GriffonSpade wrote:http://gna.org/patch/index.php?4904 (Increase the number of unit flags to 32) seems to have been shelved and forgotten due to more pressing matters. (I can't see it anywhere in the S2_5/changelog on the wiki)
It was too late for S2_5 from the beginning - S2_5 ruleset format was frozen in Feb-14 already. Thansk for the reminder, though. It seems it was not targeted even to 2.6.
Ah, I wondered if that might be the case. Another thing I'd like to bring up is increasing the citymindist maximum to at least 11 for harvest range 5(sqr25). It's not necessary in the vanilla rulesets, but in one with larger harvest ranges it can be useful.
9) Ability to set mindist between cities even higher(range that server can use set in ruleset?), for larger harvest ranges (Maximum harvest range is 5, which would need an 11 mincitydist to prevent overlap[11 tiles away has 10 tiles between cities, preventing overlap. Current max is 9, which only prevents overlap with city harvest radius at 4.)
35) Additional effect requirement ranges: Radius2(sqrt8, I think?) and CRadius2(sqrt5, I think?, like the range of a default city's harvest area) that would allow more flexibility than Adjacent straight to Continent/Player.
36) Additional effect requirement ranges for Building effect requirement type: Adjacent and CAdjacent [and Radius2 and CRadius2?] (In effect, first checking for cities, then checking if any of those cities have the desired building)
37) Ability to check units OTHER than the target (as far as I can tell, a target unit can only check itself? Also, I'm assuming UnitType is the unit's Name, e.g. Warriors or Phalanx, and not Move_Type, which is Land, Sea, or Both?) This would allow various effects, like having AEGIS cruisers giving a defense bonus against air units to nearby allies, support units giving regen or defense bonuses to nearby allies, and sabotage units giving penalties to nearby enemies.
Last edited by GriffonSpade on Wed Jan 14, 2015 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
With the requirement range options the reason they don't exist is often times the computational cost. We basically have two options:
1) Implement only those that are expected to cause only acceptable computational costs (late-game AI moves not taking 10 minutes). Ruleset authors are relatively free to use the implemented effects and requirements
2) Implement anything ruleset authors may want. Ruleset author must understand how the computational costs of his/her effects and ranges affect the games run with the ruleset, and (s)he is responsible to implement the ruleset in a way that is playable in any situation likely to occur in the game.
I don't think we can require ruleset author to have the deep and specialiced understanding of the workings of freeciv engine required by the option 2, or we'll lose all but most hardcore modders.
cazfi wrote:With the requirement range options the reason they don't exist is often times the computational cost. We basically have two options:
There is a third one: do like 2), but add big a fat warnings: "These options will slow down Freeciv a LOT. Don't use them unless you know what you are doing." This would enable any modder to do what he wishes, while giving hints about what could happen. I think every modder is able to play a game with many AIs on a big map and see what happens. (We can document what to look at, too.)
cazfi wrote:With the requirement range options the reason they don't exist is often times the computational cost. We basically have two options:
There is a third one: do like 2), but add big a fat warnings: "These options will slow down Freeciv a LOT. Don't use them unless you know what you are doing." This would enable any modder to do what he wishes, while giving hints about what could happen. I think every modder is able to play a game with many AIs on a big map and see what happens. (We can document what to look at, too.)
Louis
Yeah, knowing things that can make lag can make a huge difference.
For example, if you want a game with more players and a bigger map, you can increase the production and upkeep costs of more powerful units to reduce the number of units to more managable levels.
A warning in the documentation should suffice. But yeah, even radius2 would triple the search area and radius3 would be really pushing it, even used in an extremely limited manner.
I'll contract this item to Radius2(sqrt8, I think?) and CRadius2(sqrt5, I think?, like the range of a default city's harvest area) range options in any case, though. More than that was a bit of whimsy and wishful thinking on my part.
38) Ability to set FoggedBorders to 'visible borders only' (borders in fogged areas not drawn at all, as opposed to drawn but not updated, or drawn and updated)
39) Client Setting: Combat Delay to delay the displaying of combat until X milliseconds after it actually occured (To allow time for the client to Center and the player to focus, so that the entire combat can be seen, also allowing Combat Animation Step Time to be low.)
40) Enabling an action being able to cause casus belli against ALL other nations. Could be useful for a feudal type government or as a result of a nuclear attack or something. People baying for blood, and they don't care whose it is.
41) The ability to have 'non-critical fail' result from action failures. Possibly two separate ones based on 'maintaining stealth' and 'maintaining secrecy'
42) The ability to try to blame another nation in covert actions. Possibly another level of success like 41). It would reduce the chances of success and potentially create a diplomatic incident with the entire world rather than just the target on a critical-fail.
43) The ability to activate 'upkeep banking' (once you have the requirements). Upkeep banking would place all non-upkeep production into a list, and if any units are lacking their upkeep, they will change to the city that has extra production that can support them. Possibly by changing their home cities. Once this is possible, changing homecities should be possible from anywhere in the world, rather than just while within said city. A more advanced model might have all cities simply pay into a homogenized bank to cover all the units. In modern militaries, upkeep is mostly paid by the nation as a whole, rather than by independent cities.
44) The ability to continue using the Explore command even after all accessible areas have been mapped. If everything is mapped, the AI would simply pick a random possible direction and move. It would not go the opposite direction it just came from unless no other directions would be possible.
45) Change the 'turns until contact is lost' option setting 0 to mean 'only while in direct contact', rather than 'never', which should be changed to -1.
7) Separating Unit and Building construction.
Separating units and buildings sanely requires two fundamental changes to how production is handled.
I] Separation of the production queue into 3 parts: Construction, Manufacturing, and Training.
II] Division of production resource into 2 parts: Construction and Manufacturing.
Ia. Construction is the building queue, it works as now.
Ib. Manufacturing is vehicle/mechanized unit queue, it works as now. (Bombards, freight, tanks, airplanes, ships, and maybe engineers)
Ic. Training is the human unit queue.
Instead of using production, it uses a time-based creation.
Effects can alter how long it takes to train units.
While a unit is being trained, it consumes an effect-modifiable upkeep cost as if it was a live unit.
Effects can also alter how many units are trained at once (For example, barracks might allow the top two units to be undergoing training, rather than just the top one).
If there's an upkeep deficit, in-training units are dropped first, starting from the 'bottom' one currently being trained.
Losing a training slot would cause any unfinished unit that is no longer being trained to lose all its training.
One unit a turn could be Rushed with gold, but would not gain veteran level effects from buildings.
II. Division of the production resource would work like trade resource division, but controlled at the city level.
IIa. Construction Resource is used for buildings. It is the default production resource.
IIb. Manufacturing Resource is used for manufacturing units(Not training). How much of a percent of your production can go into manufacturing is controlled by effects, similar to tax limits, only on the city level. Any unused Manufacturing Resource is automatically dumped back into Construction Resource.
