Race selection vs Mod selection

AF · Post by AF » 26 Nov 2005, 18:41

Ok, what fiw e added a second layer to mdo selection for races. We'd have an XTA mod deifnition and then we'd ahve a seperate file for core and arm, adn the engien would onyl laod what files where beign used so no loading core stuff if tis nto used, or loading a third race if the user wants.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 26 Nov 2005, 18:44

it could be possible with modtype=2;

which currently is not supported by TASclient

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 27 Nov 2005, 00:33

it sounds nice, i know nothing of implementing it tho.

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 27 Nov 2005, 01:16

Why can't sidedata files be cumulative? I mean, Have the engine load all sides from one mod, then load all non-repeating (that would be defined by side's name) sides from other enabled mods, disregarding the [SIDE X] definition entirely.

Also, again on the question of sides, why are teams in the game numbered starting from 0 not from 1? It's not very ergonomic if you want to change between two sides often (like when debugging one race against another offline).

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 27 Nov 2005, 15:55

Because that's how things are done in computing?

Everyone knows you start counting at 0. :)

AF · Post by AF » 27 Nov 2005, 17:37

In an array there is a 0th index aswell as a firsta dn second etc, therefore sicne zero precedes 1, the zero si the first and not the one.

zwzsg · Post by **zwzsg** » 27 Nov 2005, 19:12

Betalord told me modtype=2; isn't top priority. I wish it was.

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 27 Nov 2005, 20:08

Then why can't 0 be the spectator side?

SinbadEV · Post by **SinbadEV** » 28 Nov 2005, 16:43

honestly while 0 is the first as far as computers are conceared... and I don't mind it myself... technically, as far as counting is concearned, it makes sense to use positive integers... because it makes more sense for team 2 to be the second team not the third team, letting 0 represent the spectators or the gaia player would make logical sense as player 0 would represent NO player... anyways...

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 28 Nov 2005, 17:01

SinbadEV wrote:honestly while 0 is the first as far as computers are conceared... and I don't mind it myself... technically, as far as counting is concearned, it makes sense to use positive integers... because it makes more sense for team 2 to be the second team not the third team, letting 0 represent the spectators or the gaia player would make logical sense as player 0 would represent NO player... anyways...

I don't see why one should limit there to being only 1 gaia player. A map may involve scripting several different gaia players - each with their own AI. Multiple gaia players would allow you to do a game where the human players are in the midst of an AI war. I see no fundamental reason why the gaia players should be different from any other AI faction other than being anonymous and being loaded up with Lua script to keep spawning their units and suchlike.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 28 Nov 2005, 17:03

If you wanted seperate teams for the computer, actually make it a team. Gaia would be used for wildlife, random enemy's, collectable units, and that type of thing.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 28 Nov 2005, 17:54

Maelstrom wrote:If you wanted seperate teams for the computer, actually make it a team. Gaia would be used for wildlife, random enemy's, collectable units, and that type of thing.

Which could be done just as well with a custom AI faction, and more versatile that way to.

AI player 1: Random monsters & wildlife.
AI player 2: Collectible Units
AI player 3: Hunters that run around killing faction 1.

And so on. Either way, Gaia is just a normal player with (1) special AI to handle ordering the units to behave in an apparently autonomous fashion, (2) some heavy Lua script to handle spawning new wildlife and handing over collected units, and (3) modification to hide it from the GUI lists.

The only catch with AI players being used for Gaia is that the shared sight/radar might mess things up. You could work around this by making each "squad" of gaia it's own player, if there includes scripted functionality to make up anonymous AI players on the fly.

AF · Post by AF » 28 Nov 2005, 20:37

Actually I'm thinking that code for 'sight' would be what'd be sued there, or at least a basic call to the engien for all enemy units in a certain range where that range is the same as the untis LOS/radar.

Birds can be automated with the code for gmboids.

Civilians would be a variation of one of the many Alife projects out on the net.

And the artificial sight has bene used in Bots for games such as quake and halflife.

Veylon · Post by **Veylon** » 01 Dec 2005, 22:05

My two cents:
It would seem that you would have to pick mod then race.
Maybe a race could have a list of mods and it's own version for each one so that it can balance reasonably well. Something in a file like:

Code: Select all

[MOD0]
  name=xta_v66.sdz;
  mymod=race_xta;
[MOD1]
  name=ota.sdz;
  mymod=race_ota;

And it would have a base mod and folders with the names of each of types of mods it was compatible with. These folders would have data that would overwrite the base data to be more balanced in the particular mod. If it doesn't have balance for a particular mod, it just uses the base data.

Spring RTS Engine

Race selection vs Mod selection

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Race selection vs Mod selection