Modern warfare mod

[Eilat]

Infantry fighting vehicle on the move

A quick update on The Great War mod regarding tracked combat vehicles: as someone who values detail, I prioritize realistic movement. The models now kick up dust and smoke from the ground, leave track marks on the terrain, and of course, feature a powerful, aggressive engine roar.

 

 

[LeJardindEpicure]

10 hours ago, Eilat said:

Technically speaking, this mod focuses on the 21st century, the present day, though it prioritizes gameplay over historical accuracy or realism. The factions are fictional, albeit inspired by real world counterparts. If this mod proves successful, I plan to develop subsequent mods set in the gunpowder era. While those would be technically much simpler than this one, I would hope to incorporate historical consultation for them.

I dont think 0AD engine is well suited for 21st century warfare. Maps are too small and 21st warfare is way more complex than 0AD warfare. You'd have to add drones (both recon and suicide) that means implementing some degree of AI behaviour + jamming mechanics + an implementation of data-link. Weapons like heavy artillery (CEASAR, HIMARS) would be : 1 very hard to balance, 2 not well suited for such smalls maps (portable mortar would be ok i guess). Also you'd have to think about AA defences, radar mechanics, MANPADS, and "modelling of missile behavior" --> implementing some simplified state-space model + control laws like in War Thunder. etc etc...

 

Maybe what you can do is focus on late 20th / early 21st century asymmetrical warfare like the French war in Mali ? Or do a CQB based mod (which implies huge assets developpement) like 6 Days in Fallujah

[Lopess]

5 minutes ago, LeJardindEpicure said:

I dont think 0AD engine is well suited for 21st century warfare. Maps are too small and 21st warfare is way more complex than 0AD warfare. You'd have to add drones (both recon and suicide) that means implementing some degree of AI behaviour + jamming mechanics + an implementation of data-link. Weapons like heavy artillery (CEASAR, HIMARS) would be : 1 very hard to balance, 2 not well suited for such smalls maps (portable mortar would be ok i guess). Also you'd have to think about AA defences, radar mechanics, MANPADS, and "modelling of missile behavior" --> implementing some simplified state-space model + control laws like in War Thunder. etc etc...

 

Maybe what you can do is focus on late 20th / early 21st century asymmetrical warfare like the French war in Mali ? Or do a CQB based mod (which implies huge assets developpement) like 6 Days in Fallujah

Creating mods about exactly that, advancing and developing things normally within the limits of what is expected in a game, besides that I disagree about map sizes, normally the maps in 0ad don't go to maximum capacity of the engine.

Wait and see, don't say something is impossible unless you've already tried it and seen that it really isn't possible. In that case, it would be interesting to hear about their experiences and gain some knowledge from them.

[Eilat]

26 minutes ago, LeJardindEpicure said:

I dont think 0AD engine is well suited for 21st century warfare. Maps are too small and 21st warfare is way more complex than 0AD warfare. You'd have to add drones (both recon and suicide) that means implementing some degree of AI behaviour + jamming mechanics + an implementation of data-link. Weapons like heavy artillery (CEASAR, HIMARS) would be : 1 very hard to balance, 2 not well suited for such smalls maps (portable mortar would be ok i guess). Also you'd have to think about AA defences, radar mechanics, MANPADS, and "modelling of missile behavior" --> implementing some simplified state-space model + control laws like in War Thunder. etc etc...

 

Maybe what you can do is focus on late 20th / early 21st century asymmetrical warfare like the French war in Mali ? Or do a CQB based mod (which implies huge assets developpement) like 6 Days in Fallujah

There are certainly plenty of challenges, but I still want to give it a try. The map is actually the aspect I'm least comfortable with; in reality, I could create maps many times larger than "gigantic," but crafting the terrain for them is truly exhausting, and it seems to impact performance as well.

[Eilat]

20 minutes ago, Lopess said:

Creating mods about exactly that, advancing and developing things normally within the limits of what is expected in a game, besides that I disagree about map sizes, normally the maps in 0ad don't go to maximum capacity of the engine.

Do you have any specific information about this? Actually, I’ve created maps larger than the ones in the game, but I haven’t tried playing on them yet because they were made for Hyrule Revival.

[Lopess]

5 minutes ago, Eilat said:

Do you have any specific information about this? Actually, I’ve created maps larger than the ones in the game, but I haven’t tried playing on them yet because they were made for Hyrule Revival.

I'm considering only the base game—specifically the Atlas map at the "Giant" size—but we can still remove the map's circular boundary, which gains us a good amount of extra surface area; I don't think we lose much compared to *C&C Generals*.
I've never tried it, but I believe map size is a limitation related more to performance than an actual limit of the engine itself.

[Stan`]

Also worth noting that if you scale everything to a factor two, your map is twice as big  

[Eilat]

58 minutes ago, Lopess said:

I'm considering only the base game—specifically the Atlas map at the "Giant" size—but we can still remove the map's circular boundary, which gains us a good amount of extra surface area; I don't think we lose much compared to *C&C Generals*.
I've never tried it, but I believe map size is a limitation related more to performance than an actual limit of the engine itself.

Creating large maps is easily done by importing a large sized heightmap, I’ve done it many times, the scale far exceeds giant size.

[Thalatta]

@Eilat I recommend you to have a look at the game Earth 2150. It's near futuristic war and the way it deals with supplies is great, the best I've seen yet never found it in another game. Size of maps shouldn't be an issue if you concentrate on particular missions as part of a larger campaign map, for which there are also projects around.

[Essential Strategy]

10 hours ago, Lopess said:

We have manuals for mods, and almost all questions have already been asked in the forum

I have found some of the guides, but they are incomplete or scattered, I mean, it is not as clear as I would wish. For example, I could not find any guide on GUI modification, the only guide I found was about creating an unit and I want to create complete factions.

10 hours ago, Lopess said:

we have a community mod started by Stan about World War II using models from another open-source game

Thank you for that, it will be very useful.

[Perzival12]

6 hours ago, LeJardindEpicure said:

I dont think 0AD engine is well suited for 21st century warfare. Maps are too small and 21st warfare is way more complex than 0AD warfare. You'd have to add drones (both recon and suicide) that means implementing some degree of AI behaviour + jamming mechanics + an implementation of data-link. Weapons like heavy artillery (CEASAR, HIMARS) would be : 1 very hard to balance, 2 not well suited for such smalls maps (portable mortar would be ok i guess). Also you'd have to think about AA defences, radar mechanics, MANPADS, and "modelling of missile behavior" --> implementing some simplified state-space model + control laws like in War Thunder. etc etc...

 

Maybe what you can do is focus on late 20th / early 21st century asymmetrical warfare like the French war in Mali ? Or do a CQB based mod (which implies huge assets developpement) like 6 Days in Fallujah

Though this is a reply to LeJardind, @Eilat I'll throw some advice in here as well.

Maps too small - Not really, the size limit is only for vanilla and can (has been) removed, as Eilat said.
Drones - Flying units are doable, if sometimes hacky. Recon is really just a large vision range, and suicide can be accomplished with the DeathDamage component.
AI behaviour - Not sure what you mean, but Petra can do lots more than it seems.
Jamming Mechanics - Also easy, just give jammers an aura that reduces vision range to 0 (basically removes your units from being controllable).
Data-Link - Why?
Heavy Artillery - Yeah, that is hard to balance, but a very high cost and reload rate, plus high pack and unpack times go a long way.
AA Defences - Just weapons that can only target/are best against aircraft.
Radar mechanics - again, vision.
MANPADS - Guy with a rocket launcher.
Modelling of missile behavior - Why?
State-space model - Why?
control laws - not sure what you mean.

[Essential Strategy]

22 hours ago, Lopess said:

we have a community mod started by Stan about World War II using models from another open-source game.https://github.com/0ADMods/pyrogenesis-1944

Well it seems it is outdated. Does the engine allows retrocompatibility for mods? I mean, that newer game/engine versions can run old mods. If not, that is a must do for sure.

[Eilat]

10 minutes ago, Essential Strategy said:

Well it seems it is outdated. Does the engine allows retrocompatibility for mods? I mean, that newer game/engine versions can run old mods. If not, that is a must do for sure.

You just need to edit the mod.json file to make it compatible with the current version of 0 A.D., but the mod itself is incomplete and unplayable, it can only serve as a reference.

[Lopess]

9 minutes ago, Eilat said:

You just need to edit the mod.json file to make it compatible with the current version of 0 A.D., but the mod itself is incomplete and unplayable, it can only serve as a reference.

I sent an adaptation for Alpha 28 via private message—one I had on my hard drive—and I even included infantry with animations in it.

 

[Eilat]

It’s the mod's official menu (Add the character 0.A.D.)

[Eilat]

 

 

 

[Atrik]

22 hours ago, LeJardindEpicure said:

I dont think 0AD engine is well suited for 21st century warfare.

I think 0AD engine should try to get the features to get a variety of mods working on it. Not even just the engine but the scripted simulation part too, so that modders don't need to code everything from scratch. 

@Eilat if you encounter limitations while doing your mod you should definitely open issues for them, I doubt anyone would be against it.

[Atrik]

A recent example is @Vantha and I working on improving ranged attacks, so that units can have a range much larger then it's vision and still be able to attack. Perfectly suited for like long-range artillery that needs intel on it's target before firing (like a infantry recon commanding artillery fire, or scout drone...).
I actually did have in mind one of @Eilat's post with ICBMs when doing it. 

[Eilat]

10 minutes ago, Atrik said:

if you encounter limitations while doing your mod you should definitely open issues for them, I doubt anyone would be against it.

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind.

3 minutes ago, Atrik said:

A recent example is @Vantha and I working on improving ranged attacks, so that units can have a range much larger then it's vision and still be able to attack. Perfectly suited for like long-range artillery that needs intel on it's target before firing (like a infantry recon commanding artillery fire, or scout drone...).
I actually did have in mind one of @Eilat's post with ICBMs when doing it.

I have a type of rocket launcher that can fire anywhere within range, you can simply click on any point, and it will fire regardless of whether there is an enemy there or not.

 

I really like the small details, like applied forces or weather conditions, that you and others are experimenting with. I hope someone does something with water and terrain as well.

[Atrik]

6 minutes ago, Eilat said:

I hope someone does something with water and terrain as well.

In the code there is a TODO comment that hints that terrain bonuses already existed in 0AD, but got removed .

[Eilat]

2 minutes ago, Atrik said:

In the code there is a TODO comment that hints that terrain bonuses already existed in 0AD, but got removed

I used to think about the craters left by explosions since, to me, they serve as a measure of firepower, but it seems they would cause issues for performance and gameplay.

[Atrik]

7 minutes ago, Eilat said:

I used to think about the craters left by explosions since, to me, they serve as a measure of firepower,

For this the projectile can probably spawn an entity (the crater) with an aura (slow units in the crater), have you tried that?

7 minutes ago, Eilat said:

but it seems they would cause issues for performance and gameplay.

What would cause performance issue?

Edited 21 minutes ago by Atrik

[Eilat]

17 minutes ago, Atrik said:

For this the projectile can probably spawn an entity (the crater) with an aura (slow units in the crater), have you tried that?

I’ve only thought about the craters  but haven’t actually done it nor do I know how and as for the aura, I haven’t tried it with anything yet.

19 minutes ago, Atrik said:

What would cause performance issue?

Craters, I mean actual holes, like those created by the terrain tools in Atlas.