Spring RTS Engine

Now, first off, I'm not asking for anyone to make this, I just want to know if it's do-able....


Who's played Defcon? Or seen the movie wargames.

How hard would it be to make a mod that worked sorta similar to that? You control an area around your command centre, where you can build silos, which either shoot anti nukes or launch nukes, depending on their state. You build radars, a set distance around your command centre. Perhaps you can build sub command bases, which can build structures around them, but can't expand any further, allowing you to present a battle line. You don't generate resources, so you have a finate stockpile.
Airbases would come with 5 fighters and 5 bombers, and not be able to replace them, but can refuel/repair/rearm them.
You can build naval yards, which can build Carriers, Battleships and Subs. Subs are stealthy, can launch nukes from their stockpile of 3 (irriplacable nukes) and are great vs battleships. Battleships kill carriers really easy, and have their own radar and AA weapons. Carriers kill subs easiliy, have sonar, can rearm and refuel and repair aircraft.


Now, what this would need is for your silos to be able to start out with a stockpile of 10 nukes.
You'd need LUA to make units spawn with their building....
I think that'd be it, right?

Other than that, I think spring's already able to support this sort of gameplay, correct? (I'm ignoring the Defcon system anyway, BTW)


Just idle curiousity, mostly, as to what our engine can do.

Actually, most of that would be trivially easy I think...

Defcon is a pretty neat game

I'm pretty sure those are all possible via lua and standard engine work. Nothing too complex there.

Not so sure about one unit having both nukes and antinukes.

You wouldn't use stockpile for this but a fixed ammo count.

The Lua wouldn't be very complicated.

As it happens, ive had this mod in the works for ages and am currently working on it.

Ive already got a silo that launches antinukes (non-stockpile) when on and nukes (stockpile) when off. I havent added a anti-air weapon to it yet (the silos other role in defcon) but that should be relatively trivial.

As for the resources, i thought it would probably be better to have either...

A. Energy determines the number of nukes you can stockpile (But you may stockpile them in any order and quantity, on anything that has nukes, until you run out of e). Metal determines structures, such as silos, radars, airstrips, etc.

B. A slowly expanding economy, where cities and mines/factories provide your resources. Most of your production/expansion would be from the 1000 you start the game with, but you get a small income if you can keep your cities alive.

So, none of this would require lua. Being able to place down units at the start of the game is already implemented in the tactics/deployment versions of CA though, and that shouldnt be hard to adapt if that is preffered. Other deviations would probably be some form of land forces (Just a single type of tank that represents a land force and is mostly there to force your enemy to waste nukes killing it), as not all maps have sea.

There are all sorts of other aspects to a faithful reproduction of Defcon though- Defcon has very complex diplomacy and winning is determined by who loses the least population, who kills the most population, or a combination of both. Then there is the way you can speed up/slow down the game, which is vital for the way the game is paced.

Lollerskates, I was just thinking the same thing - anybody remember Metal Marines? In Metal Marines, you had three ways to be offensive: missiles, marines, and anti-matter weapons. Missiles could be stopped by anti-missiles, and Marines were both defensive and offensive - they could fight other marines, or be airdropped into enemy base where they'd fight with the enemy's marines and defense cannons. Anti-missiles could shoot down the marine-transport, but it was really tough and generally didn't work. Missiles had limited stockpile (build one and wait a long time for another) while anti-missiles were unlimited (but imperfect). Resources were simple - you had two buildings you could build for resources - one made money, the other made buildpower.

What was weird was that missiles doubled as recon - they'd get scout information where they hit.

Finally, there was an endgame "antimatter missile" unit that just ate resources to build... but it was unblockable.

Not directly related, just remembering a really good old-school RTS, back before RTS was even a genre.