Tremulous Forum
General => Feedback => Topic started by: Odin on July 01, 2008, 07:51:41 am
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For 1.2, builders could be given(or restricted to, depending on your way of looking at it) tiled building. For example, building structures in RTS' such as Command and Conquer, and Warcraft/Starcraft both use a system of tiles to show where you can build, how far you can build from your base, and showing you where you can't build. Building structures in Tremulous can be a tedious process because of the pinpoint accuracy required for placing structures on map geometry(and even moreso if you're a perfectionist like me). If building were locked to a uniform grid, then builders could actually build faster because they know where they can build based on color codes, and buildings are snapped to a grid.
Here is my concept:
(http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/1200/tremtileconceptry8.png)
The Reactor generates a power field(as it does now) that buildings must reside in in order to work. Tiles give players a visual representation of that, and are shown when the builder decides to place something. Red tiles show where you can't build(for example, out of the power field/halfway inside map geometry), yellow tiles show where buildings already are, and green tiles are shown for where you can build. tiles would glow underneath the structure you are placing(under the hologram) to show you where you are building.
Obviously this would require some calculation in q3map2 and thrown into the BSP to work(with a modified BSP structure), or it could be calculated at load-time on the server.
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I don't want to lose freedom in favor of being friendlier to newer players / making the building 'easier'. Fixing the buildings to a grid means you have to give up some freedom in building the way you want, since you will have to adhere to the grid. And for me, freedom is what Tremulous is all about.
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I'm pretty sure Paper would murder you if this actually went in.
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I'm pretty sure Paper would murder you if this actually went in.
I'm pretty sure I'll ask tehpaper for one his guns...
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Even just having a transparent green circle (visible only to the ckit classes) showing the radius (put out by the reactor or repeaters) that is powered could be beneficial to new players.
The same with eggs/creep. I've been frustrated every once in a while when I try to build something and find it's barely off the creep.
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I would like to have a green glow on the ground area that I can build on and a red glow where I cannot, but having to build within grid units would take a lot of fun out of the game.
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My thoughts exactly.
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IMO the draw a green circle is a good idea. Expand it to circles when building turrets etc, to help with the overlapping fields of fire.
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What's wrong with just using common sense and getting some experience with building? Next thing you know we get onscreen messages when our crosshair is on an opponent, telling us to fire our weapon.
If you are trying to build outside of the powered area, your blueprint turns red. I think that's quite a pronounced indication of the fact that you cannot build there, other than that you just won't be able to place the building.
Showing a green circle in relation to the firing range of buildings is not that bad of an idea at all, as long as people who are not new to building have the option to disable it.
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Especially needed for trappers.
But its always annoying when I have to move the OM or an egg by two inches to be able to get that trapper exactly where I want it.
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I want both.
First person building by default, but players could press a key and toggle to top down build.
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Do what? It then AI's their player around the map?
Or no player?
What we are talking about doesn't have massive balance changes, and is doable.
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Perhaps Paradox is suggesting an option for just an overhead camera angle for the builder, with a visible grid.
I think if such a thing was done, no weapons/items (blaster/nade) should be allowed in this view (How would you aim up and down from an overhead vantage?)
(Except maybe jetpack I guess... some people are into that whole floaty base thing.)
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The overhead view would only allow for floor building.
Wall/celing building is just too damn complex for a tld view.
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Good point. Just for curiosity's sake... would a 3-D grid even be doable?
I mean, impractical, but c'mon: It'd look pretty freakin' sweet. :)
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DO NOT WANT GRID
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I like the idea, but there should just be an option to disable either or both of he ideas if you do not wish to have them.
EDIT: By either I meant the green glow telling you where you can build, and the line of fire for turrets, trappers.
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Showing a green circle in relation to the firing range of buildings is not that bad of an idea at all, as long as people who are not new to building have the option to disable it.
Please people, read what others have posted to save you the embarassment of mimicking what has already been said.
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Showing a green circle in relation to the firing range of buildings is not that bad of an idea at all, as long as people who are not new to building have the option to disable it.
Please people, read what others have posted to save you the embarassment of mimicking what has already been said.
1. Lava did not mention that he wanted the glow telling where you could build, just the opposite in fact.
2. Actually it's this thing... where saying the same or similar thing boosts the power of an idea, when more people say they want something, it is more likely to happen. I suppose you think that if no one told Odin that this was a good idea, he would feel just as encouraged to get it done than if we had the posts that we do now...
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Point taken.
But please don't word it as an original thought then, if it's been said once in the thread already... it bothers me. Please?
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So far I pretty much agree with everything Lava has said about this topic (yes, it's true): I like to tuck stuff in just where I want it; if I want to know when I'm beyond the build line, I run around with the building hologram floating in front of me and when it turns red I back up or turn left, and the firing range thing is a meh idea. As was already said, I think experience is the best teacher; however, since I don't believe that Odin lacks experience, I would say that I obviously think differently than the OP, and what appeals to him just seems like a needless addition to me. Maybe it's all of the Tribes/Team Fortress building experience: I guess I'm just too used to error messages. :)
I hope that is sufficiently original for Kaine, whilst being basically a QFT +1 post. To mooseberry's point, sometimes a couple of DO NOT WANTs & WHAT HE SAIDs give a small cross section of "public reaction" to a suggestion.
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Well stated.
Mmmmm, Tribes. Now there's a game I can really enjoy putting up remote turret grids in, and swapping out the permanent turrets' cannon types.
What's this about team fortress though? Can't you only build like, one turret in that? (Cool as that one turret may be...)
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By firing range, are we talking about a glowing circle of range? Because that would be quite cool.
If your just talking about a line infront of the object, screw that.
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I think grid idea isn't right. It would limitate base-construction a lot. The range idea isn't bad at all, as long as there is some way to turn it off.
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If building were locked to a uniform grid, then builders could actually build faster because they know where they can build based on color codes, and buildings are snapped to a grid.
Let's make Tremulous isometric too.
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If building were locked to a uniform grid, then builders could actually build faster because they know where they can build based on color codes, and buildings are snapped to a grid.
Let's make Tremulous isometric too.
As much as that would rock, I don't understand why this thread has to be trolled. All I did was suggest something that was different than the average suggestion. As long as this forum board exists there will be suggestions that you won't necessarily agree with. That doesn't mean you should post things such as that.
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That was a troll?
I prefer to think of it as a one-line summary of why I disagree with your suggestion. Allow me to expand:
Tiled building would not suit Tremulous as there are no maps designed for grid-based building, building mechanics are designed for non-tiled building and many good bases would not be possible if the structure locations were limited to a grid. It is a form of "dumbing down" that would limit many player's base-building creativity in an attempt to "make things easier" for inexperienced players. The power/no power indication already provided in the form of a message box and the red/green structure models is easily understood. The current arbitrary-positioning building system is not perfect, but far better suited to the Tremulous game mechanics than tiled building.
In other words, tiled building would be appropriate if Tremulous was an isometric game.
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I want grid players movement :D
OK, now really, i prefer fixing bug, that cause eggs exploding in unknown or for me invisible bad places...
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I want grid players movement :D
OK, now really, i prefer fixing bug, that cause eggs exploding in unknown or for me invisible bad places...
That's still an open one, unfortunately. It happens when you build too close to the wall for people to spawn out of.
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That was a troll?
I prefer to think of it as a one-line summary of why I disagree with your suggestion. Allow me to expand:
Tiled building would not suit Tremulous as there are no maps designed for grid-based building, building mechanics are designed for non-tiled building and many good bases would not be possible if the structure locations were limited to a grid. It is a form of "dumbing down" that would limit many player's base-building creativity in an attempt to "make things easier" for inexperienced players. The power/no power indication already provided in the form of a message box and the red/green structure models is easily understood. The current arbitrary-positioning building system is not perfect, but far better suited to the Tremulous game mechanics than tiled building.
In other words, tiled building would be appropriate if Tremulous was an isometric game.
Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
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DO NOT WANT GRID
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I want grid players movement :D
OK, now really, i prefer fixing bug, that cause eggs exploding in unknown or for me invisible bad places...
That's still an open one, unfortunately. It happens when you build too close to the wall for people to spawn out of.
Maybe my suggestion sounds a bit too obvious, but.. can't the same code that checks for the ability "to spawn out of" be applied PRE building and thus the building process aborted?
Same annoyance: The infamous trapper distroys egg when reaching final size. Is it possible to fix it via having a check if the "final" size of the building would harm a building already in/near its place?
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All buildables only have one size as far as the collision detection goes - use cg_drawbbox 1 to see what I mean.
Though I do think that disallowing building within the spawnspace may be a good idea. At least it'll stop the nuppelkopfen from accidentally or deliberately destroying the spawns.
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Though I do think that disallowing building within the spawnspace may be a good idea. At least it'll stop the nuppelkopfen from accidentally or deliberately destroying the spawns.
I agree also, though I do have to point out that if he wanted to deliberately kill them he could press E.
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uhmmm, why not to build those structures... INTO each others then....?
i mean, instead of packing them next to each other, you could just add a tube for example to the trapper/egg/barricade/om, et cetera. same for humans, you could advance any structure with a defensive one. for build points of course.
teslarmory, medchinegun turret, barritube, hivel, overhive, boostrapp.
my mind is gone.
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I agree also, though I do have to point out that if he wanted to deliberately kill them he could press E.
There have been some morons who use this to destroy spawns after they have been denied building rights.
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Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
Odin, next time you make a thread, please also supply us with the information about how we should reply to it. That way, nobody can reply in a manner that might hurt your feelings.
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I hate this idea.
It would take the hardwork out of great building.
Building well is a skill - this will make it less of skill more of a task. And its already enough of a task.
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Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
Odin, next time you make a thread, please also supply us with the information about how we should reply to it. That way, nobody can reply in a manner that might hurt your feelings.
I must admit, though: With constant brotherly admonishment, this has been a fairly civilized thread. The Sufis would remind us not to be proud.
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Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
Odin, next time you make a thread, please also supply us with the information about how we should reply to it. That way, nobody can reply in a manner that might hurt your feelings.
I must admit, though: With constant brotherly admonishment, this has been a fairly civilized thread. The Sufis would remind us not to be proud.
Which is exactly why his emo whining is out of place here.
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Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
Odin, next time you make a thread, please also supply us with the information about how we should reply to it. That way, nobody can reply in a manner that might hurt your feelings.
I must admit, though: With constant brotherly admonishment, this has been a fairly civilized thread. The Sufis would remind us not to be proud.
Which is exactly why his emo whining is out of place here.
I think the whine has just about achieved balance with the cheese.
edit'd cuz i ignore spellcheck sumtimez
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Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
Odin, next time you make a thread, please also supply us with the information about how we should reply to it. That way, nobody can reply in a manner that might hurt your feelings.
I must admit, though: With constant brotherly admonishment, this has been a fairly civilized thread. The Sufis would remind us not to be proud.
Which is exactly why his emo whining is out of place here.
And how does this add to the discussion? All I wanted was a civilized discussion about a suggested feature. I shouldn't have to ask for that.
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Thank you. That is the way I would have preferred you say it.
Odin, next time you make a thread, please also supply us with the information about how we should reply to it. That way, nobody can reply in a manner that might hurt your feelings.
I must admit, though: With constant brotherly admonishment, this has been a fairly civilized thread. The Sufis would remind us not to be proud.
Which is exactly why his emo whining is out of place here.
And how does this add to the discussion? All I wanted was a civilized discussion about a suggested feature. I shouldn't have to ask for that.
I personally quite respect the way you define and defend the parameters within which you choose to discuss the subject, and as the OP, I consider that fully within your purview. Do, good sir, please continue.
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Ending this subject, I think Taiyo's first reply along the lines of "Let's make Tremulous isometric too" was a fairly friendly, timid and tongue-in-cheek reply, that was met with an over-emotional reaction from someone who should have expected much worse when posting anything here. The fact that the thread was and still is so friendly is enough reason to not whine about this tongue-in-cheek post by Taiyo.
Now back on the topic of confining buildings to a predetermined grid!
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That idea sucks... I mean, um, I find that it is not a feature which I currently desire.
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The entire team must be consulted before any structure can be built. After the initial team consultation the proposed structure can be reviewed by the team leader and a final structure placement specification can be written. Should the specification be shown to describe an efficient use of building points then planning permission may be granted by the building point allocation bureau. Once planning permission has been granted the structure may be built under supervision of the elected team leader to ensure that its construction is compliant with the approved specification.
I think it could be a good idea to show a "no power" message on the ckit screen when a builder moves outside of powered areas. Likewise the grangers could have some kind of "no creep" indication on their HUD.
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Taiyo, stop trying to add so much realism to Tremulous!
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I think it could be a good idea to show a "no power" message on the ckit screen when a builder moves outside of powered areas. Likewise the grangers could have some kind of "no creep" indication on their HUD.
I like this idea.
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ckit screen +1
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I want grid players movement :D
OK, now really, i prefer fixing bug, that cause eggs exploding in unknown or for me invisible bad places...
That's still an open one, unfortunately. It happens when you build too close to the wall for people to spawn out of.
Easy solution, actually increase the bbox of the egg for the entire model.
Back on topic:
If you had the experience in building, you wouldn't need a sphere telling you how far can that turret hit or how far the Reactor can power up to. I would only say yes to this if it can be toggled, so that people can sooner or later memorise how far.
Grid building = no no. None of the default map's geometry is fit for grid building.
For example:
__|__|__|_|WALL|
You won't be able to build right beside the wall as the grid does not allow it, unless you can set the grid to 0.25 game units.
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I want grid players movement :D
OK, now really, i prefer fixing bug, that cause eggs exploding in unknown or for me invisible bad places...
That's still an open one, unfortunately. It happens when you build too close to the wall for people to spawn out of.
Easy solution, actually increase the bbox of the egg for the entire model.
two problems with that: 1) that's nowhere near big enough to prevent this from happening, and 2) there's a reason you can't spawn with anything blocking the area where you spawn, and this includes the egg you're spawning from.
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DO NOT WANT.
Tiled building would make Tremulous so much less fun. It would be much harder to put turrets in genius places. Not to mention the space dilemma that would soon result.
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Why is there no smart person that can code it, since Odin can surely make a map for it.
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Why is there no smart person that can code it, since Odin can surely make a map for it.
Sure, why not.
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There is an easy alternative.
Called Snapping. If you hover over the turret, the building that you want to build snaps to the side of it, where it can be built, and does not become red and merge with the real building.
Hence you can easily place buildings 0 units away from each other and do not need to spend half an hour aligning it, moreover it leaves you with all the freedom you had before.
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I like that idea.
Would need a bind to toggle it, could be very useful.
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Or just make the bounding box prevent the builder from building inside it, but force the preview model to be outside the bounding box, at all times.
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Or just make the bounding box prevent the builder from building inside it, but force the preview model to be outside the bounding box, at all times.
That is exactly equivalent to my description on keeping the model "where it can be built".
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But my description is without a keybind, as I was explaining to David.
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This is a somewhat cooler idea than the grid idea. How hard would it be to implement? I don't see the need for a keybind, however. Couldn't it be bundled with a future client release and simply be universal?
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The keybind is needed to disable any kind of snapping that is being done, because if you force buildings to snap to other buildings you basically are back at Odin's idea for grid-confined buildings.
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Thank you. I see what you mean.
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+----+
| A |+----+
| || B |
+----+| |
+----+
<--- Builder stood here.
Should building B snap up to be in-line with A? If it does it allows that perfect alignment, but would screw you. Thus a toggle bind is needed. And the whole scroll wheel to change range thing would help too.
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Over-adding functionality in the form of mousewheel controlled range of the snapping is a really bad idea that will just overly complicate things.
Oh, and it will break my builder binds.
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3 methods of snapping :
1) Snap to the last green position if the current one is red.
2) Snap to the last green position, align rotation to the current obstruction. and snap the position to the obstruction
3) Snap to the last green position, align rotation and position to the centre of current obstruction. and snap the position to the obstruction
Id go for the first.
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4) Snap to the last green position, align rotation and position to the [near|far] edge of current obstruction.
Also, aligning the rotation doesn't matter, as all buildings are square anyway.
And the changing the distance thing doesn't have to be the mouse wheel, you could put it anywhere. I would probably have it while I hold some button.
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@Troy: The first type of snapping sounds the 'easiest' all around.
@David: That does not combat the fact that it's a case of too much functionality. If people are in need of an extra button to set the distance of the snapping, maybe the initial snapping code just needs to be better.
[EDIT] Just to be sure, you want the obvious added control to turn snapping off alltogether, and an added control to set the range of the snapping, right?
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Its not too much functionality, just ignore it and it will work like v1 / like now / whatever.
More flexibility is, IMO, never a bad thing, as long as it can be disabled.
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Well, I guess I'm going a bit off-topic here, but adding an extra control is the cheap way of solving a problem that should be solved in a much more graceful way. Now people have to bind 2(?) additional keys, just for the 'snapped' building. Tremulous is an FPS-game, not a flight simulator. Look for example at something completely different, namely DOOM3 and it's way of handling computer screens and what not. No extra controls required, only a lot of extra coding. That's the way a situation like this should be solved in my view, instead of going down the obvious 'let's add another control' route.
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I don't see why you would ever want to turn it off.
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I don't see why you would ever want to turn it off.
Player freedom of choice. Just like you can buy a Jetpack and a Flamer, if you desire. This freedom is what makes Tremulous such a neat game!
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This freedom is what makes Tremulous such a neat game!
And yet you are arguing to remove a feature that adds more freedom.
And how does an extra control cause any problems? You don't want it, you ignore it. Its not like there's a limit.
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How is not adding a certain feature 'limiting freedom'? I'm just saying there are probably far more elegant solutions for this 'problem' than just blindly adding an extra control. And that I am a strong believer in as little controls as possible.
If you really do not see the simple math behind "extra controls=bad", then I will stop using this thread for trying to convince you. Let's just see what comes out of the person who is actually going to code this all.
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Extra unneeded controls are bad. Removing functionality is worse.
If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine by me.
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If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine by me.
Not adding a certain functionality in the form of an added control is different from removing said functionality. You keep on saying I want to remove functionality, while all I am saying is that adding said functionality in the form of an added control is a bad solution.
If you really, really want to keep on talking about this, just start a new thread!
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Fine give users an option to have it set as a bind, or on all the time. That way, the one Lava Croft out there can have his bind, and the rest of us can enjoy the extra feature at no cost to us.
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i don't like the tiled building other than the glow range, the rest of this idea will just mess up gameplay, although it could be used to make a completely separate rts q3 mod that would be fun