Spring RTS Engine

Since the SY's wont make one themselves I've taken the liberty. From what i've been able to gather....

(green==completed; blue==in-the-works; red==yet-to-be-started)


Runs ta units and gameplay
Runs multiple popular mods
First person veiw/control
Physics
Terrain deformation
Area commands
Video recording
Smoothed animations
Custom 3d features(rocks, trees etc)



Multiplayer lobby



Weather
Tides
Wrap around maps
Skirmish AI Interface
Commands scripting
Queue sorting
Formations


Anything I've missed or got wrong? Anything you haven't told us about yet SY's?

You forgot

Skirmish AI Interface
Commands scripting and queue sorting

Just thought id point out we havent had a positive yes to any features other than trees.

If you pop in here SY's give us a yes or no! And maybe a Vid to show of the new rocks.

So it should probablie be blue at the moment.

aGorm

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra wrote:Skirmish AI Interface

Skirmishing is suposed to be beeing worked on.
Also, you missed the controling units in formations which i think is also beeing worked on, both with the adittion of that new dude that joined the team. ... i think.

PauloMorfeo wrote:

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra wrote:Skirmish AI Interface

Skirmishing is suposed to be beeing worked on.

D'oh, I was sure they said they do not want to do the computer AI...(only the behavior of our own units)
Anyways the lack of information/confirmation of SY lead us to imagine what we want :)

Ahem, Yet to be started.

As ti stands, and from what little ahs been released of the itnernal workings of spring, there is a formation AI and an AI that deals with cosntruction units and construction and the .......... An interface through which a 3rd party could create a fullblown skirmish AI has only ever been hinted at at the very most

The somewhat more complete list is here: h[url]ttp://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=466[/url] I've been keeping track for months.

3D engine--done
Shadows--done
Camera modes, including chase cam--done
FPS unit control--done
Picture in picture--unknown
Multiple monitor support--unknown This would be very useful. Put the overhead map on one screen, and the battle on the other screen.
Deformable terrain--done
RE-formable terrain--done!
GUI--done? (it's translucent and resizable, but still looks like it has some placeholder graphics)
TA demo recorder integration--done (although I don't know about TA Hook)
Weapon IDs expanded--done
Upgraded sound--done? (do we know how good the the sound effects are? The videos don't have sound and OTA's 8-bit sound wasn't so great.)
3D sound effects--unknown
OTA music--in progress
Contextual music--unknown
High-polygon unit models--in progress
Trails--in progress
Dynamic lighting explosions--unknown
Day-night cycle--unknown
Weather effects (rain, snow, fog)--unknown
Wrap-around maps (like a donut, cornerless)--unknown
Fade-out/dither areas out of visability--unknown
Formations--in progress
Copy/paste unit orders--unknown
Construction prioritization--done
Combined build menus--done
Mouse-over-construction energy/metal use info--unknown
Queue sorting--unknown Thanks [K.B.] Napalm Cobra!
Automate metal maker turnoff--unknown
Smooth scripting--done
OTA mod compatibility--done
Tunnelling--unknown (doubtful, but some have hinted at it)
Trampeling Trees--done
auto-reclaim trees when building--done
End Game Statistics--in progress
Random Spawn Points--in progress (very good idea!)
Skirmish A.I.--in progress
Improved Pathfinding--done? (look carefully and you'll notice that units don't get stuck anymore because they can push each other out of the way.)
Guarding units do not crowd each other--in progress
Combat Experience--in progress
Trees jam radar--officially "SY-considered"
Hills jam radar
gunfire trajectories--done
aircraft fly like real aircraft--done
no more infinite bombing--done
unit movement effected by deformation--done
minimap updates as land deforms--done
graphics details options--done
multiple players per side--done

Sparky, there is a difference between AI and AI engine interface. One is to be done by the SY's one is to be done by the community and are both seperate projects, though one relies on the other.

Speaking of which, could we have the required info to do that? Somebody pm the sy's.

I've already requested that, all we know now is that there's a dll interface and there are 2 sub AI's working through it. And all that was from K-man, no word from the new AI helper and maybe a few sentences from SJ

I was thinking more along the lines of technical information.

I'd love to have that as well, I'm having trouble doing anything without knowing how it's supposed to fit into the engine. So far I have a plan of things to do, but nothing done. And it's not as much laziness as it sounds, but instead I'm unsure how to proceed.

yah, can we have some sort of micro dossier outlining how unit info is stored and how it would eb best that we manipulate commands and retrieve data absed on what you already have in spring. Then we can build on it and request more support as we need it.

I like it how many of the hopeful suggestions (including my own, such as weather effects) were slipped in there under "not yet started". Perhaps a better column would be "not yet considered"...

Lets hope the SY's don't notice and do them anyway!

Well the SY's dont really tell us that they've considered doing a featur till they've finished implemented it and are throwing about screenshots and videos

oo! new avatar napalm

Which is something I really wish they wouldn't do.

Oh it isnt physics thaty've finished just exposion physics and trees falling over. Spring still ues radius based collision I HEREBY REQUEST BOX ABSED COLLISION and still doesnt have features such as water retention and units falling over next to blasts or landing on there sides etc.

What benifit does box based give you over sphere/egg shaped?

Makes FF incidents much less likely, and while the internal logic will move to avoid this, it means that opposing units that don't have to manuever in such a manner have an advantage.

For example, a Thud firing over an A.K. at a Hammer. Radial collision detection means it's going to move because even with an arced shot, it's probably going to hit the A.K.

The Hammer has no such problem, because it achieves damage to the A.K. and Thud no matter which it hits. It will fire at least one shot more than the Thud. The combined fire of the two opponents will kill it anyway, but this is regardless of the point.

Second, radial hit detection is also problematic in aircraft. If a bomber and a fighter fly past in roughly the same area, they'll occur collision damage even if they did not touch. So if the bomber is on it's way back from a succcessful raid, but is damaged, it might be destroyed in the collision, while the fighter might die with it's objective unachieved, because AA fire destroyed it, taking advantage of damage.