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What can I do to help?


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I’ve followed 0 AD for several years now and I am very impressed with how the game is developing, especially with the last few alpha updates.  It is really evolving into a very special game in the same spirit as Age of Empires. I would like to help it get there a little faster if that is possible.

Unfortunately I’m not an experienced or formally trained programmer or computer scientist by any description. However I am one of those people who likes taking a peak at how their games work, and messing with gameplay to suit my personal tastes where possible. Recently (i.e. in the last  year or so) I’ve started fiddling with 0 AD’s modding system, focusing mostly on unit templates, technologies, and auras. It’s wonderfully user friendly and I’m having a lot of fun with it.

It seems only fitting then that I should try to give back to this wonderful project.  I might need a bit of introductory help with whatever version control system 0 AD’s development is using, and anything to do with Java or C++ is probably a bit beyond my depth. However, surely there are some things someone less skill could help with.

Some things off the top of my head I might be able to assist in:
1. Writing/editing unit tooltips or histories (a task too tedious for those with better things to do, I imagine).
2. Fine tuning ranged-attack ballistic parameters. The game is using a gravitational acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2 to match real world physics. However, 0 AD uses exaggerated spacial scaling for gameplay purposes, meaning that real world parameters will look out of place. In my own experiments, setting gravitational acceleration to 50.0 m/s^2 with a projectile speed of 40.0 m/s produced very attractive ballistic arcs for most units.
3. Customizing fauna. I get the feeling there’s still some work to be done with the AI and animations for hunt-able animals, which is probably beyond my depth, but I could still help out with adjusting some of the unit parameters so they better reflect their real world inspirations.
4. Balance experiments. Granted it would be rather foolhardy to trust something so important to an unproven newcomer, but this is something I have some experience in. I was heavily involved in theory crafting during the development and post-release balance patching of the indie time travel RTS Achron. It taught me a lot about the science of unit scaling and game flow. Perhaps I could offer a fresh perspective.

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Hello and welcome to the forums.

All development is currently frozen on the official side to comply with the EU legislation so we can re release A23.

So I would suggest you do your experimentations in your own mod and publish it on modio for instance. This way you can get feedback on it :)

you could also look at other mods there and see if there are ideas you might improve.

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On 7/27/2018 at 7:19 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

When will be finished the wait?

When we will be sure that a 18 years old game won't be destroyed by one individual that wants to destroy stuff, whether it is for revenge or just for fun. 

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Thanks very much for the warm welcomes everyone. ^_^

It is disappointing to hear that development is currently blocked by legalities. That must be very frustrating, but I trust it will be resolved in due course. In the mean time then I will focus on pulling my personal modding efforts into a cohesive package suitable for public scrutiny. If you knowledgeable people would like to suggest any specific aspects of the design on which I would do well to focus my efforts, I would be much obliged.

Otherwise, based on a preliminary search of these forums I’d speculate that area of deficiency that is most undeserved by the current modding efforts is game-flow experimentation. (I gather some people are advocating ditching city phases in favor of more organic progression.) That should be something I can easily experiment in with just technology scripts and unit templates. Therefore that's what I’ll focus on unless anyone has a better suggestion.

And I’ll definitely stop by the IRC channel when I get the chance. Cheers.

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