Trac Ticket #13

[chlin]

Hi

I have interested to take the issue Ticket #13 (http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/13) on Trac system, but not very sure if that has been assigned (From Trac system it looks like still unassigned.) I would like to take this issue because, from the decription, it looks like related to the AI issue I am interested in. Though I might take a bit long time to fix this issue, I think it is a good start point to walk through the code base and gain insight about the game, engine and so on.

Or if there are some other tasks or issues suitable for me to start with, please give me advice. I am happy to work on it.

Many thanks.

[Wijitmaker]

Thank you chlin

Be sure to let the programmers know if you have any questions, I know they will be happy to help.

[feneur]

I assume there will be quite some time before you can make any commits, so in that regard you might want to start with some other task, but as long as your patient enough to keep working until you have things working (and prepared to keep working until all formations are implemented, would probably not be too easy for someone else to have to pick up where you left, not that I think you'd do it strange, but I just mean that it's probably easier for you to finish it).

I've added some info to the task, especially since some of the links go to staff only threads on the forums. Hopefully that should be enough to keep you going until Philip gets back from his vacation and can give some more detailed/technical input.

As Jason said, please don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have, either in this forum, in the Trac ticket itself, or in the IRC channel (we're not always there, but Philips computer is always logged in, and as long as he's not away (as he is right now, he's on a vacation) he usually replies the same day if not just a few minutes later). On Saturdays 16:30 GMT there is a programmers meeting, so if you are able to attend that you'll be almost certain to find someone who can help you (there is a clock on the http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/ site which tells you what the time currently is in GMT, so you can either use that to figure out what time GMT is in your local time, or use one of the numerous internet services).

[chlin]

Hi Jason, Erik,

Thank you for suggestions.

After reading some document on wiki, I think it might be good for me to add a page for helping myself better understand how 0. a.d. works. Mainly it would be focused on the procedure, data structure, etc. I understand this might be trivial for those who've already been familiar with stuff under the hood, but I suppose that would help me clarify how 0 a.d. is structured and formulate if any question I have.

Please let me know if anything relates or help me move the wiki to the right place (or remove it) if it is not appropriate.

Thank you.

[janwas]

Hey chlin,

writing some documentation as you explore the project structure would be very valuable!

Again, let us know if you encounter any trouble or have questions.

The formations issue is quite an undertaking, but when a task is and remains interesting, a lot can be accomplished. Philip is back from his vacation and I've mentioned your plan, so he'll probably be in touch soon with some ideas for the formation/pathfinding stuff.

[Ykkrosh]

Before formations, I believe we need a simpler kind of group movement (which is currently not implemented at all) - my current thought is to do something like what AoM does, where the game constructs an artificial group proxy object which computes a path and moves along it while all the individual units move towards a target point that's a per-unit fixed offset from the proxy. That should be enough to get a group of units moving coherently and ending up in a sensible spread rather than all rushing towards precisely the same point. After that, it'd be possible to add the special formation behaviours, like the various shapes and unit type positions and any special movement (wheeling, turning in place, etc) and attack bonuses and so on.

I think the basic group movement is algorithmically simple but it requires quite a few changes to the complex unit motion code, and it's important to get it done quite soon (since it's needed whenever players move more than a handful of units at once), so my current plan is to do that myself within the next few weeks. I don't expect I'll work on the extra formation things any time soon, though. So I'd probably recommend looking at smaller things to gain familiarity with the engine code, and/or try to research and plan a detailed technical design for how formations would work - how they will move (wheeling, turning, etc), what happens when they're ordered through a narrow passageway or around a tree, exactly how units will be assigned to positions in the formation, how they'll move into their initial positions, how they'll switch between different formations, what happens when someone in the formation is killed or ordered out, etc. I don't think we know the answers to any of these questions yet, and it'd be good to have a solid clean design before hacking on the code