Wartbed:Data structures

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Revision as of 17:29, 19 September 2008

WARTBED Data Structures

Atm I (Mikademus) am using this article to jot down structures and ideas about the internal functioning of (OMG-)WARTBED. Please feel free to partake and discuss. Both the discussion page and this article can be used, use your judgement.

Unit characteristics

The Warhammer attributes

In Warhammer, units are defined by a set of attributes ranging from 1 to 10 (where humans average at 3).

While the Warhammer attribute set is tested and refined, there are two issues at hand. (1) WARTBED will be able to accommodate more games than "just" Dark Omen and those games might not easily lend to the Warhammer set; and (2) it might not be wise to use the Warhammer set straight off for reasons of IP rights (meh).

Dark Omen Boolean Regimental Abilities

Please help me fill in this list!!! "Boolean" means things that can be either ON or OFF. In Warhammer these are things such as the ability to be unhindered by difficult terrain or causing fear. All available in Dark Omen are can be found in WH2EDIT.

Transcluded from ARM/Regiment attributes

Note: The Bits in this table are going from lowest to highest bit. So the lowest bit is 1 and the highest 8.

Bit	BYTE 1	BYTE 2	BYTE 3	BYTE 4
1	Will never rout Flagellants, steam tank and most undead have this	Immune to fear, can be routed Most undead have this	Inflicting casualty causes fear Screaming skull, undead chariot and Nagash has this	Goblin Flag (Trading Post Map only) Only Night Goblins in B1_01 have this
2	Unused	Regenerates wounds Only trolls have this	Cowardly Only ghouls have this	Impervious to Magic Only necromancer in B1_03 has this
3	Cause fear Most undead have this	Never rally/regroup Villagers and B1_04 Mage has this. When a regiment has been broken it will get the white flag immediately	Destroyed if routed Wights, wraiths, zombies, Carstein and dummies have this	No retreat, no surrender! No regiment uses this. Unit will never rout, retreat button without any use. Banner of Defiance and cheat code DONTMESSWITHME and Ctrl+C+I have the exact same effect
4	Cause terror Black Grail, Dread King, Hand of Nagash and Wraiths have this	Always Pursue No regiment has this; Regiment will follow retreating enemy until it is defeated	Flammable Treeman and mummies have this	No Item slots Treeman, scorpion, spider, and wraiths have this
5	Elf racial flag Only elves have this	"Engine of War" Rule Steam tank and goblin fanatics have this	360 Degree Vision Only giant spider has this	Can't be selected Only goblin fanatics have this
6	Goblin racial flag Goblins and goblin fanatics have this	Indestructible Only necromancer in B1_03 has this	Unit contains fanatics Only goblin with fanatics has this	Fear Elves Which unit has this- Goblins?
7	Hate Greenskins Elves and treeman has this	Unused	Aetherial "racial" flag Only wraiths have this	Unused
8	Unimpeded by difficult terrain Elves, treeman, spider, black grail, skel horsemen and wraith	Suffer additional wounds Only skeletons and training dummy have this.	Giant Only Treeman has this	Unused
Certain and tested Highly likely but not tested Function basically undeterminable... :( Guess and/or untested

I changed "psychology" to "attribute". I originally used the term psychology when I started mapping out the .arm files, and I thought that only the Warhammer psychology stuff (like hatred, saga animosity, fearless, etc) were stored there. But as also physical stuff like terrain striding etc are represented here "attributes" is a more descriptive term. Mikademus 23:24, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I have started colour-coding the above table. Since it has been a while I am not certain which attributes I definitely determined and which I merely surmised. Ghabry is the the current authority on unit attributes, and I hope he will be able to complete the chart. Mikademus 12:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Certain or likely flags

Flag #9 (byte 2 bit 1): In DO only skeletons have this set. It seems to be the undead army list rule that skeletons (which are immune to fear and don't take rout tests) take additional wounds from being pushed back

Flag #24 (byte 3 bit 8): This is an adaptation of Warhammer's special Screaming Skull Catapult rule. The Screaming Skulls fired by the catapult cause fear, so if even one casualty is dealt the receiving unit must take a rout test. Since Hand of Nagash also has this is is surmised that is is also used to give extra oomph to his attacks, and in extension, to the attack of any unit with this flag.

Uncertain flags

Flag #3 (byte 1 bit 3): Only goblins have this set. It could simply to indicate race, or it could be to indicate goblins' racial traits. The WHTTv4 rules about goblins are:

Races/Warhammer/Goblins/WHTT4

Relevant WHFB TT goblinoid rules v4. Goblins

• have animosity toward other goblinoids
• hate dwarves (and gnomes)
• fear elves (of numbers > half the goblins)
• and some special stuff about being led by snotlings and substituting spells.

Flag #4 (byte 1 bit 4): Only elves have this set. It could simply to indicate race, or it could be to indicate elves' racial traits. The WHTTv4 rules about elves are:

Races/Warhammer/Elves/WHTT4

Relevant WHFB TT v4 elves rules. Elves

• are feared by Goblins if less than twice the numbers
• have double encumbrance from armour

Wood elves

• Suffer no movement or manoeuvre penalties in wooden areas
• have 6" longer range with bows
• and some special stuff about being substituting spells.

Are elves equipped with the same longbow (missile weapon type) as f.i. Helmgard Longbowmen? If so then we know that at least the additional distance rule applies.

Flag #18 (byte 3 bit 2): Only wraiths have this set. It could simply to indicate race, or it could be to indicate wraiths' special traits. The WHTTv4 rules about wraiths are:

Races/Warhammer/Wraiths/WHTT4

Relevant WHFB TT v4 wraith rules. Wraiths

• are immune to all psychology (seems not to be true in DO)
• cause fear 12" +2 in all living creatures regardless of size
• can only be damaged by magic, magic weapons, daemons, or undead chill attacks
• have chill attacks that automatically cause 1 wound, no save and no armour
• are bound to a particular place and dematerialise if they leave this zone or the thing they're attached to is destroyed
• can pass through any material obstacle unhindered

Flag #12 (byte 2 bit 4): This units can't fight in Closed Combat and can drive over other regiments while charging.

Issues and shortcomings with the Warhammer attributes

• Stupidity in Warhammer is a racial attribute (a boolean switch). This could be better represented as an analogue value.
• Fear: Warhammer system good: units can cause fear and terror; terror > fear; terrific creatures are unaffected by terror or fear and fearsome creatures feat terrific ones. We can generalise this to a fear attribute, which is usually zero, but in Warhammer, undead and trolls would have 1 ("cause fear") and dragons 2 ("cause terror").
• Solidity. Units can be of different size. IIRC in Warhammer v3 or 4 push-backs were determined by comparing #wounds dealt in a round. In Dark Omen there are no push-backs. However, in 3D units could (should?) have weight.
• Training: Some manoeuvres might be too difficult for certain units. Experience and leadership reflects these. Perhaps units could try difficult manoeuvres but need to pass both a leadership and stupidity test or be confused?
• Which leads us to Leadership: the Warhammer notion is a gross simplification for the sake of making a table top game manageable. It subsumes things such as training, experience, discipline, psychological stability, cultural disposition and "anti-stupidity" (it all boils down (1) manoeuvres, (2) save against rout and (3) roll to rally). It reminds a bit of Black Adder's Lord Wellington who believes that leadership is all about shouting. Really, things like psychological stability, stoicism, fatalism, bravery, training, discipline and much more all would weigh in.
• Other RTT games, such as Close Combat and Total War, includes other attributes not part of orthodox Warhammer, These include fatigue, morale and ammunition. Provisos for using these should be made, but these are types of attributes that shouldn't be necessary to be used. Having them optional would also allow difficulty and realism settings.

Suggested set

1. Multiply the Warhammer values by 10, giving us a range of 0--100, with humans averaging at 30. This gives us more room to adjust values.
2. Renaming certain (all?) attributes. If we assume that size equals strength, and size can be used as solidity, then S can be called "power" or "might" or something, and used for both weapon power and unit solidity.
3. Add Fearsomeness as an attribute.
4. Change Ld from being an kitchen-sink attribute to a bonus to the attributes below.
   1. Add Tactics attribute that represents unit level of training (manoeuvres and formations; resist pursuing)
   2. Add Steadfastness attribute that represents unit discipline and psychological stability (resistance against feat and routing; rallying) - basically anti-cowardice.
   3. Add Ferociousness attribute that represents an unit's disposition to charge and pursue - basically anti-discipline.
   4. Add Stupidity attribute - much better in game context than an "intelligence" attribute.
5. Add optional attributes
   1. Stamina, recovery rate and fatigue
   2. Morale
   3. Ammunition - this rather belongs with the weapons definition and as a game play option than an unit attribute!

The attribute set

Future extendibility

Let's face it, WARTBED will (hopefully) grow to include more games over time, which will mean adding additional features and rules. At the same it should continue to support existing modules without they too needing to be updated. Thus, all game rules should be kept in some kind of set where they can be toggled. All additional rules after the first stable release should also default to OFF so older modules will not be affected by them.

Perhaps it is possible to device some clever add-on or scripting systems for rules, so that modules will register themselves and their rules with WARTBED. Worth contemplating. Mikademus 20:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Game engine structures

Further information: Game Engine Structures

When making a game it is extremely important to as far as possible separate the "logic" from the "view" or "presentation" (what this means in simple terms is basically that the game should be able to run without graphics). If nothing else, a huge advantage of this is that the game can easily be ported to other rendering contexts (==platforms).

OGRE Rendering engine structures

Further information: Rendering Engine Structures

Overview and discussion of the rendering engine data structures.