Spring RTS Engine

It would be nice if maps could define metal zones. That would be done by a zone map texture. When a mex is built on a spot that's colored on the zonemap the mex will cover all spots that have the same color instead of using its range to determine its coverage. If two mexes of different teams are built on the same color neither produces ressources (the zone is contested). If the spot is black (0,0,0) the normal range behaviour is used.

The point is that instead of metal spots zones are fought for which could encompass e.g. an entire city or a strategic point and an enemy could sneak a mex somewhere in your zone to make it contested and produce no metal. This could also be used for creative rules where e.g. two valuable metal spots on both sides of a chokepoint are linked into one zone and a player has to keep a mex on his side while destroying the enemy mex on the other side to gain the ressources.

A mod could possibly even demand that some buildings can only be built on zones held by the player or his allies.

good idea, very useful for mods using 'area control'-type resource systems

That's what I was thinking of, just doesn't make that much sense to plaster these control flags all over the place in 1944.

Yeah, the flags all over the place thing sucks.

That's a cool idea indeed. Doesn't need complex metal maps either, they only need an on and off switch.

On the other hand it could work if the mapper could define a set amount of points on the map which define the shape of the region, e.g. p1=1230,5990; p2=4560,2350; ... and so on. I was wondering why metal maps aren't made that way, like defining a point on the map, the radius and intensity.

Because being able to make a more "natural" metal map is an advantage depending on what you want to do. Perhaps a mod uses very expensive mexes and maps that have some amount of metal everywhere and it's up to the player to decide which spots are profitable?

Hm...

It would be an easy way to describe a region however.

YES +1 to this then I can begin my Urban Assault mod.. all we need is the ability to determine zone ownership based not on buildings but on some other method, like say shooting the ground with weapons to do x amount of damage to the zone..

rattle wrote:Hm...

It would be an easy way to describe a region however.

Yes but it wouldn't be very WYSIWYG I think.

That's true. You'd have to write down xz locations in spring.

+1

I smell Z. The game that is

"Granaten aufgenommen."

Id like an Urban Assault type system...

good old Urban Assaut :)
heh it would take like day to model all UA units... gives me idea but too lazy to do it... the box race :D

You could do that by making geo-mexxes. Make mexxes (or flags) that behave like geos, that are only placeable in geo spots. Then, make them give x amount of metal.

Like that you even control the exact amount of metal available per spot.

Not every map got geo spots nor are they in strategic places. Of they are cluttered together in the middle of the map.

That would limit the mex to one point though, could just as well simply place metal spots there. I'd rather see actual defined regions where the mex can stand anywhere (so you're forced to e.g. search a city for the flag that holds it) and the region ownership can be used for other features later on like buildings that can only be built on your home turf or units that behave differently on enemy territory. Spring Risk?

Risk, the only game where a one man army wipe you out completely.

It would introduce more agressive gameplay because regions would be scarce in comparision to mex spots, so you have to expand and conquer territory in order to raise your economy/techlevel/what ever.

I'd love to see some refilling resources á la Dark Reign's water ponds. Once they were empty they slowly refilled over time. Would allow spice or tiberium fields in combination with regions. I'd still need mobile mexes, though AF said he already wrote the code for that. Too bad it's not in.

Hm, mobile mexes plus regions would mean you could drive one of em into the enemy territory to deny him some metal for a while. A mod could even make everything a mex so a region is held or contested when at lest one unit or building is in there...