Ender's Game revived once more

thecheat · Post by **thecheat** » Sat 25 Jun, 2005 3:45 pm

looks great dis I can see that it is almost finished... right?

now what was that ACCELERATE option that looked kinda strange...

PS I just got back from a 1 week camping trip so I get to ketchup (

)

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Sat 25 Jun, 2005 8:32 pm

Well, you know how in games like Advance Wars, or other turn-based strategy games, you just move a unit as many spaces within its movement range as you want in a turn? Well, this game takes place in space, so it doesn't work like that. If you want a unit to go somewhere, you have to speed it up in the direction you ant it to go. If you want it to get there quicker, you will have to speed it up more. You can't just click the space you want the unit to go. And when the unit is where you want it, you can't just make it stop there. You have to slow down first. So instead of controlling unti movement directly, instead you control their velocity, because it's in zero gravity.
The game is almost finished (the beta version I mean- the full version will not be out for a while, because the AI will be difficult to write), but I discovered a weird bug in XLIB that prevents progress for the moment in the area that still needs the most work.

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Sat 02 Jul, 2005 7:07 pm

More progress again- the bug with Xlib hasn't been fixed, but I found a way around it- it's slightly slower, but it isn't in a part where speed matters.

Spooner · Post by **Spooner** » Mon 18 Jul, 2005 9:25 pm

Up date please this sounds to cool to dye. Any info please.

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Wed 20 Jul, 2005 6:57 pm

Sorry, its not dead- my mom just had a bout of stupidity,s o I have almos no computer access, and on top of that I can't seem to find my calc.

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Mon 01 Aug, 2005 10:30 pm

Well, I finally found my calc again, and I'm getting snatches of computer time whenever possible, so work progresses.

crzyrbl · Post by **crzyrbl** » Wed 17 Aug, 2005 5:04 am

is this dead, or just on hold for Aura?

gangsta · Post by **gangsta** » Tue 08 Nov, 2005 11:19 pm

is this dead? or on hold?

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Wed 09 Nov, 2005 2:53 pm

Sort of on hold... I need an assembly programmer to port the physics engine, since it's ungodly slow in BASIC. Gimpynerd was going to do it, but he's disappeared...

Post by **kv83** » Wed 09 Nov, 2005 3:44 pm

dysfunction wrote:Sort of on hold... I need an assembly programmer to port the physics engine, since it's ungodly slow in BASIC. Gimpynerd was going to do it, but he's disappeared...

Maybe you can talk with tr1p, he is experienced with the basic <-> asm interface

Liazon · Post by **Liazon** » Thu 10 Nov, 2005 1:09 am

i thought if you knew both, you could easily port between the 2

DarkerLine · Post by **DarkerLine** » Thu 10 Nov, 2005 1:26 am

There's stuff such as editing strings or storing into Ans that normal assembly programs don't do.

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Thu 10 Nov, 2005 1:57 am

Actually, tr1p had offered to do it some time ago, but he is very busy right now.

Liazon · Post by **Liazon** » Thu 10 Nov, 2005 3:48 am

DarkerLine wrote:There's stuff such as editing strings or storing into Ans that normal assembly programs don't do.

so how does the ASM equivalent look? just a matter of manipulating the stack?

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Mon 14 Nov, 2005 12:19 am

Guys, I have a difficult decision to make. I am considering changing the direction of this project a bit. As much as I love the Ender's Game novel upon which this game is based, I am considering changing the plot. I think that my current battle system is too complicated and unwieldy, which is a result of the very- shall we say, unusual- weapons used in the book, which are actually pretty impractical for a TBS. Rather, I am considering taking the engine and adding very diffferent types of weapons, as well as removing the zero-gee element, which I think is somewhat akward in terms of gameplay. When ships reach the edge of the screen, they simply stop, which is very unrealistic, but necessary because of the limited screen size. The main weapon from the book, the Molecular Disruption Device, is also impractical for a TBS, since it destroys any ship it hits in one shot, as well as any ships within a certain radius. This is akward because in such a small map as is practical on the 83's ram, ships will tend to be grouped together rather closely, and each side will be able to wipe out very large numbers of enemy ships with a stroke. This also means that every ship has the same firepower as every other. Now, to balance this out a little, I added missiles, and made it so that only capital ships could fire the MD device, and those had to charge it for several turns before firing again. Missiles were also impractical in zero-gee since it is so difficult to predict where an enemy ship will be in the next turn.
I propose stripping out the zero-gee element, and changing the plot to one of my own devising. It will still involve space battles (since I'm such a scifi addict), but with more standard weapons such as beams and missiles. It will also have more variety in ships and objectives, such as resources/money, fuel, etc. This also completely strips out the need for most of the physics engine, and vastly simplifies the necessary AI. What do you guys think?