Question for all ya'll hacker crackers

[Highlander]

I talked to Leviathan about this yesterday, and he said this would be close to if not impossible, but my stubborn mind still wants to ask:

Is it possible to edit/program the game(Op2), so that meteors which crashes on the surface, will leave common/rare rubble ?

[Leviathan]

me not being a programer I wouldnt realy know I just think it wouldnt be possibly from what i know

And now for some1 whos knows what there talking about...
Hacker, Hooman, who will get there first?

[Eddy-B]

actually its VERY easy to do
the hard thing is determining EXACTLY when the comet will strike, since it takes some (read 100's of miliseconds) time before the meteor/comet hits the surface, but it is the DLL who sends the command for themeteor - including the co-ordinates !

[Hooman]

Well, I guess you could do something that way for new DLLs. It'd probably be fairly easy to do and shouldn't be too hard to get the timing right for the appearance of the rubble. It'll need a SetCellType as well as a SetTile for the graphics. If timing is an issue, I can find ways to help increase the accuracy. I've worked on something related where I've had a vortex that never dissapears. I also made the vortex hunt down your buildings. (I guess God is not on your side this time  :lol: )

Anyways, just make sure there is no building left intact on that site before trying to replace rubble. You might not want to replace rubble with rubble either (say, rare replaced by common), or maybe you do.

I've thought of another possibility but I wouldn't be able to post on the details of it. Partly because I don't know many of them. Anyways, I suspect this can be done with less code and with less potential for trouble, but it would be a lot harder to do and I'd bet a simple TimeTrigger should give you all the accuracy you would need.
 

[Highlander]

The reason I'm asking is because I've been toying with the idea of making the rubble more useable.

So far the rubble left by destroyed buildings don't really have a purpose in OP2. I hoped I could change that by making maps full of rubble only, with no ore mines.
However, this proved to be difficult since the amount of ore you get from rubble is fairly small, so you would need a huge map, with huge amounts of rubble in order to feed 2 players.

So, what I first thought of before realising how much rubble it would really take, was to have a couple of spaceships crash on the planet leaving rubble around the craters, or let some imaginary disaster destroy a couple of fairly large colonies so that players could take rubble from these.

However after realising the amounts one would need to make a full base and vehicles to fight with, I was looking for a way to have a small continous flow of ore into the game without using mines. So I figured crashing meteors always leaves some new metals and this also is a realistic way of collecting small amounts of ore in form of rubble.


So, if you could look closer into the possibility of letting crashing meteors leave rubble it would be great! Hope to hear some more from you regarding this.

[Mez]

The rubble is usfull, you collect it in a cargo truck by using the select area of rubblr comand and route it to ur georf

but a map full of rubble and no ore - hm that cud be inteeresting, it would also require a dll edit i think to get the georf research predone. then again u need to edit the dll to remove all mines and fill the place with rubble
 

[Leviathan]

I rember haveing the idea of a CnC type game where u harvest fields of minerals using the ruble as the minerals. I sow the tile on the map editor and made a field of ruble, loaded the game but it couldnt be harvestist cuz it was just the gfx for hthe ruble and the game dosent no that its actually ruble.
So if we can place fields ruble this new game mode will be aviable
Your base should a GORF and a Common Ore Storage instead of a Smelter. Maybe more or less trucks than the standard 3.. well depends on map and other factors.
And if u can add ruble at points in the game, eg wen metor lands maybe we could have it so the ore ruble fields regrow like in CnC, but thats extra and optonial.
Again we are opening many doors and we have many options, all should be considerd and thought thru.

Yea, how much ore do u get from 1 truck of comm or rare rubl? and could we change the amount?

[Highlander]

I tested it yesterday, but accidentally got Recycler Postprocessing researched. But the values are as following:

Common Rubble: 240 common ore
Rare Rubble: 265 rare ore

Probably somewhat less in the beginning before you get the upgrade researched.



As for starting Colony, just the same as we're used to. GORF will need to be researched asap.

Just imagine Eden/Plymouth high command did a big blunder a thought there would be ore mines availible...


As for constant meteors dropping, I would imagine a planet with a ring system would get a constant rain of meteors dropping from the ring down to a belt/belts(if many rings)down on the planet, that way after the game has progressed for a while you would see a black belt going around the map from where the meteors strike.
This idea might also make it easier to program in meteor if they only fall on a 20-40 x (with of map) wide belt.



Hope you all can understand my english btw...

[Eddy-B]

well, it sounds like a nice new thing to do for a map, be it multi or single player. But if you can "only" get about 250 ore for every tile of rubble, you really need a lot of meteor to keep the flow of rubble going... And this would also pose a thread - even if you can find a meteor-safe location for a base, you still need to go in with your cargotrucks to get the rubble. Pretty hazerdous area, if u ask me

And for keeping your colony production going, you need a steady flow of ore, without having to build trucks every now and then (you'd rather build other vehicles instead)

[Highlander]

That is when Meteor Watch research and the Garage will finally be put to use...

With less ore, you will have to put the units availible to you into better use. Hence it is no longer a good option to build 6 lynxes and go for a rush... because if you fail, you might not have any def at all to hold opponent away.

 

[BlackBox]

As far as the gathering operation, you could automate some of it. (The DLL could set up a group to go retrieve the rubble and bring it to the GORFs.
I'm not sure if there is a command in the OP2 API to salvage, but it can be done. (I can't comment on how that would be done yet).

It doesn't take DLL edits to enable GORF's at the start of the game.
You can create a new techtree for the mission and set the gorf COST value to 0 (already researched).

Regarding amount of rubble returned: I think it is controlled from within the game. (Well, you *MIGHT* be able to set it with SetCellType, but I doubt it) Right now, there is no way to edit that data (we might implement something at some point though).

 

[Hooman]

There is a rubble cell type so it may be worth someone's time to look into using SetCellType along with the SetTile for the graphics.

Starting with a GORF or with the research for one already complete is easy. You can edit the tech file but it sounds like this already needs a custom DLL so it'd probably be easier to just call MarkResearchComplete. Placing buildings is also not a problem with a DLL.

As for the amount of rubble returned, I have no idea. Maybe something to look into.

 

[Highlander]

The amount of of ore you get from rubble is just fine.

The idea is that players will have to do with very little ore.