Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Arreon »

Can you make a version that's compatible with master builds, pretty please? :3
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by NoQ »

I think i implemented EASY difficulty, together with team-synchronized personality choice, in nullbot-contingency v2.02
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Shadow Wolf TJC »

Version 0.7.5 is out, though it's just a small fix that would allow AIs to use the "HvyCyborgLegs" component for their cyborgs. Previously, since this component wasn't made available in rules.js (until now), AIs were unable to produce Cyborg templates that used the "HvyCyborgLegs" component, which was used by every Heavy Cyborg template in Contingency. (Those AIs that substituted the missing propulsion system for "CyborgLegs", as NullBot did, in an effort to enable production of Heavy Cyborgs were (un)intentionally cheating in the process, as the Heavy Cyborgs in Contingency were designed to be slower than the regular Cyborgs).

Work is currently underway for creating a new AI for Contingency, though it won't be ShadowBot. I've put development of that AI on hold in favor of modifying an existing AI for that purpose, namely NullBot. An alpha build of this new prototype NullBot AI, called NullBotSW, is currently available for download in the NullBot thread, and while it does work in Contingency version 0.7.4, it'll be unable to build Heavy Cyborgs due to how its cyborg templates include a propulsion component (that's missing in regular NullBot).
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by aubergine »

My understanding of cyborgs is that in the C++ code they are implemented in a different and somewhat hacky manner. Per has helped hide away most of that mess behind a nice buildDroid() function, but despite the fact you can specify components for cyborgs it's my understanding that behind the scenes they always have to be template based and that the JS API is determining which template to use. I could be wrong though, I've not experimented much with cyborgs yet (so far I'm up to Super Transport and haven't yet worked out even how to build one, yet alone get troops on and off it).
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Goth Zagog-Thou »

That explains a lot of the problems I've had with getting Cyborgs in too.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Shadow Wolf TJC »

A little video of a couple AIs duking it out in Contingency: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhdFWjSGLOQ
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by aubergine »

Loving the sound effects - are they available anywhere? I'd love to catalogue them in my audio directory.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Zi-Chan »

Nice mod i must say. I think the sound effects are so much better than the original ones. Finally the machine guns actually sounds like machine guns, and the minirockets also sound very nice. :)

I noticed just two bad things:

1) Because you implemented so many towers, the building list gets huge very quickly and you have to scroll through the screens to find what u want... Solution: You should just make towers replace others. E.g. twin MG tower should replace normal mg tower, big mg should replace twin mg, twin-minirocket should replace minirocket... All non-concrete towers should be replaced by concrete towers as soon as concrete tower is researched... And so on. This would decrease the building list alot. Many many towers aren't used anymore after a couple of minutes. This of course makes clear why it would be awesome if we could design towers like units. Guess you had that in mind when making every weapon mountable on a tower...

2) All (i think) of the towers, bunkers and emplacements don't need any time to research -they are researched immediately after clicked.

By the way: FINALLY someone made the minirockets more realistic. They rock! :D

Please continue this. :)
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Arreon »

One improvement to the mod would be to change the Rocket Assault Pod cyborgs so that the weapon on their arm actually looks like the Assault Pod instead of the Mini Rocket Pod.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Shadow Wolf TJC »

aubergine wrote:Loving the sound effects - are they available anywhere? I'd love to catalogue them in my audio directory.
As mentioned in the video, some of the sound effects were previously used by Black Project's Warzone 2100 Nostalgia mod (such as the new unit-death explosion), while the others were made by modifying existing Warzone 2100 sounds using a sound-editing program such as Audacity. For the latter custom-made sounds, I'm afraid that they're unavailable elsewhere (to my knowledge), though I do believe that I released them under the CC0 license sometime before.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by AlphaThor01 »

Even though this is a late post, I have to agree with Zi-Chan. You should start to make some weapons replace others, since they become inferior to other weapons of their class, like all the machine guns and the assault gun to a double assault gun. Also, a big loss to this mod, no offense meant here, is that out of all the buildings with turrets that I have researched (which is every one of them) is instantly researched, even without the research module, giving players and AIs an unfair advantage. The first time I played with the pack, a scavenger copter came somewhere and attacked me a bit. Then came some apache-looking copters and really let it rain. To finish it off, a scavenger ARMY TOOK OUT MINE!!!!! I'm a bit afraid to play with them while having the pack loaded, so you might want to tone them from "YOU MUST DIE!" to random, small attacks. This attack was before I had VTOL propulsion researched.

Edit: The game also crashed on a different skirmish. Do NOT know why.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Shadow Wolf TJC »

AlphaThor01 wrote:Even though this is a late post, I have to agree with Zi-Chan. You should start to make some weapons replace others, since they become inferior to other weapons of their class, like all the machine guns and the assault gun to a double assault gun.
If you've ever played real-time strategy games like Supreme Commander, you'll realize that, sometimes, the most powerful weapon isn't always the best weapon to use. Not only do large powerful weapons (such as Heavy Cannons, Twin Assault Cannons, and Twin Assault Guns) tend to be over twice as expensive, sometimes even over 5 times as expensive, as smaller weapons of the same tier (such as Heavy Machineguns, Light Cannons, and Assault Guns), they also tend to weigh too much for lighter bodies to be able to use effectively (unless supported through lots of engine upgrades), and heavy bodies are themselves much more expensive than light bodies. For the price of a single Python Twin Vulcan Gattling Gun Tracks, I could produce about 5 Viper Light Cannon Tracks, 10 Super Lancer Cyborgs, or 26 Cyborg Lancers. Try pitting a single Python Twin Vulcan Gattling Gun Tracks against any of these 3 groups of units, and see who comes out as the victor, as well as how heavily-damaged the victorious force is.
Also, a big loss to this mod, no offense meant here, is that out of all the buildings with turrets that I have researched (which is every one of them) is instantly researched, even without the research module, giving players and AIs an unfair advantage.
That was intended, since I felt that it didn't seem fair to have to research the same old structure body (such as Hardcrete Bunker bodies) in order to be able to build many different defenses that use the same structure body, but a diverse selection of weapons (such as Light Cannon Bunkers, Lancer Bunkers, Machinegun Bunkers, Assault Cannon Bunkers, etc.). This discouraged more defensive players from diversifying their options for defensive structures, and since I couldn't implement a system to allow players to design their own structures (which is currently impossible to do for a simple mod), I chose to make researching individual structures instantaneous, as well as requiring players to research the structure's weapon as well as its body, as a compromise.

One exception to this design decision is in researching individual fortresses and firebases. Since the weapons that they mount would be too big to mount on any units, I decided to combine having to research the individual weapon as well as having to research the individual "template" (which would've been instantaneous like all the other defenses) into one research tech. They'd still require having to research the structure body though, as again, I'm not keen on the idea of forcing defensive players to rely on a smaller selection of defenses.
The first time I played with the pack, a scavenger copter came somewhere and attacked me a bit. Then came some apache-looking copters and really let it rain. To finish it off, a scavenger ARMY TOOK OUT MINE!!!!! I'm a bit afraid to play with them while having the pack loaded, so you might want to tone them from "YOU MUST DIE!" to random, small attacks. This attack was before I had VTOL propulsion researched.
You'll have to talk to NoQ about that, since while I did try to tone down how much of a threat the Scavengers are, their AI from NoQ's Ultimate Scavengers Mod was kept more-or-less intact, albeit made into a separate add-on for Contingency (though it was built-in for some versions of Contingency in order for saved games to work correctly). Keep in mind that, as with the original Ultimate Scavengers Mod, it is not balanced for maps filled with loads of Scavengers.

Also, I did try to give players enough time to research some basic weapons that, while not necessarily dedicated anti-air weapons (like the Hurricane or the Sunburst), are capable of attacking air units. One of the earliest anti-air-capable units that you can build are Cyborg Machinegunners. They're cheap to build en-masse (costing only 8 power per unit), and while they may take a few casualties, 20 or so of these is often enough to bring them down fast (even without researching any upgrades to Machineguns). The Mini-Rocket Pod (both tank/structure and Cyborg-mounted variants) is another early-game weapon that can likewise bring down Scavenger choppers quickly.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by AlphaThor01 »

Ok, thanks Shadow Wolf TJC. Those scavenger copters REALLY tick me and my tank army off. Also, I said that you should make it to where SOME weapons become outdated to more powerful ones of their respective tiers. I mean like machine gun replaced by double, and double replaced by heavy. Heavy should stay throughout the game. That is a MASSIVE amount of weapons in the game, you have to admit. What I've been meaning of the weapon mount research thing is that.... Recalculating.... Done. NOW I see of why the weapon mount thing is instantaneous! Apparently, since one already has researched both the weapon and structure individually researched, all that is required is to just build the weapon on the mount. I think that should be fair now. Plus, thanks for mentioning that the Ultimate Scavs Mod belongs to NoQ, I'm gonna pm him if I can.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by NoQ »

As i said, i won't change USM simply because there exist maps where scavengers start with 20 factories and 40 derricks and humans start with 0 factories and 0 derricks. On standard game a few mg towers and a few tmg tanks, when built early enough, offer more than enough protection against all sorts of scavengers even on some very overscavengered maps. It also wouldn't make much sense if i make the scavenger AI play weaker than possible, trying to not use up his money.

If you think that situation on Contingency is somehow different and requires special treatment (as long as the balance itself is different), you may consider the following options:
  • Make scavenger stuff more expensive by tweaking the relevant .txt files. This way they will produce less units and build less defenses. You can also tone down their damage or hit points. You can also decrease scavenger derrick income, by giving them a separate sort of derrick and changing it in functions.txt; this is the same thing, just more "automated".
  • Add delays into the AI. For instance, a simple one-line "if (gameTime>300000)" check before building chopper factories will delay chopper production by 5 minutes (since, afaik, nobody has ever made a map with chopper factories built initially). This may be necessary if not enough weapons have enough anti-air capability in the early game (like mg towers in standard game). But if you delay the whole AI, they will end up having too many power by the end of countdown.
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Re: Warzone 2100: Contingency (Beta now released)

Post by Shadow Wolf TJC »

AlphaThor01 wrote:Also, I said that you should make it to where SOME weapons become outdated to more powerful ones of their respective tiers. I mean like machine gun replaced by double, and double replaced by heavy. Heavy should stay throughout the game. That is a MASSIVE amount of weapons in the game, you have to admit.
I do replace lower-tiered weapons with higher-tiered weapons, but ONLY if they're in the same weight class (with one notable exception). For example, instead of replacing Heavy Machineguns with the much heavier Twin Heavy Machineguns, I replace Heavy Machineguns with Assault Guns, followed by Leadsprayers, since they all weigh the same. Like I said before, more powerful weapons of the same tier are often both heavier and more expensive, and some weapons can one-shot a heavy-bodied tank!

On the other hand, I did decide to replace the Twin Machinegun with the Twin Heavy Machinegun, since the Twin Machinegun had a weight of 1499, which was in-between the regular Machinegun's weight of 999, and the Heavy Machinegun's weight of 1999, allowing it to be mounted on Viper Half-Tracks (which has 1500 free weight available without engine upgrades) or Bug Wheels (which has 1672 free weight available without engine upgrades) without slowing either of them down. Moreover, by the time Twin Heavy Machineguns (which have a weight of 3999) are available, players would've likely already researched Bug bodies, Half-Tracked propulsion, and maybe even an engine upgrade or 2, allowing them to mount Heavy Machineguns on small-bodied vehicles without slowing them down. (A Bug Half-Tracks has 2004 free weight available without engine upgrades, while a Viper Half-Tracks has 2010 free weight available with just 1 engine upgrade.)

However, I did decide to keep the plain old Machinegun turret around even in T3 since it's the cheapest turret that you could possibly mount on a vehicle in the game. Same goes for the Cyborg Machinegunner. While they'd be pretty much useless as attack units during a T3 match, they're useful if you'd like to design some of the cheapest scouting units possible (Cyborg Machinegunner for ground, Machinegun Bug Hover for water, and Machinegun Bug VTOL for air).
NoQ wrote:As i said, i won't change USM simply because there exist maps where scavengers start with 20 factories and 40 derricks and humans start with 0 factories and 0 derricks. On standard game a few mg towers and a few tmg tanks, when built early enough, offer more than enough protection against all sorts of scavengers even on some very overscavengered maps. It also wouldn't make much sense if i make the scavenger AI play weaker than possible, trying to not use up his money.
I'm with NoQ on this. I don't believe that any of the maps that are bundled with Warzone 2100 have more than 4 Scavenger factories or large amounts of Scavenger units already built, so I don't support those maps that do.
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