Messages

1

Offtopic / Re: What type of graphic filter you prefer ?

« on: April 05, 2018, 04:27:47 am »

it is quite easy to spot f you have incompatible hardware. The game will crawl to [...] (< 1fps) on those.

OK, so there's acceleration.
I spent a number of hours fiddling with graphics options when I first met a Xenix system in 1989, then got back to doing paid work . It's not something that I pay much attention to.

I find it quite remarkable that most filters have no visible effect on your system, things like scale (and the like), [...]
I kinda suspect that you are running with a display resolution comparable to the game (640x480 if i'm correct),

1366 x 768 according to ControlCentre/Displays. One of these days I'll write it down, because I never remember it. I'm trying to remember what the resolution is if I hook the laptop up to the telly is, but I'd need a longer lead to use that more than occasionally.
I only gave each filter a couple of seconds test. They may have had more subtle effects that I just didn't notice.

Still getting whacked by 4 cyberdiscs on mission 2, a terror attack. Much dieing of the Rookies.

2

Offtopic / Re: What type of graphic filter you prefer ?

« on: March 25, 2018, 06:47:36 pm »

I voted "other", because "disabled" isn't considered an option.

3

Offtopic / Re: What type of graphic filter you prefer ?

« on: March 25, 2018, 06:23:39 pm »

If you look in the video setting for OpenXCom, on the right is a setting for filters. These apply post processing effects to the screen, and they are pretty resource intensive compared to running with no filter.

"Disabled", "Scale", "HQX", "CRT-interlaced*", .... I'm not even sure if I have GL-accelerated hardware - it's not a factor I consider at all when buying machines. I'll try several, but the list is long.
"Scale" and "HQX", "Curvature", "HQ2x", "OpenXcom*", "Pixellate*", "Quillez*", "Row*", "SABR-XCOMified*", "SABR*", " scale4xHQ*", " have no visible effect on my system.
"CRT interlaced*", CRT-simple*" and "CRT*" introduces a curve, and lines reminiscent of an early 1980s glass teletype. Even I had a flatter, squarer tube when I first brought a PC (which was pushing 7 years old when the original game was released. Clearly a modification for the sadomasochist fraternity.
"Phosphor-simple*" has a slight effect on colour balance, as if your blue gun were under-current.
"dot_n_bloom*" just makes things dim.
"heavybloom*"makes it look as if your guns are flat-out misaligned.
"simplebloom*" is between the last two.

From the "*" modes working, I infer that I do have the appropriate hardware acceleration. SHRUG, but I'll file that information somewhere on the grounds that it might be useful somehow.

Ah, there's a setting for "grab mouse", which I had been wondering about.

OK, what were the poll questions? I don't see any reason I'd use any of these tweaks.

4

Offtopic / Re: Introduce yourself

« on: March 25, 2018, 06:19:15 pm »

I like Oolite too! (The game).

I grew up digging fossils (mostly rynchonellid brachiopods, but others too) out of oolite limestones in the local quarries.
When we replaced the industrial computers at work with general purpose PCs in the late 80s, I discovered this thing on a floppy disc called Elite ... and a few years ago it's metaphorical offspring Oolite (the game).

5

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: Soldier's nationality

« on: March 24, 2018, 11:06:53 am »

Ah.
I'm not sure I saw any indication of a nationality effect in the original game. Once the soldiers arrive, the only effect I could see is the name. And After each soldier survives their first mission, I erase the name in preference to Soldier statistics (Health, Strength, Kills, Missions) so I can decide who to put onto the mission, who to put in to Psi training, who gets armour plating, etc.

6

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: Soldier's nationality

« on: March 24, 2018, 10:12:25 am »

The number correspond to *.nam file alphabetical order, i.e.:
American = US flag = 0
Arabic = Egypt flag = 1
Belgium = 2
British = 3
Bulgarian = 4
...
...
Turkish = 32

If you have different *.nam files, your ordering will be different.

Isn't this rather setting up for unnecessary maintenance in he future? There's a long-established system for encoding country/ nationality names. It may be convenient to create something new for a first-run test, but unless you want to be dealing with 184 (or is it 196, I forget) entries in the code table, as well as needing maintenance when new countries/ nationalities are created / merged ... well, it's your code.
ISO-3166 - which uses well-known 2-letter codes (EN, AU, CA, US, for example ; if you think "they look like internet top-level domains", you're pressing the right button. Slightly less well known are the equivalent 3-digit codes (826, 036, 124, 840 for the same countries ; if you think they look like DOS code page numbers, you're right).

To quote two lines from the Wiki page,

An advantage of numeric codes over alphabetic codes is script (writing system) independence. (...)
Another advantage is that when countries merge or split, they will get a new numeric code

The needs of users who need to add their own distinctions (trivially, the Pirate nation ; less laughably you might wish to distinguish between USians and members of the Navajo Nation. For this, there are codes 900 to 999.

How to interpret a NULL or NaN code - e.g. your "unassigned" status issue ... might be covered in the detailed ISO (they tend to have thought these things through). Or you could assign a whole-Earth nationality and flag. (I'll note that the space view is from approximately above the "Cradle of Humanity" in East Africa", where humans originated.)

Anyway, your code. Sounds a fun idea.

7

Offtopic / Re: X-Com Explosions are skulls

« on: March 24, 2018, 09:35:21 am »

I love that the explosion graphic is somewhere between a mushroom cloud and a skull.

I think I was still dealing with swapping DOS memory configurations when I spotted that.
But on the other hand, I'd probably been playing the game for a year or so too. It is a nice touch, and I've got a faint memory of having seen such an effect in a movie and thinking "that director plays UFO!"

8

Offtopic / Re: What type of graphic filter you prefer ?

« on: March 24, 2018, 09:31:24 am »

I won't vote because I don't know what the question means.
Does anyone care to link to a relevant explanation, because I suspect that Google would deliver billions of irrelevant results.

9

Offtopic / Re: Introduce yourself

« on: March 24, 2018, 09:28:50 am »

I'm Aidan, a geologist (hence "RockDoctor").
I've been playing XCOM since my last bout of unemployment, which coincided with the original release. Obviously I enjoy it (though I will admit that it disappeared off the radar for probably al of Win2k through to Vista. Vista propelled me to dump windows and in the process I picked up DOSbox - which got me back into old habits.
Last month ... a bug borked my Superhuman game just as I was about to get Psionic with everyone. And I hunted and hunted until I found a solution (Hex editor ; byte 06 of UIGLOB.DAT ; I suspect pretty much everyone here will be familiar with that frustrating cycle). But in the process, I saw mention of OpenXCOM.

If I say that my other time-sink is Oolite, I'd be very surprised if I needed to clarify that I'm not talking about limestones with a millimetre-scale spherical granular structure.