Spring RTS Engine

So I don't like water very much in the first place... the units are big, slow, can't attack bases, are easily blown up... etc.

But there are some, let's call them, aesthetic play value issues as well...

First of all, the way I see "water" is this:

AIR
LAND/SURFACE
SUBMERGED
SEA-FLOOR

but in reality it's:

AIR
EVERYTHING ELSE

so for example, a boat will not be able to pass over a sub, or a underwater metal extractor, and a sub will not be able to pass underneath a floating factory.


I think that you should be able to have the following if the water is deep enough

PLANE
SHIP
SUB
UNDERWATER BUILDING

all sitting on top of eachother... you might start losing track of things, but you can always adjust the camera angle...

I'm pretty sure it would be difficult to impliment, but it would make water a much more viable solution...

With the exception of Sub -> Submerged Building, I'm pretty sure that is how things used to work.

I know subs used to be able to go under ships, ships over underwater bldgs, and planes over whatever.

and the same happens with underwater buildings and floating buildings being over each other.

I'm gonna have to try this out again when I get home... nevermind me if I'm wrong... I still hate water units.

Don't forget that water in Spring is extremely shallow...

I set it "EXTREAMLY" deep one time an the Metal Ocean map I made (got stuck somewhere as an AI so no one has heard of it, it was a metal map anyways so who cares right?)... the subs sit barely below the surface no matter what...

I think it would be great if they could all move under each other

The waterline fbi tag might be able to fix this behavior, but I'm suffering modding fatigue. The smasher script has demoralized me too much to do any testing.

Why can't we have the air movement ai ported to subs? That'd work wouldn't it?

And while we're at it, what happened to an underwater camera? Maybe with different fog settings to water color?

I just made a map so I could test the "shallowwater/colision spears" possibility... on a side note, something weird clips the bottom 200 units off on really deep water IF you move your camera past the edge of the map

Sub, no matter how deep the water get, subs float directly below the surface and therefore their colition spheres colide with ships and floating buildings... coming up with some kind of airplane like deapth adjustment might work here.

no matter how deep a building is underwater, even if the colition spheres are miles appart vertically, subs AND ships are unable to pass over submerged buildings.

IIRC , the pathfinding for non-air unit use only the footprint.
It seem it work good for everythings exept subs...

Since their seems to be a lack of deep water maps available for showing this problem off I have created a 4x4 one (my computer chokes if I try to make big maps, and 4x4 is big enough for me to keep my two teams out of eachother's way... ), anyways, if you want it, it's at file universe, it's miscategorried at this time because I'm a moron, so if they re-category it, it's just called "DeepWaterBD.sdz (Test Map)" or something... it's also demonstrates a weird clipping bug that I'll have to investigate...

Das Bruce wrote:Why can't we have the air movement ai ported to subs? That'd work wouldn't it?

that would also be totally awesome

Das Bruce wrote:Why can't we have the air movement ai ported to subs? That'd work wouldn't it?

It would have to be edited to restrict them from running into the seafloor or taking off out of the water, but I'd love to see it.

SwiftSpear wrote:

Das Bruce wrote:Why can't we have the air movement ai ported to subs? That'd work wouldn't it?

It would have to be edited to restrict them from running into the seafloor or taking off out of the water, but I'd love to see it.

one could also make very cool water/air units :O

hmm, submarines doing loop the loops............

most of them would be brawler style...

also, you could have "deep" subs that would be like hovercraft that couldn't go past the surface plane... and you could have shallow shub that accted like the current sub... things specifically for stealth

Its very interesting!
I tested your map and:
Structures can be built at the bottom, very deeper than subs.
Nanolathing worked ok in a near vertical angle.
Torpedos can hit the bottom, as the enemy commander was blow!
This inner space can do a lot of funny and maneuvres for subs if they are modified to submerge at several layers like planes. :idea:
VonGratz
Ive d/lded screenshots in your map file from FileUniverse .

Another curious things
Amphibious tanks, built by TLL underwater factory were put in the bottom when finished, but CANT move in the same manner of the commander starting point.
The factory above mentioned was built at the subs level, NOT at the bottom!!!!but......underwater storages also can be built at the bottom as the metal extractors are!!!!!! .
Commander being torpedoed


Graatz