Messages

46

Builds & Ports / Compiling with Homebrew on OSX

« on: November 12, 2012, 11:48:17 pm »

I have written a build formula for the homebrew ports system on OSX

Install brew as shown on

https://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

add the extra setup for games

   brew tap homebrew/game

See github for the openxcom formula file at present

https://github.com/grrussel/homebrew-games/commit/6dd31ea272384ac26293b2ff367730e8c4a432f4

Until that is pulled into the official repo, you will need that put explicitly into /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew-games/openxcom.rb

Then
 
  brew install openxcom

and all the dependencies are fetched and built.

If you add --HEAD to the install command the latest git source is used.

47

Programming / Re: Reducing numbers of memory allocations in game execution

« on: November 10, 2012, 01:44:03 am »

A new memory allocation reduction patch.

48

Offtopic / XCOM Novel

« on: November 09, 2012, 11:05:54 pm »

Yup, there really was such a novel...

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/09/xcom-novel/

49

Programming / Re: More than 1 UFO per battlescape

« on: November 08, 2012, 08:15:55 pm »

I always wondered how the UFOs disappeared from the geoscape after getting shot down; presumably, another UFO can come and fix it ;-)

Larger maps do equal longer, slower games: I am happily ignoring the long campaign based traditional XCOM game in favour of just the battles ;-)
The best XCOM/TFTD versions (imho) were the demo disks for PC - no geoscape, just 1 battle with a random (well, preselected, but pretty mixed) selection of equipment against a terror mission/ UFO of some sort.

The large maps of TFTD did mean it can be irritating to find that last hidden Alien - one aspect of TFTD I can live without.

The plus side, however, is a more immersive battle. Terror missions have a feel of being in a large city; tactics need to change (cannot cynically exploit "edge of battlescape" for flank security, nor form "one big line, sweep left to right"). It means Aliens can flank; need to keep looking back, too. It becomes more important to bring enough ammo - no more flatten everything, as that exhausts ammo. It forces you to storm, or avoid, farm houses / buildings. It also stops the old, and now a bit boring approach, of sweep clean the surroundings and then storm the UFO - on a sufficiently large map, you cannot clean out all the aliens so easily. It makes using blaster bombs fun, too; lots to shoot...

There are some other nice aspects too: need to send out lone scouts, try and find UFO(s) or aliens; avoid conflict until you can get sufficient strength of numbers to make it practical. It means it could be possible to get cut off from your transport - no guarantee of easy retreat. It also opens up the possibility of unwinnable missions - where there are simply too many aliens to kill them all, but you could still steal new alien tech / capture aliens / destroy some artefact even without needing to kill all the aliens. Of course, you need to get back to the evacuation zone... I also found alien bases to be a bit sparsely populated. Much more scary if there are 50+ in there!

Finally, a long mission is a good chance to dynamically alter lighting - a day / night cycle. Night falls.. and the aliens come for you!

50

Programming / Re: Improved Single Battle Mode

« on: November 08, 2012, 07:22:20 pm »

Great! Cheers for that.

51

Programming / Re: Reducing numbers of memory allocations in game execution

« on: November 08, 2012, 01:53:16 am »

Sigh. Ignore the first patch, seems to make a huge memory leak.

52

Programming / Re: Reducing numbers of memory allocations in game execution

« on: November 08, 2012, 12:24:52 am »

Will give it a go!

Although, the path finding is not yet a huge component according to the profile I just got with some recent changes to the game loop - namely, removing an SDL_Delay call, and calling flip on the screen 1 time in 4 as SDL drawing calls were dominating the runtime. It seems to be about 10%

I think that not going for 100% CPU usage is fine normally, but here I want to do a lot of processing as quickly as possible.

53

Suggestions / Hardcoded number of Civilians in Terror Site missions

« on: November 07, 2012, 10:59:30 pm »

The upper limit seems set explicitly in code. Would be nice if it could be generalised to non terror missions, and settable from rulesets too.

Code: [Select]


        if (_save->getMissionType() ==  "STR_TERROR_MISSION")
  {
deployCivilians(16);
  }


54

Suggestions / Aliens and opened doors

« on: November 07, 2012, 10:56:03 pm »

It always seemed a bug of XCOM that Aliens never, ever close a door behind them. Its one of the quirks routinely exploited in e.g. farm terrain - an open door you did not open means an alien is nearby.

Perhaps OpenXcom can have smarter/tidier aliens.

55

Programming / Reducing numbers of memory allocations in game execution

« on: November 07, 2012, 10:43:51 pm »

I am looking at how to speed up OpenXCOM on very large battlescapes (because those are the most fun!) with large populations of AI actors (about 154 civilians, some large but uncertain number of Aliens) for terror missions.

Firstly, its really slow in the Alien turn. Minutes per AI turn.

Some observations: it never seems to peg the (or a) CPU at 100%. Perhaps timer driven actions with idle periods? The structure of the game loop is still opaque to me ;-)

I ran the OSX "Instruments" profiler over this. One hotspot showing up is the volume of memory allocations performed (huge) despite the relatively small overall memory usage. I have greatly reduced one instance of this pattern of quickly allocating, and then deleting, objects - in a case where the allocation is not (usually) needed, it can be avoided unless needed.

56

Programming / Re: Improved Single Battle Mode

« on: November 07, 2012, 10:31:04 pm »

Now that 0.4.5 is out, any chance of getting this into the mainstream OpenXCom?

57

Programming / Re: More than 1 UFO per battlescape

« on: November 07, 2012, 09:24:16 pm »

Yes, this would need you to patch and build the OpenXcom source code.

58

Suggestions / Re: Incorporate TFTD UI improvements

« on: November 07, 2012, 09:36:56 am »

Mostly to prevent reaction fire - when equipped with explosive weapons in confined spaces, for example.

59

Programming / Aliens should see further

« on: November 06, 2012, 10:49:01 pm »

afaict, Aliens can see a range of "20" tiles.

Increasing that would seem to make the AI a bit more challenging. Otherwise, on open maps, it is really a bit too easy to have a scout see, hide, and the rest of the squad snipe from across the map until someone gets a hit, all from out of range.

60

Programming / Somewhat braver aliens

« on: November 06, 2012, 10:35:45 pm »

I have a custom OpenXCom - the number of aliens is tied to the difficulty level ; there are very many aliens at the higher levels. This does not make it harder, though. Kill enough aliens, quickly enough, and the rest keep losing morale, panic and go berserk, becoming easy kills and so it perpetuates.

It seems that Aliens should be braver. Especially at harder levels. (although, thats not checked here)