Ares

Dune starports

Bug #895976 reported by Cabal8616 on 2010-12-20

This bug affects 2 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	Ares	New	Wishlist	Unassigned

Bug Description

Although I'm not directly familiar with Dune's Starport logic, my friend's told me about it, and it got me thinking that it'd be pretty nice to see in YR.

Basically, it works by building a structure (The starport), and then ordering units off of it. The units don't require any prerequisites, but their prices change frequently (to both higher or lower), and they take some time to arrive.

This could work with various tags (the names are pretty terrible, but they're examples obviously):

IsStarport=yes/no
Whether or not this structure is a Starport. Mostly would be used for things like identifying what structures the dropship would deliver the units to/around, etc.

StarportUnits=
These could be infantry, or vehicles. It'd go on the Starport building itself.

StarportDropship=
Basically defines the aircraft that would act as the dropship to carry your ordered units in.

StarportDeliveryTime=
How many seconds it takes for the dropship to actually appear in the map. Defaults to 60.

StarportUnitQueue=
How many units you can queue up. Defaults to 6.

StarportPriceMinimum=
The minimum possible multiplier to unit prices. (IE: .75)

StarportPriceMaximum=
The maximum possible multiplier to unit prices. (IE: 1.25)

StarportPriceIncrement=
The possible price range between the minimum and maximum prices. So for example, if the increment is set to .25, then the possible price changes to a unit's default price could be .75, 1.00, or 1.25. (If using the example minimum and maximum prices above).

StarportPriceChangeFrequency=
How many seconds it takes for the prices of units to change. This should be randomized, but obviously directed by the 3 tags above for the possible price changes.

StarportParadrops=yes/no
Basically whether or not to paradrop the units around the starport instead of having a dropship come in and deliver them. Everything else would work the same.

That takes care of the simple stuff. Now, the more complicated part would be how you'd go about ordering the units themselves. Dune had its own UI button for the Starport (I think), but I don't know how easy (if even possible) that'd be to add, so here's various suggestions as to how this could be implemented:

The first way could be "deploying" the Starport. Upon doing this, an onscreen UI pops up with all the possible units you can order, their prices, an "Order" button, and a "Cancel" button. All of those are pretty self explanatory, except for the Order button- basically, you request the units you want (You should be able to select multiple of the same type of unit, aslong as it doesn't go above the value of StarportUnitQueue), then click Order for them to be delivered. The window would close, and the units would be on their way to be delivered. However, I don't know how possible it is to have a window pop up with all of that (Probably a pain, so probably asking too much).

The second way could be "deploying" the Starport, then your UI changes to only the units you can order until you "deploy" it again. I don't know how possible this is either, but just throwing an idea out there incase it's easier.

There's probably various ways to go about this part, so some feedback would be welcome. Yes, I know it's kind of dumb to ask for feedback on my own feature request, but I think Starport logic could be used by tons of mods if all of the above is put in (Paradropping units in for more modern mods, or carrying them in via helicopters as a form of reinforcements, etc). It wouldn't just be used for futuristic mods.

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