Spring RTS Engine

Hi guys,

I was just wondering if Lua could do the following at all?

- A lunar/astrological calendar that allows you to see astrological conjunctions, trines, oppositions, and squares as they will occur, based on algorithms for astrologically acknowledged heavenly bodies such as certain asteroids like Chiron.
- A simple lunar calendar
- A collectible card game with a strong basis on multiplayer PvP (WIP here)
- Perhaps, a utility program for a publications office which can create timesheets based on the project allocations of a team leader?

These are just casual questions. I don't really have any intent on creating them so long as I neither know Lua nor understand how to code. Perhaps, some day I must take a holiday in Europe or Saudi Arabia, which might give me some time to work on that during the evenings.

Meanwhile, a quick update on my own project: I have joined forces with a team modding Zero-K with the relevant skills, so my gaming project is safe, although I had to cast off any Renaissance, Enlightenment and WW1-based mechanics and units, I'd rather prefer a project that can move forward as opposed to stay stuck in the ground. Since modelling and artwork is my thing, I can't complain.

I think, strictly speaking, Lua scripting in spring CAN do all those things. However, it would be absurd to try to jury rig completely non-RTS games into spring that way. It'd be much easier to just use a generic game engine like Unity than try to shoehorn an unrelated game into the spring engine via Lua.

Lua can do programmed logic, and Lua can render virtually anything through the spring engine, so Lua can do almost anything... Most of those things aren't recommended though.

Before I go off on a tangent here "Lua" is not something Spring specific... I don't know much about it but if you believe the stuff the Lua people say about it, it would be a great thing to learn for any programmer... around here, though, most of our "Lua Programmers" are actually "SPRING Lua programmers"... so if you want a general answer go to the horses mouth http://www.lua.org

SwiftSpear wrote:I think, strictly speaking, Lua scripting in spring CAN do all those things. However, it would be absurd to try to jury rig completely non-RTS games into spring that way. It'd be much easier to just use a generic game engine like Unity than try to shoehorn an unrelated game into the spring engine via Lua.

Lua can do programmed logic, and Lua can render virtually anything through the spring engine, so Lua can do almost anything... Most of those things aren't recommended though.

I don't think that jury-rigging a non-RTS game into spring is a problem at all... we've got a graphics engine and networking and all that... there are already examples where the game has diverged significantly from the "RTS" paradigm (Kernel Panic - Heroes of Mainframe) and DOTA style games are really nothing like an RTS but ideally suited to run on an engine that supports lot's of simultaneous units. I can (and have) imagined a number of games that would not be called RTS but would work well in spring... that said:

- A lunar/astrological calendar that allows you to see astrological conjunctions, trines, oppositions, and squares as they will occur, based on algorithms for astrologically acknowledged heavenly bodies such as certain asteroids like Chiron.
- A simple lunar calendar

Not a good match with spring... in fact it would work fine in JavaScript.

In fact... the last time I saw an astrologer at a fair the astrological read-out tool was program on a Commodore 64... you could probably find a HUGE market for this product as an app.

Moai is a FOSS platform agnostic (including mobile app) development platform... it would work much better than spring.
http://getmoai.com/

- A collectible card game with a strong basis on multiplayer PvP (WIP here)
I totally have a "system" I've been developing for quite some time now that is designed to formalize the creation and management of customize-able card games... if your looking to go "Free Open Source" with this thing, look me up on Google+ and I'd love to talk shop...

That said... if you're thinking more "computer game" here that just let's people play the game... go with Moai... if you are thinking "a card based game where you use cards to build units and send them against your opponent" then sure, why not spring.
- Perhaps, a utility program for a publications office which can create timesheets based on the project allocations of a team leader?
Not Spring... I'd suggest a WebApp for that...

SinbadEV wrote:Before I go off on a tangent here "Lua" is not something Spring specific... I don't know much about it but if you believe the stuff the Lua people say about it, it would be a great thing to learn for any programmer... around here, though, most of our "Lua Programmers" are actually "SPRING Lua programmers"... so if you want a general answer go to the horses mouth http://www.lua.org

SwiftSpear wrote:I think, strictly speaking, Lua scripting in spring CAN do all those things. However, it would be absurd to try to jury rig completely non-RTS games into spring that way. It'd be much easier to just use a generic game engine like Unity than try to shoehorn an unrelated game into the spring engine via Lua.

Lua can do programmed logic, and Lua can render virtually anything through the spring engine, so Lua can do almost anything... Most of those things aren't recommended though.

I don't think that jury-rigging a non-RTS game into spring is a problem at all... we've got a graphics engine and networking and all that... there are already examples where the game has diverged significantly from the "RTS" paradigm (Kernel Panic - Heroes of Mainframe) and DOTA style games are really nothing like an RTS but ideally suited to run on an engine that supports lot's of simultaneous units. I can (and have) imagined a number of games that would not be called RTS but would work well in spring...

ok, agreed, within reason. Games that work well within the relatively 2D mapping system of Spring, and can fit most of the vital entities into a unit system (as opposed to a game where a wall moves around or something, or the landscape morphs into different shapes as part of gameplay, or with giant enemies that fill half the map) would be workable with spring through lua. TBS games, dota style games, turret defense, what not... those would work fairly well in spring, although they'd be a fair bit of work. You could start to do card games or 4X games, although it would really start to push the limitations of the engine's systems, and platformers or indoor shooters for example would begin to be extremely difficult for spring.

Spring net code is a big limitation for games that are very fast paced by nature. It's not horrific, but it's not great either.

I'd recommend anyone trying to make games outside of the RTS/simple TBS/Moba or TD type games to look at other engines first before spring.