Topics

1

MegaGlest / Objective attack

« on: 25 December 2014, 06:54:24 »

I realize moving while attacking isn't really a thing and probably won't be for megaglest's near future, but I was wondering if there's any way to remove the prerequisite for the unit to turn and face an object prior to attacking it? I'm a novice at programming but if someone could kick me in the right direction that'd be great.

(what I want to do is have the unit utilize the attack_stopped type instead to simulate the effect, without the turning giving it away)

2

Mods / How to Sensor?

« on: 19 April 2014, 17:48:03 »

I was thinking about interesting ways to handle the RTS game trope of 'fog of war' in way that'd be authentic to my setting and what seemed to be pretty cool is implementing a radar of sorts.

Not anything too tricky, just having units be able to 'spot' enemies in a radius outside their usual view range without having a positive ID on what exactly it is. So, for instance, infantrymen A will be able to convey there are enemies nearby, but the commander will have to either risk units or get something with moar view to figure out just what the threat is. This would add a nice dimension to gameplay, I think.

My inspiration, SC2's sensor tower, handles it like so:


You can see pretty clearly that the red Warning Icons are indicative of zealots converging in on the Terran player's position.

In effect what needs to happen is for warning icons to appear over enemy units within a certain radii of friendly units - basically a secondary view range. In Glest, I'm not really sure how to do something like this. It might not even be possible. Given that, I'd be willing to try to code it in myself but I don't know where to start - my programming knowledge amounts to some basic lua and java at best. Any recommendations as far as that, or finding some Macgyver way to make this work?

3

Off topic / Pyrogenesis vs. Glest/Megaglest (as an engine)

« on: 13 February 2014, 21:35:23 »

Because according to tomreyn this kind of thread is really necessary.

Both are open source, and are thusly really easy to mod, though Pyro takes the lead here since you can export directly into opensource COLLADA format as opposed to g3d. Both engines use the really easy xml standard to define characteristics, which is tops. I haven't compared any of the xmls I've worked on with this engine with those of Pyro's; by the looks of things the only difference is there's a bit more subdivision regarding folder structure.

As far as content goes, it's really a matter of taste between Megaglest's default techtree and the ten or so available in Pyrogenesis's own flagship game, 0AD. The assets in the latter are indubitably higher quality, but there's also a bit less of them and balance is a mess at the moment. Additionally, more of an engine fault if anything is the fact that Pyro seems to be choppy on machines that should meet its system requirements, which are a bit higher than its opponent here, but should you meet them it just kicks Glest's requisite low-poly style out of the water.

So that said, is there really any reason to consider Glest as a platform for development when Pyrogenesis offers a lot more graphical flexibility? I'd like to hear thoughts on this; while a ton of people are going to obviously be very biased on this subject matter given the forum's mission, anyone's experience with Pyro compared to Glest would greatly contribute to the topic of this thread.

4

General discussion / An inquiry!

« on: 10 December 2013, 19:57:27 »

So I've been really lazy lately but just started generating ideas in el cabeza, when the prospect of squad combat inevitably broke the surface of the murk. Naturally, I furiously googled the subject to find that GAE's pet system might offer a solution!

Basically, a pet is a unit made by another unit for maximum unitception. So, okay, what if instead of making a unit, the barracks created a Sergeant instead, who could then create lesser units up to a cap before charging into combat? And if they fell it's only natural that the squad would be 'broken', in keeping with all pets dying upon owner death!

My question here is whether pets are selectable, if they follow their 'owner', and if there's a way to rectify those two issues with my little scheme if the answers are yes and no, respectively.

(Also, as a sidenote, is there a way to have multiple sounds per unit on being selected, etc?)

Thank you for your time, this community is awesome, and I am hyper as all hell right now.

5

Mods / Subcommanders?

« on: 3 November 2013, 04:19:25 »

So I got to thinking (which usually only ends in much disappointment) about what makes a good strategy game. Detail? Yes. Fidelity is a must. Unit variety. It can't just be copy pasta with one unique unit per side. But, scale. One would think that the bigger the better, yes? Lest things become a Starcraft spam fest. Yet that isn't the case - games like Supreme Commander show that once you get to that number of troops onscreen things get unmanageable without Korean level micro. You end up just mindlessly flinging your guys at the enemies in hordes at a time, crossing your fingers that they'll come on top. Even in 'realistic' titles like Wargame there aren't really any tactics involved, so this flaw becomes exceedingly apparent in an AOE type game like Glest.

Alright, so how could that be rectified? Well, why not focus on the macro level of things, as per real militaries? For example, an officer would not charge headfirst onto the battlefield and delegate orders to the lowliest of privates. He would instead hang back, observing the overall tactical situation and dictate commands to his subordinate officers. They will then comply and relay their instructions to their own underlings as necessary. So let's say a player in Glest/Megaglest/GAE/what-have-you is that officer, and while he always has the ability to instruct units directly, it'd be easier to appoint a subcommander to a control group (CTRL+#) and issue orders to a group - for example, 'hold position', 'assault', etc, and have an AI do it's damnedest to figure out what you want and carry it out. The glorious comrade leader can now relax and focus on building up his base, only pausing to reinforce his control groups as necessary instead of frantically clicking about.

My question is whether this is even possible - to pretty much give the player a subordinate AI responsible for a selection of units, yet also strictly adhere to any 'stances' given to it. Would you need one for each control group, at that?

6

Mods / Modelling infantry

« on: 1 September 2013, 02:26:02 »

Hey, I've been making models for vehicles and stuff, and have made them as lo-poly as physically possible, but when it comes to making infantry I'm stuck - what is the poly budget there? How do you make them fit within it while still staying true to concept art? Annex seems to do it through superb texture work, but that's not something I have at my disposal. 

Also, not sure how to go about animating. Do you just rig it and animate like other games, and then follow the export procedure outlined on the wiki? There are blender tutorials, yes, but I'm a max user 4lyfe and all.