Battlescape development

[Warboy1982]

using the throw calculation for the trajectory works, and the plasma projectile sprite can stand in for the green blob in the pck (for now) but you gotta make sure the throw calculation checks the tile below the source of the projectile as well, or stairs/ramps cause crashes, i wouldn't worry about the pre-spit drop-to-ground animation, it wasn't in the original, so we can live without it until we make a "pre-fire" state for it.

just my two cents.

[Daiky]

yup, it works now. I did a few things differently as in your branch: I introduced two unit variables for the zombie/chryssalid handling (I think you wrote something like that in your comments as a todo), so they are not hardcoded to the units "chryssalid" and "zombie".
Also the celatid spit will become a variable "arcTrajectory" which can be used for any weapon. (if you set this to true on the rocket launcher, you got a grenade launcher )
I merged your melee AI, which seems to work OK. I also merged in a few other bits, like the number of aliens depending on difficulty level.

[Daiky]

A lot of code, like the drawing routines of the additional units, from Warboy is implemented. It should include chryssalids, zombies, celatid, silacoid,...
Also the new A* pathfinding algorithm from karvanit (https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/pull/158) has been implemented.
Thanks guys. We are getting closer to a fully working (hopefully soon bugfree) battlescape...


edit: I believe the chryssalids are currently making a lot of noise :p I'm working on it.

[Warboy1982]

glad to see you included the left handedness/dual wielding stuff too

[moriarty]

kinda off-topic or at least off-recent-topic: I just tried the "inverted" RMB-scrolling for the first time, and now I see why this feels odd to you all: it IS odd, the way it is now.

the way I was thinking about it would have involved the cursor moving with the landscape, truly "dragging" it.

the problem with the way it works now (in both "normal" and "inverted" mode) is that this implementation introduces a mouse movement that isn't parallel to the cursor movement, which will always lead to a break in "calibration", which means it forces you to lift the mouse up and re-position it to have a comfortable interface again.

[Daiky]

moriarty, it probably is this topic you were looking for: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,655.0.html
(it's fenyo's mouse scrolling pull request)

I'm also more in favor of "map dragging" instead of "camera panning", and I think map dragging is more standard (in all modern games RTS games, in google maps and every other normal map application and every touchscreen game I know...). So eventually I'll probably put that in too, together with a "smooth camera movement" option. That will introduce a smooth movement of te camera when following a bullet, together with a subtile inertia, so the camera movement doesn't suddenly stop or starts, like when you drag and suddenly release slightly ramps down to a stop.
It are these small UI things people are used to in modern games and apps and that makes games that don't have them feel "cheap" to some people.

[moriarty]

ah, thanks, yes, I couldn't find that one... my bad.

I like your plans, especially the smooth bullet following camera. it's those little touches that make openxcom so much better than the original

[Fenyő]

@moriarty: I've just finished the implementing what you've missed:
Changed: RMB Scroll's Invert mode now works as in Adobe Reader ("map dragging")

its in the PR.

[Fenyő]

@moriarty: Have you tried the new invert mode? What is your opinion?

[moriarty]

Didn't have much time lately... I just tried it and it looks good and feels right. thank you!

[moriarty]

actually, just tried it some more, and found one issue

if you move your cursor to the edge of the screen (or window if playing windowed), the game starts its usual edge-scrolling! so if for example you want to scroll to the right, you "grab" something on the right-hand side of the screen and "drag" to the left, but once you reach the edge it starts scrolling to the left, because you hit the left edge!

I think there are two possible fixes for this:

1) disable the edge-scrolling mechanism while holding right mouse button (scrolling should continue beyond the edges of the screen, then.)

2) invert the edge-scrolling mechanism while  "battleScrollButton: [whatever]" is pressed AND "battleScrollButtonInvertMode" is "inverted"


btw, I think you should change that "battleScrollButtonInvertMode" to accept "true" and "false" as options, to have it consistent with the other "switches" in the config file, don't you think? maybe call it "battleScrollButtonModeInverted" instead, defaulting to "false".

[Fenyő]

if you move your cursor to the edge of the screen (or window if playing windowed), the game starts its usual edge-scrolling! so if for example you want to scroll to the right, you "grab" something on the right-hand side of the screen and "drag" to the left, but once you reach the edge it starts scrolling to the left, because you hit the left edge!

Yeah, i noticed that too. That's a downside of the inverted mode.

I think there are two possible fixes for this:

1) disable the edge-scrolling mechanism while holding right mouse button (scrolling should continue beyond the edges of the screen, then.)

I prefer this one.
You just need to set the conventional scroll to manual, this way the scrolling near the edges are activated only by a left click.
...At least in original X-Com, OpenXcom now does not make a difference between manual and auto scroll modes. (i think the manual is just not yet implemented )

2) invert the edge-scrolling mechanism while  "battleScrollButton: [whatever]" is pressed AND "battleScrollButtonInvertMode" is "inverted"

I don't see the point in this.
A condition (auto-scroll near the edges ONLY if Right(/Mid)-button is not in pressed state) to the auto-scroll should have more sense, i think.

btw, I think you should change that "battleScrollButtonInvertMode" to accept "true" and "false" as options, to have it consistent with the other "switches" in the config file, don't you think? maybe call it "battleScrollButtonModeInverted" instead, defaulting to "false".

Maybe.
Originally i thought it is better to have special values which are related to the option, (they express the thing better, more clearly to the user) this is why i didn't make it a boolean.

Others? What do you think? Do you guys also vote to change it to boolean?

[Daiky]

See, you can walk on Mars in coveralls perfectly fine

[pmprog]

Awesome! Good work! I look forward to start my Let's Play game

[michal]

It's one small step for x-com soldier, but one giant leap for OpenXcom community.