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Cossacks 1 - Sight range of fences and stone walls
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| EbelAngel | Date: Thursday, 23/May/2013, 10:27 AM | Message # 11 |
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| Quote (Ftoomsh) In what file or files is the data that controls the menus of the officers and troops? I mean the hold ground icon, hold fire icon etc. Indeed, all these icons. I am especially interested in the formations icons. What data controls the appearance or non-appearance of these formations icons?
NRES.DAT is the file controlling the icons of hold ground, hold fire etc.Eg:
Code ENABLE_ATTACK 4 2 VSTRL
DISABLE_ATTACK 5 2 No_Vstrl
GO&ATTACK 3 2 ATAKA
The numbers refer to the position in the unit menu. The name after it is the icon name which can be compare with icons.txt and icons.gp
This one doesnt have a menu position, just a reference to the icon number. In 1.15 the patrol function was present in the engine it just didnt have a reference to the icon yet. So what this means is some icons position you may not find at all and are engine driven.
Code
[ORDERICONS]LINE 6 0 STR_LINE Assume_Rank_Formation
SQUARE 6 1 STR_1 Assume_Column_Formation
KARE 6 2 STR_KARE Assume_Square_Formation
PRUS 6 2 ADD30 Assume_Rank_Formation
TRI 6 1 ADD28 Assume_HR_TRI_Formation
SHER 6 0 ADD29 Assume_Square_Formation
This is for formations. Notice how it overlaps eachothers positions. This would depends on which unit it is. A horse doesnt have the same formations as normal units eg.
Quote (Ftoomsh) Also, when a barracks inflates in cost say COSTPERCENT 600 what is the parameter that sets the ceiling? I notice barracks inflate to a ceiling cost and then cost the same after that.
Not only the barracks I believe all buildings have this artificial ceiling. I never really looked for it. Perhaps its value can be calculated backwards and see if its the same for all buildings. Only then one could search for it with ease. No doubt engine driven cause i never really saw anything in reference to this in the parameter files. Then again if one knows what value it is, you could play with the initial cost and costpercentage to affect it without having to worry about the engine. Need data on costs for this. Do you have them?
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| Nowy | Date: Thursday, 23/May/2013, 10:48 AM | Message # 12 |
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Marquis
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| I play RTS as well as battlefield type games. However these RTS games allow play big battles too.
Nevertheless I prefer more historically accurate features.
For instance I can never accept in C1 such cases as like:
- single units can engage and win combats against formations
- dragoon can fire better and at loner range that infantry muskets
- cavalry charge can bogged aground so often in infantry thin line
- cavalry cold arms needs so many clashes and cuts to kill enemy
- single infantrymen only with bayonets can win charging cavalry
- artillery and towers guns are too accurate against small targets
- minor nation can alone win combats against bigger power etc
Balancing and tuning such game is a hard thing now.
Did not try OC mod, but thought that it can not help too much, at last C1 engine had some limits.
Davout probably managed fix many things e.g. units statistics, included better units types ratios and balance, bonused formations, included Tercios etc. But I do not believe that he can included stamina, morale, weaver, fear, panic efects. These are crucial for units behaviours and formations abilities.
Therefore in C1 type games there still are crazy kill ratio. Units here never panic, run away and even single men can stupidly attack bigger forces or well organized formations.
There are not any roads and different speed movements in hard terrain. Then units in C1 never get tired, they can move and combat accros all map.
That's why I prefer C2 games too.
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| Ftoomsh | Date: Thursday, 23/May/2013, 11:18 AM | Message # 13 |
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| I would have to do a lot more work on costs but for Turkey in OC Mod I noticed that costs of the following buildings hit a ceiling (each one a very different ceiling resource-wise) at;
Town Centre 7 TCs meaning the 8th and subsequent cost the same as the 7th.
Barracks 5 Barracks meaning the 6th and subsequent cost the same as the 5th
Mill 10 Mills meaning etc...
Blacksmith 6 blacksmiths meaning etc.
I suspect the Barracks ceiling at the value of 5th might be true for all nations' 17th barracks.
Now, of all these costs only the ceiling for the barracks really matters. Even in big long games one never needs more than 5 or 6 Town Centres. With mills 4 or 5 is enough. With Blacksmiths and Academies, I am trying to get into the habit and building a 2nd one of each mid game and tucked away somewhere as insurance just in case the other is temporarily captured or even burnt down. It's always handy to have a back-up rather than panicking to build one in an emergency so troop production and upgrades don't falter. You would never need more than two.
Houses are different because so many are needed even in OC Mod.Their cost keeps inflating for a long time and has hit no limit I have discovered, at least not in real games. I agree that one will just have to play around with the initial cost and costpercentage values.
It might strange that such a value is engine driven but perhaps it is done to prevent resource costs for buildings getting to a point where
they exceed the variables' parameters or field sizes.
We have had long OC Mod games, starting from 0 PT, low resources, where Algeria got up to 15 to 17 barracks against an 18th C side. Man, the bashi-bazouks seemed endless! Algeria still lost but only just. They were tough struggles and great fun.Added (23/May/2013, 11:18 AM)
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Quote (Nowy) But I do not believe that he can included stamina, morale, weaver, fear, panic efects. These are crucial for units behaviours and formations abilities.
Therefore in C1 type games there still are crazy kill ratio. Units here never panic, run away and even single men can stupidly attack bigger forces or well organized formations.
There are not any roads and different speed movements in hard terrain. Then units in C1 never get tired, they can move and combat accros all map.
That's why I prefer C2 games too.
Yep, that's true and fair enough. I still like OC Mod because the maps and units are clear to me. I am red/green colour blind and AC/FB was just like total camoflauge to me. I couldn't see anything. And personally, I just did not like C2 design in all sorts of ways too long to list.
Near total realism is a great goal but brings great design challenges. For a start, if you want to go for near total realism then you need real scaling of battlefields, terrain features, sight ranges and actions ranges (firing distances). You also need no time distortions so everything must happen in real time. Without a two-speed real time engine (strategic time and tactical time) with automatic switching by the game engine, the games would take too long. Marching movements and strategic positioning, showing formation symbols only, would take place in strategic time at 60:1 (60 times faster than real time) and engagements would take place in real time or tactical time at 1:1. Even then big games could take up to 6 or even 12 hours for realistically sized armies of say 64,000 units per player in a 1v1.
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| Nowy | Date: Thursday, 23/May/2013, 12:53 PM | Message # 14 |
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Marquis
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| Quote ("Ftoomsh") And personally, I just did not like C2 design in all sorts of ways too long to list.
Can you specify or cast few examples why you do not like C2 design.
Quote ("Ftoomsh") Near total realism is a great goal but brings great design challenges. For a start, if you want to go for near total realism then you need real scaling of battlefields, terrain features, sight ranges and actions ranges (firing distances). You also need no time distortions so everything must happen in real time. Without a two-speed real time engine (strategic time and tactical time) with automatic switching by the game engine, the games would take too long. Marching movements and strategic positioning, showing formation symbols only, would take place in strategic time at 60:1 (60 times faster than real time) and engagements would take place in real time or tactical time at 1:1. Even then big games could take up to 6 or even 12 hours for realistically sized armies of say 64,000 units per player in a 1v1.
I never said that I want total realism in the game. However I want to see more realistic features.
Real scaling of battlefields are not necessary. You can not use in the game two armies which include 100.000 men in 1:1 ratio.
But terrain features, sight of view and action ranges should include main tactical questions.
This could mean that similar type of muskets and similar skilled soldiers should similarly fire at the same range.
Then such wrong cases as like dragoon vs musketer in C1 or cavalry vs infantry fire in C2 would never happend.
Cavalry and artillery can not operate so easy in high mountains, deep forests, marshes or shallow waters.
Fire arms, especially artillery guns, can not so easy hit small targets at long range.
Artillery needs horses, artillerymen and ammunition wagons.
etc.
These mean that some things could be realisticaly prepared, but developers shoud better know period which they try represent in the game.
Time distortions are necessary, but you do not need two-time engine. This is obvious that strategy and tactical times in some kind of view are different.
But this case was fair enough solved even in C2 games.
Marching movements, positioning and engagements should only symbolise these cases. There no needs to implement realistic times.
However it looks stupid when in C1 musketeer can fire as modern gun machine while cavalry needs many cuts and slashes to wound or kill enemy.
There no needs to implement real tactical time 1:1, but game should predict realistic things.
For instance:
- old muskets needs more time to reload
- fire arms accuracy was poor and real kill ratio was small, but even one hit can eliminate soldier
- soldiers can get tired, be hungry and their morale was important
Generally C1 game had not these features, however it is still could be fine game.
Many things were quite fine prepared in C2, however this game has some things which needs fixes or improvements.
If somebody can include better army organization, tactical formations combats and general commanders it would be big progress in RTS games.
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| EbelAngel | Date: Thursday, 25/July/2013, 4:45 PM | Message # 15 |
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| Quote (Ftoomsh) The other issue is what I call "extra" or "supernumerary" goldmines that appear scattered over the map. They each occur in a hollow in middle of four hills. Occasionally, there is a hollow that looks like it should have an extra gold mine but the mine is not there. Do you know what controls the presence and absence of these extra mines? For fairer games I would actually like all these extra mines to be absent i.e. not to have any gold mines in any of the hollows. (I do like the other extra mines in the other empty corners in a 1v1.) I don't suppose there is any way to control the extra gold mines without getting into the engine. I know I can make my own maps. That's the other solution.
Go into the editor, paste samples section, scroll down to HILL1013 ' see picture below)
There's probably more of these so you could look for them. You can edit out the mine on the hill and then reselect the sample and save it with the same name.
But thats not all, this will save 'or load) into (from) UserPieces folder. The actual samples that are used on creating random maps are stored inside the TERRAIN\Pieces folder. The samples are exactly the same ( .smp) , so you would have to copy it to there aswell from UserPieces.
Another way could be to look into Terrain\Pieces\mixedterrain1.lst and look for that specific sample and delete it, but then you would loose that hill on creating random maps aswell.
That been said there maybe other mines generated extra on X4 maps but that has to be engine driven.
Give it a try if you want to get rid of them, see what it does.
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| Ftoomsh | Date: Saturday, 27/July/2013, 12:46 PM | Message # 16 |
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| Quote (EbelAngel) Give it a try if you want to get rid of them, see what it does.
Thanks, that sounds complicated but also good for fairer random maps games on 2x maps. I will test that soon. Now I will have to create a test copy of my game for sure. I sure can't experiment with my live playing copy like that.
You'll get me using good programming protocols yet.
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| EbelAngel | Date: Monday, 29/July/2013, 2:58 PM | Message # 17 |
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| I managed to get rid of that hill with the mine(HIL1013.smp). But i was incomplete when i explained above. There's actually 3 folders containing these pieces.
UserPieces
Terrain\Pieces
Pieces.
Not sure why they have it 3 times but there it is.
I also disabled the line in plainterrain.lst mixedterrain.lst and hill1.lst (HIL1013) Though that didnt work, I had to delete the samples and its shortcuts in all 3 folders.
Ofcourse it speaks that for your mod you cant distribute a "deleted this file", so you will have to edit that sample and paste it in all 3 folders listed above. Not sure what you can do with it, maybe texture up that hole a bit and put some stones or a tree or so on it, then save it ( outline the area and click ctrl+c or is it control +s to save?) Then go look in the userpieces folders and copy both the smp and shortcut to the other folders.
Should work.
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