Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2019 - 04:44 AM, said:
JaidenHaze did translate it. Topic was procedual terrain generation only.
Google translated to English:
Hey, unfortunately today missed the first AMA, tomorrow if the recording is there to hear about whether there are new information. Have my "lunch break" (just make night shifts) used and was there for the second AMA here. Unfortunately, some answers are very brief, it was very fast and there was a lot of information, many of them repeated through the chat delay. I hope you can still pull out useful information.
Here it is:
12. AMA Wednesday, 02.05.2019
Dave Forsey - Designer
Thad Jantzi - Level Designer
Diptoman Mukherjee - Technical Designer
- Theme Random Automatic Level Generation
- Description:
The goal is that people only work on the terrain. Our generation uses human-generated parts, which are then combined like a puzzle. These parts have different configurations, so the main goals and side tasks are different.
The assets are garrisons, cities, ect ect. This will also check fire lines
- Enemy Units: The opponents who are placed are usually not specific units
- New biomes: Yes, could be supported. Indoor tilesets are a bit more complex but with adjustments possible.
- Documentation for Map Generation: We have some people already working on mods, but the documentation is very primitive and comes soon after the launch. That will happen - if - then more at the code level.
- 3D Tile Generation: We do not have any underground tilesets yet, they would have to be set by hand in a mission.
- Mission Generator: The mission generator pays attention to the terrain when creating the objectives.
- Multilevel Fortresses: No multilevel fortresses in the base game.
- Story Missions: The story missions are always the same, but for normal random missions these cards are not used.
- Cancel forests and grass: Yes, that is possible.
- Several biomes in a map: Unfortunately no.
- City Map Tileset: Yes, that would be possible. But that could give performance problems.
- AI on random cards: The AI recognizes the set objects and can accordingly navigate around here.
- Mission generation: Each mission consists of several input parameters and an number number seed, all of which pay for the mission generation. If you use the same numbers, the same random mission would come out
- objects like bridges: are not currently in the target
- Terrain Variation: The underlying technology exists to have a lot of variation, but the variety may not be so numerous at launch.
- Best feature of the generation Rnd: The general terrain looks great and fits very well with the game. That was the most satisfying feature so far.
- Card limits: Usually by eg. Managed mountains or shorelines. There is a message that you are approaching the edge. If you go on, an invisible wall will come.
- Nonstory missions with certain seed: Mod content can be fed with certain parameters so that always the same missions are generated.
- Water: There are no rivers, there are lakes and small ponds. There are no naval forces and no oceans.
- Complete map generation by mods: Yes that is possible and the map size is arbitrary. This is limited to random generation to keep the performance high. Only extremely large maps around 64 km2 could cause problems.
- Hazards in biomes: swamps, minefields, stuff like that.
- AI op For selection: OpFor will be selected based on fractions and other levels, not based on the created terrain.
- Save maps for Quick play: Not yet, it is possible. We're doing something internally for testing, but we have not released it yet. We may add it after the release because it costs some time (UI and bug testing).
- Selection of Tileset Pieces and Defender: The "spaces" are not chosen at random, they are taken based on the mission and therefore always fit together. So we're trying to do more like a Battlefield simulator. Some areas are drastically different and have different defenders, depending on which mission parameters are used.
- Levelseed: Yes, conceptually this is possible. We may add a string containing all variables.
- Survival-Type Level (waves): It's an idea of what we're working on, which may not be like an infinite Horde mode. But we want to insert an Evac time. In the Quickplay, such a game mode should work well as well.
- Planets with multiple biomes: A planet always has several biomes, there are planets with only 1 biomes, but earth-like planets have several biomes.
- Tileset Informations: A Tileset is about 750m x 750 meters and has different features that are then populated and some can also be combined for different features.
- Number of biomes: Currently about a dozen, but this number is still changing.
- Quick Play Map Gen: We have not decided yet how we represent this in the UI because certain mission types want specific map parts.
- Story missions as a random mission: We have the technique to use the story maps, but the feature is currently not used.
- Level Gen Parameters: There are a lot of parameters but how they are displayed is not yet known.
- Day / Night Cycle: Currently no because the missions do not take long enough.
- Restarting missions: There is no savescumming, you can only play a mission once. Just an attempt to get it right.
- Edge parts: Can be flagged in the editor and prevent such features from becoming dead ends (like canyons).
- hovercraft and water: no pure water tiles.
- Rivers: We decided against it because it massively restricted the level generation. That's why the feature was left out in the end.
- Generate maps again if the mission is too difficult: no. That would be against the meaning of the battlefield simulator. You can just retire and live with defeat.
- Star chart: There is a star chart used for navigation.
- Performance: There are LOD and mission optimization performance optimizations that are done after the base terrain.
- Missions fail: There are call reductions when starting missions and stopping directly because, for example, the enemies are too strong. At least you have to fight something.
- Stay connected: There should not be a tileset where you should get stuck. But there is an Unstuck command that can be used a few times.
- Starting a mission: Based on the mission, you start directly from the leopard, for example, or you can start directly from the ground.
- Movement restrictions due to weather, sand and water: Is not part of the map generation, I can not answer.
- Day-night: There are day and night variants of a map.
- Prey and Debris: You usually do not return to old maps where you already were, so you see no such debris and left behind loot.
- Falling through the world: Should not happen.
- Combat Drops: Yes, that can happen.
- Modding: We will bare everything we can. It should be very customizable.
- Spawn points that are not ground level: Yes, these are then set with dropships
- Oceans: There are no deep sea biomes
- Modding: Modders have access to everything in the base game.
- AI Spawnpoints: These are set by the generator based on criteria we set. Some are tied to tiles, others are tied to events. If you play against defenders, they will not spawn in the back of the players.
- Unmatched Map Parts: Should not happen.
- Setting objects: Things like fortresses are pre-produced and are not part of the terrain gene.
- Fuel tanks and other environmental hazards: Can harm the player
- Space combat: No
- mission briefings for random missions: are always adjusted (based on a text file), but these descriptions could be repeated if you play long enough.
- Complexity Meter for Terrain: There is an Intel section that gives some details, but that's rudimentary.
- Convoy missions. There are no convoy missions currently. Modders could build these, but they are only at the lowest level here.
- Cards for the player: Yes there is radar and a battlefield card with different views for height ect.
- Hottest Spot: So we have volcanic areas pretty high.
- Escort mission creation: As a modder you have full access to all and can customize it.
- Skyboxes: We can not answer this question today.
- Turrets and Walls: These are fixed designs and when a fortress is created, it is assigned a Battle Value. For example, the generator can only fill 5 out of 20 possible turrets.
- Detailed preview of the map: The player will "blindly" go into the map, there will be no preview.
- Multitile assets: That's possible, but we do not currently use the feature to have more variance in the generator.
- Tower Defense: The player can not set towers and configure a base. But you may have existing towers that help you.
- External heat: There is an ambient temperature.
- OpFor Generation: Based on fraction, where you are, what time it is and based on that OpFor is generated.
- Battle Value System: Gross value that tells how many opponents you have. Garrisons will grow in complexity with higher BV and is quite similar to the TT system.
- Mission start day / night choice: No
- maximum number of objects on a map: No statement, we are still working on it and a lot depends on the optimization.
- Streaming new map parts: It is theoretically possible but we do not work with it.
- Elevations: There are currently 3 different "heights", but nothing goes further.
- Damaged Buildings / Cities: Most objects have damage from previous encounters.
- special urban tiles: Yes, there are specific parts that are special for city areas.
- Jump Jet Only areas: No, you can get anywhere without JJ.
- Map Generator: The map generation is not like in a normal map gene, but is done via Tiles. This is fundamentally different than eg in Half-life or warcraft 3.
- Map Tiles Rules: Map tiles have strict rules on how they can be set. A cliff can only be placed next to a cliff.
- Map usage: The player is sometimes sent over the whole map and everything is accessible.
- Variance of OpFor generation: There are drastic differences, 2 armed forces can have clearly different compositions.
- Forest maps: There are dense forest areas.
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