Poll #2: Next feature for Construct 2 (again)

Physics and the next pool I�d like to suggest particles

I have voted for families, but I have no idea what it is *gg* I hope that is a group function.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/construct/index.php?title=Families

Thank you for the Link — The google translation is a little bit confusing ,but I think I'm correct with grouping function. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Physics is in the new release, so on to Families I'm guessing!

Seriously, stuff moves quickly over here. I'm studying the plugin SDK myself too, hope to have some extra things to add here soon enough!

I want something that will handle object grouping. For instance, I can have a body, a cannon, threads and a machinegun turret on my tank.

Then, I want to group all those objects as a single "tank" object, such that collisions to the cannon register collisions to the "tank", if I tell construct to destroy "tank", it should also destroy machinegun and cannon and threads.

Also, suppose cannon has these variables

• Turn Rate
• Hit Chance
• Critical hit chance

and threads have these:

• Maximum Speed
• Speed on asphalt
• Speed on land

and body has these:

• Armor Treshold
• Heat resistance
• Piercing resistance
• Explosive resistance

the whole tank can have attributes that none of the parts have, such as:

• Hit points
• Shields
• Multiplayer ID
• Player Name

I should have a way to access a tank's specific cannon variables, for instance, such as "when tank is hit, disable his cannon for one second".

Adding objects of more than one type to such group would also be interesting, so we could pair an array (just an example) for each object instance, so we could keep track of "items" or "powerups" for that tank without needing to serialize them.

Is that what families do?

Basicly all you enumerated was in the families of CC.

Except for the multi-type object, as objects of a family share the same variables and ACE, it is tricky to group Sprite and Text for example.

If you'd called the family's action "set text", sprite objects might raise some kind of error (not being designed to acknowledge said action).

I don't know about C2 though.

Well I'd say that was a little cheating involved, 26 votes on Families and instead we got Physics engine in r58 ;P

Not complaining, just saying ;D

I want something that will handle object grouping. For instance, I can have a body, a cannon, threads and a machinegun turret on my tank.

...

Is that what families do?

For me it sound more like a Container then Families, well known from CC.

Fimbul, yep, that's what containers do from CC. They'll probably come after Families.

shinkan - families is a big job! Maybe a month or more's work. Physics I could get done in a few days so I did it first :)

I still have no idea what families is <img src="smileys/smiley19.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I posted a link to the CC wiki article about families earlier in the thread.

If I am correct, it means that a group of objects can be put in a 'folder' called a family. This family can be treated as one object by the editor. Useful if you want different types of enemy, etc (although one can get around this by using different animations in a single sprite)

Info about families from CC

Families

hmm that's gonna be very useful. voted!

I always think in families like tags or classes that you can give to objects to "group" and reference them in events. In reality is something more complex than that, but in essence it's really close.

On the other hand Containers in CC are something more related to the concept of "parenting" than "grouping", because an object can only be contained by another object that already exists. In "grouping" a collective of objects create a new entity that is a group.

In this sense I think Families are more related to grouping than Containers. Although in CC both only "group" objects in the runtime not in the "edit-time".

Would be a great addition to C2 if you could group objects in the layout editor as well. If you ever used a vector editor you will understand how useful this would be to Construct in helping manage layout content, and extending this concept with the ability to reference and manipulate them through events would make it a very powerful feature.

I really expect that the families/containers/groups/classes/tags (or whatever you prefer to call it) be well thought with a lot of care and respect for C2, since they perform a fundamental role and yet have very similar concepts and overlapping functionality.