Glest tower defense

[me5]

Is there a tower defense mod for glest or will there be tower defense maps?
It is a lot of fun playing tower defense (like frozen throne) when all the monster hordes comes and you play it over LAN!!!

Update! (2010.07.30)
Now I use GAE for this "mod".

get it here: http://www.filefront.com/17158263/GAETD.7z

Here is an ingame screeny http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/5088/screenib.png 

Known features (it's not a bug it's a feature )
#a lot of units with no sound
#lowpoly towers
#lowskilledtexturer-texturs
#now and then some units get stuck

It's more an attempt to improve my lua coding skills and look if TD could be done using GAE.

[Idanwin]

I have thought about it, and maybe others did so too.
But no one has released a TD mod (yet).
Maybe you should try and make one?

[me5]

I would if I could. I have only low c++ knowledge. Never did a mod before. I think the biggest problem would be the coding. I know Blender a little so I could do some ugly towers but to code all the stuff would be very hard.

[Mark]

You don't need to know c++ to make a mod.  You just need to know modeling, xml, and image work/texturing.

[Dor]

Curses, there goes another one of my ideas i thought was original.

But i might be able to help, but i dunno..

[wciow]

TD is techincally possible in Glest now. The only issues that i can see are the lack of decent ai pathing which will fail on maze maps and lack of a timer in the lua scripting (although this can be worked around).

[Omega]

It could be done easily if you decide to mod it yourself.

(see glest.110mb.com to learn how to make mods)

However, it may not neccessarily need to be scripted. If you set starting units, that may work (although I don't know Tower Defense, so I'm assuming nothing new in features, just building towers to stop monsters?).

Of course, scripting would be best. GAE is currently trying to put scripting in it, and after that is done, they will try to add new lua scripting commands. Of course, the above website, teaches lua too.

@Wciow: how did you get around the lack of a timer? I tried calling upon os.time() function, but no matter when it was called upon, it would return the same time, meaning that it is most likely when the game started, rather than when I call it... The best thing to do is just have monsters spawn after an event (such as another monster dying). As for maze maps, you can try to have straight paths with lots of sub branches to confuse human players. I did that once to test something. The AI was flawless, and I got lost!

[Mark]

Geez!  No one seems to be posting.  Alright, I volunteer.  (btw, i think that a tower defense mod would be awesome! )  I had a dream last night that involved a couple of demons and strange creatures.  Don't ask me why i have these dreams.  I have modified that and have come up with a monster foe faction for the towers. 

Here goes.

Buildings:
Main Building:  Spawn Point. Crystal bowl surrounded by bloody demon skulls.
Energy Producing Building: Soul Well.  http://www.gazebodepot.com/grdnacc/images/well/well02.jpg Has blue-gemstone-eyed skulls on top roof type thing.

Units:
Slave: Basic unit.  Gathers resources.  No attack.
Summoning Unit:  Necromancer.  http://aoc-hub.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/necromancer.jpg  Has a staff that he slams to the ground with to attack.
Demon:  Red, horned, hunchbacked beast with metal blade tipped staff.
Devil:  Promoted from Demon.  Stereotypical satan type being.  Armed with a trident.
Demon Lord:  Huge scaled beast with a huge scimitar as a weapon.

I am not too sure about the upgrades, to be truthful.

Whew! felt good to get that out of my head!  Please respond.

[Omega]

Good god... Dreams about daemons, what next? (reccommended you get help. Anyone dreaming about daemons is NOT normal)

While the concept seems good, please do not make ANYTHING until you can model. Modeling isn't that hard once you get the hang of it, and most put it off merely because they aren't satisfied with their results after tutorials, or because they are intimidated by the interface, along with a mental barrier (could it have something to do with those daemons?).

Mods are so much better when you can model, and new models are a MUST have for mods. Notice how few people download the Invaders that modman made, while so many download the mod mega pack? Dispite using the same models, the invader's models are no longer new, thus losing appeal to many people. These days, so much is graphically coordinated, and the graphics of a game can make or break a game very quickly, not to the real gamers, but to those buying (or downloading in the freeware/shareware case) the graphics are what catch the eye. Oh and maybe the titles too. The content only comes in handy AFTER the person stops to examine the game.

Oh, and I apologize for the monologue above. I am just a little sick of half baked mods that 'steal' other peoples work. (a couple units are ok, but when you go around 'borrowing' these units for all or most of the units, you may as well clone the friggin' thing, because no matter how you texture, its still not your work!).

SUGGESTIONS:
-Learn Modeling (its the summer, for petes sake. Take a week to get the basics, and you'll improve from there)
OR
-Learn modeling (always repeat important lines)
OR
-Abandon mod (not recommended, has potential, needs skill)

[me5]

I read a little about mods and glest and now I have some questions.

1.How can I tell units to move along a path?
I only found "givePositionCommand(lastCreatedUnit(), 'type', startLocation(0))" but it will only send the unit to a startlocation right?

2.How can I make a street "walkable" for units but forbid the player build buildings on ?

P.S. I dream about nacked women

[modman]

Good god... Dreams about daemons, what next? (recommended you get help. Anyone dreaming about daemons is NOT normal)

While the concept seems good, please do not make ANYTHING until you can model. Modeling isn't that hard once you get the hang of it, and most put it off merely because they aren't satisfied with their results after tutorials, or because they are intimidated by the interface, along with a mental barrier (could it have something to do with those daemons?).

Hehee! 

Notice how few people download the Invaders that modman made, while so many download the mod mega pack? Dispite using the same models, the invader's models are no longer new, thus losing appeal to many people.

Again, I didn't make Invaders, Mark did.

I really hope I get my nerve up to do modeling...I think a good troubleshooting method would be to make a screen capture movie of it and see if someone on this forum can help me; otherwise, I always hit roadblocks.

[Omega]

1.How can I tell units to move along a path?

2.How can I make a street "walkable" for units but forbid the player build buildings on ?

I fear that you will not like the answers to these questions...

1. You currently can't. However, GAE is merging Glest, and once lua is implimented, they hope to add new features including a way to walk to a place on a grid (x,y) format. Hopefully there will be some way to check a units location as well, so to see when they reach it, we can add in another coordinate. However, this is not yet implimented, but will hopefully be by the end of summer.

2. I am sorry to say it is not possible. Perhaps in the future we could have the streets as a 'building' using a suggestion made by someone on GAE board which they suggested the ability to have cellmaps that can state wether a place is walkable, buildable, or not. However, that is unfortunately not a priority, and GAE was mostly unmoved by it. Perhaps if you present your example, they will think about it a little closer, but again it would take lots of time, and we are very short in programs (we have 2 active).

@Modman: Sorry about the mixup. It was posted by your acount (i think) and I can't keep track of you two! 

Also, I think you'll be able to do modeling well, and I'm happy to help. After military, I plan on updating the Glest Guide's modeling, texturing, animating pages, as well as add in GLADE and GAE pages. I realized that as I get better, the modeling/animating/texturing seems poor and outdated. I also plan to unbias the texturing page, which is more of a paint.net tutorial than a texturing page. If you can wait until I finish military and get those pages done, I think you'll be nicely rewarded!

The modeling/texturing/animation paeg will be simplified, use better techniques, and have more images. They will go by the moto of 'Learn to Model or Bust!'. I hope to make them as to GUARANTEE that after completing a series of tutorials split into steps, you will be able to model. Of course, I expect a time requirement of at least 4-6 hours... Paltry sum to learn to model!

[Mark]

P.S. I dream about nacked women

Good for you.

Good god... Dreams about daemons, what next? (reccommended you get help. Anyone dreaming about daemons is NOT normal)

I dream about all kinds of things.  But for that you're calling me abnormal?

Dispite using the same models, the invader's models are no longer new, thus losing appeal to many people. These days, so much is graphically coordinated, and the graphics of a game can make or break a game very quickly, not to the real gamers, but to those buying (or downloading in the freeware/shareware case) the graphics are what catch the eye. Oh and maybe the titles too. The content only comes in handy AFTER the person stops to examine the game.

The invaders mod has no new models but has new textures, images and all the xmls are realistic and fixed.  Considering the fact that most people probably only played domineonic once or twice, it is like new. 

[Omega]

P.S. I dream about nacked women

Hmm, disturbing... Nice, but slightly disturbing... I wouldn't recommend sharing that with any women.

OT:
Concerning dreams, I never seem to remember what I have dreamed for years. The last dreams I can remember are from when I was maybe eight. Oddly, I remember every detail of them (ok, only of the nightmares, but still, I remember them). Isn't it odd how in dreams you always seem to run at a very slow pace? (or at least when running away from something). Nightmares often seem to have some odd imaginary beast. Still, its odd how I haven't had a dream that I can remember for so long, since supposedly we dream many times every night, and despite some of the horror movies I've seen that SHOULD have left nightmares (especially since I watch with the lights OUT) and the drama movies that SHOULD have given happy dreams of love and blah blah blah... Maybe my memory is corrupted?

Maybe daemons aren't abnormal... Maybe that's just me because I can't recall ever dreaming of daemons. The stupidest dream I remember is from when I was maybe 6 (or so) I had a nightmare where I was running away from some giant mutant (?) porcupine. Naturally, I seemed to float on air and was unable to run away. Now, laugh all you want, I WAS six (or so) after all!

@Mark: True, but to people who played the megapack and know its models well, they can recognize them, and then they feel negative points towards it (usually towards the seconds one they played, regardless of wether or not it was the original source of the models). Of course, some won't care, but its best to have models that are new because people like seeing new things. At the very least, buildings don't need anim, so they can be easy to make, and are most noticable when playing.

As for this domineonic, I only just heard of it from you. Not sure if I plan to play it or not (should I? Where is it? What is it? Link?!?).


PS: I dream of... well nothing. I can't remember what I dream of!

[John.d.h]

I think scenario scripting would be the way to go when it comes to Tower Defense, rather than making a new tech tree.  Maybe I'm wrong. *shrug*

[me5]

I think a new tech tree is not the big problem. The BIG problem is how to say to the monsters where they have to go.
I thought of a simple map where some monsters are spawn and walk along a path and there is a worker who can build one type of towers, I think this would be the first step to take. If that works you can model new monsters and towers and so on.

[Omega]

You could just have it as a normal tech tree, where one player is defensive, having mostly towers and only a few units, while the other faction is offensive, having mostly attacking units and few buildings. There's no need to follow the games exactly...

[me5]

I think if the monsters can run freely on the map it will be very hard to defense. For example one could send the monsters along the edge of the map.

[titi]

No if the monsters are send with the help of a scenario, they will go to their target as straight as possible.
I think you should try it with some special desigend maps and a scenario controlling the opponents.
This will all end up in something different then usual tower defense games, but I'm quite shure you will end up with something very interisting to play. My son is also thinking about something like this.

Some thoughts about about a glest tower defense mod
- you have workers which build the towers ( and maybe harvest ressources )
- towers and workers can be attacked by opponents ( but they must not attack them, this depends on your scenario )
- depending on the map setup you may build a tower in the way of the enemy units. But they will be able to kill this tower.

[Omega]

While it would be better scripted, suppose I want to be the monsters? Or suppose I want to try multiplayer, where my friend is the monsters and I'm the defending towers? That would be far more fun, since CPU suck, and scripting does not yet allow a good cpu for this!

[Mark]

Your son has ideas that are very good, titi.

Some of my own:
-There should be a boss (main tower, maybe one that stores resources)
-There would be no food/energy resource for the tower faction
-The workers would not be able to attack
-If only humans were to play as the towers
     *There could be something called a gate.  It would be used to have a sort of defended ground for the workers to go in the case of an attack.  (The way this would be done is it would morph into a 'closed gate, from an open gate, which would be completely walkable.)  This way, the workers would not be slaughtered while the towers remain intact.  The gate idea could also be helpful for blocking a roadway.
     *Someone would probably have to go back and enlarge pathways, cut out small trails and delete large amounts of trees in order to help AI pathfinding.  That is if this mod would use Glest's maps.
-If humans were to play as the monsters and the computer as the towers, (which somehow doesn't seem to have the appeal of the other way around to me, because of the crappy AI),
     *We would probably want a more complicated monsters techtree and the towers techtree to be extremely simple.
-Scripted maps would be a must for scenarios, because of the lack of possibilities in the techtrees themselves.

[Omega]

Some of these things are not possible and may never be possible. Lets try to stay realistic here guys, unless you plan on making your own separate game. There is not way to tell the AI not to attack something (such as your worker), and there's no way to tell wether the faction is played by human or cpu.

Also, this would be best for MULTIPLAYER, due to glest's rather poor AI. Perhaps AI should be a focus for developerment. Notice how some games like Bioshock have great AI, but other likes Mercenaries 2 have horribly stupid AI? The way I see it, AI can make or break a game. Perhaps Glest could have invisible 'moods' for each faction that can't be seen by the player, and is randomly chosen, and will affect if they are offensive, defensive, and the strategies they would use. Of course, the custom maps do make AI navigation and strategies harder to use (ie: its difficult to surround the foe).

I still think this should be in two versions. V1 is just normal factions, meant mostly for multiplayer, and players can be either monsters OR towers. Version 2 can have the basic scenarios when (and if) they ever become available. For now, it seems pointless just waiting because there's no way to do this or that...

[Mark]

Some of these things are not possible and may never be possible. Lets try to stay realistic here guys, unless you plan on making your own separate game.

It was in my understanding that that was the idea. ??? ??? ???

There is not way to tell the AI not to attack something (such as your worker), and there's no way to tell wether the faction is played by human or cpu.

I don't think i explained properly.  I was thinking of this mod being one of two things: A Mod for internet with people playing whatever faction they like, or a different mod where people are only able to play scripted scenarios, where they are the towers.

[me5]

I was trying to script a little bit but it didn't work out.
I want to spawn monsters when all units of a faction are dead.

Code: [Select]

<unitCreated>

if unitCount(1)==0 and unitCount(0)>=0 then

for i=1, 4 do
createUnit('initiate', 1, startLocation(1))
givePositionCommand(lastCreatedUnit(1), 'move', startLocation(0))

end

end

</unitCreated>
I also needed "if unitCount(0) !=0 then" but I got an error trying this I think there is a problem because of the "!" but I don't know why.

[modman]

The exclamation point (!) indicates negation, so it says if unit count DOES NOT = zero, then.  So this contradicts the above text:

I want to spawn monsters when all units of a faction are dead.

I'm confused, but hopefully I helped.