Unit Formations Example

[Ji-Rath]

Early example of simple unit formations. There is still a lot of cleanup to be done but the core functionality is there.

• 'Rectangle' formation by specifying a FormationLength in the RTSFormationTrait
• Spawning and shooting entities will appropriately shift the formation to fill any gaps
• Encapsulated in a plugin (though it does depend on some things in the project)

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1747157/178162858-c0dace7c-4474-4719-8cee-82d1a091d3d5.mp4

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1747157/178162889-841d7e2e-a90d-4d9f-816f-83684432b1e7.mp4

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1747157/178162918-2471bb9d-351c-4b40-bf5b-9be2541f01a0.mp4

Known issues

• When spawning a large amount of entities (>100) actor visualization appears to stop functioning. May be unrelated to my code.
• Performance was not a priority so some things can definitely be optimized
• URTSFormationInitializer does not properly handle entity destruction. It is temporarily handled in the subsystem.
• A few processors are bundled together. For readability, I might separate them in the future.
• Unit movement is not implemented but should theoretically be straightforward.
• When units are destroyed, the entity index is sometimes not properly handled.

[Megafunk]

When spawning a large amount of entities (>100) actor visualization appears to stop functioning. May be unrelated to my code.

The visual quantity limit is probably the in the LOD parameter config. I'll definitely look at this soon, still shoveling the rest of the project into plugins.

[Ji-Rath]

I finally tackled performance and gave into using arrays for formations.

With 5000 entities Before

• RTSFormationInitializer - 100.1 ms
• RTSFormationUpdate 10 s

After

• RTSFormationInitializer - 378 μs
• RTSFormationUpdate - 22.2 ms

Kind of embarrassing looking at the original stats but still progress! I have ideas to make the update faster (currently only runs when an entity needs a new position), but I think it is 'good enough' for now.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1747157/178365202-8f175609-96d8-4a98-a3f2-1ab6dc133e80.mp4

[Ji-Rath]

Multiple unit support! Units now automatically rotate when moving to a new position too. I'm thinking about wrapping it up soon, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated. To be honest, this isn't groundbreaking work but maybe this example will inspire someone to create a better real-time 'Total War' game lol.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1747157/179020559-93f2f072-e4d2-4085-9f1c-aeb21c54b4ff.mp4

My only gripe is that this plugin depends on the MassCommunitySample plugin too. This is so entities can be destroyed with the sample projectile. One solution would be to either remove the functionality or implement it maybe in the project/plugin?

Oh and these too lol

• Optimize Signal calls
• Find solution to entities not moving in formation (while in route to destination)
• Move center point to 'front-center'
• Add option to change formation length for individual units

[Ji-Rath]

This is gonna be just a little messy, I made the mistake of creating this plugin in main, so Im just going to create a new PR with the new branch so I can do some more work