Spring RTS Engine

mufdvr, I think the credibility of a scientific group that has already built and tested them would be enough. But never did I say that such a system would produce more or the same energy at night, just that it would still produce energy at night.

However defining light intensity on a map has another side effect, solar collectors are relied upon for being a constant energy source that doesn't fluctuate that's always the same, it's part of the game play and its balance. Adding yet another actor for new players to have to counter would make things harder of them, as well as destroying numerous construction methods players use. Especially since the number 1 cause of retardedness in a noobs playing style is ignorance of economic cost and production, they'll build the most expensive item regardless of whether they can afford it, then get told off by more experienced allies for doing so.

I'm with the idea that solars are ment to be strongish and steady, unlike winds, and there fore should be under the controll of da mod makers.

mufdvr222 wrote:

AF wrote:There are solar panels currently that can operate in total darkness. For example, there're solar panels that run off of infrared background radiation that generate more energy than conventional solar cells and run at night time too.

So I think the arm and core can develop night time solar panels in 4-5 thousand years if we did it in 20-40 years.

Total crap, sorry to be so blunt but that is just crappola, and so is that article which has ZERO credibility.
The most efficient solar panels around are orbiting mars and being driven around its surface on the MER rovers. And the claim thet they can utilise infrared wavelengths, thats just hillarious I think some serious brushing up on ya physics knowledge is in order.

Are you insane? those panels are like 10 years old, it's ludicrous to think that the technology would not have improved at all during that time. Those panels are very expensive and efficient and what they do, but they aren't the most current wave of technology, not by a long shot.

The reason solars can't be changed via map is because, to the game engine, there is no distinction between solar collectors and other things that produce a constant amount of energy.

I also think it's a bad idea to use it in normal maps. I just know that somebody will make a Green Fields type map except with energy .

Also the most advanced tech of the time may not have been suited for space based usage or other lwoer tech versions may have been able to give better energy output under martian lighting conditions soa ssuming the best is at the time was put to use for mars is still unlikely.


Atm I think ig this solar strength tag is implemented then most modders just wont use it. Solars are 20+ energy for a reason and any modder who adopts this approach will have to add a 3rd energy generation that gives a stable amount regardless of map.

This is just another attempt to overcomplicate gamelay by introducing real life concepts that make it seem more like a simulation than a game.

Besides it wont look realistic if the majority of maps dont use the solar strength tag despite having varying lighting, and most maps have the same lighting anyway.

It's a nice simple feature (yes, the thing that doesn't have to be used by every mod) that could be useful for some mods/maps. Maybe someone will implement it eventually.

And it's kinda stupid imho how all this realism arguments are used on both sides of the discussion

SwiftSpear wrote:

mufdvr222 wrote:

AF wrote:There are solar panels currently that can operate in total darkness. For example, there're solar panels that run off of infrared background radiation that generate more energy than conventional solar cells and run at night time too.

So I think the arm and core can develop night time solar panels in 4-5 thousand years if we did it in 20-40 years.

Total crap, sorry to be so blunt but that is just crappola, and so is that article which has ZERO credibility.
The most efficient solar panels around are orbiting mars and being driven around its surface on the MER rovers. And the claim thet they can utilise infrared wavelengths, thats just hillarious I think some serious brushing up on ya physics knowledge is in order.

Are you insane? those panels are like 10 years old, it's ludicrous to think that the technology would not have improved at all during that time. Those panels are very expensive and efficient and what they do, but they aren't the most current wave of technology, not by a long shot.

Developed by a subsidiary of Boeing to be precise.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4033

No I am not insane just qualified in the field, just telling it the way it is, at the moment the most efficient solar panels around are about 40% efficient and no solar panel will produce squat at night. Thats the way it is, and the technology used is a little over three years old, not ten. You must be insane to question something before you check your facts.
If you bothered to read my post you would know I made no such claim that the technology had gone nowhere.

MLGHLDOHDLGHLDHL!!!!!!!


WHAT IS THIS.. Im not gonna read this nonesense.. solar panels are NOT SOLAR PANELS.. they are units named solar panels that PRODUCE an arbitrary 20 energy.. Fusion reactors produce energy IN the same manner... its the same tag that determines the amount of energy, it just has a different number..

In order to do this nonesense (which has completely no reasonable reason to be done) you would need another silly tag and a nother method defining map energy crap, which would mean all current maps would have to be modified or default to something, and a new tag would have to be added into all these units.. this would add nothing to gameplay.. NOTHING I tell you NOTHING...

... lol

And we should make it vary with day-night cycles, too.

Yeah then we can have units that give off light, and use metal to do this.. (they use some bizarre form of the photo-electric effect).. then you can make a map where nothing gives off energy because its completely light deficient, and we can have the inverse of green fields where you have to make giant light generator farms to power you solar panels to power you metal makers.. and SLOW THE GAME DOWN... SOO much that it takes 30 minutes to get a flash out .. and 5 days to actually win.. WOO for retardation..

Actually I amend that, you couldnt actually build any units you could just build buildings so you could build more buildings.. id be like SIM CITY.. only we can call it TA SPRING SIM ANNIHILATION.. and there wont be natural disasters..

What's the big deal? Let's just say all current maps have a solarvalue of "1", and the TA-derived solars don't make 20 energy, but 20*solarvalue. That is not a tremendous change in how maps and units are made. It's one small thing, which many people see plenty of promise for.

For that matter I see nothing wrong with such a modification for geo sources as well (ideally done on a per-vent status, but that actually would require a notable change to the map format from what I understand).

As it is, solars in TA-derived mods are considered the constant, reliable energy source, while the efficiency of wind varies based on the map. Sometimes it's better than solars; sometimes it's a risk due to variability; sometimes it's just not worth it, or for vacuum maps, absolutely useless. While wind is, in general, supposed to provide cheap power that doesn't scale too well, some maps go so far as to completely eliminate wind from the equation. Yet, nobody is up in arms about this! Surely that sort of thing should be entirely in the hands of the mod-maker, right? Well, no. What's the fun if all maps are the same? Lots of maps use "default" values for things, and you can make fantastic maps like that. But you can make really unique and fun maps by trying something new.

If the mod maker wants supposed "solar panels" to work regardless of intensity of radiation, then they just make their units the same way they're done now, with no regard to an external variable. Fusions are like this regardless. (Since, for whatever reason, fusions can produce far, far more energy than you put into them, from an internal source, blatantly violating thermodynamics and all that, they would never conceivably be limited by an external variable. I think it's better to imagine them as zero-point energy generators than fusion, but that's a bit more technical than anyone seems willing to get. That, and we have no idea if zero-point energy can ever be used.)

I don't see the big deal. When has "give modders more choices" ever been the wrong approach?

P.S., Fanger, don't reference the photo-electric effect when you don't know what it is. It has nothing to do with generating light. (In fact, the light is absorbed, and electrons gain the energy.) I think you instead mean a phospholuminscent effect due to a chemical reaction. But I think that approach is quite ridiculous, and would require a whole new physics model incorporating light sources and so on, rather than a simple global variable. And as pointed out, a game with scarce energy of any type would become a very small-scale race to complete a fusion reactor first, at which point one side is basically guaranteed a victory. I think that "race for a discovery" is a neat gameplay idea, promoting optimal control of small forces and creating essentially a new mission objective. Not everyone would like it, but many people would find such a new form of gameplay fantastic.

We could have Units with Lights, and when they look (or even Fire Lasers at the Pannels) you get Energy - and if you would have a gun, that uses all Energy available for shooting one big energyburst out on the pannel - and so on and so on.. we could save all our energy Problems.

Hey Arco.. Maybe I was using it in a retarded aspect to point out the retarded nature of this idea..

WHY does the amount of energy NEED to vary, the metal already does, as does the wind, and tidal sources of energy, what is it going to add to gamplay to cause a 3rd variety of energy varience.. OH now we have to memorize another map value so we dont feck up our starts again.. why.. I seriously doubt anyone is going to use this.. all the OLD school TA people are gonna flip out about having solars make more or less than 20, and I doubt the AA people want one more wierd balance change they werent expecting... Im not gonna make use of this.. so whats the point.. WHAT IS THE POINT.. It will add nothing but more needless micro to the game.. Stop varying 1 of the resources, and contemplate adding additional resources this would allow you to do so much more and not be nearly as retarded... we dont need to much about with energy any more than it is..

This would also simply give rise to SPEED ENERGY/METEL, where solar panels give 100000^10000 energy and you might as well just turn on .nocost for all its worth...

PicassoCT wrote:We could have Units with Lights, and when they look (or even Fire Lasers at the Pannels) you get Energy - and if you would have a gun, that uses all Energy available for shooting one big energyburst out on the pannel - and so on and so on.. we could save all our energy Problems.

I'll assume you're being totally sarcastic, but...this is you we're talking about. The latter idea would obviously not work since even at 100% efficiency, which cannot be attained, you would only be breaking even on energy. The former idea, regarding lights and such, would not only require a tremendous addition to the engine in terms of physical simulation, but doesn't even make much sense. While a vehicle's light would allow for some of the energy to be recaptured, such lights are nowhere near the strength of the sun. This is something apparent to anyone who's used manual settings on a camera: there's simply a ridiculous amount of light outside during the day. For instance, we receive around 400,000 times as much energy from the sun as the full moon. The background stars don't make much of a difference. Yet if you turn a flashlight on outside and point it at a wall about 20 feet away, it doesn't make it all that much brighter. Significantly brighter, sure, but daylight is so much more powerful that you wouldn't even detect a change in the wall's brightness if you turned that flashlight on during the day.

And I think a military laser would simply destroy the solar cells rather than power them. So I don't see a way for units to provide a reasonable amount of light to solar panels.

Edit:

Fanger wrote:Hey Arco.. Maybe I was using it in a retarded aspect to point out the retarded nature of this idea..

Just because your example is retarded doesn't mean the idea is. Don't try to straw-man something that a lot of people think is a neat idea. I'm not asking you to change anything; this wouldn't even have an effect on mods that don't make use of solars.

WHY does the amount of energy NEED to vary, the metal already does, as does the wind, and tidal sources of energy, what is it going to add to gamplay to cause a 3rd variety of energy varience..

Perhaps because as it is, map designers can't really shuffle people away from using solars without bumping up wind (or perhaps tidal) to considerably elevated values, which fundamentally changes the nature of early game play--namely, there is an energy surplus and not as much energy needs to be put into the economy. There is no way to slow down pre-fusion gameplay in terms of energy below the point of solar efficiency. I'm not saying this is breaking currently gameplay, but why have such a restriction? What if someone simply WANTS to make a map where solars are not an efficient choice, yet early energy economy is not pumped up through high wind and tidal? Right now, they just can't do it. There are plenty of other things they can't do, but I'd say recognizing one more map tag--a value that works across the entirety of the map, never needs to change during gameplay (unless, of course, a day/night cycle is added in the future), and only needs to be integrated into a handful of units as a simple factor in an equation--is one of the easiest things to change.

all the OLD school TA people are gonna flip out about having solars make more or less than 20

They already flip out at units that can't shoot through each other. There is no need to accommodate them, and it's not like this change would in any way PREVENT a mod from functioning in the TA way. This would not break ANYTHING.

and I doubt the AA people want one more wierd balance change they werent expecting...

That's up to Caydr. He's free to do what he wants. If he doesn't want to integrate it, fine. That doesn't mean he shouldn't have the option!

Im not gonna make use of this.. so whats the point..

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were the only one who made anything for Spring. Calm down a bit. This change wouldn't even affect you; you wouldn't have to do ANYTHING to have your mod function as it does.

Stop varying 1 of the resources, and contemplate adding additional resources this would allow you to do so much more and not be nearly as retarded...

Hey, I'm all for adding additional resources as well, and as far as I'm aware that's a planned feature. But that requires considerable engine revision. There's also no guarantee that adding a new resource would be any less complicated a matter in terms of gameplay. (I'd think it would actually make things much more complicated than making a change to energy. Also note that ALL EXISTING MAPS would play just as they do now!)

This would also simply give rise to SPEED ENERGY/METEL, where solar panels give 100000^10000 energy and you might as well just turn on .nocost for all its worth...

SpeedMetal already attempts to do this to the maximum extent by cranking up wind like crazy. I have no doubt that SpeedEverything would be made quickly. But it would only eat into the existing SpeedMetal population; it really wouldn't make things any worse.

I'll assume you're being totally sarcastic, but...this is you we're talking about. The latter idea would obviously not work since even at 100% efficiency, which cannot be attained, you would only be breaking even on energy. The former idea, regarding lights and such, would not only require a tremendous addition to the engine in terms of physical simulation, but doesn't even make much sense. While a vehicle's light would allow for some of the energy to be recaptured, such lights are nowhere near the strength of the sun. This is something apparent to anyone who's used manual settings on a camera: there's simply a ridiculous amount of light outside during the day. For instance, we receive around 400,000 times as much energy from the sun as the full moon. The background stars don't make much of a difference. Yet if you turn a flashlight on outside and point it at a wall about 20 feet away, it doesn't make it all that much brighter. Significantly brighter, sure, but daylight is so much more powerful that you wouldn't even detect a change in the wall's brightness if you turned that flashlight on during the day.

And I think a military laser would simply destroy the solar cells rather than power them. So I don't see a way for units to provide a reasonable amount of light to solar panels.

^^ has nothing to do with the actual topic, nor video games, nor this game engine which would have to be changed to allow the retardation suggested.. meh..

-1 to arco

-1000 to this thread period

I would like to throw my hat into the ring here.

I waited to post because I wanted to see what other mappers/modders had to say beforehand so that I could understand everyone's position.


Ok basically let me preface with this. This is such a thing as giving mappers too much control over the environment.

A change like this would be somewhat devistating to the mappers themselves because, just like typemaps, they would be used to completely screw over gameplay due to lack of understanding the tool at hand and it's practical uses.

That said, generally i will be the last one to complain about features being added, but I have to kind of object to this type of feature which is not viable nor is it practical.

A more practical approach to solor energy modification would be to allow mappers from a scale of 0-1 to affect a modifier. Said modifier can only affect max energy defined by mod as .3 (being 30%). Never can the modifier cause the energy output to go above what the mod has specified. At most it can only affect a 30% decrease if the light quality is 0. That way you keep dumb mappers from completely screwing over mods.


On the flip side of all of this you have mods that are not ota, ota based, or have anything in common with ota whatsoever. This idea poses a significant problem for those mods, as the same tag that defines solor energy is used to define how much energy a fusion outputs. Not good. For a more simple example: A solor collector outputs 20 energy. In my 30% ratio, the output of a solor collector on a map with crappy lighting will output roughly 17.3. The bad thing is that a fusion as well will only output 700.

Bad bad bad. The reason is because the fusion is a different energy source, but the game does not see it that way. To put things simply you need a new tag defining an energy gain as solor power, and a new tag defining energy gain as constant energy. Do that and modders won't complain I suspect. Well most at least. I imagine Caydr would, and he has damn good reason to, however he could easily set solor collectors under the static constant tag and all would be well. Unfortunately this leaves us back at square 1 and a new map tag that does exactly squat.


If you have read this entire monologue you can now understand why this is pretty much a useless and unnecessary feature. If the devs wanna implement it the way I described... fine. But most if not all mods won't use it, meaning a lot of dev time spent basically doing nothing, and that my friends, is never a good thing.

Forboding Angel wrote:But most if not all mods won't use it, meaning a lot of dev time spent basically doing nothing, and that my friends, is never a good thing.

I support the tag on the basis that it seems like a very easy thing to implement. Am I wrong about this? It seems vastly easier than implementing the explosiongenerator, for instance, and that just makes things look pretty.

Edit: Forboding, to clarify, do you think typemaps were a mistake and a waste of devtime? They were assuredly much harder to implement than this would be, too.

Arco wrote:

Forboding Angel wrote:But most if not all mods won't use it, meaning a lot of dev time spent basically doing nothing, and that my friends, is never a good thing.

I support the tag on the basis that it seems like a very easy thing to implement. Am I wrong about this? It seems vastly easier than implementing the explosiongenerator, for instance, and that just makes things look pretty.

Edit: Forboding, to clarify, do you think typemaps were a mistake and a waste of devtime? They were assuredly much harder to implement than this would be, too.

No typemaps were not a mistake. however, more often than not they are used very irresponsibly by newbie mapmakers and even some veterains. The mistake is more in the deployment and lack of information.

Arco, do no assume that a tag is easy to implement. They very rarely are easy to implement.

In short, the gain is not a large enough one to justify the dev time. Not to mention the extra modding time spend circumventing new said technique.

Honestly, more benefit would be gained by adding support for a new 3rd resource.

Forboding Angel wrote:
No typemaps were not a mistake. however, more often than not they are used very irresponsibly by newbie mapmakers and even some veterains. The mistake is more in the deployment and lack of information.

Name the Names

Tobi wrote:It's a nice simple feature (yes, the thing that doesn't have to be used by every mod) that could be useful for some mods/maps. Maybe someone will implement it eventually.

And it's kinda stupid imho how all this realism arguments are used on both sides of the discussion

That is as simple as that.

Fanger wrote:Yeah then we can have units that give off light, and use metal to do this.. (they use some bizarre form of the photo-electric effect).. then you can make a map where nothing gives off energy because its completely light deficient, and we can have the inverse of green fields where you have to make giant light generator farms to power you solar panels to power you metal makers.. and SLOW THE GAME DOWN... SOO much that it takes 30 minutes to get a flash out .. and 5 days to actually win.. WOO for retardation..

Actually I amend that, you couldnt actually build any units you could just build buildings so you could build more buildings.. id be like SIM CITY.. only we can call it TA SPRING SIM ANNIHILATION.. and there wont be natural disasters..

The main problem is that you re sticking on a pure TA conversion.

Could I remember you that Springs goal is to support various type of mods (not only TA adaptation) some to be original (and licence free) in term of units / gameplay / techtree / etc...



Anyway the tag I requested don't need to affect the fuzions powerplants, but only solar panels. It can be done for wind, so it can be done for solar as well...