Spring RTS Engine

You know for all the time I played TA, the thing I hated most was how you could line up your units in good formations, with the units you wanted in the front, middle, rear ranks, in a line or a V or whatever. But select them and give them a destination and it becomes a cluster.

Wouldn't it be great if, when you highlighted a group of units and gave them a destination, their destination points would be in the same pattern as the starting positions? Imagine that!

Well there is already some formation thing in spring. If I remeber correctly, its accessed with the group AI button. but I could be wrong.

Defniatley would be a bonus to see some improved formation movements though.

Yup, sleect your units, go select AI, anc choose "simple formation"

Right click and drag to place them, you need to double click your group to get the formation thing to work again after deselecting.

Anywyas, it doesnt work incredibly, more often than not units push others around and none end up in their required position, also, units dont move at the same speed while in formation so if there happen to be fast units behind they'l muff everything up when you move the formation.

you can make a ctrl-click and your unit will keep their position.

Where have you learnt that?

There's so many features that are coded but we aren't aware of!

Better communication please!

zwzsg wrote:Where have you learnt that?

I've just tried :)

Torrasque wrote:...
I've just tried :)

Well, i tried too, in the earlier days of Spring, and i didn't managed to do anything with any of those so, i just assumed they weren't working yet...

Does anyone knows what the other selectable group AIs do?

metal maker ai.. asign to meta makers... (and not mexes).
(Turns off mm when energy is around 50% of the storage capacity, restarts @ +-70%)

its sad that "in formation" units loose almost all orders.. like attack.
im sure they are willing to change that, but atm, you cant tell formations to attack ground.. (not sure of move or patroll...).

the formations work great anyhow, if you have different types of units selected they get arranged by type. (arty and lrm in the back, tanks in front).

A good addition to formations and groups.. is auto group select, ( "q" is select current ai group), the same as q but automatically...
i know not everybody like this, so it can be a switch within the group ai menu.

mongus wrote:metal maker ai.. asign to meta makers... (and not mexes).
...

Ok, but what does it do?

Ok, but what does it do?

It closes down MM when energy reaches 0... and puts them back online when you have full energy.

I think it actually does more than that. Metal maker AI seems like it turns off metal makers even before the stall (energy 0) actually happens. Seems like it balances it. To use it, select one, or multiple metal makers and then goto select AI - metal maker ai. It is very useful in game, I always use it.

Metal maker ai turn off stuff at 30% energy and turn off enough metal makers so that your deficit for the last second is balanced out. At 70% it start turning them on, turning on enough to balance your surplus the last second.
For this reason you should only have one metal maker ai otherwise both of them will turn off enough in their own groupd to cancel the deficit/surplus which will lead to oscilating behaviour (not that it matter much but still...).

Simple formation allows you to form up units although as you have seen its not called simple for nothing.

Central build AI allows you to assign a number of construction units to it and then give it any build order that at least one of those can do. It will then try to assign build units in an optimal way to the different tasks although its not terribly good at it yet.

I havent had time to do anything with these lately so if someone else wants to improve them ...

heres a list of a few bugs and ideas i have had that i thought i should just post in this topic rather than starting a new one... (dont flame me... theyre just suggestions!)

-shouldnt the commander be able to trample trees (he cant, can he...?)
-it doesnt seem possible to guard buildings (or units?) that are under construction
-the 'repeat' command working with nuke/antinuke facilities would be great, maybe the numeral on the right in the buildpic could change to an infinity (sideways 8 ) sign to...
-i dont think units reclaim stuff when guarding other units...
-the range of damage for nukes around the attack cursor would be great
-when typing messages ingame the text still goes off of the screen
-how come there arent the little clicking noises and stuff when you click a buildpic, scroll build menu, etc
-sometimes when units are guarding another unit they make noises as if responding to commands when in fact they are merely moving/following the master unit
-what are peoples thoughts on being able to build over other buildings? (ie. place a moho over a metal extractor so the con unit reclaims it automatically...)

mongus wrote:its sad that "in formation" units loose almost all orders.. like attack.

hmmm maybe this should be i teh bugs forum...

Cnetral build AI is very nice if you know how to use it, but it doesnt work online unless you are the host

SJ wrote:Metal maker ai ...

This is awesome...

SJ wrote:...
Central build AI allows you to assign a number of construction units to it and then give it any build order that at least one of those can do. It will then try to assign build units in an optimal way to the different tasks although its not terribly good at it yet.
...

I thought that the normal selection of diferent builders already did that!? If you select a comm, a lvl-1 const and a lvl-2 const, you'll have access to all the buildings the 3 can build...
But, when given an order, only the ones that can build that building will do it, so, that may be the diference... Got to try it out.

shnorb wrote:...
-it doesnt seem possible to guard buildings (or units?) that are under construction
...

It is, at least with other builders. Just use the key "G" because the standard action with the RMB is repair until the unit finished or if it is damaged.

shnorb wrote:...
-i dont think units reclaim stuff when guarding other units...
...

They don't...

shnorb wrote:...
-what are peoples thoughts on being able to build over other buildings? (ie. place a moho over a metal extractor so the con unit reclaims it automatically...)
...

How many times have i wished that the mexxes would be considered as a reclaimable feature when placing mohos...

shnorb wrote:...
-how come there arent the little clicking noises and stuff when you click a buildpic, scroll build menu, etc
...

If the development team whishes to use, i've uploaded this click sound into fileuniverse.
That sound was arranged by me, from free sources on the Internet, to be used in the game Lincity-ng. It has been chosen to be the new Game of the Month at the time and i took charge of the sound engineering (not musics).
Very nice game, by the way. Free, multiplatform working on Linux and more. Nice grafics, solid construction good sounds (i hope you like), has music...