Spring RTS Engine

We should probably change the included spawn.txt to something that might actually provide some entertainment. But since there can be only one.. which one should we pick?

On that note, we have also discussed including a few of the new maps in the regular installer.. Possibly removing some of the ones included so far. But then again.. which ones and how many if any?

I'd say swap out "map4" or Flooded Desert for CPIA, that way you have the major bases covered: a small land map, a largish land map, a water map, and a metal map. It kind of shows off what the engine can do better that way, IMO.

Could you make the spawn.txt choose-able in a menu like the maps/scripts? If the user chooses the Random Enemies script, he is presented with a list of "AI"s, stuff like Slinky.txt and Storm Medium.txt etc, and then after that he chooses his map as normal... this way, it'd make managing the AIs that much easier for the player. I'd say Storm's Medium version would probably be the best bet, as mine is a bit hard for newer players and Easy is just... well... too easy

Also make that Random Enemies script start with 1k/1k, or at least something less than 10k/10k. 200k/200k is just ridiculous. Heck, you could make the game load the starting metal/energy values from the AI's .txt file, that way the creator can kind of shape it that much more.

I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about the MiniSpring mod, just out of curiousity.

4 best maps, by vote perhaps, in the main installer plus an official quality assured map pack of the rest of the best, about 5 should be heaps.

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra wrote:4 best maps, by vote perhaps, in the main installer plus an official quality assured map pack of the rest of the best, about 5 should be heaps.

They probably don't want the installer to be 150 megs though. I think ONE map should be included. With the top 10 maps as a separate download.

Also, strip out the test scripts. Yeha's script, SWTA script, among others.

Keeping the "Commanders" script would be great for testing, can it be changed to "foreach" starting point for test?

I use Cmds 1000 res for my local lan games. ^_^

-Buggi

The regular installer already has 4 maps, and its only 50 megs. If they use 7zip compression I can't see it being too large.

Gnome's suggestions seem to be the most rational, so my vote goes with what he suggested.

And I too am curious to hear your impressions of miniSpring, and its potential as a standard scale for Spring.

map4 can go imo it really isn't balance @ all..
i think it should be replaced with green isles v2, not really balanced but it really shows what the engine can do imo

An OTA remakes pack might be in order.

If someone would include my Gow2 map in the package, let me know so that I can tweak the last small bugs that are currently present in the map, but don't degrade gameplay significantly.

I also vote vor a map package maybe that would more handy instead of an entire huge download.

Map pack is the way... then peopele will have a quick go after a quick download, go "Holy Shit!! (in the UT annoucer voice) and download the map pack. And then hopefully more maps...

Also... You shold have all the maps tha tare currently standered in a seperate pack, so if people have stared with a different version they can quickly see what maps everyone else will have as default.

aGorm

Maybe then someone should create a map dedicated to showing off spring, with various terrains and features rather than for playability. Something we could use for an intro sequence perhaps?

no offense intended, but i think we should worry a little more about tweaking, bugfixing and stabilising spring before we begin showing it off...

There is also something important missing : a tutorial.

All of us know how to play, but people who have never played TA find it difficult to understand, from my experience. And so they drop it quite quickly, which is a real shame.
And of course it's even worse with TAS.

Perhaps someone who is motivated could make a nice HTML page with screenshots and arrows and annotations as a tutorial to the game. (Of course, a scripted tutorial would be better, but harder to make.)

Although yes we should eb bugfixing and what not, there are those of us capable of makign such a map who are unable to code well enough to bugfix etc.

And maybe this map could have a GroupAI included with it that acts as a tutorial? If soemone could make a tutorial map and bring up a script of what should happen in the tutorial where on the map and when etc.....

About maps, I vote for mines! RedHaven, Core Prime Industrial Area, and Azure Rampart. They aren't big (3Mb, 2MB, 1MB), so you'd have three varied maps, that looks good and play very well, for the filesize price of one not-by-me map.

For maps not by me, I like Lava Highground and Green Isle.

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.. I agree ... add 2 new maps ...

a metal map ... Core Prime Industrial Area ...

an mars like map ... RedHaven ...


.. a few more maps .. will make it bigger, but
in the last few months the average game demo is about
250 MB - 450 MB .... in size ...

It sould also come with a tutorial on how to fiddle with the unit's atributes useing the HIP viewer and HIP packer. That would mainly be ME because i have no clue on how to actualy do it!

Africa Coast, a coast to coast like map. It's only 3MB.

LordMatt.

Why not offer a selection? Such as those maps that may be big but still play good, and those others but essentially still a varied selection. Eitherway someone should do a poll on this.

Hi,

I think the poll is an excellent idea, but the idea of a 450MB d/l is not. Quite a few of us (me included) use dialup. Similarly there are a lot of potential players out there who will not bother d/l if the maps pack is that big.

Therefore I propose that the size of the maps included is taken into account. Peewee bloodbowl, Great Divide 2 and Cross Paths for example are all under 1MB IIRC, so we may as well include them even if not that popular.

Therefore I think we should divide the number of votes a map gets by its size in MB, and then rank the maps that way.

Cheers

Munch