Another thing which was often requested here by modders and also players everywhere was a variable game speed. Guess what, next version will introduce it:
Running the game speed at higher rates demands more performant code. I am pretty happy that some people knowledgeable in that regard especially https://github.com/RoosterDragon but also https://github.com/reaperrr et al. are measuring, identifying bottlenecks and patching those with huge success recently. Next release will ship another bunch of those. They are usually hidden in the changelog under the boring and very generic "Improved in-game CPU performance and memory usage." entry. However they dramatically effect how fluently the game feels, so a huge kudos to our tweaking crew. QUICK_EDIT
I figured that it was time to brush the cobwebs off my old z-buffer prototype. Like the shroud stuff from page two, it will probably take a few months to reimplement it properly and get it merged (so don't expect to see it in our next release). This will fix the issues that we have with units behind cliffs.
The first part of FiveAce's and SoScared's 12-hour OpenRA stream marathon is now up on youtube, and includes the first of several TS matches that they played on a development build. The later parts should be available later in the week, and cover a couple of 2v2 / 3v3 matches. These give a nice (and honest) overview of the current state of our TS mod.
The EVA Audio glitching how it allows sound to stop and play other over is pretty annoying (and embarrassing), should put in timed delay for EVA events or discarding if still playing current event or something...
Gameplay seems pretty laggy, could be just the network connection or recording itself.
Ion Cannon beam drawing logic is apparently still not done.
Seriously, you guys are pushing the bar. I just have to ask, have you thought about updating SOME of Westwood's old assets? Like GDI and Nod colored Mobile Sensor Arrays, so that Nod doesn't have GDI colored ones? Or a neutral looking MCV? Other than that, this looks amazing even if it's half finished. _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
Shaping up nicely. and Doh! on the ice/bridge map. although limitations called for some creative strategies. Keep it up _________________ Delirium.. QUICK_EDIT
I noticed a destroyable cliff that would've allowed the bottom-right player's units to leave the starting area and although I don't know whether this functionality has been implemented yet, they never even attempted to target the destroyable cliff. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:23 pm Post subject:
Destroyable cliffs are not properly converted atm. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Nope, destructible cliffs don't work yet. Here is the 4th part:
They are getting a lot of desyncs, because not everyone is playing the same version. Always make sure you are on the same commit when doing multiplayer matches from the changing development repository. To make sure type
Code:
make version
after fetching the source code from git. QUICK_EDIT
Shouldn't someone program the game itself to do the check for whether they are all using the same version, and then inform the players? Then maybe in the future it should just download the latest version automatically? QUICK_EDIT
It does, but it must be enabled first by running `make version` as matt mentioned above. We don't automate it because that then adds unreasonable build dependencies (forcing people to install git, and then cloning the repo instead of using the zipball) for people who otherwise don't need them (i.e. aren't going to contribute patches or play online). QUICK_EDIT
They were all playing a random development version, with some people deciding to use their own development versions.
Basically the version check failed because people decided to ignore proper versioning.
Eventually someone might decide that the game needs to be more ... human-proof and make it compare every single engine and mod file (which is the only other way to do it), but that's not really a priority (nor is it a very good solution).
Downloading the latest version automatically wouldn't help in this situation, because, like I said, the stream was running a specific development version that was intentionally half a day behind the latest (it was a 12-hour stream, after all). QUICK_EDIT
Impressive. The harvester pathfinding looks pretty smooth, although it takes a slightly longer curve on the last gate than what would be necessary. I also like how it stops on the third gate as if it bumped on it
Also, it would be nice if you could configure whether the laser fence sections are destructible depending on whether they are powered on or off. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Hehe harvester training course. ^^ Looking good! Are projectiles also intercepted by the Firestorm wall? Don't recall if that was the case in original TS. _________________ Delirium.. QUICK_EDIT
Hehe harvester training course. ^^ Looking good! Are projectiles also intercepted by the Firestorm wall? Don't recall if that was the case in original TS.
There's a flag in TS for projectiles called IgnoresFirestorm which, if set, allows the projectile pass through the Firestorm barrier. Otherwise they are instantly destroyed, and a plasma burst animation is played where the projectile vanished. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Funny that disabling the FSgenerator enables the FSwall.
But progress looks really good.
I love that the gates open even a little bit before the harv reached the adjacent cell, thus reducing the time the harv has to wait for the gate to open. In TS it was completely useless to build gates, since they slowed down harvester way too much.
Best would be of course if units approaching to gates, make gates open in the exact right moment, so the unit doesn't has to stop at all (gateopendelay, unit distance and unit speed used for the calculation when to open the gate).
Are these red circles and yellow lines in the last gif, helper lines/circles from the map editor mode? _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2015 2:25 pm Post subject:
Such a precalculation would get a lot of false positives though.
The red circles and the yellow lines are from the combat debug overlay, the red is the actor health circle (hitbox pretty much, radius can be customized but defaults to a cell wide and there's even a WIP PR to make it into other shapes, see https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/9800) the yellow is the height.
Yes, this same overlay shows lines at the FLH positions even and visualizes damages nowadays. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Holy cow that looks amazing. When comparing the animation with http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Firestorm_barrier I assume we are missing a transparency blend mode for the output animation. QUICK_EDIT
Damn, that's beautiful. Note however that in TS, the plasma animation on the corners and junctions played randomly and a lot less often. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Also, in TS you'll see red plasma animations whenever the firestorm wall blocks projectiles, on the exact spots where the projectiles are intercepted.
On a different note, I once read that Westwood originally intended to make the Firestorm defense like a force-field and I'm assuming they ended up implementing it as a wall because they couldn't pull it off as a force-field (well enough) with the original engine. It'd be nice if modders could implement the force-field if they want to. _________________ Last edited by Bittah Commander on Sat Jul 02, 2016 12:10 am; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Kind of like a Stealth Generator that casts an invincibility to all TechnoTypes inside the stealth field? That would certainly be a lot less hassle, unlike building walls. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 11:15 am Post subject:
TS will follow the D2K mod's way - first trying to get close as much as possible to the WW gameplay then fix it's balance, and not during the reimplementation phase.
The projectile blocking animation is likely possible, but I haven't seen the code yet to be certain about it. The randomization rate of the firewall anim is also prolly simple.
If you don't like it, go mod it. That forcefield way is already possible for a good while now, exactly via reusing Stealth Generator's UpgradeActorsNear trait, but instead of granting a stealth upgrade around, the upgrade could grant invulnerability. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
What pchote forgot to mention is this is still a prototype.
Yes, the animations will probably play less often, and yes the impact animations will be there.
I very much doubt that we would (eventually) throw away the original Firestorm implementation for something different (force fields), but doing those would be pretty simple for any thirdparty mod based on TS (or not) even now, as GraionDilach said. QUICK_EDIT
Holy cow that looks amazing. When comparing the animation with http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Firestorm_barrier I assume we are missing a transparency blend mode for the output animation.
Yes, transparency cycler is what WW used on it (in openra it would be 75-50-25 alpha cycler per sequence length)
Might be most appealing combine additive blending with transparency. QUICK_EDIT
Nice progress. Is it also possible to power down individual laser fence posts to allow the laser fence to function like a "manual gate" like in TS?
Also, it'd be nice if modders could make this happen automatically so that the laser fence always automatically turns itself off whenever a friendly unit tries to move through it (and of course have it turn itself on again after the unit is through). _________________ QUICK_EDIT
It involves long amounts of yaml code, but basically you can use the upgrade system to enable or disable certain weapons and turrets on a unit. Each infantry grants the upgrade as a passenger (if this unit had more cargo slots it'd actually activate two weapons/turrets at once).
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 4:06 pm Post subject:
I thought cargo cannot grant upgrades at the moment. This also does not have proper eliteweapon support - such would act that besides granting the turretchanger upgrade, the passenger would also grant IFVMode*2 eliteweapon upgrades and building a table on the IFV like
N E eliteweapon upgrade amount
0 1 normal weapon
2 3 machinegun
4 5 engineer
etc. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Also, it'd be nice if modders could make this happen automatically so that the laser fence always automatically turns itself off whenever a friendly unit tries to move through it
Laser fences, Firestorm and gates all use the same logic (are basically the same to the engine), so yes, should be quite possible. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 12:17 am Post subject:
Graion Dilach wrote:
snip
I'm kinda stupid. A more reliable way to have a scalable IFV with eliteweapon support would be to use the passenger upgrades to upgrade the turret image and AttackTurreted, with each IFV mode using their own Name tags on the respective Armaments/AttackTurreted (like how AttackGarrisoned works) so the weapons only need to have a single eliteweapon upgrade. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
We now have several OpenRA.Utility.exe commands to convert the original rules, which makes a mod port from TS and RA2 a lot quicker:
Code:
--rules-import RULES.INI ART.INI
Convert ART.INI and RULES.INI to the OpenRA rules definition format.
--sequence-import FILENAME
Convert ART.INI to the OpenRA sequence definition format
--tileset-import FILENAME TEMPLATEEXTENSION [TILESETNAME]
Convert a legacy tileset to the OpenRA format.
While tileset and sequence imports are mostly complete and accurate, the rules.ini converter gives a rough skeleton mostly setting up rendering traits. So the boring tasks are automated, but the ones which involve modder creativity on how to combine the traits into interesting gameplay are still left to the creative mind. QUICK_EDIT
I am currently very impressed by something that community member Marn recently created: https://github.com/Marnador/OpenRA-Marn-TS-Edition It is a mod of the OpenRA Tiberian Sun mod, but it is very brave and a lot more polished and interesting when directly compared to the conservative OpenRA port.
We don't support height based terrain lighting, so he decided to do Tiberium glow with alpha blended SHP overlays which looks way better anyway.
The jumpjet locomotor is missing, so he just set them up as RA2 rocketeers.
Helicopters not transitioning smoothly between heights is hidden by speeding them up accordingly.
The GDI artillery and other units from the Firestorm addon have been added and the existing ones rebalanced towards more interesting multiplayer matches.
Many weapons have alpha blended lighting effects which looks gorgeus. You will see some stuttering in the video, but the next release will improve decorational effect performance a bit as not all entities will be checked during client sync tests.
The mod also contains garrisionable buildings done with some Lua hacks. This probably should be solved at engine level with a proper trait, but nonetheless it is a very creative solution.
To me Marn's mod is a glass globe into the future of OpenRA 2.5D modding. QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:46 pm Post subject:
Absolutely incredible. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 7:20 am Post subject:
It's just the beginning. Let's see where ORA modding will be in the next 3 years.
I mean, Ares needed IIRC such many to reach from 0.1 to 0.2 and start getting popular against NPatch. That's the stage ORA modding is at atm. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
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