Sentience: VB Game (comments please)

Ho ho ho! Hairy man!

Ok....

Jotaf,

Behemoth and I have been discussing a way to reduce the amount of mem used by dropping the number of colours in the map tiles. Possibly look towards providing a low/high mem version of the graphics. I'll have to look into the technical solution for this whilst Behemoth is going to look into reducing the pallete.

Icheb,

Errr... I don't really have anything to say to you after all. You 'played' Sentience yet?

Plend,

I don't want to know what you've been up to now...

Hairy Bloke,

I have Friday off work, so we can make Thursday a night to record in the annals of history!

I'm doing lunch at 1230 at Salford Quays on Friday so we must stop drinking at least an hour before then... :D

Hey arb.
And hey behemoth, how ya been ?

Anyway take a peek at the "Sexiest for women" thread in chit-chat. Interesting read to say the least.

Anyway hows development coming ?
Open source yet ;) ?

Arbiter: The problem is not memory, because I only have 128mb of RAM and it didn't work on someone's computer (sorry, can't remember :) ) with 256mb of RAM. It must be a memory leak. Look at the loops you have in the loading routines again.

Behemoth: Teleporters? Interesting :) Maybe you could make them so that you can only use a teleporter (teleport from there and teleport to that place) once you've captured it (maybe like you capture other buildings or by having a unit next to it). Oh, it could also spend a LOT of energy when you used it to teleport a unit :)

(Yeah sorry, I know some of these ideas were used in other games but give me some time so I can come up with other stuff, ok? :D )

Jamie: What's so interesting about that thread? Maybe you could post a link so I can have a look at it ;)

Jotaf,

I don't think there's anything wrong with the loading routines. If there was an infinite loop then it would crash on all the machines, wouldn't it? I don't know what the hell's up with it - it's bollocks!

The idea behind the teleporting is that we'd have 'jumpstations' (or whatever). A unit could teleport between the two stations using x amount of power and then move after doing so. You could also teleport from a jumpstation to anywhere else on the map, but it would cost shedloads more power and the unit would not be able to move next turn.

This would make teleporting into peoples bases less feasible as they'd get a hammering next turn, by all the mechs/static defense and it would cost an unreal amount of power to teleport an army in. Possible, but not really feasible.

Plend,

Of course it's open source. Well, it's open on my machine anyway. And anyway, if it was open source, people would just laugh at the shoddy programming... ;)

Check out this link that Behemoth sent to me, it may explain a few things to do with the memory problems.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question466.htm

I would like to point out that it is not Sentience that is causing a memory leak, as it doesn't even get chance to load properly - it'll be all the other tripe that loads as Windows does.

Thats bull****, windows couldnt possibly store everything it needs into a 128k portion of memory. Perhaps the 128k segment is simply made up of pointers to other memory locations.

Anyway ben, sentience isnt doing anything wrong. Its never crashed my laptop (well not for a very long time anyway :)), its just dodgy computers that **** up

Plend,

Of course Sentience isn't doing anything wrong - it's a wonderfully engineered application! :D

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
Plend,

Of course Sentience isn't doing anything wrong - it's a wonderfully engineered application! :D

---

Make it open source then :D

btw : this is not spam... it's a real reaction.

Arb, how long is your loading code? :)
It's probably assuming the user's system has something but it doesn't.

Hi Folks,
I tried downloading Sentience applied the update and I am still getting a subscript out of range error message at the point just before the game launches proper. It seems to be looping round rapidly through the available number of players and then bombing out. I am attempting to run it on a 133MHz machine ( don't laugh ) under Win95. I have VB6 and directx7 installed. Nice graphics and sound on the intro by the way. I'm itching to try the game out! Help!

Saiello,

Thanks for taking a look.

Subscript out of range huh? Shouldn't be any of those.

Could you take some screenshots for me please?

One of the select player screen literally just before you press next.
One of the configure map screen literally just before you press next.
And one of the actual error itself.

Mail them to [email protected] please.

Guys, you are going to love this.....


My computer broke a couple of days back and I was forced to re-install my OS. I thought to myself, well, now's as good a time as any to install XP.

And this is the really good bit.

Sentience no longer works on my machine!

Really!

I get the out of memory error!

Oh well, at least now I'll be able to solve it.



There's a cruel irony here somewhere isn't there..... lol

:) :D ;) :p :cool: :rolleyes:


LOL

;)

(sorry, but i really have to do this)

Finally you can experience it too...
Now you need to rewrite till it works.

Icheb

Lets just hope that he doesn't break it for the machines it currently works on when fixing it for xp and the other non-working machines.

And yes, there is cruel irony there (although funny to some :))

whats the password for Game.zip?

Guys, could you have a look at this for me please - I can no longer compile Sentience...

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=114337

that hurts !!

Sorry, haven't had the problem myself yet so i can't help here...

Ho ho hoka hey!

Sentience now compiles and doesn't produce the out of memory on this machine anymore

Please download the new Gamedev (much smaller download) and there are no updates to apply.

Have fun and let me know how it goes...

if you give me the pw i would compile it for you

Great, perhaps now you can fix the "Out of Memory" bug :D

Well, thanks to that fabulous game update I don't get the "out of memory" error anymore... woohoo!

I thought I was finally going to be able to play the game. After going through the options, the three progress bars at the bottom all started to load. The window "and the next player is..." popped up, it started flashing annoyingly, after which Windows confronted me with yet another - and already infamous error - "subscript out of range" ...

Any ideas? :)

Yes, wait until Arb fixes it :D

Arb: In the loading routine, for debug purposes only, you could have a msgbox "1", "2", etc before each important routine, to send Tex. This way you know where the error is happening, he would tell you the number of the last msgbox he saw so you know the error was between that msgbox and the other one :)

That what I did with some of my project :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
Ho ho hoka hey!

Sentience now compiles and doesn't produce the out of memory on this machine anymore

Please download the new Gamedev (much smaller download) and there are no updates to apply.

Have fun and let me know how it goes...

---

You did it !!!
It can start on my machine now...
What was wrong first ?
How did you do it ?

Arb : The only real prob is the subscript error, i get it too, at random positions in the game :(


Cmdr0Sunburn :

Read the answer from Arbiter above your own msg...

Icheb

ok i finaly got it to work VERY NICE GAME.... i still trying to figure ou t what t do LOL

I agree with you, when you get it running after .... weeks it would be nice to know what to do and how to do it.

Arb, you gonna work on that one after the error i presume.

Icheb

yes maybe a readme or a help file...:)

am i suposed to move the pecise around?

Gaming,

There appears to be a problem with the computer AI which throws it into an infinite loop after a number of turns.

Don't use the AI for the time being.

Motox,

What???

I think he's referring to "pieces", ie. the units.
Anyway, everything ticking along nicely ?

Pretty good actually thanks Plend - how's Craft coming along?

You know what was causing that out of memory error? A set of Microsoft controls.

Pig*****ers!

Ha, there was me thinking it was my shoddy coding!

Well, the game works nicely under XP now - I'm managed to reduce the size of the files that it ships with - the whole GameDev download is now only 3.5mb.

Bargain.

I'm going to start some work on the diplomacy and begin to add in those biological creatures as soon as I get a little more stuff from Behemoth.

The hairy guy's got an awful lot of graphics to do, but when they're done it will improve the look of the game a great deal.

I'm struggling to find time to work on it at the moment as I've just moved house and there's all sorts of things that need to be done before I can sit down and start coding....

So how's life in Plendville?

Craft's on hold 'koz im too busy.
And life in plendeville is great.
I'm going out on the piss tonight with a babe. And we're both real light-weights, so its cheap ;)

And my gf is bringing me away for christmas. I dont know where though. I wont find out until we're boarding the connecting flight in gatwick or heathrow :)

i dont know how to play, or it isnt working for me

Arb :
So you removed the microsoft control, how large was it in memory ?

I'll begin trying with the subscript error tomorrow.


Sorry that i haven't responded before this, vbforums normally sends me a email when there is something, this time they didn't

Icheb

SunBurn,

You probably don't know how to play - there are no instructions. If you can tell me what bit you're stuck on then I can give some instructions. Other than that, just play around and see what happens....

Icheb,

I think the MS controls were just flawed. Typical MS rubbish.

The subscript out of range is probably down to the computer AI (which is still in testing). If you get them without any computer players in the game then I'd be interested to find out why...

Hi!
I managed to get Sentience working after some advice from Ben Stapleton. The problem was that after entering my name as a single player I had clicked the little pink face which I have now been informed is to select the player as the computer. So basically game was trying to play against itself. The game is similar to games like Red Alert and Command and Conquer which I have played before but Sentience left me totally confused! I know you have been asked many times about instructions but I think even a few words on basic game play would benefit everybody. As an example I tried to move one of the mechanoids by right clicking and selecting the option to move. The course was plotted as confirmed by the voiceover but nothing happened. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Hi Saiello!

You can either move the mech by using the numeric keypad (forgot to tell you) or using the autopilot. When the autopilot is used, the mech is moved at the beginning of the next turn.

Plot a course and then next turn the mech will sprint off across the map.

There's all sorts of funky things you can do - like build more mechs. Right click on the buildings to find out what options they have - one of them is a factory (bottom left). Build at least one of each mech component.

You'll notice the buildQ figure at the bottom of the main game screen. Skip loads of go's to build all the components and when the buildQ is empty build a mech at the top right building.

You can also research techs to get more advanced components. If you have more than one player, you can wipe them out by producing war mechs.

Just have a play with all the settings and try to break the game. If you can break it without having a computer player in the game then I'd like to know all the details as it's supposed to be pretty bullet proof at the moment....

Thanks!

PS - My name's Stappleton...

Your name is *****.

My name is Maximus Decimus Stappleton, commander of the legions to the north and eater of foreign chocolates - loyal servant of the true emperor, Tom Jones. Father of a murdered son, husband of a murdered goat and I will have my beer, in this life or the next.

haha you are a true brit ;)

Well! My real name is "SniggleSchringyPops the III" and when not playing computer games I like nothing better of an evening than a vicious game of tiddlywinks with my pet hampster "Annihilator" while my suffering girlfriend looks on incredulous....

SniggleSchringyPops the III ( Destroyer, The ( Worlds, of ) )

P.S. I think I will forego the tiddlywinks and instead will endeavour to wring more out of the game tonight....

I like the "SniggleSchringyPops the III ( Destroyer, The ( Worlds, of ) )" part :)

The easist way to move is to use the four arrows on the numpad, or the RUV(?) ai for the unit.


(?) I don't know if this is spelt right, and don't have time to check.

*damn i'm late*

João Filipe, professional gang leader
"We've got what it takes to take what you've got!"

:p :p :p

is this game done?

Far from it. There's still loads to be done on the game

The latest version was uploaded about a week ago for testing if you don't already have it...

Hum what are you going to add next to Sentience? (Bug fixes don't count :p ) Do you have any idea? :)

Well Jotaf,

I've been working on it today, and I've added some little on/off toggles to the alerts. i.e. "This mech chassis has been added to templates" and put a little check box saying "Display the message in the future".

The framework changes to accompany this have enabled me to begin work on an interactive........

wait for it......

TUTORIAL!!!!

Whooo hoooo!

That's right, by this time tomorrow the update should have a tutorial as part of it.

Also Jotaf, there are quite a few screens in Sentience that you never actually get to see - I've been working on them and they're in there, but not connected yet. An example of which is the special projects screen. I'm hoping to have that online within the next couple of days.

Behemoth also has promised me that he's been working really hard on some graphics, so I'll plug them in if they match the newly active sections.

The next couple of weeks will show some major new additions to the game. Keep you eyes open for new developments.... :)

When do you plan on finishing up the pods? It has been saying the next verson for about 10 versons.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jotaf98
(Bug fixes don't count :p )

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But do the bugs themselves ? ;)

Yeah right ;)

Code:

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Sentience
  - Version 1.86:
    Bug fixes:
      - None.
    New features:
      - None.
    Known bugs:
      - Added a lot of new bugs!

---

:p

Oi!

Button it plankton, I'm working as hard as I can on it. Just because you can't be bothered to find the new features doesn't mean they're not there.... ;)

Hey Arb, did you know that "Oi" is one of the many ways of saying "Hi" in Portuguese? :)

Well, thankyou for that little lesson in Portuguese Jotaf.... :rolleyes: ;)

ALL,

The latest version is now uploaded. Of course, there have been the usual bug implementations.... errr, I mean fixes..... ;) , but this latest version sees some changes to the messaging system.

This now means that Sentience's messages to the players are much more helpful and informative and also certain types of messages can be turned on/off (see the new options.ini).

A skeleton tutorial has also been added (finally) and this will be expanded on as we devote a little more time to it.

The new messaging system will have a knock on effect on communication between human players as players will now be able to point out map areas to other players (exchanging strategic knowledge is just one use for this).

Cool as!

Well, it's only a 300k download so get it done and let me know what you think...

Ta guys!

Yeah me too... too much tests this week :(

English lesson: Too MANY tests this week... ;)

Well, when you get a chance, post back with any comments and suggestions...

Yeah I'll put together one of my super-furry buglists when I go home tonight ... provided im not drunk of course.
Just wondering, when was the update uploaded ?

Say what the pods do.

Plend,

Cheers chopper, appreciate it! PS - It was uploaded yesterday.

Gaming,

The don't do anything yet - as the msgbox says. It'll be coming soon....

Do I apply the update ?