The future of the Warzone 2100 engine.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Here, I'd like to hear how you think the Warzone 2100 engine would evolve. This could include such things as the addition of new features, or the removal of some limits, but not things like gameplay balance changes or changes to singleplayer.

My vision of Warzone 2100 in the future:

- Addition of visible factory rally point lines (and possible removal of the old rally point decals). If the factory is assigned to a commander, then the rally point line would visibly connect the factory to the commander. This would make tracing factory rally points from the factory all the easier.
- When units are given an order, a line from the unit to the target object or location (colored green for movement, and red for attacking) would be drawn for a few seconds. This would aid in tracking units that were given the order.
- Being able to build certain structures on land or water (though all structures in base Warzone 2100 would probably be restricted to land).
- When selecting a group of units, a list of units within the group would appear on the bottom of the screen (like in StarCraft 2). This would aid in seeing which units are currently selected in the group, even if they're not visible on-screen.
- Removal of factory, lassat, and satellite uplink limits.
-- Satellite Uplink code moved to rules.js (as a failsafe to unhardcoding Satellite Uplink code).
-- Commanders would be able to assign factories above 5 to them, and the extra numbers would even fit comfortably within the orders screen.
- Support for custom superweapons or support structures.
- Support for transforming structures to supplement the module system. (Could allow players to upgrade much more than just factories, power generators, and research labs.)
- Addition of list of support structures that the player owns. Would allow players to more quickly tell when their support structures (such as their LasSat Command Post) are ready to fire, and more quickly activate them, all without having to manually select the structures themselves.
- Support for designable defenses, with limits on how heavy the turrets that they can mount would be. (Mounting a massive fortress turret on a steel tower should only be possible through modding imo.)
- Support for custom EMP timers for weapons.
- Splitting the build structure screen into sections for base structures (factories, research labs, and power generators for example), defenses (bunkers, hardpoints, fortresses, etc.), and upgrades (modules).
- Ability to assign a query of instructions (that could even loop) to units, much like in many modern rts games such as Command & Conquer or Supreme Commander. Would probably make the Patrol order obsolete.
- Support for optional unit addons (such as heavy armor, optic camouflage, advanced sensors, weapon modifications, etc.) that wouldn't take up any body, propulsion, or turret slots (instead being a simple checklist), but could affect the unit's performance and price.
- And much more...

Keep in mind that this is just my personal vision of what Warzone 2100 would be like in the future, and that I wouldn't expect it to come on by within the next couple years, if ever.

[p0l1z1]

Pause and save game in multiplayer ! Would really be great :p

[Nameless]

One I'd like to see the most is a complete overhaul of the interface, one that would;
-- expose the tech tree more,
-- expose the unit/building commands,
-- replace the blue boxes we're so accustomed to
-- basically think "StarCraft" but for WZ
-- this interface would include some of the ideas that Shadow Wolf already has mentioned,

I have other ideas but I think they would fall outside the scope of WZ's engine

[aubergine]

I'd like to see the front-end menus (everything you see before the game starts) replaced with a HTML/CSS/JS, basically an embedded browser for the front-end UI so that it could be fully customised. Already did a ponder over what JS API features would need to be exposed: https://warzone.atlassian.net/wiki/disp ... R/Menus+UI

As for the in-game UI, using HTML/CSS/JS would be a bad idea, so maybe there just expose some basic stateful drawing functions (eg. to draw and fill a box, display a PNG, events for mouseover/click/etc) and some new stuff exposed to rules.js environment to allow us to create custom UI. If I understand correctly, more recent versions of QT provide a stable UI API so maybe some basic bits of that could be exposed to the JS environment for rules.js?

[Avestron]

Pause and save game in multiplayer ! Would really be great :p

Agreed - provided endorsement from absolute majority of players - 3:00/ 5:00 timer

[themac]

Remove that laser sat weapon, it is just annoying. It is the same with similar games that had super weapons from the sky, as seen in "Machines" by Acclaim or in StarCraft 2 today (Terran "Nuke").

[Cyp]

Pause and save game in multiplayer ! Would really be great :p

Pausing is actually currently possible — if all players enable debug mode, then one player can stop the game with Control-'-', and later put it back to normal with Control-'+'. Also possible to play faster or slower games (but all players should set exactly the same speed, or it ends up seeming very laggy for the faster players). Or all players can set different speeds, in order to debug any lag-related bugs (which are probably all fixed by now, though).

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Remove that laser sat weapon, it is just annoying. It is the same with similar games that had super weapons from the sky, as seen in "Machines" by Acclaim or in StarCraft 2 today (Terran "Nuke").

This isn't the thread to discuss balance changes. Besides, can't you just set LasSat Command Post limits to 0 in the multiplayer/skirmish limits screen?

[p0l1z1]

Pausing is actually currently possible

Oh cool. Will certainly use that. Does it work on 2.3.9 or only in 3.1 ?

[Cyp]

Pausing is actually currently possible

Oh cool. Will certainly use that. Does it work on 2.3.9 or only in 3.1 ?

Only 3.1.

In 2.3.9, pausing for one player doesn't mean pausing for the rest. Or running at 100x speed for one player doesn't mean running at 100x speed for the rest. With all the ridiculous inconsistent implications that follow. Maybe if all players do it at once, but the key might be disabled even in debug mode, in 2.3.9.

[themac]

Besides, can't you just set LasSat Command Post limits to 0 in the multiplayer/skirmish limits screen?

Yeah, I do! And I have to do that every time again and again! That is quite annoying! >.<