Hi'ya guys! Second modish thing. Again, I have never used Lua before in my life, so be gentle if you peruse the .lua file, haha.
And now it's in v2.0 after... what, one day? I show no scruples in the name of versioning conventions!

Spectator Mode

Sit back and relax. They're here to put on a show for you!

What this mod does:
* The computer takes control of both teams for you, ordering parts and directing both against eachother
* Can now begin the battle while still in the building editor (see controls)
* You can always take over a Red unit or order new parts at any time, just hold down Q or E and hop in at any time
* There is no brain to defend; (And as of ver. 2.0, you will not need to deploy one either!)
* All units spawn without digging equipment, so nothing is distracting them from eachother
* Kill counter in B24! Even if it is a rather unfancy one. Also has a Population counter (population limit has been upped to 300)
* Both sides have 100,000 quid, enough to fuel a rather long winded show
* Difficulty of 'Nuts!' has a spawn rate of x8. (beware lag)
* Spawning zones have been staggered so that only 20% of either force will spawn in the skies above the other army's landing zone (was 50%)


Controls:
Hotkey [1] toggles whether your Red forces will auto-order summon troops for you
Hotkey [2] toggles whether the enemy Green forces will spawn or not
Hotkey [Backspace] if you are still in the starting editor, this will begin the battle while you're editing (note, once you leave the editor, you can't get back to it)


How to install:
- Just download the .zip file at the bottom of this post, unzip, and put the .rte folder in the C:\Program Files\Data Realms\Cortex Command (or equivilent) folder, and presto! Select 'spectate' from the Scenario list and it's to the races with you.


It should be said, if you choose the hardest difficulty with it's enhanced spawn rate, you will see dropships doing what dropships do best; killing it's passengers and everyone else within 50 meters.

A thank you to mail2345 who showed me how to do the whole .rte thing by example in another thread.
And a HUGE thanks to Dauss, who showed me where I can place a brain without it being at risk.

Enjoy! Let me know if you have a question or anything is amiss in this thing, feedback is awesomeback.

[footnotes]: The game requires a brain be present. Can't seem to get around this restriction, so this is how it's juryrigged: The brain is placed at -100y, in the sky. Since dropships spawn at -50y, and are despawned at that same height, there's little risk of collision. If the brain somehow is destroyed, perhaps by a modded map-wipe type weapon or a lucky shot, it'll respawn a new one in another spot in the sky, but the camera will deselect your unit to oogle at the sky, so beware.
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Patch history:
v1.01:
- fixed issue where replacement crate for the 'brain' was skuttling itself based on the angle it landed in. Fixed this by making the crate an 'actor' instead of a dropship
- gave the Tough Drop Crate 1000 hitpoints, and made it 10x more resistant to physical turbulence.

v2.00:
- did away with 'brain' dropcrates, and just put an actual brain high above the screen
- added the hotkeys 1 and 2 for controlling spawning rate, as well as Backspace for starting battle while in the editor
- fixed spawning for both sides so 80% of them will spawn in their corresponding 'landing zone' instead of 50%
- changed AI of enemy so they are set to 'patrol' instead of 'brain hunt', which yields more interesting behaviour

v2.01
- fixed some glitches caused by naming the lua class SkirmishDefence, renamed it to Spectator. Thanks Mail!

v2.02
- accidentally left a print() while debugging. Whoops!

This has fulfilled my CC dream of watching 2 teams fighting each other without the hassle of ordering troops. Thank you. I love having to check what troops are yours.

This is so awesome. I've always wanted to watch CC like a gladiator show. And couple it with the caller flags for extra awesome!

My game exploded from all the gore, never knew two dropships [each with four passengers] could cause so much gore.

Do I smell another Whitty?
This is an ingenious mod you got here, polished and actually quite fun to watch. Being able to jump in yourself is just a bonus.
Well done!

With less glow rape, that is.

And more polish.

If you add a version where enemies drop down without crafts the lag will decrease drastically, and a lot more enemies will survive.

> Whitty

Eh, maybe. I'm thinking more Cave or TLB in the making here. Of course, mentioning names like this is going to get someone's goat no matter what.

Nevertheless, I smell promise in this one. Keep up the good work Clairvoire.

I'm more of an .ini god... Not so much on the Lua side.
That being said, I haven't looked at the internals of this thing yet or even tried it out, but it sounds like a really cool mod and is the only one of its kind. Ten points for you, sir!

I think this thing is more of a Zalo or a TLB - level thing. Very good.

Thanks for the replies! Glad to hear everyone is enjoying it! (I'm going to have to look up all these names you're throwing around, hm!)



I made a few minor adjustments to that end. No more dropships, spawn rate ramped up for the Nuts! setting (it's 3x faster, to offset the fact 2-4 guys are in each dropship.)

Lag does go down! But you are mistaken about them surviving more often. It's... quite brutal actually, aha. They have jetpacks, but few feel the need to bother. Few land without taking fall damage or dying outright. ... those that reach the ground anyway; cpu is a crackshot with them sniper rifles, aha. It certainly was fun to watch though! Attaching a modified .rte if anyone is bored and wants to see it rain ragdolls.

I dunno if it's just me, but the drop crate brain seems to automatically scuttle itself every time, which makes controlling a person for more than 10 seconds difficult.

Clairvoire you are coming up with quite a few neat mods around here.

Not that they are spectacularly good, but they are exactly what a Cortex Command player would want.

Fixed!

It seems any sort of 'dropship' type of entity is made to skuttle itself if it capsizes. This doesn't seem to be controlled by the a.i., and there's no method of controlling the behavior I could see. So as a work around, the crate is now a new object added to the game, called a Tough Drop Crate (it's not buyable though), and is registered as an 'actor'.

Also, buffed it to 1000 hitpoints, and increased it's physical whiplash/crush thresholds to 10x their normal limits. That crate isn't going anywhere, haha.

You guys can get the updated .rte in the Original Post up thar!

that is awesome

your beginning to inspire me to learn to mod