TR 2: It’s a Long Road, Getting from Here to There…

Hi All, welcome to my Target Rabaul dev blog. I’m going to use this blog to document my efforts to bring Target Rabaul into the Targetware 2.0 world. I want to warn you up front: This is my first blog, and it could suck.

What This Blog Will Cover

This blog is not an official Targetware/Mark Nine Systems blog. It’s not even a Target Rabaul official blog. It’s just a record of what I’m learning, testing, and trying to get to. I think it’s mainly going to cover:

• The next-gen Target Rabaul campaign system
• Learning Lua/Programming in Lua
• Developing for Targetware 2

I’ll be throwing in screenshots and whatnot as I come across stuff I want to relate.

For anyone stumbling over this blog: I’m not going to try and write up the history of Target Rabaul, or Targetware. Targetware is a community-based online, massively-multiplayer, combat flight sim. Target Rabaul is the oldest community-orginated “mod” for TW. 

Targetware 1 and TR 1

“Targetware 1″… what the heck is that, you ask? That’s what we call Targetware 0.1 – 0.64. “TR 1″ is what I call all TR builds designed for TW1. Targetware 1 development has been frozen for quite some time, as Sick re-writes everything to make TW2. Target Rabaul is actually still in development for TW1, thanks largely to Peril, Baders, and the rest of the TR dev team. 

Targetware 2 and TR 2

What does TW2 mean to TR and other mods? It means better graphics, sure. But to me, I think the most important thing about TW2 is that games are no longer based on scripted scenarios. TW has pulled back from supplying a framework for how games/mods should be designed. In TW2, everything is out there for the mod teams to control: their own UI. Their own everything. All this is controlled through lua scripting. It’s entirely conceivable, probably very likely, that every mod team is going to go off in a different direction from the rest. Some mods may end up being free-for-all, simple “arenas”. Some may be a TW1-esque set of historically-based, individual scenarios with logic and continuance between them. Some may be all-encompassing world war (or space war, given the new physics and terrain features in TW2), a kind of strategy game with a flight sim laid over it. 

On a practical level, to get a mod working in TW2 will require some work. I’m learning this as I go along, but here is a basic outline (in no particular order):

• Create new terrain – TW 2 employs a totally new terrain engine. It also has a built-in terrain generation functionality, through the “tool.exe”, well, tool. I haven’t gotten mine to build yet on my Mac, so I haven’t tried that out yet. I’ll report back on it. 
• Re-write plane and target .acm files – TW 2 has a new physics engine, and it also no longer recognizes the old style “config” files. You’ll probably still be using the same basic data, but it will be in a different format. When I know more, I’ll post about it. My plan is to convert a couple TR planes, then post instructions on how to do it. 
• Write or copy a mod UI – In TW1, there was one UI that controlled everything: selecting a server, game settings, input settings, and in-game menus. In TW2, Targetware (the app) comes with a UI that controls graphics/etc settings, and server selection. Once you choose a server to join, that server’s mod takes control of the UI. So each mod needs a UI. Nothing says we can’t just share them between mods, of course, but first of all, someone has to write one, and then you want to think about either customizing it for your mod, or just hacking it to pieces and making a totally unique one. You may decide that your mod has different requirements, not just visually, but functionally. The UI for an arena-based game may not work for a strat/campaign-based game, for example.
• Adapt 3D animation (.anm) files – TW2 doesn’t use the .anm files you’re used to from TW1. I’m not sure what the new format will look like, but I’ll post on it when I have a chance to learn how to convert to it. 
• Decide what kind of game you want – TW1 game play was pretty much defined by the structure provided by the scenario files (for good and bad). TW2 game play is all open… This is probably the most basic decision any mod team needs to make. For TR, initially any way, I’m working on a New Guinea/Solomons campaign that involves concepts from wargaming (Rydog and Sick supplying the brain power there). I’ll describe it more in a different post. 
• Code your game play decisions in Lua – Once you’ve decided what kind of game you want, you need to write up the rules in lua. Or steal the rules from another mod. I imagine in the beginning, all the mods will share a really similar look, until we get enough people comfortable with lua to start branching out, getting closer to the dev team’s original vision for their mod.