Spring RTS Engine

Very interesting idea, but I think the only one which would be fair in all conditions and reasonably easy to impliment would be the increased/decreased speed depending on slope. I'm no programmer though. The radar jamming in trees would be very interesting too, but I'm not sure how easy that would be to impliment considering that most maps used today just have trees scattered everywhere.

Gabba wrote:A little more input from other people would be appreciated...

Yes your idea to define weather zone with a bitmap of the whole map like the heightmap and metalmap sound good and easy to do and etc... Would be nice if that was done. (Of course, for a later version, for now I'd just like Spring to be relased)

The interesting thing about giving trees radar jamming, Caydr, is that (as I mentioned in a previous post), the trees would have a very small radar jamming range. Thus, any moving unit would be instantly in and out of a tree's jamming range while on the move. Only an immobile unit hugging the tree would be able to use a tree as cover, and only a unit small enough to remain within the small jamming range. However, in a denser forest, jamming ranges from closely packed trees overlap, creating a radar dead zone. However, unless the forest is a geometrically aligned grid (read: never), there would be spots all over the forest where there is a gap in tree coverage, and a unit would suddenly appear if they entered such an uncovered zone. Thus, any wily player keeping an eye on their radar will be quite easily be able to see an army marching through all but the densest forests (or being very carefully micromanaged). However, units remaining motionless would have no such difficulty. Simply placed near a tree, a unit will remain invisible to radar. This means that the tree jamming can be used tactically, but is not overpowered. It is strategically sneaky, allowing players to launch ambushes, and hide certain base structures (perhaps we will see some guerilla combat in TA?) but it is not a gamewinner on its own.

Another interesting side effect is that someone who marches an army through a forest, while not being able to hide his movements or their general direction, he is able to hide the numbers of his army.
Again, this isn't game winning, but it is certainly a useful aid in launching feints, bluffing your opponent, and using flanking maneuvres.

The general aim of all my terrain related ideas are not to change gameplay, but to add new weight to certain strategies and tactics which are a vital part of warfare, which were for the most part ignored (due to engine limitations) in OTA.

Here's an explanatory diagram:
(The red circles represent the jamming range of the trees. This is just a vague estimation by me, showing you roughly how big I think it should be. Balancing will allow this to be honed to the right size. Perhaps the size would vary according to the size of the tree (or building... or gasplant... or large rock... or Spire...)

Now thats what I call good explanations, whatsmore with Spring being full 3D you'd have oval or spherical radi so height of the unti would also play a factor in wether it gets stealthed or not, sot he likes of a krogoth would never be stealthed by those sized trees

Any word from the SY's?

Have they considered my ideas?

... Oh, and don't forget that the jamming trees are only a small part of an overall terrain/weather interaction scheme...

Guess I'm a little late on my sugjestion.

aGorm wrote:...I dont think units should be able to cloak in in certain conditions. Nor should units become compleaty radar invisible. However, how about making units semi transparent in certain conditions when still...

How are something like the active camouflage in Halo?

You mean cloaking?

I think semi transparent so as you will miss on a causul glance is what shold happen, but ofcourse when you start looking you go, HOLD UP THERES A MAN IN THERE!! AGRGRGRG! Thats how it should be if anything.

aGorm

I don't think it will be ever possible to simulate a "semi-transparent" object in spring. There is a clear difference between "ground" and "features", and simply by moving the camera, any unit that isn't ground is immediately resolved in the minds eye to a feature. Likewise, any "semi-transparent" units will be auto-targeted by your units anyway.

I think the choice is either to make units cloak in some terrain conditions, or to limit cloaking to units who start with that ability (eg. commander, spybots, etc)

I think the whole idea of camoflage is that your units haven't spotted them yet. You see what your units see; being the entire premise of "Line of Sight". Thus until your units move into the decloak radius of the cloaked enemy unit, they haven't spotted that unit yet, and cannot act on the fact that they are there. This is just like in real life. Obviously the decloak radius on a camoflaged unit would be quite large, and any movement/firing/action on a camoflaged unit would immediately uncloak it.

An important part of the camoflage system is that units do not immediately cloak, but have to remain motionless for a certain amount of time before they are able to cloak.
One could even create a simple algorithm for determing how long it takes for a unit to camoflage (cloak) itself when in certain terrain conditions:
For example:
Thus, the camoflage factor would be applied to the various TA units, as well as any Mod that wishes to use it, in a logical manner that would mean that most units would be able to camoflage themselves in the right conditions, after a defined amount of time, which is directly linked to unit balancing.[/b][/code]

Let's see Warlord Zsinj, it would be nice if we could combine our ideas to propose a unified system:

--- about your post with the picture, with the trees providing jamming:
I hadn't thought of features providing stealth or cloaking, but it could certainly be useful in some circumstances. In the system I am proposing, the features themselves are there for a purely aesthetic purpose: which areas provide cloaking/stealth bonuses is defined through a bitmap. I would even like units to be able to go straight through the trees, as in Ground Control II. Of course I would assign a slowing effect to the woods area, in addition to the stealth/cloak bonus. Both our systems can be useful, I think both should be implemented, to give more options to map-makers. Notice that your system could be done using my bitmap, but doing all the little jamming zones (=color blotches on the bitmap) would be hard without a map editor to manage this.

--- about your last post: What you are proposing is to have units cloak after a while when immobile in concealment terrain. I like it, and here also our ideas are compatible, however I would like a system that allows for more subtle effects. (I started explaining it in a post above, but I'll go into more detail here.) The idea is, if your forces are moving through the woods or a snowstorm, they are harder to see, harder to detect on radar, and they themselves won't see around so well, and their radar will be hindered. Enemy units standing close to them will probably see them anyways, but enemies far away won't. So...

1/ We should add two variables to every unit in the game: stealth and hiding. These will range from 0 to 100%. If we don't want to bother adding them manually they can be auto-calculated from the footprint and unit type, but eventually we'll want to set them by hand to have more credible/diversified units.

2/ How these variables work is by directly affecting enemy radar range and sight range: if unit B is trying to see unit A, you substract A's stealth % from the radar range of unit B, and you substract A's hiding % from the sight range of unit B.
Example: Unit B is trying to see or detect on radar unit A. Unit B has 200 sight range and 400 radar range. Unit A has 40% hiding (it's very small) and 10% stealth (it doesn't have a big radar signature, but is not particularly stealthy). Therefore, in relation to unit A, unit B will only have 120 (200 minus 40%) effective sight range, and 360 radar range (400 minus 10%). If unit A is outside of unit B's effective sight/radar range, it will remain invisible.

3/ Terrain zones or features can affect units' stealth and hiding values. Even while moving, I think that units in appropriate terrain should be more difficult to see and detect on radar. However your proposal of giving them an extra bonus if they stay immobile for a while makes perfect sense: they had time to hide properly. Implementation of all this:
a) When a unit is in the appropriate terrain zone (defined though the zone bitmap) and or near an appropriate feature, it should receive a bonus to its hiding and stealth values. This would apply even if a unit is moving. Examples:
-near a single tree feature: +5% hiding, +5% stealth
-light woods zone: +15% hiding, +10% stealth (So, unit A we mentioned above, which has base values of 40% hiding and 10% stealth, would have 55% hiding and 20% stealth when in light woods.)
-dense woods zone: +30% hiding, +15% stealth
-zone with huge stone boulders/near a huge stone boulder feature: +10% hiding, +20% stealth
-zone with strong underground magnetic currents (natural jamming effect): +0% hiding, +50% stealth
b) In some of these terrains/near some of these features, if a unit stays immobile for a while, it would get an additional hiding bonus. Warlord Zsinj current proposal is to give the unit 100% hiding, which is cloaking. My proposition was to give a little extra hiding bonus, like +10%, which might bring some units to cloaking, if they were naturally ultra-stealthy, but most units will just be a little harder to see from afar. Both proposals have their merits, I don't know which one I prefer.
(To calculate how much time it takes for a unit to receive the hiding bonus, we could use WZ's formula in the post above.)
c) It would seem logical that units hiding in woods have a penalty to their own sight and radar. Therefore I think they should receive the same penalty they apply to enemy units trying to detect them. For instance a 10% hiding bonus will decrease by 10% the sight range of enemies trying to see your unit, and will also decrease your unit's own sight range by 10%.
d) Since this is a 3d game, the effect of terrain/features should be applied to a defined height, otherwise a plane flying high above the woods would get the same bonus as units hiding inside. This should be set in the feature definition (for features) or in the text file that will go together with the zones map (for zones). The height range doesn't have to start at ground level: let's say you want to have clouds around a rocky peak, which benefit only planes?

4/ Current TA units:
a) Jammers: the current jammers would either give 100% stealth to all units within their range (that's their current effect). They could also give only a high stealth bonus, such as +50%, which would allow us to make different qualities of jammers.
b) Cloaking units: when they activate their cloak, these units would get 100% hiding (or 99% if we want to allow for a decloak radius).
c) Stealth units: these would get 100% stealth, since they are undetectable by radar; it could be 99% stealth if we want them to be detected if they are right next to the radar.

5/ Radar and LOS (line of sight) hindrance: there is one thing which this system doesn't simulate well yet: the progressive degrading of sight/radar detection as it goes through obstacles. Seeing a unit at the edge of the woods is easier than seeing one which is hidden much deeper inside. So for instance, if a jethro's LOS has to go though various obstacles (some tree models, a snowstorm, a zone with big boulders) to see a goliath, the goliath should get a bonus to its hiding and stealth against the jethro for every obstacle that stands between them two. Some obstacles should give better bonuses than others. If the goliath hiding/stealth value relative to the jethro reaches 100% because of all the hindrances to LOS, then the jethro won't be able to see/radar detect the goliath.

Congratulations to the wise and enlightened who managed to read this whole post! Your comments are welcome, provided you took the time to understand the above. Ask for explanations if needed, but please no comments of the type "it's too complicated I don't get it". The system will actually be very simple and intuitive when experienced in-game.

Generally a good post, Gabba. I read and (I think) understood it all, but to be honest, you seemed to make a pretty simple explanation far too overcomplicated...

I'll start from the top...

I hadn't thought of features providing stealth or cloaking, but it could certainly be useful in some circumstances. In the system I am proposing, the features themselves are there for a purely aesthetic purpose: which areas provide cloaking/stealth bonuses is defined through a bitmap... ...Of course I would assign a slowing effect to the woods area, in addition to the stealth/cloak bonus. ...Notice that your system could be done using my bitmap, but doing all the little jamming zones (=color blotches on the bitmap) would be hard without a map editor to manage this.

I think that your bitmap system should be used for the "hiding" value. Whether a unit is able to hide is directly dependent on the terrain it is currently in. Say a map maker creates a forest, then they simply overlay the "forest" colour on the bitmap, and any units entering this terrain will immediately have a higher value entered on their "Terrain Conditions" value (From my formula), giving them a shorter time to cloak. However, I think that radar jamming shouldn't have anything to do with the terrain type (unless that particular terrain type has an attached extreme weather effect, such as a blizzard). Radar detects units the same weather they are over sand or grass. What affects the way radar detects are features that stick out and obscure the radar, such as trees, buildings, and spires. So basically, I think that map features should be allowed to have basic scripts attatched to them. That way, it is the features themselves that give out the radar jamming ability, not the terrain, as I explained in my above given picture.

1/ We should add two variables to every unit in the game: stealth and hiding. These will range from 0 to 100%. If we don't want to bother adding them manually they can be auto-calculated from the footprint and unit type, but eventually we'll want to set them by hand to have more credible/diversified units.

I agree with the two values, but I think that a range from 0 to 100% is uneccesary. I think a boolean value is all that is required. Either they are hidden, or they aren't. Either they are stealthed, or they aren't. Not only is the need to calculate such things difficult, but representing something in real time as being "half cloaked" or "half stealthed" is pretty difficult, and probably infeasible too...

2/ How these variables work is by directly affecting enemy radar range and sight range: if unit B is trying to see unit A, you substract A's stealth % from the radar range of unit B, and you substract A's hiding % from the sight range of unit B.
Example: Unit B is trying to see or detect on radar unit A. Unit B has 200 sight range and 400 radar range. Unit A has 40% hiding (it's very small) and 10% stealth (it doesn't have a big radar signature, but is not particularly stealthy). Therefore, in relation to unit A, unit B will only have 120 (200 minus 40%) effective sight range, and 360 radar range (400 minus 10%). If unit A is outside of unit B's effective sight/radar range, it will remain invisible.

Again, this is far too complicated than is necessary. Firstly, if whether a unit is hidden is boolean, none of the above calculations are necessary. Assuming it has remained motionless for a certain amount of time (necessary to counter out the factors against its hiding, as represented in my formula), and no enemy units are in its decloak radius, it is cloaked.

Stealth is even simpler. If a unit is within the jamming range of a feature, it is invisible on the enemy radar. If any unit can see it through LOS, it will be visible through the enemy radar (just like in OTA).

The other reason it is necessary to not approach whether a unit is hidden/stealthed according to a set of complex factors, is that players must know exactly when their units are hidden or stealthed, so that they can act accordingly. With a basic boolean factor, if units are stealthed, they either appear as visible (entirely visible on player screen) or hidden (partially transparent, ala OTA's "cloak").

a) When a unit is in the appropriate terrain zone (defined though the zone bitmap) and or near an appropriate feature, it should receive a bonus to its hiding and stealth values. This would apply even if a unit is moving. Examples:
-near a single tree feature: +5% hiding, +5% stealth
-light woods zone: +15% hiding, +10% stealth (So, unit A we mentioned above, which has base values of 40% hiding and 10% stealth, would have 55% hiding and 20% stealth when in light woods.)
-dense woods zone: +30% hiding, +15% stealth
-zone with huge stone boulders/near a huge stone boulder feature: +10% hiding, +20% stealth
-zone with strong underground magnetic currents (natural jamming effect): +0% hiding, +50% stealth

Much of this is what I initially intended in my formula for hiding, under the value "terrain conditions". Note though, that my formula was intended only for hiding, which I intended as a boolean value. So instead of having varying levels of "hiding", your unit is either hidden, or not hidden. All the terrain conditions mean is that the time between the unit being visible (remember the timer is only started once a unit is stationary) and hidden is adjusted according to how appropriate the terrain is for hiding in.

Again jamming, in my scheme, is a range determined by features, not terrain. So a unit is either definitely stealthed or not stealthed, based on whether it is in the jamming range of the feature it is near (ala the red circles in my attached picture).

c) It would seem logical that units hiding in woods have a penalty to their own sight and radar. Therefore I think they should receive the same penalty they apply to enemy units trying to detect them. For instance a 10% hiding bonus will decrease by 10% the sight range of enemies trying to see your unit, and will also decrease your unit's own sight range by 10%.

Yeah, this makes sense. It also balances out the advantages of the hidden units too. However, I wouldn't make this value equal to units trying to see in (given that your units are hidden amongst the trees, while the enemy is uncovered outside), particularly as it would make it difficult to launch succesful ambush attacks. Also, I don't think that any specific alterations are necessary here. As long as trees obscure line of sight (as in "LOS=True"), then this issue is covered for you in Spring anyhow!

d) Since this is a 3d game, the effect of terrain/features should be applied to a defined height, otherwise a plane flying high above the woods would get the same bonus as units hiding inside. This should be set in the feature definition (for features) or in the text file that will go together with the zones map (for zones). The height range doesn't have to start at ground level: let's say you want to have clouds around a rocky peak, which benefit only planes?

Yeah, planes should definitely not be given stealth or cloak given off by trees. The bitmap should only affect ground units, and the radar jamming should either be spherical, or cylindrical with limited height.
I'm tempted to agree with the clouds giving off jamming, but this sounds like it could be a bastard to implement, and would probably be overpowered too...

5/ Radar and LOS (line of sight) hindrance:... the progressive degrading of sight/radar detection as it goes through obstacles. Seeing a unit at the edge of the woods is easier than seeing one which is hidden much deeper inside... Some obstacles should give better bonuses than others...

I think that most of this should be covered in the "LOS=true" nature of Spring, which presumably would have moved on from TA's basic True Line of Sight, and allow features themselves to block unit LOS. Thus rocks and trees would obscure enemy LOS anyway.

To recap on this important point, I think that features should block Line Of Sight in Spring when set to "LOS=true".

-----------------------

I hope I didn't offend you through dismissing some of your points too quickly. I thought that your post was a good one in general, but probably a bit too complicated then was necessary. Right now we just want to convince the SY chaps to include such added terrain/gameplay interactions. Any further advancement on that could come later, if it is at all necessary.

Trees giving radar jamming would probably be doable although the jamming in spring operates on 64*64 squares so the whole forest would probably be totally jammed in that case. It might be added as an option in the future.

The los hindered by features would also be doable but then a single tree would stop los which im not sure if you want since trees arent really that thick (you can see under/between branches etc).

SJ: Thanks for peering in. The limitation of jamming to 64*64 squares sounds really bad to me, more like a design flaw. Is there a reason why you had to do that, and would it be hard in the future to adjust it to allow for more fine-grained effects?
Also, about LOS hindrance: can't you have partial hindrance? So, you can see through a few trees, but vision degrades little by little (a good use of my hiding value? Or simply say that LOS has to go through 6 trees before being blocked.

Warlord Zsinj: Thanks for reading my post. I probably put too much detail in there . You have valid points, however I really wanna defend my hiding and stealth values ranging from 0 to 100%:

They are not the same as being "half-stealth" or "half-cloaked", because the end result is, either they see you, or they don't. The difference is from how far they can see/detect you. The fact that you have no indication of whether enemy units see you or detect you on radar is actually very realistic and essential to warfare, and it's already that way in TA (a unit with longer sight range than you can see you when you're not aware of it, and of course you never know if you're being detected by a radar.)

For cloaking such as you have it in TA, it still makes sense to have a visual indicator. So, if being immobile in the forest can give you real cloaking, fine, make the unit transparent to let the player know his unit can't be seen at all (finally I don't like the idea much, though - cloaking should be reserved to units with cloaking devices). But if you're invisible to enemy units because they have poor sight range and you are moving through concealment terrain, you don't need to know about it. You know that putting your units in the forest makes them less visible, that's all.
----

Good point about balancing the advantages and disadvantages of hiding: I too want ambushes to be possible. I can think of many ways to solve that using my gradual hiding/stealth value:
- penalize the hiding value of units standing in open ground
- penalize less units hiding in the forest when they have stayed immobile for a while: they have found good spots to see the enemy coming.
----

Features vs Map zones defined in a bitmap:
I think both should be scriptable, to allow maximum freedom to the map designer. Apart from the hiding/stealth thing, there are many possible application, for example you could make a map zone. or a radius around a feature, where gravity is reduced. Or you can do an acid swamp that damages units (zone), as well as spot where corrosive fumes rise from the ground (feature). Of course this depends of how much the SYs allow us to do through scripting.

Ah so by percentages you mean how probable it is that a unit will or will nto be detected sorta thing? Chance basically, so ti isnt half cloaked it's just a 50% chance of being seen and not 100%

Alantai Firestar wrote:Ah so by percentages you mean how probable it is that a unit will or will nto be detected sorta thing? Chance basically, so ti isnt half cloaked it's just a 50% chance of being seen and not 100%

Not exactly; the percentage reduces the range at which other units can see you. So, if a unit has 200 sight range, it can only see units with 50% hiding at range 100 or less.

Now that idea i like alot... I never woiuld have thought of that... Well, I might of, but not in a while...

aGorm

i would really hate that personally and doubt too many other people will be interested in a over-complex stelathing/cloaking system it would... suck i can't think of any other way to describe it! please oh worthy SY's don't import this nasty feature into such a groovy game!

If I'm not mistaken human beings have this feature inbuilt at a fundamental level so this would requrie subconcious processing not micromanagement

What soory i think you have misunderstod what hes saying. He means that as units go deeper into the forest you need to get closer befor they show up. It will be vice versa, so his sight will be reduced too! It makes sence, although i suspect theres a easyer way to do it, but theres no way that your units would have normal line of sight through a forest, however it should not mean no line of sight like now.
(imagins the Mr Musle adverts... how the hell does he fit behind that lampshade... you may have to be english to get that..)
Thats what hes talking about.
And Trees should give radar jamin of a sort, as it adds strataie to the game, and is realistic.

aGorm

No I was referring to Min3mat complaining ti was too complicated. This system is realistic and human beings use it everyday without thought for it