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Topic: Seafaring

Dranoel

Joined: 2013-04-29, 12:16
Posts: 1
Ranking
Just found this site
Posted at: 2013-04-29, 12:56

Hello, I finally registered, first of all thank you for the realization of widelands.

I have to say, that I never liked the narrow restrictions of the settlers seafaring system. My idea of ships would be to derive them from warehouses (if that is possible). Ships would than be able to transport both wares, soldiers and workers. A ship would belong to a flag like every building. Like a headquarter it would have a small area of military influence. If it is close enough to a shore where a flag can be placed, the player can build a water-road between the ship and the coast. This of course would make transportation of workers by rowboats necessary. This system would make the foundation of new colonies much more interesting for the player because he is not restricted to the ideas of the map designer.

For the control of ships in expedition mode the player should select a direction. The ship will move in this direction until it meets a coastline. The ship will stop here until the player selects it. She or he now can decide if he wants to start a new expedition, moves the ship along the coastline (the ship would then sail the coastline up ore down for soandso many fields (standard)) or build a road to the coast. This road would be removed when the ship leaves the current position (which happens when the player tells the ship to do so or the ship is completely unloaded).

A ship which contains soldiers would automatically act like a moving military site. If a enemies building is close enough to the shore it would automatically be attackable. To solve the problem of ships attacking each other, the moving ship would be a different object type and transforms into a building when it stops moving.

In the autopilot mode the ship would transport wares between to ports.The port would then only be needed after a sucessful colonization happend and for the start of an expedition.

I know that my idea comes a bit late and I am sorry for that. But in my opinion this would be the most "fitting" way of seafaring implementation concerning the widelands-system. The only really new object type would be the moving ship while the waiting ship acts like a swimming warehouse. This would give a maximum of opportunities to the player while only making a minimum change in the widelands-world.


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tuggyne

Joined: 2011-07-22, 00:27
Posts: 42
Ranking
Pry about Widelands
Location: TN
Posted at: 2013-09-14, 04:48

SirVer wrote:

If someone is interested in trying this in a real game: I found a cool settlers 2 map from Michael Hahne (all credits to him) and I monkey patched it into a multiplayer scenario that will cheat you some ports and enable the shipyard. The map contains 6 computer barbarians that are all allied against you. Here is how to play:

1) Download the map http://www.widelands.org/~sirver/wl/111114_Das_Atoll.wmf
2) RENAME into Das_Atoll.wmf
3) move into your maps folder
4) Start a new MULTIPLAYER game (even if you are alone, just open one in your LAN). When choosing the map make sure you click the checkbox "Load as scenario".
5) Press play and enjoy.

Obviously you need bzr:r6101 or later.

So, I was interested in trying this out for Build 17, but I ran into an unfortunate problem: I built a shipyard a little ways north-east of the port nearest my HQ (but with the port and sea well within its range, and seemingly more than enough empty beach for most purposes), but once it was finished, it said "No use for ships on this map!" Not sure what needs to be done to reach the other ports/towers the scenario gave me. :( EDIT So, I fiddled around in the map editor to stick a valid port designation on the spots the scenario puts ports, which appears to have done the job now. Had to also fix the AI designations after the map editor clobbered them. Hopefully no hidden problems will develop after that?

Edited: 2013-09-14, 07:23

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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
Posts: 1445
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany - Munich
Posted at: 2013-09-14, 10:23

B17 does not support this feature, sorry. You have to use one of the nightly builds from the downloads page or wait for build18 which will be out in ~2 months.


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tuggyne

Joined: 2011-07-22, 00:27
Posts: 42
Ranking
Pry about Widelands
Location: TN
Posted at: 2013-09-14, 10:47

SirVer wrote:

B17 does not support this feature, sorry. You have to use one of the nightly builds from the downloads page or wait for build18 which will be out in ~2 months.

Which feature? Because I did get ship ware/worker transport (not rowboats or exploration) to more or less work*; the map seems to have not had the required metadata, though, probably because it was from the time of an older build.

*That is, I was able to build various things around the ports once I got a ship built by shipping the materials and builders out there; the latency is pretty terrible, and the economy makes some truly awful decisions, like waiting for builders to return from a distant colony instead of just shoving a hammer into a local worker's hand, but that's to be expected.


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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
Posts: 1445
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany - Munich
Posted at: 2013-09-14, 14:11

Oh, I'm sorry I misunderstood. The latest dev versions (and b18) will contain the feature that you can send out ships on expeditions and build new ports anywhere. This is not possible in b17 - you need to start you with two ports already as you can not build new ones.


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tuggyne

Joined: 2011-07-22, 00:27
Posts: 42
Ranking
Pry about Widelands
Location: TN
Posted at: 2013-09-15, 01:23

SirVer wrote:

Oh, I'm sorry I misunderstood. The latest dev versions (and b18) will contain the feature that you can send out ships on expeditions and build new ports anywhere. This is not possible in b17 - you need to start you with two ports already as you can not build new ones.

Right, that'll make it a lot more practical for most maps (with or without slight modifications on the user end), and a lot more awesome in general. Looking forward to that, certainly!


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