Spring RTS Engine

I see you've all ignored my requests to proofread your posts. What can I say? Maybe you all really are lacking in neurones, rather than just lazy, as I originally thought.

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Just remember power corrupts therefore knowledge corrupts.

Uh... Right. Brilliant philosophical leap

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People should not be able to program their own AI dll's to do things for them. It is ludicrous to suggest such an option. Beyond ludicrous; it is rather the silliest game suggestion I have ever heard.
Take a step back, and think of the repercussions of allowing people to program their own AI's to do things for them. (hint: the only variable in a game of TA is player skill, because the game itself is constant. Try making the game itself a variable)

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Kixxe, everything you suggest is a bandaid solution. The advent of radar jammers does not make up for the fact that radar coverage is no longer of strategic importance, it is of complete necessity. I cannot attack a base unless I have radar targetting of that base. Anything otherwise would be suicide. That is bad gameplay. It gives far too much power to the defender, and makes attacking useless until such point as you progress to level 2 to get radar jammers. Why should be forced to have a radar jammer tag along for every battle, simply so that it has a chance? Radar jammers are meant for sneak attacks, and hiding parts of your base - not all attacks.
I advocate that dots should appear on the map, but units shouldn't auto-target them until a targeting facility is activated. I have yet to hear a logical argument against such a proposition.

And kixxe, your suggestion to down the power of flak cannons betrays your poor knowledge of the subject. Such a fix is a bandaid fix - and bandaids have the bad habit of coming off at the slightest shake. It doesn't tackle the problem at all. Primarily because the main source of anti-air aren't flak cannons, but missile units. Reducing the power of flak cannons, or missile units doesn't make aircraft less useless, it just makes aircraft AND flak cannons (or missile units) useless. What's more, it completely ignores the situation of other aircraft. Any defensively patrolling aircraft have a massive superiority over offensive aircraft, if they have radar coverage. Your bandaid fix doesn't cover that at all, does it?

And for godssake, kixxe, the word is QUESTION.

use finks and eagles with your offensive aircraft :S DUH targetting. 2 inaccuracies with radar targetting (DO NOT REMOVE EM) Blips are not accurate. Defenses (except AA) do not consistantly hit blips. Radar targetting is fine! ever tried attacking anything (eg,. a base) with your guardians? they SUCK and are inaccurate as hell! but thats OK, thats what peepers are for! :D

People should not be able to program their own AI dll's to do things for them. It is ludicrous to suggest such an option. Beyond ludicrous; it is rather the silliest game suggestion I have ever heard.

This has in fact been one of the main points in spring. All micromanagment that is simple enough to automate should be possible to automate. As I see it there is two main sorts of fun in a RTS game, one more action based and not needing much deep thought such as clicking radar dots and another more strategic.

Internally among the SYs, although we might not have clearly communicated it, the concensus have been that spring should primary aim for the second type. Personally I think it would be cool to see sort of "cyborg" teams of human/ai battle it out in future games although Spring is of cource a long way from that.

Will this lead to gameplay close to TA ? Probably not.

Will it be balanced with the OTA or current XTA units ? Maybe, otherwise we will change them.

Will this completly remove the first sort of fun? Probably not, there will always be time critical stuff in a rts world that need doing and that AI creators havent thought of.

Will this completly remove the need for human players? No the state of AI is really quite abysmal in RTS like enviroments and there should be no risk that it will play better than a good human/ai combination. Although it might of course be better for a newbie to let the ai handle everything. If so see it as a new way of learning the game, first let ai handle everything and then start taking over more and more stuff. Personally I would enjoy a game where you can sit back more and take in info while only occacionally having to direct the action.

If someone really want to do all the micromanagment he/she can add an option to turn off the helper features but it wont be me.

I see you've all ignored my requests to proofread your posts. What can I say? Maybe you all really are lacking in neurones, rather than just lazy, as I originally thought.

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Quote:
Just remember power corrupts therefore knowledge corrupts.


Uh... Right. Brilliant philosophical leap

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

People should not be able to program their own AI dll's to do things for them. It is ludicrous to suggest such an option. Beyond ludicrous; it is rather the silliest game suggestion I have ever heard.
Take a step back, and think of the repercussions of allowing people to program their own AI's to do things for them. (hint: the only variable in a game of TA is player skill, because the game itself is constant. Try making the game itself a variable)

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Kixxe, everything you suggest is a bandaid solution. The advent of radar jammers does not make up for the fact that radar coverage is no longer of strategic importance, it is of complete necessity. I cannot attack a base unless I have radar targetting of that base. Anything otherwise would be suicide. That is bad gameplay. It gives far too much power to the defender, and makes attacking useless until such point as you progress to level 2 to get radar jammers. Why should be forced to have a radar jammer tag along for every battle, simply so that it has a chance? Radar jammers are meant for sneak attacks, and hiding parts of your base - not all attacks.
I advocate that dots should appear on the map, but units shouldn't auto-target them until a targeting facility is activated. I have yet to hear a logical argument against such a proposition.

And kixxe, your suggestion to down the power of flak cannons betrays your poor knowledge of the subject. Such a fix is a bandaid fix - and bandaids have the bad habit of coming off at the slightest shake. It doesn't tackle the problem at all. Primarily because the main source of anti-air aren't flak cannons, but missile units. Reducing the power of flak cannons, or missile units doesn't make aircraft less useless, it just makes aircraft AND flak cannons (or missile units) useless. What's more, it completely ignores the situation of other aircraft. Any defensively patrolling aircraft have a massive superiority over offensive aircraft, if they have radar coverage. Your bandaid fix doesn't cover that at all, does it?

And for godssake, kixxe, the word is QUESTION.

GAH-.-*

Well warlord, maybe im wrong. Maybe aircrafts suck pretty bad. Maybe radar has to much infuence. MT maybe are the greatest form of anti air.

So whats your sugestion?

I heard you this whole treahd complaing about why this would eliminate tatics and stategy from spring, and how micro mangement is a tatic in itself.

So what? What do you suggest?

I dont hear your opition, i wanna hear WHAT WE ARE gonna do!
Now plese, your opition. And try to keep in mind that spring is a new game. a step away from TA. Not just 3d ta, but something more. A new community, whit atleast 100-200 active players.



Oh, and lets not forget. Units arent stupid. In real life, units should know what to attack. They know that using their tank to shoot at an aircraft is useless. They know their orders... you might not get what im saying?

imange your a soldier. You and 3 others are gonna attack one of the nearby power plants. When you get there, you find that they have a backup powerplant, which is pretty undfended. Do you blow upp the first one or the second of both?
If they dont arent a membear of the dumdum sqwad, they probaly try to blow em both up, some way or another.

Anyway, making the units a litte smarter wont kill all the micro mangement. Will maybe do so you dont have to Micro EVRY battle. But if the battle if critical, u have to micro to se that your units do damage and dont just stands there staring into the ground, cuz thats what you told them to do. Im not only talking about target selcetion, im talking about imporving the means you can decide what a unit those today and adding stuff to it. For example(heres an example of a sugestion.) A vesal moving away from the enemy, and trying to stay out of fire since it is pretty defenceless on it's own. Still being stupid thou, and sometimes moves back agsint the enemy in a rambo rush of some kind. But if you micro, they wont act of their own acord offcourse. Follow orders come first, then they do smart/stupid stuff.

And 3rdly, i would ask you to...
STOP flaming ffs! this is suposted be the internet! a cool relaxed and nice place to be! Even if you find this dicusion very seirus, this is just a game! and who relly cares about the excakt spelling? wow, i mispeld qwestion. who died because of it? got hurt? got a tummy ace?
You get what im saying even if im n0t spelling coreecly. Start complaning when i speek l33t/ |/|00b

thats my... 15 cents?

OMG i hate units having a mind of their own if u cant turn it off!

Alantai Firestar wrote: That isn't strategy that├óÔé¼Ôäós micromanagement, that├óÔé¼Ôäós nannying your units. Strategy is macro scaled, units are micro scaled and so is micromanagement. What strategy concerns itself with is macro management, and macro management can take just as many clicks of the mouse if done correctly and doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót deal with specific tactics. It is the way fo play for big epic maps, and it is the way that Chris Taylor si trying to reach by ending resource wars which encourage micromanagement and tactical play and not strategic play.

Nannying my units? do you even know what i have in mind? Im referring to more time focused on finding out what the other guys doing and change ur focus accordingly, taking choke points on the map.

OMG i hate units having a mind of their own if u cant turn it off!

Then we could have one to... there are never to many buttons!

sure SY's its fine for units to have commen sence, but they should not make stratigic desisions...

And Warlord Zsinj, get a grip man. Ur sounding like all the other idiots that whine "Cant you spell". The simple fact is that some people can read the word "teh" 100 times and not notice the fact its spelt rong.. much like i often spell spell speel, i can re read that loads without noticing my mistack.

The only post theres no excuse for is one like...
And then when the ron the flooe they get bloon up with teh mgga lazer. WHta do u thik? Bloody hll wht nonsems...
If its like that then sure complane, but if its plane english with a few speeling errors back off.

Anyway back to the topic...

Lets make an example. You build two armys. Your stratagie is to send them in in a pincer movement.
If you had all these ai and stuff, you would basicly select gp1, tell it to go left, then tell it to attack the base, then get gp2 and tell it to go right, then attack the bass.
You would then watch as your forces (if you have written a good enough DLL) massecer your opponent, without you needing to do anything.
You opponent will be thinking... Why teh hell dont I just Play teh AI??

mean while in another game with only a few simple AIs.
You have teh same stratagie. You do the same thing. And tehn as yoru units advance, you go... hello, look thers some incoming planes... I'll tell my so and so's to shoot that... and they can shoot that... look, he can go and kill that defender... etc...
Opponent goes Wayhay! A cool battle. He pitts his wits against the other player. He may win or not, it dont matter, because they have both had fun and learnt things to do next time, and they have been involved

If you want littraly JUST the stratagie and none of the micro, go play DIPOMACY. Its a bord game. Its totaly about stratagie. Theres no fiddly oh that man cshould kill him and tehn him, its just litteraly this groupe of men vrs that, who has the most wins. Its a very hard game to master apparently... I dont know i havent played a master.

This is ment to be fun. And in teh spiret of TA. Keep it that way. Please??

aGorm

Every single person, including SJ have mirably failed to understand the point me and Zsinj are pushing.

The point that every playing can program HIS OWN AI and have INDEPENDENTLY DIFFERENT AIS FROM EACH OTHER, which demotes the entire game to be a simple battle of computer intelligence. The player with the best AI will win, if it's so Stephen Hawkins.

Since no one has bothered to prove me wrong or at least even ADRESS MY ISSUES, I hereboy denounce any strategic involvemen in the Spring engine as itself. I have long stopped playing because it's quite frankly not fun anymore, despite really being amazing and beautiful and all that. Heh, I could live and could have lived with most of the implemented "dark side" changes, but as this point, everything I've ever debated for seems absolulely pointless because people will be able to program their own macros and missions, successfully automating large chunks of the game, which is, regardless of the micromanagement argument, is the most retarded stupid fucking thought that ever been suggested for any game in the world. Can't any of you losers see that this instantly takes away all the skill challenges from the whole damn game? All of a sudden, I can write a makro that gives me a critical edge on the opponent that loses JUST BECAUSE HE HAS AN INFERIOR FUCKING AI AND NOT BECAUSE HE CAN NOT PLAY. THIS IS A FUCKING DISASTER, A CATASTROPHY IN GAMES, WHERE IS THE FUCKING LOGIC IN SUCK AN AWKWARD RETARDED FUCKING DECISION?! If any kind of universal AI is to be introduced, it should be made STANDARD for ALL players, otherwise, why even bother developing a game to start with when people will never play on equal terms anymore?

I just can't bring myself caring no longer. I'll stand by and watch this whole shit crash and burn when you folls will sit and let the AI play Tic-Tac-Toe for you.

And please, to all that have ignored my posts this far. Please tell me that I've just misunderstood it all. Tell me that the AI installed will be universal for all players and not something individual. Please tell me I'm wrong, that this is not happening...

nudge nudge Storm... dont forget me... I dont want this diabolical shambel either... The point of multiplayer is that To people play. If I wanted to see To AI's haking it out.. id go watch Lord Of The Rings Again...

aGorm

Yes, aGorm seems to be the only other sensible person on the whole forums (well besides the guys that already given up).

I understand the issues you point out Storm (though shouting in allcaps didn't help), but I don't think they should be solved by not allowing people to make their own group AIs. IMO, it should be solved by showing a list of AIs that everyone is using, and the option to download these from the player who has them.
You should also see that complete restriction is eventually not possible, since spring is opensource.

Zaphod... just to point out... opensource means anyone can change the source... it does not mean however that any change anyone makes is automaticly written into the next version. If you moded it so it would allow all custom DLL AI's, then nobody would have the same version and you would get no multiplayer games... hence... no point realy.

aGorm

Okay, I will try and answer everyone, but I'm in a bit of a rush. Apologies if I am a bit brisk.

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SJ: Thanks for finally providing some thought on the opposing side (well, along with 10053r). I feel that the primary conflict in opinions here is (hopefully) a misunderstanding.


These AI's are fine, on two conditions:
1) They cannot be better than a human (you point this out, but I can see it becoming the opposite). Any time I set an AI to do something for me, it should make things easier - but when I look after it on my own, it should be infinitely better.
2) AI's should be built into the game, rather than having people have their own AI's. If someone thinks they have a good AI, they should submit it to you, rather than simply sticking it in their directories. I think it should cause desynch errors if people have different AI's.

The reason I say this is for similar reasons that Storm blew up for (that's a hot temper man - I understand your frustration, but we can't convince them by yelling at them). If everyone can program their own AI, it becomes less about who is the most skilled player, and more about who is the best programmer, or who has the best AI.
You may think that "AI's will never lead to that", but I disagree. If people can program their own AI's, and pit them at their foes, it is simply a matter of time before they are exploiting minor engine bugs (you'll never get all of them). What happens if I program a peeper with an AI that tells it to fly circles around a guardian, so that it wipes out its own base?
What's more, the sheer evolution of AI's would slowly force the player out. It would become less and less about how well you play, and more about the sort of AI you had. Surely, if I can program an AI that will calculate and run my start production (that is, the first few structures of a game), then the program would work it out so fine that I could get that freedom fighter out in the absolute minimum amount of time? I could even program that freedom fighter with an AI that makes it hit the unit that the enemy factory is building? The only way someone could beat me in such a game would be if they had the exact same AI, or a "counter AI".
The unavoidable extension of AI's leads to the exploitiation of engine weaknesses, as well as squeezing out decision making processes from the player.
As I said earlier, when playing a game, the only variable should be the player. Thus, in any game, if you are defeated, the invariable conclusion is "you are better than me." What happens, then, in Spring, if you make the game itself the variable, so that it is no longer "you are better than me", but "You had a better AI than me."

Now to answer some of your direct points:

As I see it there is two main sorts of fun in a RTS game, one more action based and not needing much deep thought such as clicking radar dots and another more strategic.

Perhaps, SJ, but while you move towards making greater steps in allowing strategic gameplay, you seem to be going at it somewhat blind (no intended offense), without a clear vision. For example, while you make all units target radar dots which reduces the micromanagement required, you also bring in a massive change in strategy itself, which I have argued consistently is not for the better (briefly: massive power to defensive players, radar required just to attack, aircraft become useless, etc).

Will this lead to gameplay close to TA ? Probably not.

I am not afraid of not seeing TA in Spring. Just as with the HitchHikers Guide movie, I am a diehard fan of the original, but I can see that to progress, a carbon copy just won't do.
But at the same time, there are numerous things that the original got right the first time, which I feel is rather a shame to give up on.
(Just like with the HHGttG movie, I think that while Spring is good fun, and beautiful, it is somewhat missing the point that made the original so magical)

Will this completly remove the first sort of fun? Probably not, there will always be time critical stuff in a rts world that need doing and that AI creators havent thought of.

Like what? I'm sorry, I do not intend to be aggressive at all - but this further tends to the impression that you do not have a clear idea of which direction you are going in. If you want to make such monumental changes, you really have to sit down and work it out, rather than hoping that things will sort themselves out when you get there. Because from where I am sitting, it doesn't look like they will.

If someone really want to do all the micromanagment he/she can add an option to turn off the helper features but it wont be me.

The concern is not that micromanagement will be gone with no option to use it again - the concern is that if I were to control every facet of my game, which presumably would be an indication of skill (assuming I can do it well ), I would be at a disadvantage to a player using an AI. Surely I, who has put in the time and effort to becoming good at Spring so as to control every nuance of my gameplay (trust me, I'm really bad. This is entirely hypothetical! ) to its utmost, should be the one better off?
It is a similar line of argument to steroids in sport.

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Kixxe, I will point out that I have not flamed you, nor anyone else. If you look at my posts, I have taken special precaution not to personally attack anyone - as it only degrades my argument, not anyone elses. Every time I have asked people to put a bit of effort into their communication, I have done so politely, and attempted to be as non-offensive as possible. If I have become less polite as we go on, it is because I am getting increasingly frustrated with the fact that you (I mean generally) are ignoring me.
At both Kixxe and aGorm, the reason why I want people to put a bit of effort into their posts is because you are trying to convey an opinion to me. I should not have to decipher a post because it is poorly written to work out what someone has said.
And if it were minor issues, then I wouldn't have mentioned anything. But it isn't. Every second word is misspelled - often misunderstandibly so.
It is the equivalent of someone trying to explain what they think of gameplay changes in a drunken slur. You aren't going to listen to them, or take them seriously, you are just going to skip over them and go to the person who is talking in a way I can understand. Irrelevant of what they are actually saying, I will listen to the person who talks understandibly, rather than the person who talks in a drawl.
For example (and I don't mean to offend anyone here), aGorm and Zoombie regularly have very good ideas, and useful things to add to the discussion. But it is common that they write horribly, so that it is impossible to understand them. Alantai on the other hand, I am usually at odds with what he has to say. I don't think he has the best ideas - but he writes logically (mostly ) and understandibly. Therefore I take what he says more seriously.
This isn't IRC, and conversation isn't constantly ongoing. Therefore you can type things out like "because" and "though". Its a matter of common decency, and it something which you are extending to me as a way of showing that you want me [me as a collective, not personal] want me to take your ideas seriously.
And it isn't "cool" to type a w instead of a u. It is 5 keys away, and it stops you sounding like a 12 year old schoolgirl.

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And I have offered my suggested solution several times. It is my opinion that radar dots should be kept as they are, but units should not auto-target them unless a target facility has been built. This suggestion keeps the game-screen dots, which makes it far easier to autotarget then when using the radar (reducing micro), but it balances the radar, and makes it so that radar coverage is no longer do or die. It makes attacking easier, and it makes aircraft less useless.

If you don't want autotarget, then for goodness' sakes give defensive structures a longer LOS. Or maybe add in an "observation post" structure that can see a long ways. Or something. Defensive structures' LOS seems uberly unrealistically low to me as it is right now... it looks to me like the enemies are perhaps 100 meters away from, say, a Punisher or a Gaat Gun, but they're still floating dots on-screen because they're outside of the LOS...

Why are we argueing? The game is fine!
whatch the Zombie Extermination Team at the Off Topic Forum
I can easly signe up, build a impressive base and summarily get my ass kicked.
whatch the Zombie Extermination Team at the Off Topic Forum
whatch the Zombie Extermination Team at the Off Topic Forum

Warlord Zsinj wrote: These AI's are fine, on two conditions:
1) They cannot be better than a human (you point this out, but I can see it becoming the opposite). Any time I set an AI to do something for me, it should make things easier - but when I look after it on my own, it should be infinitely better.
2) AI's should be built into the game, rather than having people have their own AI's. If someone thinks they have a good AI, they should submit it to you, rather than simply sticking it in their directories. I think it should cause desynch errors if people have different AI's.

better or worse than human is up to the human, if he dosnt want an ai to be better well he just has to make himself better.

The reason I say this is for similar reasons that Storm blew up for (that's a hot temper man - I understand your frustration, but we can't convince them by yelling at them). If everyone can program their own AI, it becomes less about who is the most skilled player, and more about who is the best programmer, or who has the best AI.
You may think that "AI's will never lead to that", but I disagree. If people can program their own AI's, and pit them at their foes, it is simply a matter of time before they are exploiting minor engine bugs (you'll never get all of them). What happens if I program a peeper with an AI that tells it to fly circles around a guardian, so that it wipes out its own base?

can do that already just setup some waypoints for patrol and set a massive build que of peepers, but then its a bad more because a peeper lasts about .5 of a second vs any AA by the time they have guardians.

Also what is a skilled player? Is it a smart player or just some player who can click faster. Also how many people lost to skirmish ai? it was a cheating ai and even on hard it was a walk over.

What's more, the sheer evolution of AI's would slowly force the player out. It would become less and less about how well you play, and more about the sort of AI you had. Surely, if I can program an AI that will calculate and run my start production (that is, the first few structures of a game), then the program would work it out so fine that I could get that freedom fighter out in the absolute minimum amount of time? I could even program that freedom fighter with an AI that makes it hit the unit that the enemy factory is building? The only way someone could beat me in such a game would be if they had the exact same AI, or a "counter AI".
The unavoidable extension of AI's leads to the exploitiation of engine weaknesses, as well as squeezing out decision making processes from the player.

How so? getting things out faster or a freedom fighter first is of little importance, hell i got attacked by a wave of lvl 1 units while i had 2 flash tanks and a llt while i was busy building resource buildings, i lost nothing because i had built a dragon teeth wall at a choke point making it totally impassable.

As ai do target units factory is building if left to own devices they attack it often before everything else it seems.

HellToupee wrote: he dosnt want an ai to be better well he just has to make himself better.

mmm, you've swayed me with that one. get back to me when you have a real solution, instead of creating a base required skill level.

How so? getting things out faster or a freedom fighter first is of little importance...

Watch an OTA demo of a 1v1 with two good players going air first on GoW, then come back and try to tell me that getting a freedom fighter up first doesn't matter.

at this point, any shout cry or argument is almost useless.

The option to play without those ais remain a solution.

spend more time and effort in this is negative for your health.

this thread should be nuked.

when your dirty grand sons play some awesome huge incredible space conquest game, and all this wit the aid of some spaceship-like ai(r2?), you can bitch about it and de-dust spring .51b1 and tell them how good you where at the "clicking" thing.

(i would beat the hell out of them and tie a mouse with duct tape to its hands, and make them ask for things with the mouse there and on base of click signals, and text chat).

Methinks it is definately possible.

Game starts:
an arbitrary building is assigned to a GroupAI
GroupAI searches for buildings and then if found they start a segment of code such as *dont fire at aircraft if your a tank* or *fire at missile towers if your an aircraft and you've been told to* etc....
That way you need to build the building to unlock the functionality.

Anyways, firstly I agree with SJ about RTS AI being abysmal in terms of how far progress has been made and how much resourcees have bene put in.

Zaphod, I agree you should be able to see and downlaod the enemies groupAI.
Storm your arguements are cries for help in a world where you dont need help, but your threats to leave only comfort me and make no effect on the arguement.
Warlord, If soemone does do that and your in a situation where an AI & human combo beats you where the AI gives a grossly unfair advantage, note their name down and never play them again, simple as that.

The SY's wont get rid of the GroupAI interface, for one it seems almost necessary for skirmish AI as it stands. However I suggest the lobby be changed so that the host can force GroupAI to be turned off ingame.