Stargate!
Moderator: Moderators
Yeah, you could make a map where the left and right looks like completly different world and are separated by an impassable barrier, but there's the problem of making sure planes aren't used, of building the gates on both sides (I haven't followed very well, how far are we from having pre-placed neutral teams on maps?), of making sure gates aren't as easily jammable as they are now, etc.... Also, in Spring you can always tilt the camera horizontal and see both world at once. In fact currently it would only work for an OTA mission.
Well with map scripting, it would be possible to spawn 2 stargates in different locations, on whatever team you want. HOWEVER, these stargates would have to be on an enemys team, as Spring does not allow for complex teams yet. There is a thread about Dynamic Ingame Alliances here:
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2536
Your stargate is used as an example (this exact scenario infact) as to why complex teams are needed. Go complain in there if you want this to happen. Also, we need a way to void an area to planes as well, so they cant fly between.
But, one cheap way of doing it would be to make your stargate just a feature on the map. Then via map scripting, you could check if units are around the stargate model. If they are, move them to the other side of the map into the 'Dump' zone. This would also remove the Stargate jamming bug. However, it would not look as cool. As soon as a unit entered the area around the stargate, the would dissapear. Then they would instantly reapear in the drop zone. No cool zooming effects towards the stargate, and no cool sparks between stargates, and no cool stargate animation. But it could make for a cool mission.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2536
Your stargate is used as an example (this exact scenario infact) as to why complex teams are needed. Go complain in there if you want this to happen. Also, we need a way to void an area to planes as well, so they cant fly between.
But, one cheap way of doing it would be to make your stargate just a feature on the map. Then via map scripting, you could check if units are around the stargate model. If they are, move them to the other side of the map into the 'Dump' zone. This would also remove the Stargate jamming bug. However, it would not look as cool. As soon as a unit entered the area around the stargate, the would dissapear. Then they would instantly reapear in the drop zone. No cool zooming effects towards the stargate, and no cool sparks between stargates, and no cool stargate animation. But it could make for a cool mission.
IIRC, Spring support beiing allied with one player, and that player to another without being aliied together ...(Hum I hope you understand 
)
It is just the lobby wich don't support it.
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/s ... iew=markup
->
)It is just the lobby wich don't support it.
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/s ... iew=markup
->
...
[ALLYTEAM0] //teams in ally team share los etc and cant break alliance, every team must be in exactly one ally team
{
int NumAllies;
Ally0=(AllyTeam number); //means that this team is allied with the other, not necesarily the reverse
//...
}
...
I doesn't matter that much if Stargates are in enemy teams, I'll just make them invulnerable. They are already invulnerable in TA, I just have to find which way works better to render them invulnerable in Spring too.
Oh and there's the problem that if the gate doesn't belong to you, then how would you choose which exit to dial? Does map scripting allow me to tell a unit to fire once in a given direction? Or I could just script map recognition, and what to do when spawn in a known location on a known map in the Stargate script, but that doesn't seem very clean.
Oh and there's the problem that if the gate doesn't belong to you, then how would you choose which exit to dial? Does map scripting allow me to tell a unit to fire once in a given direction? Or I could just script map recognition, and what to do when spawn in a known location on a known map in the Stargate script, but that doesn't seem very clean.
Well, if Stargate are built by players, they should be destroyeable. If Stargate are included as neutral unit on a map, (if it is ever possible), then I'll make some special ones, where the actual unit is placed far away, is indestructible, untargettable, invisble, etc.. and I'll script them to teleport around some fixed areas where I'll have put some feature, or a least some different texturing.
I just noticed a new bug with the Stargate. They don't work well on tall maps, (such as Azure Rampart). I think the get UNIT_Y(...) and get PIECE_Y are either rounded or overflowing. So don't play with them on tall maps until I find a workaround.
Edit: Ok, it wasn't an overflow since I just measured with my Bridodon that:
1 Spring map elevation unit = 65536 raw script unit = [0.4] in script or in 3do = 1 pixel in TA,
so you'd need a map as tall as around 32 000 before overflowing, and the tallest map I've ever done was still under 1000.
So I think it was a rounding issue. I changed the script so it's more tolerant on measures, and now the Stargate seem to work fine on tall maps. I updated The Stargate on FileUniverse (the one on TA:Cataclysm still has all the Spring bugs).
I just noticed a new bug with the Stargate. They don't work well on tall maps, (such as Azure Rampart). I think the get UNIT_Y(...) and get PIECE_Y are either rounded or overflowing. So don't play with them on tall maps until I find a workaround.
Edit: Ok, it wasn't an overflow since I just measured with my Bridodon that:
1 Spring map elevation unit = 65536 raw script unit = [0.4] in script or in 3do = 1 pixel in TA,
so you'd need a map as tall as around 32 000 before overflowing, and the tallest map I've ever done was still under 1000.
So I think it was a rounding issue. I changed the script so it's more tolerant on measures, and now the Stargate seem to work fine on tall maps. I updated The Stargate on FileUniverse (the one on TA:Cataclysm still has all the Spring bugs).
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CaptainMaim
- Posts: 265
- Joined: 04 Sep 2005, 01:25
Three suggestions/questions:
1) Can the stargate be given a visually defined entry exit point? (I keep having units wander away from the pickup point when I forget to move the guy off the exit point. I dunno, I just think it'd be nice.)
2) Can you tell your stargate to unload to area.. I mean yeah that's a spring only function... (maybe even user defined? Or not) But still I'd like to see the units dropped in a pile around eachother rather than... Well... as it is.
3) Load area and unload area might work nicely, it sure would be neat if it could say load a block and unload them to the same configuration. Esspecially if that could work on base defenses??? Does the stargate still teleport buildings??
4) As far as invunerablilty, I found a funny bug in one old version of the stargate where if you transported a building, it came out invunerable on the otherside. I started practicing stargatting stargates to other stargates (obviously) just so I could have invunerable stargates in places (Not unexpectly it's really tricky.) Near as I can figure the buildings were invunerable because of a bos or cob exception (I'm not sure which.) But the buildings were: immune to all forms of weaponry by means of simply being intangible to any weapons fired at them. You could probably do that... (Though when I sent a unit akin to a Vulcan through the stargate, to "soften" my enemy's stargate defenses. [As we were having an all stargate war.] Yeah he sent everything he had at it, Krogs, nukes, mavricks and when all was done the gun was 100% unscratched and the landscape around it was so damaged that the gun was sitting on a tall pillar. And eventually he just asked me to self destruct it, which was about the only way it was going to die.)
1) Can the stargate be given a visually defined entry exit point? (I keep having units wander away from the pickup point when I forget to move the guy off the exit point. I dunno, I just think it'd be nice.)
2) Can you tell your stargate to unload to area.. I mean yeah that's a spring only function... (maybe even user defined? Or not) But still I'd like to see the units dropped in a pile around eachother rather than... Well... as it is.
3) Load area and unload area might work nicely, it sure would be neat if it could say load a block and unload them to the same configuration. Esspecially if that could work on base defenses??? Does the stargate still teleport buildings??
4) As far as invunerablilty, I found a funny bug in one old version of the stargate where if you transported a building, it came out invunerable on the otherside. I started practicing stargatting stargates to other stargates (obviously) just so I could have invunerable stargates in places (Not unexpectly it's really tricky.) Near as I can figure the buildings were invunerable because of a bos or cob exception (I'm not sure which.) But the buildings were: immune to all forms of weaponry by means of simply being intangible to any weapons fired at them. You could probably do that... (Though when I sent a unit akin to a Vulcan through the stargate, to "soften" my enemy's stargate defenses. [As we were having an all stargate war.] Yeah he sent everything he had at it, Krogs, nukes, mavricks and when all was done the gun was 100% unscratched and the landscape around it was so damaged that the gun was sitting on a tall pillar. And eventually he just asked me to self destruct it, which was about the only way it was going to die.)
If it was for TA, I could use a large transparent texture, like I used for some of my M.U.A.T.. But the problem isn't that Spring doesn't handle transparent texture, it's that bumps in the ground could cover the markings. Maybe I could try drawing a circle with exhaust flames instead?CaptainMaim wrote:1) Can the stargate be given a visually defined entry exit point? (I keep having units wander away from the pickup point when I forget to move the guy off the exit point. I dunno, I just think it'd be nice.)
Sometimes I'm so enthralled by my complex scripting tricks I forget Spring has some nice improvement over TA that render them obsolete. Such as area load, area unload, repeat, and having attached unit moved further than [100], that were impossible in TA but are possible in Spring. Currently the Stargate has a script that completly zap the regular load and unload procedure and use its own scripted method to find which unit to load and where to unload. If instead the stargate was just a regular transport with a long range and that is a building instead of a hover or a ship or a plane, then it would be much much easier to script, and then area load, area unload, would work, units wouldn't be unloaded atop each other, and all buildings would stop being teleporteable. And it would be much more simple to script and much less buggy (thought I believe I have fixed all bugs now), as it would be just like a regular transport. The only part where my tricks would be needed would be the part to forbid unloading away from another stargate. Or I could just remove that and make a building that can teleport any regularly loadeable unit from anywhere to anywhere. Yes, the current latest Stargate still teleport building, I only forbade the teleportation of other Stargates, and flying planes that refuse to be taken down.2) Can you tell your stargate to unload to area.. I mean yeah that's a spring only function... (maybe even user defined? Or not) But still I'd like to see the units dropped in a pile around eachother rather than... Well... as it is.
3) Load area and unload area might work nicely, it sure would be neat if it could say load a block and unload them to the same configuration. Esspecially if that could work on base defenses??? Does the stargate still teleport buildings??
Yeah, you made me realise that for Spring, it might better to use a regular transport with an infinite range, and ask the player to manually select a load zone, and unload zone, and click repeat. Maybe I should reserve the complex curret Stargate script to TA, where no other solution is possible.
Really interesting. Do you happen to have a replay of that game? I think they were just buildings that happened to be still attached to the Stargates, but that game sounds like it would be funny to watch!4) As far as invunerablilty, I found a funny bug in one old version of the stargate where if you transported a building, it came out invunerable on the otherside. I started practicing stargatting stargates to other stargates (obviously) just so I could have invunerable stargates in places (Not unexpectly it's really tricky.) Near as I can figure the buildings were invunerable because of a bos or cob exception (I'm not sure which.) But the buildings were: immune to all forms of weaponry by means of simply being intangible to any weapons fired at them. You could probably do that... (Though when I sent a unit akin to a Vulcan through the stargate, to "soften" my enemy's stargate defenses. [As we were having an all stargate war.] Yeah he sent everything he had at it, Krogs, nukes, mavricks and when all was done the gun was 100% unscratched and the landscape around it was so damaged that the gun was sitting on a tall pillar. And eventually he just asked me to self destruct it, which was about the only way it was going to die.)
For funny freaky scripting
As much as I love the idea of a "worlds seperated by jumpgates" map, there is a lot that needs to be done for scripting for it to be implemented.
There needs to be a way to declare units "indistructible" for freaky scripting to work. Indistructible a-la StarCraft, in which an "indistructible" unit could not be harmed or even targeted with weapons. It's an important attribute for scripted maps. Plus, there's the issue of the AI controlling such indistructible 3rd-party units... how does one make sure the AI keeps the gateway open for the players to use?
Plus, aircraft will always present a problem to overly-creative mappers. They have a nasty habit of completely ignoring carefully sculped map geometry. For example, every time I played "The Pass" in OTA it ended up being simply "cram as much defensive turrets into the pass as possible and hit him with planes". Likely such over-scripted maps will have to disallow aircraft, or else there needs to be a way to make terrain impassible even to planes.
There needs to be a way to declare units "indistructible" for freaky scripting to work. Indistructible a-la StarCraft, in which an "indistructible" unit could not be harmed or even targeted with weapons. It's an important attribute for scripted maps. Plus, there's the issue of the AI controlling such indistructible 3rd-party units... how does one make sure the AI keeps the gateway open for the players to use?
Plus, aircraft will always present a problem to overly-creative mappers. They have a nasty habit of completely ignoring carefully sculped map geometry. For example, every time I played "The Pass" in OTA it ended up being simply "cram as much defensive turrets into the pass as possible and hit him with planes". Likely such over-scripted maps will have to disallow aircraft, or else there needs to be a way to make terrain impassible even to planes.
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CaptainMaim
- Posts: 265
- Joined: 04 Sep 2005, 01:25
zwzsg:
1) No transparent textures? Fire rings? Hmh.. okay. Or you could just have it shoot a laser beam at the ground or something. :) Whatever, your way's fine, I was just asking cause I had a unit that couldn't find the pick up spot a little bit ago.
2/3) I kinda like the idea of stargating buildings. It's like sending a prebuilt bunker at your enemy. Or to some other place. Or at least make the new mass loader (which I'd like BTW) for moving armies. And make it so I can also build an older stargate that can move anything I want. (Course Since I can't use it to really move more than one building it's a little hard on the resources but ah well whatcha gunna do?
4) Sure! I've got the replay, but you'll have to pay an extra 4 megs for the additional units as well as probably have a slightly older copy of Spring on hand. (Does SPring play replays form a couple versions back right?) (I must add though that at the very end of the game his computer crashed so I turned on cheats [which aren't recorded] and used .nocost to fast kill him so we could play our next game. But up until then it's just as it was, (we just agreed no aircraft, and that was that.) ) Anyway, if you want it I can try and upload it somewhere? How's that?
Pxtl: I've been thinking about air impassable stuff too... Ideas that aren't just convienent reasonless ways to exclude air craft from places.
1) "Is Vacuum" tag? If there's no air, there shouldn't be anything flying in it. (Course some might argue "But I've got a spaceship", yeah well, let's pretend it's not okay?)
2) Jet streams? I'm not a 100% sure how dangerous it is to fly through one but I do know that they're fast moving rivers of air that could conceivably shove aircraft out of the sky if one were to run into one. (Visually denoted by little fast moving bits of junk wizzing past the screen.) Run a plane into one (and who's to say other planetary jet streams aren't stronger?) Anyway run a plane into one and it's like acid for the skies. Except it flows and the planes would have to show a banking and resistance to force while they take damage.
3) I dunno, bad weather? Electrically charged skies? Freakish cloud lightining striking planes? I still think Vacuum's easiest, (been thinking that one since back in OTA when they supposedly had maps that were on vacuuous planets, and yet the jets still flew.)
1) No transparent textures? Fire rings? Hmh.. okay. Or you could just have it shoot a laser beam at the ground or something. :) Whatever, your way's fine, I was just asking cause I had a unit that couldn't find the pick up spot a little bit ago.
2/3) I kinda like the idea of stargating buildings. It's like sending a prebuilt bunker at your enemy. Or to some other place. Or at least make the new mass loader (which I'd like BTW) for moving armies. And make it so I can also build an older stargate that can move anything I want. (Course Since I can't use it to really move more than one building it's a little hard on the resources but ah well whatcha gunna do?
4) Sure! I've got the replay, but you'll have to pay an extra 4 megs for the additional units as well as probably have a slightly older copy of Spring on hand. (Does SPring play replays form a couple versions back right?) (I must add though that at the very end of the game his computer crashed so I turned on cheats [which aren't recorded] and used .nocost to fast kill him so we could play our next game. But up until then it's just as it was, (we just agreed no aircraft, and that was that.) ) Anyway, if you want it I can try and upload it somewhere? How's that?
Pxtl: I've been thinking about air impassable stuff too... Ideas that aren't just convienent reasonless ways to exclude air craft from places.
1) "Is Vacuum" tag? If there's no air, there shouldn't be anything flying in it. (Course some might argue "But I've got a spaceship", yeah well, let's pretend it's not okay?)
2) Jet streams? I'm not a 100% sure how dangerous it is to fly through one but I do know that they're fast moving rivers of air that could conceivably shove aircraft out of the sky if one were to run into one. (Visually denoted by little fast moving bits of junk wizzing past the screen.) Run a plane into one (and who's to say other planetary jet streams aren't stronger?) Anyway run a plane into one and it's like acid for the skies. Except it flows and the planes would have to show a banking and resistance to force while they take damage.
3) I dunno, bad weather? Electrically charged skies? Freakish cloud lightining striking planes? I still think Vacuum's easiest, (been thinking that one since back in OTA when they supposedly had maps that were on vacuuous planets, and yet the jets still flew.)
Vacuum not enough
I'd say vacuum isn't enough. It looks like air, and many maps will be set on barren, airless worlds anyways.
Personally, I'd say "Plasma fog" - a big, opaque cloud. Graphically, it would be a nuisance to implement, but it would nicely express the concept of "NONE SHALL PASS".
Alternately, if Spring could have a landscape ceiling as well as floor (see Cube for an example of a 3D landscape engine that does both floor and cieling) you could just have the impasse be solid. As in "rock". Stuff doesn't fly through rock, and you can't fly over it if there's a ceiling. Still, that makes the camera tougher.
Alternately, you could just have a "max elevation" tag defined for the map, and raise the landscape higher than that. Thus, the aircraft would fly up to the hill and turn back. Be a little confusing for the user "I didn't know that mountain was too high!" but graphically the simplest to implement.
Still, aircraft physics seems to assume not having to avoid things. Who knows how hard aircraft pathfinding would be with obstructions.
As for gates themselves:
I think gates shouldn't transport buildings... well, not normal buildings. It seems like buildings aren't really meant to move. Teleporting a vehicle factory seems silly. Now, the thing is that you can make buildings that aren't buildings. Buildings that are really immobile tanks. Change some of the smaller buildings like the Guardian and the HLT into immobile tanks. No gameplay or graphical change except that it would allow transports and jumpgates to move them.
Personally, I'd say "Plasma fog" - a big, opaque cloud. Graphically, it would be a nuisance to implement, but it would nicely express the concept of "NONE SHALL PASS".
Alternately, if Spring could have a landscape ceiling as well as floor (see Cube for an example of a 3D landscape engine that does both floor and cieling) you could just have the impasse be solid. As in "rock". Stuff doesn't fly through rock, and you can't fly over it if there's a ceiling. Still, that makes the camera tougher.
Alternately, you could just have a "max elevation" tag defined for the map, and raise the landscape higher than that. Thus, the aircraft would fly up to the hill and turn back. Be a little confusing for the user "I didn't know that mountain was too high!" but graphically the simplest to implement.
Still, aircraft physics seems to assume not having to avoid things. Who knows how hard aircraft pathfinding would be with obstructions.
As for gates themselves:
I think gates shouldn't transport buildings... well, not normal buildings. It seems like buildings aren't really meant to move. Teleporting a vehicle factory seems silly. Now, the thing is that you can make buildings that aren't buildings. Buildings that are really immobile tanks. Change some of the smaller buildings like the Guardian and the HLT into immobile tanks. No gameplay or graphical change except that it would allow transports and jumpgates to move them.
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CaptainMaim
- Posts: 265
- Joined: 04 Sep 2005, 01:25
Plasma fog? Gotta hand it to ya, that's creative. Doesn't seem like it'd be realistic but... Mostly I'm concerned with visual opacity, after all fog settles to the ground, so if it's fog then it affects the ground.
Clouds... Storm clouds? Why not those? They settle atop mountains don't they? (Or at least they pass over mountains, so for gameplay's sake let's say they settled.) The game already supports volumeteric clouds, (such as a nuke blast) So why not just make a white (or dark whatever) cloud and, I dunno put some angry lightning unit betwixt the fog. Or if possible make the fog zap you with lightning. Give the lightning that extra umph that nature's so known for. One shot, one kill, targets only air units (D-Gun of the skies?) Graphically it'd be cool if it went off inside the cloud once in a while just to tell you that puff of smoke means business.
Angry thunder clouds could be hovering above the map, casting shadows... Zapping all who dare offend their skies. If possible it'd be neat if they could move slowly about.. But I mean no reason they should if you just deprive the map of wind. (Such as it really is wind. I mean it doesn't BLOW anything, except windmills and steam maybe.)
All I can think to say against that might be the graphical heft such an effect would have. I know my old Ge Force 3 liked to complain when too many nukes went off. That and map features would need guns, and possible the ability to just be smoke. But those are software issues not hardware so I don't think there quite as bad.
Edit: OH! Before I forget.. You mentioned about a max height. And that is something to consider too.. Since planes can only fly so high before the air gets too thin for flight.
Clouds... Storm clouds? Why not those? They settle atop mountains don't they? (Or at least they pass over mountains, so for gameplay's sake let's say they settled.) The game already supports volumeteric clouds, (such as a nuke blast) So why not just make a white (or dark whatever) cloud and, I dunno put some angry lightning unit betwixt the fog. Or if possible make the fog zap you with lightning. Give the lightning that extra umph that nature's so known for. One shot, one kill, targets only air units (D-Gun of the skies?) Graphically it'd be cool if it went off inside the cloud once in a while just to tell you that puff of smoke means business.
Angry thunder clouds could be hovering above the map, casting shadows... Zapping all who dare offend their skies. If possible it'd be neat if they could move slowly about.. But I mean no reason they should if you just deprive the map of wind. (Such as it really is wind. I mean it doesn't BLOW anything, except windmills and steam maybe.)
All I can think to say against that might be the graphical heft such an effect would have. I know my old Ge Force 3 liked to complain when too many nukes went off. That and map features would need guns, and possible the ability to just be smoke. But those are software issues not hardware so I don't think there quite as bad.
Edit: OH! Before I forget.. You mentioned about a max height. And that is something to consider too.. Since planes can only fly so high before the air gets too thin for flight.