Lord Zorinthrox

Just a thought: that effect would be so easy to do in AoM; just the "death unit" tag or some stuff. But you are right; figuring out how to have resource gathers pick fruit from trees would be harrowing...but so awesome. Like all game, its the details that make it imersive and addcitive. Speaking of details, I agree with Belisarius: it makes no sense for the water to be visable in-game; otherwise, the water table would be sufficiently high to create a swamp out of your base. Is there a way to texture the bottom so it doesn't shade? (Aom solved that by having anything that was 0,0,0 black non-shadable, I beleive). As far as tactics, you can go either way; since these are not real men we are commanding, it can be a game of numbers, or a game of craft. That is true of any RTS. However, numbers can win out, almost predictably, against craft, unless you can introduce an organic element of reaction. Units may be deployed in formation, but how do script an enemy foce breaking up that formation? That is a technically daunting task. Until such real life occurances can be modeled sastisfactorially, RTS will stay more a game of numbers.

Well, you musn't forget the sci-fi genre of RTS games... StarCraft II anyone?

Groovy.

Uhh, not to change subject toooo terribly much, but since you guys are planning to include vertex animations (I was worried for a bit there), will it conceiveably be possible to attach a vertex-animated model to a bone-animated model (I see no reason why it shouldn't) as one would a spear to a hoplite's hand? Just curious, as it opens up some really interesting possibilities, such as, oh, I don't know, animating a head model for lip-sync and exporting it as a vertex-based animation, then attaching it to a bone-animation body for cinematics...you know, to save bizare armature rigs for the same end.

Modability, clean and simple.

Do the math... Well, more like I'd clasify myself as some form of one; not uber into religion, anyway. It is religious persuasion, remember. 75% of Americans say they are Christian, although many aren't practitioners in a steadfast sense. Same here.

Hmm, a distribution of beliefs that is to be expected I suppose. I was hoping there be something really random...more votes to be cast, I guess. Well Yiuel, I would go with "Agnsotic;" the "Natural Religions" category is for literally what is listed there: Tribal religions and Shamanist, things you might find in Africa before Christianity and Islam come into the picture. Nominally, your right, your are a proponent of a Natural Religion in that it is based on the laws of Physics, i.e. nature and what you can observe, but that category is for something different.

Just thought this would be an interesting poll. The list is taken from Wikipedia's Religions page, and the choices are listed up to #19, from most followers to least. The sad part is there are only 22 categories, two more than the choice limit. Some of the religions I haven't even heard of. Hope this will be interesting...

darn....Is that entire castle bump-mapped, or is it pre-rendered texturing going on? Looks fantastically gritty and dark = uber props.

Yes, Eken132 described things perfectly (inner city talk can, of course, be a bit rougher). That is one of the worst things about American culture: it seems only the really un-representative stuff is exported. I saw a documentary once on the Middle East, and people were judging America on the TV of ours that they got, which consisted largely of Jerry Springer-type shows. The number one thing that got their dander up, though, was sex before marriage, which does seem rather common here, but I have a feeling that that is prevalent in most places, it just isn't as...open as it is here (I think...) Just to put things in perspective, that is a dozen movies out of maybe one to two hundred? It hard to tell, but every week there is at least two to four new movies in the theatres. The funny thing about the Christian-ish vibe most people get about America is that 75% fot he populous claims to be Christian -- a large section of this doesn't necesarily hold to the full working meaning of the word. From Religious Tolerance.Org(Article) And that is with the percentage of Christians falling by a remarkable 1% a year. Meaning we are now at approx. 73.5% Christian. So I suppose you could say a majority are Christian, but the divisions are so rampant that it is rediculous to say the Christians rule or anything, there are literaly thousands of different sects, many of which probably don't get along and have conflicting interests.

darn. Thought it might work, as not everything on those databaes has a GNU Public license, i'e', not everything on the database appears to be open source, althogh a majority is. Oh well.

Was web surfing, and found that GNU hosts a free software "distribution and maintenance" site called Savanah that is for free software that runs on free operating systems (not to mention the FSF has a free software directory on the main site). Are there plans to put 0AD on Savanah? Not only is it free, but it is supposed to run on Linux, right? The community of free operating system users operating around GNU would probably welcome such a great project (plus it is free advertizing space). FSF's free software directory wouldn't be too bad an idea either.

What do you mean by this statement? Not the obvious part, but does this mean: A: You will not make melee-capable archers because the engine mechanics won't let you (i.e., you can not assign two attacks of different damage types and ranges to a unit entity) OR B: You will not make archers melee-capable for game ballance issues (e.g. it would skrew up game play if you could raid with Archers alone, and the enemy would have not way to repel the attack efficiently).

You know, along the lines of export data: you could have a trigger that can import/export the amount of units and what type (maybe even rough position) to a text file that it can, of course, convert into copies of the units in another scenario. Say I have four hoplites and an archer at the end of a scenario; when I get to the next scenario, it loads the number of units I had left over from my Player Data folder, and spawns them at the starting point. This is helpful for this game because we will have unit levels to contend with; I'd hate to lose hours-worth of battle-hardened units to a simple thing as respawning at the next scenario. We should definately be able to import grayscale images for bump mapped terrain generation, using the image both as a brush for the terrain editing tools and a global/area function that scales the map to an area. This could easily optimize terrain generation, as the designer could simply use GIMP or PhotoShop to create the terrain he wants from an aireal perspective without even opening the program first. And of course, reuse terrain elements from his editing career: potencial for editor mod packs! O, yeah, what about being able to open the editor directly, out-of-game? For instances, you could get from the game to the editor, and from the editor to the game, and start-up in either. StarCraft does this, and it is convenient (except you can't open the game from the editor). I REALLY like the "recess fill" water editing option; to go with it, I suggest being able to raise the water surface in the editor as another function, and having it re-calculate for the new elevation (provided, of course, the recess is closed). EDIT: Was I too verbose?

Hey, the resources idea would be cool if you could deconstruct any abandoned fortress/tower and reclaim the resources. Again, a feature that would probably be a good option for the host of a multiplayer game to set, if ever implemented.

Wooo-hoo! *falls over with excitement.* Don't mind JavaScripting to do a mod (although, that means I have to learn it first.) Go WFG, go WFG, go WFG *dances* Thank you! *maniacal laughter*

Simple Question: Will the 0ad engine be flexible enough to support changes in the numbers of resources? My question has three parts: 1) Can the 0ad engine use less than the standard (for this genre) four gatherables and pop points? 2) Can it then use more than the standrad five? 3) If it can use more than four, what form can they take? I.E., could you have two two resource types that work in the same manner as population, like "population support" and "military supply" points? Or, five collectables, say, Food, Wood, Stone, Gold, and Iron, and then two populational constraints, say Housing and Military Support/Supply?

Hence, it would make a good canidate for "host options" in a multiplayer map/skirmish, and an activatable one for scenarios.

You know what I'd like to see for siege? Realistic siege engine movement. AoK wasn't too far off, with the trebuchets packing up to move, but even then there weren't draft animals. It just looks wierd visually to have lifeless, underscaled siege equipment moving around the map on their own accord. Btw, thanks Gunthahaha.

Keeping in mind, I am remembering all of this from various shows on Discovery, and Scientific American Typically right now, you'll run into large storage tanks inside cars that store hydrogen like propane -- highly pressurized and partially liquid because of it. Hwoever, one company is making an effort to produce a solid storage form that uses a porous Platinum "sponge" that can store something ridiculous like three times its mass in hydrogen. It works because the electrons of Platinum freely associate with other substances' electrons, or something like that. Best part is, the solid storage isn't as prone to exploding as tanks could be. What people are missing though is that a fantastic source of Hydrogen, other than water of course, is fossil fuels, witch is entirely composed fo hydrocarbons. Also, the energy needed to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons and water has to come from somewhere. Good news is that the power plants that produce that energy will be cleaner overall than millions of cars belching out emissions with nothing but a muffler inbetween. @Red_08: It was Iceland. So far as I know, the only vehicle on the island that can actually use Hydrogen is a promotional bus. The facility is a fancinating proof of concept, though. On the same note, I saw a short quip on a car in Italy, I think, that uses compressed air to power a car. You kow how you can get air for qurters at gas stations? Well, this thing goes for four hundred miles on not even two dollars of compressed air. Plus, when you break, the car uses the energy from slowing down to recompress more air. Bottom line, the more stop and go, the longer it can go. Of course, the entire car is made of fiber glass, but can seat six or so.

I smell a Gametype. King of the Hill-ish, where you must capture and hold the citadel and fortress at the center of the map for a period of time. Certainly not original, but much cooler with the garisonable fortress/tower aspect. You could add that to seige towers; they only move and/or attack with units garisoned inside of them.

Well, why doesn't someone in charge of 0ad go over to the Blender.org User forums and put a thread up to recruit some coders for import/export scripts, or whatever is required? There HAS to be someone witht he skills and the love of RTS and Modding necessary to write the code for free. All of that if you chose Blender, of course. Same thign could work with Gmax, I suppose.

Hmmm. That would be an interesting technical point to put in any RTS game, but like Vingauld said, it cuts in on pop limits. That could cut either way, but it sounds like something that would be good to add as one of thsoe options you check before you go into a skirmish or multiplayer. You know, like in Command & Conquer, you can select "redeployable MCV" or not, or in AOMTT where you can select "one click garisoning" or not.

Quip on the Sced program: will you be able to reload the game info from teh editor, or better yet, from the main menu? This would be useful for modders, as you can keep 0ad running, say in a window, alter you mod content, save it in the game folder, and then reload everything so the mod takes affect withou having to shutdown and restart the game. [Edited for clarity]

That is a really cool idea, Cheezy. You could do a similar thing for helmets, but that would be less beleivable than shields. If you did the sheilds, there should variation within a certain shield design. For instance, all the shields of one design have the same design, but they have scratches and wear marks in different places. Just to liven up the screen.