Messages

601

Suggestions / RuleUnitStats

« on: December 16, 2010, 01:20:48 pm »

Hi SupSuper,
Just thinking, I see that the starting stats of soldiers are hardcoded. Are they supposed to go into some kind of RuleUnitStats?
Something like that could be used to create aliens on the battlescape too.
For each race, rank and difficulty level, those starting stats differ.

602

Programming / Re: Battlescape development

« on: December 15, 2010, 04:53:49 pm »

just an update for the latest stuff I've been working on:
- bug in pathfinding when walking down the stairs in a barn is fixed
- added the feature where you click behind the stairs to go up the stairs to the next level (reported by bramcor)
- added opening doors feature + ufo door animation + their sounds
- under-the-hood change: The BattleSoldier class (which was a descendant of BattleUnit) is going to be removed and the BattleUnit class gets a "faction" attribute (player,hostile,neutral). This makes more sense, especially when things like mind control (should be as easy as setting the faction attribute to another value) are coming into play.

I see you already thinking: hey, what happens if you start a battlescape mission with all aliens set to faction "player" and all xcom soldiers set to faction "hostile"? Yeah, then you can play the aliens side.
And yes, there is also an (un-used, un-implemented) faction "friendly", which are non playable characters that will attack hostile units :p (I'm thinking of civilians that pick up a shotgun and try to defend their home from aliens).

edit: more under-the-hood battlescape changes (if anyone is interested in this, I don't know :p). Procedures like map generation and placement of units in the SavedBattleGame class are moved to a new utility class BattlescapeGenerator.

603

Suggestions / Re: MUST HAVE list by a die-hard fan

« on: December 14, 2010, 10:08:05 am »

I found a visiualisation of gaussian distribution over 2 dimensions, and it looks like a circle: https://nklein.com/2009/08/casting-to-integers-considered-harmful/

604

Suggestions / Re: MUST HAVE list by a die-hard fan

« on: December 12, 2010, 11:28:03 pm »

hmm, does it create a diamond? Well, I have used this method before and don't think the difference between a circular and diamond shaped distribution area is something that is noticable in this type of game. I never did anyway

605

Suggestions / Re: MUST HAVE list by a die-hard fan

« on: December 10, 2010, 10:17:25 am »

hellblade,
The way I was thinking to implement firing accuracy, is to use a "normal distribution" random number generation in terms of the deviation in angle on the perfect firing path.
Say, we have a 68% firing accuracy, this means that 68% of the shots will be on the perfect firing path or within a margin of for example 1 degree.
(perfect firing path: the line between the gun and the center of the alien)

The other 32% will be a normal distribution of angles that are above that margin.
Note that this calculation is done for both horizontal and vertical angle.

This automatically concludes that how further away the alien, that you already can miss the target with even a deviation of 2 degrees. If the alien is directly in front of you, you almost have to got a deviation of 45 degrees to miss him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

606

Programming / Re: Battlescape development

« on: December 07, 2010, 09:12:52 pm »

I thought I just commit the stuff I have at the moment.
So rev.219:

- added Soldier footstep sounds
(- added BattleItem class )
- fixed automatic view level position when walking
- fixed rendering issue of two walls in a corner

607

Suggestions / Re: MUST HAVE list by a die-hard fan

« on: December 07, 2010, 08:33:42 pm »

Seems like a reasonable wish-list, not too crazy stuff

@pmprog : I think he means you can edit the numbers by clicking on them and entering numbers instead of having to press the arrows up/down all the time?

And for the two other points on your hopelist:
- bigger battlescapes: probably will be just editable in the rule configuration files, so you can do whatever you want with this.
@pmprog : I think there are means to avoid the remaining alien search: as simple as letting the screen center on the aliens position at the end of the alien turn to give you a hint where he is. (no complex programming needed for that
- better graphics is something I'm working on in my free time (project named XComHD). It's all redrawn graphics, 3x and 4x original resolution.

608

Programming / Re: Battlescape development

« on: December 03, 2010, 01:08:20 pm »

BTW, I still found a terrain render bug...  I can't believe no tester has reported it yet

609

Programming / Re: Battlescape development

« on: December 02, 2010, 10:51:00 pm »

Okay, little slower lately due to other projects, social activities and sickness. But this weekend is totally empty, so expect an update on sunday evening Either involving items in the battlescape or sounds in the battlescape - don't know which one yet 

610

Offtopic / Re: Daiky's x-com project

« on: December 01, 2010, 11:16:07 pm »

I was lying ill in bed today, not really in the mood for programming, but drawing went ok. I did a few more conversions. Soon to start the first tileset, to see how that goes.

611

Suggestions / Re: A better way of checking if a file has been successfully opened

« on: December 01, 2010, 03:14:06 pm »

If the data folder path is going to be a setting in the options file, wouldn't that be an absolute path then? That way the current working directory does not matter and you can have the executable and data in seperate folders if you want.

612

Offtopic / Re: Daiky's x-com project

« on: November 29, 2010, 03:26:50 pm »

Nice. I'll post a youtube video too when I can.

I doubt that "using a certain technique of drawing" is illegal. Releasing it... maybe, but good luck reading up on the legal concept of releasing derivate work
I know driving 70 with your car where you only can go 50 is illegal.  I don't feel like I'm doing illegal stuff when I'm drawing cartoons at home... not even when posting videos of it I see it as a "fair use" exception.

I'm not aware of anyone ever getting a warning of the original x-com copyright owners? If not, I would very much like to be the first one then So I can reply them: "I'm doing something for the x-com fans, where you have failed to do anything for them in all these years !!".

613

Offtopic / Re: Daiky's x-com project

« on: November 29, 2010, 10:44:17 am »

I'm still experimenting and need to fine-tune my process.  I'm now thinking of over-sizing the sprite first (x6), to add in the details, and then scale them back to a smaller format (x3), basically because it easier to draw on a larger sprite, but as a side-effect it may have less of the fatter/smooth look.

But it is important to keep the cartoonish look, which is by definition fatter/smoother, otherwise it looks more like a 3D render, which is a totally different style (and in my opinion does not fit the game at all).

Also I don't want to add additional knobs/buttons/lights/widgets to an object. I just took the elements that make up the medi-kit: the red light, the grey/red ribbon on the right edge, the green screen, the two tubes that go into some kind of connectors. These objects have been re-drawn based on the palette and dimensions of the original sprite.

I do this in photoshop, by having two layers L1: the original sprite, L2: an empty layer I'm drawing on. I choose the element I want to redraw: for example the little red light. I colorpick from the original layer the base red color and draw a red circle over the original element. Then I take a soft pen, color white, very low opacity and draw the highlight. Repeat for every element, et voila.

614

Offtopic / Re: Daiky's x-com project

« on: November 27, 2010, 09:37:03 pm »

I recently got me a wacom tablet/pen, so I can have some creative distraction in between programming episodes.
In between doing my excercises for my drawing lessons, I continue my xcomHD project. XcomHD project is among other things a remake of all graphics in x-com:EU and xcom:TFTD in a way that it looks good on modern resolutions (around 1280x720).
All graphics retain their original look, original colors and most of their original shape. All the shapes are repainted and original highlights, shadows and details are added back in. Here is an example of the remade medikit object.

615

Programming / Re: Battlescape development

« on: November 22, 2010, 12:06:45 am »

Thanks, I'm happy to contribute to the project.