Spring RTS Engine

So, i've been messing around with the workings of Spring Engine for some time now. Here is the product of my messings (v 0.15): A mod in the face of the "underdog title" Urban Assault.

(NOTE: the archive on darkstars.co.uk is BROKEN)

It features most of the original's catches: the sector-driven economy (so that Territory is your Tiberium, and your warcraft your workforce, and anything static that hasn't a gun can be captured just by shooting at it), teleporting (fully canonical, you can beam freely to owned powerplants), and fast-paced gameplay. (and since so far you start with no powerplants, one can opt to create none and invest in units instead...), and, obviously, the first-person control of your units (though unlike the canon, you actually can look from the above...)

And it has that used-to-be-undead pseudo-zeppelin lighter-than-air plane with Independence-Day beam weapon.

It has two of the original's factions, to a minimal extent that would allow gameplay to be more or less Interesting( the factions got chosen for the lowest poly count and greatest absurdity, so you get flying wormbox Mykonians and full-metal WWI Taerkasten with their masonic sorceries).

And as i had to test the units out on Something, there is a predictably stupid Lua AI included. It doesn't have an idea about teleportations, though if you allow it to cheat it just might Accidentally rush you.

I really don't like how the units look currently (perhaps with exception of Eisenhans, but it should get it's reflection map too), so any help with the actual modelling would be appreciated (same as with any help, UA deserves more than one mad developer to resurrect ^^)

Edit: Now Metropolis Spring has a specific step-by-step strategy for assault towards victory. See these world domination plans here:
Strategic and Tactical planning levels
First-Person planning level
Then if you're interested, pick a target, lurk-up on its looks and how-tos, and...??? ... PROFIT! (in kudos form, of course).

The files have their newlines in Unix format, so you should open them with at least WordPad if you're under any Windows system.

Screenshots please?

*shooting screens in process*

MMMMmmMM screenshots..

I had fun, the ai was very good and it was fun, the idea is great and it doesn't look that bad, my only problem was that I didn't know how to get a zone, all stuff should be on conquer mode automaticly, keep going, add more depth into the game, and people will play it!

The screen shots. Three is the attach-limit, so they'll have to suffice

It looks cool but it killed my LuaUI... Seems the BA layout is to blame.

Also I have no idea what the bars at the top mean...

Also I have no idea what the bars at the top mean...

Well, as it happens at some times, the Manual is usually teh latest part. As in the original UA, they go for "creation energy", "beaming energy" and "host station shield energy". UA had also the option for "locking" any of the above so energy wouldn't flow into/from others, but obviously, it didn't get prioritized much.

Seems the BA layout is to blame.

There is a LOT of cleaning up left inside the archive, which i intend to do in the very near future. Getting rid of ota dependency is also part of this. ^^

Also, nevertheless, the rest of screen shots.

What about the blue bar, how does one read that?

The income, obviously The percent show how much your "emission area" (aka territory) relates to production capacity of your powerplants, and the "+x" means how much megajoules you get per tick. Also, the farther your hoststation is from its powerplants, the less energy gets uploaded. The length of the blue bar responds to the amount of your (upload) income as it relates to the absolute income limit set in mod options and defaulted at 64 (also püre canon stuff )

Anarchid wrote:full-metal WWI Taerkasten with their masonic sorceries

lolwut!

this game sounds awesome, i have no idea what it's all about, so i'll test it tonight with my buddy and get back to you.

i could possibly hook up some models (you said low poly count, i can do low poly count) but me doing animation is iffy, only just learning it... but masonic sorcerers sounds like my cup of tea.

are you going to open the source for this or it a closed source project?

I like the idea of sectors on the minimap

I think they should be visible on the regular view too so I know where to force-fire.

lolwut!
...
i could possibly hook up some models (you said low poly count, i can do low poly count) but me doing animation is iffy, only just learning it... but masonic sorcerers sounds like my cup of tea.

As i said, the factions got chosen for high absurdity and low polycount. And nothing can out-absurd the Taerkasten. BTW, youtube has all the original UA movies plus some extra(tho it doesn't have Metropolis Dawn units, you can still get the idea what anti-brainage can become of this)

are you going to open the source for this or it a closed source project?

Probably the only part inside a spring-content-package that can technologically be "closed" are the .cob scripts, but even they can easily be decompiled. Anyway, most of the sounds this mod uses so far were ripped from my /usr/share/games folder, and these tend to be variations of GPL.

So, unless the fact that the original game was published by The Mykoicrosoft has any detrimental effect, it's either that or public-domain.

I think they should be visible on the regular view too so I know where to force-fire.

I tried that beforehand- drawing sectors in worldview by Lua - and got variations between "ugly" and "voracious". However, i do intend to modify a bit of WorldBuilder to populate maps with buildings(and with .78 grade ground-decals, it's probably even possible to pave all of comet catcher with roads ^^); if it gets done, it'll be trivial to make buildings capturable like powerplants are and you'll be able to see who owns the sector by looking at houses' teamcolor.

UA, however, didn't have this, it's non-canon, almost like herecy

Also: the cleaned-up version (Cleaned of ba-layout, cleaned of ba-noises, cleaned of ota-content dependency, even cleaned of springcontent dependency) with reservoir-control and prettied-up powerbars, here.

Also I'm not sure if it's intentional but ground cubes seem to be the best capturers since they can cap while moving through a sector without stopping while e.g. the tanks need to stop and turn and often won't shoot because of terrain unevenness.

Also I'm not sure if it's intentional but ground cubes seem to be the best capturers since they can cap while moving through a sector without stopping while e.g. the tanks need to stop and turn and often won't shoot because of terrain unevenness.

Cubes were one of three fastest ground units in UA, others being Ghorkov Speedy and Resistance Weasel. However, i bumped their cost by +100 with the previous post to balance the fact that they can do more overpower than the zerg.

Cubes can get stuck on uneven terrain too, though, that's the main reason auto-capture doesn't get enabled by default and even AI enables it strictly for capturing sectors.

Though, that kinda forces players to do more fps, which is very orthodox in spirit, UA didn't have any overhead view at all %)

Thinking of those sectors and the WorldBuilder: now, the units i can manage, even probably with reflectiveness sometime. However, i just can't do maps - SM3 ist gebork anywhere over 2 renderlayers, and SMF show up white on my machine...

woot i like this mod idea i really liked that game i hope you flesh it out fully GL :D

woot i like this mod idea i really liked that game i hope you flesh it out fully GL :D

It has happened! Mwahaha, the doom is coming! There is a person on Spring forums who heard of UA beforahand! ^^ :D :D :D

UA was my fav game when I was a kid :D. I really wanted to try porting it to Spring myself but never got far. Haven't tried this yet, but it looks awesome.

edit to avoid double post:

Do you plan on adding the other factions? Or at least resistance/ghorkovs? I can try to help make some of the units that aren't too complicated. I hope UA goes the way of MechCommander2. A lot of UA's art is easy to get at .

Also, you may be able to recruit people from http://forums.metropolisdawn.com/...

edit 2:
haha I couldn't resist trolling a thread they had dreaming about UA2.

This game is on the way. A community project that none of you know about bawhahahahahaha.

Played for a short bit as well, couple more games and I'll post feedback.