[Risu2112]

Well on a hunch I changed about 300 lines of code somewhat randomly hoping to solve a problem on the combat screen. While it did solve the problem it also created about 50 others, I spent most of yesterday cleaning up the mess with a lot of success, but I've still got a little problem with the AI to deal with. Well it was worth it, battles make a lot more sense now that I've cleaned it up a lot. I?ll get the AI running again and move on to the hail screen hopefully by tonight.

[Xeirxes]

I have great ideas for aliens, send over the thing and I'll figure out something, k?

[Risu2112]

Go right ahead, but no telling what I'll do with them. But on any level they qualify for inspiration.

Oh, and I've recovered all the damage I dealt the other day; everything?s running fine again. Looks like I'm gonna clean up the H-space screen a bit more, but it's in really good order.

[Risu2112]

Hmm, I think I will now tackle the spiting up of the game into several swap worlds. This should prove to be a pain because the game is completely nonlinear. Hopefully I can finish that in a few hours.

[weasel]

Well, looks like you're making quite a lot of progress! I'll be awaiting your release (no rushing though! I hate buggy games!)

[Risu2112]

You need not worry about the game being buggy, I plan to have at least 1 month for beta testing, and I don't expect the testers to find any problems minus perhaps some spelling errors.  . As for the progress, it is very real, considering I've been on the project for almost 3 years, this is extremely close to completion. If any one out there thinks this is some wild project that can never be finished, think again, it almost is.

[Revvy]

Sounds good Kenohki!  /me wants a copy.  NOW!!!

[Mr. Apol]

It's nice to see a big project actually being finished.  Sounds good though Kenohki, keep going!

[DylDrewInc]

Can I be a beta tester?

[Risu2112]

I'm a little uncertain about the beta testing phase, but it looks like it will be a closed testing procedure. I will probably have 1 or 2 IRL friends do the testing, hate to spoil the game on any of you by showing off the beta.

And thanks for the support every one, nothing motivates as well as people showing interest.

[Xeirxes]

WE MADE IT TO 100 POSTS!!!

Alright, KenOhki, what I meant was how will the aliens act? When I create images of aliens or stuff like that, I need personalities. And no, I will NOT be a beta tester for you because I want to be surprised by your game.

[Risu2112]

Xerxes, on Mar. 06 2002,08:36, said:

WE MADE IT TO 100 POSTS!!!

Alright, KenOhki, what I meant was how will the aliens act? When I create images of aliens or stuff like that, I need personalities. And no, I will NOT be a beta tester for you because I want to be surprised by your game.

LOL, it would seem so. Any way, as for the Aliens I would ask that you hold off, I keep changing the frames on the Hail screen so I wouldn't be able to tell you what size they need to be.

[Xeirxes]

Ahhh, don't worry about that. I meant I was going to do drawings on paper, then I would refer to my drawings when I needed to copy it to MZX. That way, you can switch the frames all you like. But I believe the best frames are the ones where it either only shows their face, or their entire body. No in-betweens. I would prefer the entire body, however, because it would give the player a chance to see the different aliens fully.

[Risu2112]

Ok, expect little progress the next week, I'm moving out under mysterious circumstances, and this should turn out to be an "aggressive" event to say the least. The fun part is I will probably get to work 60 hours a week and stay in 12 units of college. Fun! Hopefully that won?t last more than a few weeks. This shouldn't affect SFmzx too much, just no progress for a week or so while I get this all straitened out.

Divorced parents are cool for a kid, until the kid is no longer worth child support.

[Risu2112]

Ok, bought my self some time, I won't be out till around the 1st.
Any way hit the Combat screen and eliminated all of the flicker, I will now do the same with the In system travel board. All of the others have already been fixed. Still working on the hail screen, it's giving me a few problems. And I think I will be able to manage the swap world?s fine, but a lot of code still has to be changed for that.

[gofer-chan]

Sounds wonderful. But, about the beta testing.... please, I'm a fellow Calvin and Hobbes fanatic! Pleeeeeeeeeze send me a beta!

[Risu2112]

Ok, switching all the code around to break the game up into swap worlds is a pain; I'm getting there though. I decided to revamp the System travel screen, might as well because I have to redo a lot of it any way.
And gofer, we'll see, maybe I'll through out a teaser.

[Csonicgo]

W00t! i can't wait

[Risu2112]

Yay! I sucessfully moved out on the first as planed. In a day or two I will return to work on SFmzx. However I won't get my DSL for about 5 more days  

[ShloobeR]

Im getting ADSL in about a week... HOORAY!!

[Risu2112]

Haven't touched it for a week or two, but I have some serious time off soon, I'll get a lot of work done then. (Maybe go for it and finish all ~150 planets   )

[Thunderdog]

!%) PLANETS!?!?!??!?????

[Risu2112]

Yeah 150 give or take a few, there are about 50 star systems, (actually I think I dropped it down to like 48 or something) and there will be about 3 per system (some will have a lot, some will have little to none.)
I redid the system board again, trying to make it easier by standardizing the orbit planes. If the new board works it will be a lot easier to code in the systems. In addition this will allow me to make the planets move in their orbits    (not sure if they will move when you leave the system or while your in it. probably while your gone.)

[Risu2112]

The swapworld command resets the "loopcount" counter.

####.
Why do I always remember this sort of thing after I write the code?

This might take a while.....

[Risu2112]

Ok, new systems look great, the plantes now randomly move on their orbit rather than a certain amount based on your time gone, (had to do that because of the swapworlds) any way,I decided to eliminate the planets screen, (that is the one after you touch the planet that shows it scrolling across the screen) I got rid of it because well, there's no need for it, previously there were several things you could do there, but now they are all on the P.E. screen, so now touching a planet just takes you to the P.E. screen.

[Risu2112]

Ok, Major progress so far tonight, plan to get a lot more done too. HERE IS THE DAMAGE REPORT! (sucks to be on dial up right now.)

Ok, I sat down and aproximated exactly how big this is gonna be, my random guesses of 7-9 meg weren't too high... here is the break down:

Comunication ..........1498k
Planets.................. 6850k
Combat...................2495k
Systems..................2900k
Other major boards..... 600k

This adds up to a whooping 14.3 meg

14.3 meg, this is of course not including any cut sceens or music, so with those it could be as high as 16 megs

Now, there has been a lot of talk of megazeux blowing up .MZX's that are "too big" (over 2.4meg or so) any way, I Just created a new world, and copyed the same planet 150 times, saved it (6,819KB) ?almost 7 megs. It loads in less than 1/10 of a second, plays with NO visual slow down. As far as I can tell it ran the same as another world with only 1 planet on it at all speeds (1-9). Needless to say, this news enthralls me, looks like it's gonna work

I of course will test the huge world many times to see if it degrades in any way, but so far it looks good.



Oh, and I finished breaking up planets/systems into their respective swap worlds. Was tough but I got it done

[Risu2112]

:0

[Revvy]

I'm pretty sure the thing will only load in 1/10 of a second on fast computers.  Old ones like my 486 will probably take a long time.  Luckily I've also got a pentium 3 with no music in mzx.

[Risu2112]

Shouldn't take long at all, I can't imagine it loading for longer than a few seconds, and even if it *somehow* took a minute I say thats a small price to pay.

[Risu2112]

That was weird, I was running a test of the game, I landed on a planet and the mineral generator began to crank out minerals as usual. during the generating process there are two numbers that apear in the ship console, one is the number of attempts to place a mineral, and another is how many have succesfully been generated. well the "Trys" one was winding up as normal, but nothing was being placed, eventualy when the trys hit 2000 it drops you on the planet regardless if the minerals have all been placed (there were none of course). Well I found this odd, so I went back and directly tested the planet from the editor, same thing happend, so I imported the board over it's self, but it still happend, so I reverted to an older version of the game where it did work, and it happend there too. Very strange indeed. finnaly I quit megazeux, started it up again and now it mysteriously works fine.

How odd, maybe I used the wrong version of mzx or somthing...but it would have had to of been a newer version I used by accident, and I'm not sure how that would have messed it up. (SFmzx is still S3.1)...

(I wasn't using that huge MZX file I made earlyer this one was only 300k so that couldn't have been it.)