Sentience: VB Game (comments please)

Plend,

Unfortunately, I'm strictly limited by the number of limbs I have and the number of hours in the day. I can only do so much as once!

j/k These comments are good, keep em coming.

I could put a different graphic for the barricades but it wouldn't be a terrain type. I'm leaving that well alone. It works, and I ain't messing no more!

I can implement carried units easily enough I think. Would have to put a troop carrier component into a weapon mount. Odd, but it would work.

The Sentience logo will stay as it is. I'm just awaiting the tidier versions from Behemoth.

The in game menus are still work in progress. It's on my list to tidy up, but as it's only a cosmetic it's fairly low down.

Phew *pant, pant, pant* I think that's everything....

Nah by the icon I meant the icon used for the executable.
Its currently the god-awful VB icon.

Oh!

Err.... I never even stopped to consider that. I don't have any icon editors.

Behemoth! Make me an icon! :)

*sigh*

32 x 32, 256 colours?

Hey Have you ever played fallen heaven? I think you could use somme of the features of that game. Like the research part or even the yearbased building system. If you have never played it and you can't find it on any 5$ collectors CD you can ask me about it if you are interested. (must be fun to read all those messages in this thread.)

After all the game looks pretty cool, I couldn't really figure it out yet, but I think you got a good basis to make a real cool game.

And really get MicroAngelo to make another Icon. As soon as I saw this Icon I thought that it would be just another little stupid vbprog someone only spend 2 days on.

I can't vouch for Behemoth, but I've never played Fallen Heaven. It is along the same lines?

If you could outline some of the features of the game you think we could benefit from having, that would be great!

Behemoth,

Sorry pal, I've no idea what size icons are. I'll leave it in your hands... :)

Thanks!

Arbiter.
I just came up with the single most important feature that would make your game even more popular that wolenstein 3d and quake3 combined :






Have music by the divine comedy (aka neil hannon) playing in the background the whole way through.

*sigh*

BTW Jotaf. The mech's don't have pilots...

PlenderJ.

Why not just have Greensleeves playing on constant repeat with no 'music off' option.

Guaranteed to make it a best seller!

No, Arbiter - just the first 4 bars of Greensleeves...

Ok, ok - then just remember to change the turn "unit" from years to days or hours... :rolleyes:

Ho Ho Hoka Hey!

The new version is uploaded, and all in a nice 300k zip file to update your current version! Splendid!

Update includes:

More bug fixes than you can shake a stick at.
Optimised code.
New, improved recipe mech design screen.
The ability to create unit templates for easy mech creation.
Improvement of the pathfinder algorithm.
Speech (yes, voices of Behemoth and I sounding terminally depressed)
The first four bars of Greensleeves on infinite repeat.
Combat!
Version checking on the save games (Plend)
Fixed scrollbars and improvements to the build Q (Chenko)
The adding of contributers names to the faction names (look out for you!)

All sorts of little improvements and snazzy stuff.

OK, for combat make sure you have two factions, build a mech with each (ensure they have at least one weapon) and walk them into each other. Ranged fire and accuracy will be coming shortly. Be sure to set the weapon fire states in the mech design screen (those funny pictures near the picture of the weapon that look like blokes - they instruct the mech whether to fire if the target has shields up or down - make sure they're both ticked), if you forget, don't worry. Simply right click on the mech when it's been built and click view unit details. These can then be changed.

Tips, to hear speech, set some techs to be researched and use the move mech command to errr... move mechs ;)

Remember the 'click on unit and type @' to explore the whole map cheat, may be useful for finding the enemy.

Well, have fun guys. We both appreciate you all looking at it!

Just a few things ...

The route finding on the mechs doesnt appear to be 100%.
When my mech was created, for the life of me I couldnt get it to go anywhere by itself. It could however go there manually.

When your turn is complete, I think the view should be returned to where you were looking last ; not necessarily the centre of your base.

When I went to save the game to come on here, I selected my other save game to overwrite ; but it never asked me if I wanted to overwrite it ... not a major thing tbh.

All I can think of for now ....

Ha ha!!

Not so many bug reports.

There is a glitch in the pathfinding that's really weird. It doesn't seem to want to move a mech if it's on a building, but it only does it sometimes. If you move the mech off the building and then plot a course, when you click next turn it should start heading off that way.

I'll implement the screen snap to last viewed as opposed to base thingy when I get in.

Did ya try moving buildings around? Funky! A building has to be adjacent to a piece of road for it to be active, so if you run your admin centre off into the swamp, you'll notice you're not generating any power, or research for that matter.

Funky eh?

Now I just need to work on building construction.

I've got my maths exam today at 2 till 5, so I shant be messing with sentience till after that anyway ;)

Good luck chopper!

Luck has nothing to do with it !

Blind faith that the alimighty will provide for does however ...:)

I was just thinking arbiter, maybe you should change your very first post in this thread, and tell people, in bold, that you have a game that you want people to try, and that people dont have to read the 12 pages of bull**** before they post a comment/suggestion/bug :)

Damn good idea.

You're on form this week aren't you. Must be the exams forcing your brain to work. ;)

teeheehee ;)
There's nothing like a bit of Euler's Totient Function to get the brian going first thing in the morning.
*euch*

Hey, Arbiter!

(No, this time I'm TRYING not to give you suggestions you don't want/need :p )

Well, I've tested your new version, and found a few bugs (good to know the old ones are now fixed ;) ):

When I created a mech with the chassis "Coastal Vessel", it couldn't move! Besides, when I was about to build another one, the chassis was still available as a component (!). I had to self-destruct this mech so the other one could come out... :(

Another thing, I resigned as one of the players and the other one didn't win. And the resigned player's units were still there!

Also, I looked for the images you said that I nedded to "check" to make it attack, but they weren't there :(
The window is the same as the one from the previous version.

This is not a bug, just a suggestion: what about if you could select a component that was being built and delete it? You should also give the user some info when he builds a component, like a text: "Building component [component-name]". At first I thought it wasn't working because I didn't know you had to see the components list :p

I'd also like to know if it's possible to destroy buildings using mechs ;)

ok I had some trouble, so I finally give an answer to the Fallen Heaven thing.
Well, at first the there was a map of a world. you could click to different areas to actually get to a game map where you can build an produce. if you end turn, a whole year passes and everything is build unless there is an attack in between. Attackes would work by huge dropships that bring units to an area controlled by the enemy. I kind of liked that because the game would go on and on and I would not have to start from 0 again, but still have my first bases. Still there is building in the new bases. But I can understand, that there are also disadvantages, because there is no such thing as building in enemy controlled areas. (what seems a little more logical to me though)
But one thing I definetly liked, is the research system. According to the number of science labs you get a number of research points, that can be provided over severeal fields, like energy effiency, defense technics, attack technics, unitspeed, firepower... that way the units would change and also some of the buildings. Sometimes there are also new units available from research.

That's it for now. I will write more if more comes to my mind and you are interested.
Cu
(nice game keep on programming guys!)

Scoutt,

Sorry, didn't see your reply hiding there. Here's my response:

Nope, you can't change a mech once it's been built. The components are set at desing time and that's it then. If you want to change the mech setup, you'll need to dismantle it and build another.

The minimap only updates at the beginning of the turn. I'm going to make it update a little more often when I get chance, it's just it's quite slow to do draw.

There is no button to fire (yet). To attack, just drive you mech over another players mech.

More details will be added to the help as soon as I get chance. There will be help on more screen as well coming shortly.

MisanThrop,

Most of what you said about Fallen Heaven went clean over my head. What I picked up about research seems to be similar to what we have in Sentience (you have found the research screen haven't you?)

Plend,

How did your exams go?

Arbiter, you just gave me a great idea: what about if, instead of just self-destruct, when you were in the building where you build mechs, you had a "dismantle" option? Components from the mech would be added to the list of built components!

Also, I can't see anything with a red cross on it in the build mech screen :(
Maybe you should check the package you uploaded.

Jotaf,

lol, that's exactly what've got planned. It's good to see that we're thinking on the same wavelength. Keep these ideas coming!

Also, if you take a screen shot of the mech design screen and upload it here as a JPG, I'll circle the bits I mean.

Hehe, ok. Sorry, but I'm at school and the powers that be don't want us to make any downloads, especially of games :(
Can you post a screenshotwith the circles? Yes, I had my glasses when I played Sentience :p (I'll change to contact lens soon ;) )

No can do. I'm at work at the moment and can't download my baby either. I'll do it when I get home (unless Behemoth will do it......)

ok.

Thanks Behemoth.

There you go Jotaf, that's what we mean...

Hm I just looked at that screenshot and am wondering what graphics interface you guys use. Do you use GDI?? Or do you do some of those pretty difficult operations to draw a normal window on DD surfaces?

Are you guys going to stay with the "VBish" design, or do you just want to get the game running and do stuff like that later?

hm the area thing well I guess I described that a little confusing.
So well there are different areas. If you go in one it looks like beeing in a normal Game map otherwise you are only in A Mapview that shows you that there are different areas. What I like about that is that after winning an area you have to build stuff in that area, but you don't lose your old areas you build up earlier. I like that much more than the system in most games like Command & Conquer, where you have to start from scratch after every single mission.

ok that's it for now. I have school in the moment. CU

Ah, now I'm sure you have a different version than me :rolleyes:

Try downloading it from your web site, installing it to a different folder and running it! :p

Jotaf,

I'm sure that's the version I uploaded. Did you install the update as well?

Misan,

All the GUI is written using the standard VB controls. The only thing we use directx for is the sound. A little wasteful maybe but never mind eh?

We're not planning on sticking with the VB ish design, as you say, it just looks like while I put the code in. Behemoth will send me graphics to make it look pretty when he's finished.

I think I know what you're on about regarding that game. Well, Sentience isn't split up into campaings, it's like one long flowing mission, so it doesn't really apply - but it's a good thought anyway.

Alright
I donwload the update now and look at all that a little closer now.
I am really interested how you will have a long campaign without changing the map and anything.

Maybe I will have some more Ideas after looking at it.
Later

Hey I just installed the update and I got a Subscript out of Range when I clicked on the components button in the Factory thing.
The only thing I did before is click on the other thing and start RMV building.

Heya Pimp ***** (aka arbiter).
Have been studying lately. Have you uploaded a newer version than the one I have ?

What ho ***** Slap (aka PlenderJ)!

I think so. If the last download was the 2.9mb file then yes, if the last download was an update then no. The last thing I implemented was a bit of combat and the ability to move buildings around.

The next upload is going to be better still!

Building construction is almost complete and I'm going to add building destruction as well, so you can go and annihilate other players.

How did your exams go? Was not being able to count a hinderance at all?

Misan,

I thought I'd fixed that. *sigh*.

The common cause is that there's less than 6 or so weapons in the script. Check in the scripts directory and open weapons.ini

If there's more than six weapons then I've not fixed it. If there isn't, make sure you installed the update properl (i.e. overwrote the old files with the ones in the zip file.

If you've ever played Alpha Centauri, then you'll see what I mean by having one campaign and no missions. I think it's a little more interesting than mission based ones as you really have to plan the long term strategy of your colony/faction.

Only had one so far ; Maths.
And it was completely off the wall. So the class is writing a letter of complaint.

I've got computer technology tomorrow. I just found out now that we have to know how to program in assembly ; and how to convert java code into asm.
I dont know the first thing about assembly ; so we'll see what I can learn overnight :)

Hey peoples!

Hope you've not forgot about Sentience! We working on the next version - all the functionality's there we're just making it a bit more stable.

Shouldn't be long now, you just must try to contain yourselves.... ;)

We'll manage :)