Conversations with newbs (continued from the Bughouse)

[Steel Mirage]

This is a continuation of a topic from Renegades other site:
<http://bugs.renegadeprojects.com/view.php?id=1537#bugnotes>
A brief recap:
I am very new to modding, very old to Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge. I have been a computer gamer for many years, and I have yet to be impressed by any game as much as I have been by RA2:YR (Though SupCom came close before they ruinated it).

My latest platform is this:
(A) More connection between main buildings and defensive building/offensive unit capability. It seems oversimplistic to just have a "Battle Lab" giving you instant access to all your higher tech. Perhaps create more buildings to give more construction options.
(B) Give the ability to build certain structures on land or at sea.
© Increased naval capacity and flexibility is a must. Thats actually the issue that's attracted me to the modding side of gaming.

To which has been replied "Mirage, you're really a newbie. (Not a noob.)"

So, I wanna learn. I need a new hobby, I'm not a moron and I'm willing to listen.

[Orac]

A) The feature request of researches sounds like the sort of thing you're after: http://bugs.renegadeprojects.com/view.php?id=609
B) The promised replacement for the Kennel Hack, which would allow for a whole bunch of things in the vein, sounds like the thing you're looking for (though I can't find it on the tracker atm, so lets just ignore that one for now ), although iirc Powerplants and defences can both be given seagoing variants in vanilla YR.
C) There are a few things you can to with boats, but most just run to bigger or smaller variants of the existing types. I'm not sure how you want to make boats more flexible, so I can't make any suggestions on things to read.

While ModEnc is pretty daunting if you are to just start at A and read all the way to Z, it is a really useful resource for referring to while coding.
Don't know what to do with TurretSpins? ModEnc.
Don't know what Verses means, and whether negative values do anything interesting? ModEnc.
Don't know the extents to which you can push the Desolator's logic? ModEnc.

[Steel Mirage]

Yeah, ModEnc seems like it would be more of a reference than a sit down and read thing.
My trouble is that, at this point, I have a lot that I want to do, just very little knowledge and no experience. Luckily, I'm a pretty quick study.
Issue A: That does sound close, but instead of ghost buildings, make them regular buildings so that you have a stake in protecting them. You lose the building, you lose the ability. Maybe use some variant of the [prerequisite] boolean function? That way all you really need to do is to create a new building and go from there, though from what I see maybe thats easier said than done?
Issue B: I have no idea what the kennel hack is... This idea kinda comes from Supreme Commander, kinda comes from a desire to see the seas being used to their potential... Imagine floating power generators and building submerged Tech Oil Refineries...
Issue C: This idea would take a long while to fully explain, but the gist of it is rooted in Alfred Thayer Mahans theory of naval power before World War 2, combined with a zero-sum interpretation of arms and armor that I've incorporated in some other unpublished works of fiction and non-fiction. I'm also attempting to learn how to create my own voxels, so there would be a much larger variety of hulls, etc, to choose from.
NEED TO KNOW HERE: I am a political science graduate and jargonaut, but I will try to take it easy on what I know if those from whom I can learn things will take it easy on bringing me up to speed.

[Graion Dilach]

Issue A. Prerequisite is not a boolean. Prerequisite is a list of buildings which you have to have to build the object. If you set a unit's Prerequisite to NANRCT, then it will be buildable after you have a Nuclear Reactor, for example. You can have any building as Prereq.

Issue B. Orac, we weren't talking about Kennel Hack yet. Kennel Hack is for to recreate RA1 kennels, which produced dogs from the kennel, everything else from the Barracks. (http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com/Corre...aval_Yards). But this isn't what you need now. You should experiment with PlaceAnywhere and WaterBound. These two are indeed booleans. I don't know if harvesters will work, tbh.

Issue C: I don't really understand, but if this is meant to be a mod for only naval warfares, go for it.

[Steel Mirage]

A) I think the issue is this: can buildings be created and added just like units or do you have to work with whats hardwired into the program? If you can just create new buildings, that would be the best key seeing as the tech level concept in the game seems to be fairly concrete. I think this would give the individual player more choices. If a player likes to turtle up, then he/she can focus on defense tree buildings before needing to tackle infantry and vehicle options. This might require separating the tech trees, so a player can be at different levels for different aspects of the game. For example, a player would be able to create very high level defense structures, but if he/she doesn't build other tech tree buildings, then he/she will only have basic level infantry or vehicles. I don't even know if thats possible, because looking at the rulesmd files, the tech levels all seem to be intertwined, but I really have no idea...
B) I think that having harvesters at sea would be too complicated, because you'd have to modify the maps and such in order to have resources at sea, which seems like it would be complicated and clunky. On the other hand, if, as I've seen with a great many other mods, you allow sides to build the tech oil refinery, and you allow them to be built at sea, or even submerged, then it could make for some interesting game-play, particularly if there were limited supplies to be had on a given map.
C) The mod I have in mind would be widely focused and balance, but would address the naval dimension in particular. What I'm thinking is having each tech level correspond to a certain era in military history, almost like Empire Earth, but not lame... Again, this rests on the ability of the tech level concept to be manipulated, which might not even be possible, but hey, some questions just gotta be asked, right?

[Graion Dilach]

A) Of course! Just add them into the BuildingTypes list.

B)

Code:

ProduceCashStartup=1000 ; credits when captured from the Neutral house - if buildable forget this
ProduceCashAmount=20 ; Amount every Delay
ProduceCashDelay=100 ; Frame delay between Amounts

is Oil Derrick Income code. What you think is possible. Besides, ores cannot be on the water.

Of course, asking isn't a problem. It seems your English knowledge is enough good, I'm sure you can understand half of the tags without any problem.

[Steel Mirage]

Awwh, tsank yoo tsank yoo, me speaka verra good ingrish... :-)
And that code can be applied to any building? That creates some interesting possibilities...
So how loose is the tech level coding? Can you create a system where a persons tech level can be distinguished between construction areas? Or is an ad hoc organization good enough and don't worry about tech level?

[Graion Dilach]

I don't understand what you mean.

http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com/TechLevel

Note the spreadsheet at the end.

[Steel Mirage]

I get that. Thats really useful, thank you. But I'm just wondering how the tech level interacts with prerequisites, or if the tech level is the mechanism for prerequisite setting. For example, can your infantry tech level be at a different level than your unit tech level, defense structure tech level, aircraft tech level, naval tech level, etc?
I swear I'm not trying to be obtuse or n00b-like, just shooting for comprehension.

EDIT: Just downloaded Launch Base, reading through the Ares 0.2 Manual, an exceedingly helpful publication. Imagine that...

[Orac]

You've got ten tech levels, and -1 for unbuildable stuff. So, sure, you can give all the inf one level and all the vehicles a different one, and so on.

However, consider games at low tech levels (with a whole bunch of infantrymen running about and shooting at oneanother), since you'll still probably want to be able to replace Miners, maybe use transport vehicles, and such. Also, giving TechLevel=1 to the Desolator might have some very adverse effects on how the game plays, so you should take in to account the unit's desired use.

[Steel Mirage]

I think we're on the same page as far as that goes. I'd have to give some thought as to how I would assign tech level values to certain units. But if this tech level manipulation were possible, it would open up a great deal of opportunities. Different maps or missions could be made taking advantage of this.
For example, you could have a low tech map where you would have to accomplish whatever objective with only low tech units. Or you could have maps/levels where you could only use a certain kind of unit, like infantry, ground vehicles, aircraft, naval units, base expansion, etc. You could make maps where you can't produce units until you reach a high tech level, eliminating the bum-rush tactic. You could go on and on...

[DCoder]

That is basically how the missions in C&C work.. each (or almost each) mission gives you a higher and higher tech level (the map designer can arbitrarily make certain objects available/unavailable if the mission design calls for it) culminating in TL=10 where superweapons, Chrono Legionnaires and other elite shit is. Though the tech level slider was visible in skirmish/multiplay screens before RA2, the game designers had to make the tech levels kinda balanced. In RA2/YR the slider was hidden so they said "fuck it" and blocked everything specifically. This is very evident in YR, where Yuri's side gets Magnetron, Mastermind, Floating Disk and Boomer all at TL 2...

[Steel Mirage]

Yeah, always kinda wondered about that. I guess they did that because the Yuri faction isn't really new, its just a modification of the Soviet faction.
What would be neat is if we could turn that into a skirmish mode setting, which is where I was headed with it. It would be nice to make new campaigns/storylines with it, but thats not that new an idea, and frankly I kinda took it for granted that that was an option for that. Writing scenario scripts for that is kinda way out in the future for me as far as that goes, seeing as I barely understand the script for rulesmd so far. I'm guessing it kinda common sense, but I really haven't looked into that quite yet. I figured that script writing and map-making are tasks for after I figure out how I want to make everything else look and behave.
Since we're on the subject though, I was wondering...
Wait, is there a better place to discuss storylines than here? It would be more like a fiction input discussion, and seeing as this is a mod forum, this might not be the appropriate spot. I'll look into that...
You've all been very helpful, I really appreciate it.

[cranium]

I've heard and seen people using TL=35 for some things. Is TL=35 a valid TL? If it is, what does it do?

[Steel Mirage]

Where've you seen that, if I may ask?