Changing Resources, Lurker & Forb Present

[KDR_11k]

BTW, is it just my PC or does the new installer default to installing XTA and BA but nothing else?

[Forboding Angel]

Forb, how is collision fixed? I didn't see anything like that.

Smoth was talking about the cylinder collision which was infinite in a downward direction. That as been fixed a la the changelog.

At least thats the main thing he has been (understandably) complaining about for such a long time.

Edit: Ok we have lua, big farkin deal. Most of us can't do anything with it. Are you going to make a gadget to add a 3rd resource for me? Didn't think so. CA has stolen up almost all of the lua developers and you are welcome to use their makings IF you can figure out how to use them.

Those developers used to post all kinds of useful gadgets and widget often in the lua forum. Now the lua forum is basically dead in comparison. You and smoth seem to have a very hard time understanding that not all of us are going to learn lua, and without anyone to help us we will stick with what we know.

I personally have a ton of lua in evolution, hell the game won't even function without it, but at some point I got tired with retrofitting everything to work with something that isn't CA. There is 1 more thing I have to add, which is napalm via Unit_Is_on_Fire.lua However this neat little gem is broken in the next version of spring as is a bunch of other lua things in CA basically making them useless. Add to all this the fact that they refuse to document how to use their lua.

They want you to ask them via the lobby how to use their lua, fine and good for them. Extremely frustrating for the rest of us.

[KDR_11k]

No, Smoth is complaining about hitspheres being inaccurate for most objects, especially giant space ships. He's also complaining about planes being too dumb to deal with said giant space ships and deciding to ram the space ship.

As for the Lua, well, you learned COB, didn't you? Just read a general Lua reference (I used the official syntax specification which is probably not easy to understand for most people), look at a simple gadget to see how callins and callouts work (I got some really simple ones in KPDZ and Fibre IIRC, you only need the basic structure) and then use the Wiki to learn about callouts and gadgets.lua/draw.lua for callins.

[Forboding Angel]

what part of "I have a family and no realistic opportunity to learn a new language." do you guys not understand?

Not all of us eat sleep and breathe spring. We do what we can when we can.

[imbaczek]

FA: well... it's the price of progress. COB is old and outdated - it works for a lot of stuff, but only for so much. Extending it is a pain, and you'd have several pages of API documentation either way - those things tend to be language-independent. (It's not that different from several pages of FBI tags and COB get/set values.)

Of course more examples and some proper documentation wouldn't hurt... but we've got only that many people. It's pretty much amazing that the modders who use Lua currently figured out so much by themselves. (trepan doesn't count as documentation )

[lurker]

Forb: Do you want a third resource for evolution? If so, I'll work long and hard at it. Anything gameplay based in lua I can probably do with a bit of time and bugging people in the lobby. Post or email me with what you want.

[Forboding Angel]

All I want is third resource that works somehting in the way that solar energy works now. This will allow me 10x more flexibility. For example, units with special weapons that require x amount of that resource to fire. Or units needing that resource to be able to upgrade etc etc etc

tbh I will take what I can get. I figured due to the hardcoded nature of resources, having metal maker type buildings for the third resource seemed to be the most likely way to do it. However, there is another pickle to overcome... It needs it's own resource bar.

If anyone else has any ideas I would be glad to hear them.

And yes, I really do want a 3rd resource. It would make my month if I had that available.

[LordMatt]

BTW, is it just my PC or does the new installer default to installing XTA and BA but nothing else?

It's your PC. Actually, if you do a fresh install, it will default to installing no mod (user must choose), however if you already have BA or XTA installed, it will download the latest (unreleased version). In future versions of the installer, I will make this feature for the other mods (if they have been installed through the installer).

what part of "I have a family and no realistic opportunity to learn a new language." do you guys not understand?

Not all of us eat sleep and breathe spring. We do what we can when we can.

Well, realize that most commercial games, e.g. OTA, have quite a few people working full time on the art and content, whereas you have mostly yourself in your spare time (as far as I know). Maybe lurker will help you with your lua, but I think if any original content mod is really going to be successful, it will need more than one person involved.

[Forboding Angel]

I have tried to involve other people many times, and each time is has for the most part failed, except mrspontaneous, zoombie, and neddiedrow. mrspontaneous has been working on a boxcollector gadget (when units die in evolution they drop ammoboxes) for some time now and I must say I really appreciate it, however I rarely ever see him (and he may have eventually given up), so that kinda sucks. At the moment I have finished all the new content for chapter 2 of Evolution and I'm in a sort of holding pattern, waiting for the new spring release.

Lordmatt, you make a good point however, most creators here are not in a position to be led and help work towards a common goal. Also, many ideas are hard to grasp for a lot of people, example being, things you do to cause various shifts in gameplay without the end user being consiously aware of it, gameplay decisions in general, etc etc.

Having a team would be nice, but most people that know how to do things are either working on their own project or working on CA.

It's jsut the way things go.

[lurker]

Let's see...
To remove the hardcoding of resources means editing a few hundred lines. So I'll make a lua resource with a simple bar in the next few days that you can hook weapons to require and works with morphing, and can be added to other things easily. And at the same time I'll be working on hueg paetch. I only need to do 20 lines a day to be done in a month...

[Forboding Angel]

Did I mention that I love you deeply?

[lurker]

I'm having all sorts of fun ideas. While I'm doing this mass rewrite I think I can relatively easily add support for local resources.

[LordMatt]

lurker 4 dev.

[Forboding Angel]

Dude, you are made of win and god. Thank you!

[lurker]

Yikes new posts. I'm moving this out of an edit into its own.

How does this plan sound: Each unit has a resource group number, a positive integer. Group 0 is tied into the global resource bar. If you want TA-style magic transport, you set every single unit to the same number. If you want each unit to hand-deliver each bit of resources, you set all their resource group numbers to -1. To have each base run its own economy, you add some luarules to set groups of units to the same number. So you can have the main base on group 0, but then a few units wander away and get set to -1, until they establish a forward base. This forward base gets set to 3, and sets any unit in it or close to 3.

Yes, that was rambling. I'm too excited at the possibilities to slow down and write properly.


... Whee offtopic. Split?

[KDR_11k]

How should units access their resources and move them around?

[lurker]

A get function to get and set the amount of each resource.
A get function to move resources to another unit.
A get/set function for resource groups.
The ability to define income and use of each resource in the same way metal and energy work now. You want shields to drain 50 shield energy and 10 metal do deflect a shot? A variable source tied to the wind numbers to give you population? Done.
Lua to read and write resources and group numbers.
Am I missing anything?

[lurker]

A working, generic economic code that is configurable to allow variable interactions of certain simple kinds out of the box. Costs / benefits, calculated per-unit, through LUA. Displays with bars updating per frame, reflecting states of costs and benefits.

Isn't it about damn time to have multiple resources, and free ourselves from OTA, as well as providing an escape hatch to allow us to finally ditch a major chunk of Spring's original main loop out've C++ and into LUA, where it properly belongs? Yet, aside from some specialized work on this topic, I don't see this problem getting solved.

I think it would be a good idea to try to centralize all of the resource code, which would make it possible to be run in lua. Any comments?



Is it just me or is a resource system a good generic way to do ammo and fuel? Though this may need letting a unit be linked on some resources and unlinked on others...

[smoth]

Ok, forb, you may take this personaly but the extremely hackish coding methods you use are not reall programing. It is akin to making flint arrow heads with large rocks. You do not bother to truely learn the language. MOST OF US can use lua if we understand programing.

The issue with most of the guys who claim lua is useless are the blokes who cannot program. I am not trying to come down on you forb but the lua stuff may be above your head. You will need to actually understand programing to do it. NOW before you get upset with this post, yes you can LEARN TO PROGRAM but you will have to devote time and energy to it. Something which you admittedly do not have.

SO utilize the coders but do not complain about useless features when you do not comprehend them.




I was saying that collision is messed up right now. NOT drawing line of fire. Those are two very different things. Collision is messed up, READ the capitol ship thread.. make a tall feature with a proper hitsphere to cover the whole height and you will find the feature willl not have a rectangular hitsphere. HAD YOU CLICKED THE LINK you would have seen what I was talking about.


I do not know why you are angry with us because you have chosen a difficult relationship. We are here for you man, and if you need someone to bitch to, my shoulder is open to baw on, I will listen so you can vent if that helps. However, you lack of time is not anyone elses resposibility. I am sorry things are complicated, all I can tell you is keep on trying in your life, we are rooting for you and learn to program if you want to use lua.

I didn't cut this out correct, and I feel you can repost it elsewhere, Smoth, but no more discussion stemming from this post in this thread, if you please. - Neddiedrow

[Forboding Angel]

TeamTalk - Neddiedrow

Edit: Screw Teamtalk. Too much background noise anyway (family, tv sitting 8 feet away, constant walking away and coming back to do this and that around the house, go to the store, etc. It jsut irritates everyone, including me).

Unrelated note: Gundam in the new installer runs butter smooth.