Spring RTS Engine

Hello folks, I just recently heard about this game. I've never played TA before, but I have played Forged Alliance, which is as similar as it gets I guess! Anyways, I am really excited to finally find a game like this, but I do have a few questions about it:

1) Is there a way to load saved skirmish games? The load feature doesn't seem to work.

2) The first time I played this, I noticed that when I zoomed in with the mouse-wheel, it would zoom straight to where my mouse cursor was pointed. That's awesome! It doesn't do that anymore though, instead it zooms straight up/down. Is there a setting to turn this back on? [Resolved]

3) If any of you have played Forged Alliance, you know about strategic icons. Basically they are used to identify units/structures while zoomed out. Is there anything similar for BA? [Resolved]

4) I am having trouble figuring out what I can afford and what I can't. I'm sure this will get easier as time goes on, but is there any way to display the rate at which resources will be drained next to the total resource cost when mousing over a building or unit icon? They do this in FA as well to make it a bit easier. [Resolved]

I could have sworn I had more questions, but I can't remember them right now! I think these are my most pressing concerns at the moment.

I apologize in advance if these questions seem dumb, I've tried searching and it just gets quite confusing because a lot of information seems out-dated or unclear. Thanks.

Hex wrote:1) Is there a way to load saved skirmish games? The load feature doesn't seem to work.

I made a variant of BA with save/load: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24034 Please note that some AI might be very confused by the reloading.

for #3, other spring mods and games have more descriptive icons on the minimap; i think the problem with adding such icons to BA is that there are simply so many different units that giving each one a different icon and then looking at a big group from afar would look like a big mess

For #2, I found Complete Control Camera did something silly like that with the camera. It might not be the reason, but if you can see that widget in your widget list (F11), disable it and see if it makes any difference.

#2 - middle mouse button pressed and then scroll ? but i might be wrong

Thanks for all your replies!

I will try the variant of BA with save/load when I get a chance.

As far as the icons go, I saw this video on youtube of BA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYMym1sjieY
The icons didn't seem to make it look like a big mess, is this what a typical BA game looks like?

I'll check the widget list next time to see if I can find the culprit, thanks!
Also, I'm pretty sure I wasn't holding the middle mouse button down but I'll pay extra attention to that if I still can't figure out what's wrong.

Cheers!

If he was mashing the function keys with save/load, he might have switch camera modes and be stuck on Rotatable Overhead or something.

http://springrts.com/wiki/Balanced_Anni ... ra_Control

Hex wrote:3) If any of you have played Forged Alliance, you know about strategic icons. Basically they are used to identify units/structures while zoomed out. Is there anything similar for BA?

Not sure if that's what you mean, but if you zoom out, at some point the units are replaced with icons. At what distance that happens is determined by a setting that can be adjusted in "expert mode" in springlobby settings "unit icon distance". But there are only a few different icons - still helps.

KaiserJ wrote:for #3, other spring mods and games have more descriptive icons on the minimap; i think the problem with adding such icons to BA is that there are simply so many different units that giving each one a different icon and then looking at a big group from afar would look like a big mess

It is possible to make an icon system for that many units, see ZK.

Although there is currently a bug with this engine that causes enemy icons to not show up in radar when they should.

dansan wrote:if you zoom out, at some point the units are replaced with icons. At what distance that happens is determined by a setting that can be adjusted in "expert mode" in springlobby settings "unit icon distance". But there are only a few different icons - still helps.

Ah! This was the problem, it was set to the maximum (1000). I reduced it to 200 and I could see them when zoomed out. Thanks! Even though these icons aren't as descriptive as FA, I find them easier to look at. +1

Pxtl wrote:If he was mashing the function keys with save/load, he might have switch camera modes and be stuck on Rotatable Overhead or something.

Thanks! After I switched my camera back to the regular Overhead view, the zoom worked as expected.

I have another question actually... I am having trouble figuring out what I can afford and what I can't. I'm sure this will get easier as time goes on, but is there any way to display the rate at which resources will be drained next to the total resource cost when mousing over a building or unit icon? They do this in FA as well to make it a bit easier.

I think this widget is what your looking for (at least it's similiar). Throw it in your /LuaUI/widgets folder (same as it's in in the zip file actually) to install it.
There's lots of other interesting widgets where that one came from, might be noted :).

I find the simple icons work almost as well because you can see what unit it is from the speed.

I'm pretty sure BA units do have strategic icons, like commanders and krogs having special symbols, while buildings are squares. You can also determine a unit by its circle icon size.

SeanHeron wrote:I think this widget is what your looking for (at least it's similiar). Throw it in your /LuaUI/widgets folder (same as it's in in the zip file actually) to install it.
There's lots of other interesting widgets where that one came from, might be noted :).

Woah! Thanks! This is just what I've been looking for! :D

Hello again.
As topic is opened I want to ask: is it normally that ARM RECTOR only can reclaim resources and heal damaged units but not assists in "initial" buiding even it guards a builder or has command "repair on area" ("repair" + circle)?

tacho wrote:is it normally that ARM RECTOR only can reclaim resources and heal damaged units but not assists in "initial" buiding even it guards a builder or has command "repair on area" ("repair" + circle)?

Yes, it's not a builder/constructor.

Also, just in case you missed it, it can resurrect dead units from corpses.