Messages

126

MegaGlest / Re: I'm interested in coding for MG

« on: 26 August 2013, 03:00:40 »

I'm actually kidding. I have no idea what the big deal about pointers is. Pointers are easy peasy. Now const, fuck that. I hate const.

Finally, I thought I was the only one. Const correctness can be a nightmare. I suppose pointers to member functions are a rather complex, but I haven't had any real world use for them, yet.

I put down EU4 to work on Mandate and I'm regretting it already. *** const.

127

MegaGlest / Re: I'm interested in coding for MG

« on: 25 August 2013, 17:43:51 »

The pointers will come after you. In your dreams and nightmares. Just fair warning.

I've taken (and passed) the most difficult coding classes that my college has to offer, and pointers still scare me. *shudders*

I'm a much better Java programmer, but sadly, MG isn't written in Java...

I'm actually kidding. I have no idea what the big deal about pointers is. Pointers are easy peasy. Now const, fuck that. I hate const.

Can you explain why people are afraid of pointers?

128

MegaGlest / Re: I'm interested in coding for MG

« on: 25 August 2013, 15:44:50 »

The pointers will come after you. In your dreams and nightmares. Just fair warning.

129

MegaGlest / Re: I'm interested in coding for MG

« on: 25 August 2013, 01:41:15 »

So one day after I say he has been inactive for 6 weeks Zoythrus logs back into Glest. Typical...

130

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 25 August 2013, 01:23:52 »

Well after 175 hours of EU4 since it came out I am getting back to work. I have to get a nice large chunk of work done before the next distraction pwns me.

131

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

« on: 24 August 2013, 19:58:13 »

Hopefully titi or softcoder will way in with some detailed info on whether this will happen.

132

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

« on: 24 August 2013, 04:53:12 »

This would be quite a huge undertaking. Still it would be a massive improvement in modding capability.

Yes it is. However, I feel the engine is losing both modders and players. We need something big. This could be a big enough change to call it "MegaGlest version 4.0".

As well, as the post outlines, the changes are very easy to break up into more manageable pieces while maintaining usefulness. This can help pique interest (for testing and publicity). I'd also be interested in making some great dynamic maps if these features are implemented.

Is it losing modders and players? I know both GAE and MG lost some people like Gameboy to 0AD. And I haven't seen Zoythrus on for almost 2 months although he said he wanted to code for MG. But I doubt most people who play it would know about most of its possible open source competitors.

In any case, what you are suggesting would probably take like 50 or 60 or even more dedicated man hours.

133

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

« on: 24 August 2013, 04:41:51 »

This would be quite a huge undertaking. Still it would be a massive improvement in modding capability.

It would be pretty interesting to get terrain/biomes with effects. I wonder if Lua would be fast enough to check every tile to run effects though.

134

MegaGlest / Re: I'm interested in coding for MG

« on: 23 August 2013, 17:16:42 »

Zoythrus was last active on the forums about 6 weeks ago, so he is unlikely to respond very quickly unless he gets emails from this thread.

135

Forum discussion / Re: [Suggestion] MG calendar

« on: 22 August 2013, 18:41:34 »

And that's rhe reason of the limited number of players in Megaglest. Think about it.

For a lot of us the multiplayer isn't very fun.. the reason Megaglest isn't growing anymore is cause the content is the same, and each engine release is bringing less and less noticeable changes.

With a community as small as MG's a calender should help a lot.

Well most commercial games have the same content as they started with, too. Like Broodwar. Of course it has a huge player base and tons of great custom maps, too.

MG's content isn't of very high quality though, especially in the field of animation. (no offense to the creators) The gameplay is encouraged to be short and rather un-epic, and the techtrees don't expand any further than original Glest. My friend played Glest a bit and he got addicted for a little while, then I tried to show him MG and he thought it was just weird, completely lacking the tone of original Glest. Obviously something's different.

The thing about original Glest is that its not historical strategy, and ancient history games are perhaps the most common of all RTS. And also its art assets are massively higher in quality than any of the mods. They are somewhat comparable to 0AD minus the texture stuff 0AD has. If all the assets were of similar philosophy and quality, even having MG level graphics wouldn't necessarily be an issue, but its extremely jarring to see Glest assets in the same game as Megapack ones.

136

Forum discussion / Re: [Suggestion] MG calendar

« on: 22 August 2013, 15:35:53 »

And that's rhe reason of the limited number of players in Megaglest. Think about it.

For a lot of us the multiplayer isn't very fun.. the reason Megaglest isn't growing anymore is cause the content is the same, and each engine release is bringing less and less noticeable changes.

With a community as small as MG's a calender should help a lot.

Well most commercial games have the same content as they started with, too. Like Broodwar. Of course it has a huge player base and tons of great custom maps, too.

137

Feature requests / Re: Remove the stupid linux hint

« on: 17 August 2013, 01:49:00 »

Dude, the software is 110% free, it's just a little bit of playful and totally non-intrusive text because Titi is a fan of Linux. If you even can define that as adware, that's totally your problem man.

I love how its not just me and Omega anymore but several other people annoyed with the Linux bullshit. Soon the Oppressors will have to take us seriously! Down with the Linux master race!

138

General discussion / Re: [NOPE] Please read: Is the Glest Advanced Engine project dead?

« on: 12 August 2013, 14:19:00 »

Yes Lua AI would get rid of some problems. Look at MG, while Softcoder has made the AI a little more customizable to the user via XML it still has major problems with anything slightly different from original Glest designs.

So will this entail having an AI script continuously running in the background?

Damn, now I kinda wanna wait to do any work on my AI till we see what Silnarm does. I will still manage the current AI for Majesty-likes but probably wait for any other kind.

139

General discussion / Re: [NOPE] Please read: Is the Glest Advanced Engine project dead?

« on: 12 August 2013, 13:42:02 »

What stuff have you thought about working on? I think Hailstone or someone wanted to do multiplayer. Any other major changes planned?

Graphics (particle systems & shaders + modernising GL use).
AI (interface to Lua, reimplement current AI in Lua, and then start teaching it to use transports, boats, teleporting units etc)

As was my want previously, I am likely to 'wander' a bit

A Lua AI would certainly be interesting. I think 0AD does AI in JS which is similar since they are scripting languages, and I think Spring uses tons of Lua.

140

General discussion / Re: [NOPE] Please read: Is the Glest Advanced Engine project dead?

« on: 11 August 2013, 20:25:41 »

Depending on your progress, I may need to take glest up again.

I'll be spending what time I can on it, but that will probably not be much so progress is not likely to come fast. It is was it is.

... Particularly, what was the difference between master and the 0.4.x branch and why did we need that?

I think the idea was to keep 0.4.x for fixage only while new work could go on on master, probably could be merged up, will peruse the logs sometime this week and make sure nothing to dangerous is in there.

What stuff have you thought about working on? I think Hailstone or someone wanted to do multiplayer. Any other major changes planned?

141

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 11 August 2013, 20:05:37 »

Events will now pop up a dialogue box with choices and each one has a tooltip for what that choice will do. I would like to have a way to stick a larger image into the dialogue box at the top for flavor but currently it can only show a title and up to 8 choices with their associated flavor title. I am currently working to add flavor text to the tool tip and maybe some extra icons to display more info. I am working on getting it so that multiple events fire, queue up in a vector and as you handle each one the next will pop up in the event window. The game pauses while you deal with events.

Anyways I expect to have everything up and running mediumly well by Wednesday at the latest. I feel like I am finally getting to the point where I can start to focus on content and an actual release with a functioning tech tree. I can produce at least passable icons so my only real limit is object models. My blender skills are sub par because I haven't had time to practice much due to programming stuff.

I really wish I hadn't had that like 4 month period of inactivity but nothing I can do unless I wanna go on the pills. Also I had a few ideas I really liked during that break so its not a total loss.

142

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 10 August 2013, 18:46:09 »

Now this is what I like to happen. I appear to have got the system working with like 3 compiles and only 90 minutes of work. Firstly the new resource attribute, "polar", is ready and secondly you can now have resource requirements that don't subtract anything which is mainly for polar resources but also works with any other kind.

I implemented this under resources mainly to reduce code bloat. Saved maybe 2000-5000 lines over creating a separate system. I do have a few more things to do, mostly with the user interface. I want to separate polar resources into a different display from the resource bar since if they exist its important that players understand the difference.

Now I'm going to try and add minimum and maximum values for all the requirements. That way you can implement ranges as well as neutral options for the polar concepts.

I'm also going to try to add pop ups for events so you can tell what's going on and so that events with options will be usable.

143

Mandate Engine / Event Sytem(Basic Functions)

« on: 10 August 2013, 03:48:04 »

So the basics are up and running. What you can do, the triggers you can work with. With the basic system in place it shouldn't be a whole ton of work to extend the functionality.

Initially there are only the same things as require type, like units that need certain units or buildings.

I want to add a few other things.

Rather than just a minimum I want to have a minimum and a maximum. And since I'm using vectors, you can have multiple options for each item or resource or unit or upgrade or w/e you are using.

I have item and resource requirements that are local. I want to add that for events plus local units and so forth. Also timers.

Probably a bunch of other stuff as well.

For games that use player characters there will be events tied to all those as well, and I want to add some sort of morality system that links to events as well as the rest of the game.

Basically events and upgrades and maybe buildings and units you make/decide on/use generate good and bad energy of some kind. Actually, it can probably be just a resource with a slight modification. Opposing resources I guess. Wouldn't have to be good and evil. Anyways generating one cancels out any of the other before adding to itself. You could do good and evil, or nature vs technology. W/e. I guess this isn't specific to events but I'm adding it because it will be used to trigger events as well as control tech tree progress.

Basically being evil will allow you to generate karma with evil beings/societies who will give you knowledge and items and resources and units through events. Actually, this could be fun with the new AI. AI players may align with or assist you based on Opposing Concepts.

144

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 9 August 2013, 03:25:19 »

I just bought new headphones so I expect my productivity to rise massively after being headphoneless for like 11 months.

145

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 3 August 2013, 10:32:34 »

Nothing to frown upon, you will do it the way you want, and if it works, it's good!

This does seem to me that it would be more versatile if it was implemented with scripting, but that's just my opinion :-)

Oh no, I am sure you are correct. But I just have 0 experience with LUA/C++ integration. I was barely able to get myself to work on the project as it is, so I just need to use the method with the list friction for me.

146

Mandate Engine / Re: Event Sytem

« on: 2 August 2013, 06:28:56 »

Hi,
  Is this adding to the existing triggers and Lua callbacks, or a whole new system?  It seems to me you can do most of this already, by maintain your flags in Lua. Not that I know exactly what you're planning (description a bit vague so far) but extending the current TriggerManager and friends would get manu thumbs up from me.

I don't particularly want to deal with Lua. I know some people frown on essentially using XML as a trigger system but w/e. Maybe at some point I'll learn how to LUA but not now. If you've ever played something by Paradox, I am setting up an event system that works kinda like theirs on the user end. Basically you have a set of triggers, which I will extend as I progress in other game systems. Then a chance for events to trigger. It probably covers ground the current LUA stuff already does I guess.

I guess the main thing is that its separate from scenarios. So it'll work in the base game, its hooked to faction types, without a scenario. Events have flags and stuff and if you pick one option the other event chains will not trigger and such.

147

General discussion / Re: Compiling Glest 3.2.2

« on: 2 August 2013, 02:43:44 »

Why are you trying to compile Glest, which is no longer developed, and why are you posting about it in the GAE forum which is not about Glest?

I am not trying to be mean, but it seems like a couple weird choices.

148

Mandate Engine / Event Sytem

« on: 1 August 2013, 21:46:52 »

So now that I've dealt with some burnout, I am ready to do some more work. I am currently implementing events and it may take a while to iron out the kinks. I'd expect to spend a week on getting this up and running and working fast enough to avoid messing with the game.

This is going to take over a lot of the stuff that scenarios and shit did although those are not getting removed. There will be flags and such keeping track of what events have triggered.

This should add a lot more options to the game whether you are making a standard RTS campaign or something more like the exploratory strategy games I work on.

149

Feature requests / Re: Megapack Balance

« on: 27 July 2013, 18:01:00 »

I haven't looked at the ai code but i think the CPU AI already creates a list of attackable units. If it dosen't, how does it choose target if there are multiple?

I didn't say it didn't create a list. I said that was the most CPU intensive part of attacking. Calculating a list.

150

Closed feature requests / Re: [Invalid] Units should be able to have an aura

« on: 27 July 2013, 15:04:47 »

As for re opening this thread I want ask why this was marked as [Invalid] without any reply. I think it isn't such a bad idea. Can anyone answer why adding auras is a bad idea?

They use something called attack boost to approximate auras. So its [invalid] as a feature request because you can already do it, sort of.

MG has a sort of "close enough" feature policy, and they tend to focus primarily on bug fixes in the area of cross platform and network code rather than features.