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Rise and walk, or how my factorie grew legs (and wings too).

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 02:55
by zwzsg
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1380

Image

Image

It is still heavily experimental and buggy, but in Spring I managed to build some add-ons that turn a standard factory into a mobile factory.

In Spring61b2, units being built in a factory in movement wouldn't follow the factory, and the sphere based collision, made it a bit ankward, but with Spring62b1, the units under construction stay in there factory, and it's the footprint instead of some calculated sphere that is used for collision, so they work much better than they used a few days ago.

Just like I posted when asking for the possibility of having mobile factories in Spring long ago, those mobile factories are actually made of two units welded together. One that you select to control the movement, one that you select to control the nanolathing.

12 MB DivX video of factories growing legs and wings.

Link to download the ufo.

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 02:59
by GrOuNd_ZeRo
LOL funky ZW! good work there, love the insect factory there...

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 03:26
by hrmph
This is amazing!

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 03:51
by ankh
Wow!!! Very great work! It's fine, i love concept! Just the texture of wings is...


Great job zwzsg ;)

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 15:54
by HiEnergy
Interesting to see the mobile factory carrier can also be transported.
On capturing an enemy's factory carrier one gets a friendly carrier carrying an enemy factory.
After upgrading an already upgraded factory there's an additional empty carrier without a factory.
If the terrain where a factory in transit (walking/flying/airlifted/inside a transport vessel) drops the created unit is unsuitable for the unit, the unit will get stuck yet fully functional.
Dropping ships on land with walking or flying shipyards is fun.

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 16:09
by zwzsg
Oh, shipyards can grow legs now? They crashed me last time I tried.

And thanks for the report. I helps to have other people doing all kinds of test and pointing out how it goes instead of having to do all the testing by myself and overlooking too many situations I wouldn't have thought of. Have you encountered any crashes or really crippling bugs?

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 16:22
by SinbadEV
Any chance of floating factories (for shipyards and sea-planes etc)? Though honestly, walking and flying is a lot cooler.

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 18:38
by SJ
I think Spring would be better off if you used your time and talent to improve the underlaying C++ code instead of testing how weirdly one can hack the cob files Zwzsg :) (like adding a way to switch movetype on a unit to create proper walking factories)

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 18:49
by SinbadEV
Dude SJ... harsh... though admittedly it would probably be better if the engine supported it rather then hacking it out of the current engine... but I'm happy with zwzsg with being a unit scripting genius... why bother fixing the code when we're still waiting on a new model format... isn't that your job?

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 19:13
by Torrasque
I think SJ (and the other of course) already make very good job :)
As I agree with SJ, I think Zwzsg don't like/know C++. He make what he like to do.
why bother fixing the code when we're still waiting on a new model format... isn't that your job?
Hum, that's not an easy job, and it they want to keep compatibility with the current system, I can't imagine the Hell.
I'm sure that better communication from the sy team would avoid such sentences.

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 19:44
by SinbadEV
sorry to have been unclear... I was being a jerk I wasn't asking a serious question... though now that you mention it, communication is hard in a project like this... people should put more in the wiki...

All in favor of going back to fawning z's ego say aye

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 19:58
by Torrasque
hehe, no problem, I have misunderstand you too :)

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 20:56
by PauloMorfeo
People have frequently asked for a powerfull unit for Arm to balance for the fact that the Core have the Goliath, the Sumo and the Krogoth. But just making clones of those units sucks and is, arguably, not the best way to balance things up.

This could be it, mobile factories. Core having the supreme penetrator units and Arm having mobility, like both always had...

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 21:07
by mongus
as zwzg allways is contibuting in the ota front and doing some like maps and stuff, but its curious he complains bout stuff and has not offered solutions on that, he looks talented like to do so.
wonder we must all try a bit harder to help. (even having few to contribute (as me)).
(but love the game)

btw, the units look cool, (Fantasy Spring!).
makes me think of some wonderland, like.. Alice in wonderland..

(..and suddendly, the buildings growed legs and wings, and started to fly and walk, leaving the ground water and sky filled with units... ) :D

Posted: 26 Aug 2005, 21:12
by Kixxe
This is so cool! To bad aircrafts those not work (yet!), cuz this would be perfect. A mobile air factory!
Just like I posted when asking for the possibility of having mobile factories in Spring long ago, those mobile factories are actually made of two units welded together. One that you select to control the movement, one that you select to control the nanolathing.
This could be used for many diffrent things, like cannons that you can control seperaly or a multy nanolater right?

To bad .avi files dont work for me:(
People have frequently asked for a powerfull unit for Arm to balance for the fact that the Core have the Goliath, the Sumo and the Krogoth. But just making clones of those units sucks and is, arguably, not the best way to balance things up.

This could be it, mobile factories. Core having the supreme penetrator units and Arm having mobility, like both always had...
I would say that both should have mobile factories, but core would only have tank like and slow as a mobile fusion while arm having a spider like that can walk like kbots.



Btw, is there anyway posibole to make armed factories?

Posted: 27 Aug 2005, 16:57
by zwzsg
SJ wrote:I think Spring would be better off if you used your time and talent to improve the underlaying C++ code instead of testing how weirdly one can hack the cob files Zwzsg :)
I guess I took the bad habit of devising .bos/.cob workaround instead of modifying straight at the source when modding TA.

I'm afraid that if start learning C++ I'll get swallowed whole by it.

Oh, and most of the change in the source needed to have it work are already made. All I'd need changed is to have transported buildings not blocking the terrain they are over anymore. And maybe something to read the unitlimit from the script, cause it's bit dirty to have to suppose it's always 5000. But I think that even if maybe it wasn't supposed to happen, the current code is able to handle those factories welded on the back of mobile units. And anyway, even after modifying the source code, one would still have to make and script a demonstration unit, so :P

What do you mean by "To bad aircrafts those not work (yet!)", Kixxe? Cause for me the mobile air factory works. Most of the time. But if you could tell me precisely in which condition it doesn't work, that'll help. Yes I think it's perfectly possible to have a large mobile unit with several emplacement where it is bearing HLT, guardian, etc..

Posted: 27 Aug 2005, 19:33
by SinbadEV
I need to download the units to see it in action, but from what y'all seem to be saying, this crazy idea would be possible.

The one unit team: start with a simple bot (like a FARK in my brain) with about +20 metal and energy production, and 1000 of each storage, if it sits near metal it acts as an extractor, sits near a thermal vent as power collector. Then you could build a factory around the unit, the factory would have slots to grow solar cells, energy storage, extraction improvements, nuke plants, weapons, legs or wings or pontoons so it can become mobile again... and it would just get bigger and bigger, eventually growing factories that could produce swarming style units that would need to stay close to the base... problem is it would actually have to engage in direct combat with enemy bases so it would have to be sheilded from commander death-blasts...

Posted: 01 Sep 2005, 12:25
by smokingwreckage
Awesome new possibilities await...

Posted: 01 Sep 2005, 13:29
by Min3mat
could you make a walking unit (large) and have eight or so slots on it which can be upgraded with defenses (a moving artillery platform/uber heavy AA platform/serious sentinelage platform) each costing say 10% more than usual and have the base unit cost ~2 Bulldogs (have the CORE one more expensive and slower with 2 extra slots)
that would be cool!

Posted: 01 Sep 2005, 21:03
by Zoombie
I always like the brodeside from TAFF, so id upgrade mine with nothing but Bigberthas and sutch. Maby it should also have a rez slot where you can put either a fusion or a mohometalmaker. That would be cool!