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The core of the distributed build system, as we talked about in the first week is that we no longer need to select a building unit before we place buildings or units down on the map. Moving on from templates, let’s talk about building units, and indeed how units would be built from factories. All of this also assumes that the enemy isn’t interfering, of course…

Equally, groups of units can be ordered up, and placed in jump-off areas, ready to be sent into battle. Templates are thus very powerful tools, for both the player and for AI’s, to skip routine placements of say, a firebase, at every spot at which you want one and it saves time better spent on the actual game strategy.

On the other hand, while it would be technically possible to mix buildings and units, I would discourage that being available for player (but not AI) usage – you would be mixing factory output and builders in a single template, which complicates things and probably is somewhat too powerful a tool for players. There is also another reason to use templates in they create custom formations – a template will automatically position it’s units in the positions given, ensuring that exact formations can be created. Map-specific AI’s could even have notations that they were limited to certain areas of the map – those with the AI-zones placed – to ensure that some specific templates (for example, an artillaty battery) would only be build where suitable (on top of a hill). You would also be able to rotate them like a single building – any units or buildings over an invalid spot would simply not be built!Īs discussed last week, week four, AI creators would also be able to use these – and they would perhaps be even more useful as long as they are not overused – template and groups embedded into an AI are not available to players unless they manually copy them out – and the AI can assign a build chance to a given template or group, as if it was a “unit”.

This template, dropped on the battlefield, will then automatically be built in the given order by builder units, or for units the factories will build the units in a group and send them to the target location all without needing to give direct orders to the builders or factories. You can drag and drop your template or group from their tab on the build system onto the battlefield (as long as you can, of course, build all the units or buildings, otherwise they’d be greyed out). This thus ties into the distributed building system discussed in the first week. There will also be an option for the default number of construction units – up to, perhaps, five – that the template “wants” to build it. On the right, there’s a build order which can be dragged and dropped to re-order it, this order will be followed by construction units. fire at will, or a waypoint for a factory). You have the list of things you can place into the area on the left, a map area in the upper section and the ability to set orders (i.e. They can be shared between players (they would be XML files), and have a very simple UI – You could save them either from battle (perhaps with a shortcut key), but the primary editing would be done in a “sandbox” mode, with no enemies. In short, they’re a pre-stored collection of buildings (or units, in which case they’re a group) which can be saved in a library. In several previous portions of Building A Better RTS I’ve talked about templates.