Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Discontinued => Major Community Projects => S.A.D. (Seek and Destroy) => Topic started by: Hot_Dog on December 28, 2009, 07:40:36 pm
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Yes, that's right, an RTS game is in production for Ti-83+ and Ti-84+ calculators. With the limited processing capabilities of the Z80 processors, and the small screen resolution, I decided to come up with a new concept entirely to make an RTS game work for the calculator, rather than trying to force the calculator to handle a typical RTS.
Rather than controlling massive armies to battle an opponent, you control a single unit. You have 9 available units to choose from. Each of the nine units has its own abilities, its own strengths, and its own weaknesses. One unit constructs buildings, another performs sneak attacks, another has absolute air-superiority, and still another is best for taking out structures with its heavy cannon.
With the ability to change your unit thoughout the game, your goal is to defeat your opponent by choosing the right unit at the right time, at the same time that you are building up your base to aid in your goal. One wrong move, one moment that you use a unit out of place, could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
S.A.D. is a featured project on UnitedTi.org. I will be posting a lot of important information--features, stastics, screenshots, etc.--here. However, if you want the most information possible, visit http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showforum=65 or use an IRC and join #seekanddestroy.
Features of S.A.D:
* 9 units, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. During the game, you can change your unit to fit your strategy, and if your opponent kills you, you can respawn.
* 16 structures you can build
* Each unit has abilities you can research to increase its effectiveness. Abilities include, but are not limited to, cloaking, teleportation, faster speed, and extra range
* Full maps with terrain
* Multiplayer with up to 3 AIs, and link play
* A 25-Mission Campaign, with cutscenes, several different objectives, and a full storyline
* A Map Editor, and a Campaign Editor
Here's some screenshots:
The first map: Orita Five
The Multiplayer Menu
The Main Menu
Over the next few days, once we have some balance issues worked out, I will post additional information, including information concerning the nine units and the 16 structures. In the mean time, we are currently working on the economy and the tilemap routine.
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Hey Hot Dog, glad to see you over here. Welcome here. :D
As for SAD, it's an awesome project that should be followed.
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Good to see you too, ztrumpet! Thx for the welcome! 8)
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This looks awesome :d
Welcome on the forums and keep up the good work
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darn that looks friggin awesome, especially the map. It's very Starcraft-ish, except not isometric perspective, nice job so far and welcome here :)
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This is a very un "SAD" (lol had to to it) game. XD. Itssss soooo awsomenesss I wanna hug it and play it LOL. And I love the link game option. I think that deserves an award: I mean.. Rts? AND link =awsome. Welcome I omni!! And I look forward I ur game.
Edit: I look Forward to your game!
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This is a very un "SAD" (lol had to to it) game
You're not the first person to use that joke ;) One of my friends suggested an alternative name like "B.A.D." or whatever to avoid the word sad. I can't tell you how many times I had to say to other friends "Guys, it's not SAD. It's S_A_D."
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well everytime I looked at the project name on UTI, I always wondered if the name was chosen intentionally so the acronym is like the word sad :P. We did that with a few stuff over here. For example, back in 2007, I was working on a TI-BASIC racing game that was similar to Lotus Turbo Challenge (I must still have a screenshot somewhere), but chosen "Project Omega: Racing Ngine", where Engine was mispelt on purpose, all in the intention to have an acronym that looks like the word "porn".
Another similar even which is not about a project is the #omnimaga IRC channel slogan which can be read in the channel topic. It originated in 2008 from another chan I ran where only like 4 people could enter, then I started to use it in May 2008 in #omnimaga instead and it has been in the topic ever since. The slogan is "Friendship Unity Caring Kindness" purposely to have the F word as acronym :P
Or another example: http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=796
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Here's some basic gameplay information. If you read this, the unit and structure information I'll post in the future will make a lot more sense.
* The object of S.A.D. is to destroy all your opponent's Operation Centers. Each player starts with one Operation Center, but more can be built for a large sum of money.
* Your source of income is Belthium Crystals. You mine Belthium Crystals by placing refineries on top of them. Throughout the game, you can upgrade your refineries to hold more "processing units", adding more HP and allowing faster crystal processing. This is the same idea as adding "workers" in a typical RTS game
* The only unit (of the 9) worth mentioning right now is the Scouter. This is your most basic and most versatile unit in the game. Its main function is building construction, but it can also attack air and ground, has a large line-of-sight, has unlimited fuel, can travel in the air if it has to, and is one of the faster land units. And, it's free. You start off the game with a Scouter as your unit.
* As you go further in the game, no doubt your strategy is going to change...unless you are an expert against an absolute beginner, you are not going to win the game using only a Scouter. So at an Operation Center or a Transformation Gateway (a much cheaper, but more vulnerable, Operation Center), you can exchange your unit for another one, at a price of course.
* There are two ways you can move a unit...you can either set a waypoint, or you can manually move the unit automatically using the arrow keys. Attacking, however, must be done manually...in other words, there are some tactics in this game.
*You can research abilities for your units at an appropriate research facility. There are three types of abilities, or upgrades:
Permanent Upgrades remain with your unit all the time. If you purchase a "Jet Pack" ability for your Scouter, you will have a Jet Pack
every time you get a Scouter, and there is no limit as to how much you can use it.
Refillable Upgrades are upgrades where your unit has a limited amount of uses your unit has, and then you must purchase additional amounts.
Think of it as having to buy gas every time you use gas.
Deteriorating Upgrades are upgrades which can potentially overheat and rip apart your ship when used, that's how powerful they are.
The only thing that pervents your ship from overheating is
Sephane Gas, which you must purchase for your unit. It's a gas that aids in your units cooling system. Using the upgrade drains your
sephrane gas until there is none left, then if you continue to use the upgrade, your ship will slowly lose HP and finally destroy itself
altogether. (Sometimes overheating is necessary to give you just that little bit more you need to win the game) Cloak is a perfect example of
a Deterorating upgrade.
* A unit requires fuel to operate. At an Operation Center or Transformation Gateway, you can refuel, repair, purchase Sephrane Gas, and refill on your refillable upgrades.
* Operation Centers and Transformation Gateways allow you to teleport across the map, from one to another. Therefore, the more you have built across the map, the more flexible you can be in terms of strategy and goals.
* Remember that the game ends when all your Operation Centers are destroyed. Operation Centers can only be destroyed by Plasma Torpedoes, and only two units carry these weapons. By the way, Plasma Torpedoes is an example of a Refillable Upgrade. Your unit can only hold so many, after which you must purchase more.
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This is definetly one of the projects that keeps me coming over and watching UTI for progress, glad you brought it over here to omnimaga :) and welcome! This looks like its going to be an awesome game, can't wait to see some more progress ;)
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Today I'm going to start posting information on S.A.D. units and structures. I feel though that I should inform you about a couple of things, in case you haven't been to UnitedTI:
1. This information is not set in stone. Testing will, no doubt, help us to discover some flaws that will require us to make some changes to the game.
2. Graphics on structures and units are oversized to help you see what they look like. Not everything is drawn to scale. This is especially true of ships, which I'm going to redraw to be half the size they were originally going to be.
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This is a great way to write an RTS that doesn't kill the calculator :D It sounds great :)
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This is definetly one of the projects that keeps me coming over and watching UTI for progress, glad you brought it over here to omnimaga :) and welcome! This looks like its going to be an awesome game, can't wait to see some more progress ;)
I'm quoting this because I'm with Builderboy on this. I'm glad you're over here and I think you're doing a wonderful job with S.A.D.
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darn, really awesome. All these points looks like it will be a real strategy game. Btw, I assume on large/complex maps expanding will be the key to win, right? In SC, you eventually had to expand else you ran out of minerals/gas and you couldn't mine faster.
Now, what we need is a TI emulator (or patch) that adds online linking capabilities so we can play multiplayer calculator games over the net, such as S.A.D. ^^. I wonder how hard it would be, though. I do know over where I live no one cares about calcs enough to play IRL with me :P
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It would be really cool if you could connect you calc to your computer which would connect via the internet to another computer with calc attached. Of course, I doubt if that could happen. ;.;
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Btw, I assume on large/complex maps expanding will be the key to win, right? In SC, you eventually had to expand else you ran out of minerals/gas and you couldn't mine faster.
That's right. I'll describe it in more detail when I put up the refinery, but you can upgrade a refinery so many times that eventually it will cost more to upgrade it than to build a new one. (Although, we are working to make sure that sometimes it's more strategic to keep upgrading your current one.) This is an attempt to duplicate the idea in Starcraft that if you have too many workers mining minerals, they have to wait in line. In addition, a belthium crystal deposit will run out of crystals eventually.
Also, by expanding, you have access to more of the map via teleportation. If an opponent can teleport from one end of the map to another (in 2.5 seconds of time) and you have to walk or fly (which could take a minute), your opponent has a HUGE advantage.
Now, what we need is a TI emulator (or patch) that adds online linking capabilities so we can play multiplayer calculator games over the net, such as S.A.D. ^^. I wonder how hard it would be, though. I do know over where I live no one cares about calcs enough to play IRL with me
If we were to do that, I would probably get SMOKED. It usually happens...there are people so obsessed with a particular RTS game that they beat the programmers and game balancers at their own game. Let's face it; Starcraft was made in America, and the Koreans (not the Americans) win the championship every year.
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Teleportation seems nice.
And yea it's funny how SC was made in america, yet most people who play it today are from Korea and are like 10x better at it than us. Maybe they have RTS in their blood? :O *cough*jsj795*cough*
Another question: How many mineral spot will there be per base? I wonder because if the entire enemy army decided to gang only on your reffinery, it means you would no longer be able to build anything anymore if you didn't have enough money to build another reffinery, right?
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Another question: How many mineral spot will there be per base? I wonder because if the entire enemy army decided to gang only on your reffinery, it means you would no longer be able to build anything anymore if you didn't have enough money to build another reffinery, right?
Entire enemy army? You're going to face at most 3 ships at a time, and that's if your playing against 3 players.
But anyways, you did give us something to consider for testing purposes...thx very much. There's usually 1-2 deposits at each expansion. I'll talk to Rebma Boss, our game balancer, about this...we started with the idea of having enough money to make 1 refinery at the start of the game, but we'll probably give enough money to build two refineries at the start of the game. Our main concern is the first 5 minutes of the game...afterwards, if your opponent destroys your refineries and you have nothing left to build another one, its for the same reasons as in Starcraft.
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lmao starcraft is the national Korean sport ^^
We have SC tournament even now, although Many of SC players actually went over to playing Warcraft 3.
Koreans play all kinds of games, notably RPGs and RTS. There are tons of free games like that in Korean websites, and some of the notable ones that you guys might know is Maple Story (although I never went past lvl 6 -_-;;;).
So~~~~~ if there ever were TI emulator (or patch) that adds online linking capabilities, and more Koreans played Calculator games (in Korea, students are not able to use calculators for math), we would own S.A.D. ;D
and how about the resource method that I suggested over at UTI? I talked about the limit to the upgrades, or diminishing effect of the resource per sec?
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and how about the resource method that I suggested over at UTI? I talked about the limit to the upgrades, or diminishing effect of the resource per sec?
Opps, I forgot about that. Yes, for right now (and the numbers are likely to change), your starting refinery brings in 60 crystals a minute. 15 crystals buys you an additional 12 crystals a minute for the first 5 upgrades, and an additional 6 crystals a minute for the next 10 upgrades. However, the refinery recieves 20 HP no matter what, part of our attempt to create a reason to upgrade if expansion is too risky. So for a total of 300 crystals (75 is the starting price), you get a 400 HP (100 HP starting) refinery mining 180 crystals a minute. A Belthium Crystal deposit, for right now, contains 2700 crystals.
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so how long do you think the typical gameplay is going to last?
like in 1v1 or 2v2 as those will happen most likely.
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so how long do you think the typical gameplay is going to last?
like in 1v1 or 2v2 as those will happen most likely.
We're aiming for 10-30 minutes for an average game. On bigger maps and/or games between two people of equal skill, they may reach an hour or so.
The amount of time is on the basis that the other player gives up, like a "gg" kind of thing.
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After reading about the refinery, I'm convencided that SAD will be really fun and you know a lot about what you're doing. :)
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Nice! about equivalent time frame as Starcraft!!!
oh, let's say that you have a unit, may be tank. And u want to change to scout. So you go to the Operation Center and change. Does the tank get destroyed and you get the Belthium Crystal back (or if HP is low, smaller amount), or is tank still alive and standing there?
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oh, let's say that you have a unit, may be tank. And u want to change to scout. So you go to the Operation Center and change. Does the tank get destroyed and you get the Belthium Crystal back (or if HP is low, smaller amount), or is tank still alive and standing there?
Neither. You get a fresh unit each time, and your old unit is scrapped. That includes sephrane gas, any amount you purchased is gone when you exchange units. Refillable upgrades are the exception; you get refunded for what you have left.
I hate comparing this game to Starcraft all the time. (I get the feeling people are going to look at the Balkstone and say, "Hey, you copied the Wraith" when in reality I didn't) But, like Starcraft, this is why it's important you choose the right unit depending on your point in the game. You want to make the most of your unit, rather than pay several hundred crystals only to have to exchange your unit a minute later (although sometimes that is the best strategy at the time, using your unit for just a minute)
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oh okay... lol it's just that SC is such a famous (and favorite among many) RTS game.
and wow... it would suck if you had to exchange Splitron because of some unexplained reason o.O
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it would suck if you had to exchange Splitron because of some unexplained reason o.O
True, but it's kind of the same thing as losing 10 Battlecruisers to a a couple of well-placed nukes--poor planning. If you're careful, you can get a lot from your Splitron before having to exchange it (and if you have a good strategy, it's usually better to let your Splitron get killed than to just exchange it, because this allows you to give the maximum amount of money harassment possible).
For example, if your opponent is attacking your base, but is distant from one of his Transformation Gateways or Operation Centers, and you are close to his base, that's a perfect time to use a Splitron to do some decent damage to his base. It's going to take him probably about a minute to reach you with his Reclauda (or whatever his counter is), at which point you will have done a lot to an area. And if you're halfway trained in Splitron tactics, you can do a lot of damage to your opponent so that the amount of money you both spent will be close.
This will mostly be an issue for beginners, like my brother...they'll probably use a Splitron as soon a possible like using a Queen immediately in Chess, and they will regret their decision. A smart player waits for the right moment. But as I've seen in Starcraft tournaments, even the best make mistakes.
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true, especially since it's hard to predict every single strategies the other will use to defend. Or for example, the person may get attacked, it will fail, then the enemy will try another similar attack with more enemies, but in the meantime you can buy an entire line of cannons/turrets in 20 seconds before he attacks again.
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Wow, that sounds cool.
On a side note: You can't give respect to people in this forum. :( I want to click the thumbs up...
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Huh, thats true, possibly an artifact of the new change?
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I forgot to mention another feature: Hotkeys. When you need to build things, attack, move, etc.,
2nd Mod DEL
Alpha XTThetaN STAT
MATH APPS PGRM
play a big role. Although, I really shouldn't call them hotkeys, since you don't have any other method of input (Hotkeys are usually shortcuts...these calculator keys aren't shortcuts, but rather required keys)
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Looking good Hot Dog.
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On a side note: You can't give respect to people in this forum. :( I want to click the thumbs up...
I have no idea what you're talking about ::)
simplethinker whistles inconspicuously...
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Thanks!
Cool, "hot keys"! What does each of those do?
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Cool, "hot keys"! What does each of those do?
They're context sensitive. I can't list all the uses for each key, but here's a couple of examples.
When in attack mode, the eight outside keys specify which direction to fire in, and the middle button is a special ability of some sort (usually a weapon; for instance on Argos, the middle button will fire Plasma Torpedoes)
On the image below, which is a menu that pops up when you want to exchange your unit, the keys in the grid correspond to the icons in the grid. For example, 2nd will select the Scouter and Apps will select the Balkstone.
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so how would you press if there were multiple special abilities? for example, scouter can cloak, fly(with jetpack upgrade), and build. any button other than middle will attack in that direction.
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so how would you press if there were multiple special abilities?
We'll use soft keys and x-1, SIN, COS (if needed) for any extra abilities. For example, Y= and x-1 do the same ability, and ZOOM and COS will do the same ability. The reason we're providing both sets is for personal preference. Some people will find the soft keys easier, others will find the hard keys better, and still others--like the Koreans ;) -- will dominate the game by knowing the best times to use the soft keys and the best times to use the hard keys, meaning they'll use a combination of both.
The X,T,Theta,n button will be used if there's only one ability, or if there's an ability most common (for the Scouter, it's the build ability).
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Some people will find the soft keys easier, others will find the hard keys better, and still others--like the Koreans ;) -- will dominate the game by knowing the best times to use the soft keys and the best times to use the hard keys, meaning they'll use a combination of both.
Thanks ;D
And I really can't wait for S.A.D. to come out! It looks and sounds sooooo promising~~~!!!
It will definitely be a number 1 game among Koreans that I distribute calc games to ^^
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Interesting, should make it even faster to build stuff for more experienced players ^^
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Wow, I'm so glad you've planned stuff this well. It looks really good. It looks very promising. :)
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I kind of get the feeling everyone's giving me the credit for this game, even if by mistake. So I just wanted to post everyone on the team and who's doing what:
Myself--Director, Concept and Setting, Programmer, Graphics
Buckeye Dude (Buckeye1) -- Programmer
Mapar007 -- Programmer
Eeems -- Graphics, On-Calc Campaign Designer
Rebma Boss (Not on this site) -- Game Balancer, Pre-Beta Tester
Graphmastur -- Beta Tester
Special Thanks: Rye Cline
When we put together the list of credits, we'll be sure to include pre-demo balance testers, map designers, computer programmers (if any) and more special thanks. But don't sweat, these positions aren't open yet.
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Great job guys! I appreciate you guys' hard work!!! woot!
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Yes, everyone involved it great! Great job all!
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Nice team ^^
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Nice to see this team works together nicely! I've seen too many teams that fall apart simply because they are a team... :(
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Yeah i hope they stick around on UTI x.x (or here for those who visits Omni). Often a teamate leaves completly and it kills the project x.x.
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Well, we did have a teammate leave, but luckily it didn't kill the project. However, ever since, I'm worked on creating "Plan Bs" in case a vital teammate has to leave. So far, I've made absolutely sure that if I'm the only one left (heaven forbid) the game will be delayed but not destroyed. So you all have yet to fear cancellation because of a team collapse.
But what am I saying? If you talk about the boogie man, the boogie man comes.
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Make sure every teamate has copy of all the files updated regulary.
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Coming back to your question about refineries, DJ, we're going to allow a player to build 2 refineries at the beginning of the game. We have to actually test this to see if it will end up being too much or too little.
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aah ok cool ^^
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I apologize to those of you who checked out #seekanddestroy and found nothing going on. My busy college/work schedule means I can have few one-on-one converstations (usually 7:00-8:00 PM Pacific Time is the best, and even that's not all the time) if it's not team-releated business.
Actually, when I said However, if you want the most information possible, visit http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showforum=65 or use an IRC and join #seekanddestroy
, I meant that I'll be on that channel even if away from the computer, so you can type a question there about amost anything about S.A.D. , and I will answer as soon as I can. (I WILL NOT answer any questions about the storyline itself, but that is the only exception) Of course, if you catch me at 7:00 PM-8:00 PM and I'm at my computer, I'll happily have a long conversation.
Sorry for any inconviences
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No problem, I understand :)
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I posted some new information about a change to the Reclauda to make Argos more appealing in some situations...that is, now sometimes Reclaudas are the obvious choice for anti-air, other times Argos are.
The change is that Reclaudas now have a weapons range of 2. I made this change on UnitedTi (what's the big deal, you're asking) so I just wanted to remind everyone that the best way to get maximum information on this project is UnitedTi. There is a lot of minor information I posted there that I can't always post here.
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Well you can always copy/paste but it's up to you. (as long as you didn't completly quit posting info here, especially if you became staff :P). Also remember if you add new units UTI has attachments disabled to guests. Anyway I checked some of the changes and seems nice. The goal is to have the game as balanced as possible.
Now that said, I was wondering something for a while: will there be more races in future game versions?
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Now that said, I was wondering something for a while: will there be more races in future game versions?
If I decided to work on a stand-alone expansion, that's one of my biggest goals, having at least one additional race. I don't want to directly copy a strategy from another RTS game, so coming up with a unique strategy that will be balanced is something that is a little more difficult in this kind of game, if only because you can use only one unit at a time. I think I have a couple of rough ideas. But for right now, there's only going to be the one race in the vanilla SAD.
Now, of course, for the campaign, you can design your own race...graphics, abilities, etc. The sky's the limit, though, and these races are only for the AI. I include an example of this for two of the missions in the provided campaign.
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vanilla SAD? o.O
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We've added automatic attacking to S.A.D. If you need to focus on base construction, you can let the program take over the firing of your vessel as long as you direct where it attacks. This is exactly the method other RTS games use.
However, you gain an advantage if you use manual attack at some points of the game and your opponent uses automatic attack the whole time. Needless to say, the key to winning is using automatic and manual attack at the right times
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I assume this is when the attack is close to the vessel, right? Else if while building the vessel goes and attack all bases in the directions you specified maybe it might make it too easy x.x
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I assume this is when the attack is close to the vessel, right? Else if while building the vessel goes and attack all bases in the directions you specified maybe it might make it too easy x.x
Part of strategy is sometimes this is correct, sometimes not. What I will say are there are at least two factors in making your decision:
1. With manual attacking, you can fire while moving. You cannot move while firing in auto-attack mode.
2. Refillable and Deteriorating upgrades can only be used manually
EDIT: By the way, during automatic movement, you can ask your vessel to automatically fire at close targets if it travels past them. But since firing uses fuel, it's not always the best choice.
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oooh ok I see, I guess this balances things better
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That sounds really cool!
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Another interesting fact: We don't have real physics for every single occurance, but I'm planning on adding weapon's collision: If a weapon hits a tree, a mountain or a wall, it will hit the object and not continue towards its target, although since flying units are high enough, this does not apply to air-to-air weapons
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cool, should be more realistic, altough then you must make sure these obstacles looks high enough ^^
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Wow, this looks great. I'm liking it so far.
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Lacking anything else to work on, I started the S.A.D. manual. I can safely say that it sure is a lot of fun designing reasons that the vessels do what they do, as well as writing the history for them. You'll find there's a little bit more history for each vessel than the Starcraft manual provides, although it's probably because I have only nine vessels and the Starcraft manual had to shorten information for many, many more units.
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Get back to work!
j/k :P
It's good that the manual is detailled, though. just make sure for those who hate long texts that the game can be explained to them in a quick way (that can be understood by someone who played RTSes before). :)
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@DJ Good point. I should probably include a "quick start" for those who want just the game and not the history.
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would definetily like the quick start guide as i hate personnaly reading all of the bios and such just to figure out how to play X.x
looks great and i cant wait to see what you have coming as to teh history of all the units and such :)
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What I'll end up doing is providing a list at the beginning of the manual, describing each of the sections and who should read it. For instance, there will be a "Units: Quick Start" section and a Standard Units section, and in the list, I'll say that the Quick Start is for those who want to play without trying to understand everything (or need a quick reference to refer to), and the Units section is for those who want the details.
There's going to be about 9-12 sections in the manual, so those who don't read this list will most likely end up reading more than they want to.
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I would definitely be the one who will read the manual from front to back. I just love the new universe, the story behind games, etc.
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I would definitely be the one who will read the manual from front to back. I just love the new universe, the story behind games, etc.
Me too. I'm sure I'll end up printing this manual out. :D
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I'm sure I'll end up printing this manual out.
Which reminds me, I'll have a few pages in the manual that I'll recommend EVERYBODY print, listing hotkeys and other quick reference information
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Also require people to type a security code before running the game that can be found somewhere near the end of all essential info needed to play the game in the readme :P, that way it forces people to at least read the readme and now spam authors with alerady awnsered questions :P
(Metroid II Expansion and Zelda Dark Link Quest have this :P)
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Cooliojazz and Silver Shadow, feel free to add the "S.A.D. development team" userbar to your signatures. It's not required, but if you want to add it, be my guest.
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if you add to your sig on other forums, feel free to also link to the SAD subforum either here or on UTI so people know what is it.
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Thx for the banner, it's really cool!
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Thanks again Eeems for my banner! ;D
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A couple of changes to the game so far.
First of all, the game will take place mostly in the Whirlpool Galaxy. This does mean changing a little bit of the story setting, but I finally decided that I wanted the story to be somewhat realistic, and chances are a star system close enough to the Solar System (with life on it) would have been discovered by now. The Milky Way Galaxy will still be a major part of the story, so of course I'll explain how people get from one galaxy to the other.
Secondly, we're going to rewrite the engine slightly so that buildings are part of the tilemap. It all of a sudden occured to me that with buildings on the tilemap, 24 buildings on screen at once will not slow the game down, unlike what we've been doing before.
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Aaah I see ^^ I guess changes to make the story even better are good. Also I think storing the buildings on map is a good idea, providing it won't become too much of an hassle to detect each of them from all their sides. Keep up the good work so far :)
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Also I think storing the buildings on map is a good idea, providing it won't become too much of an hassle to detect each of them from all their sides.
Detecting them in terms of normal collision is not going to be an issue. Weapons collision is going to be slightly tricky, although I have a general idea of what I want to do there.
Sadly, making buildings part of the tilemap means people who are 12 years old won't always be able to design their own tilesets...what I mean is, there's some specific instructions pertaining to the tileset that can only be understood by people who know what they're doing. This is meant not just for buildings, but to provide a fast "fog of war" as well.
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Personally I don't think age matters, because I remember I got members who were 12 who were way smarter than the rest of the userbase and I know people who are 30 who barely even know how to turn ON a computer. However, I agree it might make it harder to edit tilesets for some people. I think it would be nice once the editor is released to write some doc later on how to use it. Just one thing, though: I hope it will not me command prompt based x.x
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Personally I don't think age matters, because I remember I got members who were 12 who were way smarter than the rest of the userbase and I know people who are 30 who barely even know how to turn ON a computer. However, I agree it might make it harder to edit tilesets for some people. I think it would be nice once the editor is released to write some doc later on how to use it. Just one thing, though: I hope it will not me command prompt based x.x
The user creates a tileset as a bitmap, and the map editor (not command prompt) takes care of the rest. As for documentation, the only people who won't know understand how to do the tileset are those who speed-read through the manual. It's like my ASM lessons...those who actually read it understood it, but it's not for those who just skim through the pages.
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Aaah ok I see. Sounds good then :)
Will it also be Linux/Mac compatible? We have more of those OS users here nowadays it seems.
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Will it also be Linux/Mac compatible? We have more of those OS users here nowadays it seems.
Shoot, I'm afraid not, unless Mac and Linux can handle Visual Basic .NET programs. Both people who volunteered program in Visual Basic.
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Aaah ok x.x. Maybe later someone could volunteer to make a LInux/Mac version ^^
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Well, since Visual Basic is .NET, Mono should let it run on Mac and Windows.
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Is mono some sort of alternative to Wine in terms of emulators?
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No, rather it allows the running of .NET (and only .NET) executables on other platforms. (This is able to be done because of how .NET executables are structured.)
As for Wine, Wine Is Not an Emulator :P
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Aaah ok, and I always thought Wine was an emulator since it lets you run Windows softwares?
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I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I should have a screenshot this week, showing buildings under construction with a build time (not just built instantly).
The bad news is, the campaign designer will no longer allow customized AI Factions in terms of completely different ships and buildings. You can still choose how hard you want your AI to be, but you won't be able to design your own AI. I apologize, but with the new engine and trying to create speed, the game would become too complicated to program with adding custom factions.
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Sorry to hear. That said, I am sure the game will still be awesome regardless of if Custom AI is available or not, though. As long as the prebuilt AI has difficulty levels for most people, like normal difficulty with easier missions at first and harder at the end.
I can't wait for more updates!
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I think different levels of AI is perfectly fine :) What differences will there be between the hard and the easy? Hard coded differences or is there variables you set?
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In Starcraft, the easy AI would just build the most basic units. Medium would climb the tech tree a bit more (siege tanks, vultures and wraith ships) and hard would build anything it could. I do not remember how far they bothered to upgrade atk/def/etc in each level, though. Another idea would be to make the AI reaction speed slower at easier levels
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Probably both, but it will mostly be variables that are set. By the way, the AI will not cheat, even an insane AI.
* Very Easy -- The AI will have a slow reaction time, often choose the wrong counter, and miss several shots when aiming for units. Doesn't scout. Almost as easy as a player who has never played any RTS before
* Easy--The AI will scout, but only to see what it can attack. It doesn't really use this information to decide the best way to attack, but rather to see where everything is. However, the AI will not make extremely stupid mistakes, like using a Raptor (without a Deflector shield) against 5 point defenses when a Tank is available. A typical RTS player can beat an easy AI in at most 3 attempts.
* Medium -- Better reaction times, better reaction to what the AI scouts/sees, often will have a perfect counter, usually picks the right unit for the job in terms of attacking, doesn't miss its fire as much. Although the AI will use upgrades in all difficulty levels, this is the level where the AI really starts to take advantage of them. Really is average, but Koreans will be able to beat in few attempts ;)
* Hard -- This is the level where the AI almost always has something planned based on what it sees from scouting, although it doesn't scout every single second. (There are, of course, situations the AI will have to make an educated guess, as players will come up with strategies I won't think about 8)) However, it will still miss about 5% of shots and will occasionally pick a unit that isn't the best choice, though not the worst choice.
* Very Hard -- The AI takes very short breaks, if any, between building things. Scouts and looks over the map on a very consistent basis. Misses very few shots. Always picks the perfect counter, and the perfect unit. Constructs proper buildings according to the map. If the AI has nothing important to build, it will pick a unit and spend its excess money on useful upgrades/sephrane. An example is a Degruser with Photon Torpedoes or a Camoza with Cloak.
* Insane -- It's my goal (though difficult) that an Insane AI can only be beaten by hard-core players who spend about 2-3 hours a day playing this game. In fact, I'm hoping that it will be so difficult, I won't be able to go very far testing it because I will never do well against it. I'll have to ask jsj795 to test it :)
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I like the variable idea. As long as you note somewhere/comment what each variables do (so you don't get lost), it can make things much easier to implement afterward
Probably both, but it will mostly be variables that are set. By the way, the AI will not cheat, even an insane AI.
Cool to hear. I think the third-party AI made by some hacker in StarCraft2 community allows the computer to start with more minerals at hard levels. While it adds challenge, I believe this is unfair, not to mention in some cases, it may be impossible to counter certain of the computer attacks.
As for the insane AI, one thing you could do when testing is set the emu at like 5, 10 or 25% speed to give you more time during actions, simulating an extremly pro player.
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As for the insane AI, one thing you could do when testing is set the emu at like 5, 10 or 25% speed to give you more time during actions, simulating an extremly pro player.
What a splendid idea! I honestly did not think of that! Thx, DJ!
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No problem ^^
I sometimes use this if I want to test a game and want to make sure it's hard enough, but I can't get to this difficulty level while playing.
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I'm still on schedule for a screenshot this week. I'm using interrupts for the game's timing, including building construction, so I hope people won't mind that there's an occasional imbalance where a building builds .03 seconds faster than usual 8)
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it should be fine I think. It's a calc after all :P
And I can't wait for screenshot :)
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I think it'll be fine as well. This screenie's going to be cool! :D
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Yeah, I know it's going to be fine. I was just being sarcastic :) In other words, .03 seconds is nothing 8)
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yeah true XD
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I have 1 set of bad news and 3 sets of good news. First the bad news: Both the turn-based S.A.D. and the Tosonian War are canceled.
Now the good news:
1. S.A.D. will now feature 4 races. There is of course the human race, and Matthias is working on the Xaos. I felt it appropriate, therefore, to include the Ptaloids and the Tosonians as well. Each race will have its own strategies, and I hope that those of you who play with builds will help test for balancing, though since you can only use one unit at a time I don't think it will require the effort Blizzard puts in.
2. I found a way to shave 4000 bytes off the memory that S.A.D. uses. My goal is to use only 19000 KB of RAM.
3. The 3 Tosonian War campaigns, which I was planning on for the Axe Contest, will be playable in S.A.D. There will also be an Xaos campaign and the 25-mission campaign originally planned for S.A.D. (which is mostly human, but with about 3 Tosonian missions)
Please forgive me if things turn out so badly that I have to forget about these plans, but I have thought out what I'm doing, so I will only dismiss them if worst comes to worst. Ztrumpet, I'll still give you what I offered for willing to help on the turn-based S.A.D.
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Aw sorry to hear about those two games :(, what was the reason for the cancelling?
/me hopes this doesn't happen to S.A.D main game itself :/
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Aw sorry to hear about those two games :(, what was the reason for the cancelling?
/me hopes this doesn't happen to S.A.D main game itself :/
The reason for canceling is because I'm putting so much work into S.A.D. itself. I'm losing my interest in calcs, so S.A.D. will be the last game I do. /me hopes that people won't be frightened of S.A.D. main being canceled, especially after progress has really sped up
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Oh ok, sorry to hear :(
I hope you will stick around once finished :(
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Oh ok, sorry to hear :(
I hope you will stick around once finished :(
I think I'll still be around. And please remember, just because I'm losng interest doens't mean I'll just give up on S.A.D.--something really, really bad has to happen for me to cancel that one, in which case I'll release the source code
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yeah I hope it gets finished. It's really a cool game and I am pretty sure a lot of people want to play once it comes out :)
And it will be cool if you stick around (even if no longer coding for calcs and just for computers or even if you are no longer staff then). There are a lot of other nice people around who did such as Rcfreak0, Tribal and Netham45, who all left calc dev long ago.
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I am making good progress on the campaign editor! I almost started from scartch up again after a huge redesign. Each function has its own button and gives the user a dialog from which he/she (it) has to select the proper values/arguments. Actions are immediately outputted into a appvar with the following layout
**TI83F**
261000
{command number 1 hex digit long}{arguments 4 hex digits long}I have just randomely assigned values to commands and arguments, I have no clue if they are compatible with the engine or if that part of the engine is not yet build (lets hope so for me!) if it is already build and uses a other method I'd like to hear. Right now this is what i've got:
COMMAND IDENTIFIER ARGUMENTS
1. Add Mission Objective 1h 0000 | 0001 | 0002 | 0003 | 0004
Destroy All 0000
Destroy Buildings Only 0001
Destroy Unit Only 0002
Scout All 0003
Scout All and Destroy All 0004
2. Add Sprite 2h [height][width] after this the hex data for the sprite.
So a example is:
**Ti83F**
261000 // I deduced from some files given to the programmer that makes the map editor that this is the main header for a SAD appvar...
10001 //new mission objective, destroy buildings only
20808 // a new sprite of 8x8
FF818181818181FF // this makes a square
Perhapse the FF818181818181FF was somewhat hard to comprehend so here it is in plain binary:
11111111 // = ff
10000001 // = 81
10000001 // = 81
10000001 // = 81
10000001 // = 81
10000001 // = 81
10000001 // = 81
11111111 // = ff
So I hope that explains it all little...
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I guess I can't stop you compiling to appvars, eager beaver :) You have the general idea, but I'll tell you exactly what goes on with an appvar sometime next week, maybe as soon as monday
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Okay ;)
The point rather is that I can not do much without the knowledge and with the knowledge it is going to take some time!
I'll see it coming!
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I wish you good luck :)
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Okay ;)
The point rather is that I can not do much without the knowledge and with the knowledge it is going to take some time!
I apologize that I didn't realize that. It will be top priority for me besides catching up on my Russian
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Speaking of appvars... do you have any "example" maps and tile sets which i can use for testing?
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Speaking of appvars... do you have any "example" maps and tile sets which i can use for testing?
Well, I can give you the map and tileset that I used for the test map we have, though unfortunately you'd have to re-make the map yourself :( Let me know if this works for you, and I will post those files here no later than tonight
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Meh, i guess that'll do, thanks.
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Here you go, coolio. I'm afraid that's all I have, since I'm just working on the game engine right now (and thus I haven't implemented all map features yet)
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Ztrumpet, I'll still give you what I offered for willing to help on the turn-based S.A.D.
Thanks, but unless I help out I feel as I cannot accept some of this. :) So, I guess is there anything you'd like me to do? ;D
I'm glad that SAD progress is speeding up!
I'm losing my interest in calcs, so S.A.D. will be the last game I do.
:( Ok. Will you stick around Omni? :D
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I really love those tiles!
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So, I guess is there anything you'd like me to do?
Yes, when the campaign designer and map designer come out, you can do some work with those 8) Otherwise, keep testing those alpha builds!
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Okay. :) I should be able to work with those for you. :D
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Due to balance issues (no, we have not been playing S.A.D., we've just been envisioning it), players require at least one research facility to build a raptor. This allows players to scout, but without having a decisive advantage of high HP.
Also, in lite of the new Ptaloid race, one can build a detector by simply having a research facility. A detector no longer requires a starbase.
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Is this really gonna be your last calc project? That is a pity, but it inspires me to make it the best of its kind! I have a couple of days more school and then I'll have some time to work on the code for the Campaign Editor. I lost intrested in calc's a year ago too but I recently ahd a comeback on it...just out of the blue.
Lets just hope it is not decisive and lets make the best of this awesome project :D!
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Is this really gonna be your last calc project? That is a pity, but it inspires me to make it the best of its kind!
That's why I'm making this the best I can, and that's why I'm doing the four races now instead of making an expansion pack. Once I'm finished with the bug-free release, that's it for me!
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Yeah I hope that afterward you still frequent the site, maybe even venture into other kind of programming related to games or even music (which would allow you to remain Omni staff in the process once SAD is done) and/or maybe get back interest in calc stuff like some other older members around here did :)
It would suck if you completly vanished from the community (which happened way too many time with other people in the past. Most did not even warn that they were leaving and did not even say goodbye nor bothered to show up again on the sites. It seemed like that since they no longer did calc stuff, they no longer gave a darn about other people around here who supported them) :(
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Well, back to work. I'm coding the progress bar. Sorry, ztrumpet, it looks like displaying partial buildings is going to take too much work, memory and processing power. I'm still trying to make this game the best it can be, but it is for a 6 mhz processor :(
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Mhmm I see. To me it looked like partial buildings would take a lot of work or space indeed x.x
It is fine as it is now, IMHO, providing we know when our building is gonna be done, I think it's fine.
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New alpha build coming in about two weeks! In the mean time, looks like I'll be releasing a lite version of S.A.D. for people who want to save archive space. It will contain, oh, I'd say about 3-4 pages of data, but the campaign will be external with a few missions missing, and only the Human race will be present. The full game will probably contain 6 pages, even with compression.
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Wow nice to hear!
I also like the lite version, but first I would focus on the main version if I was you, to avoid having to update two builds at once every update. Lite version might be nice, though, since some people prefer smaller files. I personally will most likely go with the full game :P
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I personally will most likely go with the full game
I think most people will, considering 4 races and the unabridged campaign
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Yeah me too. Sadly there are always people who judge games solely based on file size, though. It's their loss. They'll quickly see what they're missing out when downloading a small game instead of a large one. With SAD Lite, there will already be a whole lot of cool stuff, though. I think SAD Lite alone would be feature-worthy on ticalc.org, if finished.
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Pretty much everyone voted for having multiple amounts of the same type of unit at their command, with the ability to still change your type of unit to fit your strategy.
Here's the way this will work:
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1. When the player selects the type of unit he wants to use at the moment, a box will display, telling how many units of that type a player has left on hold. The box will also display the maximum number of NEW units of that type you can build. This is determined by the amount of money you have, the number of that type of unit you already have, and the amount of food available.
2. A player can chose to buy 1 new unit (which will be added to the units "on hold"), add one unit to his group (even if the group is empty) or take away one unit from his group and place it back in the units on hold.
3. Sephrane gas, refillable upgrades and fuel left will remain the same, no matter how many units you have added or taken away. If your sephrane gas is almost empty when you have one Raptor, it will remain almost empty when you add many Raptors.
Let's say that the game has started, so I can build some Raptors. I select "Raptor" from the ship menu. However, I don't want to use them immediately, I still want to use my Scouter. So I press the enter key (or whatever key) to buy one Raptor. Since I still want to use the Scouter, the Raptor will be placed on standby. Soon, I make enough money to build 3 more Raptors, so I press the enter key 3 times after saying "I want to get Raptors." I now have 4 Raptors on standby. Now, my base is attacked with 2 enemy Raptors. So after selecting "Raptor" from the ship menu, I press the + key (or whatever key) 3 times to replace the Scouter with 3 Raptors. I now have 1 Raptor on hold. I win the battle and have two Raptors left. Now I want to scout the enemy base, but with only 1 Raptor. So I select "Raptor" from the ship menu, and press the minus key to place one of my two Raptors on hold. (This will be the undamaged Raptor.) I have one Raptor now, and in the meantime, purchase 5 more to put on hold. The enemy comes with a tank, so I press a particular key to put all my Raptors into a group, meaning there's eight Raptors. Finally, after winning, I want to assult the enemy base. So I select "Degruser" from the ship menu, and press Enter twice to buy three Degursers. Then I press + twice to replace my 8 Raptors with 2 Degrusers, and the 8 Raptors will be placed on standby, out of harm's way.
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Mhmm sounds like a good idea to me. At least if you launch an unit against the enemy but realize you messed up and want to bring it back, at least you don't have to wait for a new unit to be built
Btw, does the unit in use have to return to the base to be replaced, will it instantly dissapear from the screen and the unit you want to use will appear in your base or will the unit in use will simply morph into the unit you want to use and remain at the same position?
Keep up the good work :)
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Btw, does the unit in use have to return to the base to be replaced, will it instantly dissapear from the screen and the unit you want to use will appear in your base or will the unit in use will simply morph into the unit you want to use and remain at the same position?
Unless one is playing as the Tosonians, all unit exchanges and replacements must be done at Operation Centers and Transformation Gateways, and the Tosonians have a few rules of their own. This means Transformation Gateways should be "spammed" as much as supply depots or pylons. I hated to do it this way, but imbalance and unfair advantages occur if the unit can be changed just "anywhere."
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Aahh ok, I prefer it this way personally, else I felt it might make the game a bit too easy (or too hard)
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We're still doing what we can to have S.A.D. Alpha 2 released this week. But I should warn you ahead of time that for right now, it won't work on a Ti-Nspire. We're working to fix this problem, but some undocumented instructions slipped in by mistake. By "slipped in," I mean that I used subroutines written by other people without bothering to check them, and some of the instructions were undocumented.
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Aw sorry to hear :(. I understand it can be hard to remember which ones are undocumented or not, though. I myself always have to re-ask over and over x.x (although it doesn't help that I don't do ASM programming). Good luck fixing it. I'Ll try on my old 83+ for now :)
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Now that S.A.D. can handle groups of similar units, these are a few changes that will be made:
1. Buildings will have much more HP, and ships will cost less. Scouters will still be free, but you can only use one Scouter at a time.
2. When you add a processing unit to a refinery, the refinery will gather 60 additional crystals per minute. It used to be 6 or 12.
3. ACCs will now be able to do anything a Scouter can do (except build more ACCs). They can build anywhere in their range at any time, they can build defense no matter where a player is, and they can repair buildings while they are being attacked.
4. Defensive buildings can now be built right next to each other.
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Sounds good for me :)
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Sorry for not finishing the Xaos yet! I am at 75% but I am quite busy with the OT-calc stuff now. Sorry, but don't despair, it will be done soon. I'll take a look at ce the the next week, I expect a release at about >=20 august.
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Sorry for not finishing the Xaos yet! I am at 75% but I am quite busy with the OT-calc stuff now. Sorry, but don't despair, it will be done soon. I'll take a look at ce the the next week, I expect a release at about >=20 august.
Don't worry, I'm way more concerned about the CE, and you're certainly progressing on it. Remember, it will be months (if not 1-2 years) before I can implement the Xaos.
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Part of the difficulty involved in S.A.D. is making sure that a player will use a particular unit at least once every 2-3 games. I watched expert games of Starcraft 1 and noticed that the queen and the Dark Archon were rarely used, because not many situations called for them.
I didn't want that to happen with the Human Tank, the Ptaloid Pauk, and the upcoming Tosonian Borce. So I updated the purpose of an "Artillery" unit. A unit with artillery can splash damage up to five units in a group. Artillery cannot be used against air.
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Since one should be able to "see" how many forces the enemy has when spying, I've decided that a player with a scouting vessel (such as a Scouter or a Reclauda) will be able to select an enemy Transformation Gateway / Operation Center in the vessel's line of sight. The player can then see how many ships (and what kind of ships) his enemy has on hold. This strategy will NOT allow a player to see what units are on the battlefield.
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Mhmm sounds interesting. Being able to spy on the enemy might be helpful to get an idea of what attack he might use next, so it's easier to get prepared and counter. :)
Nice updates so far. Keep up the good work :)
And I agree with Starcraft. Whenever I played SC1, I rarely ever saw dark archons being used, except in custom map games called Zero Clutter where no rushing was allowed until the map sprite cap of 1600 was maxed out. The enemy or ally would use a dark archon to mind control a drone or scv and build structures from other races, bypassing the 200 units cap.
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Good news for those of you who enjoy traditional RTS games: Ship units will now have a build time. I remembered I had to add build time for upgrades and for the construction of processing units, so I can just borrow code for building ship units.
As you think about S.A.D., get used to the idea of using lots of Transformation Gateways, or their equivalents in other races. If you use one for each base (about 33% of the amount of supply depots or pylons you use in a typical Starcraft game), they'll be a big help in the long run. (I'm telling you this because I had to keep reminding myself about that. I was glum today, thinking, "Oh, how inflexible a player's strategy can be since only one type of unit can be used at a time." Once I remembered spamming Transformation Gateways, I realized that I was fretting over nothing.)
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Nice. I personally think it should balance things more, because if you end up with loads of money you could pretty much build the most powerful ships instantly so if your ship got destroyed you just had to respawn one immediately. It would be impossible to counter an enemy that does that.
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As I told DJ and Buckeye yesterday, there will now be +1, +2, +3 upgrades available to research for ships and buildings.
In addition, Operation Centers and Transformation Gateways will no longer be able to construct units. You can still add units and take them away from your group using these buildings, as well as exchange your type of unit for another type of unit. However, actual unit construction is handled by research buildings. In the case of the humans, the Argo Laboratory, Factory and Starbase construct units. (Thus, the more of these you have in late-game, the faster you can construct units.) Unlike most RTS games, you can use a research building to both buy a unit AND research abilities.
By the way, this does not apply to Scouters or their equivalents in other races. Scouters come from an Operation Center/Tranformation Gateway, and are available instantly.
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Sounds great, Hot_Dog!
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Here's a couple of updates to the game. I have yet to code them, but they are gameplay notices/changes.
1. For each building that can construct units, you can que up to 3 ships. However, you can build an upgrade at the same time you are building a ship.
2. Buildings are going to have lower HP. I'm working to make gameplay speed match that of Starcraft, but with fewer units at your disposal, I need to lessen the HP of buildings to match the time needed for one to destroy them
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Nice to see we can build upgrades as we build ships. Will this be valid for all races? In SC I know when upgrading some buildings, it no longer lets you build units but for others (like hatcheries) it does.
Also for the gameplay speed, just make sure to build structures, it doesn't take as long as in Warcraft III. Lots of ppl dislike WC3 because it's too slow-paced compared to Starcraft. Units takes an OK amount of time to build, but structures, even the simplest ones, takes about 5 minutes to build.
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Nice to see we can build upgrades as we build ships. Will this be valid for all races? In SC I know when upgrading some buildings, it no longer lets you build units but for others (like hatcheries) it does.
Also for the gameplay speed, just make sure to build structures, it doesn't take as long as in Warcraft III. Lots of ppl dislike WC3 because it's too slow-paced compared to Starcraft. Units takes an OK amount of time to build, but structures, even the simplest ones, takes about 5 minutes to build.
Yes, this will be valid for all races, although like in SC, you will only be able to upgrade one thing at a time per building.
Don't worry about the long building time, incidentally. I'm leaving myself a maximum of 2 minutes, and under very rare circumstances. The average will be 15 - 45 seconds.
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Ah ok, sounds good then :D
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I'm fan of oll RTS games!
I was sorta disappointed about the StarCraft Beta for 83+/84+... It seems like they stopped programming..
I can't wait to play the campaign!
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Yeah I wish it got finished. I remember following the project on the original MaxCoderz forums back in 2003 and there was another SC project called StarCalc on Omnimaga and United-TI back in late 2007 that looked epic.
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All the StarCraft clone(?) of TI 83/84 is either turn-based or ceased to exist...
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I wonder about the one by Lieb Ist Krieg (sp?). I heard it wasn't turn-based but the sprites did not look even close from Starcraft. I never tried it, though. It was not finished but it looked more complete than the ASM ones. It was in xLIB, though, so it might be limited.