Friday Facts #259 - Scan-codes, Prototype IDs, HR worm

[BlueTemplar]

Planetary Annihilation is... not great.
TA has 3D terrain (and AFAIK game engine?), but still displays them as 2D sprites.
That's probably why Spring could grow from a simple TA replay player to a full-blown 3D game engine.

Depends what you call by a "physics engine" - I'd say that having to do collision checks already counts as one !
(This includes trains/tank colliding with player/biters!)
All the area weapons like shotgun, grenade, fire stream, fire, artillery impact - seem to do collision checks.
And Worm "spit" too probably.

Now, that being said, I'm also all for dodging AoE "skill shot" attacks from worms.

Then I'm not sure what you're arguing about??

Also, I'm not sure why you are worried about UPS issues in this specific instance - it's not like we are going to have massive worm battles... unless they are indeed planning to make them to attack player bases?!

[Thales7]

I like the new appear of worms. Maybe it's interesting if the worm (beyond the long range attack) could drag the engineer if he get closer to. A hit kill attack. And if it's very large, it could drag a car or a tank too. That wold be pretty aggressive.

[KoblerMan]

Planetary Annihilation is... not great.
TA has 3D terrain (and AFAIK game engine?), but still displays them as 2D sprites.
That's probably why Spring could grow from a simple TA replay player to a full-blown 3D game engine.

I'm well aware that PA is "not great". I'm just sad to see it went the way of the dodo. It had essentially limitless potential, but it was all squandered between PA's incompetent dev team and being plagued with issues. I'm not really qualified to talk about SupCom and TA much since I've never played them enough to have a valid opinion on them, so I won't open that can of worms.

Depends what you call by a "physics engine" - I'd say that having to do collision checks already counts as one !
(This includes trains/tank colliding with player/biters!)
All the area weapons like shotgun, grenade, fire stream, fire, artillery impact - seem to do collision checks.
And Worm "spit" too probably.

I agree on the collision checks thing, to an extent. Really, all a physics engine does is calculate physics. But, on the other hand... if your attacks -- like worm spit -- are not based on physics to begin with since they're instant target attacks, they don't qualify as having "physics" in the traditional sense, especially if there is no actual hitscan or AoE involved. Thus, it's possible to have damage checks occur based on location and blast radius (AoE) effects without a physics engine, as long as it checks all of the locations first.

At this point, it's basically semantics, at least to me -- I don't know exactly how physics engines work, and I'll admit fully to that. It's all based on mathematical functions. But then again, Factorio is a 2D game. You don't need a physics engine, for all of the reasons I said before. Physics engines are primarly used in 3D games for particle effects, or easier calculating of gun, explosion, and shrapnel effects in real time and accounting for randomly generated values.

Now, that being said, I'm also all for dodging AoE "skill shot" attacks from worms.

Then I'm not sure what you're arguing about??

What I'm talking about is "spellcasting" units in RTS games such as Warcraft or StarCraft. If you've never played an RTS with spellcasting units, think about another similar game, such as... dare I say it... League of Legends. *shudders with disgust*

Skill shot and AoE "spells" target an area on the ground, a projectile is fired, and then it lands. In League, if an enemy does this, you typically get a warning with a big "THIS SPELL IS GOING TO LAND HERE" area, and given a few seconds to react. This is exactly what I'm talking about with worm attacks, and it basically already exists in Factorio with the artillery turrets and wagons; except, the biter AI is too "stupid" to actually avoid it, whereas players could (with minimal difficulty, depending on circumstances) avoid a similar AoE attack from worms. I would personally be fine with this, because tons of RTS games (such as StarCraft!) have done this before, to GREAT effect, without needing a physics engine. It would also add another level of gameplay too.

Also, I'm not sure why you are worried about UPS issues in this specific instance - it's not like we are going to have massive worm battles... unless they are indeed planning to make them to attack player bases?!

It's all about system resources being used by Factorio. This is less of a concern in singleplayer, where you're only calculating and rendering one area at a time, such as where your player is currently. In multiplayer, however, hardware quickly turns into a bottleneck if you have one person moving around in a mega-factory while another player is assaulting a huge biter base. So, unless you're playing on a headless server with proper hardware to compensate, you see a substantial drop in performance. This is exactly the kind of thing everybody wants to avoid.

[Jap2.0]

I know that at least towers in Age of Empires 2 did not use the "homing boulder" technique. Initially they shot directly at the target (usually missing if it was moving) and with a technology upgrade they would lead the target - but you could technically still out-micro it. Also note that you can give units orders while the game is paused, so if you wanted to waste a ton of time then you could avoid almost all tower damage (although that's not exactly practical, for various reasons). I'm not sure if the same applied to units - I think they just had a given accuracy percentage - but they also shot much faster. It also had fairly good AI, especially considering that it's from 1998, although it did have a unit cap.

This whole discussion is a bit off topic, but I've played plenty of AoE2, so I thought I'd pop in.

[KoblerMan]

Also note that you can give units orders while the game is paused, so if you wanted to waste a ton of time then you could avoid almost all tower damage (although that's not exactly practical, for various reasons).

But therein lies the problem: the player is avoiding damage by using WASD to dodge projectiles. All I'm saying is yes, take away the homing spit projectiles. However, for consistency's and parity's sake, they should still hit the player 100% of the time IMO -- unless you were to add an AoE damage projectile from worms instead, or better yet, combine the two.

[Nova]

They keyboard problems are really interesting. Always a pain when some games use the x / z keys, but don't account for other keyboard layouts. Mayn flash games use y and x for stuff and then don't enable me to change them.

The HR Worm looks weird. Maybe because the picture is so big. We will see how it looks ingame.

[Oktokolo]

But therein lies the problem: the player is avoiding damage by using WASD to dodge projectiles. All I'm saying is yes, take away the homing spit projectiles. However, for consistency's and parity's sake, they should still hit the player 100% of the time IMO -- unless you were to add an AoE damage projectile from worms instead, or better yet, combine the two.

The player certainly is much better at micro than the AI - but the AI has much more units.
We are not talking about Starcraft where the player often has half of the supply of the AI in the campaign or the same as the opponent in PvP.
In Factorio Singleplayer we get one player against literally hundreds of biters in a single nest battle. And you are much slower when actually firing the gun (maybe you should also be slower when using other stuff like grenades). Even in multiplayer it most often is hundreds of biters against a few players.

I am not sure about whether beeing able to dodge spitter attacks would change the combat for the better. But i am pretty certain it would not make it worse. It would probably not be that noticable anyway as spitters are firing fast-flying projectiles that you would be too slow to dodge while firing your own gun anyway.

But you already can dodge (sort of) melee attacks - you get much less hits when moving backwards while firing at bitters than you get while standing still.

[BlueTemplar]

We're talking about Worm, not Spitter attacks ! (But maybe Rampant changes these too?)

KoblerMan, it's not clear to me if you want Worm Spit to work :
- like Starcraft's Siege Tanks : instant hit, area of effect damage.
or
- like the "spells" that you're describing (which would be similar to Factorio's Artillery?) - slow-traveling non-leading projectile, area of effect damage on impact.

(Also, I don't seem to remember any such "spell" in Starcraft 1 - Reavers, Goliaths and Valkyries lead their targets, Siege Tanks and Templars are instant hit. The Nuke has an impact warning spot, but not a predictable trajectory - there was always that anticipation regarding when exactly it was going to hit !)

Planetary Annihilation's main issue IMHO was that it's probably impossible to have a good GUI for even a single wrap-around battlefield, much less multiple spherical ones at the same time!
And then due to that design choice they had to dial down the graphics, remove 3D terrain, then terrain levels completely... in the end the maps are even more boring than SupCom 2's !

[5thHorseman]

By the way if you want some fun run by a worm with a ton of exoskeletons equipped. That projectile is RELENTLESS.

[theolderbeholder]

Ho fast will worms dig tunnels and how long can they stay underground? Its important because if to fast and to long underground they may pop up in the middle of your base way past the defense line.

You might want to hold this question until the feature goes from "intend to implement" to "tadaa!"

Do you have a source for where the devs have said that they intend the worms to be capable of travelling? The dev diary talks about them planning to update the graphics and animations, but nothing that make me think that the worms will actually travel anywhere.

"The "fingers" on its head are for digging tunnels, something that wasn't really explained before, [...]"
Could be interpreted this way. Though, like I said to irbork, I would wait until the feature availiable before asking specific questions concerning range etc.

[T-A-R]

The claws are used for digging to the surface i guess. It might grab you too if it can reach you. But we've had more surprises.....

[Oktokolo]

KoblerMan, it's not clear to me if you want Worm Spit to work :

Now, that being said, I'm also all for dodging AoE "skill shot" attacks from worms. That way, if you're surrounded by biters with no means of escape, it will always hit you. At that point, you could certainly argue that skill plays an important role in fighting them, and THAT I'm ok with since it doesn't feel like you're cheaply evading damage.

I would count that as "Worm projectiles should be dodgeable".

We're talking about Worm, not Spitter attacks !

I don't think, there is anyone in the "worm attacks should not be dodgeable" camp.
So i am (like KoblerMan) talking about spitters now. Their projectiles are supposed to fly faster and beeing able to dodge them when not firing your own gun would make exploring less tedious. Exploring would maybe be even less boring than placing radars and waiting for the scan to complete (that is how i do it now).

But, on the other hand... if your attacks -- like worm spit -- are not based on physics to begin with since they're instant target attacks, they don't qualify as having "physics" in the traditional sense, especially if there is no actual hitscan or AoE involved. Thus, it's possible to have damage checks occur based on location and blast radius (AoE) effects without a physics engine, as long as it checks all of the locations first.

I don't think, that any combat in Factorio including the Artillery and atomic bomb (wich are definitely dodgeable) counts as needing a "physics" engine. The difference between having a dodgeable and an undodgeable attack is basically that you need to do an additional hit check in the target area (wich might be a point).
The generic way to do it is: Target something in range and fire projectile. After distance/speed seconds, check if something is in the target area and deal damage accordingly (yes, i like friendly fire in games).
You can go crazy on it and make AI project player movement to target ahead - and for a more intelligent faction i would expect that - but the bugs' actions do not look like performed by intelligent beeings. They just throw themselves into battle like fantasy berserkers. So it would be fine if players could dodge them easily and beeing able to lead trailing bitters into friendly (worm) fire would really be fun.

[Pure Ownage]

I hope Human Resources recover from the outbreak of parasites! (HR Worms )

Good fixes here. I think it might be interesting it the worms created new tunnels, very occasionally though, perhaps moving slowly closer to your base creating a new kind of threat.

[BlueTemplar]

In other news, this mod has just been updated :
Worm Attack!

Adds Behemoth and Colossal worms in the late game. These worms can burrow and dig to your base, then attack from beneath.

[BlueTemplar]

We're talking about Worm, not Spitter attacks !

I don't think, there is anyone in the "worm attacks should not be dodgeable" camp.
So i am (like KoblerMan) talking about spitters now. Their projectiles are supposed to fly faster and beeing able to dodge them when not firing your own gun would make exploring less tedious. Exploring would maybe be even less boring than placing radars and waiting for the scan to complete (that is how i do it now).

Oh, right. But then I see that he just took it as an example - nobody actually suggested for Spitter attacks to be dodgeable... though they aren't instant either ! (and Rampant might make them dodgeable?)

[Oktokolo]

Oh, right. But then I see that he just took it as an example - nobody actually suggested for Spitter attacks to be dodgeable... though they aren't instant either ! (and Rampant might make them dodgeable?)

Nobody suggested it could still be a good idea maybe making combat more believable and midgame exploration less annoying.

Rampant and Worm Attack look like mods i really have to try on my next map. I am not a fan of arcade-style damage type factions, but it seems like they can be disabled.

[sam0737]

I am using Dvorak (Both Hands) and would like to add my 2 cents.

Please just stick the undo key on the bottom left key (so as map to the QWERTY’s M, technology to the QWERTY’s T etc), otherwise there will be whole lot of confusion and collision.
People would either remap everything, or remap nothing. It is worse to check which needed to be remapped.

Currently, I just switch to QWERTY whenever I play.

[bobingabout]

I have a question.
Why are you moving to SDL? Isn't that a C library, not C++?

if you're writing your own graphics engine, shouldn't you consider writing your own other things, instead of switching from one pre-made library to another?

[posila]

if you're writing your own graphics engine, shouldn't you consider writing your own other things, instead of switching from one pre-made library to another?

I would consider it if Factorio was only for Windows, but doing window management and input handling for 3 OSes by ourselves is just not worth it, if you ask me. SDL has an advantage it let's us use it just for these things + creates OpenGL context if we ask it to, which is also OS specific, so it's very nice we don't have to deal with that either. And it doesn't insist on doing rendering too and is widely used in commercial games (as opposed to Allegro which is mostly used for hobby projects) so we hope there won't be much trouble with it (and also that it solves issues some people had on their unique PC/OS configurations).

[Hannu]

Depends what you call by a "physics engine" - I'd say that having to do collision checks already counts as one !
(This includes trains/tank colliding with player/biters!)
All the area weapons like shotgun, grenade, fire stream, fire, artillery impact - seem to do collision checks.
And Worm "spit" too probably.

Collision checks are just geometry. Is point in polygon or do border lines of polygons cross (or respective 3D objects in 3D games). Physics is what happens if collision will occur. Factorio's physics model is extremely simple, target just loses health points but momentum changes are not modeled at all. It is what I expect from physics engine. Physics engine could be 2D, for example train hitting to car or biter could throw it away realistically. But I think such modeling would be quite futile development work in Factorio.