posted
I have an idea: instead of the priority triangle how about a priority square with manueverability added? The manueverability as it is now is pretty pathetic IMO.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
But the triangle is perfect! Representing the engines and where it will shoot with the point. Plus most airplanes/jets look kinda triangled
Posts: 156 | Registered: Nov 2003
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I think by sprite options, he means that you may customize your ship...
And rather than have more weapons etc...I'd rather see homing missles synched.
I can see why you don't synch plasma bullets. However, proximity mines are basically synched, while homing missles fly around differently on everyone's machines....
Posts: 2675 | From: Washington | Registered: Dec 1998
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quote:The manueverability as it is now is pretty pathetic IMO.
The manueverability is actually awesome, if you know what you are doing. Dark Slasher, Silent Knight, myself, and many others know the secrets. The main secret is to be holding shift a lot(it helps with turns amoung other things), and also knowing when to use your stop(the end key) button. It is pretty easy to avoid a stream or spray of plasma bullets. Although, lately I've been bleeping up and flying right into a stream, thus causing my death...but that's my fault.
Those of us that were there in the beginning had unlimited and a more manuverable ship, due to using the shift key. It was scaled back to make it less manuverable...mainly because Dan couldn't hit us well enough. :-)
Posts: 2675 | From: Washington | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
By sprite options... sorry, i meant, some method of replacing the vector art with raster images. Things like .bmp or .gif etc.
There were once plans for Nebulae, I believe.
The walls could be replaced with a tiled image, and planets could be actual planetary graphics.
I don't really need EVERYTHING to be drastically improved. Just little things here and there could make BIG impacts, and graphics are one of those things.
[ 01-08-2004, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: Volte6 ]
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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But, Dan, you did talk about customized ship designs because of the vector quality of them.
Hmm... I just re-read all the synSpace notes. Besides me sounding negative all the time in those posts two years ago, I also see something about a cloaking weapon.
Now, how hard can it be to make someone cloaked? When cloaked, you stop drawing their ship. But, as a penalty, just like Warpath, cloaking gives you level 0 shields.
posted
And the cool thing is I could also have a cloak detector which let you see cloaked ships :-) And the cloak detector would not disable your weapons (like cloak would)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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Both would, however, use energy. Might as well use that silly bar. All it does is (slightly) prevent full stops. and only the oldbies do that anymore.
-------------------- Any and all velca will be added to your personal hahta in Angamando. Posts: 711 | From: Chanhassen, Minnesota | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
The downside I see with cloaking is it's quite the ace up the sleeve. I mean, it's hard enough when playing against a decent player to kill them off... imagine if they disappeared! You'd have to try randomly spraying bullets everywhere
It's definitely worth some consideration, of course, but needs some serious balancing, such as "1 hit kills you" or something like that.
Or maybe the effective obfuscation of the cloak is proportional to your distance from the ship viewing you... as you approach a ship you start fading into view
Another interesting idea for a weapon that could be easy is dropping a gravity well of some sort. You could just use the same code for the stars, and give it a decay or something.
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
No worse then warp. I mean, then you are anywhere, and not even spraying bullets will do any good. Perhaps when caught in plasma shield, it's turned off? so that when someone cloaks, you can turn on a shield, and try and find them. you can't get hit AND they might decloak.
-------------------- Any and all velca will be added to your personal hahta in Angamando. Posts: 711 | From: Chanhassen, Minnesota | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Actually, since we're talking vectors here, is there any reason we couldn't construct 3d'ish objects that could be used in game? For example, 3d walls...?
That might be pretty nifty. Some creative individuals could probably work wonders w/ something like that.
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
I suspect 3d walls would just make the flat ship layer look all the flatter..
But something I think would look nice (but probably would never happen) would be to have some sort of black-hole vortex thing 'down in the jelly'
Sort of a swirling tornado of particles where the ship plane was at the top (fat) end of the tornado, and the pointy end was down into the jelly below the ship plane. (I mean down where the little stars are.)
It could be something bad. Maybe a wormhole that periodically opened and closed....
Or perhaps even a mode during which all the stars moved around, just to add some visual chaos...
Just blabberin' UNlikely to happen or anything... just cause some epileptic seizures or something.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
Your pups are already 3d... Can ships be made in 3d? I figure if everything is gonna be vector based 3d graphics, at least we can exploit that a little...
[I promise, I WILL work on the ship editor And yes, I would like the ships to be 3D after a fashion. They will still need to be pretty simple to remain compatible with my "artistic vision" (group laugh) synJet is the playground for simplistic colored polygon user graphics, and Rocket Club for full on 3D. -s]
[ 01-16-2004, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: samsyn ]
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Any lag would be added by gameplay features more than layout and graphical changes... that stuffs all processed locally on your machine, and doesn't need the network.
One great thing about the vectors are that every design aspect can be self contained in the .ini file.
What I would LIKE to see:
* Designable Ships, stored in the .ini. + This way, map designers could provide some custom ships for their map. Maybe they could force specific 'skins' and even stats per ship type. That way certain restrictions can be imposed... such as only some ships get certain powerups, limiting speed to a max, etc.
* Designable WALLS, stored in the .ini + Hey, no extra files needed (As in, .bmp etc.). And if you make the ships 3d, then the 3d walls shouldn't make the ships feel flat, right? Custom maps could get really cool if a designer feels creative. Multiple wall type specification?
* Pups should remain hard coded in design, and carry from one level to the other. + Or there might end up being some confusion.
* FILLS! This would be nice. + If we can't have texture fills, maybe just color fills? That way we could give some sense of depth and shading to any vector drawn 3d graphics. This would REALLY enhance the appearance.
Of course, the more extensible and customizable/modifiable the game becomes, the more interesting results that can come about. Then you have the players doing all the work in regards to coming up with original and fun ways to PLAY the game. When Quake3Arena came out a million mods do too. Not many people bothered with the original game format after a while, instead favoring original and interesting modifications of the initial idea.
[ 01-16-2004, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Volte6 ]
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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That's two potential weapons I think would be useful. A repulsor (not uncommon in many games...) Would reflect or bounce away a projectile (Or maybe just curve it away a bit, like a reverse gravity).
Weapon knockback would be fun, and could make for some interesting game types, likc trying to knock somebody into a 'death zone', or whatever. That could be a whole new type of arena Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Yeah, back in the day, when you would try to fly in circles fast, it would loop in on itself. Was really weird.
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
OK, I just added gamePad support to synSpace (too soon to be released, sorry, since I have to let you turn it on/off, pick which port, select buttons, etc.)
and... I suck with a gamepad.
Also, it might be better with engine controls (fwd/back) on buttons insted of using up/down on gamepad. BUt I have the 'shift key' as a button, which makes it more convenient to use d-pad for engines (plus that MAKES SENSE).. I just seem to be unable to push left/right without also hitting up/dwn
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
That's probably because it's a cheapo gamepad Dan. If you used a Playstation controller or something like that, they are built really well, and are much easier to use than the cheap ones.
Posts: 948 | From: Woodland Hills, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 2000
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* Includes the maps I had acquired... hope this doesn't overwrite anything I had an older version of! Map Designers are encouraged to keep safe backups outside the maps folder..
* Includes first pass GAMEPAD support. To enable gamepad, you need to open the options screen, press the CONTROL PREFERENCES button and select from the drop down. GamePads dont' seem to give themselves very creative names, so you will probably need to know where your gamepad is, if you have more than one.
Basically each button of the gamepad maps onto a keyboard control. You are stuck with my mapping for now, which is:
D-PAD --> Arrow Keys Button1 --> trigger (also ENLISTS new ship) B2 --> SHIFT key B3 --> CTRL key B4 --> END key B5 --> PGDN (also steps current weapon to left) B6 --> PGUP (also steps current wpn to right) B7 --> trigger B8 --> trigger B10 --> trigger
This felt pretty nice for my Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad (has 3 big buttons A/B/C and 3 little buttons x/y/z)
Feel free to whine.
I figger the two main buttons are correct for average user (trigger and shift)
Hold CTRL and d-pad for view, just like keyboard.
Still have to use F5-F8 on keyboard only.
OH, just because you turn on gamepad support, the keyboard should still work as well.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
I have a really old game pad and it only has 4 buttons and a D-Pad and it works fine for me. Posts: 2030 | From: Stupid Ohio | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
I"ve seen people who have created their own maps and I am wondering how you do this. Anyways, I think the cloak and cloak detectors are good ideas, any idea when they can be implemented?
Posts: 5 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
To make maps you can either edit text(ini) files manually with a text editor. All of the details are in the map0.ini file.
You can also use Mosquito's map editor. Last time I checked his site was not working, so I could not download from it. I had it hosted on my site as well, but that too is down (although only temporarily.) If you message me on AIM when I'm on, I'll send it to you. SN: GuppyGMan
Posts: 2675 | From: Washington | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
If any big changes come to map making, instead of fixing my map editor I will completely redo it from scratch. There are two reasons for this:
- All the "cool" visual effects I tried put into it just get in the way, which makes it difficult to use. It is kinda sloppy. I could have done better with some Windows parent/child window thing.
- I wrote the code so sloppily that there is no way I can go back to it and change something. I didn't document it at all. Now that I have taken some college programming classes, I can do this properly. And then, I will release the source code because I have learned a thing or two from Linux philosophy.
If (or when) I do redo it, it will be so much better and easier to use.
posted
Ok, it is my spring break and I have nothing better to do, so I began my quest:
Ha! Look, I can't spell clipboard!
It is about 75% done with basic map editing functionality. So, in a few more hours, it will be as functional as the original. And then a few more hours after that, even better. I plan to port the caligraphy right over so that will definitely be in it.
What is cool about this one is that almost all of the data concerning map information (that 0 means bouncy barrier, that 3 means trigger and bullets are disabled) are stored in ASCI dat files. If Dan adds something to synSpace, no recompile is needed. All you have to do is change a line in the dat file.
I will compile my completed work either tonight or tommorrow and release all the code with it. The code it beautiful. It is the best VB code I ever wrote. You guys will love it.
I imagine bugs will be found over the course of the next few weeks after compile, so I will take care of those as they come in.
By the way, I need an icon for the program. So, if anyone wants to make an icon for me, that would be awesome.
I wrote it in VB5 so I think you need VB5 or higher to open the source code inside VB. You can peek without having VB because it is all stored as ASCII anyways.
What is nice about this new one is: -It is open to easily expand. -Well documented. -User does not have to work with indexing. You can drop in PUPs and stars as easily as walls. -Along the same lines as no indexing, it is easy to delete anything. Open up the "Selector" and you can right-click delete anything. -Easily turn on and off the random powerups. (look under Editing Tools>Powerups)
One bad thing: -The Undo does not work. I have to figure out exactly how I am going to do that. If I am feeling ambitious, I will make a history list in its own window that would work like Photoshop's history list. :-)
Next, I will work on adding the old caligraphy (sp?) and some other new features: -Optomizer: This will look over the map for bad spots such as overlapping barriers, incorrectly overlapping zones, barriers that are end on end (and combine them). If you have any other ideas for the optomizer, tell me now. -Copy area tool. You can drag out an area to select a bunch of barriers/objects. Then copy, rotate, and paste. -Fill area tool. This will make it easier to fill and area with parrallel lines which you guys like to do.
If you have any ideas, tell me and I can work on them.
posted
I like it Mosq, alot better than the old, now all I need is to care enough to make a map Posts: 3361 | From: Midland, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 2001
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When you save it doesn't automatically tack on the .ini this is not a large problem, but something that should be done.
Hitting new does not work the way I'd think it would.
I hit new and a box pops up asking if I want to clear the current map. I hit yes and nothing obvious happens. The old map window still stays painted. However, if I close the current map window and open it manually via the menus a new blank version pops up.
Also hitting new without a map already on the screen fails to open the map window automatically.....not necassary, but it seems more intuitive to me...
Also updating between windows needs work. What do I mean by this? If I draw some barriers on the map and then change the color table, the map window does not update until something else is drawn.
Changes to the Pain table are not actually saved at all, nor updated for barriers/zones/etc. (To show this, open the pain table and change something then close it and open it again, the values will be back to their defaults.)
Consistency between other Window's programs would be nice also. For instance, having the "window" menu be a checked menu. The first click opens the window, the second closes it, and there are check marks indicating which ones are open.
Also a Save and Save As.. difference would be nice too.
for undo, since a map file is relatively small, perhaps you could just save a temporary file after each change... say create some temporary folder and call the first file temp1, the next temp2, etc. Keep track of the highest number in a given editing session (don't want to undo from a different session) and reset to 0 when switching maps.
Then undo/redo is as simple as reloading one of the temp files and bumping the 'next/max' counter.
Rather than trying to maintain an in-memory description of the user commands and applying reverse changes.
And perhaps a finite number of temp buffers would be OK... say 20 level undo? though it gets a little trickier to keep track of both the newest and oldest offsets. Similar to circular queue management
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
Ok, thanks for the notes. I love having people find these things for me. :-)
Here's what i fixed: - Great idea with the ".ini" thing. It will now add it only if the filter is set to "*.ini" (and if it doesn t have the .ini)
- Ok, I set it so that the map is open when the program starts up and I set the map to reset (and open) when you click New.
- I totally forgot to make the pain table work. Completely. The only code there was the code that set the thing up. That's all better now.
- The reason why you can change something in one window and have it not update elsewhere is because I wrote the code that is changing something before there was code to do something such as "redraw the map." I created a whole new function to handle window refreshing. I have added a call to the function everywhere I can find. Tell me if it is needed elsewhere.
- Ok, the checkbox window thingy is working and I really like it. Great idea! It does make things easier.
- The way I already had everything set up allowed me to do the "Save as" very easily. So that is all set up.
I will rerelease everything and recompile after I complete some new tools. I will also work on the Undo thing. I will probably go with Dan's idea because it sounds very good.
On a further note about the updating the map after making a change, say in the color table. There is also the problem of having the other windows update as well. If you have both the barrier editing tool open and the color table, a change in the color table is not reflected in the editing tools. The colored box does not change. The same would probably go for the pain section.
Posts: 2675 | From: Washington | Registered: Dec 1998
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- I set up the Undo just like Dan said to and it works beautifully! That was awesome. It is all handled by two functions now. One to set an undo and one to do the undo. When the program stars it creates an undo directory and when it closes, it deletes the undo directory.
- Yes, GM, the function that updates the display can be put anywhere. I already put it with the Color Table. Its kinda neat because as you change the color, even the colors on the map change as you type.
- I am almost done with the Optimizer. It does not quite work as originally planned, but it almost works. I have run into some problem with my zones that I cannot figure out and it is causing the Optimizer to function incorrectly.
Posts: 1443 | From: Penn State | Registered: Apr 2001
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When cloaked, you stop drawing their ship. But, as a penalty, just like Warpath, cloaking gives you level 0 shields.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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