WarWorld - The Book of Rules

As of 10/01/2000

Recommended attributes

* World unit-of-measure: 1 meter.

* World size: 1024m x 1024m (realistic for demo version)

* Maximum number of players: 4 (red/green/blue/yellow) (realistic upper limit)

* Maximum number of total units: 50 (due to graphics/network performance. Not tested => not sure.)

* Grid cell size: 32m x 32m

Server

* Broadcast worldstate information 15 times per second. (that means an "INIT\0" 15 times a sec.)

* Broadcast unit movement information as needed (see In-Game Protocol Spec at POS/WPT)

Unit movement

* Exactly the way they do in Command & Conquer or Dune. Units move by driving, not by jumping, from one grid location to another.

* The server may impose a gridding of the world for collision detection/path finding/etc purposes, but the units move regardless of the grid. Only stationary objects lie always within the boundaries of a grid cell.

* Different types of units have a different maximum speed, acceleration and turn rate.

Example:

type = TANK

maxspd = 10.00000 // 10 m/s

acc = 2.00000 // 2 m/(s*s)

turnrate = 10.00000 // 10 deg/s

This means that a tank driving at full speed, moves 10m/s in the world, i.e. 10/15 meters per frame, to its current heading.

As we all know a tank may steer even when it's not moving, so a tank that is given a destination by a player may take a turn at the spot and start accelerating when the correct heading is reached. The destination is effectively a grid location if gridding is to be imposed by the server. Probably should.

Unit dimensions

* Units may span multiple grid cells. Such static units as factories and the like are, of course, bigger than a tank which is about the same size as a single grid cell. For hit detection a bounding rectangle or sphere may need to be defined for each of the different unit types to maintain a decent level of precision. For example, the builder, if it is to be considered a static object, could be 2 x 2 cells in size and thus enemy fire hit detection needs to be performed in all those cells.

Representation of gunshots and detection of hits

* Fake projectiles. In other words, the client draws a quickly moving projectile (moving handled independently of the server. fake. period. The server does only hit tests)

* The server just tests for a hit at the player-specified target point. In real life, this would be called arc trajectory..

(take into account that a target may not always lie exactly in the middle of a grid cell (moving))

Numeric data during comms

* Use only 16-bit integers to represent numeric values to the client. At this time, the client wont get any extra kicks from floating-point values as it is impossible to draw things between pixels and thus sending values with lots of decimals wastes bandwidth.

Presenting angles to the client

* An angle is represented as an integer value between 0 and 255. Winds counterclockwise from the x-axis. These values are not used in any translation calculations. The purpose is merely to give the engine information about how to draw units onto the screen.

Destroying units

* The UNIT_ID belonging to a destroyed unit may and must be reused when creating new units dynamically.

Client as of 11/01/2000

What's it made of?

* Written using Qt 2.x.

* 16-bit color depth. Works on all depths >= 8, but cpu time gets wasted with greater depths since memory copy operations take twice the time AND WarWorld doesn't look any better with 32-bits of color!! PLUS! The client eats up lots more memory with unrealistic graphics settings.

* A 400 by 400 pixel view to the world. (1 pixel = 1m)

* The world map is represented as a WORLDWIDTH x WORLDHEIGHT (=1024x1024 now) bitmap with the color depth of the current display mode.

* A widget displaying kill counts for all of the players.

* Button widgets for C&C-style unit building.

* Server IP address and port number can be given as parameters from the command line along with the player nick. example: ./wwclient -ip=127.0.0.1:1025 -nick=TriggaNigga2000[MOTHAFUCKAS]

* Mouse controls akin to C&C.

* 3-button mouse recommended. (buttons: left = select unit(s)/set destination/shoot at,

mid = hold down and scroll around the world map by

moving your mouse.)

right = unselect unit(s))

* A selected unit is marked with a selector image akin to C&C. Energy bar shown.

* Selection of multiple units, again, like in C&C, is in the works. The protocol takes this into account.

* Special effects: selected tanks' guns follow player's mouse cursor location as if aiming at that point. Exploding units leave a permanent crater on the ground. Treadmarks may be supported in the future.

* No sounds.

Unit type-specific attributes

”TANK”

Top speed: 20.0 m/s

Acceleration: 5.0 m/(s*s)

Turn rate: 45.0 deg/sec.

”BUILDER” (immobile?)

Top speed: 0.0 m/s

Acceleration: 0.0 m/(s*s)

Turn rate: 0.0 m/s