Infantry In Steel Beasts

[Rinix]

Apocalypse31 once more asked for better simulation of infantry by having the context menu option to fire an RPG. Gibsonm’s response was to strawman him by accusing him of trying to merge Steel Beasts and Arma. This is the second time that a prominent Steel Beasts community member has done this: the first time was by Skybird. Gunslinger668 is agreeing with Apocalypse31.

This hostility should not come as a surprise to anyone. 12Alfa is right in saying that infantry are a foreign concept to the community. It’s to the point that others is now on its 5th round of infantry training. But eSim Games needs to continue developing infantry. Whether the “turret simulator” fanboys like it or not, infantry is what takes and holds ground. That is why eSim Games is responding:
http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/4546-steel-beasts-content-wish-list/?page=221#comment-176036

A lot of the infantry issues are rooted in fundamental issues with pathfinding. We're going to address that first. Once that they can reliably negotiate the environment we'll make the behavior less erratic, which will increase the "playability". Along with that we may also address the firing of MGs and RPGs.

I would however like to point out the difference in development paths between SB Pro prior to version 3.0, and after. Up until 2.6 there were infantry sprites and not much of a user interface. Now we have infantry with a meaningful UI that is modeled in much more detail (training levels, stamina, "shoot here"/"suppress"/etc. commands, the overhead view). So, I think that friends of the infantry can see a somewhat encouraging deviation of course since I took over management. That not all change is coming as fast as you'd like it to see, check. There are limits to how fast a team can make non-destructive changes to a legacy code base. Given our means, I think the result is awesome. Of course, seeing this from a customer's point of view who doesn't care how the sausage is made, as long as it tastes good, it may still appear as a slow pace. Both perspectives are valid. Naturally I only have ma own perspective, but I try to see the situation from your end as well. All I'm asking for is that you try the same.

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/4546-steel-beasts-content-wish-list/?page=221#comment-176039

One may be a symptom of the other, occasionally. When you have to tame a code monster of 700,000 lines, there aren't always cases of linear cause and effect. The decision to "move" from an observation activity to a firing pose may not be "pathfinding" in the close sense of it, but it definitely deals with behavioral algorithms for the infantry, the "A.I.", which includeas multiple factors - battle position tactics, target priorities, user input, a general suppression factor, the perceived vulnerability of a target, the range of own weapons.

Let's assume for a moment that both you and me have only an incomplete understanding of the Steel Beasts code base, that our programmers know what they are doing, and that they are trying not to break stuff that works while working on stuff that needs improvement. Due to our limited understanding of the situation our discussion can by necessity only approximate certain aspects. Not everything that I write may always make sense in every aspect, this may be due to my limited understanding, my limited ability to express my thoughts, or the desire to be brief in my responses.
I often get accused of writing walls of text, and I guess I'm guilty of that, but not because I love expressing in 500 words what can be said in five, but because I believe that context is important, and especially in software development and engineering in general, details matter a lot. I cannot lay out all the details in a public forum. So you'll have to live with some of my statements not making sense immediately. They are, however, always as truthful as I can be in public.

[Asid]

Thanks for posting Rinix...All I have to say is....


"Legacy Code...Blah, blah, blah"




"Legacy Code...Blah, blah, blah"




"Legacy Code...Blah, blah, blah"




"Legacy Code...Blah, blah, blah"




"Legacy Code...Blah, blah, blah"




"Legacy Code...Blah, blah, blah"

[Rinix]

What I have to say is "code monster of 700,000 lines that isn't getting broken into modules linked together by glue code so that 6 lead and regular programmers can actually maintain it."

[Rinix]

Speaking of legacy code, Asid, I just read this (https://developer.unigine.com/en/devlog/20171020-unigine-2.6) and this stood out to me while they were talking about their rebuilt materials system: "We tried our best to minimize problems associated with content migration to Unigine 2.6. However, there may be cases, when manual migration of projects would still be required because of these large-scale improvements. We apologize for any possible inconvenience caused, but that’s the price of progress."

That's the attitude that eSim Games needs to have.

[Asid]

There does come a point where "legacy" code needs to be left. It can be a huge decision not just financially.

This is even more important if the original coder is no longer with you. However, it is what it is......