Sentience: VB Game (comments please)

From looking at the game .. perhaps you don't need to use DirectX... I mean, the game could execute as fast by just using normal blitting. My game is a testament to that.

- jamie

Plenderj,

The game currently uses normal blitting, DirectX is used only for the sound.

I couldn't get multiple sounds and background music working all at once without using DirectX. I know, I know, I'm crap - but DirectX was the only way I could do it properly.

I want to start looking at all the aspects of DirectX for the next game (but I'm going to concentrate on finishing this one first)

I've finally managed to have a look at that Craft you put together.

Why did you stop working on it, it looks as if the bulk of the work has been done, it's just little plug on bits that need to be added. You have your screen updates, movement, firing and collision detection - maybe you should finish it...

Well between college and working on a number of commercial programming projects I don't really have the time anymore.

But hey, for your next game, feel free to pick up where I stopped working on craft.

- jamie.

Hmm i like the graphics, looks like another civilisation clone :) There's a lot of stuff missing though, i want to be able to move units around and build my own resource facilities etc.. Don't even think about Artificial Intelligence before you've got most concepts functional.

Thanks for your input Kedaman- nice to know you like the graphics. We plan to make it more than a Civ clone. There is still a lot of work to be done - full research functionality will come next. most of the basic concepts should slip into place quite quickly because the internal structure of the game is modular.

Kedaman,

There is quite a lot there, it's just not immediately obvious.

You can run your units around and you can even attack other peoples units. Research is available, you can research up to four techs at a time. The techs don't do anything yet, but they can still be researched.

AI is going to be last thing implemented. The next thing I'm going to work on is construction of mechs. This one's a bit of a biggy and I can't do anything on it at the moment as I'm away from home on business.

If you can think of anything we should add to it to stand it out from all the other 'CIV clones' then let us know, and comments gratefully received...

NAKED WOMEN!

:D

apart from naked women ;) I'd suggest some animation. Turn based RTS can be a bit boring without something moving and flashing. I love all kinds of complex resource management and every other way than military force that leads you to victory in a RTS, so that would be my second suggestion (or third actually hehe nm).

If you have problems with anything, i'm always (almost) available with professional (hehe) suggestions ;)

Sas, if you read this, can you edit your post with that 5000 km line and put a _ in there intead?

Kedaman,

Animations are on there way, Behemoth is responsible for all the graphics. There is a fair amount of resource management involved (check the warehouse screen for a list of resources - and their pretty pictures).

There are also other things that need to be managed, such as CPU time and power.

Thanks for the offer of assistance, if I get to some really hard parts I may take you up on the offer.

Behemoth,

GIT YO ASS IN GEAH *****!

Still waiting for unit/building graphics off you...

PS - Kedaman,

I don't know if it was just a mistype, but a RTS is Real Time Strategy such as Starcraft, Age of Empires as opposed to a TBS (Turn Based Strategy) like CIV.

Just FYI

Behemoth's doing the gfx ?
I can see this being an adults-only game ;)

Also, I dont think it should be turn based...
Make it rolling like C&C etc.

- jamie

damn, got me there, I was going to type RTS when i noticed it was turnbased, then i typed turn based RTS instead, argh ;)

TBS's are good if you don't want to keep track on performance problems, as the civilisation series has prooved, you can concentrate more on complex game concepts rather than trying to keep a low framerate.

Turn based is easier to start with, and can be just as playable if not more so because it allows more depth. Stick with turn based, I always preferred Civ to C&C :) (although Starcraft is much better than C&C, needless to say ;))

If you get that error with the blend function you may have to download/register msimg32.dll (or whatever it's called)

Thanks guys,

We'll be sticking with Turn Based for Sentience, but after that - who knows?

I've not had chance to look at the blending wotsit yet ('cos I'm away at the moment) but when I get to Manchester I will!

Yup, the mighty Behemoth is doing the graphics. All of them in fact. The only image in the game I did is the turn complete button on the main game screen. That's testament to my skill....

Well just do something about that "fog of war".
Its got to be the tackiest looking thing ever :)

- jamie

OK, I will.

Care to be a 'little' more specific as to what I should do with it? ;)

Well, perhaps you should alphablend it with a pure black bitmap ?

- jamie

That doesnt seem to work for me anyway ...
Well if you could somehow mix black with the underlying landscape. Perhaps you could have behemoth make the bitmaps first. Have a differenent level of fog pertaining to the distance.
The distance from the fog would be proportional to the amount of black in the bitmap, so you would choose one accordingly.

- jamie

Are you joking? Do you realise how many bitmaos I have already made for the map squares? I'm not about to redo every one with a slightly different brightness for fog of war. Arbiter's just going to have to get his li'l ass in gear.

PS Arbiter - I thought you wanted research techs next. I'm nearly 3/4 through. If you're after units buildings, just say so...!

Okey then arbiter's going to have to come up with a way of mixing black with your game tiles to make a fog of war.
I suppose substituting every n'th pixel with a black variant might do it ...

- jamie

That's pretty much what's being done now. An image is blitted over the top to produce the blacked out effect.

Look in the graphics directory for fow.bmp. You'll see what I mean. Feel free to change this to something you like (keep it to 40x40 though).

I think you need to involve alphachannels to render fog of alternating thickness, and i'm not sure but i think there's no such options for the api call.

I dont know very much about blending and what not, but I just came up with this piece of code.
Have a mess with it - it might be what you're looking for.

Code:

---

Option Explicit

'Picture1 is a picturebox ....
'Command1 is a ham sandwich ...

Private Sub Command1_Click()
       
    DoFog Picture1, 0.25
   
End Sub

Private Sub DoFog(Pic As PictureBox, Probability As Single)
    If (Probability > 0) Then
        Dim i As Long, j As Long
        Pic.Visible = False
        Pic.ScaleMode = 3
        For i = 0 To Pic.ScaleWidth
            For j = 0 To Pic.ScaleHeight
                If (Rnd < Probability) Then
                    Pic.PSet (i, j), &H8000000C
                End If
            Next j
        Next i
        Pic.Visible = True
        Pic.Refresh
        Debug.Print "done"
    End If
End Sub

---

- jamie

Thanks for the code.

I'm concerned that it may take a while to draw the map if there are many fancy wobbly techniques being used. The map is about four layers as it is and with a lot on screen, it can take its time to redraw.

We want the game to run on as many machines as possible not just supercomputers.

I'm also concerned that we may end up with the most incredible fog of war, yet a game that's complete crap.

Keep the suggestions coming guys - this game WILL be good!!!!

Well, in terms of the fog of war, you only have a set number of tiles. So you would prepare them in memory - during that loading screen.
It'd probably make your game look better too - ya know koz you have loads of stuff to load :)

So then when you're blitting the game area, you would blit the 'prepared' pictures instead of blitting the originals.

- jamie

I think you probably ought to forget about the fog of war appearance until you've actually got the game mechanics working. No point pissing about with making it look pretty if there's no game behind it :rolleyes: I'm sure you'll be able to make it beautiful once you've got the other things working ;)

Everybody's talking like there's no game in existence.

You currently have:

Basic resource management (mining)

Research (has no function, but the routines are already built, simply needs plugging together)

Combat (generic combat routine will fit any unit and any weapon, again simply needs plugging together)

Industry (needs quite a lot of work, but the groundwork's been started)

Diplomacy (ideas collated, but no real work started yet)

Its certainly a start!

Sorry, that sounded really negative: thanks for all your comments. We'll try to implement as much as we can when we can. Its all about finding the time.

Good call Harry.

All,

I've fixed all the faults that were reported (running off the top of the map etc) and corrected a few flaws.

When I get back this weekend and do a bit more work on it, I'll post the new version for download.

You'll appreciate the way I've set it up then as you'll only have to download the executable and maybe a few scripts (couple a hundred Kb). Much better than downloading the whole kaboodle every time.

Behemoth,

Care to send me those tech graphics so's I can have a squizz. Cheers chopper!

Like I said, I'm about 3/4 through. Hopefully I should have most drafts finished for tomorrow (fingers crossed). I've pulled some more ideas together. If I don't get everything complete, I'll bung in some dummy ones for publication (I know you'll whinge about some of the "completed" ones anyway...)

Behemoth,

Try not to attack all the people who have been contributing. Any more and I'll have to deploy rubber nuclear weapons to quell the riots...

It's fair enough that they can't see a lot of the game, if you remember, the reason we shelved it for a short time was because we'd been working on it for months and still couldn't see anything for it.

Look how far it's come in the last month as we've been plugging in the various modules. The approach we decided on has payed dividends.

In another month we'll have a load more modules on line and then ve shal conker ze vorld!!!! MUHAHAHAHA!!!!

BTW Arbiter, Chenko has trademarked that "MUHAHAHAHA!!!!" laugh.

Sorry, but you owe him big royalties. We're going to have to make sure this thing works now!

He can't have trademarked it, it's a generic 1950's villain laugh.

Anyway, it WILL work and it WILL be good!

In that case you are legally obliged to wear a huge cape and black lipstick.

*Sorry pal*

Yes we'll make it good, Its just such a huge project...We nearly went all winter without it!

Hey guys.

Well, in the last week or so since anything last happened in this thread I've put about 25-30 manhours into Sentience and have virtually nothing to show for it.

Depressing, but necessary.

All the bugs you pointed out have been fixed and the game should no longer crash at all. I'm also a gnats wing away from getting very basic unit creation online. You'll soon be able to build more RMVs (those things that collect resources).

After that it shouldn't be too bad plugging in modules to create big ass whooping mechs. Then the game will really exist as a game not just as something to look at.

I've taken all your comments on board and a spreadsheet as long as my arm of things that need to be done and I'm now cracking on with them.

On Sunday evening I hope to upload the new version for download. For those of you who already have the game, you need only download the exe and the scripts for an update. The graphics and sound won't have changed.

I'll also upload the spreadsheet I'm working off, so you can all see where I'm up to and what I have remaining to do.

Thanks for looking at it in the first place guys and when the new version comes out, I hope you'll be just as helpful with your comments.

Thanks again...

One Q that has been floating around in my head since I played... what about battles, how will you implement those?

Thanks for responding Sastraxi.

Battles will be similar to SMAC except they can be ranged as well.

You'll be able to target a unit then give it the good news with the weapons on board your mech. Unless you're a huge top of the range mech attacking a scout mech you're going to be unlikely to kill it in one attack. Battles may last multiple turns. Weapons are biased towards damaging shields or damaging armour and you can set wether you want them to fire if shields are up or down or not i.e. you can set energy weapons to fire if shields are up and ammo based weapons to fire when they're down.

Currently the only supported combat is trying to move over the enemy mech with your mech. This initiates a single attack with your mech.

Any suggestions/questions?

And SMAC stands for...

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Heya y'all!

New version is ready for download now at:

www.btinternet.com/~bstap

I've listened to everything you've said and implemented what fixes you've suggested (bar the fog of war).

You can now create RMV's and do all sorts of funky stuff. Option screens and stuff have been added and all the bugs reported have been fixed.

For all those who took the time to reply, you now make cameo appearences.

Thanks for all your comments and support and I look forward to hearing more from you all.

Thanks again!

Even lil' old me? :D

I've noticed that everybody else's names appear more frequently than mine............. FIX IT NOW! :D

The fog of war no longer updates :(

Sastraxi,

The fog of war does update, it's just that the units are now created using the industry routines (rather than having the attributes hard coded like they were before - but you wouldn't be able to see that) and the module to calculate their viewing range is not coded yet.

I think I fixed all the bugs you've reported and the mountains now format correctly. You can now create additional RMV's at either the HQ (one in the middle) or the construction yard (top right building).

In the messages section it tells you next turn where they've been created and if they couldn't be created, why not. (FYI, if you double click on the messages section it grows to a bigger screen.

If you could check the zoom out function on it for me as well as the graphics look a litte screwy on my machine. Where the scrollbars are to view the map, there's a square where they come together. If you click on this - it zooms out, clicking again zooms back. could you have a play and tell me if that works ok for you.

PS - I'll contact Microsoft and tell them to modify the RND funtion to favour any instances of Sastraxi. When I finally get around to creating the credits screen you're name will be going in there.

Bastard ; You will use my fog of war :)
I'll bide my time for now, but then, when you least expect it, I'll pounce !

Muhahahaahahahah!
(and don't anyone tell me its patented :))

Anyway, the fog of war I posted works better if you remove the DoEvents.
Ill make you one to blend two colours together tho.

Also, sastraxi; the manual ; remember ;)

- jamie

oh heh, you think alphablending has not been invented yet?

well i'm not going to tell you anything this time as you wish.
i'll have a look at the very cool game right after breakfast

Quote:

---

Originally posted by kedaman
very cool game

---

high praise indeed..!

ok just started the game, i think it's still a bit "windowish" but that doesn't matter, i once played a very cool turnbased strategy called stars! and it was amazing, even if there was no graphics to talk about.

very cool, my name showed up there, btw you could sneak in a randomize before the generator if you want it to be more fair

pardon? I thought there was a randomize.

fedaykin? what does that mean :)

might be hard to generate the problem again, it occrued once before, and it was directly after the login screen, where you enter your password. The subscript out of range AKA error 9 always shows the same box, so i don't think it will be explanative. Go check your algoritms for dynamical array allocation routines

alternatively to rightdrag scroll is mouse to edge scroll, and middle button.. hmm. Maybe you could put some alternatives for scrolling, for the user to choose.

The fedaykin are Paul Muad'Dib's death commando bodyguards.

- jamie

ok :) That reminds me i have to read that book

Theres about 6 of them kedaman :)

d'oh i mean, have you read all those? i've only seen the movies

Ked,

I'll add third mouse button scrolling to the scrolling methods.

You may be pleased to know that you can use right mouse button scrolling on the world map screen. This looks particularly effective when you've discovered the whole map (select a unit and enter '@').

I'm a little upset about that subscript out of range though. I've never had that before and I must have ran the game hundreds of times (maybe even thousands now).

I'll review my code again...

Im half way through the third book right now.
Excellent books. Excellent.
Matched only by the hitchikers guide to the galaxy I think :)

Arbiter, i'll see if i can manage to bring up another SOOR. Also, when you walk around with those RMV's they don't have much sight radius to talk about :p

Plenderj
Yeah The THGTTG series was cool, i've read them 3 times, but isn't really comparable to something like Dune? I'll see if i can get started next week. You don't happen to have read any of the foundation series of isaac asimov? I haven't read any better scifi.

RMV - remote mining vehicle- flexible, mobile, vulnerable. They aren't intended to have a wide view range, simply enough to get to a resource spot and start mining (slurping). :)

thanks all for your continued input.:D

:p kindof reminds me of SCV's

It's anticipated that each unit will have a view range of at least one square. To view any further than that will require sensor chips to be installed.

RMVs perform a similar function to SCVs. Primarily mining but can attack in a pathetic manner if they have to.

PS - I've got the whole of the foundation series at home. Pretty good series. I have load of Asimovs books at home, very talented writer!