Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[SMST]

this occurred to me in the bath: it would be great for cinematics (assuming cinematics are a part of gameplay during campaigns and user-made scenarios) if there were editor-only objects that depict very large landforms or buildings. these wouldnt have any function for actual gameplay, but they sure take a pretty picture. it would be great to have a cinematic zoom in on a character overlooking an african savannah and you can see a detailed kilimanjaro in the background, or some roman generals look out over the channel from gaul and see the white cliffs of dover

I strongly agree with that. Though the Kilimanjaro won't be part of the campaign, most likely.

[oshron]

well yeah, but you get my idea. another one that would be good with be mt. fuji. it would also be great if these were actually very, VERY large units that, if you want, your units could actually walk by but not interact with. my immediate thoughts on that idea are a 0ad mod that recreates teh Code Geass anime, so you see hundreds of futuristic planes flying over mt fuji in the opening cinematic. for shots further away, they would have to be scaled down by triggers

[Aldandil]

If fishing isn't possible for the first release then eating dolphins won't work either... but how are whales edible then? They're classified as edible in the DD. Are they hunted differently?

Right now though elephants are consumable. I am not sure how they are classified in the Wiki DD, but when I made the entities for them I made them consumable (very high amount of food). In the future they will fight back though, probably killing a couple of your dudes in the process.

Tamed riding elephants are listed as inedible in the DD. So are domestic horses and camels. For all animals that can be ridden, you can kill them but not eat them.

Syrian Asian elephants aren't mentioned anywhere in the DD, either as tame riding animals or as wild animals.

Also, what secondary product are pigs producing that lets them provide a yield in a corral without killing them? I've heard of camel milk, but not dairy pigs. Is their yield literally piglets?

Lastly, I'm not confident that walruses are fearful and passive. Shouldn't they be listed as dangerous consumable animals? I admit I have not researched this.

Edited May 24, 2010 by Aldandil

[bill2505]

1. steal the opponent's weapons

2 equip weapons to your soldiers like in ancient wars of spart

3 building units animations.in ancient wars of sparta when you were recruiting an archer you could see inside a building an archer practising

[link_2]

So, this idea came up the other night as I was playing Age of Empires 2 multi-player with a friend. After I had amassed a large army I sent it to attack. As I was watching the battle rage below something grabbed my attention. Every single soldier has the same attack animation. The pattern was soon seen as the man at arms raised the sword above his head then brought it down. Again, and again.

Now the idea: Multiple attack/action (or even walk) animations for units.

-Have a random value tied to a unit. (That changes after some passage of time, say 2 seconds for example.) the value of this number would decide the animation to use when the call came up for an animation.

For example:

Random values above 5 make the 1st attack animation play when the unit attacks, and values below 5 make the 2nd attack animation play when the unit attacks.

It would also be possible to wight the animations based on the number.

For example: If the random number is 0 then the unit uses 100% of the 2nd animation. If the number is 3 though the unit would use 70% of the 2nd animation, and 30% of the 1st animation. If the number was 8 then the unit would use 90% of the 1st animation, and 10% of the 2nd animation. (By animation I mean the position, and rotation values of the bones in the animation.)

This would give the unit a total of 10 different animations from just 2 real animations.

[Ykkrosh]

Random animation selections are already supported . Just list multiple animations under the same name when editing the actor files and it'll pick one at random each time it loops. We don't have any way of blending multiple skeletal animations, though - that would be mostly useful for transitions between different animations but I expect it's very hard to make the blending look good.

[link_2]

Random animation selections are already supported

did not know that. that just made my day. thanks.

[oshron]

oh, another thing that i think should go in should be an "Explore" function. i LOVED this feature in empire earth, but thats pretty much the only RTS ive ever really seen it in; AOK and AOM lack it. that actually really annoys me about those games: you have to periodically tell your scouting units--scout cavalry, pegasi, whatever--to continue exploring and physically TELL them were to go. with empire earth, you could just train a scouting unit, say, a hot air balloon, and just tell it to explore and it will search the map on its own. this was also really good for very late in the game when theres only a few enemy units left that are hiding in the tiny spaces of map you dont have line of sight for, you can set your explorers to attack any enemy they find and just send EVERYTHING out to scour the coyuntryside

anyway, i think there should be a function like that for 0ad. itll also take away the from micromanagement that you guys are working to lessen

Edited June 6, 2010 by oshron

[SMST]

I agree, a auto-explore function is close to a must-have.

[feneur]

A question: is there a reason to have to explore the map if you just set a unit to auto? I mean can't you just choose to have the map explored when you start to play in that case?

[oshron]

well, as i said, it would also be good for later in the game, like at the very end, if you have the game set up so that you have to completely obliterate your enemy, no villagers or soldiers left whatsoever. in empire earth, what i would do in that case on random maps is just delete all of the land units that i had before and then pour all of my resorces into making helicopters, which i then set to explore the map, scouring the entire playing field in search of those enemy units and setting to shoot on site.

[Aldandil]

Well, auto-exploring would require at least one unit that is exploring instead of strategically fighting, and that unit can be killed by enemy units. It also would take time to explore, instead of having everything already known from the beginning.

[feneur]

I prefer if stray units like that will not be included in such a victory condition than having an auto explore option. That's only to say that I won't urge anyone on to program it, nor will I want to include it among the default options if it's implemented. If someone wants to implement it though it would be great to have it as an option you could choose when setting up a game

[oshron]

i think i may not have said what i meant properly. the idea with an auto-explore function wouldnt be that a unit is automatically diverted from your forces but that you as the player can individually select a unit (say, a cavalryman) and click on an "Explore" button that automatically sets him off to explore the map for you without having to be periodically commanded to do so. you could explore the map yourself by repeatedly having an infantryman or cavalryman explore whatever blackmap or fog of war that you want, or if youre lazy or want to devote your attention elsewhere, just tell a few of your guys to explore the map randomly so that they uncover everything without any real guidance. while exploring, they wouldnt really attack anything, but there could also be a "Search and Destroy" function(also like in EE) where they would explore and automatically attack any enemy unit or building that they come across while exploring

[oshron]

hey, i have a question/suggestion: in AOK, if you had a priest convert an enemy building, say, a house, that was of a different civilization than your own, the sprite of that building wouldnt change(at least not from what ive seen). units in 0ad can capture enemy buildings, right? well would that building change to resemble the building of the civilization that captured it, or would it continue looking like its old civilization? if it changes to that of the capturing player, i think it shouldnt; it would add to the realism of the game. maybe it could be done for civic centers where, say, the romans capture a persian civic center and just take down the persian flags and put up roman ones in their place, but the building stays the same. for temples, maybe they could just topple a statue of the other culture's god and replace it with one of jupiter or mars or whoever

[Ykkrosh]

The natural way of implementing capture would be that the building wouldn't change at all (it would just update an internal variable saying which player owns it). It probably wouldn't be too hard to implement changing civ-specific buildings to match their new civ, but it would take more effort than not doing so

[oshron]

im not so much suggesting that the building's entire facade be replaced, but just that, maybe, the ownership designation for buildings could be a flag or something flying over the building (at least in the case of civic centers and fortresses; for temples it could be a statue) that could maybe not only bear the player color but maybe also a different design of flag for each culture, like for the romans it could just be a typical banner with a vertical SPQR on it

[SMST]

Go and find a banner representing the whole Greek or Celtic culture.

[oshron]

you have a point there

[Aldandil]

It makes sense to leave the appearance of the building the same, but isn't there something like player color, where all units and buildings of a particular player have something red or blue or whatever on them? that color could change. Flavorwise it could be justified as a change of uniform (for units) or of paint and/or "banners" (for buildings).

Edited June 9, 2010 by Aldandil

[Hiram]

What I would like to see is a mod depicting the era previous 0AD, I want a game with minoans, hitites, egyptians, and the feared "sea people"

As for the jews, they were not much diferent politically from other nations of their time, but they are in the occidental mind because of all the jew-christian morale. I would like to make some hebrews, but as a small semifaction, maybe just a few units working as mercenaries for others.

Edited June 9, 2010 by Hiram

[oshron]

well, hiram, im kinda working on a mythology mod that implements some of those civilizations you mentioned and others from times later or contemporary to 0ad. otherwise, if you want those guys, you might want to just stick to AOE for the time being

[Hiram]

Actually I dont like the mythic theme, when I play AOM I hardly use myth units. I like more and find more fun if it have a realistic aproach, because it makes it more diverse, and based in strategy, and not so much in "magical factors".

Unfortunatly the only game that have those civs until now is AOE, but that doesnt count because those are just generalistic civs using the names of the civs, but they dont have their real characteristics, I guess I will wait until 0AD gets to a playable state, and then just start working on new units, I actually have some models yet, but I need to export them in the pyrogenesis format.

[SMST]

Actually I dont like the mythic theme, when I play AOM I hardly use myth units. I like more and find more fun if it have a realistic aproach, because it makes it more diverse, and based in strategy, and not so much in "magical factors".

Unfortunatly the only game that have those civs until now is AOE, but that doesnt count because those are just generalistic civs using the names of the civs, but they dont have their real characteristics, I guess I will wait until 0AD gets to a playable state, and then just start working on new units, I actually have some models yet, but I need to export them in the pyrogenesis format.

Hiram, as I said previous in this thread, I had a similar idea to yours. The ancient civilisations before the rise of Greece. Having six factions, replacing the old ones in 0 AD.

Egypt

Persia

Mesopotamia (Babylonia/Assyria)

Hittite

Mycenean Greeks (there could be also a "Aegean" faction, with Minoans/Myceneans as subfactions)

Phoenicia OR Judaea

Since the idea is not too different from yours, it would be apropriate if we could work together. I have actually nearly no graphical or modelling skills, but if you do, then it would be great if you considered forming a modteam.

I did actually some research about Egyptians and Hittites, but not much. I will start to investigate more time in this when the 0AD alpha comes out.

Edited June 10, 2010 by SMST

[Hiram]

Persia belongs to a later era, but I would include troyans(anatolians) instead.

I do want to do this, but when I try to help with 0AD previously I found that it was too early in the programming area to keep my interest on it.

Now I dont even have 3DS max installed on my pc, perhaps after 0AD gets released, and all the AI, and scripting functions get ready, I will start working again.