Spring RTS Engine

zwzsg wrote:I dunno, it's nice to be able to make map where you have "here be worthwhile ressources", without having to care exactly what they are, and have whatever mod being played decide what meaning to give it, than to hope having mappers knowing the idiosyncrasy of every special feature of every special mod present and future.

Solution: Lua script that hunts for high-density metal and spawns a geotherm there. Only really useful for no-metal-but-geotherms mods.

I think this calls for a new topic as many people seem to be requesting this type of thing, my idea is to create what I call a "point of interest" script.

What I am thinking is that distributed with the map is a chunk of lua script that triggers when a specific mod is loaded... this would add features or neutral units to the map in places specified. it could also define generic "points of interest" that multiple mods could use (like the resource beacons in DoW).

SinbadEV wrote:I think this calls for a new topic as many people seem to be requesting this type of thing, my idea is to create what I call a "point of interest" script.

What I am thinking is that distributed with the map is a chunk of lua script that triggers when a specific mod is loaded... this would add features or neutral units to the map in places specified. it could also define generic "points of interest" that multiple mods could use (like the resource beacons in DoW).

Don't need mappers to define a "point of interest". Metal map can do that just fine. Simple: your run a 2d Gaussian blur filter over the whole metal-map, note the maxima, and call those your "points of interest". The variance of the Gaussian filter can be tweaked by the modder - if you want lots of points, use a low-variance filter (one per OTA-patch). If you want few points (one per patch-cluster) use a larger variance. Cull any that are too close to the start point if appropriate (sector-taking games like DoW and KP don't need a resource within 400 units of the starts). Hell, you can even use the magnitude of the maxima to describe the level of the "point of interest" - for "spawn neutral units to be claimed by players" mod, small-maxima could be abandoned vehicles, larger ones could be factories, superscale ones could be LRPCs (probably make them high-trajectory because they could be spawned in odd places).

Gaussian filters are pretty simple to implement, as long as Lua has functions for doing math.

Pxtl wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:I think this calls for a new topic as many people seem to be requesting this type of thing, my idea is to create what I call a "point of interest" script.

What I am thinking is that distributed with the map is a chunk of lua script that triggers when a specific mod is loaded... this would add features or neutral units to the map in places specified. it could also define generic "points of interest" that multiple mods could use (like the resource beacons in DoW).

Don't need mappers to define a "point of interest". Metal map can do that just fine. Simple: your run a 2d Gaussian blur filter over the whole metal-map, note the maxima, and call those your "points of interest". The variance of the Gaussian filter can be tweaked by the modder - if you want lots of points, use a low-variance filter (one per OTA-patch). If you want few points (one per patch-cluster) use a larger variance. Cull any that are too close to the start point if appropriate (sector-taking games like DoW and KP don't need a resource within 400 units of the starts). Hell, you can even use the magnitude of the maxima to describe the level of the "point of interest" - for "spawn neutral units to be claimed by players" mod, small-maxima could be abandoned vehicles, larger ones could be factories, superscale ones could be LRPCs (probably make them high-trajectory because they could be spawned in odd places).

Gaussian filters are pretty simple to implement, as long as Lua has functions for doing math.

I'm having trouble thinking straight right now but I think I disagree with you.

Where would be the point of interests in metal heck?

When queuing multiple nodes up fast the build system sort of locks up. New nodes are drawn but not getting built anymore.

Pxtl wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:I think this calls for a new topic as many people seem to be requesting this type of thing, my idea is to create what I call a "point of interest" script.

What I am thinking is that distributed with the map is a chunk of lua script that triggers when a specific mod is loaded... this would add features or neutral units to the map in places specified. it could also define generic "points of interest" that multiple mods could use (like the resource beacons in DoW).

Don't need mappers to define a "point of interest". Metal map can do that just fine. Simple: your run a 2d Gaussian blur filter over the whole metal-map, note the maxima, and call those your "points of interest". The variance of the Gaussian filter can be tweaked by the modder - if you want lots of points, use a low-variance filter (one per OTA-patch). If you want few points (one per patch-cluster) use a larger variance. Cull any that are too close to the start point if appropriate (sector-taking games like DoW and KP don't need a resource within 400 units of the starts). Hell, you can even use the magnitude of the maxima to describe the level of the "point of interest" - for "spawn neutral units to be claimed by players" mod, small-maxima could be abandoned vehicles, larger ones could be factories, superscale ones could be LRPCs (probably make them high-trajectory because they could be spawned in odd places).

Gaussian filters are pretty simple to implement, as long as Lua has functions for doing math.

Easy programming does not equal easy computing though.

rattle wrote:When queuing multiple nodes up fast the build system sort of locks up. New nodes are drawn but not getting built anymore.

Are you certain you had the resources to pay for them? You need 50E in your citadel (this is to prevent construction spam as a form of nanoshielding BTW) and however many parts your GUI indicates.

SinbadEV wrote: I'm having trouble thinking straight right now but I think I disagree with you.

Ah, looking it over, you had something different in mind. In my approach, a point of interest is simply converting the metal map into points of different magnitudes. You had more specific information in mind. More like a way to say "this point defines an object that is needed to build a base" and "this point defines the major resource field" and "this point defines a medium-sized one-time only bonus pick-up" and so on.

Are you certain you had the resources to pay for them? You need 50E in your citadel (this is to prevent construction spam as a form of nanoshielding BTW) and however many parts your GUI indicates.

Probably not, but I couldn't build anything when I had them a bit later. They were just getting drawn, the fading animation, but not spawned.

The same happened to me, until I realised I need to have the red bar filled up to the yellow mark for nodes to be launched.

Yeah realized it later. Could you add the cancel button to the right hand menu? Some key bindings to build some of the buildings (like nodes) would be quite handy.

i played that mod today and i rly liked it,
its a very pretty idea!
i will play this mod sometimes to have some differend play experiences.

I've made some experiments with a creep faction that just randomly spawns units that attack anyone. You're not supposed to use that faction, only make a bot use it so you get some random attacks. Can be combined with any other play so you could have those creeps invading you while you fight another player or cooperatively fend an army of them off.

How about a mod option to have it as a random event?

http://www.darkstars.co.uk/downloads/vi ... re+v12.zip

Changes:
-The aforementioned faction
-A mod option to adjust the spawnrate for that faction
-The 50 E cost for placing stuff was removed because it was only confusing.
-Constructions now start at 0 health and grow towards 100% as they are built.
-Prevented constructions that weren't spawned yet (mostly nodes) from spawning on occupied spaces.

AF: Not sure, they'd have to belong to Gaia and currently Gaia is meant to be harmless stuff to be claimed, not enemies, would get confusing.

IIRC argh has tested and deployed hostile gaia units in his personal tests and has assured people it is possible. However since nobody has made anything definitive some research into this is needed.

Of course it's possible but in Fibre Gaia means neutral, it'd be confusing to have some of those white units be enemies and some be capturables.

I put your change log and a link to that post in the wiki for that file on darkstars, though I couldn't find any links to pics that weren't on UF.

First time I've even heard of this, looks nice.

I noticed I introduced a lot of breakage in v12, mostly value changes I used for testing in SVN.
http://www.darkstars.co.uk/downloads/vi ... +v12.1.zip

Fixes:
-Howler firearc restored (should shoot properly again now, was testing fighter behaviour for it)
-Mortar is back to highTrajectory (was testing the per-weapon highTrajectory tag on it)

Also added an artillery tank for the hostile side and adjusted spawn and growth rates for the hostiles.