The Art of War version 0.1

[martin]

EDIT: It, apparently, is possible to get the teams 0 and 2 DGs to work like the reds by using an AI. Is this true on other OSs?

I don't know. I have never tried it. Give me minute...

It works on Macs. If a level contains a green AI unit and AITargets, the green units will be attracted to those targets like red DGs. Interesting.

I've used this is a mod, I think if you glance at, umm, war? or maybe Civil war? anyway, I'm sure one of my public mods uses this - I was using it heavily for FTP (stopped by lack of Gfx card) as DGs take care of themselves and then you control squads. Also I've found it useful for a lot of my cutscenes

Also, why are different DGs differently sized? What is this a function of? Is there a way to manually call it?

Why are different people different sizes? It is just another quirk of the nature of DGs As to controlling it manually, as far as I can tell, no. However, I hadn't even noticed that they were different until you mentioned it. It is really subtle, too. Nifty.

I think that smaller DGs have less health - not sure about that - but I think if you watch DGs popping out of a spawner they're really small, then they get bigger until hitting a certain cap, then they get shot and get smaller.

[Shwart!!]

I haven't played your mods, so I didn't know you had used that strategy.

About the differently sized DGs- Try making a team 3 AISpawnpoint for DGs. They wont move, so you can easily see the size difference. Some just start larger than others, and none of them grow. When they get shot, it doesn't make them smaller- damage is indicated by the darkness of the DG.

Also, try to get your quotes working properly in the future.

[xander]

Hmmm... I must've done it wrong... There is now an empty hole where globalworldinner should be- that's the only one I've done yet. I think I followed all your steps right... probably a tabbing issue... and it's not just too far out to see it.
2 things could help me with this- steps for reversing the tabbing issue, or someone just doing it for me- probably in a 3d editor. Neither of which is likely.

The step of replacing spaces with tabs can probably be skipped. Basically, you want your spreadsheet to understand each column as a column. When I paste the "raw" text into Excel, it regards each space as a column break, so many of the columns are in the wrong place. Replacing the spaces with tabs, and reducing the number of tabs to one between each column is just to ensure that it pastes properly. Give me a few minutes, and I will upload a globe that is 10 times bigger :)

-----

EDIT: Okay. The files are done. I have uploaded two files:

globe_2x.zip
globe_10x.zip

These are a globe scaled by 2, and by 10 (the files names should help you out). Having played a bit with the one at 10x, I wouldn't recommend using it. The locations are too far away, and are next to impossible to see. The 2x globe seems to work pretty well, and, remember -- area scales as the square of the scaling factor. You should have four times as much surface area to place units. In fact, I predict that it will look almost empty with only 40 locations.

Also, remember that when you place locations, they are going to be placed where the original globe should be, not on the surface of the new shape. This means that when you place a location, you are going to have to do quite a bit of tweaking by hand. I would recommend that you try to place all of your locations on the normal globe, then migrate them all to their "proper" locations at the same time by scaling the numbers in locations.txt.

Finally, remember that every time you add a location, all of the comments or extra whitespace that you have in game.txt will be eliminated, and many entries will be added to the buildings section. Whenever you are editing level locations, it is wise to keep a backup copy of game.txt running around. If you look at Insurrection, you will notice that I have basically three game files -- game.txt (which is what the player uses with a standard profile), game_unlockall.txt (which is what the AAA profile uses), and game_debug.txt (which is more or less identical to game.txt, but won't be messed with if I change something).

I would also suggest that you take a look at the positions sections of the files. Notice that I left all of the tabs in, rather than replacing them with spaces. Darwinia doesn't care what kind of whitespace you have, as long as you have whitespace. :)

xander

[martin]

I haven't played your mods, so I didn't know you had used that strategy.

well, I suggest taking a look
[/pimp]

About the differently sized DGs- Try making a team 3 AISpawnpoint for DGs. They wont move, so you can easily see the size difference. Some just start larger than others, and none of them grow. When they get shot, it doesn't make them smaller- damage is indicated by the darkness of the DG.

indeed, I haven't played darwinia for so long (no grphics card) that I'd forgotten.

Also, try to get your quotes working properly in the future.

like this then

[Shwart!!]

xander, I love you... in an entirely non-gay, you-are-simply-awesome way.
Trust me, the map will not look empty.
I do need some instructions on making seperate mission files- how do you select which one to edit?

And Martin, good job on the quoteie thingies this time.

[xander]

I do need some instructions on making separate mission files- how do you select which one to edit?

You are going to have to be more specific. An overview of mission files:

When you create a location, two files are placed in the levels/ directory of you mod. The first, named map_[levelname].txt, contains the map that you will be playing on, which includes the terrain, buildings (unless you decide to move them), and a few other things. The second file, named mission_[levelname].txt, is a default mission file. It contains camera positions, instant units, mission objectives, and a few other things. These files are referenced in game.txt -- there should be an entry for the location that indicates whether or not the location is available (i.e. if it shows up on the map), the name of the location (this is the name of the files, more or less), an ID, and the name of the mission file being used.

This is where things get interesting. In game.txt, you can specify any mission to be used. Anything that looks like a mission file can be specified. Thus, you can rename the mission, and change that in game.txt, or you can have multiple missions that all apply to the same map. In one of my earlier posts, I describe how to swap out mission files, so I will leave that to you to figure out, unless you can ask a specific question.

xander

[The GoldFish]

The idea I just had WRT having different Access all areas for different completions, create a new map in your AAA game text, and have like 10 designated zones in that map. Have all the missions in the game (other than that map) set to null, but keep them all visible (this just makes life easier)

Then one option is, at the end of each campaign, give a password to the player, such as officer 1, engineer 5, engineer 6 (and have a reminder level at the end of the campaign or something), and have corresponding safe areas in those zones that work to set missions in that campaign, so the levels become playable, as well as visible.

Also try using an invisible virii timer in it to limit the time the player has before the level resets (like 60 seconds or something), mostly to stop people bothering with trying to brute force it - remember that people can just deconstruct your mod and hack access to all the levels anyway, so don't go overboard. (edit - Actually a red DG, an AI unit, and an AItarget is better, and just give the player the amount of time it takes the DG to get to the AItarget with a map held script trigger that exits that level, as AAA doesn't save mission progress it will reset)

With regard to one time spawnable units, it IS possible to do (sort of), but it's HIDEOUS MESS, and you need to do a FadeOut/FadeIn (gap) FadeOut/FadeIn cutscene - the gap CAN be so small you don't notice the FIFO in the middle, however there's a caveat (see later). You just create a clone map (messy), have it use the same mission file, have a map rooted AI spawn point etc in the other map, and have a global safe area in the map so you know when they've spawned (or just hope), and then use that to switch back to the original map (as the units are in the mission file, they're taken with it to the original map). If you use a safe area, it means you need a new map for every 'wave', which is probably good since otherwise the associated cutscene would get old.

The caveat is you need to use an AI spawn point with a timer that will definately only trigger once (unless you like random) (or if you like and is easier, many times, it depends, many times will be high concentration, I think) - afaik AIspawnpoints don't pay attention to spawn population locks but I try to avoid using spawn population locks anyway so I could be wrong. The issue is that AI spawn points spawn units every X seconds, but how far they're into their first spawn timing is random, so it could take anywhere from 0 seconds to X seconds to spawn. If you do 10 every second and change map, wait 5 seconds, and leave, you're prolly gonna have 40 or 50 if you were really unlucky.

Obviously having a fade in [1 second pause] fade out is pretty crappy - I suggest you stealth it or incorporate their appearence into a cutscene or something. Or just find a way around it. Easily accessible triffids which dilver a couple of salvos of units to a specific area that don't trigger till you go near is another option, but involves triffids!

[The GoldFish]

I do need some instructions on making separate mission files- how do you select which one to edit?

In the editor it'll display which mission is set up for that map at the moment while you're on the world map.

Best advice is create a debug level, and in that level have 2 script triggers in the *map*, that trigger on an engineer or something, one sets the map you want to play with's mission to one mission, one sets it to the other, add more for each new mission you need to play with. Since you can play with scripts without restarting, this is a particularly nice way to do it.

Other option is create as many copies of the map as you have different missions, give them all different names and IDs, and attach all the different missions to them, and then be able to edit them quickly in paralell, but this can be dangerous since you have to be pretty much happy with the map as changes in one map won't be shown in the others.

edit - ps, sorry if I'm like, blowing your mind with my crazy hax, hehe.

[Shwart!!]

Hmm... xander, I'm sorry for not being specific enough. I meant is there any way to change the referenced mission file from within the editor... and it sounds like there's not. Would I have to change the referenced mission in game.txt?

TGF, I will need to come back and look at your ideas later. As of right now, they are way beyond my skill level.

EDIT: I ran into this strange, strange glitch on Armory. (My armory, not anyone else's.) A capturable triffid works properly, and is set to spawn DGs or Souls. However, if the egg is in the water when it spawns DGs, strange things happen.

I call them the Surfwinians.

They will go, as a cluster, in one direction forever. In the water. Rotating as they go. When they hit the edge of the map, they stop moving, but continue to rotate. They won't even fire at nearby enemies, even if a red cluster and a yellow cluster are on top of eachother.

The strangest thing is, when they hit shallow water, they all die.

I would post screenshots, but I don't really know how.

On a side note, I am about 1/6 of the way done with the map structuring of TAoW.

[xander]

Hmm... xander, I'm sorry for not being specific enough. I meant is there any way to change the referenced mission file from within the editor... and it sounds like there's not. Would I have to change the referenced mission in game.txt?

Yes.

I would post screenshots, but I don't really know how. :(

Hit [P] to take a screenshot, then host it somewhere on teh internets. A lot of people seem to like ImageShack.

xander

[Shwart!!]

*sigh*

I'm not a complete n00b... key word in that statement being complete. I'm still mostly one.
Note that I said I don't know how to post screenshots. I can easily take them... and I have 6 of them, on my desktop, since I don't know how to post them online. That's what I would like instructions on... although it's unnessesary, unless anyone desperately wants to see what I'm talking about.

Also... xander, unless this offends you, I'm borrowing your name for Primary_Core. Name only, not the map itself... and since I've not started scripting yet, I can change it easily enough, should you request it. (I figure it's better to get this out in the open before distribution... so I don't have an Anihilation to deal with later.)
By Monday, I will have the first beta release ready, if anyone wants to take a look at my maps I'm making for this mod... and since I'm a fairly n00bish map maker, I will appreciate any constructive criticism. I will also have one map battle-ready, except scripting... Primary_Core (or whatever it is being called by then).

And an actual question in this post... Why do my capitalizations in map names keep disappearing? My FCP became fcp, Senate to senate, and nothing I can do can change them back, so far as I know.

[xander]

http://imageshack.com/

As I have my own domain, I have no idea how ImageShack is supposed to work, but that is where many people host their images. You need to upload your image somewhere, so that you can reference it with [img] tags.

xander

[Shwart!!]

I see...

[The GoldFish]

TGF, I will need to come back and look at your ideas later. As of right now, they are way beyond my skill level.

Doh!

And these ideas are the simple ones! Heh.

Also I'm pretty sure no one actually went back to maps in Droughtwinia to realise that the water came back when you finished each level anyway...

Maybe I could drum up like a tech demo of what I mean. You could literally just rip it from that into your mod if you liked, or at least come back and look at it later. I guess I'll get to work on that, it's only like, a 20 minute job anyway... watch this space!

edit - tada! Crazy Showcase!

edit - updated ^ to include a one time spawn dealy - your engineer disappears just cause that's how Darwinia works, your normal units you make would carry through as would everything else.

[xander]

Also I'm pretty sure no one actually went back to maps in Droughtwinia to realise that the water came back when you finished each level anyway...

:`(

You don't give me nearly enough credit -- it took me almost a week to figure out what you had done.

xander