- Found the zone problem. It was because of how I set up the undo. When you selected a zone, it just held onto its ID value. When you deleted a zone, it saved an undo file. The save function cleaned up the zone array by getting rid of all Style=0. This changes the the IDs of the zones. When you go to delete a zone, it deletes the wrong one. That is all fixed now.
- The Optimizer is complete. The original idea was for it to create a list of problems and the user could select which ones to fix. This quickly became difficult. So now, it auto-fixes all errors. The way in which it fixes the errors will not effect the map functionality at all unless you are trying to exploit something in the game engine. For example, if you overlap two differnent color barriers to get some kind of visual effect, this will break it. But you can always undo.
- The Fill Area is complete. It works beautifully. It is barrier-expensive so be careful.
- New Delete Area tool. This tool will remove everything inside a selected area. You can set it to only delete barriers or zones or etc. This is good, for example, if you want to remove a Fill Area that is not longer Undoable.
- Save is disabled when it isn't possible. Also, the main title bar also displays the current filename (when there is one).
- I began some documentation. (readme.txt)
- I got sick of the VB icon and no one gave me one, so I made an icon.
posted
Ok, by variably spaced, I am guessing you mean to have the spacing based on a function where the current theme is a linear y=mx function (where you can change m). Volte, I guess you want spacing like y=mx^2. Now that is a good idea. If that is combined with, lets say, a zone "river" current, the arrangement of the barriers would indicate direction.
As for diagnal lines. I will make a tool for it. The user will have to decide how chopped up it will be (to control barrier usage). Should be easy to do. Now that I think about it, all it has to be is a checkbox in the regular barrier window ( [] enable diagnal barriers ). Thanks.
So, that leaves:
- Text Tool - One-Way Barrier Tool - Copy Tool - Diagnal Tool - Documentation - Variable Spacing in Fill Area? and - fix bugs
Posts: 1443 | From: Penn State | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
What it is interesting is running the optimizer on some older maps. The grand prix maps all have between 15 and 30 "problems" that are corrected by the optimzer. Many other maps have at least a few "problems."
Posts: 1443 | From: Penn State | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
More power-ups! I can see more weapons to add to the homing missile and proxie-mine, and more defencive weapon thingies to add to the shield and warp coil...
Weapons: Stun gun-slows ships to 1/4 max speed or something to that effect. Spray shot-shoots 40 or so regular shots in a circular path from your ship outward(like an explosion). Defencive: negative gravity-reverse of the gravity of a large sun, the negative sun being your ship for a short time. speed boost-double speed temporarally...
That would be like, samsyn level ownage.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I think the spray-shot would be better than the stun thing. Double speed would get fun.
Permanent records, would get odd. I wouldn't mind those records when there are no power-ups , because then it sometimes it's just senseless killing and people sit on homing missiles powerups and just homing everyone for as long as they can/feel like.
And as far as accuracy goes, I don't like that idea. Mainly due to the factor of lag, and that'd be really hard to keep track of. Because even if you hit on your screen you might of missed on theirs, and if you missed on your screen you just might of hit them on theirs. =P
-------------------- Sludge: long live the depression, is what I say, if it means continually cheaper prices! Posts: 308 | From: In a Blimp | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
There are 8 functional f# keys for synspace, if he added my weapons, you could fill them all up...
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
You could fill them all up, but other people might have better ideas. =)
-------------------- Sludge: long live the depression, is what I say, if it means continually cheaper prices! Posts: 308 | From: In a Blimp | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Thats why there is a toy preferances button
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Does that mean we can look forward to new weapons?
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I think that a cluster bomb of some kind would be good. It drops out the back of the ship like a mine, then about two or three seconds later it explodes, shooting out, damaging any ship in the vicinity. Stupid to use stationary, but an effective deterrent in a dogfight.
posted
Negative gravity is acting wierd. It attracts ships within a certian distance and repels those outside of it. I think the distance is influenced by mass, radius, or both.
-------------------- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Posts: 152 | From: yesterday | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
since that game hasn't changed in a billion years, I suspect you are using your old "hey. let's use a number 50x bigger than Dan expected" trick again, aren't you! Admit it!
Though I would have thought I would have used 'doubles' for that, so dunno how you could do that.
OK, I do use doubles.
When reading in the file though, I impose all sorts of limitations... like 8191 being a popular one..
the fifth star argument, in particular (the 'reach') of the star will be weird if you use a value greater than 8191. When you are beyond the 'reach' of a star, it should not affect you. The translation of 'reach' to pixels is not 1:1
the 'mass' should be around 1000 for a 'normal' star
---------
I played synSpace last night for the first time in a while. I like it :-)
EXCEPT, I got a better gamepad (more PS2-like) but it has a zillion buttons and none map nicely. So I need to make a button mapper.. and it needs to be part of Arcadia, so I can re-use it in the individual Toys, and save preferences on a per-toy basis.
And I think that will be something like this:
1.) a Dialog invoked by the Toy itself, but coded in Arcadia
2.) It has a section at the top showing the state of the 16(?) possibly gamepad buttons, so you can push a button and see it light up, to know its button number.
3.) It has a section of "named functions" where the names come from the toy itself and next to each name is either an edit box or a drop down combo which lets you specify which button to assign to that function.
And... I guess.. um... a separate section for joystick assignments... for which there are only 2.
And, um, I guess, a means to let you select which gamepad to use for the toy, if you have several... or something.. with some sort of planning for the POSSIBILITY of a single toy supporting mulitple gamepads so you could do multiplayer in solo mode, so to speak.
BUt simple and boring.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
If you are going to add a mapper...could you add one for the keyboard as well?
Playing on various laptops is rather difficult. They all seem to put the darn insert/end/etc keys in different places.
Also as far as negative gravity acting "weird"... I think this relates to an old bug that you said you would not fix.
"Normal" gravity has always acted weird in synspace. If you coast through a star you can usually make it through if you have certain amount of engines. If you coast in, and then on the way out fire your thrusters, which should counter act the gravity at least partially.... What does it do instead? It causes you to get pulled into the sun much faster. Why do you think so many new people die in the sun so much?
The GamePad Customization stuff took a lot longer than I budgeted. And I only feel 30% good about the design.
I will push a new Arcadia NOW, and a new synSpace right after that. If you upgrade in the wrong order, then... things.. might be weird for you.
the ONLY change in this release (I think) is the gamepad customizations.
Note: you have to enable gamepad use first and THEN customize, as I store the customizations per gamepad. (so if you have umpteen gamepads..)
Note: Windows supports '32 buttons' so I allow you to map all 32 of them, even though there are only.. um.. six actual functions in synSpaces (you can map many to one, for most of them)
Note: The D-Pad and analog sticks are NOT 'buttons' and so they are not mapped by today's changes. You should find yourself today with the same D-Pad you had yesterday.
posted
Not sure if this is a known bug or a hitherto unknown one, but this is kind of strange: players in the Park show through in the Game!
And yes, the capital letters are intentional.
The face moved around in an arc or in a straight line with me, and it only showed up when the player was moving around. Very strange. This was on an IPX LAN game (with my little sister, of all people! ).
Warning to dial-uppers: The image is a 1600x1200 PNG file, which you may want to avoid. It has an Arcadian "face" showing up on the space area in the game.
-------------------- Constantinople! We shall never forget your zany barge poles! Posts: 4232 | From: Gresham, OR | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
that's a feature. if you click on one of your toolbar emotion buttons, that is how people see your emotion changed.
technically I want ALL the toys to feature your arcadia face SOMEWHERE, but synSpace is one of the few that really does.
well, let's see.
synSpace, Domination, TurnAbout, pool, synSpades feature your face..
I should definitely add it to collaboration.. and synVille would work... synJet would need some justification like a diary, but maybe it would work with the selected target and splash messages... synVideo could show it during downloads... not sure where it would make sense in Empyrion... synJam is already too crowded... though showing just the moderator might work.. or a current bandmember screen if there were a compelling need for one.. which leaves.. um.. chess! oh yeah, I could definitely add it to chess.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
Flamelord, that image is smaller than this page...
-------------------- "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom" O.G. Posts: 4510 | From: Why would you want to know that? | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
You could add an argument to the empyrion editor to use a face instead of a bmp for a building image.
-------------------- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Posts: 152 | From: yesterday | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Um, it was flying around through space at the same rate my sister (the other player) was moving through the park. It wasn't just showing a face change, it was showing her face moving around where other ships should be flying around, and at its rate of movement, it was quite distracting.
I'm sure it's a bug. I can't believe that faces should bleed through like that; this would be the first time a feature in Arcadia didn't make sense.
[the official synSpace Face painting is as follows:
1.) I click on an emotion button
2.) everyone sees my face zoom from the distant left, to the center of the screen then out the front left, like it was riding on a phonograph turntable whose center was just off the left side of the screen.
3.) if you press another emotion before the first animation finishes, it restarts te animation from the back left again.
I can't really fantasize a park leakage bug, but I won't say it would be impossible
Push your own emotion buttons a bit. If it looks different, then it must be something different. -s]
posted
It moves in a circle along the left of the screen last I checked, coming in near the top and exiting near the bottom.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
The movement occurs not just when my sister was changing face emotions, but also as she was simply moving through the park near my representation in the park. Posts: 4232 | From: Gresham, OR | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
I doubt you'll ever see an update to his program, I haven't seen him around in forever.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Just an idea I had, but would it be possible to eventually have changing barriers? For example, every 30 seconds or so, the barrier type would change between maybe healing, a wall, damage, or it would just simply let you pass through at times.
-------------------- All is silent in the halls of the dead. Posts: 991 | From: The Abyss | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
Just to answer this question 10 years later. Yes, now you can have changing barriers in "synSpace for Android" also known as synSpace: Drone Runners
But I am really only posting this to bring a different topic to the top of the list since the current top has something slightly negative
So, blah blah blah, marketing message, blah blah blah, available on Amazon (for Kindle Fire) and in the Google Play Store. It runs on most android devices, but needs at least a 4" screen, I would say.
And just to duplicate words found in many other places, SS:DR is forwards compatible with arcadia:synSpace starmaps, but the new maps can now include scripting (in Lua) and that scripting can then make barriers change in response to time, game state, or other actions.
For example, I am currently working on a map called Defense of the Clones which is basically a DOTA clone, or my attempt there-at. That requires gates and towers that can be destroyed. To sense that sort of thing, the scripted portion of the map adds "NPCs" to the map, and they can be given health points and defense layers to adjust how long they hold up to weapons fire. At a certain point they 'die' and that sends a message to the script who then swaps out the barrier for something that indicates a break in the wall, for example. An NPC can either be invisible (just there to sense events and report to the script) but usually has a SHELL associated with it (on my map, the SHELL in question is supposed to look like the weapons turret, and I put on on either side of each 'gate' The two teams are trying to cross the map into the other team's clone reactor, to destroy it, and have to fight past enemy gates and minions (in addition to humans, but in theory I guess you could play this solo)
Anyway, your wish was heard, and granting took a mere decade!
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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