Strategy Mode Discussion

Well, citzens will eat food, so soldiers should do too. If we are simulating food at all, every creature should consume food equally, just by being soldiers they should not stop eating.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I was thinking that units only eat when populated into SC's, but that would detract a lot from the Awakening Stage and be quite unrealistic. So I guess food would be the same as fuel in how it is stored and delivered. The food bar, once empty, would begin to drain at the health bar until the unit is dead. I think detracting from the unit's stats would be too much of a penalty.

So that closes the discussion on supply. I will be adding that to the wiki soon.

On a separate note, I have some new topics to open up.

Where should Solar Panels be unlocked as an FP in the Research Web? Which Research or Invention? Or should they get a new one and where would that new one go?

As I wrote this I forgot one of the topics I wanted to mention, so that's it for now.

A new invention under advanced materials?

Ah, good idea. Should we call the invention "Photovoltaic Energy"?

Actually, I think it would fit better under Electricity, now that I look at it, because Advanced Materials is the stage at which Carbon Fibres are being developed, so that seems too late for solar panels.

Okay, so the next step to finishing the Researches and Inventions is assigning each one a cost, in Research Points. Then, we assign certain tasks or actions that, when done by the player, contribute Research Points (RP) towards that Research or Invention.

Also note that we are discussing the triggers of these Researches and Inventions, i.e. what actions contribute towards discovering them. The content unlocked by these Researches and Inventions is not the main focus of this discussion, but do help in explaining the context and significant of the many Researches and Inventions in game.

The first one on the list is Socialisation. Socialisation has three Inventions under it: Language, Cooperation, and Communities. Remember, the full Research Web is downloadable in the OP.

For Socialisation, I was thinking we make it cost 40 RP. The triggers for it would be communicating with other species members. Every time you communicate with another member of your species, you generate 1-4 RP towards Socialisation. Discovering Socialisation enables the player to recruit other species members to their pack, like in Spore. However, at this stage, they only follow you around. They do not listen to you as their leader.

This point of the game is similar to the late creature stage and early tribal stage, in case you want to use Spore to help understand the setting.

So, can you guys think of some other triggers for Socialisation, because all I can think of is communicating with other species members.

What about gifting? Like if bring some food back for the young ones of your species and look after them? Or if one of them is getting attack you come to their aid?

That is a good idea! I would extend it to just giving in general. Giving any food or other compounds to other species members would generate RP towards Socialisation. Does 3-5 RP per action sounds good?

I think it would be hard to quantify to the computer when an instance of coming to a species member's aid has taken place. Could you think of a specific way to define it?

I hate to bring another mode into this, but shouldn't something like that be available in organism mode as well? Animals bring food back to their offspring all the time, it's a normal part of life for a more evolved species, like the wolf or lion, and elephants will aid a sick or injured herd member by bringing them food or water until they recover.

Yeah I think about 4 RP would work. Dinoman, I guess each time they do that they would just increase their RP, which would eventually lead to each animal having the chance to progress.

As for how to define "coming to the aid of", perhaps if animal A is under attack and HP goes below a certain point, then if another creature of type A joins in the fight and animal A survives then RP increases.

Explain RP to me, I haven't read this thread thoroughly, since I'm more focused on Organism mode and the stages therein. Since this is strategy mode, I figured it was talking about Awakening and onwards, therefore excluding therefore excluding Multicellular and Aware.

dinoman9877 wrote:

I hate to bring another mode into this, but shouldn't something like that be available in organism mode as well? Animals bring food back to their offspring all the time, it's a normal part of life for a more evolved species, like the wolf or lion, and elephants will aid a sick or injured herd member by bringing them food or water until they recover.

This is in organism mode. When we say communicating with other species members, or giving food, that is only possible in a 1st/3rd person perspective. What we are discussing right now are the specifics of how the transition will work from Aware, through Awakening, and to Society.

Inca wrote:

Yeah I think about 4 RP would work. Dinoman, I guess each time they do that they would just increase their RP, which would eventually lead to each animal having the chance to progress.

As for how to define "coming to the aid of", perhaps if animal A is under attack and HP goes below a certain point, then if another creature of type A joins in the fight and animal A survives then RP increases.

To clarify, I do specifically mean a range of 3-5, not just a fixed amount of 4 every time.

The problem is, combat is not like World of Warcraft (best example I could think of) where you enter combat mode when fighting, and after ending a fight you officially "Disengage". There are no states of being in combat or out of combat. Every attack is independent of every other attack. Thus its pretty hard to tell the computer "So and so is under attack".

I don't think that is specific enough for the computer to use. Can you think of something to eliminate the problem I posed?

dinoman9877 wrote:

Explain RP to me, I haven't read this thread thoroughly, since I'm more focused on Organism mode and the stages therein. Since this is strategy mode, I figured it was talking about Awakening and onwards, therefore excluding therefore excluding Multicellular and Aware.

Well if you want to get involved in this discussion, you ought to check out some of the concept for the Strategy Mode. What we are discussing right now is mainly described on the Awakening Stage wiki entry, and the Society Stage wiki entry.

Ok 3-5 RP then haha.

Erm let me have a think. We can't have a variable that tells the comp unit is in combat?

Surely we can say if a unit takes a number of damage hits with less or equal to a length of time between them we can say they are under attack. Then we have established they are under attack. In fact we can flip that to say that a unit is attacking (damage dealt with short length of time between). If a unit is then under attack by two units, we can match them to be the same type (or of the same tribe) and then see if they are teaming up or helping each other out.

This procedure does need work, can you see if you can work with it a bit? I'm not sure how to define one units attacks from another. If we can't figure it out, we'll just have to scrap it.

But an attack could also be drawn out over several hours as you cooperatively hunt a prey down with other species members. Also, for setting a specific time interval in which attacks occur, what would that inequality be? Also, what if the fellow species member is competing with you for the kill (Remember tribes don't exist yet).

I have a general idea of what series of triggers you are going for. This is what I drafted up:

Pseudo-code

Code:

If an organism is attacked
If discovered_Cooperation = false
If attacker equal to species of organism = false
If attacker equal to species of player = true
Then set attacker = predator
Then set organism = prey
Then tag prey as "attacked" for 10 seconds

Code:

If prey is attacked
If attacker equal to species of prey = false
If attacker equal to species of predator = true
If attacker equal to predator = false
If attacker equal to player = true
If prey is tagged as "attacked"
Then generate random number (3-5) research points for player

However as you can see this leaves a lot of loopholes.

I think I was able to make it foolproof with the line

Code:

If attacker equal to species of player = true

Because this means that only another member of the player's species can activate this event, and only the player himself can fulfill it. This will prevent other organisms from around the planet triggering this event for the player. However, I also had to add in the line

Code:

If discovered_Cooperation = false

Because once Cooperation is discovered, any other pack member of the player's pack can contribute towards research, which means the computer would have to run a different process looking like this:

Code:

If prey is attacked
If attacker equal to species of prey = false
If attacker equal to species of predator = true
If attacker equal to predator = false
If attacker equal to species of player = true
If prey is tagged as "attacked"
Then generate random number (3-5) research points for player

However, that still leaves the final question to answer. What should the time interval be?

Time interval would have to be a bit more than the average attack time. Don't know if we can work this out yet until we know how often an animal can land an attack.

Don't we want other tribes to gain RP from this sort of thing though?

I believe it would be much better to explain what you want to happen than to write some difficult to write pseudo-code. Unless that code alredy runs in the engine (which it doesent).

That way, it would be much easier to understaund, as we dont need to take out every if, and translate the variables into sensible expresions.

@Inca

It's better to come up with numbers first and then revise. Speeds up the process. Let's just put it at 15 seconds for now.

For other tribes, that depends on how we will handle AI Nations. We can either use shortcuts to simulate them while they are off screen, such as math equations with certain elements of randomness to see how much they advance, or we can simulate them in real time like the player. As a question to the coders, which one is more viable and easier on the system?

@Daniferrito

Sure thing.

Basically, we have to start by identifying an organism as under attack. To do this certain conditions need to be met.

The organism (the target) must receive contact from another organism (the attacker) that causes damage.
The attacker must not be the same species as the target.
The attacker must be equal to the species of the player.
Cooperation must not have been discovered. (Nevermind we don't need this)

Then, we set the target with a tag called "Attacked" for 15 seconds.

Next, we need to see if an organism comes to aid the attacker. The conditions for this are:

The 2nd attacker is equal to the species of the 1st attacker.
The 2nd attacker is not the 1st attacker.
The 2nd attacker is the player's organism.

Then, if those conditions are met, the computer generates 3-5 RP for the player towards the Research "Socialisation".

Does this sounds like something that could work? Any loopholes?

Just going to make a quick change, we need to multiply all the values we have by 10, because I did some testing and right now Researches are discovered waayy too fast.

So anyways, at the pace we are going right now we'll be lucky to finish the stone age techs by the end of summer. So instead of doing each Research and Invention separately, let's do each Research at the same time as all of its inventions. Also, instead of coming up with the specific wording for the triggers, let's just try and come up with more of them, so that if one or two don't work, there are still several other triggers that can be used.

So to wrap up Socialisation:

Name:
Research or Invention:
Cost:
Triggers:
...
Enables:
...

Socialisation
Research
400 RP
Triggers:
Communicating with other species members (10-40 RP)
Giving food or items to other species members (30-50 RP)
Mutually attacking other species members (20-30 RP)
Enables:
Recruiting pack members. (Pack follows you around, but does their own thing)

Here are all of the inventions under Socialisation. I'll put them all in the same format as the above:

Language
Invention
900 RP
Triggers:
Recruiting pack members (10-30 RP)
...
Enables:
Can assign tasks to pack members (May not comply).

Cooperation
Invention
1200 RP
Triggers:
Assigning tasks to species members through Language (30-60 RP)
...
Enables:
Other species members can contribute RP from actions
Strategy Mode

Communities
Invention
1200 RP
Triggers:
...
Enables:
Nation Editor
Citizens (All units automatically become citizens)

So can you guys come up with some triggers for these Inventions? Also, does Socialisation look complete?

Okay, I'm going to suspend the talk of researches, inventions, and their triggers (not that there was much recently) to quickly discuss gathering. This is what I've written up for it so far.

---

The compound system exists and applies in all stages of the game. In the stages after achieving intelligence and unlocking the Strategy Mode (often called the ‘Strategy Stages’), compounds are more commonly referred to as resources. This follows RTS convention.

Resources will already exist in the environment by the time the strategy stages begin. The player can, however, create resources themselves, and with higher technology they can even synthesize new ones. Resource gathering is one of the essential pillars to the strategy stages.

To gather resources, the player must select the units they want, click G, and then select the resource to get the units to gather. Once the order is issued, the units immediately set out to the nearest natural stockpiles of those resources and begin to gather. The player can save “Quick Commands” for his units when selecting what resources to gather, so that the next time the player can just select the units, click the quick command button on their interface, and they will all automatically begin to gather wood (or whatever resource was designated).

Buildings can also dispatch units to gather resources. Buildings with storage FPs can have quick commands assigned to them in the Technology Editor. Quick commands are basically hotkeys, or buttons on the interface of the building, that when clicked issue several orders at once.

When a building has a storage FP placed in it in the Technology Editor, the player will be prompted to assign quick gather commands to the building. If they accept, the player will select a resource, select a specialist (or several specialists), and select a “Tool” Tech Object. Finally, the quick command is named.

The way this would be used in game would be via the interface of that building. The interface of any building with a storage FP will have a “Gather” button in it. This button, when selected, will open a list. This list will only have options to click on if the player, in the Technology Editor, assigned quick commands to the building. The player can assign as many quick commands to a building as they like, even for the same resource. So, the player would click the “Gather” button, and select one of the quick commands from the list. They would type in a number, telling the building how many units to dispatch to gather under the conditions set in the quick command.

Here we will demonstrate this tool with an example. A player builds a building in the Technology Editor and places a stockpile in the building. They are prompted to assign quick commands. They assign one quick command, in which they select wood as the resource, gatherers as the specialists, and axes as the tech object. They name this quick command “Axe – Wood”. They then place this building somewhere in the game world and select it, clicking the gather button. A list opens, showing the quick command “Axe – Wood”. They select this quick command, type in the number 10, and hit okay. 10 idle gatherers are automatically dispatched to the building, where they auto-equip axe TO’s, and then go out to begin gathering wood wherever they find it. Priority is always given to the closest sources. Also, if there had not been enough idle gatherers when the quick command was issued, gatherers would be pulled from the nearest SC (Gatherers that were populated would be deployed), and then they would be sent to the building to execute the command.

---

So as you can see its quite messy, long, and complicated, but its better than nothing. We need to lay down how gathering resources will work in the strategy mode, because thats kinda the pillar of all RTS games.

The reason this is so complex and not just a simple RTS based system is because we need to include all of the following features:

• There will not be preset models for wood, stone, minerals, etc., like there normally are in RTS games. There won't be a predefined "tree" model, or "iron ore rocks" model. Instead, a plant may contain several resources. There may be stockpiles of minerals underground. Soil, sand, clay, and other resources also exist in natural stockpiles "in" the ground. So there are no specific entities to click on.
  
• Whatever the controls we agree on, they need to be quick, intuitive, and something that people can learn to do quickly and as a habit.
  
• Buildings need to be able to automate gathering via your units, so that in the later game when the player is focused more on larger problems, it can be easy to manage gathering on a large scale.
  

Discuss.

Guys, I know this may not be the most interesting thing in the world, but without a system for gathering, we can't have a strategy mode, or anything past the Aware stage. Do you guys have ideas on how it could be done based on what I said above?

Sadly, i dont have any sugestions, other than predefining most quick actions ourselves, instead of prompting the player to define them himself. Overall, i see this system as over-complicated for the user, but i dont know how could we do it easier.

How about, when a group of units is selected, you click G to go into Gather mode, and then you select any model or area of the ground. If you select a model, it will display a list of all the compounds in that model, and the player just selects the one he wants the units to gather. The units will proceed to collect all of that compound in that model, and then continue to find and gather other sources of that compound elsewhere.

If the player clicks G and then clicks on the ground, a menu appears displaying all of the compounds available in the ground (like minerals and types of soil) in that specific area and to a certain depth below it. Again, once the player selects one of the resources from the list, the units begin gathering first from that spot and then from neighbouring spots.

How does that sound?

That makes sense to me and isn't too complicated for the user.