Spring RTS Engine

Would it be possible to make a map that is like a tunnel inside a mountain? Spring doesn't use 3d-heightmaps, so I don't think you can make maps with things such as bridges, because the altitude component has just one dimension.

But, you could make a map that is juts a tunnel, no bridges, no roof etc. Here's a sketch of such a map:



But is there a way to prevent aircraft from flying over the walls? Set a maxheight for air units?

I had thought of exploring this theme... more in the overall setting and appearance of the map. Like you were in a giant (and with giant robots, REALLY giant) cavern. I was going to make a cave-y skybox, dim the lights a lot and put in crystal features and all that. But, it didn't make sense for CT so I never did it.

I'm not sure if a more tunnel-y approach could work, as you proposed. But, maybe.

Jools wrote:But is there a way to prevent aircraft from flying over the walls? Set a maxheight for air units?

Nope :\

One option would be to disable air units completely then, as xta does on some maps 'because of low atmospheric pressure".

or can you make a gadget that filters all units for air units, and when their y-coordinate exceeds some value it sets the y-value to under that level? Would probably wreck pathfinding, but hey, what do we have to lose :)

I thought of having a feature that when an explosion occurs high enough, or a projectile hits the "roof", then it would trigger some kind of cavein event. You could have stones to fall etc...

Jools wrote:One option would be to disable air units completely then, as xta does on some maps 'because of low atmospheric pressure".

this is probably a reasonable option.

Smoth....



Jaburo map?

So it's impossible to create zones in which planes cannot fly - i.e impassable region for planes? that sounds like an engine request

Two ways of solving it in lua:
1. Destroy or move units that attempt to go to no-fly zones - ugly and fights with pathfinder
2. Create your own 2D map which contains no fly zones, and with it a lua-based pathfinder that creates a group of sub-orders(commands) for air units (just consider that the no-fly zone should be extended a bit further from the hills, in order to accommodate for air maneuvers.

Gajop, aircraft don't use the spring pathfinder stuff.

For this idea to work a game would have to be designed to work for maps like this. Otherwise it is at best a lolmap. Even if you block aircraft there is still a problem with high altitude vlaunch missiles that many games like to use.

Yes, it's for that I thought about making the cavein gadget, that explodes projectiles of high altitude.

But the real problem is that a map is a map is a map, it shouldn't behave like a mod. Therefore if you disable units etc you are affecting the part of the game that should be handled by the mod, and that's bad.

game adds support for cave maps DONE

This has been an annoyance for me for a while... that being said, it's not really an unusual standard for RTS. The same is true for both Starcraft 2 and Supcom modding. Still... I really wish we could claim to be the guys pushing the RTS market forward.