Spring RTS Engine

Please ignore if this has been fixed in .74 or a subsequent SVN edit, I haven't even had a chance to boot Spring up in the last two months.

This post is concerning the SoundTrigger=[0/1] tag in weapon definition files. Its purpose is to be used in conjunction with burstfire weapons to make the weapon emit only one sound per burst, rather than per shot. It saw a lot of utility in the OTA days, with things like Flashes using special sound effects of four sequential EMG shots, thereby reducing the lag induced by these types of weapons by 75%.

In Spring, it could see similar use, or, more importantly, be used to reduce the number of simultaneous sound effects which get exponentially louder and eventually wreck speakers. I've got 2 borked-up sets of speakers and 3 sets of headphones, over $120 in equipment, all basically destroyed by extensive use with Spring. The use of Sountrigger would not completely eliminate this problem, but it would *massively* decrease it. I cannot emphasize this enough. Since there's no dedicated sound system programmer to solve this issue through other methods, implementing soundtrigger seems like a good alternative.

To give a real-life and verifiable example, take the Pyro. Every time it fires a stream, it emits the flamethrower sound effect 20 times (22 in AA, if I'm not mistaken), designed by Cavedog to be used only once. This can be seen by the presence of soundtrigger=1; in the FLAMETHROWER weapon.

With each overlapping flamethrower effect, the loudness, logically, should be doubled. So you're hearing it 20x louder than it ought to be. That's for one pyro. Nobody uses one pyro. More like, 10? 20? 50? You can see where the problem can escalate quickly.

"Flamethrower" is only one example, but it's probably the worst one in OTA. Please consider adding the Sountrigger variable to Spring.

Thanks

Not a feature request to be buried with lasers that fly around the map 36 times while curing cancer, but a necessary addition.

You should learn basic C++ ^_^

AF wrote:You should learn basic C++ ^_^

There is no such thing as "basic C++" coding. There is only "Good C++", "Good enough C++" and "Bad C++" codings.

I was referring to the basic syntax needed to understand basic logical proceedings in C++.

But considering caydr already has experience with programming languages, there's no reason why half his requests cant be implemented and patched by him.

AF wrote:I was referring to the basic syntax needed to understand basic logical proceedings in C++.
...

I was expecting you would answer that. Having such skill, would allow for someone to understand the workings upon a very great effort (you will always run into shit you have never seen before) and maybe allow him to pinpoint where a bug is, like i've done a few times with minor bugs and argh has been trying also.

But, when it comes the time to write a patch to fix it,

PauloMorfeo wrote:... There is only "Good C++", "Good enough C++" and "Bad C++" codings.

+1

Frankly, AF, the reason Cadyr can't write and apply his own patch is because he, like I, could quite easily probably write the code. The problem is, in the process, we'd made spring go "Kabloooey!"

Workaround until then: Make the sound in the FireWeapon script function instead of using the tags.

In the past, I've written patches that made spring go kablooey and with the help of other people have gotten them to make spring look prettier.

Its worth the effort.

AF wrote:Its worth the effort.

QFT!

AF wrote:In the past, I've written patches that made spring go kablooey and with the help of other people have gotten them to make spring look prettier.

Its worth the effort.

I seem to remember quite negative feedbacks from the developers. So much that eventually your comint previledges have been revocked. Or did i misunderstood something?

I can read C++ and generally understand what's going on, but to edit it from scratch is beyond my current skill level.

That said, I do intend to learn C++ at some point and make some useful contributions... but I haven't got the free time for silly little AA tweaks right now, let alone learning a scripting language.

Caydr wrote:I can read C++ and generally understand what's going on, but to edit it from scratch is beyond my current skill level.

That said, I do intend to learn C++ at some point and make some useful contributions... but I haven't got the free time for silly little AA tweaks right now, let alone learning a scripting language.

I'd say the same, but my university is kind enough to teach me C++ anyway