The wiki creates a partial vacuum. Fix plox?

[Forboding Angel]

And I've already researched it:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension ... rch_Engine

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[jK]

Change caption please, we are civilized people ...

edit:
thx

[Forboding Angel]

You're welcome

[Argh]

I like this idea, but I think that we really need a doc explaining the basic terminology, so that people understand what "weaponDef" means, etc.

AAAAAargh, I hate this keyboard, and my primary isn't USB, or I would just start writing this...

[Argh]

Screw it. If somebody has time to clean / edit and stick in Wiki, here we go:

Structure of Spring Game Text Data

Games built for Spring have a number of specific data formats, largely inherited from the TDF/FBI text format, but with considerable changes and improvements to the engine, which has resulted in what we call "tags".

Each "tag" is a specific data type- a string, a floating-point number, an integer, or a true / false statement. Each tag is documented in the "defs", or "definitions"- a guide to the data types and their functions, presented in the current standard format, which is a Lua document essentially providing nothing more than a large table (with sub-tables) and a final declaration of the table entry's name.

Because Spring uses a model of game objects that is geared towards fairly non-generic usage (i.e., the engine is mainly designed for RTS game designs), the "defs" are divided into several very specific categories: unitDefs, weaponDefs, featureDefs and soundDefs, amongst others.

Each "def" should be read as a functional blueprint, describing what the Spring Engine is able to do with the object.

A weaponDef, for example, that has the weaponType tag of "LaserCannon", is restricted to certain types of graphical, physical and other behaviors. While this may strike new game designers as somewhat arbitrary, it's usually possible to work around the limitations of many of the weapons, once you have learned about how to use Lua to augment their behaviors.

Each Def is a special data format. Despite the similarity of names, each one has unique limitations and caveats.




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The more I write this, the more I feel like an apologist for something I think is fundamentally broken. I really haven't thought about this much, because I, like the rest of the non-newbies, have the vast majority of the tags memorized or at least remember what they do.

But the more of this I write, the more I don't want to try to explain to newbies why you can't combine the graphics effect of a LaserCannon with the guidance of a missile, why you can only use certain tags in certain combos w/ canFly, etc...

I'm basically apologizing for the tag forest, which I honestly think we should abolish / streamline / make optional by doing a rewrite in Lua with some new callouts to engine functions nobody wants to write again

[Pxtl]

+1, I've frequently been let down by Wiki's broken search.

Seriously, just link to a Google search with the prefix "site:http://springrts.com/wiki" and it works better. Replace the search box with that.

For example: use the string "site:http://springrts.com/wiki/ lua weapondefs" in google.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site:http://spring ... weapondefs

[abma]

an feature request would be nice, so people who could fix this, read this + they can't forget it.

(please report to: http://springrts.com/mantis/ )

[Forboding Angel]

Linked thread: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=24673