Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

[kurt751]

I see. I haven't played that one yet.

[ForestDragon]

well in 1.13.x, it's already possible to alter vision in effectwml, so, it can be an interesting concept

Couldn't you change it in 1.12 using [modify_unit]?

yeah, sure

[GunChleoc]

I know it's an open source project and anybody can fork it and make his own version, but that's counterproductive.

Creating a new UMC isn't really forking - it's the most efficient way to try out new ideas. An idea might sound good on paper, but once you start using it, maybe not so much, or it will need more tweaking etc. When the UMC is polished enough, it might end up in mainline or not, depending on what we want.

I think. But as I said several times, it's not my decision to make. My power over that game is relative to the money I paid to play it.

Actually, your power over this game is how much you yourself contributed to its development, e.g. through this discussion or more importantly through the campaign you are creating.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Which opens up a new set of abilities based on sight. Keen-eyed (can see +1 hex) for instance. Would make an Elvish Outrider have a huge vision range with the base moves + racial adj + Keen-eyed adj

And effects. Blindness (can see =1 hex) which would cause a unit's contribution to clearing the fog to be virtually eliminated. Hit. Bang. Where is everyone? Like poison, need a healer or village.

These all sound like things that are already possible to implement in WML.

IMHO a perfect system, much more realistic than the ones other games use, allowing all kind of armor configurations and environmental influences (heavily armored units would lose some defense when wading in water or soft sand for instance, cavalry won't be able to maneuver in forests, everybody is a sitting duck while slowly wading through deep mud, and so on).

This actually sounds like it could already be implemented with the Wesnoth engine, using just WML. It's a pretty drastic change though, probably something that you'd want to replace the entire core data for (or more likely make use of the [core] tag).

My only programming experiences are some BASIC on Amstrad CPC some time in the 80ies, and some Visual Basic in MS Office...
So yes, it's unlikely to happen...

But from the sounds of it you're making a campaign, so you must have some understanding of WML. You're free to send pull requests that change WML only, and what's being described here can almost certainly be done with just WML changes.

"Blindness" and its effects (on movement, on combat, on defense) would need to get coded into the engine, like poison, you also might want to alter undead to make them hate light (better vision in darkness), which in turn means rebalancing the whole lot, and so on.

In fact, blindness could probably be implemented with no engine changes whatsoever, just using WML (in particular, AbilitiesWML and/or EffectWML). Rebalancing would be an issue if blindness is made generally available, but it could easily be defined for a specific campaign or scenario with no problem.

But that would obviously require an official decree, for obviously everybody playing at BfW would need to use the same units, so we go back to "do people want it?".

I for one am not opposed to giving core units vision costs. Exactly what those costs are might be harder to agree on than simply whether to give them vision costs at all. Personally, I think only water tiles (only for non-swimming units) and chasm/lava (ie, unwalkable) should get the treatment. Actually getting such changes into Wesnoth core would probably be a long, involved process though, so it may be better to first implement it as a modification or era, allowing it to be downloaded as an addon for people to try out.

Couldn't you change it in 1.12 using [modify_unit]?

While it's true that you could, modify_unit is better used for one-time changes to a specific unit than for things like blindness or status effects, especially when they're meant to be temporary.

And then there are the long discussions about why should a Giant Rat see further than a Sea Serpent, and is it really a good idea to have new, vision-related traits like "eagle-eyed" or "light sensitive", and how do you add those to the existing ones (add another "trait" slot?)?

It's entirely possible to make units get three traits instead of two, and it's trivial to add a new trait to the pool of possible traits. However, I doubt that would be done in the Wesnoth core due to balancing.

[kurt751]

IMHO a perfect system, much more realistic than the ones other games use, allowing all kind of armor configurations and environmental influences (heavily armored units would lose some defense when wading in water or soft sand for instance, cavalry won't be able to maneuver in forests, everybody is a sitting duck while slowly wading through deep mud, and so on).

This actually sounds like it could already be implemented with the Wesnoth engine, using just WML. It's a pretty drastic change though, probably something that you'd want to replace the entire core data for (or more likely make use of the [core] tag).

Nonono - This is how Wesnoth actually works right now. All units already have movement-by-terrain rules in their definition. Of course those movement rules don't match exactly what I said above, but the idea is there, already implemented.

That's why I said Wesnoth already has a perfect movement system. Can't possibly make it better.

But from the sounds of it you're making a campaign, so you must have some understanding of WML. You're free to send pull requests that change WML only, and what's being described here can almost certainly be done with just WML changes.

Yeah, well, I'm starting to understand WML. Check my arrival date...
I don't even know what a "pull request" is, and I suspect I'm still light years from being able to be of some real help backstage. I'm just an overenthusiastic newbie and I'd like to apologize to everybody my gung ho attitude irritates...

it may be better to first implement it as a modification or era, allowing it to be downloaded as an addon for people to try out.

Yes, as I said I might try this when I'm satisfied with my campaign (still a lot of work: Half a dozen scenarios left, custom units, custom unit art, and hours of playtesting-tweaking-more playtesting).

While it's true that you could, modify_unit is better used for one-time changes to a specific unit than for things like blindness or status effects, especially when they're meant to be temporary.

Certainly, but I suggested it as a stopgap solution. For trying it out in 1.12, for instance.