Home » MODDING HQ 1.13 » v1.13 Idea Incubation Lab » Militia require resources
Militia require resources[message #345623]
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Sun, 22 May 2016 15:20
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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When training a population to be militia, we need several things. We need trainers, which we have with out mercs. We need people to train, which we obtain by liberating towns and then training the loyal part of the population (we already have volunteers as a resource if we so desire).
What we also need is equipment (guns, ammo, armour) for our militia. In vanilla, this was always generated at random every time militia was spawned. Which was somewhat odd, as $750 allowed you to get 10 militia with gear that could have a price-tag of several thousand $. To counteract that (and to open a way to somewhat specifically gear your militia, to open a new need for item management and to make a use for the gazillion of items with 'Drop All') I added equippable militia. Which does exactly that.
I do, however, have a slight problem with that feature. Not in the way it behaves - as far is I'm currently concerned, there are no unresolved bugs, and it does exactly what I wanted (there somewhat of a speed issue, which I might resolve soon-ish, but that's a performance-only issue). I'm currently playing a game with an increased team size an significantly sped up strategic AI (BaseDelayInMinutesBetweenEvaluations is 10, variance is 5). Simply put, I have a team of 8 mercs doing nothing but moving gear from battlefields back to cities and militia, but it's simply a drop in the water. Even worse, as I attack together with militia, they and their gear move away from the towns. This means that the gear (especially the one from the latest battles, which is always the best) is always away from the militia creation sectors. Which means that I have to move them to the last battle fields. If they get into battle before then, it's a one-sided slaughter.
I does not seem that bad in these pictures, but I already merged, moved and sold a lot of gear. It's day 7 and I've already killed 3206 army guys, and the huge offensives haven't even started. Do the math, that's a huge amount of items.
While there is the ability to block militia from using specific items, this is beyond tedious in your HQ, where one has several thousand items. Of course, after unloading the map they'll drop the stuff back to the sector inventory again, but I simply don't want militia to bring chaos to my ordered inventory in HQ (I still need militia there for defense and prisoner-guarding, and need to access that sector in tactical to perform surgeries/go shopkeeping).
Additionally, I really don't like leaving tons of stuff unattended in the wilderness. Simply doesn't seem right at all from an immersion standpoint. At the same time, I do want to play with Drop-All, because it seems logical to me. And I don't want for militia gear to simply fly from the heavens.
Now, what I of course could do is simply use [Alt] + [LMB] to sell the stuff I don't need, and at the same time increase militia training cost. However, I do somewhat enjoy making a buck by selling gear to merchants (that's what Flo is there for, after all). At the same time, with Drop-All I'd have so much money from gear that mine income would be an afterthought. If I then lower the money generated while keeping expensive training cost, that's not better...
In the end, I want the following things the current feature does not provide:
- for the gear dropped to be used in huge quantities for militia, so that I still have scarce supplies and might even have shortcuts that forbid me from expanding militia. I feel that the volunteer-part works well in that regard (in this campaign, due to high militia losses and not enough volunteers, I had to raid Tixa, knowing I didn't have the manpower to hold it, simply to get the extra volunteers you get from liberating it for the first time).
- after being created, militia should have their equipment
- in order to use militia, create less need for the player to move gear around
- do not use money as a direct substitute for gear, as this will skew the game economy
- if possible, be simple to use and understand
- be simple to code (optional)
As this is an 'idea' thread, I have one of course. On which I'd like some feedback, please.
The idea is similar to what someone suggested way back before this 'equip militia' feature was created. Roughly said, idea would be to have a resource, like volunteers, that is required and used up by training militia. So, say, we have pools for guns and armour. So then when we train militia, this requires 1 volunteer, 1 gun and 1 armour (we could also have more resources, but you get the idea). So after a militia is created, we've obviously already supplied these resources. It would be easiest if they then get their random gear from their gear xml tables.
The point is, we have to get these resoures first. We do that in the strategic inventory - similar to [Alt] + [LMB], we can transform items into these resources. Click on a gun, and it will be removed and you get +X gun resource. Of course not always 1, idea is to get (pseudocode)
FLOAT a = external setting...
FLOAT b = external setting...
FLOAT resourcegained = b * min(0, (itemstatus / 100) * (1 + a * (10 * itemcoolness - currentprogress) / 100 ) );
thus the more advanced and the better in shape an item is (and the earlier we convert it), the more points we get. We could also slowly reduce our pool points once the progress rises to keep us from benefiting from all those .38 revolvers we converted in early game.
Similar to volunteers, if we don't have the resources, we cannot train militia, thus we always need to convert additional items. Army defectors and PMC mercenaries don't use up volunteers but would also use these resources, so internally, the resource count could go negative, but that won't cause any errors.
So far, I'd say we could the following resources:
- guns, created from guns
- armour, created from vests, pants, helmets and plates
- ammo, created from ammo (not entirely sure how to weight these, as coolness might be different for different mags of the same caliber and ammotype)
- explosives, created from bombs, grenades, and everything else that can go boom
- diverse, created from other stuff to account for face gear, melee weapons etc.
That might be too many resources, but I think you get the idea.
So... comments?
[Updated on: Sun, 22 May 2016 15:20]
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Militia require resources[message #345657 is a reply to message #345641]
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Mon, 23 May 2016 21:13
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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@silversurfer: Tripling resource types for ranks sound like a bad idea. Spending additional resources for promotion sounds a lot better (and also solves the problem of how we'd supply militia early on when there's no armour to be found).
I'd really like to factor in status. It should make a difference whether we convert scrap or good gear.
One thing I'd also like is for the gear degradation by game progress to leave an item's worth invariant. By that I mean that if you convert a M4 at progress 0 and then progress to progress 50, the degraded resource value at that point should be the same value as if you'd convert the item at progress 50. Otherwise we run into a situation where either converting as soon as possible or as late as possible is beneficial - when I really want the player to just convert whenever they feel like without worrying about some optimal solution.
@ratpaz: Unless explicitly stated otherwise, may features are always optional, so no worries there. Drop-All wouldn't be required, but this is geared with Drop-All in mind. Though I guess one could add an external modifier to simply up an item's resource value to make up for fewer items if Drop-All is off.
@Panzer: Well, I have a mothballed feature that actually implements supply routes...
... but I found it to be rather complex. Unless one is a flow algorithm enthusiast, I'm not sure whether the enjoyment would be high.
A problem would be that the current gameplay allows us to take cities in whatever order we like. Granted, some are more reasonable to start with than others, but every one of then works. But if I need to acquire specific sectors in order to even train militia, that limits our possibilities.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Militia require resources[message #345661 is a reply to message #345659]
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Tue, 24 May 2016 04:42
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Panzer |
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Messages:89
Registered:February 2016 Location: Altis, Sometimes Tanoa |
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It seems that the supply route system could be simplified or easier done. Maybe supply convoys that are sent manually, or even queued to happen every 12 hours or day or so.(at the players discretion of course, so as you can control what goes where.) Could use different type of resource points obviously, such as Arms RP for weapons and ammo. Explosives RP and so on. of course that could be a bit convoluted. Especially with the convoys system suggested. But the different Resource Points idea is not my best idea it seems.
[Updated on: Tue, 24 May 2016 04:44]
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Corporal 1st Class
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346174 is a reply to message #345663]
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Mon, 11 July 2016 13:44
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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I've now coded this - the only thing missing are the exact formula for resource points gained by converting an item, and the resource devaluation formula for increase in progress.
So far, I'm not satisfied with any really. I'm beginning to think coolness is a bad input value - it can only be used with guns, and the enemy gun selection process makes a mockery out of any order too. Additionally, ammo is a problem - we have to be able to value a single bullet, after all. This leads to problems in itself - we can't really differentiate between different calibers unless we somehow rate a caliber depending on all guns that use it - and later on a single enemy can carry a staggering 1K bullets, while early on it can be as low as 6.
Unhappy.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346176 is a reply to message #346174]
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Mon, 11 July 2016 16:42
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silversurfer |
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Messages:2793
Registered:May 2009 |
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Flugente wrote on Mon, 11 July 2016 12:44I've now coded this - the only thing missing are the exact formula for resource points gained by converting an item, and the resource devaluation formula for increase in progress.
For weapons I'd say one item = 1 point for the according coolness level I proposed above. I factored in item status already.
For ammo can't you just let the player spend any magazine with >= 5 bullets left and gain 1 point per 5 bullets at the corresponding coolness level?
Example - we have:
1x .38 Speedloader (max size 6, coolness 1)
1x 9x19mm Pistol mag (mag size 15, coolness 1)
1x .40 S&W mag (mag size 14, coolness 2)
1x 7.62x39mm AP (mag size 30, coolness 4)
1x 7.62x54R AP (mag size 10, coolness 6)
We get these points at the corresponding coolness levels:
[1] = 4 (1 + 3)
[2] = 2
[3] = 0
[4] = 6
[5] = 0
[6] = 2
[7] = 0
[8] = 0
[9] = 0
[10] = 0
When we want to create militia we use the following base formula to get the amount of resource points from a certain coolness level:
required resource points = max(1, (current progress/10)) / max( 1, coolness level )
The higher our current progress level is the more points we would need from lower coolness levels. So if the above formula is for green militia at progress 60 we would need 6 points from coolness 1 for example which would equal 6x .38 Speedloader (6x 1 point) or 2x 9x19mm Pistol mags (2x 3 points). Of course a coolness 6 mag with 5 bullets would also suffice but we spend resource points from lowest coolness to highest. Higher rank militia require a higher amount of resources. I leave the precise formula up to you as well as modifications to above formula.
No manual devaluation needed in this case as the "devaluation" comes automatically with higher progress levels.
Wildfire Maps Mod 6.07 on SVN: https://ja2svn.mooo.com/source/ja2/branches/Wanne/JA2%201.13%20Wildfire%206.06%20-%20Maps%20MODReport message to a moderator
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346179 is a reply to message #346177]
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Mon, 11 July 2016 18:31
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Enneagon |
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Messages:51
Registered:July 2016 Location: Latvia |
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I strongly second Thor's idea,
in fact that is what I wanted to suggest for the whole inventory management / equip-able militia in general way back when first reading about that stuff, just hadn't been formulated it in finite form.
So, if the goal is to make the whole issue easier on player, this could be:
- there is a single invtory (think about it as de-located clone of sector inventory) all the militia anywhere are equiped from (further details may apply )
- player can use hot key / screen button to command equipment from any sector inventory to this militia armory, this takes fixed time regardless of location (further restrictions/malus may apply)
-- should player be able to get items back for use of his mercs? Probably should, but at some additional expense (of time or otherwise); (ab)using that might make item moving assignments obsolete... but it is preferable to balance it in a way that encourages player to manually move around anything (or most at least) he might actually want to use for mercs eventually.
Well, technically that is whole lot different idea than what discussed in this thread, sorry for that...
(but yes, after following the board for some half year, this finally get me registered )
- -
To contribute to the actual topic, I think you shouldn't stick to one gun one resource point from start on, but rather require like 10 "gun" points for green militia, while a revolver gives, say, 5 and shitty shotgun 8 or so. And that values most reasonably comes as new stat of the weapon itself... Well, but that then nearly defeats the spirit of this thing I guess.
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Corporal
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346199 is a reply to message #346189]
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Tue, 12 July 2016 16:53
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Enneagon |
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Messages:51
Registered:July 2016 Location: Latvia |
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Both ideas are not that different,
I will call them PA for "points abstraction" and MA for "militia armory"
PA: player converts extra equipment into some abstract points
MA: player sets extra equipment aside for use by militia
- From player perspective the action is identical in practice
PA: there is some resources overview; such resources are needed to create militia
MA: there is some list of equipment militia can use, this list needs to be populated to create militia
- in both cases it one extra screen.
The militia armory might be kind of sector inventory (for immersion purposes one could even think about those items as moved to Omerta underground for later distribution on request), but it could as well be just a simple list containing nothing but ID and quantity.
PA: in order to create militia special resource points are spent, they are
armed with newly created equipment according to points spend.
MA: militia is armed with whatever items player gathered and sent to militia armory (upon creation, preferably automatically, with optional possibility to manually arm/rearm), equipment used is removed from armory.
- This is where things diverge heavily.
Frankly, MA can only have chance to function if militia remember what they are armed with. (Without knowing anything about code internals at the moment) I can't see why individual militia could not remember equipment assigned, while it is clear that full blown inventory is impractical, simple array of IDs shouldn't be more than 20 bytes per person or so... or are I'm fundamentally wrong somehow?
PA: fundamentally new system; offers inflation of militia price (in new resources) trough abstraction of equipment what is the biggest problem an drawback (but also can be seen as advantage)
MA: evolution of existent systems; militia never can use equipment player haven't ever seen. Trough abuse of optional feture to return items not in use to payer possession can handle mass movement of gear (for some price obviously). Some emergent technical problems may make harder to code.
[Updated on: Tue, 12 July 2016 16:54] Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346208 is a reply to message #346204]
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Wed, 13 July 2016 00:03
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Enneagon |
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Messages:51
Registered:July 2016 Location: Latvia |
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silversurfer wrote on Tue, 12 July 2016 20:20
This is not how militia works. Militia is trained at a certain point and then equipment levels as the game progresses. If you'd keep the equipment that was originally used upon creation they would soon be fighting level 8 elite snipers and machine gunners with pistols. Yes, players can make militia use sector inventory but this is optional and should stay that way.
Yes, Militia Armory is direct descendant/continuation of militia using sector inventory, with the difference you don't ever need to move any stuff around just for that purpose, instead you set it away (and can't use yourself anymore, at least not immediately). And yes, it makes little sense in context not currently including militia using sector inventory.
And yes, in this case player is fully responsible for anything militia uses at all times. This includes need to order them to rearm periodically.
silversurfer wrote on Tue, 12 July 2016 20:20
So what's the difference between converting items into points and creating a new "militia training inventory"? The first would be "simple" to code and easy to use just like pressing ALT + LMB for quick selling stuff. Points could be used anywhere on the map.
There no difference, except there are list of items instead of points. Or, if you want to think that way, a G3 gives you one G3 "point" for use by militia. It also can be used anywhere on the map.
silversurfer wrote on Tue, 12 July 2016 20:20
The inventory method had the advantage that we could place and remove items at will but there need to be restrictions so the system isn't abused to move items around. Also it requires more interface work and everybody hates that.
Yes, Militia Armory is more complicated feature, obviously, but I don't see how it creates that much more interface work altough there surely some of course.
Both alternatives of this system create new abuse that needs to be cut.
MA case it all centers around not letting equipment teleport around instantly, that can be addressed by requiring all activities using it to take time (such as: there time between item is added to militia armory and can be used, rearming can't be instant) and/or some additional penalties.
With right penalties I see no problem if someone uses it to move stuff for his own use, but I see the feature to get committed items back as fully optional altogether.
In Points Abstraction case it can and necessarily will lead to situations where one committed shitload of pistols (or whatever you find useless) and immediately get elite militia armed with G11 and bazookas (exaggerating here of course, but whatever you find cool stuff for them), and I can't see any way around that, the core problem is independent of how you set up abstraction (unless it is so complex that borders with full list of committed items... what leads to the alternative suggested, to not abstract it at all).
While in most cases it does not matter much (and one could think the incredibly awesome rebel management somehow succeeded to sell those pistols and buy the cool stuff instead) it can surely come up as viable exploit or immersion breaking annoyance at least.
silversurfer wrote on Tue, 12 July 2016 20:20
So it's basically a choice between "doable" and "not likely to happen".
Probably.
But I don't see those ideas as strongly either or, rather I would see point system as imperfect simplified alternative and step towards the Militia Armory what is logical evolution of current "militia use sector inventory" feature.
[Updated on: Wed, 13 July 2016 00:10] Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346228 is a reply to message #346208]
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Thu, 14 July 2016 00:37
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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While I could argue with a lot of details on why MA is an absurd, impractical amount of work (especially for coding, but also for the player), I'm not going to code it, and nobody else will either, so I'll leave it at that.
Anyway, I'm somewhat okay with the formulas I'm developing. Two status updates (work in progress, I do know the graphics can be improved):
Loot from 32 enemies killed with progress 12 in Drassen Mine. Values are gun/armour/misc. resource value (of entire stack). Seems I wrongly attributed LBE to misc. instead of armour, will correct, but I'm too lazy to upload new pics
These are the gained resources. Seems okay for 32 enemies - some of the guns were of higher coolness (MP5A4. two SPAS-12, some cooler pistols). Using silversurfer's idea of green militia needing 1 gun, promotion to regular needing 1 gun + 1 armour, and promotion to elite needing 1 gun + 1 armour + 1 misc, we see that we could train 32 green militia from this (apart from missing volunteers). Quite a few regulars too, but not that many elites, really.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346237 is a reply to message #346229]
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Thu, 14 July 2016 13:17
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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- Yes, guns/armour/misc are the only resources.
- Attachments might attribute to a different category - I evaluate them by their attachment class. Attached grenades/rilfe slings come to mind, but not much else. It might be reasonable to only show positive points here, and to use a different colour for each category (and to use that colour on the map too).
- Atm this only shows while you press the [Alt] key (while selling is off), click on item to convert it then. Still need to find a better key.
- Yeah, I'll likely colour the name in te abovementioned colour and the amount different according to how much we have (like done for volunteers).
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Militia require resources[message #346252 is a reply to message #346238]
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Fri, 15 July 2016 22:18
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Flugente |
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Messages:3509
Registered:April 2009 Location: Germany |
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Feature has been committed.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.Report message to a moderator
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