Warship Progression

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

hi guy. I was thinking of making the warships upgrade in a line, a progression, like with Age of Empires and other games. Basically, the reason is because the differences between the light, medium, and heavy warships are not significant. I mean, at all. They basically are just a step better from the ones before. More health, more cost, higher attack, more garrisoning space, etc. etc. So, why not just enshrine this step process with an upgrade line like in Age of Empires?

So, the core game and Delenda Est display 3 major ways of upgrading units.
 

1. Promotion. I could use promotion techs to go from Light to Medium to Heavy, just like how promotion techs work currently in Delenda Est to take units from Basic to Advanced to Elite, and how core game upgrades Hypaspists to Silver Shields.
   1. Pros: Easy to do. Works good using current code.
   2. Cons: I'd have to make the warships have some xp requirement like 2000+ or something and this looks kind of bad, plus makes it possible for a Light Warship to promote to a Medium warship, etc., on its own, and I don't want that to happen.
   3. Fix 1: Ask that the code allow for infinite xp requirement, and that the when the requirement is infinite the UI does not show the xp bar next to the portrait at all. This would work wonderfully with minimal changes to the code as far as I can envision. Please tell me if this is a wrong guess.
   4. Fix 2: This is the ideal fix, but would require more work: A whole new simulation component for upgrade lines akin to what AOE and other games have. Fix 1 could work just fine to do this though, so I'm not sure a whole new component would be completely necessary as long as modders know about the Fix 1 functionality.
2. Actor Swapping and Tech Editing. This option really sucks. Basically, can put an actor swap in the tech and then adjust all of the stats of the ship with a tech. There would be one warship template and then each tech would adjust the stats upward.
   1. Pros: Not much new code necessary, except the tech effect of changing footprint sizing. It's flexible, maybe overly so.
   2. Cons: so many cons with this one. You lose the medium and heavy warship templates and possibility of placing them in the editor, etc. Kind of a messy workaround, plus since there's some code changes needed anyway, best to just ask for a better solution like with Fix 1 above.
3. Individually Upgrading. I like the Upgrade feature a lot. I use it in Delenda Est for Spartiates so you can upgrade 2 of them to Olympic Champions, upgrade individual wooden towers to stone, etc. But I'd rather use this feature to do individual upgrades like adding catapults, etc. to the ship instead up upgrading the whole ship. I want a line progression of warship upgrading, rather than upgrading individual ships, so this option seems to not work for me.

 

 

My question is, how best do you guys think this can be achieved? I am thinking it is to request some minor changes to the promotion feature code in the core game. Unless this functionality is already in that component of the code and i am ignorant.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

How would the footprint increase be handled?

[Lion.Kanzen]

How the non naval civs can counter the Juggernauts?

[fatherbushido]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone: Something like https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/4126 (disclaimer: it's a draft)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 hours ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

How would the footprint increase be handled?

If it's done with promotion, then the next template just has a different footprint value. If done with tech effects instead, then it would need extra code in the core game since changing footprint is not currently a possible tech effect.

 

2 hours ago, fatherbushido said:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone: Something like https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/4126 (disclaimer: it's a draft)

Using a RequiredTechnology tag is a very nice solution. I like it. This looks like the best option.

Edited April 30, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[WhiteTreePaladin]

The issue with a footprint increase is that it might make the unit get stuck. It's not as difficult as a building footprint increase though.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 minutes ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

The issue with a footprint increase is that it might make the unit get stuck. It's not as difficult as a building footprint increase though.

Footprint is not same as passabilityclass, so you must be specific. All warships have the same passabilityclass -- ie obstruction.

[sphyrth]

Individual Promotion? I just like taking care of my units.

I also hate the actor-swapping thing. I've seen its brokenness with the siege packing/unpacking swaps.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

But the obstruction size is determined by footprint, right? I didn't think that was affected by the passibility class. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

But the obstruction size is determined by footprint, right? I didn't think that was affected by the passibility class. 

As far as I remember, the footprint element in the templates has absolutely nothing to do with obstruction or passability or pathfinding.

[niektb]

You have footprint, which is just that blue ring around an object and then you have obstruction, which is the area it actually obstructs. These two things are completely independent

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, niektb said:

You have footprint, which is just that blue ring around an object and then you have obstruction, which is the area it actually obstructs. These two things are completely independent

Yeah. Also, I believe arbitrary obstruction sizes for units was removed in favor of hardcoded obstructions, hence the "passability classes". Can a team member shed some light on this part?

[wraitii]

Correct, units no longer have a per-entity obstruction but rather have a "clearance" defined by their passibility class. Pathfinding-wise, that's the only thing that matters.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Hmm, did not know this.