Spawn Markers

[s-t-n]

Hello modders!

I was wondering if would be possible to allow spawn events of hostile unit waves to be triggerable by cheat-line input in a future release or even if its possible. I admit, I have little knowledge of modding warzone and mod a different game myself, so I haven't firmly got in place what is and isn't possible. But, I presume since the source-code is modable the sky is the limit.

For those that cant immediately see the benefits of this and how it could change gameplay, I will give two examples.
Firstly, everyone loved NEXUS' huge swarms of superior tanks swarming their meager defences in the Gamma campaign. Wouldn't it be nice to recreate that experience with a truly magnificent base instead? See just how much it takes to break through your defences or sit there watching the swarms of tanks drop like flies as soon as they cross the firing line.

Secondly, making the spawns automated after X minutes would create a new game type. Hold the fort. You have X minutes to build your base before the enemy attack [not long enough to build anything truly decent, you should always be on the edge of getting defeated], with a timer counting down until you win [or have it on infinite and see how long you last]

Some of the terms used in here might not match up to what they are called in Warzone, eg Spawn markers may be called something else, but I tried to keep the names very generic to help.

Incase of tl;dr

I was wondering if would be possible to allow spawn events of hostile unit waves

s-t-n

[Buginator]

Sure, it is possible... anything is possible if you dedicate some time to it...

If this is a request, then.. well, our TODO list is miles long.

[lav_coyote25]

you will have to find one of the old maps - cant remember which one - but it did have what your asking for... something in the center of the map would spawn vtols like crazy... rman would remember... you would have to take that apart to see how they did it... scripting wise i believe... getting old and loosing your memory isnt a good thing.

[Rman Virgil]

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you will have to find one of the old maps - cant remember which one - but it did have what your asking for... something in the center of the map would spawn vtols like crazy... rman would remember... you would have to take that apart to see how they did it... scripting wise i believe... getting old and loosing your memory isnt a good thing.

I'm a bit vague on that one. Ditto on the reasons why. But I'm sure it involved a custom A.I. Map Mod of which the 2 earliest ones done were Maynard's "Boot Camp" and Laws245 / Rman's "Citadel Elite". In the case of our "Citadel Elite" I have our VTOL Spawning A.I. Script which could be used as a guide and modified however you want to make for the units you wanna use, numbers and spawning cycles but this would involve your learning some scripting.

I can think of a few other ways it's been done in the past - and can be done now, though.

But out of all the ways to do it I think the basic notion here is related directly to creating a Map Challenge and that may be the best approach for a novice.

Here is the link for the BB that gets into that method:

viewforum.php?f=36&start=0

If after looking at how Map Challenges are created you find that it's not close enough to what you have in mind I could go into those other, more involved, methods that would require some learning of WZ A.I. scripting on your part, as I mentioned, that while not particularly hard for what you seem to be suggesting (especially if I give you our "Citadel Elite" scripts to modify) would still be a little tricky to make so that it worked on ANY map as Spawning is usually a technique reserved for specific maps in Campaign mode and not any map in SP SKI or MP mode (the Spawning Trigers in "Citadel Elite" use map centered coordinates so it may work generically - some of the time, especially on flat, land maps,... though not all of the time as there are likely center map coordinates that are over water which obviously wouldn't work for land units... or maybe those coordinates would be in the middle of a mountain on some maps... see what I'm saying.... course you could create more complicated scripting such that spawning points would be from sea level land map edges or from base HQs but all of this makes me lean towards the Map Challenge approach as being the best way).

That said, as Buggy indicated, laying down spawn markers in DEBUG mode would be a new feature that would require a host of code changes that are not likely to happen any time soon unless some new coder joins the development team and happens to have a compelling desire to do that work which is basically how FOSS development usually proceeds.

Of course you can do opposition Placements in DEBUG Mode which is a down and dirty way to achieve something along the lines your describing.

- Regards, Rman

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[lav_coyote25]

Citadel Elite !!! thanks!!! i knew you would remember. fun map that one.

[s-t-n]

Okay, can I request all the material relating to Citadel Elite then so I can dissect it and learn more?

It doesn't sound too hard [famous last words] and given that AI Scripting in the game I mainly mod is LUA I should be able to rope in a member of my team to teach me what I need. I knew that you couldnt apply a blanket spawn event to every map because each map needs custom code/markers to specify where on the map they spawn/what spawns etc, I would be most interested in doing it on the 3 campaign maps that I was directed to by KukY in a previous thread. If I am successful I would release them to the community to save adding to your to-do list as well.

[Rman Virgil]

Okay, can I request all the material relating to Citadel Elite then so I can dissect it and learn more?

It doesn't sound too hard [famous last words] and given that AI Scripting in the game I mainly mod is LUA I should be able to rope in a member of my team to teach me what I need. I knew that you couldnt apply a blanket spawn event to every map because each map needs custom code/markers to specify where on the map they spawn/what spawns etc, I would be most interested in doing it on the 3 campaign maps that I was directed to by KukY in a previous thread. If I am successful I would release them to the community to save adding to your to-do list as well.

Oh, you work with LUA... cool. Eventually WZ's A.I. will be done in LUA - sometime down the road that is - no set timetable for the migration so working with WZ script is the way to go for the foreseeable future.

Anyway... sure I'll attach a .zip archive of just the A.I. files you'll need ("Citadel Elite" is a complex mod-map-custom A.I. so there are a lot of files you don't need.)

I would also recommend you check out the very fine WZ A.I. website created by our resident WZ A.I. scripting Guru Dylan Dog here:

http://www.dydo-ai.kilu.de/

All the documentation and tuts you could possibly ask for. In particular, you will likely want to change the templates (among other things) and he's written an excellent guide for just that here:

http://www.dydo-ai.kilu.de/?page_id=783

And my apology if I went a bit much to the point of belaboring the blanket spawning angle. I actually got lost in the challenge of attempting such a scripting.

Look forward to what you create.

Oh, yea... just to be on the safe side - Citadel Elite scripts are released under the CC0 1.0 Universal License.

- Regards, Rman.
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[s-t-n]

Thanks!

Upon looking over the script, it all seems far more logically placed and easy to work with than even XML. I see that it references the units [makes sence really...needs to know what to spawn], so where would I need to be looking to find the correct in-code names for the weapons, bodies and propulsion? And how will I find the grid-reference [eg 12480, 11328 is specified as a spawn point for group 2/third one down's vtols]? If it's in the map editor, I may have a problem as it seems to pick and choose which of my computers it likes and which it doesnt like. I havent tried it on this computer yet, and it rejected all my other current computers.

for the names, its things like this:-
SK-Retre-VTOL-PulseLsr
they are mostly self explanatory what they are [Retribution VTOL Pulse Laser], but you still need a list to know what to type in. I mean, I wouldnt have thought Retribution would be shortened to that. And is that...a VTOL with a flamer??? Please tell me that isnt like a Thermite bomber that retains the speed of a normal VTOL or my bunkers are doomed.

[Rman Virgil]

Thanks!

Upon looking over the script, it all seems far more logically placed and easy to work with than even XML. I see that it references the units [makes sence really...needs to know what to spawn], so where would I need to be looking to find the correct in-code names for the weapons, bodies and propulsion? And how will I find the grid-reference [eg 12480, 11328 is specified as a spawn point for group 2/third one down's vtols]? If it's in the map editor, I may have a problem as it seems to pick and choose which of my computers it likes and which it doesnt like. I havent tried it on this computer yet, and it rejected all my other current computers.

for the names, its things like this:-
SK-Retre-VTOL-PulseLsr
they are mostly self explanatory what they are [Retribution VTOL Pulse Laser], but you still need a list to know what to type in. I mean, I wouldnt have thought Retribution would be shortened to that. And is that...a VTOL with a flamer??? Please tell me that isnt like a Thermite bomber that retains the speed of a normal VTOL or my bunkers are doomed.

The Grid Reference or map coordinates you have to get by running the map in one of the Map Editors - like in flaME or 32EW. However, if you are gonna use the original campaign maps you can use Pumpkin's map coordinates for your own triggers and you see those here:

http://svn.gna.org/svn/warzone/trunk/da ... ript/text/

Yea, those internal ID names can be whack sometimes. You can get them all here:

http://developer.wz2100.net/wiki/TxtEditing

Oh, forgot about "SK-Wyvern-VTOL-Flamer".... definitely not stock.... one of our many modded elements in "CitadelElite" but we only used this one for the A.I. all the rest were new toys for the player. You'll probably just wanna stick with stock elements in your Templates.... it's a PITA getting new elements like weaps into the game. If you stick with stock it's straightforward as your just drawing on base.wz resources instead of having to create from scratch - new assets and .wrfs.

- Regards, Rman

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