Newbie to spring have Some develop idea

[adams]

I recently downloaded spring and played it for a while.
I think spring is no doubt a good 3D RTS game.

But IMO, it lacks some useful features:
1. automatical formations
In spring, I have to arrange the unit myself and press CTRL + Right mouse click to do so. It is a waste of time on such micro management.
especially facing some rush AI(such as: KAI), I do not have time to do it but just select all and pull them to the "meat chopper". If spring support automatical formations, some tough robots outside and some
weak robots inside, that will be interesting.

2. parry movement
I have made a crowd of Peewee(level 1 Kbot). If I use them to fight with hammers, the peewees will lose. But if i move the Peewee around the hammers to attack them, Peewee will win. I think parry movement is the main point. But recently, i have to do a lot of mouse clicks to do so. It is boring.

I have googled these two features in spring, but found nothing(maybe not deep enough).
I would like to do some coding, but I am not familiar with spring.
Can anybody give some suggestion?Do I have to write some lua scripts?

or alter the spring engine? or write the AI module myself? (these two maybe huge works?)

[AF]

By parry movement you mean flanking?

Arguably if flanking si automatic then this removes a lot of control and more often than not it will be done incorrectly. Imagine a peewee flanking a flash and walking into a wall or into a corpse or water or another flash? All without you telling it to? I can imagine you'd be pissed off and complain in a new thread

As for automatic formations, dont click a move command, drag a mvoe command. A big green arrow will appear on a line and the units will arrange themselves along that line in rows according to armour and firepower.

There's a widget by JK that changes the behavior from dragging a formation to drawing a formation, so you can draw wavy line formations or arrow heads or curves. I like drawing circles round things to surround them.

[ZellSF]

Automatic unit behavior will more frequently than not make units do stuff you don't want them to.

[adams]

parry movement : i mean some movements like Banshee attacking an object, it continually move around the target.
I think Automatic unit behavior might cause some problem also, but if it is semi-auto(you can shutdown the Automatic unit behavior of a group of units). I love the parry movement that Banshee makes.

As for automatic formations, dont click a move command, drag a mvoe command. A big green arrow will appear on a line and the units will arrange themselves along that line in rows according to armour and firepower.

Wow... Thanks to AF, I think i have found a good tactic when my units encounter enemys. I can draw a semicircular formation to surround the enemys or get a awl formation easily.

[AF]

If you turn on repeat and issue commands around the unit the unit will follow the commands over and over again and you dont have to nanny it, sorta buggers up if the target moves though

[Forboding Angel]

FYI Spring isn't a game. It's an Engine.

The game you played is called "Balanced Annihilation". And a tip for the future, if you are a newbie to something, don't post in a development forum.

[AF]

move to feature requests?

[adams]

So, If I want to add the new feature(flanking or parry movement) & test it myself, what I should modify? the MOD(BA or CA...) or just write some Lua scripts?

[imbaczek]

depends what you want to add. you can do a lot of things in Lua, though.

[adams]

depends what you want to add. you can do a lot of things in Lua, though.

You mean I can modify the unit definition(Gadget?) store in MOD to change the behavior style of a unit? But what about the AI part? A unit may have to calculate the Path.

[Hoi]

depends what you want to add. you can do a lot of things in Lua, though.

You mean I can modify the unit definition(Gadget?) store in MOD to change the behavior style of a unit? But what about the AI part? A unit may have to calculate the Path.

Gadgets have to be synced, that means that everyone must have the same mod (with your gadget), widgets not however.

[ctrlfrk]

The game you played is called "Balanced Annihilation". And a tip for the future, if you are a newbie to something, don't post in a development forum.

Hypocrite.

Feedback from new players is probably the most valuable information the dev team can get.

adams is doing us a favour by posting his opinion on the game, he could have just left without a word, as many new players probably do.

Address the issues that are turning new players away, and the spring community will grow.

Posting comments like yours just give the impression that the spring community is full of pricks and not worth the effort of joining.

[Forboding Angel]

You made a new forum account just for trolling? That's low, even for you.

I was actually very nice about it if you can read. Newb opinions are valuable, but here we have a combination of things that are not so valuable as they are annoying.

Bad Engrish
Worse Grammar
Suggesting features that the engine already has

An opinions value is based upon the detail of the information within. Here, we see mostly useless information placed incorrectly and not based upon that users impressions but 2 things he would like to see, explained badly, and for the most part already covered by lua.

Lastly frk, you phail epicly at trolling. Nice try.

(No offense intended, Adams)

[ctrlfrk]

Actually I made this account months ago to reply to a different topic, I just couldn't activate it from work because they've blocked hotmail, and I only check hotmail once in a blue moon.

I am not trolling, don't dismiss my post as such.
My point is valid, there is absolutely no reason why people who are "newbs" cannot post in the development section of this forum.

If you have trouble understanding him, skip the topic, nothing is forcing you to reply.

As to the usefulness of his post, it may have suggested something already in the game, but it also shows that the interface is not as intuitive as it could be.

Spring is complex, there is no way everything could be made intuitive.
But we could at least help by bundling in some tutorials with the mods or something.

And just to repeat, don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is a troll.

[AF]

If people are going to criticize other people for making accounts especially for trolling, I want to know who they are, so who are you ctrlfrk?

[Jasper1984]

About parry movement, i would rather call it dodging. This would alter the balance and style of the game it is used for, probably drastically. It would probably have to be synced to be easy on the network. And lua knows when a unit can see an enemy? Lua can scan for incoming fire? Would that cost too much cpu?

I think that the OP means with automatic formations, is layered formations, where you can specify in what order the units are ordered from front to back. This way, you could put defences in front of the artillery. It might be useful for some people because that way you do not have to, select assault units - draw front line, select artillery - draw back line. However, in many mods/cases, you want the artillery way further back, because they have enough range anyway.
Also sometimes you might want to really keep the units mixed.
I must say though, when you want these might be too much just corner-cases.

[Tribulexrenamed]

I find it interesting that you consider this "boring" because it is this intense micro and action that makes spring so fun a lot of times. I find huge assaults with t2 BA shit that was spammed with uber eco as boring as hell.


I hate the "parry" movement of the banshees. It tends to circle around a unit into AA range. There is alot of special micro that I use to stop this behavior when I am trying to kill something that is within aa range.

[LBF_Vachequirit]

forboding has a valid point, as adams played BA, not spring, and one of the improvements he added is heavily oriented towards BA. (parry)

about it, it's a very bad idea, from a gameplay point of view, because :

1. It removes the fun of micro. You might not like it, but it's actually one of the reason a lots of people play BA spring.

2. There are too many parameters to take into account to make the things right into such a widget. ==> Pathing, type of units, range, speed of rotation -- etc

If this was to be done, it would probably have to be coded as an AI, though i'm generally against things that just "controls" the units for you, if they're clever. You might aswell let an AI play.

Generally , before posting suggestions about a mod/ game you'd better know the mod at least a little more than 2 games against an AI. this is my opinion

About the formations, it's a very good idea, and one i'd prolly like to see implemented, but it's a complicated one too, because it falls in the way of pathing. Like, what if some unit can pass thru a point, and another unit in the formation can't ? Is the formation broken ?
What if the formation tries to pass a chokepoint that is not large enough for it? Shall it break the formation to pass the point, or not pass it at all ?

And this is only interrogations before even starting to code the thing.

To sum up, what u ask is not silly, but i really think you don't realize the consequences such features would imply, and that is why you prolly need to play the game more and see what is done by other devs before posting suggestions.

Then you prolly can begin to code, or ask someone who can , about a mature project.

Good luck and have fun

My point is valid, there is absolutely no reason why people who are "newbs" cannot post in the development section of this forum.

Yes there are, as i tried to explain before

Feedback from new players is probably the most valuable information the dev team can get.

Not when every suggestion is heavily biased toward a mod the new player doesn't even know well

adams is doing us a favour by posting his opinion on the game

lol
i don't disagree as such, but this is so drama ...

[Jasper1984]

Like, what if some unit can pass thru a point, and another unit in the formation can't ? Is the formation broken ?
What if the formation tries to pass a chokepoint that is not large enough for it? Shall it break the formation to pass the point, or not pass it at all ?

Well, current solution with the line and customformation is to ignore it. I think it is a valid solution. Perhaps it can just work like line and customformation, except that it has a more advanced control over the pattern the waypoints are put in.
On the other hand, it would be cool to have groups of units capable of moving in formation like a roman legion, or greek phalanx.(I think it is harder to do.)

[smoth]

in gundam, if a mech tries to pass through another unit, the unit getting pushed refuses to move. It is a tag available to all projects.

Forb BA is a mod not a game.

New guys might have feedback but most of the time they are suggesting something that is mod specific(almost always BA). They are suggesting something that is MTR. Or they are suggesting something out of ignorance, hell I do that one some times.

Don't get me wrong, I have read some great and terrible suggestions, many of them are terrible but like the guy can post, it is ok to have an opinion.

We are not going to see the last of this sort of post and many others that will be worse/better. I will not give any feedback on what noobs could do better to get answers to these sort of question because I cannot expect them to luck upon this one post. I think the best thing to do is hone our ability to reply to these sort of noobish threads. IMO the first 4 replies were great. Lets do more of that gentlemen. Remember we all were noobs at some time and none of us know everything about spring.