Spring RTS Engine

So I think I've discovered the hard way that Spring does not appreciate elongated objects, such as long boats. The hit spheres are too, well, spherical, and the footprints are frustrating.

So is there a way to remedy this without compromising my cool looking long boats? Like maybe flattening the hit sphere in upspring? And is there a way to have the footprint rotate with the unit or is it just the way it is, preferring to be square?

Also, I am curious if there are any tips anyone has on applying the hit sphere. My current approach is to make sure virtually all of the model is in the sphere, but in the end that means most of my units (the ones I think are cooler, and therefore I'm more attached to) have these enormous invisible bulbs around them, making selecting them difficult and also means they bump into each other. Not to mention they're easier to get hit by enemy fire. Is there a better way to do this?

There are cubical hitboxes, check out some buildings/units in CA after pressing B ingame to see which ones have them.

Actually, since I updated my engine, B no longer brings up that screen. Has it changed, or did something break when I updated?

SanadaUjiosan wrote:Actually, since I updated my engine, B no longer brings up that screen. Has it changed, or did something break when I updated?

Seems it got unbinded in latest spring. It's /debug

http://github.com/spring/spring/raw/0.8 ... ngelog.txt

seems to be alt + b now.

I think the XTA commanders have non sphere hitboxes too.

alt + b

Thanks a lot, that makes this process a lot easier

I figured out how to get the square fields used in CA. Thanks a ton for the suggestion guys, you saved my ideas, haha.

you can have rectangular footprints but they dont rotate. they will just fuck up your boats majorly.

put something in the GSOC forum imo.

The square hitboxes are not enough, because the models radius (you set in upspring) is still used for AoE detection and avoiding friendly fire.

Make the radius footprint*8. Any more, and units radius's will overlap eachother, causing them to both take damage from a single weapon shot, various impulse problems (better now though) and causing them to stop firing and wander around looking for a target if the radius goes over the top of another units weapon (Say, a peewee, with its weapons on the side, its quite easy for the radius of another unit to clip into it and cause it to stop firing).

I wish we could get non-square footprints for non-buildings. Thats the most frustrating bit.

do elongate models still suffer base plate orientation fail?

Alright, so if I'm following you right, I can still use the square hitboxes for easy selecting and whatnot in-game, but I still need an adequate hitsphere for things like AoE and friendly fire. And that I shouldn't make the footprint for units over 8x8, because that interferes with things.

So, just to clear something up. I assumed the footprint just dictated the size of the little green box on the ground around the unit, and the area of land needed to build it. Does it do more than that?

SanadaUjiosan wrote:Alright, so if I'm following you right, I can still use the square hitboxes for easy selecting and whatnot in-game, but I still need an adequate hitsphere for things like AoE and friendly fire.

Precisely.

And that I shouldn't make the footprint for units over 8x8, because that interferes with things.

So, just to clear something up. I assumed the footprint just dictated the size of the little green box on the ground around the unit, and the area of land needed to build it. Does it do more than that?

It determines the size of the unit for pathing. Other units wont step on that area(unless pushed).

I dont mean the footprint shouldnt be larger than 8x8, i am not sure where you got that, but the radius ('hitsphere', set in upspring) should be the footprint multiplied by 8. So if your footprint is 8x8 it should be 8*8=64. If its 12x15 it should 12*8=96 (Chosing the smaller number here because otherwise it will spill over on the shorter dimension).

This just means that units will not tread on an area that puts their hitsphere (radius) inside of another units hitsphere, because having overlapping hitspheres can be problematic.

Its not the end of the world though, so you have plenty of leeway on this for oddly shaped units- its just a good rule of thumb.

Oh, also, on very tall units, if the hitsphere doesnt reach the ground, you'll have problems with projectiles going underneath it (say, d-gunning the ground under it).

Okay, that helps a lot. Puts a good foundation to it. Because I was totally winging the hitspheres and whatnot before. Thanks a ton.

You can find some info on this kind of stuff on the CA site (We really should fix the spring wiki though, but meh, all info is really on the forums).