* Brand New Code begun 10/14/2001 about 5pm * Basic flight/display engine finished about midnight 10/14 * Basic Position Reporting 10/17 * Basic Weapon Reporting 10/17 * Weapons do Damage 10/18 * Radar 10/18 (F1 to toggle HUD) * Ship Customization 10/18 (options panel) * Basic SFX 10/19 * Score Keeping * Colored Ships for identification * Full Wrap-Around World * Second Cut Funny Rank Names * PowerUps (Wpn, Shield, Eng, and restore) * Moderator control options for powerups
And we have now achieved all initial design goals! (10/21/2001)
* Homing Missile powerup * proximity mine powerup * Warp coil powerup * Optional 'rubber barriers' in map file * MAPS folder can have as many map files as you like * Moderator can pick map * You can fetch map from moderator * PLASMA SHIELD Powerup * Hud has 4 modes, now remembered * Stars have 3 modes, now remembered * Grid Lines have 4 modes, now remembered * Warp Coil animation for other players * Barriers can have different colors * Barriers can be bouncy or 'transparent' * Barriers can be painful, when touched * Barriers can HEAL, when touched * OPTION Dialog has "Slow CPU" checkbox. * Barriers can be 'tuned' to ship or team * Barriers can be 'tuned' to bullets * Map File can control new ship spawning locations * Map File can control gravity objects * New Ships are invulnerable for 60 seconds or until they move/shoot * Map File can declare PowerUp locations * Map File can declare 'Zones' * Zones have attributes similar to barriers * And then some * New FLAG powerups (12 teams) * New GOAL Zones
At this point, it should be possible to play "infinite melee capture the flag.. while racing"
[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 11-14-2001).]
======= Like every other toy, the game is evolving a bit from my original plan as I keep good-looking accidents and discard well-intentioned bonehead ideas. (I mean my own)
But I don't think this one is ever going to be accused of looking great. I could be surprised, of course.
================= CUSTOM SHIP SKINS
It remains to be seen what will happen here. For the record, I do NOT plan on letting just anyone create a custom ship graphic and then have it automatically shipped to all other players. (it could happen that way, but that is NOT planned)
Worse than that, it is not entirely guaranteed that ships will be graphical at all. Right now I am using simple outline vector polygons for the ships (which I can then display from all camera angles)
It's the "display from all camera angles" which interferes with "super customizable art"
But I recognize people like nice little graphics, and people might hate the variable camera angles in the first place...
So... this is just going to have to be a big vague area for now.
Overall, it looks pretty crummy at the moment, but that's good in a sense, since it's important to concentrate on playability, right?
[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-19-2001).]
Nothing spectacular, just demonstrating the camera angle options.
I also added controls:
ctrl-pgup, ctrl-pgdn zoom the camera view out and in.
F2 toggles 'vertical grid' option, if you like to keep the grid vertical, instead of rotating it to keep the ship in fixed alignment.
END stops the ship (kinda cheating in an inertia game)
HOME resets the chase plane camera to directly behind the ship.
And I tiled the world grid rather nicely, so that you always appear in the middle of a sea of sectors, which disappear to a roundish horizon, which I like. I left a red border around the REAL universe just so you can tell when you are wrapping. I imagine there will be lots of issues surrounding the wrapping. (missiles reversing direction rather than follow you across the wrap)
Anyway, some snapshots of no particular important (note the colored smoke trail. It is all grey when your engines are off)
Near vertical, but not grid-aligned
low-camera-angle close-up showing uncreative vector ship (and red universe boundary) (if you squint.. the narrow lines didn't survive the jpegification)
more oblique view, showing nice smoke trail from engines.
[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-15-2001).]
posted
It looks so cool its gunna be cool itsgunnabecoolitsgunnabecoolitsgunnabecool. /a hyperventilates.
Posts: 3111 | From: Surrey B.C. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
------------Wpn Pwr ---------------* --------------/--\ ------Speed *----* Shield Str.
(Maybe this should be set BEFORE entering the game or something, but it would be an interesting way to customize, yet keep it simple. I'm sure you know what i mean by the triangle so i wont bother explaining.... (kinda like the wos elemental thingy, hoooboy...that prolly really confuses more....oh well) (sorry for the dashes..i needed em to get the triangle to line up)
Reverse Thrust should be 1/2 of forward thrust (At Most)
Various abilities for a given ship (This might not be necessary if you dont intend to have ship selection) such as : Cloaking Weapon Strength (a varying method of shooting, such as firing 2 shots, semi-homing, etc.) Speed Teleport
Oh, and there shouldnt be an 'insta-stop' button...but maybe thats just for testing purposes...
And another things...lessie...it seems REALLY easy to change course right now... I think holding shift should not adjust rotation speed....it feels right if i turn without shift, but head the speed of holding shift...if that makes sense...i think THAT should be the rotational speed at all times...
And when the star slings me off in a direction, if i apply thrust, it will slow me down to some max speed...
-minor thing - Smoke trails cut off once you cross the red line... (im sure everybody noticed that though)
-question-
quote: Currently, up to 16 ships may play at the same time on one server (all in the same universe, and universe editing is a low priority on my features list)
This probably includes obsticles, but out of curiosity...any plans on obsticles? Like asteroids, and other junk in space?
----------
When i get slung around the galaxy by the sun, and then fire, everytime i meet a red line, the shots disappear, but are still in the galaxy (i can see em on the horizon...)... oh and if you try this, the also just hold down fire for a while...soon the missiles start doing weird things..like "S" patterns and stuff....i dont know what this is attributed to...
dunno if that helps, but there ya go
[This message has been edited by Volte6 (edited 10-16-2001).]
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
I pushed version .0001 which is "barely multiplayer"
Weapons still cause no damage, so don't expect any actual gameplay :-)
The little super-slingshot effect when you pass close to the sun is not communicated very well, so people in close orbits will look pretty goofy to everyone else.
But other than that, the position updating looking reasonably smooth.
I've limited the game to SIX players for now, so as to avoid chewing bandwidth during development.
And the Universe is Now Dangerous... i.e. bullets hurt!
-------
KNOWN PROBLEMS:
1.) When you get your first ship, it might start out with 0% energy (top left of screen)... if so, use the auto-destruct (hold down DEL key) and get a new ship.
2.) If you are not the moderator, you will probably see multiple death messages when you get killed (since additional explosions near you after you are dead will kill you again until the packet arrives from the moderator saying you are officially dead.)
3.) remember, these are level 0 bullets. You don't have any power ups yet.
To help you identify what is going on:
* shoot bullet. it is a little red dot
* when bullet gets close enough to enemy, it explodes (little orange circle)
* enemy takes some damage (less, if explosion is distant, and remember there IS some positional uncertainty.. I try to make it looke 'reasonable' to you, but don't think you can predict how much damage a particular explosion might cause to someone else.
* if enemy dies, you see a BIG orange circle
000
so if your red dots just disappear with no little orange circles,... then you missed.
========
Next to come:
* Radar * Basic SFX * Score Keeping (might do rating) * PowerUp engine * More weapons
There will not be a lot of different styles of weapons, since I want them to really be *different* (and let powerups handle the issue of weak bullets versus strong bullets)
Weapons classes I am shooting for are:
* bullets, unlimited ammo * missiles (unguided, limited ammo) * missiles (guided, limited ammo) * lasers/energy beams * proximity mines (don't get triggered by YOU)
Unguided missiles might just be powerful bullets, so I may not do that after all.
Things like tractor beams might come later.
Things like barriers in space might come later..
But first I want to tune the purity of the basic drop-in dogfight engine.
posted
OK, I implemented your 'triangle' (more or less)....
The implementation is:
On the Toy OPTIONS dialog is a triangle which lets you customize your ship, optimizing it for Engines, Weapons, Shields, or some combination.
You click in the triangle to set the customization.
The customization takes affect the next time you get a new ship. (does not affect your current ship).
In addition to your initial settings for W, S, and E, you can pick up as many as 4 power ups for each category (picking up more will have no effect.)
The triangle basically lets you start your ship off with 6 W/S/E powerups of your choice.
So, you might start with 2W, 2S, and 2E
Or you might start with 6S, 0W, and 0E
Whatever you pick is your BASE configuration and you still get 4 more powerups per category.
So, if you start with 6S, 0W, 0E, you can still max out eventually to 10S, 4W, 4E
But, unlike every other time I have done something like this, you permanently maintain your bias towards shields. And your shields (at 10S) will be stronger as a result. (at the expense of the other attributes, of course)
Modes of play ------------- *SpaceWar - A free for all. Normal synSpace as it currently is.
*SpaceWar(TEAM) - Same as above. However, there are 2 teams. Score is kept for "team" play as well as normal.
*Capture the Flag(TEAM) - Bring and object from the enemy to your base. The enemy must do the same. Destroying the "Flag carrier" causes the flag to be returned to its starting point.
*CometBall(TEAM) - 2 Goal points are setup, and 2 teams try and move the ball into the goal. Shooting the ball holder pops it out of his/her control.
*Tag - 1 player is "IT" and he tries to pass "IT" off to another play by shooting them. The game has a Timer, and the object is to remain "NOT IT" longest. Once the time runs out, a ranking will be shown of who was "IT" longest, from 16th to 1st place. OR, another way of doing this is passing off "IT" by DESTROYING another player, rather than just shooting.
*Seek and Destroy(TEAM) - Each team must do X amount of damage to the enemy's....base? mothership? something...anyhow, the game ends when the...mothership...is destroyed... This is similar to CTF though, so who knows about that one.
*Elimination - Each player has 1 life. The object is to be the last one standing.
*Absorbtion(TEAM) - Each time a ship is destroyed by a team, the ship BECOMES A MEMBER of that team. Gameplay progresses until all ships are of one team. This can seasaw back and forth and could be alot of fun.
Scoring ------- Players have stats. A Ratio of KILLS to DEATHS Possible accuracy (Samsyn's idea) Longest winning streak (Number of wins) Longest losing streak (Number of loses) Number of suicides (Sun Flares, own mines, own bullets, etc.)
The part you definately dont wanna hear... ------------------------------------------ Map editing!!!
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Anyhow, Samsyn, can I have your thoughts on any or all of these ideas? | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ (Everyone else too, because maybe if he has doubts, and see's people really like the ideas, it'll sway em )
OH! and... ---------- I understand you DO want to add certain things, such as graphics for powerups etc. Please lets us (The community) know if you need anything, and specifications, and i'm sure we would all love to help! (Well, I would)
[This message has been edited by Volte6 (edited 10-20-2001).]
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
| IP: Logged
ADMusker
unregistered
posted
Well done Dan, its getting good, what am i saying? its more than good!!!! The games come along a lot in the past week, you must of been working hard, well done.
Oh, i like the aborbtion game mode.
You could have bases in the team game, and flying towards and then shooting a certain part of it blows it up (like the death start in star wars)
I just thought I would explain the triangle (Volte's idea) and the current problem it has (soluble, just ugly)
The programmers in the audience might want to think about how they would have gone about doing this.
Basically, I start with an equilateral triangle and all I know is the length of one side and its orientation (one side flat against the X axis)
The user clicks in the window, giving me an (x,y) coordinate.
[programmers: Turn that into 3 values of Wpn/Shield/Engine!]
---- my solution
First, of course, I have to test if the click is even inside the triangle. I do this with slope computations, so it looks kind ugly. But no thinking was required.
A cooler way to test would have been to compute the dot product of the line segment from (x,y) to each vertex, against the clockwise side of the triangle. If all dots had the same sign, then we are inside the triangle (this works for all convex polygons)
A more traditional way to test (in a game) would be to draw the triangle to the screen and simply test what color the user clicked on. If it is the 'triangle color' (and you don't use that anywhere else) then the user clicked in the triangle.
----
OK, the point (x,y) is inside the triangle, now what?
Well, after considerable brain massage, I decided to consider that the point divides the triangle into 3 sub-triangles (using three line segments from (x,y) to each of the vertices) and that the AREAs of those sub-triangles relate to the ultimate settings for the upgrade allocations (to weapon, shield, and engines)
Draw yourself a picture and consider that the area of the subtriangle 'opposite' a vertex should control the contribution to that vertex's allocation.
---
So, what are the areas of those sub-triangles? The 'bottom' one is trivial, just 1/2 base times height, where base is the side length of the triangle and height is the Y value of the click.
And the third area is just the total area minus the two other sub areas.
but what is the area of the second subtriangle?
I tried to remember a simple equation for this, and failed. So I derived an equation for the area of a triangle, given the lengths of its 3 sides (a, b, and c). (I didn't want to use transcendental functions, by the way, so I didn't go the trig route. I wanted multiplies and divides).
Anyway, my ulimate equation worked, but was long and nasty with terms like a^4*a^4*b^2 and the like.
So, after I satisfied myself that I was smart enough to come up with AN answer, I went to my favorite reference (The "Chemical Rubber Company Book of Mathematical Tables") which I got in high school, back before we had calculators to do logarithms for us!
Anyway, the official area of a triangle from its sides a, b, c is:
1.) let s = .5 * (a + b + c) 2.) then A = sqrt(s * (s-a) * (s-b) * (s-c))
This looks like it might multiply out to looking exactly like my own derived equation, but is a lot friendlier on the eyes.
Isn't it pretty?
---
So, I just used it three times (screw the compute cycles, I wanted to call that pretty function 3 times! Who cares if tri1 and tri3 were simpler to compute!)
---
OK, so now you have 3 areas (in nice high precision floating point) and can computer the total area by summing them, of course.
So, if Aw = Area of sub-triangle controlling 'weapon' upgrades, and At is 'total area of equilateral triangle' then:
# weapon Upgrades = 6 * (Aw/At)
Right? ratio of areas gives a percentage of total upgrade points (6) to be applied to weapons.
----
OK, this works, and is more or less where I left it, as of version .0006
---- THE SECRET GROCERY STORE PROBLEM
So, of course we don't get whole numbers out of this process. we might get something which looks like this:
W = 1.666... S = 1.666... E = 2.666...
which collectively add to 6 (our goal). But individually truncated add to 4.
So we round it, right?
.666.. is bigger than .5, so we round up, right?
W = 2 S = 2 E = 3
And we're done!
Wait a minute, that adds up to 7!!!
WHAT WENT WRONG?
------
Well, it turns out you can't simply round each number by itself, and get a 'fair' value.
You have to consider the fractional parts as a collection.
so, the fractional parts are:
W = .66666... S = .66666... E = .66666...
We add them to get
2
So, if we truncated the fractional part, we would be throwing away a total of 2 upgrade points.
So we only have two upgrade points to share between the three values.
But when we round each .666 individually, we give an upgrade to each category, or 3 total. which is wrong.
======= challenge: devise a fair sharing strategy which isn't too ugly!
------- be sure to consider this case as well:
.3333 .3333 .3333
where they individually round down to 0, and we lose one upgrade point from the system as a result.
======== MY SOLUTION (unimplmented)
basically:
1.) assign upgrades by truncation 2.) add fractionals to decide how many to add 3.) sort by size of fractional (remembering that they could be equal, hence the sort ultimately has to show some bias) 4.) apply upgrades in sort order
This is just ugly enough, that I am tempted to say "caveat clicktor" and warn people to make sure they got all 6 units.
posted
I know it would be FUN to have no upper limit on your speed, but:
1.) What fun would it be if the OTHER guy went so fast that you couldn't shoot HIM.
2.) What would be the point of engine levels if they didn't limit your top speed?
At the end of the day, it still has to be a game which gives people a reasonble chance of inflicting damage on each other, so anything which lets you escape that is counter-game.
I want you to be able to stumble into a dangerous area and NOT be able to instantly escape it.
---
None of which is meant to imply that there will never be any more adjustments to the speeds of ships or weapons, just that the eventual balance will probably not include the ability to cross the galaxy in under a second... except on extremely rare occasions.
The concealed trap explodes when you touch it (to discourage you from picking up Every Single Powerup You See)
And since I never wrote .0009 release notes, here is a recap of the powerup situation (as of .0010)
========== POWERUPS (aka "pups")
The options dialog has a couple checkboxes:
* Spawn random powerups * No Restore Powerups
The moderator can check these at any time (this is a drop-in game, remember, so no pre-game setup) and they take immediate effect.
If spawn is enabled, then the galaxy will be populated randomly with powerup boxes.
When you fly directly over a powerup, you pick it up, it disappears, and the moderator respawns it to a new location 60 seconds later.
If "no restore" is checked, then the restore powerups will not be spawned.
If you turn off spawning, the existing powerups remain until they are picked up (but no new ones are spawned). Hence you can periodically turn it on to add a few boxes and then turn it off until people are whining for boxes again.
They are spawned at random locations, when the moderator's computer feels they are needed.
If no one were to pick any up for a while, the universe would eventually fill with exactly this mix of powerups:
2 Weapon Upgrades 2 Shield Upgrades 2 Engine Upgrades 2 Full Restores (down from 4 in .0009) 2 20% restores (new to .0010) 1 trap (new to .0010)
---------- WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE?
Boring little rotating white squares you can only see a short distance away.
It actually probably adds to the game value for you to NOT know in advance what is in a box, so making cool graphics for them might not be in the best interest of the game.
------------- HOW MANY CAN I HAVE?
If you fly over a powerup, you WILL pick it up, whether you can actually use it or not (hence, you deny it to someone else)
But there are limits to what you can find use for.
Your ship was pre-built with 6 'upgrades' (via the option screen) and you can add up to 4 more upgrades in each category. Hence you can pick up 4 Weapon, 4 Engine, and 4 Shield upgrades to max out your ship. After that you are just wasting those powerups when you pick them up.
I have added sound effects for the various powerups ("installation" sounds) including a "thud" for when you didn't need that one.
-
I believe this officially completes the original synSpace Design Document, and from here on out it is just gravy (more weapons basically, and possible rule options for other modes of play).
posted
a level 10 weapons has 4x the explosive force of a level 0 weapon.
a level 10 shield offers 4x the protection of a level 0 shield.
--------
However, the distance from ship to explosion also affects the energy delivered to the ship. It's possible that this is not a fun math fact.
First I like to have the math right, then I like to bend the math where it gets in the way of fun (for example, the inability to achieve the speed of light via the constant application of thrusters. No fun for the other players when YOU are going too fast)
For weapons like bullets, which have to get very close to you to explode in the first place, I can see relaxing the math a bit.
---------
HOWEVER, please remember that synchronization is an illusion, and you will never be able to 'count the orange circles' and predict when your opponent will be destroyed. Sending a packet for every single explosion would make an 8 player game untenable.
I just point this out because I suspect your thoughts that the upgrades don't work are really just because you didn't actuallly hit the guy, even though you saw an orange circle on your own screen.
But I will do my usual scientific analysis of the effectiveness of the upgrades.
followed by my usual apology for having been wrong to doubt you.
---
Anyway, I think you should be blaming the sync more than the upgrades.
quote: weapons don't work upgrades make no difference.
Man, you were WAYYYY off.
Weapon upgrades make a HUGE difference.... It's just that they make the WRONG difference :-)
Yep, increasing your OWN weapon level, makes the OTHER guy hurt you MORE. The other guy's weapon level makes no difference (when he is shooing you, I mean).
Um, this is not exactly as I planned it to be :-)
------
I'm taking this opportunity to also get more of a 'single-shot' support. By which I mean if you tap the trigger to fire a single shot on your machine, you are guaranteed that (at least) one bullet will appear to have been shot by you on everyone's screen.
I can't get more precise than that without adding packets (I am being oh so clever at the moment and just sending the trigger state (up or down, one bit) with each position packet (which I have to send)
The good news is you can mangle the trigger button all you like and it makes no impact on packet traffic (not entirely true since if you took no actions at all (unlikely) I wouldn't even send the position info)
Anyway, your (GM) earlier post about weapons upgrades "making no difference" were pretty on the mark, assuming you never had the 'shooter' get shot during the test.
I'm also making a couple other bullet changes:
1.) Given that a bullet has to actually make contact with your ship to cause damage, I have removed the 'damage lessens with distance' element. So if a bullet hits at all, it should now make the same amount of damage as any other bullet (given the same W/S settings)
BTW the distance involved was from the bullet to the ship, not the distance between ships.
Stellar damage is still influenced by distance, of course. (though not in the math-pure, but game-unfriendly inverse-square ratio.)
2.) bullet collision testing is a bit looser. Before you had to score a hit pretty much inside the inner 25% of the visible ship.
posted
The "Fully Powered" Ship should be a goal that is hard to accomplish. One should have to survive many battles before attaining this status. For this reason I suggest that its just to easy to gather all the power ups. In the future, if obstacles are in place such as girders, level design, etc., this might be somewhat corrected...but I still think people would benefit from being able to customize the settings to suit a particular situation, and to manually make adjustments. Besides all of this, every person has a different version of how THEY would make the game. Perhaps no powerups. Perhaps no healing. Perhaps (in my case) more rarity with powerups. In any case, I suggest the following options for the moderator to set:
Moderator settings : -Maximum # of powerups at a given time (1-8) -% Chance of Engine powerup (0-100) -% Chance of Shield powerup (0-100) -% Chance of Weapon powerup (0-100) -% Chance of Full restore (0-100) -% Chance of Partial restore (0-100) -% Chance of Trapped powerup (0-100) (These should probably add up to 100) ;/ -Partial Restore healing amount (1-80%) -Damage multiplier (This alters the damage of every weapon by this factor. The purpose of this is for people who find games go too slow and prefer fast paced action with much destruction) (101%-500%) -SAVE SETTINGS BUTTON (This would allow for various settings to be saved. For example, "Tournament Mode", "1 on 1 mode", "4 on 4 mode", "CTF mode", etc.)
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
| IP: Logged
Given that .0011 will perfect the weapon/shield upgrades such that:
* If W of attacker equals S of victim, then 100% of bullet damage is delivered.
* If W > S, then more than 100% is delivered, up to a max of 400% for 10 to 0
* If W < S, then less than 100% is delivered, down to a min of 25% for 0 to 10
-------
Anyway, given that...
How many shots should it take to destroy an enemy ship? (I mean in the case W = S)
I have it set to 10 right now, but I think that is probably too few (for bullets, I mean).
I think maybe 25 or 50 would make more sense.
--------- Factoring in Volte's comments (which I just read) (and there is no way you will ever see that many option settings...) it does make a certain sense that the "average shots needed to kill" might need to be different for a game with powerups than one without. So I am willing to entertain ONE such option... like "Fast Paced Game" (5 shots to kill) or "Not Fast Paced Game" (50 shots to kill).
bear in mind that moderator options more or less take instant effect, so this could be abused by evil moderators who turn it up during their own shots.
Perhaps I will make some options only take effect when the moderator gets a new ship (i.e. moderator has to die to make the change..)
"I was dying to switch to a fast paced game..."
The other powerup options I was planning, by the way, were for the yet-to-come powerups, for which I have penciled in:
* meteor swarm (sure, it LOOKs like a meteor swarm, but really its a 'concealed trap' with a different look)
* Warp Hole (sure, it LOOKs like a spinning hole in space, but really it's a powerup which warps you to a random spot and then disappears after you. And I mean really random, no guarantee to not be inside the sun.
* Advanced Weapons (guided missiles and mines, basically)
I figure the moderator might want a game without 'obstacles' or 'advanced weapons'
The other option I am toying with is # of stellar objects. I know the thought of 0, 1, or 2 appeals to me (wanna orbit a binary system!), but I don't want to offer more than 2 really since I don't think the universe is large enough, and I like this universe size.
Don't ask for a larger universe, since all that means is I will slow down your max ship speed. (space is all very relative in that way).
Anyway, those are the OPTIONS I am entertaining.
--------
As to the stated issue "there are too many powerups" I have a couple things to say:
1.) As mentioned, everyone will have their own opinion.
2.) I would, overall, rather have the game tuned correctly, than let/make the moderator micromanage to the degree suggested.
3.) Right now all upgrades come back after the same number of seconds, and I suspect that probably each time should have a different 'disappearance period'
For example, once a full restore is eaten, maybe it should take TWO minutes to grow back, while a shield restore only takes 30 seconds.
Maybe not those exact numbers, but something along those lines.
4.) The random stuff doesn't look as random as I would like. It may not be an illusion that sometimes a whole bunch of upgrades are all in one spot (though there *should* be a tendency for them to pile up in a place that no one ever visits (like the center of the sun)).
[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-23-2001).]
posted
I think 5 because it takes too long to kill now. And in that time, people can easily steal your kills.
Also you have infinite ships as it is, so its not like you lose all that much when die. Also due to lag, it should be low. As I have "hit"(from my perspective) people approximately 50 times and they just won't go down.
Also a spread weapon would be nice, because you basically shoot in a line, and they see this and they move, but on your screen they do not appear to move...so you get the impression that you hit them, and on their screen(the correct screen) you totally missed. With a spread weapon this would equalize the two a bit better....at least thats my opinion.
[This message has been edited by GuppyMan (edited 10-23-2001).]
posted
well, the problem with 5 is that it turns into 1.25 shots for a 10:0 W:S ratio.
Well, maybe that's not a problem.
But maybe it is. I overheard CERTAIN UNNAMED PLAYERS today say (when they were 'alone' on the server)
"Hey, lets grab a bunch of powerups and max out our ships, and then kill anybody who comes in!"
So I'd like it to take more than ONE hit to kill you (with bullets, at least).
I think, to avoid changing too much at once, I should leave it at 10 for .0011 and let people get a feel for whether or not that is too few or too many, given the proper operation of the bullets.
posted
well, aside from changing WSE in mid-flight (which I think would be a very very wrong thing to do...)... most of those are fine ideas.
as is Volte's long list of alternate modes of play.
My lack of comment has mostly to do with my initial desire to create a 'pure' experience:
* drop in * shoot * drop out
the everlasting melee.
---
One aspect of everlasting melee (IMHO) is that no ship or player becomes immortal. There should be plenty of exploding going on, and the K/D counts should reach into the thousands in a matter of moments.
Powerups are then not an intrusion since your liklihood of living long enoug to take advantage of your level 10 whatever is too low to need worrying about.
Your ship is just one ball in the pinball machine, and it is destined to fall down that hole sooner or later, and probably sooner.
------
Now, Volte made some terrific alternate mode of play suggestions (and you probably sensed from my first post in this topic.. or second maybe.. that I was already leaning towards having a CTF mode which pretty much violates the purity of the eternal melee concept.
So, I am obviously not immune to feature creep (I guess I have long since proved that).
Still... some alternate play modes depend upon:
1.) A beginning/middle/end (game starts and no one new can join until game ends).
2.) Formal teams (and imposition of 'fairness' in team selection)
3.) and some other issues counter to instant melee which I have now forgotten.
Anyway, everything is do-able... it's just a matter if.. well.. it appeals to me at the time I am ready to consider doing it, I guess.
However, since there is a very real possibility that this might supplant synCTF (I mean, if I add CTF-elements to this, I probably would not do a separate synCTF)
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For a synSpacePlus 'metaphor', I think we should be thinking "lazer tag" and all the subgames which work well in that environment (most of which require a start and end of game play, with a followup score assessed after the fact)
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Anyway... pure melee first. try not to clutter too much.. must remain fun.. ships must not become too strong to kill..
There is actually a lot more to this release than meets the eye, but mostly people will probably notice that I have included checkboxes on the options dialog for options which do not yet really exist.
THESE DO NOT EXIST IN .0011:
* Meteor Showers * Wormholes * Advanced weapons
============== So, what IS different about .0011?
* Powerup notification messages removed from chat window, and placed in a scrolling marquee along the bottom of the display.
* Rank Changes are also reported in the marquee ("Bill has been promoted to Captain")
* Rank Changes in death messages (still recorded in chat window for posterity) should have correct post-kill ranks for attacker and victim
* Marquee is optional (new checkbox)
* Emotions Shown. I'll let this be a surprise. But you can turn it off if you hate it. (checkBox)
* In-your-face powerup notification. If you pick one up, you'll know it right away.
* Miscellaneous "information communication" changes to reduce those spots in the game where you are confused as to what is happening.
* 'current rules' box now updated with moderator's settings (I mean for the non-moderators out there). In fact, these are updated in real time, so it's kind of cool in that way. Most rules deal with item-spawning via 'categorization' (ability to turn off all items of a certain general flavor.)
The flavors are:
[] Spawn Random Powerups [] .. but no full powerups [] .. but no ship upgrades (WSE) [] .. but no hazards [] .. but no wormholes <-- not yet [] .. but no advanced weapons <-- not yet
Note that at present you can't turn off the 20% restores without turning off all powerups.
* I can now set the spawn-period independently for each PUP. For example, I have the two full powerups set to 120 and 90 seconds (so one of them comes back faster than the other one, just to prove a point!)
* At present the only Hazard is the concealed trap PUP. But this will control meteors as well.. someday.
* I will probably add a 'no gravity' checkbox, but not a 'no sun' checkbox (I like the sun if only for navigation purposes). It would still hurt to sit too close to it. Still not sure how I will handle multiple stars, so let's just call that a map-editor problem for now :-)
If there ever *are* a selection of maps, it will be good to have broken the options up along the proper boundaries... I mean some things should be properties of the map, while other things (like gravity) should be optional and affect suitable objects (stars, black holes) on the map.
* My funky polygon engine is now 3D (I mean you can draw ships with vertices in all 3 dimensions. To demonstrate, I have added a little golden pyramid to the top of the white PUP square. Note that I can also change color in mid-polygon, including the ability to return to the 'ship/team' color without explicitly knowing what it is.
It's just vector drawing with no hidden-line elimination, so don't get excited. But it's good enough to implement "BattleZone" (old arcade tank battle game) quality graphics.
* Weapon and Shield upgrades tested and repaired as necessary to achieve original intentions, which are:
1.) Each weapon has a 'damage power' (for bullets this is 100 units of damage, or about 10% of a ships total energy/life force.)
2.) If the attacker's Weapon Level matches the victims Shield level (W = S), then the damage power is unmodified (the bullet will drain 100 units from the victim's life.)
3.) If W > S, the bullet will hurt more. If W < S the bullet will hurt less.
The maximum differential (one player is level 10 and the other player is level 0) then the weapon effect will be 4x stronger (or weaker, in the case of strong shielding)
To put that in more concrete terms. You have weapon level 5, I have shield level 5. Your bullet hurts me the standard amount (100 units).
But now you have weapon level 10, and I have shield level 0, your bullet robs me of.. about 400 units. I am dead in under 3 shots)
* In addition to that, bullets are now counted as a hit from farther away (about one ship radius now... basically twice as big a collision box as before.) I mean it is easier to hit people.
* AND, when a bullet hits, it is NOT de-rated by distance of explosion from ship. (The only reason that distance varied in the past was just a side-effect of positions being updated in a quantum manner, rather than continuously.) Metaphorically, it makes sense that if the bullet physically hit your ship (which is what bullets supposedly do), the damage is the same.
The same should be true for any weapon which triggers itself when you approach it (for example, a space mine.)
I feel bad using such blunt 'weapon' terms here, as I am really not a violent sort of person. These are just little fantasy pixels, OK? No one is on board the space ships, honest.
You are really launching 'freedom seeds' and when they come in contact with the space ship (which has been imprisoned by the evil queen) it is freed from her domination and is returned to its original universe to live a happy life raising rabbits. Cute and fuzzy ones.
posted
Okay, so far so GREAT! This game is ALOT of fun, and I think alot of people are getting into it...
Right now, it seems when two people meet, they pretty much circle eachother until either 1 dies, or 1 runs off. I think adding obstacles (girders, etc.) should be a major priority right now, cause then we could chase eachother through them, and be forced to navigate etc. Then you could have bouncy bullets too for trick shots etc.
Perhaps even have the SHIPS bounce off of surface... Maybe institute a collision damage system so that crashing does damage, and maybe even ship to ship collision damage....then we'd have kamakaze guys heh heh..... anyhow, i think these elements would add dramatically to the game :P
[This message has been edited by Volte6 (edited 10-24-2001).]
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Weapon Launch energy? Why not just make it that the weapon "Overheats"?
If weapons can "Overheat", then players are forced to keep an eye on it, making sure it doesnt reach that "Critical red line point"... If it DOES reach that point, the weapon would be temporarily disabled until it COMPLETELY cools down
Yeah, i like that...
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Thats also true...i DO like the idea of a central power source everything could tap into. Perhaps there could even be "afterburners" for extra bursts of speed that would draw off of it as well. Perhaps if it turned out to be useful in so many ways this "energy" WOULD be the best avenue...
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
hmmm.... this is where I get to be solomon and offer to cut the baby in half...
I like *all* of the above, but don't want to implement *all* of the above.
So, how about this:
1.) Weapon Temperature.
I liked this the best, since the 'punishment' for overshooting is most game appropriate. Once you overheat, trigger stops working until you cool down completely (well.... till you cool down quite a bit in any case.) Affects all weapons, and all weapons generate the same amount of heat when you use them (sorry, gotta keep it simple)
2.) Special Feature Energy (warpath 'charge')
Assuming that someday there really are special features (like cloaking), they need an energy supply to deplete, so whatever it ends up being called, it's this.
Using this in some way to limit high speed flight (or allow speed 'boost' to put it differently) would also be nice, since now that we have a range of speeds, people see the danger in allowing a range of speeds (runners). It might be as simple as the warpath technique of your ship's highest speeds consuming the special energy, and you slowing down when it runs out.
I think special energy might also recharge more quickly the nearer you are to the sun, just to add a little risk vs reward factor (also near the sun is where you might need a little speed boost)
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and I think the rest of the baby is out with the bathwater..
posted
Here is the non-rambling version of the above:
* Your ship has eight 'slots' (selected by F1-F8)
* F1-F4 are for 'trigger' weapons (pressing FKey selects as current trigger weapon):
- bullets (can't get rid of these) - guided missiles (1 per box, max of 3) - Space mines (5 per box, max of 25) - lasers (1 per box.. but might have upgrade effect)
* F5 - F8 for 'specials' which are either one-shot or can be turned on/off by pressing the FKey itself
- super shield blast (one per box, max of 3) - super nitro blast (one per box, max of 3) - stealth mode (one per box, max of 3) - tractor beam (one per box, max of ?)
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The slots start out empty (except for F1 bullets), and get filled as you pick up appropriate powerup boxes.
The slots get empty when you use the last missile, fire the last nitro boost, etc.
Or when you press CTRL+FKey to clear a slot on purpose.
If you have no empty slot of the proper flavor when you pick up a weapon/effect box, then you don't get the weapon/effect.
First available slot is used when installing new weapon/effect.
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Note that for stealth and tractor beam, it probably makes more sense for them to be reusable until ship is dead, and just consume 'charge' while in use. So pretend I said "one per box, reusable until ship dead"
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And, the idea is that if additional advanced weapons/effects become available, they would compete for these same slots on your ship.
[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-25-2001).]
posted
.0012 Release Notes ------------------- This probably won't seem like a very exciting release, but it lays the groundwork for the exciting bits to follow.
Mostly all you will notice is the HUD has changed a bit.
Along the top are the F1-F8 key slots, but only F1 does anything (same old bullets)
Along the right are three meters:
E: your energy (meter form of the 100% thingy) You die when it's empty.
C: charge. that special energy which will be important later.
T: weapon temperature. This works, so watch out. If you overheat, your trigger stops working.
When the *ship* get about %25 left for hit points make the *ship* Burning, so the player who is trying to kill the aponent doesent need to ask what % he/she still got.
~lords~
[I've debated this. Somehow telling everyone when you are near death, your weapons are overheated, etc... Well... I dunno. But I suppose most games ultimately show you some puffs of smoke from the victim when s/he is almost done... -s]
[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-26-2001).]
Posts: 137 | From: The Netherlands | Registered: Oct 2001
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