Spring RTS Engine

MelTraX wrote:I finally posted some widgets on UF.. I don't think any of them is complete, but at least people can play around with them now..

GUI

• Resource Bar
• Tooltip
• Player Info

Commands

• Share Units

One week until I have holidays..

Is there any way you can make it so you dont have to hover your mouse to show names?

flop wrote:Is there any way you can make it so you dont have to hover your mouse to show names?

I will think of something.. Like right-clicking on the widget to toggle names or something..

MelTraX wrote:If you want to change the transparency, just search the lua-file for "local alpha"..

thanks Mel ^^
oh and i spot little graphical thing the ice's desing seems to have 1pixel dark borders around the boxes its a small thing but pretty :) sorry i played on too dark map didnt see the borders :D they are there and are pretty ^^

i discovered few bugs in the widgets (i am running spring on linux, i don't know if it's related)

the playerinfo widget doesn't display the correct energy used if you try to use more than your income & the building process slows down (this happends either if you ran out metal or energy)



the playerinfo widget doesn't display the correct metal used if you try to use more than your income & the building process slows down (this happends either if you ran out metal or energy)



in the cpu & ping section of playerinfo widget, when you move the mouse on the widget, the values disappears





the resource bar widget doesn't display correct outcome of metal and/or energy, when you run out of that resource & the productions slows down

Also, there are general bugs with displaying resources in both the default and normal bars.

If I select every unit, and I've started stalling then I can see in the top bar My usage > income. But looking at my tooltip all unit collectively use the same as my income give or take 0.1.

As I said, I only released what I had so far because I don't have time until next wednesday.. Thanks anyway for the bug reports..

Brain Damage wrote:in the cpu & ping section of playerinfo widget, when you move the mouse on the widget, the values disappears

As I wrote on UF this should only occur if you play against (or with) AIs.. I will fix it as soon as I have some time..

Brain Damage wrote:stuff about resources

There are two different kinds of usage in Spring.. One is what you would use if you had it and one is what you really use.. I agree that the other one would be better.. I will change that too..

AF wrote:Also, there are general bugs with displaying resources in both the default and normal bars.

If I select every unit, and I've started stalling then I can see in the top bar My usage > income. But looking at my tooltip all unit collectively use the same as my income give or take 0.1.

And why is that a bug? Your units can't use more than you have.. The resource bar just shows the theoretical usage so that you know how much you're stalling..

No, a rsource bar should show how much si beign used. This means it would eb +70 untill i staretd stallign at which point the amoutn beign sued equals my income.

Theoretical usage is just bad UI design as it is. You'd have to put the words "theoretical usage" next to it.

AF wrote:No, a rsource bar should show how much si beign used. This means it would eb +70 untill i staretd stallign at which point the amoutn beign sued equals my income.

Theoretical usage is just bad UI design as it is. You'd have to put the words "theoretical usage" next to it.

But when stalling, you don't care how much you're actually using - 'cause you know it's the same as how much you're producing. When you're stalling, what you want to know is how close you are to break-even.

Don't think of it has "theoretical usage" - think of it as "required" and "provided".

Things I want to know:
1) required metal/energy
2) generated metal/energy
3) imported/exported metal/energy

AF wrote:Theoretical usage is just bad UI design as it is. You'd have to put the words "theoretical usage" next to it.

It should have both, so you can estimate how much resource you need to add.

Why would you need the expenditure as well as the 'pull' value?
If you aren't stalling, then they are the same value. If you are stalling,
then your goal is to get the income value to match the pull value
(and the expenditure value is somewhere very close to the income,
give or take a little jittering).

P.S. Pull = Required ('pull' is the name in the code, so that's how I think
of it).Let's all take a moment and thank Domipheus for implementing
the resource pull value

trepan wrote:Why would you need the expenditure as well as the 'pull' value?
If you aren't stalling, then they are the same value. If you are stalling,
then your goal is to get the income value to match the pull value
(and the expenditure value is somewhere very close to the income,
give or take a little jittering).

P.S. Pull = Required ('pull' is the name in the code, so that's how I think
of it).Let's all take a moment and thank Domipheus for implementing
the resource pull value

Utterly incorrect, maybe if we had OTAs resource implementation you'd be perfectly correct. Please read the extensive discussions by Argh and others in multiple threads about how Springs handling of resources is so utterly buggy that stalling actually gives you free resources and makes economy tracking AIs impossible to code, and possible methods of fixing it(which seem more promising than a hands down "it'd require too much work" by tobi which was alter seen to be untrue).

Since I haven't posted in days, I thought I could let you know what I'm doing right now..

The GUI monster doesn't have me yet.. I'm currently working on an abstraction layer to make GUI development easier. But because the tables and metatables are new to me, it will take some days.

Hopefully the implementation of the GUI won't take long once the framework is done and I hope it will be quite easy to change things like the background color, font size and transperency..

I'll keep you posted about my work..

Yes, keeping the crowds informed is good :)
Take your time. we don't want to lose people over stress.
Keep it up and ask for help if anyone can help.

How many of you have played C&C Generals??? Was hoping that this Kill/Loss Lua could be used to create a general lever of sorts for spring! Like after so many kills u get an option to call in a bombing run.....or a drop ship of suicide peewee's etc....

Its something ive been GAGING for as well as the Kill/Loss bar (nice one for that btw cant w8 for a test!) I imagine it is possible to do....but what i know about LUA scripting could fill the gap between a fleas ear

Currently the experience points for the com "could" be used as a trigger (as i understand what ive heard) to do the same thing but a full kill score would obviously be better as it would reflect your hole gaming skills n not ur com bombing lol

If any one thinks this "general" idea is any good please start a thread about it......i dont think anybody would take lil old me seriously about this; but if one of you lot did........

::Edit::

p.s

Does the kill outer also work with vtol scouts coz thats some what

That would require trepans new game mechanics lua stuff

So it is possible then ?? ow wow how awesome would that be

Ow and had a lil playa bout with the lua earlier....the tool bar is nice but the font is kinda crud at SEVEN's and if its color could be in more contrast to that of the heath bar = pwn ! and a tiny bit larger

Also the resource bar for ur ally's.....very good, very very good. But if it were possible to click on the players commander signe and auto zoom to his com, that way rather than asking him for direction or a map tag = further PWN

A few time this feature has found a need to exist....like when playing UBER scaled maps/battle and ur ally is screaming for an air drop by his com for cover or to evac his com etc...

But anyways if there is going to be a thread about the "generals" idea in spring plz send me a link to it

far too mANY PEOPLE DONt seem to realise that the end game screen has options across the top, one of which is team statistics or somthing, which, yes, gives graphs for every player of metal used, metal spent, damage done, kills v losses, damage taken, metal given etc etc..

tbh u gotta kinda slow not to figure out how to use the tool bar if player dont want to think about the game in such a way or fail to c what tool they have infrunt of them.....well its there own fault.

But what do u suggest ?

Okay.. I managed to make my little update before I go snowboarding tomorrow..

These updates aren't a huge step.. I want to spend my time with my window system but since that's taking some time I wanted to fix the worst bugs and wanted to implement some easy to do suggestions from you guys (btw thx again for those )..

IceXuicks Player Info v0.7

0.6 - 0.7:
- replaced expenses by pull (shows the required amount while stalling)
- inactive players (players who left or are dead) are shown as "Inactive"
- AIs don't cause crashes anymore and are shown as "AI"
- the tooltip shows possible mouse actions
- permanent display of player names is toggled with right mouse button on the tab bar

IceXuicks Resource Bar Widget v0.8

0.7 - 0.8:
- replaced expenses by pull (shows the required amount while stalling)

IceXuicks Tooltip Widget v0.6

0.5 - 0.6:
- increased the size of the health bar and font a bit
- the font in the health bar is now outlined and only the current level gets displayed if the text is too wide
- the experience is now displayed as a percentage (it's the old number multiplied by 100 ) until I know what the number really stands for

If I'm not too stunned after snowboarding I will work on my GUI framework during the holiday but I'm not promising anything ..

edit: btw.. the size is still the same