Sentience

Looking forward to a chillout session tonight.

Let's not play Tekken otherwise I won't remain chilled for long... :rolleyes:

thats a shame...I do enjoy a good Tekken-ing at times...

Well, if you can face me flying off the handle in a little tant then we could have a few games...

as long as its not directed at me and you try not to damage your equipment, I'm sure we can have some fun ;)

Well, I didn't break anything. :)

3 things.

1) When are you back to finish that game?

2) When are we going swimming?

3) When are you going to have those revised map squares sent to me?

1) soon :)

2) what are the opening hours?

3) hopefully recoloured tonight. are you online?

I'll be online later so we'll chat via MSN then.

Had two games of SMAC today for research purposes but ****ed them both off 'cos I started right next to someone and started getting shat on.

It really irritated me.

can we do something in [S:] to prevent that happening?

total conversion - reverse conversion?

Antimatter Storage system- enables immense power storage, coupled with excellent conversion efficiency.

EPCF/em: electron-positron containment field (electromagnetic)- cheaper but prone to BIG explosion on destruction

EPCF/s: (stasis)- more expensive to build/run, smaller capacity, no risk of explosion


Hobbit / Hermit class: land-based Spotter/Scout/Decoy
Skyhook / Skyclaw class: air-based scout/recon
Buccaneer / Dreadnaught class: sea-based general assault
Rhino / Juggernaut Class: land based heavy assault
Typhoon / Cyclone Class: land based heavy support
Councillor / Arbiter Class: land based assault/recon
Mammoth / Behemoth Class: land based heavy assault/support
Justice / Executioner Class: land based assault/support
Basilisk / Chymaera Class: land based support
Cleaver / Broadsword Class: land based assault
Emperor / Demigod Class: land based heavy assault
Ghost / Wraith

Reaver
Leviathan
Titan
Overlord
Posiedon
Witness / Sentinel
Balrog / Beelzebub
Colossus
Hydra
Jackal
Mule
Minesweeper
Nautilus
Manowar
Scorpion
Taurus
Jaguar
Tyrant
Jackhammer / Sledgehammer

Odin Class
Hermes Class
Horus Class
Samurai Class

Ben's To Do List:

Computer mech building only assigns AI to last mech - what if more than one are built per turn?

Add in screenshot function
Add in project detail screen (use senMsg for this)
Add in communications clues
Add in profiling to faction stats
Add in more factions?
Add in benefits to projects
Add in infiltration screen
Compile definitive list of infiltration effects
Create infiltration code blocks
Create project code blocks
Find out why monster houses can't be killed
Script bonus resources for killing houses
Code benefits for house death
Add in code for generating monsters
Add in monster AI
Add in event effects for diplomacy
Tidy up research screen
Compile definitive list of weather effects
Create weather code blocks
Add in win scenario code
Add in project complete screens
Add in win/lose screens
Add in unit scoring system
Add in resource scoring system
Create mfd in place of textbox
Faction overall comparison
Units
Buildings
Resources
Components
Technology
Projects
Create some form of unit overview screen
Add in the unit cycle +/- keys
Expand on tutorial screens
Correct fault with mech design screen and tutorial
Correct fault with template listview being back to front
Add code behind the load/save buttons on template screen
Add in delete template command
Correct fault with component display screen crashing
Flesh out options screen
Add in ranged combat
Add in pod code blocks
Add in bonus resources
Correct documentation navigation faults
Expand on documentation
Add in DNA screen
Add in Monster research
Add in monster contact checks
Add in faction contact checks
Add in AI's
Road Laying
Mine Laying (similar to above)
Correct flaw with AI that prompts infinite loop
Compile definitive list of buildings
Correct flaw with walls not drawing properly
Add in link to faction dets from comms screen
Add in creation of sea units
Add in framework support for sea buildings (maybe new graphic set?)
Correct frmMechDesign to display torsos correctly
Factory & Construction yard back to front in tutorial
selecting options from the game menu (and I discovered later from the main menu) gives an error [ERROR.JPG]
The mountains look dark on the world map (in fact all the graphics look odd.)
pressed '5' to centre the map, but this just made the unit tile (was mobile admin) black
Unit started on a monsterhouse, and was unable to go back after it had stepped off.
mech graphics in-game are very dark

Energy calculated wrong.
once displayed slidy main menu thingy then don't slide it again....
scroll with mouse
autoselect the object in the pane to the right
Name buildings dynamically

I'll review and reply to these tomorrow.

sorry pal, trying to keep the manual thread clear. hopefully we can direct people to the thread at a later date when they ask for assistance.

Anyway: responses to your thread...

Quote:

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Originally posted by Behemoth
Resources

Every faction needs access to a ready supply of resources to grow. Basic metals and alloys make up the backbone of your industry, whereas biomass and fissile materials have more specialised applications. What about the rest?

In the early game, most of the required resources can be harvested using the RMV or Remote Mining Vehicle. This unit can be automatically programmed to seek out areas of resource and mine them.

Every RMV is given instructions of what proportions of what resources to mine. Suppose a player required an excess of precious metals, he could set his RMVs priorities to provide such a surfeit. Nobody requires an excess of anything. This needs rephrasing.

RMVs are also used to lay road. This is good.No they're not, and why is it?

---

firstly, I found this on my desktop. I don't even remember composing it, but I thought it was a good basis from which to start. Thanks for your input, I'll amend the one in the manual thread when we're both satisfied.

I was under the impression that RMVs did lay road. This was something I thought we had decided on. If not, it will require serious discussion!

The "this is good" is obviously the point at which my inspiration ran out. I realise that isn't a finished draft, but I wanted to post it before I lost it, so I left it. It will be improved upon, mark my words :)

"what sbout the rest" will also be dealt with in due cause...If you have anything specific to add, let me know and we can sort it out.

Sorry for any confusion.

Well, if it's discussions and crap in this thread, then you can move half of your posts across. That bit about the RMV's was bollocks - it took me more time to review it than it did you to write it!

Also, there's no way you can direct people to that thread for assistance as it has no solid format. No-one's going to read through pages of randomly arranged manual looking for one thing.

About my last point, my apologies - I read it as resources are also used to lay road. Understandable as under the section marked resources you also start to waffle about RMV's. Logically it should flow, but it jars especially as we're going to have a section for RMV's anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Behemoth
Energy calculated wrong. Fixed
once displayed slidy main menu thingy then don't slide it again.... Fixed
scroll with mouse Have we come to a conclusion how yet?
autoselect the object in the pane to the right fixed
Name buildings dynamicallyUg?

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I'll post my revised to do list shortly.

np.

The whole thread needs to be tidied up, between us, we can chip away at it, and the manual will evolve "naturally". I realise it needs work, the whole project needs work, I'm just working at alternative organisation.

I'm not implying that we refer people to the thread indefinitely, just let them know its there before we collate everything into a manual. Also, we can provide links to specific posts if people have specific questions.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Arbiter


I'll post my revised to do list shortly.

---

as i mention, I just found it. I wasn't going to bin it without consulting you. It was in a text doc on my desktop called bugs.txt.

hehe. My desktop is clear now. it looks really weird

Off topic:

When you said you're going to Rachels tonight, I take it that's after college?

You fancy calling round before college? I could really do with going to college this evening as well.

I knew there was something I had forgotten to tell you. There's no college this week or next week. We've broken up for Easter.

You plank!

get to **** and back again. Be thankful I told you at all. You'd have known if you were there last week. :rolleyes:

;)

Right, I was thinking about amending the armour script to include a minimum tonnage limit. The extra strong armour will require at least three tons to be fitted initally, where as the extra light armour won't.

Otherwise there's no difference between the two as the armour is basically - hit points per ton.

Make sense?

Hokay, I'm now looking at the augs script.

Jeez is this going to cause headaches!

Previously, it was set up so that each chip had a processor benefit, and then two other benefits depending on type. Well, as these are now augs it needs to be more flexible.

So, I've killed the seperate benefits and simply created a benefits field, which is a text field containing a list of benefits the aug has.

e.g. P100, V20

Provides a 100 processor benefit and a 20% increase to view radius.

I've also ditched the 'type' field as that's now obsolete.

I reckon it's going to take me at least a week to get Sentience working again.

I love script writing. :rolleyes:

Only two left now!

We also need sensor buildings as well as turrets dude. Just popped into my head.

Changed the way the ammo script lies as well. Instead of ammo having a weight per amount, it now has an amtperton value. This ties in with the rest of the scripts and works a lot better.

In fact, I have no idea how it was supposed to work the other way.

We'll need to keep an eye out for bugs with all these framework changes I'm doing...

Right, finished the last of the scipts. I've cut bits out of the weapons one, we can add them in later and do it properly.

I've decided to add things into the scripts whether they have graphics or not, that way it's easy to see what graphics are missing.

I'm going to export the scripts and see where that gets us shortly.

:rolleyes: goody...

naw, jus' messin'. That's really good. I'm proud of you.

Hairball,

Did we say we were calculating the might automatically, or assigning it in the scripts?

I really cant remember...It's all in here

Well, the scripts don't support it manually and there's code for calculating it in the game.

It's just causing a few problems with the new way we do augs.

RE: the above...

We're going to have to come up with some way of assigning weights to all the benefits provided by the augs. At the moment it just tallies all the benefits, but there's no way that a 10% increase in view radius is worth a 10% increase in accuracy. We can discuss this later.

Another thing about accuracy.

As we discussed, all shots hit - but the accuracy denotes the amount of damage done. i.e. 80% acc = 80% damage. 130% acc = 130% damage.

I was thinking about having all mechs start at 100% accuracy, but this is affected by..

A chassis mod: Some chassis' are more stable than others (2 legs is less stable than tracks). This mod will only take effect if the mech as moved that turn already (all chassis are stable if they're not moving).

A weapon mod: To reflect the recoil of the weapon. Most low end laser weapons will have none and the heavier the ammo weapon, the more kick. Exceptions being rail guns etc with little recoil. This will help temper the increased damage of ammo guns.

Augs: Augs can provide increases in accuracy (such as targeting chips, recoil stabilisers etc).

Whaddya think?

Your not going to have a realist recoil for the rail gun? In fact, a rail gun may use very light ammo, but due to the high speed it has a huge recoil. They should use both ammo and energy. Therefore, if you wish to make it more balanced, try increasing the damage (energy, ammo, and recoil would easily counter-act the damage).

Also, if the gun doesn't use ammo, it woun't have any recoil (therefore any energy-only guns should have slightly lowered damage).

What about a mod for the travel time for the ammo/energy. This would again be low on energy-only guns. Lasers travel faster then railgun bullets, which are faster then machine gun bullets, which are yet faster then bows and arrows:rolleyes:. This would make it easier to balance the guns, plus make the game more realist.

Is a mech limited to the number of augs it can carry?

I think certain weapons should carry a less than 100% accuracy as standard, just to underline the difficulty of use. Specialised mechs would be able to use them, but standard mechs would tend to avoid them.

I really like the idea of a stationary mech being more accurate. its an incentive to have mechs standing guard, and may dissuade people from launching speedy guerilla attacks.

SO...

Gyroscopic stabilisers:
Recoil dampeners:
Compression suspension:
Liquid balance valves:
Gravity locks:
Shock absorption suspensors:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Gaming_World
Your not going to have a realist recoil for the rail gun? In fact, a rail gun may use very light ammo, but due to the high speed it has a huge recoil. They should use both ammo and energy. Therefore, if you wish to make it more balanced, try increasing the damage (energy, ammo, and recoil would easily counter-act the damage).

Also, if the gun doesn't use ammo, it woun't have any recoil (therefore any energy-only guns should have slightly lowered damage).

What about a mod for the travel time for the ammo/energy. This would again be low on energy-only guns. Lasers travel faster then railgun bullets, which are faster then machine gun bullets, which are yet faster then bows and arrows:rolleyes:. This would make it easier to balance the guns, plus make the game more realist.

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Thanks for the input Gaming. Nice to see you still pay attention to the comms thread... :)

Realistic recoil for a rail gun? Rail guns have very little recoil, they work by propelling the projectile by a series of magnets arranged in a rail formation (hence the name). As recoil is caused by the explosion of the propellants in chemical guns, rail guns don't suffer from this.

You're right about energy only guns having lower damage than ammo based guns - there's also no running out of ammo for them.

Speed of the shot doesn't really matter as it's a turn based game, not real time.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Behemoth
Is a mech limited to the number of augs it can carry?

I think certain weapons should carry a less than 100% accuracy as standard, just to underline the difficulty of use. Specialised mechs would be able to use them, but standard mechs would tend to avoid them.

I really like the idea of a stationary mech being more accurate. its an incentive to have mechs standing guard, and may dissuade people from launching speedy guerilla attacks.

SO...

Gyroscopic stabilisers:
Recoil dampeners:
Compression suspension:
Liquid balance valves:
Gravity locks:
Shock absorption suspensors:

---

3 is the limit for augs. Come on Ian, you know this - we only renamed chips... ;)

Almost all weapons will have a less than 100% accuracy otherwise there'd be little point in having it.

To summarise: Mechs that fire then move will not suffer from the chassis penalty. Mechs that move then fire will. It won't stop guerilla tactics, but it would shift the balance towards the defender - where it should be.

Also, what limit were we going to impose on ammo weapons firing wise? Currently, all guns can be fired as often as you have energy for them, but as ammo guns don't use energy in theory you can empty your entire ammo stack in a single turn. This won't do.

So, how are we going to get around this? Have a fixed number of times guns can shoot (explained as ammo recycle rate, heat build up). Or what?

Acculely, recoil is caused by a piece of matter moving out of the barrel. Any weapon that shoots ammo has a recoil (this includes a bow-and-arrow and rail-gun). Do a little reasearch on rail guns, and you will see that they have recoil, infact they have enough to knock over a SUV if placed on top...

With the time it takes to get to the target, place it in. Figure that the mechs auto-dodge bullets, the longer the ammo takes to get there, the higher the chance of susess of the dodge. You can also have chips to counter-act this (increase chance of dodging, or target-leading).

Plus, you can use this factor in the particle engine to make the guns look better. (a laser weapon would hit much sooner then a machine gun bullet, which would hit sooner then a missle)