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Engine-Question

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DErankkatastrophe
5 years ago
I thought about that it would be nice if you could have different income-multipliers per team as a way to
give handicaps. but does the engine even support this?
+1 / -0


EErankAdminAnarchid
5 years ago
Yes
+3 / -0

GBrankAdminDeinFreund
5 years ago
Here's how it looks in springlobby:


I suppose it should be feasible to make a command for this on zk hosts.
+3 / -0


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
5 years ago
(edited 5 years ago)
CHrankAdminDeinFreund does the engine-default method work? Without breaking anything?

DErankkatastrophe the engine is barely involved in resource incomes. Making such an option somehow sounds relatively easy. Basically, the engine is much more general than you assumed with your question.

From the perspective of UI would it be better to do this as an income multiplier or a cost multiplier? I count buildpower as income.
+2 / -0


EErankAdminAnarchid
5 years ago
(edited 5 years ago)
I don't think things should have different costs or powers depending on team that owns them.

If buildpower is a type of income, then does that mean that an income multiplier means that side's builders actually have more BP? What if you capture them?
+2 / -0

GBrankAdminDeinFreund
5 years ago
(edited 5 years ago)
AUrankAdminGoogleFrog yes it works, but it isn't reflected in the unit information.

[team0]
{
rgbcolor=0.976471 1 0;
allyteam=1;
startposx=1864;
side=Robots;
startposz=2535;
teamleader=2;
handicap=50;
}


A handicap of 50% seems to indicate a +100% resource boost for some reason. Except for this factor two, the handicaps also worked for other teams with different values. I didn't try how it interacts with allyteam economy.

+2 / -0


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
5 years ago
(edited 5 years ago)
I assume that every instance of 'team' so far in this thread is intended to be 'allyTeam', otherwise nothing makes sense.

EErankAdminAnarchid every way to draw the line that I see results in some level of weirdness. I dislike having the UI lie so my current candidate of a change is to make every nanoframe placed by a handicapped allyteam be have its cost increased by X% upon creation. The UI for that allyteam can reflect the change on construction orders.

It is open as to whether a unit should have its cost change upon being captured. Extreme handicaps could be used to generate resources in FFA if costs are changed. If costs are not changed then someone could end up with a mixed army of cheap and expensive units that are otherwise identical.

Also, resurrect is problematic. I don't know how to make it more expensive.

CHrankAdminDeinFreund I don't know what I am meant to be looking at.
+2 / -0

GBrankAdminDeinFreund
5 years ago
I've selected all units of that team. In the unit selection you can see a total metal/energy production of 6 m/s, but the team's income is 12 m/s.
+2 / -0


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
5 years ago
And which one is correct?
+2 / -0


EErankAdminAnarchid
5 years ago
What about applying permaslow to handicapped side's economy buildings and replacing their Vanguard Economy Modules with Handicapped Economy modules?
+2 / -0

DErankkatastrophe
5 years ago
why make it so complicated?
+1 / -0

GBrankAdminDeinFreund
5 years ago
(edited 5 years ago)
I suppose both are correct, just confusing. The effective available income is 12m/s, which consists of the 4 m/s of the commander and 2 m/s of the mex. Individual unit incomes are probably not affected by the multiplier, only the overall income is.

EErankAdminAnarchid I like the idea of a clearly visible handicap. Visibly slowdamaged extractors could be a way to do that.
+1 / -0


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
5 years ago
EErankAdminAnarchid is reclaim full value? BP is full value? Structure tooltips are incorrect? All the wind, overdrive, and payback tooltips are incorrect? Constructors get the slowed rate too?

DErankkatastrophe some complexity is inevitable while thinking through how to turn an idea into an implementable design. The options need to be thought through. We won't find islands of simple design if we're limited to only considering simple ideas.

CHrankAdminDeinFreund from this limited information the engine implementation appears to be quite good. It would be nice if you would explicitly confirm that you applied a 100% resource bonus, as it was really not clear before and I am just making a good guess now.

The engine handicap appears to apply a multiplier to all income received by a player. If this is the case I propose the following:
  • Use engine handicap.
  • Enforce the rule that all teams on an allyTeam must have the same handicap.
  • Apply the multiplier to virtual energy income within overdrive. Divide by the multiplier when portioning out positive real energy changes as a result of overdrive.
  • Make the resource bar tooltips show the multiplier (when it is not standard). Divide by the multiplier when figuring out the energy breakdown.
+2 / -0


EErankAdminAnarchid
5 years ago
quote:
is reclaim full value? BP is full value? Structure tooltips are incorrect? All the wind, overdrive, and payback tooltips are incorrect? Constructors get the slowed rate too

Reclaim and BP are full value, cons are not slowed. I don't want a side's units to be as different tech because they are going to look identical and because capture exists. Cons have combat value so i would slow them only alongside all other combat units (which is what zombies get). I don't want buildpower affected in any other case (including engine handicap). The purpose of the slow is to make the handicapped units visibly handicapped and account for their handicappedness change when captured.

I'm unsure about the OD tooltips. I feel like they could be haxed to take handicap into account deliberately.
+0 / -0

GBrankAdminDeinFreund
5 years ago
AUrankAdminGoogleFrog No, I did not use a 100% bonus, that's the weird part. The startscript excerpt I posted corresponds to the team in the screenshot. It has handicap=50, but gets a 100% bonus.
+0 / -0

GBrankAdminDeinFreund
5 years ago
(edited 5 years ago)
Actually looking into the startscript documentation, using handicap would be a bad idea.

Handicap=0; // DEPRECATED, see Advantage (below). Advantage as percentage, common: [-100, 100], valid: [-100, FLOAT_MAX]

Advantage=0; // Advantage factor (meta value). Currently only affects IncomeMultiplier (below), common: [-1.0, 1.0], valid: [-1.0, FLOAT_MAX]

IncomeMultiplier=1; // multiplication factor for collected resources, common: [0.0, 2.0], valid: [0.0, FLOAT_MAX]


It's probably best to use IncomeMultiplier directly, as this is what we want to do.
+1 / -0

USrankZolokhan
5 years ago
Why can't this feature just be implemented in "Start Options". Set team# resource boost. It should also work for AI to get boost instead of just spamming coms.
+0 / -0