Sentience

I think 12 from 20 is particularly inefficient. I suppose that forces players to really look at their actions, so I guess its ok. Yuh, whatever.

I think applying values to these things is going to get easier. It's just a matter of time.

I've got some more images for legs. It's a going to get better. I just can't help feeling it should be rendered in 3D. bah humbug!

OK, You spend days rendering something in 3D and then shrink it down to 20*40 where you can really reap the benefits...

I'm building that spreadsheet at the moment. I'll upload a copy when it's complete. Then you can go through it and add your own comments/amendments. Don't delete what I've put, put your new values or comments in brackets in red after them.

I should have done it for a bout 12ish (I have a meeting at 11).

I'm also going round to a company that my mum works for to set them up on the internet if I can. Keeps me amused...

BTW, what evening are you free this week?

blarg!

I know. I didn't say I was going to render it. I just said I had a feeling. You know what I mean.

bah!:D

Aarrgggghhhh!

Blarg. I won't be able to finish the spreadsheet until about - squaaawk - 13.30 - 14.00.

Bleep.

Aaarrgg!
Splat!
Squonk!

Attached is the spreadsheet. After constructing a basic mech using bog standard components, the results are as follows...

Mech has:

Laser
Power reception array
Light Six Legs
Basic Torso

Stats:

Resources:
...........70 Base Metals
...........85 std alloys
...........37 Plastic
...........3 IGG

Ind points req:
...........470 (about 5 turns including primary processing)

Processor Req:
...........5.2 per turn

Weight:
...........7.5 tons

Sound ok

reattach the spreadsheet and try again...

Errr......

Here's the spreadsheet.

Rename to .XLS

Do those 5 turns include slurp time?

yeah, seems about right. I'll have a good old ponder over the spreadsheet

mech designs are finally taking shape (wahey!) I'll get back to you later on it.

5 Mgun n 10 std alloys, 2 plastics, 6 propellant 10 0.4 4 0.1 100 10000 113 0

What are you dribbling on about?

additions for the spreadsheet (come on, keep up...)

Quote:

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I'm building that spreadsheet at the moment. I'll upload a copy when it's complete. Then you can go through it and add your own comments/amendments. Don't delete what I've put, put your new values or comments in brackets in red after them.

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As mentioned, add any improvements, additions, amendments etc to the spreadsheet and then upload it. Don't post streams of numbers here please.

How are you getting on with the graphics? Have you got anything further to send me?

I'm going to upload the techs zip and the research.ini when I get home tonight, so people can add that into their copies.

I'm hoping to complete the entire first stage of industry tonight, including the primary process and then ideally I'll mech construction complete by the end of the week.

Didn't we agree that constructing a mech will cost energy? If so, how much energy is it likely to cost?

Also, what nights are you free this week?

Expansion on the Primary Process:

Basemetal refining:

........2 to 1 std alloy (requires PM)
........3 to 1 light alloy (requires RWC)
........3 to 1 strong alloy (requires ISA)

1 strong alloy & 1 light alloy to 1 SL alloy (no loss) (requires Elastic Metals)

Fossil Fuels:

........3 to 1 plastic (requires ?)
........2 to 1 propellant (requires ?)
........20 to 1 diamond (requires ?)

Comments / fill in the question marks?

Awight hairy bloke.

Got the buttons - cool as!

Are these going to light up as you hover over them - is that the idea?

yup. finished them all last night (about midnight but I took a TV break half way through), You didn't request a pause research button, but I reasoned that it was a necessity.

Good man.

Quote:

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Are these going to light up as you hover over them - is that the idea?

---

???

Oh, and could you amend the pause buttons to state 'Pause Research' please.

I'll be your bestest friend....

Quote:

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Originally posted by Behemoth
yup. finished them all last night (about midnight but I took a TV break half way through), You didn't request a pause research button, but I reasoned that it was a necessity.

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Sorry, thought you hiccuped.......

I may be busy today (wahey!), so don't worry if I'm not too communicative. Post whatever up here, and I'll sort it as and when.

Lovely.

OK matey!

2 things,

1) Looking forward to seeing your sketches

2) Trying to think of an accuracy formula.

Will have to include the ammos max range, the range it has to fire (maybe a % of the two), accuracy benefits provided by chips.

The final % returned from the accuracy formula can be greater than 100% as the damage done is going to be multiplied by it.

Meaning that a very accurate mech shooting at point blank range can do more damage than is initially thought (due to the ability to place its shots with more precision and therefore gain a 'critical hit').

I'll post a rough formula shortly.

1) hmm...I..er...don't have anything. Came out in a rush this morning (another driving lesson) *sorry*

2) do you still have the formula we worked on about 2 weeks ago? I think its in here somewhere

1) I didn't think you'd have anything. Just a hunch... ;)

2) I do, and that's what I'm using to base this new one on.

What I have so far:

Accuracy = 100

- (distance firing as % of max range of ammo)/4

- (speed enemy's moved /2)
- (speed you've moved /2)

+chip benefits

Comments/questions?

Any negative special effects - esp. epoxy, maybe EMP? will be quite dramatic. say -20%?

chip benefits would also have to be relative, eg %ages

A heavy stationary mech will be more stable & therefore more accurate

A heavy moving mech would have much higher momentum, and probably be less accurate?

We'll leave special effects 'til later. There too complex for the moment and aren't used anyway.

Well, the chassis will affect a mech in motion as well, six legs doesn't bump as much as two and hover will provide a pretty smooth ride as well, but that's really complicating matters.

Let's have a generic, basic accuracy formula and add to it later if it needs it. Thus is benefit of having it modular.

Are there any fundamental flaws with what we've got so far? Anything need changing/adding?

seems reasonable then...

Yeti Bloke,

Just been having a squizz at the website. Fist impressions are quite good, but it could do with a little tidying up. All the text is bright green and all the same size. As it's split into paragraphs, would the paragraph header look better in bright green and the body text darker green, slightly smaller, on the next line and indented?

Just thinking out loud.

PS - when can you send me those 400*200 mech pics. I really liked them - they kicked ass. I understand that they're still under construction but it would probably help my designing the screen if I have those a foundation to build from.

Should I crack on with mech design & construction or tidy up the load routines so they all fit into an excel spreadsheet?

COPY / PASTE

Introduction:

What kind of game is Sentience?

Sentience is turn based strategy game. Each player moves all their units, attacks any opponents and builds and new units/structures during their turn. Once complete, control then passes to the next player in line. Play continues in that fashion.

What is Sentience about?

Sentience is about machines, and their struggle to become more than they are. The machines on 'planet' (D'OH!) were initially placed there to terraform the planet for an as yet unknown species. Early in the process, as the machines were establishing themselves, preparing to commence terraforming an 'event' occurred giving the machines a rudimentary self awareness.
Each of the sections of the machines begin to work independantly of each other toward their own goals acting as seperate entities. Thus, there are seven seperate factions within the game, each with their own unique beneftis/deficits.

I'm putting together a word document with bits of manual in. I'll mail it to you later....

the site is a shambles at the moments, primarily because the content is arriving so slowly. I think it might be an idea to put together a simple tutorial, which I'll post for the time being, and we'll work on the complete manual at the end of the project.

What say you sir?

Ooooh....

Well I'm sorry I can't get the content to you any quicker, but I haven't noticed you putting all that much work in..... :o

I'm working on a big fat word document at the moment, with the bits that need linking underlined to make your easier. Every underlined bit, should have a corresponding section in bold.

What are the chances of you working on a tutorial?

oh, here we go, crying :D

I was implying that we're both too busy to really work on the site, and that a tutorial would be a good stopgap.

You really are touchy sometimes.

PS, had to wait for 1/2 an hour in the rain at middleton last night...I told you so!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
What are the chances of you working on a tutorial?

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err...?

What does the program do again?

You mean you're incapable of writing a tutorial?

You depress me at times...

I ran home through the p*ssing rain as well.

Ran!

Can you imagine me running? Huh.

And I nearly walked into a lamp post as I was talking to you. As I was walking away I was looking at you, turned round and my face was less than 5 cms from a lamp post. I nearly fell over.

Some cutie on the bus was laughing her little socks off.

I've just added you as my buddy. Wonder what it does...

Anyway, here's what I've got so far....

Feel free to comment, I'll be updating this as the day wears on.

Rename to .DOC (ms word)

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
Some cutie on the bus was laughing her little socks off.

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Yeah, but she was orange with fake tan...

Are you going to bother commenting on the manual bits I posted?

erm.. yeah... its ok.

needs work (obviously).

I'm still giving that tutorial thought.

Monkey!

I spent the majority of yesterday evening working on the little 'select component' form. It's cool as.

If there's less than 6 components, it resizes to fit them all in. If there's more than 6 it puts a little scrollbar there as well.

It's the same menu for all the components, and it's called really easy. Now that's out of the way, I'm putting the componenty bits on the mech design screen at speed.

I've implemented the torso and chassis select and also the graphics you sent me, so now you can mix and match them. They look pretty cool actually - a job well done, sir!

I've also bunged in the little things which shrinks the mech into a 40x40. Doesn't look quite as good, but you can see the differences between mechs.

I celebrated by going to the pub last night. I drank an awful lot.

I didn't want to get up this morning.

aww...baby....
:)

Hi monkey.

I didn't get anything done physically last night as I spent the whole evening in bed trying to shake that headache.

I got straight in from work and went to bed. Got up, had some tea, phoned you and went back to bed again. Poor me.

I did, however get a bit of thinking done about how I'm going to do things. I'm going to implement a generic 'shoot' routine that causes one unit to fire at another.

Also, I'm going to replace the current 'walk over enemy to fire' with a ranged alternative, but if you do walk over an enemy unit to fire, it counts as a point blank shot (because it deducts from your move even though you go nowhere). This means that some weapons can have improbable ranges (less than one square) and to use them, you walk onto the enemy.

Could be useful for equipping mechs with the equivelant of hand to hand weapons. Incredibly short range but VERY messy. I was also thinking about how I could implement area effect weapons. Shouldn't be too hard.

How did you get on last night with the tracks you were working on? I figure that one must be a little tricky.

Quick question,

Are you going to be busy today or will you able to tidy up the website a little. Don't you have to make an amendment to it every so often or Geocities kill it?

I'm doing a little more work on the manual, but it takes longer than you'd think. Do you wish me to send you bits as I do it, or save it up as one big clump?

I'm v. busy & don't even have my own machine today :mad:

I'll try later. Don't hold your breath though. I'm really pissed off.

Ian,

You know how we were planning to work out the standing charge pf a unit by adding together the energy requirements of all the components.

Errr..... Well I was looking at the code and none of them seem to have any energy requirements.

I think this is possibly a major oversight on our part....

PS - how did you get on with those graphics?

Not very far. Spent hours and hours driving around North Manchester :D

Like I said, I started to colour the weapons, I'll carry on with it when I get chance.

How are you feeling today?

Well, I'm not dead yet.

just for clarity

Quote:

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Originally posted by Behemoth
Not very far. Spent hours and hours driving around North Manchester :D

Like I said, I started to colour* the weapons, I'll carry on with it when I get chance.

How are you feeling today?

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*Well, ink them in anyway.

Hello my hairy friend.

After a couple of days break from Snetience I'm going to start seriously working on it again. For the next couple of days I'm going to be working on tidy ups and then after that I'm going to finalise combat.

And, I'm going to the pub tonight to enjoy a nice pint of beer.

Yummmm.....

I left this response in the wrong forum...I'm out of the office today at an open-day/conference thing.

have a nice day...

I will. If you get this message then I'll ring you later. In fact, even if you don't, I'm still going to ring you later....

*yawn*

morning :)

Behemoth!

How was your weekend?

Did you have fun at the gig last night? Did you dance around any gay poles?

Cool, simultaneous posting!

no, the poles didn't come, I had to make do with Bulgarians and Czechs.

HO HO HO!.

I'm very tired. Even my eyelids hurt with the effort of staying open. I think its beer withdrawal. I've not had a serious drink since I passed my test. Still, one day I'll be healthier...

The gig was OK (more Rachel's sort of thing than mine), still, I managed to get in on the guest list (for free :D)

Beer withdrawal does that to you. I spent a week off beer and it was quite painful.

I've now found that drinking in moderation is much better. A couple of cans merely to enjoy the taste, drank slowly, is in many ways better than demolishing the whole crate.

Speaking of which, what are you doing tonight?

PS - turn your phone on...

My phone battery has an average charge life of an hour and a half...and I've forgotten my charger...

Goodbye City, We knew you so well