every 5th shot or so would shoot higher and hit the HLT. So if you had a group of 15 or so you could often take them out.

Minor issue. Not all that important really.

One aspect I'm curious about is wether you guys can get rid of radar auto targetting. If you don't units like the Samson are going to be horribly overpowered. I know you won't be able to radar target on the minimap, but clicking the radar dots on the screen should roughly accomplish the same thing.

One other thing, wouldn't it be possible to have OTA style clicking without the new GUI? It's a tiny issue, but its one that seems to put off 90% of OTA players. I know it pissed me off immesurably the first time I played Spring. I didn't go back to it until 6 months later to give it another shot, and even then it took me a month to get used to it. If you aren't playing OTA as well it's not an issue, but alot of us play both games.

Molloy: the radar targetting is a problem, yes. A major advantage of Caydr also developing an OTA-style mod is that he probably has more clout with the devs to get things done. Hopefully, anyways.

Caydr: I don't recall intentionally attacking you anywhere here... I have a habit of being slightly sarcastic and similar; it doesn't always carry so well without being physically present. Could be worse - I have a friend who can carry sarcasm off so seriously that even people who know him well have trouble working out what he really meant.
Competition is virtually always good; it provides incentives to get things done faster and better, at least when done fairly.