Spring RTS Engine

Exactly what the title says. I would like to be able to have one person designated as the "Commander" of the team, who may then assign units to players on his team (like engineers), that can only be controlled from that point forward by that player (unless he relinquishes control).

Otherwise, if no units are assigned, control is as normal (meaning that everything can be controlled by everyone).

Forboding Angel wrote:Exactly what the title says. I would like to be able to have one person designated as the "Commander" of the team, who may then assign units to players on his team (like engineers), that can only be controlled from that point forward by that player (unless he relinquishes control).

Otherwise, if no units are assigned, control is as normal (meaning that everything can be controlled by everyone).

Clever idea. This gets hairy fast though: what about resources? Do they still all draw from the same pool? Do constructors own their constructed units? Can other players re-delegate units? Actually, re-delegation would be nice, since it'd allow a commander to have a heirarchy if you had a huge team (some big, imaginary 32 player game).

Does the commander relinquish control when he delegates? Or does he simple enabled another player to control?

Forboding Angel wrote:Exactly what the title says. I would like to be able to have one person designated as the "Commander" of the team, who may then assign units to players on his team (like engineers), that can only be controlled from that point forward by that player (unless he relinquishes control).

Otherwise, if no units are assigned, control is as normal (meaning that everything can be controlled by everyone).

+1 I think this would be a cool idea, though you could already do something similar with comshare (except that everyone can control all of the units rather than restricted control and assigning them). Comshare spring is a ton of fun and it's too bad more people don't play it.

I think this could all be done with Lua.

just needs an interface for the "commander" to make units and assign them to teams (lua)

SO this is all lua doable?

Anyone care to do it?

I doubt Lua can do it, AFAIK you cannot tell who sent a command.

A widget that turns commands into messages, all commands are blocked and only valid messages are used.
>_>
<_<
To the lua mines!

I'd prefer if all units were still usable by everyone, but assigned units were simply given a different color (different only for the players sharing that comm).

EG: "You focus on the blue guys, I'll control the green guys, and anything red we use whenever. But, in a pinch, I can still order a blue guy around"


The key is some sort of notification to others on the team that you want them to control a unit (and that you, in turn, won't control it). Currently players do it using chat or segregating entire divisions ("I'll get land you get sea"), but there are all sorts of better ways we could do it in the interface.

I should be able to click a button on a unit that marks it for my ally, sends him a small alert saying I've done this, and visually differentiates the unit in some way (eg color, or an icon, or a different shadow). Similarly, I should be able to click a button saying "I am taking control of this unit now" in order to appropriate "his" units back to me.