Christ Plend!!
Many, many thanks for all this.
I'll go through it all now and compose a reply.
You're my hero!
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Christ Plend!!
Many, many thanks for all this.
I'll go through it all now and compose a reply.
You're my hero!
Hey, check the C&C Red Alert 2 as well. The error was subscript
out of range, when I tried to play once, I think. And I had selected a group as Research.
Responses:
(o) Scroll bars dont move correctly.
I can’t duplicate that fault. Works fine for me…
(o) Buttons in main menu on loading take a while to doodle their yoke.
Always been instantaneous for me. I’ll try on my laptop (PI – 133, 16mb)
(o) Continents not real enough.
Ok, I hear you. In what way can we improve them?
(o) Mech design still a little confusing.
I know: I’m working on the documentation.
(o) All Windows command buttons should be replaced with pictures instead.
They’re getting there. Behemoth has a list of buttons to draw and he’s working on them when he gets chance.
(o) Create new world takes a lot longer than used to.
Odd that. It does on mine too, but I’ve been unable to find out why. I’ve not changed the code at all. :confused:
(o) Docs button takes quite a while to load. Looks good though.
That’s because I’m using an IE control to display the web pages in the documents folder. Any ideas on how I could improve this?
(o) You bundled an intermediate file with the zip.
Don’t know what you mean, sorry.
(o) Why do you have an excel spreadsheet with the game ?
It’s used to create the .ini files in the scripts folder. If you follow the documentation link for ‘components’ it gives more info there.
(o) When running other sounds (eg. mp3 files) while loading sentience, user gets a message saying that DS couldnt load.
This is covered in the troubleshooter section. It does this because DirectSound is written my MicroToss and is gay.
(o) Sentience doesnt steal focus when loading.
I’ll get onto it.
(o) [Sentience] text after DS error loading message is cut and not all displayed.
I’ll get onto this also.
(o) Choosing terrain options in new game is quite difficult to see.
Good point, I’ll sort this as well.
(o) There could possibly be a better way of packing all the bitmaps together ?
They were left loose for ease of amending. I may do this in the final version, but that’s miles away.
(o) Icon for sentience executable is that of VB.
Correct, I just don’t have one yet. And if I did, I wouldn’t know how to get it from a bmp to an icn. I/Behemoth will look into it.
(o) Move unit popup still doesnt work ... well not for me anyway.
It works every time from me on many machines. What’s up with it – what does it say?
(o) Minimap looks a little too-detailed / complicated / too-low-res.
How can we improve this?
(o) Buildings look real cool , as do the pods.
I'm glad you like them. Behemoth's done a great job.
(o) In component design, is quite tedious to click on each part,
and then click on 'Add to queue'
Double click then…. ;)
(o) Ability to load/save pre-designed worlds.
Maybe one day.
(o) World editor
Aspects can be changed in the script (.ini) files. Resources per land square, components, techs etc. I’m considering having Behemoth create a fully featured script editor as his first VB project as he’s expressed a desire to learn programming.
(o) Ability to upgrade older saved games.
Bollocks. If the savegame format changes, it’s next to impossible to upgrade due to the way the framework’s built. Sorry…
(o) While testing if sentience would crash when trying to load an arbitrary file...
Good test. I’m impressed. I’ll amend to the message to say “Old game/corrupt/invalid file”
(o) My name is Jamie Plenderleith, not Jamie Plender
Shut yer moanin’. How the hell was I to know. Right, I’ll remove you from the credits for that! :D
(o) Easter eggs ... or rather the (possible?) lack thereof.
Welllll, there’s a cheat. ‘@’. What would you like to see as an eEgg? Dancing naked ladies? A sub game of tetris?
(o) Rivers. No rivers in terrain ... unless I havent seen them yet.
There are rivers, but they’re part of the tiles (normally found on coastline corners). Rivers would be too small to see clearly at the scale we’re looking at.
(o) Ability to build buildings.
That’s implemented. Right click on the construction yard and click ‘build buildings’.
(o) Warehouses to stockpile goods/resources/parts.
They do, but there are no limits on this at the moment. Also, the remove components has not been implemented for testing purposes (i.e. to facilitate the building of mechs)
(o) Undocumented feature ? Each click on each feature of a new map gives a random value
You’ve lost me. You mean when you’re making the map? It’s supposed to, in order to provide a different game experience every time.
(o) Game should run at 1024*768
No, it shouldn’t. :) (the graphics looked too small and scale seemed wrong – also, some monitors and laptops can’t support 1024x768). Very few games run at this, besides 3D shoot em ups.
(o) Active game area should be much bigger
Get lost. Well, if you think so, what can we get rid of to expand it?
(o) Buildings etc. bigger + more details + more colourful (eg. like C&C)
Behemoth’s going to dismember you. Also, the scale would have been even more bonkers than it is now if we made the buildings bigger.
(o) By clicking on terrain and not on any units or buildings,
causes red box to appear+disappear in top left of game area
I’ll get onto it.
(o) Just discovered button at right of bottom scrollbar and bottom of right scrollbar. Very cool. Should be documented + have a tooltip.
It kind of expands the game screen x2. For getting an overall view. The screen works (mostly) in this view as well, but at the moment it’s only experimental.
(o) Water animation *very* difficult to see
Yep, it’s only in the experimental stages at the moment. We didn’t want it too obvious in case it gave people headache.
(o) Blueish piece between sand+water off-colour
Christ, Behemoths going to blow goats. I’ll have to break it to him gently.
(o) Active AI > Explore does nothing (seems so anyway)
NO! NO NO NO!!! It does work! It does! I spent bleeding hours on that. You hadn’t discovered the whole map at that point had you (using the ‘@’ key). If you did, it’ll probably just sit around twiddling its thumbs (as everywhere’s explored)
(o) Tooltips should be displayed by sentience, and not by windows
Any suggestions on how to do this?
(o) Should be confirmation message before allowing a mech to just blow up. Explosion animation nice , possibly should be bigger or more violent ?
There will. I’ll get onto it. Explosion size (will) depend on the size of the reactor. Bigger reactor, bigger bang!!! :D :D
(o) On mini-map, clicking should centre green box around click.
Instead of going to above-left
It does. :confused:
(o) Cant alt-tab back into game
Correct. I’ll be resolving that shortly.
(o) Mini-map's green box not aligned with game area
It should be. In what way is out of whack?
(o) After self destruct, red box still around area where mech was
with right click menu still available
I’ll fix that.
(o) World map should show your buildings/units as small dots ?
It should. I’m trying to think of a way to update this on the fly as you move your units around. Drawing it takes ages. Any suggestions?
(o) Grab a copy of C&C Tiberian Sun (+FireStorm) and Zeus : Master of Olympus and The Settlers IV
Only if they promptly buy a copy of Sentience. :D
end of responses
Plend,
I owe you big time for that. I’ve got loads to be going on with now. Wow.
You’re now promoted to ‘Lead Tester’, get a 50% pay rise and if you’re ever near Manchester, I’ll buy you a pint!!
Kiwi,
Thanks,.
There's a bug whereby the game sometimes crashes if you try creating a new game with different playes after completing/resigning from a previous game. I'm working to resolve that now.
If that's not it then I have no idea what you mean...
:eek: Um.... I never quit from the game. That was my first.
I'll flick through them comments later when I'm at home.
toodles !
Cheers chopper,
I'll look through these and reply in due course.
Thanks for the screenshots, I think I've diagnosed the problem - I'll see if I can duplicate it.
Thanks again for your help PJ - your assistance is invaluableQuote:
Originally posted by plenderj
(o) Continents not real enough.
Possibly if you came up with some sort of algorithm for mapping the
coastlines. Something that makes sure that the next piece of land
being put down doesnt make a piece of beach too far out, or isnt at
too big an angle from the last.
So therefore you can *only* do smooth looking coastlines.
*GRRR....!
(o) All Windows command buttons should be replaced with pictures instead.
They’re getting there.
Behemoth has a list of buttons to draw and he’s working on them when he gets chance.
*Ben - did you complete that list?
(o) Minimap looks a little too-detailed / complicated / too-low-res.
Possibly paint things in sizes of 2,3 or 4 pixels with darker shaded colours.
*its dynamically generated...any suggestions?
(o) Ability to load/save pre-designed worlds.
Maybe one day.
*how about my greyscale bitmap suggestion?
(o) World editor
Sounds great.
*ditto
(o) Buildings etc. bigger + more details + more colourful (eg. like C&C)
Hmmmmz jamie mumbles to himself.
*POP* Jamie's arms are ripped from their sockets...;)
(o) Blueish piece between sand+water off-colour
;)
*please explain - I don't understand this one...a specific coastline square?
(o) Researching takes forever
*earn more research points then ;)
(o) The minimap colours are dodgy at best ... blue means grass ... and so does green ....
just confusing if you ask me ... which you didnt but anyway :)
*suggest some then...
(o) If you've finished your go, but dont click on turn complete, then hit @ to enable
the cheat, the main game area map becomes visible but the minimap doesnt.
*minimap needs to wait till next turn to refresh.
(o) Possibly should be a confirmation box for if the user clicks turn complete ?
Could be an option ; as too could the confirmation box for self destruction of mechs
*how tiresome to be asked EVERY SINGLE TURN whether you were happy with the choices you'd made. Perhaps make end turn double-clickable to reduce accidental clickage.
I'll reply to those comments in a moment but just to mention about the confirmation of the turn complete button.
There could be an option in the in-game options screen (*acchem* suggestion *acchem*), and its just a clickbox asking whether or not to force confirmation of moves....
(o) Continents not real enough.
The pictures look ok I suppose.
Its just putting them together that looks odd.
But what you've got looks great.
I dunno where I'd start at that .....
(o) Minimap looks a little too-detailed / complicated / too-low-res.
Well have the map updated everytime something moves.
As its a turn based game this wouldnt really be a problem.
(o) Ability to load/save pre-designed worlds.
re; *how about my greyscale bitmap suggestion?
errrrr ?
(o) Buildings etc. bigger + more details + more colourful (eg. like C&C)
Nah the stuff looks great as it is.
But it could look better ya know thats all :)
(o) Blueish piece between sand+water off-colour
Going from memory now... but if you look at the coastline,
and look at the bits between the beach and the sea.
I think there was a funny coloured bit there....or something....
(o) Researching takes forever
re; *earn more research points then
and how ...?
(o) The minimap colours are dodgy at best ... blue means grass ... and so does green ....
Dark Green = grass. Blue = sea. Yellowish/Brownish = sand. Greyish = mountians
Very Dark Green = forest
(o) If you've finished your go, but dont click on turn complete, then hit @ to enable
the cheat, the main game area map becomes visible but the minimap doesnt.
As above, update minimap after any unit moves.
(o) If you've finished your go, but dont click on turn complete, then hit @ to enable
the cheat, the main game area map becomes visible but the minimap doesnt.
*minimap needs to wait till next turn to refresh.
Quote:
Originally posted by plenderj
(o) Blueish piece between sand+water off-colour
Going from memory now... but if you look at the coastline,
and look at the bits between the beach and the sea.
I think there was a funny coloured bit there....or something....
- Still can't help ya im afraid...any further information?
(o) Researching takes forever
re; *earn more research points then
and how ...? Build research buildings...that don't exist yet...oh...:p
(o) The minimap colours are dodgy at best ... blue means grass ... and so does green ....
Dark Green = grass. Blue = sea. Yellowish/Brownish = sand. Greyish = mountians
Very Dark Green = forest
I hear ya bro'. Tell Ben
oh - and on the subject of the continent shapes:
When you've got some spare time (and you'll need it :D) start a game with a HUGE map. use the custom details and make it as big as you like. I think the engine will happily support 500x500, but even 250 x 250 looks nice.
Then, in game, do the @ cheat to explore the whole map, click menu > world map.
It's fantastic!
BTW - I growled at ya for the continent comment cos I devised the continent growing algorithm :p
Nah I think the continents look great.
But in real life, you dont have a beach, and then suddenly a piece of land jutting out, and then some other arbitrary land feature. Ya know ?
Seriously - did you try a big map. It does look proper. The algorithm works.
Okay yeah I have to admit it does look pretty excellent :)
Well, here are my replies.
I didn't realise that so many posts have happened since (I've been away) so some of this may have been covered.
(o) Scroll bars dont move correctly.
Couldn’t duplicate it, I’ll have to look into it in more detail.
(o) Buttons in main menu on loading take a while to doodle their yoke.
They merely do nothing if you click them too fast (i.e. short interval between each click). If they’re doing something, they do it quickly.
(o) Continents not real enough.
Take a look at the map of Earth. The continents are far from smooth, hell – look at Italy for example.
(o) Mech design still a little confusing.
Nice idea, but the problem is that the mech bits will look different if it is a sea, land or air mech. I may change that in the future, once I’ve implemented all the chassis types.
(o) Create new world takes a lot longer than used to.
Could be some other non-obvious factors...
Correct, but I’m buggered if I know what they are. I’m still looking into that one.
(o) Docs button takes quite a while to load. Looks good though.
Perhaps you could load+hide the form …
I’ll do that.
(o) You bundled an intermediate file with the zip.
Whoops.
(o) When running other sounds (eg. mp3 files) while loading sentience, user gets a message saying that DS couldnt load.
The point I was making was that the mousepointer …
I’ll fix that.
(o) Icon for sentience executable is that of VB.
There's plenty of icon editors on the net (www.tucows.com probably).
I’ll set Behemoth on it
(o) Move unit popup still doesnt work ... well not for me anyway.
You are now no longer able to plot a course into unexplored areas. You can walk into previously explored but out of view areas though.
(o) Minimap looks a little too-detailed / complicated / too-low-res.
The minimap alters its res dependant on the size of the map. Make a 50x50 and a 200x200 to see what I mean.
(o) Game should run at 1024*768
I think it should. I hate games that dont run at 1024*768. Diablo II still runs at 640*480!
And the vast vast majority of laptops do run at 1024*768. Mine doesn’t.
(o) Active game area should be much bigger
You could always make the screen bigger. I could always disembowel you…
Or shrink the size of everything on the game screen .... or impliment some sort of zoom/scale function ?
We have a zoom function, That little square between the scrollbars.
(o) Active AI > Explore does nothing (seems so anyway)
****. Well, it works for me. You have to next turn for it to get up and move…
(o) Explosion animation nice , possibly should be bigger or more violent ?
Size of reactor + ammo + fuel....?
Ammo will be a factor. The reactor is the fuel.
(o) MiniMap box shenanigans
I think that’s to do with misreading the zoom status on the minimap. I’ll have that sorted soon.
(o) World map should show your buildings/units as small dots ?
The minimap is drawn using the fast SetPixelV and it still takes ages. I’m thinking of having it constantly redraw in the background.
(o) On research screen technology names dont fit in labels....
I know – that’s a cosmetic I’ll get round to fixing.
(o) Researching takes forever
You’d expect otherwise? It’ll take longer once units start draining processor power…
(o) Just discovered tech tree. Very nifty
Isn’t it just?
(o) Hmmm one can go into minus energy .... talk about making up your own physics
Only for testing my friend, only for testing. ;)
(o) Very nifty when you click on (clan?) colours/symbol and the text gradually appears
in textbox. (on the new game screen).
I thought so too.
(o) Generate new level slows down as its doing its thang …
This is down to the way it creates the continents. The scrollbar speed may vary from time to time.
(o) The minimap colours are dodgy at best ... blue means grass ... and so does green ....
just confusing if you ask me ... which you didnt but anyway
Yep, they are. I need to amend them.
(o) If you've finished your go, but dont click on turn complete, then hit @ to enable
the cheat, the main game area map becomes visible but the minimap doesnt.
This is ‘cos the minimap doesn’t update on the fly. See above.
(o) Possibly should be a confirmation box for if the user clicks turn complete ?
Could be an option ; as too could the confirmation box for self destruction of mechs
Eventually, if you haven’t moved all your units it will prompt you. If you have moved them all, it won’t.
(o) myPic1.bmp shows a green box in minimap *before* I click in its centre.
(dead centre !). myPic2 shows where green box is after I click dead centre of it.
Thanks, they’ve helped diagnose the problem (I think).
Thanks again chopper!
Your comments are all greatly appreciated.
I'll now go and read all those posts.
Responses to the interim posts:
Behemoth,
You can't bludgeon Plend into accepting the continents. If he doesn't like them, he doesn't like them. I'm sure he'll be able to write a better algorithm than ours.
The list is in the Sentience directory (as I've told you before). Buttons.txt. You have this - start drawing them.
Plend,
Behemoth's idea was to save the world info as a bmp image. Different colours representing different terrains. This would save the design of the planet, but not all the resource details.
You could also create your own worlds (in an art package say) and Sentience could read these in.
Good idea about the turn complete confirmation thingy. I'll get onto that at some point.
no, you haven't. now I know where to look, I'll make a start.Quote:
Originally posted by Arbiter
The list is in the Sentience directory (as I've told you before). Buttons.txt. You have this - start drawing them.
well...I will when I'm sober and don't have an interview hanging over my head :rolleyes:
Responses :
(o) Scroll bars dont move correctly.
myPic3.bmp shows the scrollbars on first go, and myPic4.bmp shows them after
(o) Continents not real enough.
Yeah I know about the world doesnt look very smooth, but the actual coastlines themselves
dont look like a modern art exhibition.
(o) Mech design still a little confusing.
I think the same UI/menu system could apply for any type of mech,
if its done well/generic enough that is.
(o) Create new world takes a lot longer than used to.
Quite odd.
(o) Icon for sentience executable is that of VB.
Teeheehee you'll 'set' behemoth on it ;)
(o) Move unit popup still doesnt work ... well not for me anyway.
I cant ....
myPic5.bmp shows where I am about to click.
When I click, I head a sound saying "cannot doodle something....."
(o) Minimap looks a little too-detailed / complicated / too-low-res.
Perhaps, but I think you should use the same scale regardless, and then just black out a border
around the minimap for small maps.
(o) Game should run at 1024*768
Mine does though :)
(o) Active game area should be much bigger
Yeah I remember that now. Looks great.
(o) Explosion animation nice , possibly should be bigger or more violent ?
Acchem a reactor isnt fuel. A reactor uses fuel to produce energy.
(o) World map should show your buildings/units as small dots ?
Well we know its possible..... I'll see if I can come up with something quick.
(o) Hmmm one can go into minus energy .... talk about making up your own physics
Only for testing my friend, only for testing.
(o) The minimap colours are dodgy at best ... blue means grass ... and so does green ....
just confusing if you ask me ... which you didnt but anyway .
It kinda makes sense when you use the cheat, but until then ....
(o) myPic1.bmp shows a green box in minimap *before* I click in its centre.
(dead centre !). myPic2 shows where green box is after I click dead centre of it.
If you need more screengrab just let 'uz know.
(o) When you use Move Unit to try and move a unit, the crosshairs pointer comes up.
But if you dont click to go somewhere, then the pointer stays like that.
Stays with you the whole way... even if you resign.
(o) Ahhhh the AI works. I must not have been doing it right or something.
Very good :)
(o) myPic6 shows that horrid awful RTE you experienced.
I had clicked on generate, and it went all the way thru the 3 bars, and then for some
reason started again and went thru them again. I got the RTE when I finished the
last bar. So I would imagine that the problem is a very basic one that you
probably (and rightly so !) overlooked.
myPic3 + myPic4 : www.coolground.com/plenderj/myPic.zip
myPic5 : www.coolground.com/plenderj/myPic5.zip
myPic6 : www.coolground.com/plenderj/myPic6.zip
A few of the problems I noticed/had:
1) The scroll bars don't move
2) After around 15 turns, the AI I had locked up the game appox half way though its turn.
My system is a P4 1GHZ, 18.7 GB of free space, 128 MB of ram.
I like the new sounds (as the last time I downloaded it was when this thread was 2½ pages long at 100 posts/page). You may want to trim the sounds a little more though.
I dont think that the problem I've moaned about with the continents can be fixed by code.
Its just because you're using blocks. And units can move from block to block.
So a continent can only be made up of blocks.
Its kinda like trying to build something with lego.
If however you could shrink the size of the blocks, or add more detail to them or something...
Ya follow what I'm saying ?
I kinda get what u mean, but to do so means the units and buildings would have to be smaller too. its a vicious circle. Yhe best solution is to stick to larger maps (but then it takes ages to do anything...
:confused:
One more thing, the mec you start with when you start the game was stuck (it couldn't move anywhere). You may want to find some way to make sure that doesn't happen.
I got division by zero err when using the scrollbar, overflow when in the largest map size, and somethin else I forgot
I believe you need to use the numeric keypad and not the cursor keys to move the mech.Quote:
Originally posted by Gaming_World
One more thing, the mec you start with when you start the game was stuck (it couldn't move anywhere). You may want to find some way to make sure that doesn't happen.
I suspect GamingWorld tried the pathfinding move command in the menu...if so, Ben, we've got a problem with the automove sometimes not working. It been reported a few times now :eek:
Hey Arbiter, what about if you drew the map ONCE, saved it in a DC, and then just used SetPixelV to make the unexplored squares black and the visible units their color (green/red)?
It would be a lot faster, since the terrain doesn't change ;)
'tis a good idea.
Or at least do something along those lines....
Make a picture of it first.
Create a DC from it. Get rid of that picture then.
In game, blit to the map box.
Use SetPixel to draw in black bits + draw in units.
Then a unit moves, so reblit picture and redraw black + units.
Though I've noticed SetPixel can be a bit slow when used in a nested loop to draw large regions of pixels. Perhaps there could be some sort of silhouetting effect ?
.... like, if you had a map out in front of you. And you wanted to know what areas you knew about and what not, you could put a bit piece of black paper over the bits you dont know. So it would obstruct it ya know ?
Well,
At the moment I'm using SetGibbon to draw the entire map.
Also, in early game when most of the map is not explored, drawing the black over the top pixel by pixel is going to take practically as long.
First: BUMP
Second: nobody else want to download the game and give it a go?
http://www.btinternet.com/~bstap/
Add a picturebox and a timer to your form, then try this code :
I just put it together right now, and it runs pretty damn fast for me.Code:Option Explicit
Private Declare Function SetPixel Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal crColor As Long) As Long
Private mapCord(0 To 255, 0 To 255) As mapCordType
Private Type mapCordType
color As Long
End Type
Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Picture1.BackColor = vbWhite
Timer1.Enabled = False
Timer1.Interval = 250
Randomize
'first, make a random map
For i = 0 To 255
For j = 0 To 255
mapCord(i, j).color = vbWhite
If (((Rnd * 1000) Mod 15) = 0) Then
mapCord(i, j).color = RGB(Rnd * 255, Rnd * 255, Rnd * 255)
End If
Next j
Next i
Debug.Print "Created random map. Now starting draw timer"
Timer1.Enabled = True
End Sub
Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
redrawMap
End Sub
Private Sub redrawMap()
Picture1.Cls
Dim i As Long, j As Long
For i = 0 To 255
For j = 0 To 255
SetPixel Picture1.hdc, i, j, mapCord(i, j).color
Next j
Next i
Debug.Print "Finished drawing"
End Sub
Obviously you wouldnt necessarily need a UDT for storing the color. Simply using a Long would do.
I just used a UDT because you probably have other stuff to store too (maybe?).
Well, I'm using a similar thing (SetPixelV 'cos it's apparently faster) and it takes a bit to draw on a 200*200 square
How long is 'not long' in your eyes Plend?
Bear in mind that you can do bugger all whilst it's doing that.
The only thing I can think of is having it draw it constantly in the background and keep the app moving with DoEvents. Whenever it's done then I'd blit the map to the minimap and start again.
Means the computer's going to be constantly working though and I don't know how that would affect trying to plot a path (also processor intensive).
From this code it takes me about 300ms to redraw the map.
It takes me about 150ms if I hide the picturebox first.
So what you could do, is take a Copy of the picture before you want to redraw it, hide the picturebox, blit the old picture there, then show the picturebox.
This would emulate seamless redrawing.
Oh and I only put the Timer in there just as an example that it can be done very quick over and over again.
Code:Option Explicit
Private Declare Function GetTickCount Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Private Declare Function SetPixel Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal crColor As Long) As Long
Private mapCord(0 To 255, 0 To 255) As mapCordType
Private Type mapCordType
color As Long
End Type
Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Picture1.BackColor = vbWhite
Timer1.Enabled = False
Timer1.Interval = 250
Randomize
'first, make a random map
For i = 0 To 255
For j = 0 To 255
mapCord(i, j).color = vbWhite
If (((Rnd * 1000) Mod 15) = 0) Then
mapCord(i, j).color = RGB(Rnd * 255, Rnd * 255, Rnd * 255)
End If
Next j
Next i
Debug.Print "Created random map. Now starting draw timer"
Timer1.Enabled = True
End Sub
Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
redrawMap
End Sub
Private Sub redrawMap()
Picture1.Cls
Dim i As Long, j As Long, timeElapsed As Long
timeElapsed = GetTickCount
For i = 0 To 255
For j = 0 To 255
SetPixel Picture1.hdc, i, j, mapCord(i, j).color
Next j
Next i
Debug.Print "Time Taken : " & GetTickCount - timeElapsed
End Sub
I'll have a play with that concept when I get in.
I'm sure I'll be able to shoehorn it in somehow.
If you want to apply your prodigious brain to something, consider how we're going to build a governer AI.
Something that determines what to build, where to build them, what units to build, what AI model to use, what to research, etc.
Our first thought is that the governor will simply assign an AI model to units and the AI model will do the grunt work. This also means that the computer will be using the same AI as the player (if they assign models).
Buildings buildings/components/units are what we need the governor to do.
Who or what is the governor ?
Anyway so you want an AI model, or models, to control how the computer builds things etc. ?
And you're also wondering if the same AI model should be applied to the AI that the user can turn on/off ?
The Governor will do the same job as the human player will do.
Imagine the human player turns AI models on for all of his units and all he has to do is select a model for each unit.
Also build buildings/units/research etc
So in effect, the human player can turn on AI, and walk away while the computer battles itself ?
Not quite.
The governor is only applicable to the computers go. It will not the players faction.
If you set 2 computers playing with no humans, or the humans get wiped out then the computer will play itself (unless you stop it)
The governor plays the part of "the player", making macromanagement desicions, such as "what stuff do I want to build?, where do I want my research directed?" as opposed to micromanagement desicions "should I fire at that mech within my range or run away from it...?"
see?
Ben, are we giving the player the option of turning their governor on, or is it simply for the computer player?