Messages

101

Mandate Engine / Re: Beta Release(Game, not Engine)

« on: 3 October 2013, 22:22:25 »

So as I've been slowly adding content and getting basic gameplay running, I've noticed some bugs and oversights that I needed to handle.

There was a bug where levels did not work properly, and there is still a small issue, namely the faction designer needs to set the base exp for each set of levels so that it gives the proper value. But levels now work properly.

I had a problem when I was setting up scenarios. Basically how to scale the enemy power over time which I finally got fixed.

There are two things you can do. So first you have an ability to add a plus value whereby every time the createdUnit ticks on the spawn/lair it adds that value to the total production moving forward.

So with 3 + 1 and 2 minutes on the clock you get 3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12. So the number of enemy units quadruples over 20 minutes.

You can also set a delay so you can make a separate unit production that only triggers at some later time.

So maybe its a 3 + 1 spawn with a 2 minute timer that triggers at 12 minutes.

That means that you would have this growth instead:

3/4/5/6/7/8/12/14/16/18. So 6x as many units over the same period.

This gives you a lot more options than just the original system where you could only set the repeated spawn time.

Now you still have the same amount of possible units per spawn/lair as set by the modder so if you don't kill off monsters their numbers won't explode infinitely.

I did end up getting my ADHD meds although the psychologist insists that I have a different problem also. Hopefully I can make a lot of progress once I've been on them long enough to create a noticeable effect.

Anyways probably next I'm going to add in a couple more orders besides defender, set up levels for all the ordermembers, then add their special stuff. Then I may work on the economy more. And alternate that to keep my interest.

102

Feature requests / Re: Replace attack-strenght by attack-strength over time

« on: 2 October 2013, 18:09:31 »

Starting at line 765 of skill_type.ccp take out this:

765    attackStrength= sn->getChild("attack-strenght")->getAttribute("value")->getIntValue();

And add this:

const XmlNode *attackStrengthNode = sn->getChild("attack-strength", 0, false);
if (attackStrengthNode) {
    attackStrength = attackStrengthNode->getAttribute("value")->getIntValue();
} else {
    attackStrength = sn->getChild("attack-strenght")->getAttribute("value")->getIntValue();
}

Problem solved.

103

Mandate Engine / Beta Profiling

« on: 1 October 2013, 18:58:25 »

Well, it's been longer than I thought, and there is still more to go, but I am finally getting really active about this. Also I may be getting on meds for my ADHD, wooooooo drugs!, so that should make me a lot more productive.

I have gotten some basic gameplay in and doing some early rough balancing on stuff and I decided to do some profiling and it appears that my lack for education has not caused me to write unperformant code.

There are three things taking up the majority of CPU time:
Doing the animating of the units takes the most time when profiling the release version, a majority of the total time
Doing the rendering of minimap stuff takes the second most time, maybe 10/20%
Doing command updates on units, almost entirely the updateGeneric function in attack commands is third

The most amount of time, probably 60-70% of CPU times is taken up on graphical stuff, and since I only have like 60 units going, that value will probably increase, both the minimap textures and the unit animations.

Of the actual game logic only the updateGeneric that deals with selecting attack targets for an attack command takes any significant time. It still doesn't take much so I probably won't mess with it unless when I get 400+ units on the maps it starts to take the most time. Based on profiling it seems like the majority of the time is taken up by pathfinding. Like 80-90% of updateGeneric()'s CPU time. The reason its under attack commands is probably because I give more attack commands from the new AI than move commands.

So basically, animations, textures for the animated minimap, and pathfinding take up all the time. The game still runs crazy smooth though under release mode, even with the profiler running.

Assuming my ADHD doesn't kick in hard, and I can spend the same amount of time every day as I have today and yesterday, its probably gonna be another weak to beta, of the game not the engine, release. Then I'll probably have to do a ton of play testing to make sure stuff is logical.

104

Feature requests / Re: Continuous mode (dead factions replaced by new ones)

« on: 1 October 2013, 17:37:09 »

You would need a 1024x1024 map AT LEAST for this to be at all viable. Also since late game would last so long the unit counts would be huge.

Not sure most computers could really handle something like that.

105

Feature requests / Re: Continuous mode (dead factions replaced by new ones)

« on: 30 September 2013, 20:14:44 »

Honestly that is not really a feature for an RTS game. Maybe you should play some paradox games. That style is more suited to grand strategy.

I am doing a much longer game length in my project, like 8 hours a map or something but, its not an RTS really and its not even 1/10th the length of a paradox game.

As far as respawning players, this won't work because the living player would simply have armies all over the map. The map sizes in Glest derivatives are WAY too small for this. If you want to avoid building up each time just have a scenario where players start with a ton of stuff or something.

You should consider that maybe you shouldn't want a single game/engine to contain what are essentially dozens of different games.

TBS, Grand Strategy, RTS, Wargames, Citybuilders and so forth really need to stay in their own genres because mix and match rarely works well.

106

Mods / Re: How to make an upgrade researchable more than once?

« on: 23 September 2013, 14:51:07 »

Hello , i have found a market model online , successfully imported it into the game , created the building... I am trying to create a market that would function like this..

It would have upgrades {buy resources buttons , that would increase one resource while decreasing the other one} However I am not able to research an upgrade {buy wood for example} more than once so I can only perform the action one time. {buy wood} Any solutions?

This seems like a really weird use for upgrades. You may want to try making a size 0 unit and set the resource costs on the unit to negative for the ones you want to make more of and maybe give it 0 health so it dies instantly. You can buy any number of units of course so you can do it as much as you want.

107

MegaGlest / Re: Mega Glest is a kind of "Cookie Clicker" actually

« on: 16 September 2013, 10:53:46 »

Um, Titi, having a queue or an automatic produce this unit over and over function would not allow you to make a crap ton of units. You are still resource limited.

Professional starcraft players say that you always wants to keep your resources extremely low. And you also want to make sure you never have resources stuck in queue. Hence why they always track between every building constantly keeping a single unit and only a single unit in production at a time.

That has no effect on your resource count which is what determines your unit numbers. Its simply pointless micromanagement.

The only difference is that they would have MORE time to micro units in combat where, again its stupid, but at least there is some tactical value.

None of the things you talked about are in any way affected by being able to tick a check box to have a building produce a unit automatically. Even with this system if you want to change production you still have to go back and click through all the buildings to change to a new unit.

108

MegaGlest / Re: Mega Glest is a kind of "Cookie Clicker" actually

« on: 15 September 2013, 21:01:57 »

A pre-paid production queue of at most two things is actually useful to eliminate the clicking APS pause (in case it's unwanted, and even in starcraft, so much concentrated on micro, it is unwanted).

But it's too far from our discussion. When we are talking about lack of strategy, we cannot compensate it by decreasing value of micromanagement: this way we will only produce the game that lacks both strategy and micromanagement.

Games that lack excessive micromanagement and strategy are still better than games that have excessive micromanagement and lack strategy. Microing tons of barracks is not the same as microing units in combat who have situational abilities that you can apply tactically. Games are supposed to be about decisions. There is no decision in keeping one unit building in all building structures and doing it the same way every game.

Personally I don't care for excessive combat micromanagement like what happens in Starcraft either, but at least you can make an argument that its tactical, if not strategic.

109

MegaGlest / Re: Mega Glest is a kind of "Cookie Clicker" actually

« on: 14 September 2013, 18:57:14 »

Actually I am pretty sure you cannot do this. That would invalidate the checksum and probably cause out of sync errors or something.

110

MegaGlest / Re: Mega Glest is a kind of "Cookie Clicker" actually

« on: 14 September 2013, 18:38:41 »

Many RTS games need MANY clicks per second and that's an important part of MG too ( look at professional Warcraft3 or Strarcraft games!). Yes we want some micromanagement.
We don't want semi automated production where players just manage  production. We want it "real time" and human managed and played,
MG is not meant to be a management game . It's about sending/controlling units and fight with them .

I'm not sure I follow, having players click over each building in a set order to produce one unit per building and to always have each building making its one unit is a behavior you WANTED to have? Eww. This whole idea that that qualifies as macro or skill is one of the banes of strategy gaming. And mainline strategy gamers wonder why LOL is so popular.

Being able to hotkey through a ton of buildings keeping one unit building per building at all times is not something to aspire to. It's something to be horrified by. There is literally ZERO strategy in doing that.

111

Mandate Engine / Beta Release(Game, not Engine)

« on: 13 September 2013, 09:14:49 »

I am at the phase where I am comfortable moving away from programming to filling out the game content. I have been doing some math and I am projecting a beta release of my current game project in 14 days.

I will probably have to fill out some features with a little bit of light programming and correct bugs that I can't be aware of until I actually try to make a game that does what I want, but I'll primarily be connecting game content with currently functioning game mechanics that I've added.

I've got a plan for how stuff works and I'm going to build it up in stages. First I am going to build up the basic economy. So I have like 100 resources already ready and functioning and I am going to connect them to the items and buildings and each other.

Pretty typical city building chains like wheat->ground wheat+milk->bread. Maybe some liquor.

Currently I'm considering my process distribution. Do I want wheat fields, private mills, and baking sheds all on crop farms? Hard to decide. Also dreaming of the day I can play with the graphics code to modify a farm model at runtime based on what items(facilities in this case) are connected.

Anyways, once I hook up the basic economy and get the worker units set up, I plan to start setting up the related stuff. So educated citizens to be overseers of buildings, items that come from the processed resources and the improvements and enchantments of those items.

Once I get all that down I can finally move into the Orders/combat part.

112

Mandate Engine / Re: Crafting Or I Wish I Was An MMO: Part 1

« on: 7 September 2013, 05:58:31 »

Got a little distracted over some drama. Finishing up crafting. It won't have everything I want but good enough to get started and test things.

113

Closed feature requests / Re: Display coordinates of tile under mouse in the map editor

« on: 6 September 2013, 23:25:28 »

I believe it would be beneficial for map editing and scenario creation if the map editor displayed the coordinates for the tile the mouse is currently hovering over in the status bar in the window. This feature is seen in most modern image editors.

GAE does this no? Are you sure MG doesn't already have this?

114

Feature requests / Re: Lua scripting on maps (or "Maps are scenarios")

« on: 6 September 2013, 23:22:39 »

I think devs don't post on this because its never going to happen. Its just too much work for them.

115

Off topic / Re: 0ad doing a kickstarter

« on: 6 September 2013, 21:21:56 »

Just note that it's flexible funding, which I don't think Kickstarter has, so they get the money whether they reach the goal or not.

The new alpha is pretty good and they are paying Redfox, who is quite impressive, to do a lot of important stuff to make the engine better.

They have 7k of 160k already which isn't bad but not amazing either.

If 0AD can eventually get a solid part one beta release this could bring attention to a lot of other open source games since people will have to accept that a non-commerical game can be superior to commercial products.

Hell even Spring doesn't have as much potential as 0AD.

116

MegaGlest / Re: Is sourceforge still a reliable partner for OpenSource projects ?

« on: 6 September 2013, 20:29:00 »

I'm probably going to release the non-provisional Alpha of Mandate through Github rather than than Sourceforge, both for the reasons in this thread and because its one less thing to manage.

I definitely think its the better option.

117

Mandate Engine / Crafting Or I Wish I Was An MMO: Part 1

« on: 1 September 2013, 23:21:42 »

So I've more or less finished off events and special citizen generation which really only leaves me with one more major system to go.

Crafting.

Crafting in this project is more or less modeled on MMOs, mainly SWG style.

The special characters have a set of skill values related to every material and every item template as well as meta-item templates like bladed weapon and armor and metal and wood and so forth.

Most characters won't be particularly good at this. Your citizens will train up but its not a super fast process. Your best bet for getting good crafters is to create a city or district that causes your houses to spit out educated citizens well suited to crafting.

Materials start out raw like iron or and such. Through a main set of processes as well as tons of optional ones you refine the materials to get them as good as you can. You will have crafting skills related to processing. There tends to be a split between processors and item makers. It would be rare and somewhat inefficient to have one person do all the wohttps://forum.megaglest.org/Smileys/SoLoSMiLeYS1/scared.gifrk in an item chain. There are processing and crafting skills related to all materials and items/meta-items.

There are physical and magical processes for material optimization/preparation and also physical and magical actions to create good base items. On top of this some Guilds/Orders/Manufacturies can do special actions and enchantments and such either during processing, crafting, or afterwards in the case of enchantments and socketing and encrusting and so forth.

I'll probably finish up citizen generation today and get the basic crafting work done today or tomorrow and then I'll start hooking crafting up to citizens. Once the last connections between systems are made I'll be working on additions to the provisional faction to test out how things work in the actual game rather than in theory. If that goes well I start working on the content stuff, setting up Orders and Guilds and Manufacturies and then city building stuff like housing and services and markets and shit.

I figure I'll be getting serious about content starting next week after finishing stuff and working out bugs and incorrect behavior.

118

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 31 August 2013, 23:51:54 »

I had a lot of trouble getting started on this but I've finally gotten into the groove. I expect to finish character generation today or tomorrow and then move on to the final major system, crafting, although that may take all the way till next weekend.

I added a CitizenModifier class that I stuck in CreatableType so that both ItemType and UnitType can have access. Basically a Unit that can produce "educated citizens" will grab the getCitizenModifiers() function from all units in a given radius and average/combine them. It will also get the EducationLevel and Predisposition for the area.

The getCitizenModifiers function in the Unit class will grab the CitizenModifier from the UnitType it is plus the CitizenModifier from the type of every Item that building has equipped, since items can represent additional rooms and shit plus other stuff, and combine it into a single CitizenModifier which it sends to the unit trying to generate an "educated citizen."

The EducationLevel deals with education and culture based on what needs the Unit spawning the new citizen has met which will give a boost to all stats which will be modified by the CitizenModifiers it pulls from nearby units averaged out/combined. The Predisposition is drawn from the purpose of the area and mostly adds to character attributes for that purpose, so all magic related character stats or w/e.

Since the base class for "educated citizens is a special unit type with some base stats, then all the modifiers will be added up to that unit to get the final result. There will also be a random factor involved which mainly swaps some values around rather although it raises the total count of stats.

So you will have a ton of semi-randomly generated citizens and part of your job is to get them employed in the right areas and to cause your cities to generate citizens of proper stats for the Orders/Guilds/Factories and what not that that particular settlement supports.

Because you don't, for the most part, control your most powerful combat/research/production units directly your new task is to design, to the degree that you can, your settlements to produce units that support your desired strategy. Although of course you directly control your sovereign character who can do various things.

119

Feature requests / Re: archers shooting own units

« on: 29 August 2013, 19:51:16 »

Well obviously we would refund the EP of failed attacks. Although it may make more sense to deduct the EP after the attack hits anyways.

120

Feature requests / Re: archers shooting own units

« on: 29 August 2013, 17:27:17 »

Cancelling should be easy enough though, doing an isDead() check on the target and then not running the animation.

I am thinking something like edit "source/glest_game/world/unit_updater.cpp":
if(attackStartTime>=unit->getLastAnimProgressAsFloat() && attackStartTime<unit->getAnimProgressAsFloat()){
 startAttackParticleSystem(unit);
}
Maybe some "unit->targetRef.getUnit()->isDead()" check? I am not mg developer, so I might be easily wrong, but maybe it would be something in that spirit.

I haven't actually looked at the MG code. But that is what I would do assuming isDead() exists.

121

Feature requests / Re: archers shooting own units

« on: 29 August 2013, 16:55:17 »

We can't do this, it would cause the arrow to shoot before the archer actually is seen shooting it. The real solution is to have the attack be automatically redirected to the next enemy, or cancelled once the enemy' he was firing upon has died. Increasing the speed of the arrow projectile is the only option in the XMLs and that would hardly help.

Friendly fire happens, the bigger issue with archers is that they are incapable of hitting a moving target unless it is moving very slowly.

That last part is amazingly true.

As far as redirecting, that wouldn't work because you would have to initiate the command again to make the archer turn and face the target anyways so you might as well just cancel and let it pick a new target again.

Cancelling should be easy enough though, doing an isDead() check on the target and then not running the animation.

122

Feature requests / Re: archers shooting own units

« on: 29 August 2013, 16:40:00 »

Couldn't you just change the code to cancel more effectively if the target is dead?

Personally something I dislike about all Glest games is that ranged attacks can miss. Its totally unrealistic the way it happens because arrows travel much too fast for that. Certainly arrows can miss, but its not the same since that should happen even if the unit is standing still in that case and it doesn't. Plus it makes ranged units generally inferior.

123

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 29 August 2013, 16:12:14 »

Well, I've pretty much enabled most of the stuff for events. I guess I could chuck in a few more things to be trigger options and maybe add bonus triggers for the individual options rather than the whole event so someone who does such and such will get a bonus option, but I'm gonna try to move on to other stuff and get the thing totally working before adding extra customization.

I think I currently need to make the educated citizens generator as my first goal.

124

General discussion / Re: Status of Pets code?

« on: 27 August 2013, 03:00:16 »

When I was implementing the code for my Majesty-like project I needed behaviors where units could detect units attacking them or their owners. Its actually really similar to the pet system in a sense.

Orders own their members so the member will know if its Motherhouse or Chapterhouse is being attacked and run to defend it. This behavior is functioning. Since Orderhouses aren't mobile there is no follow behavior but that would be trivial to implement. The hierarchy code already implements group orders. A slight modification because you don't need a concrete formation would allow that to add following behavior to the defending one. In fact adventuring parties pretty much function exactly like pets, especially if they are following the sovereign on a mission.

If you still haven't implemented anything in a week or so and I've managed to keep focus I will post basically how my implementation works. I can't do a direct patch since Mandate is already far too divergent from GAE. According to the contributors tab on github I have added 120000 and removed 70000 lines of code. A lot of that is just reworks of mandate specific code though I think. I'm not really sure how Git calculates that.

The profiler hasn't displayed any problems with what I've done so hopefully it is sufficiently performant.

125

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 26 August 2013, 17:17:37 »

I've managed to enable several features of events. Still working out some issues. Mainly, how to target a specific unit or type of unit who meets requirements and how to separate bonuses to the sovereign vs the faction and so forth. If I can avoid having an attention attack it should be done this week.

After the long break I am trying to figure out what else I still have to finish before I focus on content. I think most of the remaining stuff involves linking data. So unit/item/upgrade requirements involving the new knowledge and character stats classes. And then enabling the spawning of randomized educated citizens that have stats and do higher level jobs. And finishing off crafting.

Then I can release a beta of the game, but not the engine in general, for testing, although I'll probably end up doing most of that myself.