Metropolis Spring

[Anarchid]

For the grid on the map, perhaps you could make simple block towers at intersections kind of like posts but have them emit colored beams to corresponding towers or something. Or if there's a way to actually stick squares of color on the map, that'd be awesome; like permanent scarring or something (I don't know lua). More opaque squares on the minimap might help too.

I was rather thinking of making various small "ruined wall" type conquerables to place aligned with sides of the square. The idea with beams won't really look much better than just drawing 4 3d-lines by lua, and might be just a bit too reminiscent of Nod energy barriers for people to send their units into

Also, i think the "ruined walls" approach would do something to make the overall game atmosphere darker.

But if only ground decals could have teamcolor... ^^

[imbaczek]

just draw some half- and quarter-circles in lua. easiest for now.

[Google_Frog]

Can you explain the resource gaining system? It gives confusing returns and there are things that might be bugs. I had 3/4 of the map and 3 power plants but only +3 income.

[TheBigPK]

You have to be nearby your power plants, if that helps.

[Anarchid]

Can you explain the resource gaining system? It gives confusing returns and there are things that might be bugs. I had 3/4 of the map and 3 power plants but only +3 income.

The way it works in this mod (i strongly suspect UA didn't just multiply income by efficiency but squared it or otherwise powered the dependency on efficiency) is:
1) Take all capacity of powerplants and put it together.
2) Divide it by a total number of sectors to get efficiency.
3) For each powerplant, calculate distance to host station to get an inverse of transfer rate.
4) Sum up (capacity*efficiency*transfer rate) of all powerplants. This is upload.
5) If upload exceeds max income limit, crop it.

[KDR_11k]

I think it'd be much better if you took the capacities, scaled them according to the com's distance to the PP and then add them up. Give the player the minimum of {sector count, capacity sum, income cap} as income. That way you don't lose income for having a powerplant on the other side of the map (currently you lose a part of your income for that).

[Anarchid]

I think it'd be much better if you took the capacities, scaled them according to the com's distance to the PP and then add them up. Give the player the minimum of {sector count, capacity sum, income cap} as income. That way you don't lose income for having a powerplant on the other side of the map (currently you lose a part of your income for that).

I'll very seriously look about adding this as a modoption. However, in the above scheme, at 100% efficiency you'll still be losing energy with range (as capacities get scaled on that anyway). The other method for tweaking this user-side could be a modoption that powered the dropoff rate by some coefficient, so it could even be completely offed by setting that coefficient to zero.

Also, for the more-opaque sectors, lua-drawn worldview sector graphics, etc - as it turned out, there is a way to do all of this in widgets, so from 0.14 it works exactly like that. As widgets can save their configs, you'll be able to customize all opacity and what-to-draw settings to your personal satisfaction.

What bugs me currently is that when i do away with serps' idiotic hardwired-kamikaze behaviour and the aforementioned modifications, it'll be time for stoudson bombs and tech sectors (see the plans). While stoudsons are simple, the techsectors have issues like "how are techsector-allowed units get specified in game settings" and "how to place techsectors so there are not as many as metalspots, but still as symmetric as the map".

[KDR_11k]

Yes, you would lose energy income if you're at a distance to all powerplants but you would not lose any when you're above 4 plants and have another one as a teleport marker in another corner of the map. This approach would make only the powerplants that are feeding your com matter to your E income, your current approach means that a powerplant that does not feed the com at all will reduce your E income instead of simply being irrelevant. It's as if all powerplants always draw power from the sectors but the ones that aren't near the com just discard the energy while still taking energy away from the ones that can put their harvested energy to good use.

[Fanger]

Heh this is cool, I loved Urban assault. Do you plan to add the other factions?

[Anarchid]

Heh this is cool, I loved Urban assault. Do you plan to add the other factions?

Check the second "grand high plan" url on the first page. In short - yes, right after i maek zeppelins normalize their altitude and pitch/yaw angles after catapulting off cliffs, add an option for an alternate income distribution, and add scouts (i lost UV's on Taerkasten one by killing Blender, it didn't even ask confirmation, dammit) to the existing ones.

[KDR_11k]

(i lost UV's on Taerkasten one by killing Blender, it didn't even ask confirmation, dammit)

Blender saves the session on exit to the quit.blend or something file in your autosave/temp dir. I think there's a button in the top menu or something that can load the session.

[Anarchid]

Yes, recover-last-session, in the menu. It did recover the geometry, not the uv layout.

[krychle]

Ive' just read this discussion and I like that there is something with my taste. First mod that is not realy copy of TA or other "usual copied" things.

I think I will try (!) to make some units for this mod, but I'm not a reliable (good word?) person... so if I make something you will get it...

Anyway are you planig little bit change design of this units? Spring is more powerfull engine than UA has. So you can use more detailed units. Maybe good wil be stylise units in some way. Some videos I watched on youtube reminds me something like that:
- MYKONIAN -> Matrix / Startrek-Brog style
- TAERKASTEN -> Steampunk style (http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=278 )
- RESISTANCE -> Artdeco / Bioshock
- GHORKOVS -> SciFi like / HiTech clean designed style / Masseffect

Last question - can you specifi how low poly you want to have units? And how big you want to have textures? I think that rear units can be pretty detailed; like host stations, buildings. Some "caps" should be useful.

And about borders: I think you can display some semitransparent triangles/arrows in sectors corners, something like on HUD display; not like they are on map phisicaly. Phisical objects will allways looks bad because they are displayed periodicaly in mesh...

[KDR_11k]

First mod that is not realy copy of TA or other "usual copied" things.

It's not the first by a LONG shot.

[Anarchid]

I think I will try (!) to make some units for this mod, but I'm not a reliable (good word?) person... so if I make something you will get it...

I will give you hundreds of kudos for each unit. Don't even consider hesitation

Anyway are you planig little bit change design of this units? Spring is more powerfull engine than UA has. So you can use more detailed units. Maybe good wil be stylise units in some way. Some videos I watched on youtube reminds me something like that:

Check the second "grand high strategy plan" link in the first post, it deals specifically on the engine change's effects upon units, and how i envisage them. If you've anything to comment upon, again, don't think it over.
(also beware that the file's newlines are in Unix format so open it either under your posix-compliant operating system, or with Wordpad rather than Notepad if you're under windows)

Last question - can you specifi how low poly you want to have units? And how big you want to have textures? I think that rear units can be pretty detailed; like host stations, buildings. Some "caps" should be useful.

I don't really *want* them low-poly. I just *make* them low-poly because, currently, i am the entire development team behind this mod, so i have to do everything from animations to luarules and balance. And the latter two get priority; all the current models are liable to be replaced later by better ones and can be considered stand-ins (except perhaps the Eisenhans, i like it moar than all the rest put together). So, if some mykonian units in the current setup have less than 50 poly's, that in no way means i will turn down units with "polys, thousands of them".

And about borders: I think you can display some semitransparent triangles/arrows in sectors corners, something like on HUD display; not like they are on map phisicaly. Phisical objects will allways looks bad because they are displayed periodicaly in mesh...

I've already migrated the entirety of GUI to widgets, and maed a widget that draws borders in world-view. I can upload the current setup if you want it; however, i planned to finish the mykonian scout and alternate-power-distribution modoption before calling it 0.14

On your unit-stylization ideas: i like them, but the Taerkasts are rather dieselpunk than steampunk, despite their tech being that interesting.

It's not the first by a LONG shot.

Moreover; PURE and KP are 100% original content while Metropolis Spring is a makeover/reimagining, despite not using any original data like otacontent-dependent mods do.

[Anarchid]

Bump version to 0.14.

Added: scouts for both current factions, interceptor for Mykonians, gadget to make zeppelins(e.g. myko bombers) obey their cruise altitude, and widget to draw sectors in worldview (with some optimisation it's even tolerable, but some moar won't harm, also currently it doesn't always draw the sector you're in when fps-ing). Also, the alternate power-distribution scheme suggested by KDR is here.
Changed: All of gui transfered to LuaUI, and sectors on both minimap and worldview will flash when newly conquered. "capture" customParam for weaponDefs is now a float multiplier applied to damage in sector-conquest. Hetzel gets its rof and capture-rate upped, the cube - both of them nerfed. Also, as mykonian AA is now predominantly handled by airsticks, brick's speed nerfed almost by half for a 20% increase in hitpoints. Serps now function blastwing-style, won't ram buildings beneath, and had their anti-tank damage defaulted (so if you bother to ram enemy ground units from fps, you get something for it)
Lingers: The AI still has no idea of reservoir control, teleportation, defense and squad management. Also, the attack-orders given through autoconquest mode to air units will sometimes persist even after being CMD_REMOVE'd and even CMD_STOP'ped with new queue written; i begin to suspect this is some sort of an engine bug. Tanks (including cubes) will still sometimes get stuck trying to attack land from an unfavorable position.
Introduced bugs: The nais powerbars gui will only appear after you make the first click.
Screenshots: later, when i maek them .

[Google_Frog]

After playing a few games vs Utukki I noticed a few things.

1. There are a few units that refuse to fire, the AA trucks refuse to fire at air and there are some other ones too which I forgot.

2. Are there any hidden features that you haven't told us? Assume that not everyone has played the game that this is based on. It was many games until we discovered that pools are lockable.

3. Locked pools slowly drain. Are they suppose to do this?

4. Can you post the equation for income? Its very confusing atm. I know there is a correlation between more sectors + powerplants and income but thats about it.

5. It's not balanced but at this stage I didn't really expect it to be.

[Anarchid]

1. There are a few units that refuse to fire, the AA trucks refuse to fire at air and there are some other ones too which I forgot.

They have trouble tracking fast-moving targets that move closely above them - it's a result of their (cob-side) targeting animation being non-instantaneous. Also, the tanks won't sometimes shoot at ground because the attack-ground order tells an unit to move within range and fire at <x,y,z>, but completely ignores LOS.

Also, quite most of the units have limited firing arcs (you can't expect a WWI-tank main gun to shoot 360 degrees)

2. Are there any hidden features that you haven't told us? Assume that not everyone has played the game that this is based on. It was many games until we discovered that pools are lockable.

There are some modoptions that could be missed. Hmm, yes, one goal for 0.15 definitely should be a manual

3. Locked pools slowly drain. Are they suppose to do this?

Both commander-units have negative regeneration now. If you lock the shield pool, it will still drain through this negative regen, and through damage.

4. Can you post the equation for income? Its very confusing atm. I know there is a correlation between more sectors + powerplants and income but thats about it.

There are two versions, the "original one", and the KDR-suggested "alternate one", selectable via modoptions.

The original is:

Code: Select all

1) Take all capacity of powerplants and put it together.
2) Divide it by a total number of sectors to get efficiency.
3) For each powerplant, calculate distance to host station to get an inverse of transfer rate.
4) Sum up (capacity*efficiency*transfer rate) of all powerplants. This is upload.
5) If upload exceeds max income limit, crop it.

And the alternate:

Code: Select all

I think it'd be much better if you took the capacities, scaled them according to the com's distance to the PP and then add them up. Give the player the minimum of {sector count, capacity sum, income cap} as income. That way you don't lose income for having a powerplant on the other side of the map (currently you lose a part of your income for that).

The difference is basically that in the alternate method you will not lose income from owning excess powerplants.

5. It's not balanced but at this stage I didn't really expect it to be.

Any specific things i should tackle?

[Google_Frog]

Air seems to be generally better than ground.

Can you turn your equation for income into pseudo-math or pseudo-code. Currently I can see the correlations but they won't be good enough to decide what to do. The econ is sort of detached when people don't know how it works so it's hard to decide things.

Also taking all the sectors is a bit micro heavy but idk what you'd do about that.

[Anarchid]

Air seems to be generally better than ground.

Considering there's only three ground units, and one of them refused to shoot air...

I maed ostwinds pull the trigger BEFORE aiming, this way they fire always but sometimes miss, so in 0.15 this should be more or less fixed.

Can you turn your equation for income into pseudo-math or pseudo-code.

NP, here's how it'd look mode borgspeak-style

Code: Select all

1) Diminishing-efficiency mode:
    C=sum(all owned powerplants' efficiency)
    S=number of sectors
    E=math.min(S/C,1)
    T=0
    for each powerplant do
       T+=1/distance(powerplant, hoststation)
    end
    U =  C*E*T
    GIVE player math.min(U,MAX_UPLOAD) energy to distribute between three reservoirs.

2) Non-diminishing efficiency mode(enabled via modoption)
    S=number of owned sectors
    T=0
    for each powerplant,
         T+=powerplant.capacity/distance(powerplant, hoststation)
    end
    GIVE player math.min(S,T,MAX_UPLOAD)

Also taking all the sectors is a bit micro heavy but idk what you'd do about that.

After a bit more feedback on #main, i decided making buildings neutral and then having them auto-targeted only if autoconquer is set above (default) zero. With a bit of fixxage of older issues, it works (or at least seems to work) as a charm, especially since now units almost never will "lock up" attempting to shoot ground from an impossible arc.