How's support for the RTS starter kit?
by Stefan Lundmark · in Torque Game Engine · 05/25/2007 (12:59 pm) · 6 replies
Our team has been considering getting the kit, but recent posts have said that support is lacking and reviews have once again been deleted so I'm just asking one simple question:
Does the RTS kit work on TGE 1.42 or 1.5?
Does the RTS kit work on TGE 1.42 or 1.5?
About the author
#2
It would save us alot of time not having to reimplement the client camera and the so called network optimizations for moving units.
05/25/2007 (2:33 pm)
I'm not so concerned about updates, only compatibility (sp?). So I take it it works on 1.4 then?It would save us alot of time not having to reimplement the client camera and the so called network optimizations for moving units.
#3
Out of the box, no. I believe the RTS kit uses TGE 1.3.
There is however forum threads covering porting the kit to 1.4 and more recently 1.5 and 1.5.1. The port to 1.5 does sound like it's pretty complete and painless based on responses to the patch by others, but I've not tried it so can't really say for sure.
Worst case though, you have a chunk of example code showing one method of lowering the overhead of a game connection to handle the number of units in an RTS game vs FPS game amongst others. It would be nice to have an official 1.5 build for download, but for the price, I think parts of the code are worth it even if you only reference it / rework it into a 1.5 build yourself.
05/25/2007 (4:45 pm)
Quote:Does the RTS kit work on TGE 1.42 or 1.5?
Out of the box, no. I believe the RTS kit uses TGE 1.3.
There is however forum threads covering porting the kit to 1.4 and more recently 1.5 and 1.5.1. The port to 1.5 does sound like it's pretty complete and painless based on responses to the patch by others, but I've not tried it so can't really say for sure.
Worst case though, you have a chunk of example code showing one method of lowering the overhead of a game connection to handle the number of units in an RTS game vs FPS game amongst others. It would be nice to have an official 1.5 build for download, but for the price, I think parts of the code are worth it even if you only reference it / rework it into a 1.5 build yourself.
#4
05/25/2007 (4:48 pm)
Thanks Morrie and especially Gary. I'll make my purchase now. It's dirt cheap anyway and if the camera works I'll be happy as it is. 
#5
The camera for the RTS-SK isn't actually client side only--in fact, the camera is still your control object. What you'll find when you dig through the code is that the move struct has been modified (signifigantly) to be more appropriate for moving a camera in an RTS style.
What the RTS-SK does primarily is to change the scoping ruleset so that objects scoped to a particular client are scoped based on the visibility range of the units the viewing client owns. It basically loops over all of your units, checks to see if each unit can see other units, and then scopes appropriately.
Finally, the main "meat" of the RTS-SK is the interfaces for giving orders to units client side, and how they are actually networked and processed server side. It's not uber rocket science, but it's a good savings on having to design and implement yourself, since it involves the game control gui (RTSTSControl.cc iirc), networking, very basic target move destination/attack logic, and quite a few other middling details that can take a while to figure out on your own.
05/25/2007 (7:39 pm)
Ugh, sorry to jump in late on this. Gary covered most, so I did want to point out some things:The camera for the RTS-SK isn't actually client side only--in fact, the camera is still your control object. What you'll find when you dig through the code is that the move struct has been modified (signifigantly) to be more appropriate for moving a camera in an RTS style.
What the RTS-SK does primarily is to change the scoping ruleset so that objects scoped to a particular client are scoped based on the visibility range of the units the viewing client owns. It basically loops over all of your units, checks to see if each unit can see other units, and then scopes appropriately.
Finally, the main "meat" of the RTS-SK is the interfaces for giving orders to units client side, and how they are actually networked and processed server side. It's not uber rocket science, but it's a good savings on having to design and implement yourself, since it involves the game control gui (RTSTSControl.cc iirc), networking, very basic target move destination/attack logic, and quite a few other middling details that can take a while to figure out on your own.
#6
Really saved me some time, too. Thanks Gary and Stephen for the information.
05/27/2007 (4:23 pm)
I'm suprised this was so easy to integrate, after all the horror stories.Really saved me some time, too. Thanks Gary and Stephen for the information.
Torque 3D Owner Morrie