Spring RTS Engine

Hi guys,
I wanna ask what do I need to know before working with spring, what progrming languges are necesarry?

You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful.

Improving the engine is another story and it probably is a matter of "if you have to ask, don't bother"... that said, if you just want to make games you will never need to touch the engine source code...

dinu.ncl wrote:Hi guys,
I wanna ask what do I need to know before working with spring, what progrming languges are necesarry?

Lua.

SinbadEV wrote:You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful.

Improving the engine is another story and it probably is a matter of "if you have to ask, don't bother"... that said, if you just want to make games you will never need to touch the engine source code...

You need the old school TA scripting languages to make a game (if you want to not use lua). They're not strictly "programming languages", but in the same way HTML isn't a "programming languages". They're scripting languages, but they aren't completely trivial to learn.

SwiftSpear wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful.

Improving the engine is another story and it probably is a matter of "if you have to ask, don't bother"... that said, if you just want to make games you will never need to touch the engine source code...

You need the old school TA scripting languages to make a game. They're not strictly "programming languages", but in the same way HTML isn't a "programming languages". They're scripting languages, but they aren't completely trivial to learn.

Why would someone coming to Spring fresh bother leaning BOS/COB, he should only need Lua.

SinbadEV wrote:

SwiftSpear wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful.

Improving the engine is another story and it probably is a matter of "if you have to ask, don't bother"... that said, if you just want to make games you will never need to touch the engine source code...

You need the old school TA scripting languages to make a game. They're not strictly "programming languages", but in the same way HTML isn't a "programming languages". They're scripting languages, but they aren't completely trivial to learn.

Why would someone coming to Spring fresh bother leaning BOS/COB, he should only need Lua.

+9001, only lua is of any interest.

You need to know:

Development is a lot of work
How to be patient and diligent
How to ask questions
That you will have to be able to perform all roles
That no one will really play your project for some time

You will need to learn. Everything else will come if you have the time energy and fortitude of mind

smoth wrote:How to ask questions

As in, anybody can post a question on an internet forum.

But to to phrase it as to be easily understood, prevent derailing, and getting useful answers, now that's a skill even an accomplished modder like Smoth doesn't master.

SinbadEV wrote:

SwiftSpear wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful.

Improving the engine is another story and it probably is a matter of "if you have to ask, don't bother"... that said, if you just want to make games you will never need to touch the engine source code...

You need the old school TA scripting languages to make a game. They're not strictly "programming languages", but in the same way HTML isn't a "programming languages". They're scripting languages, but they aren't completely trivial to learn.

Why would someone coming to Spring fresh bother leaning BOS/COB, he should only need Lua.

You can't really make a game without either lua or the old scripting languages. One or the other is necessary.

You need the old school TA scripting languages to make a game.

no, you do not.
you can use it to feel vintage but you do not need it.
http://springrts.com/wiki/Animation-CobLuaDifferences

SwiftSpear wrote: You can't really make a game without either lua or the old scripting languages. One or the other is necessary.

We live in an all lua world now, get with the program swift.

to be fair, he doesn't do projects in this engine floz so his info is a bit dated..

Is it impossible to use BOS and COB and what not these days?

I know no one really still actively practices it, but I thought it still technically worked.

Regardless, I was responding to Sinbad saying "You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful."

As I understand it, this is untrue. You either need lua or the old scripting languages to make a game. You can't do anything without one or another. Modifying texture files in an already existing mod or making a map is not a "new game".

I don't mean to imply learning old scripting languages is a good idea, just that there is no code free path with spring (or any notable game development engine for that matter)

You are correct swift.

Smoth and flozi misunderstood what you were trying to say.

@ the rest of you, knowing lua is not strictly required, but if you plan on doing anything out of the ordinary, you will need it.

If we follow Swifts line of logic (that at least one scripting language is required) then we may as well say lua is, as its used everywhere within Spring (and without!).

SwiftSpear wrote:Is it impossible to use BOS and COB and what not these days?

I know no one really still actively practices it, but I thought it still technically worked.

Regardless, I was responding to Sinbad saying "You can make a game with no programming knowledge... but it will be bland. Lua is the language you use to make your game not be awful."

As I understand it, this is untrue. You either need lua or the old scripting languages to make a game. You can't do anything without one or another. Modifying texture files in an already existing mod or making a map is not a "new game".

I don't mean to imply learning old scripting languages is a good idea, just that there is no code free path with spring (or any notable game development engine for that matter)

A fair point... I was thinking about a collection of units that didn't animate or shoot and that it wouldn't be much of a game if that was all you had (which I think is possible with zero scripting.. though you still might need a mostly empty script file). What I was trying to express was that there isn't really a point to it unless you were willing to learn some scripting.

edit: also, after reading my response... I think I was implying that he didn't need any existing programming knowledge because the amount of Lua he would need to learn to get units in game and moving around was relatively trivial... but who knows what I was thinking at the time.

I've got significant java programming knowledge, an a general comp sci background... but that being said, from my experience there are few programming environments easier to learn than lua, so I don't think it should be a significant obstacle to anyone.

You can't do gadget in cob/bos! So without learning Lua you would be limited to a TA-like.

• Cob/Bos can be used for unit animation and that is all.
• Lua can can be used for unit animation, gadget, widget, unitdef, ...