by Dr.Panda on Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:22 pm
I did not monitor much of the model's size or number of polys. What I do watch is if it works, how it might be useful, and if I think it has some usage.
And if it's size that's a problem, we could always give a file compressor a try, so it's as Loki says, file size is not an issue. Thanks again Loki.
Question, what is the advantage of spawning units the way SotDRP does; with all those numerous buildings and having a spawn command?
I think using the VD&D style of spawning will be very quick, very efficient, and very useful compared to the current style.
Hear what I have to say, I explain as best I can.
First it is very quick, because once you have selected the unit, you can just spawn it by right-clicking somewhere on the map.
Second it is very efficient because we can throw away ALL of those unit-spawning-buildings that take that a region of space on the map, despite the literal size of the building. And the system could work like this: have just a few buildings, that may possibly categorize like, Melee, Campaign, Heroes, Custom. Those buildings would have a unit from that category like say a footman icon for an all-human-units-building, and we could trigger it so that clicking on that footman icon, will spawn a building under your spawner with every human unit inside, and if you click on say a knight, then this allows your building to create a knight where ever you happen to right click on the ground with the all-human-units-building(building must be able to issue an order to that place, ex: "attack"). To remove this building you would simply hit esc, and it will disappear or we could just make it so that you would need to remove it yourself, this would make it plausible to have more than one of these buildings operable at once.
This will be a difficult system to first make, and then use. But by reorganizing the units in this fashion, we not only make the act of spawning them much faster, and the amount of space used for all of those buildings in the current system would become a minimal.
My third point, the point of usefulness: The unit will spawn where ever you right click, not where ever your spawner is, thus, you can spread the units out across the map much more quickly around the map than you could by having to first move your spawner each and every time you make a few units that are spread out.
Summary of the suggested system: BASICALLY you just replace all those buildings that contain the original units from the original game and its expansion, with several buildings maybe 6 max. It's like all those unit buildings are folders, and the new system just simply reorganizes them in a giant file cabinet. Looking for the file may take longer, but spawning them will be faster. The actual new thing here is the part where clicking on the footman icon in the melee building will create the all-human-units building under the spawner, and that building having a move skill or attack skill able to create units at a faster pace after selecting a unit to spawn from the building itself.
This is my suggestion for a new system of spawning things already explained. But let's think about it, let's weigh the pros and cons about this suggested system in bullet form and take a further approach on this topic.
Pros:
1. You can spread 12 footmen in a matter of seconds around the entire map where it may take a full minute to do it with the current system.
2. All the space used for the current system's multiple buildings for spawning units can now be used for something else.
3. Organization of units CAN go up if it is placed in the right spots of the "file cabinets"
4. You CAN still use spawner to spawn units using the spawn cmd, but honestly this new system defeats the purpose of a spawner unless you are TRYING to spawn in bulk and mass using copy/paste. Like you can literally lag the game to the point everyone's comp freezes by copy/pasting spawn 12 goldmine over and over.
5. This system CAN be used for melee/campaign/custom buildings too, but isn't highly suggested..
6. The building for say, All Human Units, can hold more than 12 units in there, if we implement a "next page" sort of option inside the building, so you could probably throw the human campaign units in there too.
7. This can be better for themes, that require the usage of the entire map for a good game (ex: "War Theme", "Zombie Theme", "Kill all them fucking sheep cuz they're everywhere and pissing me off theme").
8. Since this IS a VD&D style spawning, players from that community starting SotDRP will understand the style of spawning a bit more. In my experience, a lot of the D&D players were actually disappointed in the speed of spawning units with the old system and went back to D&D.
9. The auto cmds for spawning units with things like autotint, autoinvul, or autoface can be made to work with this.
10. Doing this separates the newer versions from being confused with the maps that Saken and the other SotDRP team produces. We can call it "Vuen's System, implemented by Narks" on the map description for clarity to players.
Cons:
1. This makes massing AROUND the map a lot easier, and this may be a bad thing, because we all know noobs will just be gay with it, I recommend that admins or only red be able set a max on spawning things with this system.
2. This will make looking for the unit take just a bit more time than the old system.
3. The name of the spawner will become obsolete because it will almost serve no purpose in spawning units, when you can spawn them faster with this new system, and in better positioning.
4. This IS a D&D system, some of the SotDRP players MAY not like it. Narks, you can implement at your own risk after reading this.
5. This system will take longer to create and update. (I'm actually not sure about the updating part, but I know it will take a long time to make.)
6. Doing this separates the newer versions from being confused with the maps that Saken and the other SotDRP team produces. We can call it "Vuen's System, implemented by Narks" on the map description for clarity to players. (This is on the con side as well as the pro side, because using Narks' very name may discourage the part of the SotDRP community that actually hates him to playing, or it may encourage the people to play due to their trust that Narks' doesn't release anything but great maps).
So there, if the pros didn't outweigh the cons in quantity, then I think it will in quality.
Please feel free to comment, critique, praise, or whatever you wanna do.
But it'd be great to hear what you all actually have to say about this system I have suggested.
This will be posted in the Submissions as a topic.
God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
but anyone feel free to look at any of these and comment, I've provided links to them to thehiveworkshop.com
