Spring RTS Engine

Posted: **18 May 2007, 15:26**

I've always thought of TA as Beta, and Starcraft as VHS.

Posted: **18 May 2007, 16:06**

Also, Blizzard had nothing to do with ruining the infinite resource model. [...]I reiterate, SC is NOT based on an infinite resource model, and should not be judged as such.

You completly misunderstood us. I think everybody, even those who played little starcraft, understand that they are the Starcraft equivalent of Spring's speedmetal: Completly ruins the whole balance and gameplay, trashed by everybody on any forums, yet are the most played online. We don't blame Starcraft for having infinite ressources on money maps. We blame Starcraft for having finite ressources on Blizzard's official maps.

Ishach wrote:Finite resources make your strategy more important. If your plan dosen't work you just wasted a finite resource. So this in turn makes scouting/hiding from your opponent a great deal more important.

Cainen wrote:No. The infinite resource model works perfectly when coupled with a wreckage system; if you just stuffed up, congrats, you delivered a boatload of metal right to their front doorstep. If it wasn't for wreckage, though, the resource system would barely work, so I suppose you have some ground there.

I disagree. First, finite ressources, by itself, makes the game more porcy. When you run out of ressources, and both side are left with 5 tanks and 3 turrets, the best start is too wait for the enemy to attack first, so he has {his tanks} to battle {your tank + your turret}, so you win, and are left with an advantage. And let's even mention when you've expended your last tanks and are left within nothing but buildings, there you don't even have any choice but stay porced forever. Even before the ressources are spent, finite ressources means attacking actually make you at the disavantage, since any failure is an irrecoverable loss of ressource, while with inifinite ressources you're free to attack all you want, that won't be put you at a disavantage later. It also should be noted that in TA and most Spring mods, even Kernel Panic, the ressources don't come from free, but are proportionnal to how much territory you own. So there's an incencitive to claim as much territory as possible, and since both player do it, it innevitably leads to attacks. Every little territory gain gives you a permanent (for as long as you keep it anyway) ressources income, so every tiny bit of land is worth fighting for. Unlike a finite ressource game where anyway you don't have any reason to fight now for a far tiberium field if your home field isn't depleted yet. Personnaly I'm looking forward to a RTS that entirely remove the ressources system. All that would be left is the buildpower, how much construction unit and factory you own. If only to prove that the whole ressource system isn't even needed for RTS. Nanoblobz does that to some extend, but I never get the chance to play it in Spring lobby. I can already predict that such a system would need to exponential growth, and that whether it'll be an endless porcfest or always get a winner after a given time will depends on the relative ease of construction verus destruction, how long it takes to build a unit compared to how long it takes to destroy one. I guess the destruction power / construction power ratio should increase as tech level are climbed to ensure that games last a predictable time.

I'm not trying to "change" anybodies mind about starcraft vs TA. I'm only trying to understand why this communitity hates SC so much.
[...]
ha ha, It's almost like SC has hurt this community on some deep emotional level, or you've all become accustomed to the odd idiot who runs in screaming "SC ROXXXORS, TA BLOZORS!".

ronkkrop wrote:Also, i dont appreciate poor attempts at public humiliation. I could see if i had roasted you or somebody else on these forums, but clearly, i did not. I don't roast anybody, and i expect the same respect in return, thanks.

You haven't been flamed (yet). WTF are you on?

ronkkrop wrote:My concern was that it wouldn't be very well received, in which case i'd fork it and start my own project elsewhere.

Don't.
- Yes, if you talk about making a SC mod, you'll be flamed, so what? It's not like anything posted by random forumers actually prevents you in anyway to keep on working on it.
- Beside, every mod that isn't based of TA units gets flamed, even if it follows TA gameplay. Like, EE.
- You don't have to fork the engine just for a mod.
- If you add starcraft feature in the engine (carriers, nukes, upgrades), without telling too loud you got the idea from Starcraft, you'll be praised not flamed.

Basically:
- For the engine, it's best to keep only one fork, so that everybody can benefit from the patch for everybody else.
- For the mod, either do it here and ignore the flames, or do it in some secret place, your choice.

ronkkrop wrote:It's always a fight to get major patches released because a lot of developers are insulted.

This is complete bullshit. The devs are our god. We praise them. Stop saying such blatant untruth!! Look around a bit instead of pulling whacky misconception out of nowhere.
And if instead you mean you're afraid of being insulted by dev if you implement Starcrafty feature, well, IMO it should have been obvious that anyone good enough to code for Spring is above the pettiness of fanboy flaming, and so dev won't care where you got you inspiration, as long as your patch is well coded.

ronkkrop wrote:Or are you one of the people who thinks that everyone should listen to Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance just because they're popular?

No. You should listen to the Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion. They sold way more albums. Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance is for the people who wanted to be different but failed. They're not popular per se, they're the popular of those pretend to not like pop.

As for the whole IP thing, it's just that Blizzard has had a long history of shuting down fan made mods and remake. Yes, we know you won't be jailed. However, a simple scary letter is enough to close a free hobbyist project.

As for the micro thing:
- Despite being told several time that Real Time Strategy is all about the micro, "Strategy" and "Micro" still sounds antonymous to me.
- Contraty to popular belief, TA takes lots of micro, it's especially noticeable at high level. In fact, because the whole game is simulated, with animated 3D models, shot that follow the law of ballistic instead of instahit, and etc..., it has even much more room for micro that a sprite based game like starcraft. For instance, because each units has limited acceleration and turnrate, by making your flashes go head one with enemy flash, you can slow them down by some half seconds. Or units that needs to open before firing can be microed to open a lil before they need to to save again some split seconds. Ok, those aren't really used. Then, about every Gnugs trick, from bombing run to nanoshielding, requires loads of micro. And they are used extensively by the online elite.
- Personnaly, I think that the less micro the game has, the more units a player can handle, and I find it more enjoyable to battle with 500 units than with 5. I'd play a RPG if I liked to micro each unit spell, mana bar and inventory of 5 units.
- What I dislike more about XCraft micro is not so much that they require micro, but that the micro is forced by glaring defect in the interface. For instance, why do I have to get back replenish my factory buildqueue every 2min instead of giving my enqueue once and for all, and change it only when I need to?
- Personnally, I believe every decision that an AI could take without risking to take a wrong decision should be automated. So that me, the human, can do more click for decision that matters and less mindless click to get my boi running. For instance, doing some default firing to enemy or repairing stuff around is good when nothing else to do is good. And anyway I'm still in control since the few rare times I don't want them to, I can still use "hold fire". Pathing around obstacle is good. But retreating when under attack is bad, because half the time it'll go against my will. Anyway, even with Spring/TA/SupCom powerfull interface, once you start getting fifty or so units, there's always enough stuff to keep you so busy you don't even have enough time for managing everything you could.

Posted: **18 May 2007, 17:29**

Insightful post zwsg...

The thing with micro and strategy is that they depend more on the players then the game itself. As long as the player can directly control what his unit's does in a RTS, there will be micro in the RTS sense. Only if you made a silly non traditional game were the players hands are completly tied up and he can only click 3 buttons or something that says like "attack" "build units" "build econ" would micro actually be reduced. A pro-player can push himself to 500 APM and as long as it's useful he will do it and win over someone who dosn't. The pro player would probably repeatably click his 3 buttons anyway becouse it keeps his concentration up so he wins more.

Strategy is the same, this word can mean anything depending on who you ask and is the worst buzzword I know. Personally I just think of it as synonymous to all the things involving planning and thinking, the opposite of microing as far as RTS games go. Macro a close synonym. So as long as there is different possible situations that can happen in the game to think about there is endless strategy in there. Even if it's a stupid go game or something. I only take discussion including this word seriously that goes:

"I have come up with this strategy for blah blah"

not the typical

"OMG so much strategy I play this game it has true strategy, strategy is blah blah, Im so much better since I play this game and h8 on this crap game blahblah"

To sum it up:

it should have been obvious that anyone good enough to code for Spring is above the pettiness of fanboy flaming

Very True.

On the starcraft interface pecularities. In practice the interface works pretty well even tough it has those seemingly completly arbitrary uneccessary limitations. They just stick you in the eye on a theoretical plane "Why did they do it this way its just stupid". I however find that the building queues in starcraft are much easier to handle from a macro perspective then TA:s system.

Thinking about how to balance ratio of builders

energy in TA dynamically is a real headache, if you want to play efficiently. You may consider this as wonderful strategical depth or whatever but Im really not interesting in doing this simcity-stuff when playing a combat RTS. In starcraft you just fill up your queues every now and then might be theoretically more micro intensive. However you would want to change your queues up every now and then and adjust after the current situation so in the end starcrafts works very well. Not having to think about nano-stalling and such in starcraft either, you just can't add units you can't afford to the queue to begin with. This might annoy some, but I think it makes things go smoother. I don't have to think about stalling, the game simply wont let me. Endless queues sound fine in theory but you would want to change the queues all the time anyway. So endless queues sort of encourage you to make unrealisticly long term queues and put you in a stale kind of system that thick to move around, this is purely psycolochical mind you. The it's there so I have to use it effect. With the limited queues in starcraft players are encouraged to keep in touch with what they are producing, making for a better "feel".

The starcraft interface dosn't make sense at the surface, It's deep psycolochical stuff at the bottom that most players simply can't comprehend why it's the way it is. IE just cannot understand what is best for oneself. You can be sure that blizzard did think everything trough however, and it works very well, even if you think it dosn't. The tangible proof lies in starcrafts popularity, both as a mass-population level, and as The competitive RTS above all others (as in the whole korean national sport thing), to this day.

Posted: **18 May 2007, 18:14**

zwzsg wrote:1) Total Annihilation : it was so ahead of its time that it is stil the best RTS today
2) Dune II : the game that started it all

HAR HAR

SC features are welcome because new features are welcomed in general. There's always that one dipshit who thinks it will ruin their favourite mod X (which is utter bullshit) and is going to flame you for it, but the majority of modders will be grateful in the end and that's what counts for me.

It doesn't matter if everyone hates StarCraft. So many people hate gundams (or hate gundams out of spite), as smoth said, but it doesn't hinder him from working on his mod.

Now forking spring sounds very egoistic to me. Not that it's wrong, but you shouldn't consider the public opinion when making the descision.
Lastly, the devs are nice guys and you can talk to them reasonably. All of them.

Posted: **18 May 2007, 18:48**

or you could go help out at the command engine ( http://www.osrts.info/ ), which is sorta like a fork anyways...

Posted: **18 May 2007, 19:03**

Nah don't let other people bog u down, just go ahead and fork it if you want, and if you are capable. Then you can do whatever you want without naysayers. It's all up to you, it's your time spent.

There's pro:s and cons of course, but I think you could get things done quick if u just make it all behave like starcraft hardcoded, to get it coherent.

If you want to add moddable starcraft features to the engine however, then don't fork.

Posted: **25 May 2007, 16:23**

This is exactly what we need, in order to have a better RTS system we need upgrades, more support for upgrades, and pylons would make the game more limited as well. Go ahead, I hope to see a beta release soon.

Posted: **25 May 2007, 22:34**

SinbadEV wrote:or you could go help out at the command engine ( http://www.osrts.info/ ), which is sorta like a fork anyways...

I thought it was an entirely new project which may adapt some stuff from spring?

Posted: **26 May 2007, 05:43**

rattle wrote:
SinbadEV wrote:or you could go help out at the command engine ( http://www.osrts.info/ ), which is sorta like a fork anyways...
I thought it was an entirely new project which may adapt some stuff from spring?

It is, but It's populated by former Spring Devs to the extent that you could call it Spring 2... fork isn't the right word...

BTW... I'm pretty 99.9999 of all starcraft features will be implementable with the synced luarules and luaunits when the version that implements them go public... I mean most of them are just extra variables and attack buttons...

Did we ever get around to making a list of everything you could do in starcraft and how to implement it in Spring... would making a wiki page of that nature bring down the wrath of the God's on us?

Spring RTS Engine

StarCraft

yup