Author Topic: Making cool things with the tutorial engine  (Read 5357 times)

Offline BadgerBadger

  • Arcen Volunteer
  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,229
  • BadgerBadgerBadgerBadger
Making cool things with the tutorial engine
« on: December 13, 2016, 12:00:38 pm »
In terms of being able to create scenarios/campaigns with a tutorial engine, I came up with a hypothetical scenario that I think would be fun:

There are other AI beings similar to the current Master AI that would fight the Master for control of the galaxy if they were released. The Master has imprisoned the others Intelligences on various planets (seeded throughout the galaxy); if you capture one of those planets and destroy the AI Prison on it, a rival AI (a Nemesis set to be chaotic seems best) will be released that will distract the Master AI (it's not friendly to you either, but the master AI is the current problem, since it wants to become the master. Or if you release multiple imprisoned Intelligences then they will fight amongst eachother).

Would it be possible to do something like that with the tutorial engine you have in mind? I can think of a bunch of things that would be required for it:

A. The ability to randomly seed planets to house the Other AIs based on restrictions (they shouldn't be too close to eachother, the AI homeworlds or to your start location).
B. The ability to put a new structure on the chosen planets (and provide appropriate hover text)
C. The ability to pop some text up to the user to the game on certain triggers (at game start, when an AI is released)
D. The ability to cause units to spawn on certain triggers (when one of the prisons is destroyed, spawn a Nemesis with the appropriate characteristics)
E. The ability to have multiple Nemeses that could interact with eachother
F. Many other things I'm sure I'm not realizing

Offline BadgerBadger

  • Arcen Volunteer
  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,229
  • BadgerBadgerBadgerBadger
Re: Making cool things with the tutorial engine
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2016, 12:13:19 pm »
In case anyone else was curious, I asked Keith on Discord and this is what he said

On A, if by "Other AIs" you simply mean "Nemeses" , then that's fine. I'm assuming you mean ones that are "free" from the beginning of the game, given your later items
On B, yes, you can define new units/structures (with hover text and all that), and you can mod mapgen to put those structures wherever you like
On C, yes, you could have units cause a taunt/message when spawning; and the tutorial engine will certainly have hooks for messages at the start of the game (among other times); though any other specific times that you have in mind would be good to mention
On D, yes, you can have one unit spawn another either as part of "firing" a particular gun/system, or as part of dying (by having a fires-on-death system)
On E, yes, there's no special restriction on nemeses targeting one another or basing their logic on one another's position/etc; that would be done by writing the custom nemesis logic
On F, yes, there's always something :smiley: