### Author Topic: [A:P] Documentation  (Read 11627 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

#### squidgetx

• Food.
• Project Author
• LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
• Posts: 1881
• Rating: +503/-17
• rawr.
##### [A:P] Documentation
« on: October 07, 2012, 01:01:11 pm »
Spoiler For Battle Engine Specifications:
The battle engine will be turn based, similar to Pokemon and other common RPG battle engine styles.

Battle Stats: (I've modified this slightly from the original, which was essentially Pokemon, in favor of a slightly different mechanic)
HP: Um, HP. Yeah, self explanatory
MP: MP
Strength: Determines damage potential, similar to Runescape Strength. Sets a max of possible damage.
Skill: Higher skill means higher likelihood of hitting high within your range. (RS attack)
Defense: All around defense, for both physical and mystical attacks
Speed: Determines who moves first
Mystic Strength: Magic strength
Mystic Skill: same (Names may change later on)
Battle Types
Unchanged from the original, there will be 6 battle types: 3 physical, 3 magical, each with their own stat tendencies. Similar to Pokemon, attacks will be typed and bonuses applied accordingly. Each type also has a limited move-learning ability and can only wield certain items. Overall, the mystic types are more unbalanced/interesting than the physical types.
-Warrior: Standard sword and shield dudes. Kind of a bunch of thugs
-Archer: Invisible snipers.
-Assassin: Glass cannons, fast but weak.

-Holy/Spirit: Religious zealots, only their God grants them magic powers. Watch out....
-Black/Shadow: Spawn of the night. Fast, poisonous, but even weaker than assassins.

Battle Calculations
Speed calculations: Unlike Pokemon, which uses a fairly black and white method for determining who is faster, my engine will use the following calculation: Speedplayer1/(Speedp1+Speedp2) is the chance that player 1 will go first. This will be realized by the condition rand^(speed1+speed2) > speed2

Damage calculation: Strength/Defense will basically be our indication of how hard we can hit so Strength*AttackPower/Defense is fine for setting the max of attack. Now, Skill will be used to determine the relationship between the actual damage and our base median figure. An unskilled fighter will have a large, low value set. A skilled fighter will be able to consistently hit in a high value, small set. So, we'll use an inverse relationship in which the range of damage is (256 - Skill)*dmg/256 This value will be subtracted from the maxdmg from the Strength/Defense section of the equ, making a level 1 skill fighter hitting anywhere from 0 to his max, while a level 256 skill fighter will always hit his max. This is then algebraically optimized to (Skill )*Max/256+Max. Attacks can have power levels generally capped at 256, while items will simply increase the stats of strength, attack, etc. Note that this means that if you can get your net skill over 256, say with a skill level of 200 and a sword of +100 skill, you can hit consistently over the "max damage" determined by the Strength/Defense calculation. If at any point overflow is detected, the damage calculation subroutine will exit and simply return 65535 as the amount of damage to be dealt.

There will be a type-advantage mechanic nearly identical to Pokemon's. Table below:
x Wr Ar As Ho Un Bl
Wr 1  2  1  2  .5 .5
Ar 2  1  2  2  .5 0
As 2  1  .5 1  1  1
Ho .5 1  .5 1  2  2
Un 1  1  1  1  1  1
Bl 1  1  2  .5 1  1

Stat Calculation
Stat calculations will follow the following formula:
Stat = (BaseStat*16 + TrainingExpValue) * Level / 100 + 5

Base stats for the player types here:
HP MP Str Skl Spe Def MSt MSk Total
Wr 12 8  12  8   9  10  8   8   74
Ar 11  9   10  12  11  7   8   8   80
As 9  7   13  13  13  5   7   9   86
Ho 12 11 5   5   9   9   12   12  75
Un 14 10 15  7   6   12   12   6   82
Bl 5  10  12  12  15  4  13  14   87

TrainingExpValue is determined by what moves you use. Every time you use a certain type move, the corresponding stat for total "points" will be incremented. Points convert to TrainingExpValue by dividing by 8.

With this system, the highest a stat can be (not minding the TEV) is the Black/Shadow lvl 100 speed, which is 245.

Levels are grown with experience via the following formula:
To grow to level n, you need:
exp(n) = 2n^2+2n
samples exp(6) = 84XP
exp(30) = 1860XP
exp(60) = 7320XP
exp(100) = 20200XP

Instead of bothering to keep track of total XP, I'll only keep track of how much to the next level, avoiding annoying overflow problems, plus I'll save a few bytes in the calculations too .

Enemies will give experience simply by averaging all their stats together then multiplying by a constant. I'll figure out what that constant is, but as a rough rule of thumb lvl 100 enemies will give roughly 2k xp and lvl 3 enemies will give ~10 xp.

___________________
|Player save files|
|_________________|

L4: Available space: $100$00-$09:Player Name (9 chars, 1 null terminator)$0A-$oB:Xpos$0C-$0D:Ypos$0E-$0F:MapID$10-$11:OverworldX$12-$13:OverworldY$14-$15:Money$16-$17:XP to next level ;Battle stats$18-$19:Level$1A-$1B:Player Type$1C-$1D:Strength$1E-$1F:Skill$20-$21:Speed$22-$23:MStr$24-$25:MSkl$26-$27:Def$28-$29:HP$2A-$2B:MP$2C-$2D:Weapon attacks (2)$30-$33:Skills (4)$34-$39:Type XP$3A-$3F:Equipped items ;weapon, shield, armor, hat, amulet, 6th item?$40-$7F:Items ;Items- Item ID, qty.$20 item slots (32d)
$80-$9F:Player flags      ;$20 player flags (32 bytes, 64 nibbles, 256 bits) _______ |Flags| ________ Memory Allocations$8000 section:metadata swap-in space
$8000-$801A: Map Metadata
$801C-$801D: Direction player is facing
$8020-$8036: Item Metadata
$8040-$8056: Move Metadata
$8058-$8096: Swap area for drawing bitmaps

L1: map spritebuffer (384) map char-store-area (64)
L1+500: list item freeram (battle moves, items, etc)
L2: NPC convos
L3: backbuf
L4: Player save data
L5: Enemy battle info
L6: frontbuf
tempvar: map
tempvar+1024: overworld map
tempvar+1152: sprite anim

There will be a master-map...a tilemap of map pieces...each map 'piece' will be 32x32 tiles

____________
------------

$1B bytes per entry$00-$15:name (21 characters, plus null terminator) (MName)$16:   tileset                (MapTS)
$17: avg level of enemies (AvgLv)$18:   enemy type 1                (Ene1)
$19: enemy type 2 (Ene2)$1A:    enemy type 3                (Ene3)

_____________
_____________

$17 bytes per entry$00-$0F:item name (15 chars, plus null terminator) (IName)$10-$11:itemID (ItID)r$12:   equip or useable?             (IFlag)
$13: stat to affect (0-7) (IStat)$14:   how many points to increase/decrease       (IStat+1)
$15: stat to affect 2 (IStat+2)$16:   points to inc/dec 2             (IStat+3)

_____________
_____________

$17 bytes per entry$00-$0F: move name (15 chars, plus null terminator) (AName)$10: move type                   (Atype)
$11: move animation (AAnim)$12: damage                  (Admg)
$13: stat to boost1 (AStat)$14: amt to boost               (AStat+1)
$15: stat to boost2 (AStat+2)$16: amt. to boost2               (AStat+3)

There will be a master-map...a tilemap of map pieces...each map 'piece' will be 32x32 tiles

____________
------------

$1B bytes per entry$00-$15:name (21 characters, plus null terminator)$16:   tileset (might not use this, since now maps have access to 192 tiles at once)
$17: avg level of enemies$18:   enemy type 1
$19: enemy type 2$1A:    enemy type 3

_____________
_____________

$17 bytes per entry$00-$0F:item name (15 chars, plus null terminator)$10-$11:itemID$12:   equip or useable?
$13: stat to affect (0-7)$14:   how many points to increase/decrease
$15: stat to affect 2$16:   points to inc/dec 2

_____________
_____________

$17 bytes per entry$00-$0F: move name (15 chars, plus null terminator)$10: move type
$11: move animation$12: damage
$13: stat to boost1$14: amt to boost
$15: stat to boost2$16: amt. to boost2

Spoiler For Program spec:

*********
*Outline*
*********

Title Screen
Draw title screen

if new game
new game*
else
end

setup*

loop
end
if arrow key
move*
end
if interact ket
interact*
end
counter++
if counter = battlecounter
battle*
battlecounter = random
end

dispgraphrr
end

**********
*New game*
**********
intro cutscene*
run cutscene* 0
pokemon style input box
set new player values
zero everythign
set level to 5
call stat calculation*

***********
***********
find save file
copy into L4

*******
*Setup*
*******

Draw Map()

***********
***********
>Items
loop items, display in list (L1+500)
upon selecting item, use/equip, or drop
use> look up behavior
equip> equip that shit
>Save
save game;
>Quit

********
*Moving*
********

if still centered movement:

for 8
shift screen in direction of movement
draw shifted in sprites
show screen
draw
end
for 4
shift screen
draw shifted in sprites
show screen
end
increment x, y accordingly

otherwise

draw tiles over character
move character

if character moving off of edge of map
check if other map available*
scroll whole screen over
change coordinates accordingly to fit onto new map

**********
*Interact*
**********
Search npc database
>if found, npc()*
otherwise, search trigger tile database
>if found, npc()*

*****
*NPC*
*****

Copy from embers/old version of Ash
look up convo from argument in npc meta
load convo into L1+10 or somethingg
execute...

Slight change, all npc routine vars stay in L1
L1,L1+1 size of convo
L1+2,L1+3: position in convo

********
*battle*
********

calculate enemy, level, stats of enemy, etc...his battle stats will go into L5

DrawBattleScreen:
draw character
draw enemy
draw hp boxes
draw action box

playeraction:
select action
>attack
>item (just run item routine)
>run
Attacking:
display list of moves
select, execute
AttacK:
damage formula, animate, apply stat changes, etc

enemyaction:
random move select
attack
animating:
erase player sprite
apply animation

Loop
decide who goes first
if bla
playeraction()
enemy action
else
enemyaction
playeraction()
drawbattlescreen
end

End of battle recalculate stats...this will reset battle stat changes and also enable stats to change slightly due to EVs w/o leveling up

return
L1 not touched, npc data remains secure

« Last Edit: November 03, 2012, 02:43:35 pm by squidgetx »

#### TIfanx1999

• ಠ_ಠ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
• CoT Emeritus
• LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
• Posts: 6173
• Rating: +191/-9
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2012, 02:32:28 pm »
Ah, I always love talk about battle engines.

#### Streetwalrus

• LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
• Posts: 3821
• Rating: +80/-8
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2012, 06:05:16 am »
Yay for an awesome project that semms to sart up again ! (BTW, I should start exploring these forums a bit more )

Edit : Actually read this post. Battle mechanics seem very good. Also for the NPC handling, I have a good idea of what could be called "(tile)entities" (yay for stealing names from an other game). Basically an additional map storing IDs, then the engine refers to a unique list for each map to know what to do with it. It would work for NPCs, but also interactive tiles and warp tiles.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2012, 06:19:44 am by Streetwalker »

#### squidgetx

• Food.
• Project Author
• LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
• Posts: 1881
• Rating: +503/-17
• rawr.
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #3 on: October 09, 2012, 01:39:01 pm »
... for the NPC handling, I have a good idea of what could be called "(tile)entities" (yay for stealing names from an other game). Basically an additional map storing IDs, then the engine refers to a unique list for each map to know what to do with it. It would work for NPCs, but also interactive tiles and warp tiles.

Yeah, that's what I did with Embers and for the old version of Ash. So I kinda hacked together NPCs by putting them in as tiles in the tilemap and then marking them as interactive tiles haha. This time I won't cheat and I'll include sprite and movement data to have dynamic (moving) NPCs an such.

#### Streetwalrus

• LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
• Posts: 3821
• Rating: +80/-8
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2012, 04:33:49 pm »
... for the NPC handling, I have a good idea of what could be called "(tile)entities" (yay for stealing names from an other game). Basically an additional map storing IDs, then the engine refers to a unique list for each map to know what to do with it. It would work for NPCs, but also interactive tiles and warp tiles.

Yeah, that's what I did with Embers and for the old version of Ash. So I kinda hacked together NPCs by putting them in as tiles in the tilemap and then marking them as interactive tiles haha. This time I won't cheat and I'll include sprite and movement data to have dynamic (moving) NPCs an such.

Ah. My idea works just fine w/ static NPCs and no AI, but if you want to get fancy as Pokémon, it'll require a bit more work.

#### Streetwalrus

• LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
• Posts: 3821
• Rating: +80/-8
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2012, 07:57:56 am »
(Couple days since the previous one so I think it's permitted to double post.)

Anyway Squid, if you need some help, I'd like you to know I'll be more than happy to contribute.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2012, 07:58:16 am by Streetwalker »

#### squidgetx

• Food.
• Project Author
• LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
• Posts: 1881
• Rating: +503/-17
• rawr.
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #6 on: October 13, 2012, 01:56:31 pm »
I can't decide whether I want to use the same tile/map scheme as I did before, where the tiles were nibbles and each map had its own nibbleset. I remember feeling constricted by only having 16 tiles. I can't have every map able to access every tile, though (not enough RAM for practical use). Thoughts?

Just for reference, a set of 16 12x12 (same as 16x16) 4scale tiles is 1024 bytes. I think that having each map limited to 32 tiles is sufficient, but it seems like a massive waste when you realize that then that means every map doubles in size =/

Actually, I might just go for that, since I was going to RLE the maps anyway...

edit: Over the course of writing my post I ended up deciding what I was going to do, lol
« Last Edit: October 13, 2012, 02:01:47 pm by squidgetx »

#### leafy

• CoT Emeritus
• LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
• Posts: 1554
• Rating: +475/-97
• Seizon senryakuuuu!
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2012, 08:40:17 pm »
Squidgetx, just wondering - do you have extra data that stores your enemies, NPCs, and whatnot? Or is it all built into tiles on the tilemap?
In-progress: Graviter (...)

#### DJ Omnimaga

• Former TI programmer
• CoT Emeritus
• LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
• Posts: 55872
• Rating: +3151/-232
• CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2012, 09:30:22 pm »
Nice that you post this. Sometimes battle formulas can be quite interesting for RPGs. Also glad this is still kinda alive.

#### chickendude

• Posts: 816
• Rating: +90/-1
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2012, 11:35:10 pm »
12x12 should only be the same as 12x16, though you could store them compacted then extract them to saferam before drawing the map. There aren't any tiles that are shared throughout maps? Why not have a basic tileset that is shared throughout all maps and then give each map a certain number of individual tiles. Or you want to keep each tile reduced to a nibble? RLE compression tends to work really well for tilemaps (there are so many repeated tiles) and it's pretty simple to write a "decompressor".

#### TIfanx1999

• ಠ_ಠ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
• CoT Emeritus
• LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
• Posts: 6173
• Rating: +191/-9
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #10 on: October 14, 2012, 08:10:43 am »
^This is what I was thinking. Also, don't you mean 12x12 would be the same as 16x12?

#### chickendude

• Posts: 816
• Rating: +90/-1
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #11 on: October 14, 2012, 10:04:10 am »
I have no idea which is supposed to come first, so maybe Thanks.

#### squidgetx

• Food.
• Project Author
• LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
• Posts: 1881
• Rating: +503/-17
• rawr.
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #12 on: October 14, 2012, 05:30:55 pm »
Squidgetx, just wondering - do you have extra data that stores your enemies, NPCs, and whatnot? Or is it all built into tiles on the tilemap?
This will be stored outside the tilemap

12x12 should only be the same as 12x16, though you could store them compacted then extract them to saferam before drawing the map. There aren't any tiles that are shared throughout maps? Why not have a basic tileset that is shared throughout all maps and then give each map a certain number of individual tiles. Or you want to keep each tile reduced to a nibble? RLE compression tends to work really well for tilemaps (there are so many repeated tiles) and it's pretty simple to write a "decompressor".
Yeah, but once it's extracted it takes the same amount of RAM as 16x16 which is what I'm worried about (unless someone wants to write an axiom that supports 12x12 tiles or something). Also, I could also have tiles shared between maps, but from my mapdesigning experience it's not completely necessary (maybe a very basic subset could be done)

#### Streetwalrus

• LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
• Posts: 3821
• Rating: +80/-8
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #13 on: October 15, 2012, 02:20:36 pm »
I have no idea which is supposed to come first, so maybe Thanks.
Usually, it's Width*Height.

Yeah, but once it's extracted it takes the same amount of RAM as 16x16 which is what I'm worried about (unless someone wants to write an axiom that supports 12x12 tiles or something).
In such low-level things that are the buffer and sprites, it's pretty hard to deal with a non-multiple of 8 width. However, a 16*12 routine is totally possible. i'm not an awesome ASM coder so I'm not the perfect candidate for this, but others can write one for you.

#### DJ Omnimaga

• Former TI programmer
• CoT Emeritus
• LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
• Posts: 55872
• Rating: +3151/-232
• CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
##### Re: [A:P] Documentation
« Reply #14 on: October 15, 2012, 03:33:46 pm »
For tilemaps, aren't most 12x12 tilemappers much slower than 8x8/16x16 ones? Remember how slow Sam Heald's Zelda demo was, for example (8 frames per second, even with no grayscale/scrolling). I wonder how hard it would be to remake AP tiles to be actual 8x8 or 16x16 tiles, since most sprite routines supports multiples of 8?
« Last Edit: October 15, 2012, 03:34:13 pm by DJ_O »