Future Improvements

[Greg]

Hi guys!

OpenRa is awesome and it's really good that C&C TD and RA have a large community still. They deserve. I'd like to ask: will there be any chance for changes and opportunuties listed below?

1. Map editor with single player options (teamtypes, sides, triggers, celltags etc.)

2. Snow, Snow-Grass, Desert, Interior, Grass map textures for both RA and TD

3. Advanced Mod Maker: editing YAML parameters with one single tool like TibEd for the original games and graphical menu and UI editor

4. Editable single player database like in C&C3 or Dune for single player campaigns which contents is unlockable via levels

5. Mailing system for single player missions or campaigns where you get messages (for example in nod campaign from kane etc.) and you can reply (for example: Soviet allies: should we attack allied naval forces from the south? Yes No)

6. World Conquest Mod (like c&c3 had) both for RA and TD

7. Editable world Map for single player missions after each mission where you can notify the victories and defeats of your side + read description etc.

8. Campaign and mission selector menu feature for mod-official and non-official creations

I'm really excited about OpenRa's development and these improvements should expand the modding capabilities and raise the opportunity of creation. Openra should take place between the best open source games and mods.

Thank you for reading and as well for answering!

[Greg]

Oh and I almost forgot:

9. Option for Defined colours: Gdi Gold, Nod Dark Red (most buildings) + Gray/Silver (most units), Allied Light Blue and Soviet Light Red and sub colours like Gdi Light Brown, Nod Dark Blue (like Hassan's forces in TS), Allied Dark Green and Soviet Orange

[BaronOfStuff]

I'm not a dev, so I can't say for sure, but...

1. Map editor with single player options (teamtypes, sides, triggers, celltags etc.)
Support for sides already exists and can be customised. Everything else is the unintuitive territory of RA95, but it now seems that similar effects can be scripted with waypoints.

2. Snow, Snow-Grass, Desert, Interior, Grass map textures for both RA and TD
Most of these are being worked on, with the exception of Snow/Grass IIRC.

3. Advanced Mod Maker: editing YAML parameters with one single tool like TibEd for the original games and graphical menu and UI editor
There was one of these posted in another topic, but I don't know what happened to it, or if it's still active. Was pretty useful though for beginners.

9. Option for Defined colours.
If you mean the original palette-based remaps, I think this would be easy enough to add. I'd quite like to see this included myself, as the old colours are one of those silly semi-nostalgic things.

[zypres1]

We could need some rewrite on the whole yaml thing. Make it easier for modders, and new tools to use But the devs are focusing on other things, like AI, gameplay, Upnp, and helping maliander's great D2k mod.

The work on yaml could be in short term, and planning for long term changes q4 2012?

If anyone could do some work on these things, that would be great. Let's hope that the attension the D2k will bring, also will bring more devs, not only complainers... Buggers and wishers are welcome, also new maps and gameplays..

[Matt]

Instead of having a GUI editor we should have a comprehensive documentation of YAML in the https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki as this is still subject to change. It seems that beginners also have problems setting up a text editor with proper syntax highlighting and tabs instead of spaces for indention under Windows. This is a good task for someone who is already modding OpenRA and does not want to help with the source code but still contribute.

[Greg]

BaronOfStuff

1. You're right. Then there should be a flexible Script/Trigger editor even for MP maps.

2. That is very good to hear! In fact the easiest way should be to make TD and RA use the same colour palettes instead of making for example desert terrain for RA and Interior for TD. I don't know which opportunity did the devs choose.

3. Learning how to use the YAML editing is something that is okay. But an editor should make it more user friendly and maybe it could decrease the amount of errors according to modding.

4. Can't say anything else. You spoke from my heart! There should be 8, 12 or 16 defined colours and the other you could still make yourself but with the ability to save them for later use.

zypres1

Rewriting the whole yaml system is another good way to solve the problem but I personally think it would be harder than making an user friendly editor for it which would support mods.
I share your hopes.

Cmd. Matt

I think that a graphical GUI and menu system editor should give more space for "art". Even if you manage to use YAML editing correctly enough to make what you wanted you still have to edit yaml-restart game for thousand times to make your toughts come alive which leads to less mods and less fantastic creations. Which should be a critical point in an open-sourced highly moddable game.


What do you think about the other points by the way?

[Matt]

I added the snow theater from the C&C 1.06c patch to OpenRA lately. Get the latest playtest to make a map that uses it.

For the desert theater in RA there are few tiles left to draw. http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... sc&start=0 Palette is not a problem as this is configurable in tileset yaml.

[Matt]

3. Advanced Mod Maker: editing YAML parameters with one single tool like TibEd for the original games and graphical menu and UI editor

The wish was mentioned so often that I finally created a ticket for it: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/14506

[SirCake]

Just get notepad++, enable "multiline tabs" in the options and open a million .yaml files in tabs
Also has awesome search functions!

[Matt]

I use https://kate-editor.org under openSUSE with KDE which also works fine with OpenRA .yaml files. It also includes a terminal to quickly launch the game or compile / run tests.