Game engine question

Nev · Post by **Nev** » December 21st, 2006, 5:49 pm

Hi to anyone reading this post

Is it possible in the Wesnoth engine to have units that can engage in combat from a distance, that is... not having to bump into an opposition unit to attack it? Perhaps a command key, "Ctrl+A" for example, that would bring up a small cursor and permit a unit to attack instead of moving - perfect for artillery units like catapults and ballistas. Apologies if this is already in place and I just haven't seen it, but I just wanted to know if it was possible. If it isn't currently in place, is it worth considering? Would bring a nice new dimension to the strategy without changing the way the game plays.

Post by **Noyga** » December 21st, 2006, 5:59 pm

Truely ranged attack (ie more than the neigbour hexes) aren't supported by the engine.
And we're unlikely going to support it :

FREQUENTLY PROPOSED IDEAS wrote:* Ranged weapons should be able to reach across multiple hexes
Background: suggestions that units such as archers (or perhaps catapults) should be able to fire their weapons across multiple tiles
Result: although the game engine used to support this, the developers do not feel it enhanced the game, since among other things, it would be very difficult to protect units from dying

I think it is possible to do this through WML and a select event, but it won't work for networked games (select events were not designed for multiplayer).

Mutant · Post by **Mutant** » December 21st, 2006, 6:17 pm

FREQUENTLY PROPOSED IDEAS wrote:the developers do not feel it enhanced the game

Hmmm

FREQUENTLY PROPOSED IDEAS wrote:since among other things, it would be very difficult to protect units from dying

1. Make catapults very pricey.
2. Make catapults chance to hit 20% or even lower (just like magic 70%).
3. Make catapults slow and easy to destroy (low hp).

Look at SSI Fantasy General.

Post by **turin** » December 21st, 2006, 6:33 pm

Trust me. It's not worth arguing over it.

Soft locked. Unless you have something really pertinent to say, don't post here.

Post by **zookeeper** » December 21st, 2006, 6:34 pm

You'll find reasons for why Wesnoth doesn't have this with a little searching. It's one of the most often proposed ideas, and the debate around it has been gone through about a dozen times.

So no, the engine doesn't support this and any way you possibly could come up with for doing this in WML would be incredibly clumsy and annoying (to write and more importantly, to use).

Nev · Post by **Nev** » December 21st, 2006, 6:38 pm

OK, just one final thing - and it isn't about changing Wesnoth. Is the old version of Wesnoth with actual ranged combat still available? As I'd like to see how it worked. I only ask as I want to develop a (non-Wesnoth) MOD of my own and would like to include this ability.

Many thanks in advance <bowing apologetically to the Wesnoth developers for daring to suggest such a change to their game

>

Post by **zookeeper** » December 21st, 2006, 6:54 pm

Nev wrote:OK, just one final thing - and it isn't about changing Wesnoth. Is the old version of Wesnoth with actual ranged combat still available?

I think the feature was removed before 1.0 (not completely sure)...if you can find some of the 0.x releases, you might have a chance. I'm not sure if you can find them anywhere here in wesnoth.org though.

EDIT: Sourceforge has some older builds.

Nev · Post by **Nev** » December 21st, 2006, 7:13 pm

Thank you Zoo, much appreciated.

I'll go do some digging.

Post by **Noyga** » December 21st, 2006, 8:05 pm

Btw you are also free to modify/hire someone to modify the game engine, provided you comply with the GPL.