Spring RTS Engine

It's about time we define a standard for map metadata. The number of maps in a typical install is climbing greatly, and we need some way for the interface to sort it.

Some mods don't work well with all maps - kernel panic is a great example. The lobby should be able to hide maps lacking a kernel panic tag when the user is creating a kernel panic game.

Sometimes I want a 2v2 game, or a 3v3 game. How can I sort my map list for ones designed for this? Some maps work better with unusual startboxes - but there's currently no standard for lobbies to learn this from the map.

As the amount of new, non-TA mods increases, and as the engine becomes more capable of a wider variety of games, this problem is only going to get worse. It's bad enough as it is sorting through a pulldown list of about 90 maps trying to remember the good one by memory.

Unitsync already has an interface through which mods can define a list of allowed maps. No clue how it works tho and probably no lobby uses it yet, but the core is there. Bug trepan for documentation if it isn't in the source.

Tobi wrote:Unitsync already has an interface through which mods can define a list of allowed maps. No clue how it works tho and probably no lobby uses it yet, but the core is there. Bug trepan for documentation if it isn't in the source.

Here's what the changelog says:

- Added the following unitsync calls:
int GetModValidMapCount()
const char* GetModValidMapCount(int index)
- Valid maps are listed in the mod's "ValidMaps.lua" file.
- A valid map count of 0 means that any map can be used with the mod.
- This can be used in concert with LuaRules to setup multi-player scenarios
and tutorials.

This seems inadequate. A mod shouldn't have to have an exhaustive list of every map for it - maps should be able to add themselves to this list, after the mod comes out.

The mod can also accept them based on whatever function it uses.

zwzsg wrote:I asked for that too but then I was laughed at.

Idunno, it looks Trepan's answer is good news, if there's some way to get any metadata out of a map in Lua.

zwzsg wrote:I asked for that too but then I was laughed at.

Yeah I wouldn't take AF's comments too seriously, he's just worried about having yet another feature request for lobbies.

Creating a tagging standard is very easy to do. If maps don't use it, we don't lose anything. If lobbies don't use it, we don't lose anything either.

Hell, it's not even that bad a thing if lobbies don't use the tags consistantly. So what if one lobby hides all non-kernel panic maps, while the other just pushes them to the bottom?