More on TR 2.0 Target Sets
April 19, 2010
Mossie asked me a question on the TR Dev forums about the target set sample code I posted, basically wanting to know if this was the TW way, or just something I made up. The latter. This is just how TR happens to be doing it, not a TW recommendation. These are custom files I cooked up. I will be adding/tweaking them too as I get further into testing.
To explain a bit more on how they are used:
In the TR 2.0 campaign, there are essentially 2 types of targets: strategic and tactical. The same actual object (say a flak gun) could be used as either a strat target or a tactical target. It just depends on how it is used: if guarding a factory, it would be a strategic target. If guarding a fort, it’s a tactical target.
Each zone has a certain “hardness”, represented by points. Let’s say 5000 for a weak zone, and 50000 for a super hard one like Rabaul. If a zone becomes “contested” by having one or more neighbors captured by the enemy, then the campaign engine starts generating Tactical targets in that zone. It generates an amount that corresponds to the zone’s hardness. So if a zone had 5000 points of hardness, maybe the system places 15000 points worth of tactical targets. (I have no idea what the right ratio is, btw. We’ll need to game test that.) To place those targets, the campaign engine reads through all the target sets we have stored in the .targetset files, checks some meta information (side, land vs sea (don’t want a tank in the ocean normally), etc., and starts randomly throwing them into the zone until the sum point value of all the individual targets meets the required point threshold. Tactical target sets could be anything: tank group, anti-tank defensive position, pillboxes, gun positions, etc.
If enemy pilots destroy some, it throws in new ones (again, selection and location are random).
Airfields are a little different, in that some structures (hangars, revetments, etc.) will actually be placed in a fixed location relative to the runway, but guns, for example, are going to be placed randomly. You won’t know exactly where each flak gun, quonset hut, fuel tank, etc, is, for a field unless you happen to have done some recon earlier.
Strat targets are different again, in that they are placed in UNcontested zones. Damaging them causes damage to all contested friendly zones, not to the zone the strat targets are in. If a zone with strat targets becomes contested, the strat targets are destroyed automagically. (think tanks and artillery blowing the #*&@ out of any factories before the infantry gets near them, not to mention softening up by aircraft ahead of time).
