Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

Programmers discuss here anything related to FreeOrion programming. Primarily for the developers to discuss.

Moderator: Committer

Message
Author
User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#1 Post by strooka »

:arrow: Version 0.322 issues go here!

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - ship movement, grid, starlane entries

#2 Post by strooka »

i have implemented very basic ship movement :mrgreen:
i can place them from one position to another.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#3 Post by strooka »

The Grid will Be always shown relative to the selected Ship. If there are more than One ships selected, the Grid will use them like One Ship selected. Also i ve thought about Movement. Every Ship Class will have its own turning Factor. In Addition with the Speed Set there will Be à turn Circle computed. Also when deaccelerating, the Ship has to turn around and give thrust, if there are no Engines at the Front. Easy to use ships that Act like on Earth will become boring fast and there will Be no difference to Ground combat.
If more than One Ship is selected and there is a Crash while turning and moving, both ships explode, but there wont Be à Way for Kamikaze Small ships. This would make weapons obsolete. Or they wont have shields and the bigger ones have.
When à Ship explodes, the mesh will Be inflated giving the possibility to affect other ships by the explosion and it will transform into Space debris.
At least i ve thought about gravity. Ships shouldn't come near to the sun, this wouldn't Be realistic. I have à Complete Java program that handles gravity.
As i saw the graphics thread, i realized a grapical Interface for Managing Fleets.
I don't Know actually what all will Be implemented in it, i think à Ship Overview should Be Most important.

User avatar
pd
Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 1924
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:17 pm
Location: 52°16'N 10°31'E

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#4 Post by pd »

You're doing all kinds of game design decisions on the fly there. The 0.4 design document doesn't go into too much detail in regards to movement, so that's expected I guess. I'm not sure whether they'll withstand coming discussions, but I wanted to make sure you are aware of this. Anyone is eager for a combat prototype and we can always change things once we are able to test it.
i think à Ship Overview should Be Most important.
I agree, and it's the next step to do in the 0.4 combat UI thread.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#5 Post by strooka »

Mechcommander 2 became fast boring cause you could concentrate all Fire on One mech. That made armour almost obsolete. If you have to Split your Forces cause of the Explosion Radius, larger battles would Be possible.
When using larger ships there should Be à difference between Large and Point Defense weapons. Point Defense weapons should have an firing Radius based on the Part of Structure they are mounted on. Large weapons should in Case of à normal Ship( Not the seed sphere) only possibility to Fire forwards or in Case of Rest mounted weapons backwards. Or you define à larger Ship with turrets, but this should Be made later.
If you Attack you specify to give à certain thrust and à Destination to Move and an Target. The program will compute à moving path for moving and firing. If the Ship hasnt enough steering Power it will shoot and don't Hit. It Hits maybe another Target it don't want to Hit. Ships are always displaced cause of the gravity if they don't Move. The nearer you come to the Sun or à Planet, the more gravity you have.
Last edited by strooka on Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Bigjoe5
Designer and Programmer
Posts: 2058
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:33 pm
Location: Orion

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#6 Post by Bigjoe5 »

strooka wrote:Also i ve thought about Movement. Every Ship Class will have its own turning Factor.
For the sake of simplicity, every ship should be able to fully reverse its momentum in the same amount of time (probably 1 combat turn), or accelerate from 0 to full speed in the same amount of time. This implies that turning by any amount would take the same amount of time for any ship, and thus minimum turning radius is entirely dependent on ship speed. For now, at least - this doesn't mean that different accelerations for ships can't be added if it becomes appropriate.
strooka wrote:Easy to use ships that Act like on Earth will become boring fast and there will Be no difference to Ground combat.
Ships should be easy to use... interesting tactics will come primarily from the relative placement of different ship types, and the specific attack orders which are given to ships, rather than on figuring out how to manipulate the movement of a particular ship (controlling precise movement probably won't be possible - the player will give the order to move to point X or attack ship A, and the ship or group of ships will go about doing so in the most efficient way possible).
strooka wrote:If more than One Ship is selected and there is a Crash while turning and moving, both ships explode, but there wont Be à Way for Kamikaze Small ships. This would make weapons obsolete. Or they wont have shields and the bigger ones have.
tzlaine wrote:- Assumption: Ships can pass through each other. That's right! I said it! Ships are not solid wen it comes to other ships. This is done because its much easier to implement than doing collision detection and pathfinding to move around potential collisions. All the ships will be in the plane of the system's ecliptic. This means that we're not using that third dimension for anything, so it's reasonable to say "They could fly past each other at different heights, so let's pretend they are." Actually implementing this passing-each-other business is a lot harder than you might think, so let's KISS and fake it (so to speak).
Also, strictly from a design perspective, having ships able to crash into each other is a bad idea, since that adds too much complexity for the player to keep track of.
strooka wrote:When à Ship explodes, the mesh will Be inflated giving the possibility to affect other ships by the explosion and it will transform into Space debris.
Good. Exploding ships damaging nearby ships is good, but it shouldn't happen all the time - probably just when the ship self-destructs, or when a particular type of ship is destroyed normally. However, having the debris remaining as an actual object (as opposed to just graphics) is bad, and unnecessary if you can't crash into it/interact with it in some other way.
strooka wrote:At least i ve thought about gravity. Ships shouldn't come near to the sun, this wouldn't Be realistic. I have à Complete Java program that handles gravity.
Ships will go as near to the sun as is appropriate for gameplay purposes, to the point of certain ships (perhaps) being able to enter the sun itself. Gravity should not be included at this stage in development, but should be added later if it will add interesting tactics to the game.
strooka wrote:Mechcommander 2 became fast boring cause you could concentrate all Fire on One mech. That made armour almost obsolete. If you have to Split your Forces cause of the Explosion Radius, larger battles would Be possible.
There will definitely be more ways to create tactics than the explosion radius. Take a look at this part of the Design Pad for some ideas regarding how tactics will be created in combat. Also, this thread shows what various tactics will be possible, but it is currently at a very early stage, and not extremely useful for getting a big picture of everything that will contribute to tactics. Point being, you don't need to add any extra features specifically for the purpose of creating tactical interest - such features can be added later if necessary.
strooka wrote:When using larger ships there should Be à difference between Large and Point Defense weapons. Point Defense weapons should have an firing Radius based on the Part of Structure they are mounted on. Large weapons should in Case of à normal Ship( Not the seed sphere) only possibility to Fire forwards or in Case of Rest mounted weapons backwards. Or you define à larger Ship with turrets, but this should Be made later.
If you Attack you specify to give à certain thrust and à Destination to Move and an Target. The program will compute à moving path for moving and firing. If the Ship hasnt enough steering Power it will shoot and don't Hit. It Hits maybe another Target it don't want to Hit. Ships are always displaced cause of the gravity if they don't Move. The nearer you come to the Sun or à Planet, the more gravity you have.
No. All weapons can fire in all directions without difference or inequality. Ships cannot miss their targets, and cannot fire without a target. Everything a ship shoots hits the target (unless it is LR, in which case it can be destroyed before hitting the target).

It's possible that weapon accuracy, including the possibility of accidentally hitting something else could be added later, but it is unlikely that firing arcs will ever be added.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#7 Post by strooka »

No, i'm Not going to make Space Combat like thousands of other Games like Command and conquer. PLZ have à look at the edited post. The Combat should Be in my opinion half Action based, but still turn based. If i do it like you Said we don't Need an executing round where all is resolved. This would also make Hot Seat Play impossible cause it is going to become real Time Combat. And this is really nothing New. Let's prefer the difficulties.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#8 Post by strooka »

Then we Need no opensteer Lib, no bullet Lib. And Could create à 2D Combat. Let's Play moo2 :) tzlane Said that in a Phase of the project He didn't Know how to figure it out.

User avatar
pd
Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 1924
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:17 pm
Location: 52°16'N 10°31'E

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#9 Post by pd »

Strooka, you need to realize that this is a team effort. Game design people are doing game design, programmers program and artists do art. Most of the people of the current staff have been actively contributing to the project for 4 years or longer and have a fairly good understanding of how things should be done.

Nobody can do what he wants. Programmers have to refer to the established game design. You talking about weapon arcs, made me realize, you haven't actually looked at the game design documents...

Geoff once said:
[...]we can't reevaluate every previous decision every time someone has an idea that don't fit with / completely ignores what's already been decided, and it's unreasonable to expect that we would.

Not getting everything you want is a disadvantage, and an advantage, of working in a team.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#10 Post by strooka »

I am Talking about tactics , Not strategies. Both can live together very well. I'm Not redesigning. Ok i'll use the Standard Grid and the other Things. But the Details of moving are very important for playing the Game. Resulting the Combat is somewhat Special anew, or Not.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#11 Post by strooka »

Ok, Let's put it together and Look if you agree:
- ships accelerate /deacclerate in One Round if you assign it( this means they Must turn in the approitate direction, also enough turning thrust Left in Case of deaccleration)
- there will Be Mount points( forward/backward/ all directions)
- Ship Movement is Done by Setting Speed- setting direction- Setting Target to Attack
- ships have à Turning rate/ max Speed
- the Players Set their Moves Round based and the Computer executes the Moves in à resolve Round
- gravity is enabled and modifys the Movement
- resulting Round Let's the ships Not Hit if forward/ backward mounted and turning and/ or Sun modifier doesnt fit
- explosions sometimes Hit other ships As well
- the Grid will Be laid on the x-z axis
- ships cannot Crash in each other( until you assign à Kamikaze)
- weapons will Be bullet Lib based( collision detection and all Effects that come with it are enabled)


is this good enough?

Note that it should Be Room for beginners also for experienced Players and i have also Room Left for the Computer. It's all up to the Ship Design :)

User avatar
pd
Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 1924
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:17 pm
Location: 52°16'N 10°31'E

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#12 Post by pd »

strooka wrote:Ok, Let's put it together and Look if you agree:
- ships accelerate /deacclerate in One Round if you assign it( this means they Must turn in the approitate direction, also enough turning thrust Left in Case of deaccleration)
Yes, I think.
- there will Be Mount points( forward/backward/ all directions)
No.
- Ship Movement is Done by Setting Speed- setting direction- Setting Target to Attack
No. Ships move to a selected target, with a certain speed(perhaps using stacked targets/waypoints). Ships that are part of a fleet/battlegroup probably move with the speed of the slowest ship in this group, in the same way the ships move on the galaxy map. Damage will perhaps incluence the movement speed.
- ships have à Turning rate/ max Speed

No, they can turn and have a certain speed.
- the Players Set their Moves Round based and the Computer executes the Moves in à resolve Round
Players simultanously give orders and then turns play out. Orders can be stacked, I think.
- gravity is enabled and modifys the Movement
No, not yet at least.
- resulting Round Let's the ships Not Hit if forward/ backward mounted and turning and/ or Sun modifier doesnt fit
Not sure what you mean by sun modifier, but there's definitely no mounting.
- explosions sometimes Hit other ships As well
Yes.
- the Grid will Be laid on the x-z axis
If y is up, then yes. The ecliptic is the battlefield.
- ships cannot Crash in each other
Right.


Someone correct me, in case I'm wrong. I don't know about the last point(implementation detail: bullet) and kamikaze is probably not going to happen anytime soon either.

User avatar
strooka
Space Kraken
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:34 pm
Location: Bielefeld, Germany

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#13 Post by strooka »

:roll: i know i make you a headache, but could we come to the position that we have an option to enable mount points and bullet?
it might be interesting for experienced players, that want a game mod to make the combat more based on their fighting abilities.
the only thing i want is to make a difference between rockets and lasers / other ray weapons and the point of the agility of fighters.
i dont want to put in a random value for hitting the aim with lasers like it was in moo2, because of this we used only rockets.

you couldn't count on lasers.

also when the fighters are far more agile than the battleships, the battleships can't take them out with their front weapons.
they have to mount point defense. what makes carriers usable.
i dont want to make a mount screen for the different regions of the ships, that would go too much in detail. it's just the detail between point defense and heavy weapons.

this do i mean by "mount points" maybe we could come to the solution that the aiming radius of the weapon is limited.

also i don't think that this is a problem for ai programming. i think about implementing ai players like the borg in startrek, which aren't limited in firing ranges etc. like the player.

User avatar
Redcap
Graphics
Posts: 124
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:10 am

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#14 Post by Redcap »

I don't speak for the whole community but I think that ship mounts would be cool, but not necessary. I think if someone wanted to mod the game it could be done, but as it stands "keep it simple" seems to be the slogan, and cosidering we don't even have a game with combat in it yet, I would also be inclined to just get the basics implemented first and then play around with mounting and other fancy things like that.

But with that said, I am just so excited that you are actually programming some of the game, it has been a while since I have seen so much activity in the programming sector. So keep it up!!! :)

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Version 0.322 - selection highlighting, grid, ship movement

#15 Post by eleazar »

strooka wrote::roll: i know i make you a headache, but could we come to the position that we have an option to enable mount points and bullet?
it might be interesting for experienced players, that want a game mod to make the combat more based on their fighting abilities.
the only thing i want is to make a difference between rockets and lasers / other ray weapons and the point of the agility of fighters....
Strooka, welcome. It's great to have another programming on board. :)

The list of features that we do and don't have that pd is referring to should be understood as a foundation. While there are design reasons that we have rejected some features, other features are simple because we simply went with the minimum possible implementation, with the understanding that we could much better evaluate some feature ideas after we had a playable version to test. I haven't looked at the fleet combat parts for a while, so i don't remember exactly which areas were flagged for possible future elaboration.

You may be right and the ship combat we've designed is too simple to be interesting long-term. But the time to worry about that isn't now. We can much more effectively figure out what (if anything) needs to be enhanced or added after we've all had a chance to test ship combat in the context of the rest of the game.

Post Reply