[BlueLightning2K6]

In the Generals game, the construction process is unique to the series because it is similar to the construction processes in other RTS games. I want to recreate the traditional Command & Conquer construction method for Generals, where you click on an icon, spend the building cost, place a rectangle on the map, and watch it go up. How do I make this work in Generals? For an idea, look at CnC All-Stars (CnC All Stars: A C&C Generals: Zero Hour Total Conversion Mod): the Red Alert Alliance and Tiberian Coalition use the classic building method, but in the Generals format.

[beng]

I can't think how that would be possible. If they have done it in that mod, why not open it's ini files and see how they did it?

Look at their dozer/worker or whatever it is that builds things, and look at the command buttons it uses. Look at the things that are built, in particular their BuildCompletion types, cost, build time.

[beng]

The problem is can dozer built objects be built if the dozer is not near them? It is not possible as far as i know. When you place the building it will just have the fence there and will never be built since the dozer-building does not move to it and build it.

You can experiment and see by removing the locomotor of the dozer so it becomes like a static building, and seeing if it can still build anything.

[Mere_Mortal]

There is the SPECIAL_POWER_CONSTRUCT command, but the trouble is with that is it can be placed at any valid, unshrouded location. Another option is to use an OCL in order to spawn the structure at a desired location by use of firing a weapon, which will of course have a limited AttackRange, but orientation will be a problem.

[beng]

The weapon idea sounds best. In my Laser-Demo-Nuke mod the Demo general's radar van actually does something similar, in that it has a demotrap launching weapon, so it looks like it goes around chucking out demo traps, which are structures, when it actually fires a projectile that on detonation, OCLs a demotrap.

And because you can fire a weapon using OCL (see the Chinese nuke silo and how it fires the neutronmissile weapon using special power and OCL) you are not limited by the max 3 weepons limitation of a WeaponSet. The Conyard could thus fire many different weapons to create different buildings. These weapons could all a projectile that looks like dozer, or a pile of construction materials. These new weapons in weapon.ini could use the same projectile but have different ProjectileDetonationOCLs so that they each OCL a particular building type on projectile detonation.

To solve the problem of orientation, the buildings could be made movable (add physics behavior, AIupdate, Locomotor) and their TREADS locomotor should have zero speed but a non-zero turn rate, so you can turn them in any direction. If you want them to be required to be locked in a position, then you could have a locomotor set upgrade to upgrade them to locomotor NONE. To make it mandatory, this upgrade could also upgrade the building's command set to allow it to do whatever the building does (build units or whatever).

The problem still is that weapons have a limited range, so your base would be limited to a fixed radius around the Conyard. You could make it such that you can undeploy the conyard into an MCV which can move to a new place and redeploy into a Conyard to build buildings again, but then what would stop someone driving their conyard up to the enemy base and then throwing buildings into his base? And by making a movable conyard you are basically re-creating a dozer vehicle.

Then there is the problem of cost, pre-requisites, etc, that don't work with firing weapons.

Also it does not replicated early RTS games because in those games it is not distance from the conyard, but distance from any building, that determines where you can build. For example, if you captured a building in the enemy base you could then start building new buildings next to it though your conyard was far away.

It is such a complicated problem that i see no really good solution, and it is probably best to just go with the way the game is designed and use dozers or workers to build buildings for the most part.

[beng]

Another way you could sort of approximate the effect of building only near other buildings is have the conyard be a vehicle factory that makes vehicles shaped like fake buildings that can be moved into place and then transformed into real buildings. These vehicles could have zero shround clearing range so the player has to stay within the visible part of the map near his other buildings, else he loses sight of the vehicle. Still, the smart player can hotkey it so he can still control it. And it still is quite different from the early RTS games, and also there is the problem of getting computer skirmish players to know how to deploy buildings.


As for SPECIAL_POWER_CONSTRUCT, as you say it lets you build anywhere, and also it seems hard coded to only use the sneak attack tunnel model for placement, no matter what model you specify in the special power module. And also it has no cost or tech tree capability.