[Torte]

lol, sounds really nice... and just a side note about the old counters (max 69 or something like that): one of my games (Dimen lord, once even had a journal ), had 40 for weapons ...

[Risu2112]

hmm.

EDIT: yeah I was right, these boards are STILL cutting off the first post on a new page, any hope that this might be corrected?

[Risu2112]

Ok, got rid of that wierd ness about the diagonal movment.
I'll apply the changes to the battle screen, then I've got a list of a few minor bugs to clean up.

[Risu2112]

Back on the orbital paths, I recently added them in to the system screen because well, I needed SOMETHING to fill up all that empty space.

Any who, they make the board look a lot better, however I don't have enough board space to put a buffer for the circles, and manualy adding them would take huge amounts of Robot mem. I'm still working on spot fixing, that will be the best way to do it. I hope it works too because they really do make the board look better.

Still trying to fix the aforementioned bugs. There mostly taken care of at the moment.

[Risu2112]

sorry, no work done the last two days, been really busy. Expect more progress probably on friday, meanwhile I'll consider my options on a few issues the game is having (nothing too bad.)

[Risu2112]

Ok, nm that I'm back to work. Got a few plans for the game I hope to get done in the next week. I'll try to get the new refresh code onto the battle screen

[Risu2112]

Well my tester is going off to school this next week, I hopefully will have the beta for him in the next 2 weeks. Soon as he's done with it the demo will be released.

[Risu2112]

Well some how my roommate sprawled out on the ground provided me an idea to tackle the jump in the refresh code. 30 minutes later the problem is fixed. (I really thought it would take longer than that)

Lets see, left on the to-do list

1) Apply updated refresh code to the combat engine.
2) Add planet lander upgrade screen.
3) Make the manifest & Star map accessible from Hyperspace and in system
4) Re-make the field repair screen (the old one was based off of work done 18 months ago, it doesn't work any more).
5) Make star port look pretty.
6) Punch Jason Rice in the face for crashing into my car twice.

There are probably a few others that I can't name off the top of my head. I'd figure them out but I'm damned tired right now.

[joshdw1]

Glad your still working on it, i can't wait to play it

[Torte]

i... want... too... play... it... soon... very... soon... hurry... need... to... play... it...

[Galladin]

i.....................need....................to........................GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

[Risu2112]

Wow, I finaly made a half decent looking character for the player in star port. beats the hell out of that damn stick figure I've been using.

When I get back from work I'll try and animate it.

[Steel_Dragoon2000]

I can't wait for this to come out. It sounds really cool.

[Risu2112]

Okay, workin with that refresh code. I managed to move it to the combat screen, it looks pretty good however there are 2 problems. 1 the player ships's engine trail doesn't show up any more ( I can fix that ) and 2 the player's ship spins perpetualy and then vanishes after a few seconds.

I'm working with the later of the two now. Hopefully they will be corrected tonight.

Also one more thing to add to the to-do list, The motion detected thingy for hyperspace (whille it is really neat) is buggy as hell at the moment. I'll have to straighten that out.

[Risu2112]

Ok, engine trails show up again, the new code in combat looks pretty good, still need to lick that no moving bug that croped up. ( shouldn't be too hard ).

Thats it for tonight though, I'll get more done tomorrow.

[zombieguy]

I'm probably the 200th person who has said this but anywho, this game sounds great!! I can't wait untill its released, and um... Yeah, hurry up!

[Risu2112]

Woohoo! The new code for the combat screen is complete. looks pretty damn good and your ship no longer kills it's self (used a different label on the other screen so when it came to this one it had to be changed)

I'll probably work on the field repair stuff now.

[RoSS]

Damn it, Ken. I broke my keyboard when I drooled all over it. You owe me one. =D Don't ask me how I'm typing this...

[Risu2112]

Ok, here is the break down of recent balance changes

___________________________________________-
Fuel efficiency:

................WAS.............IS NOW

CLASS [1] 1000............1500
CLASS [2] 1500............1600
CLASS [3] 2000............1800
CLASS [4] 2500............2100
CLASS [5] 3000............2500

(# Of energy points converted from single unit of fuel)


_____________________________________________
Shield recharge rate
......................WAS..........................IS NOW

CLASS [1] 60=> 18 (1080).............127 =>16 (2032)
CLASS [2] 60=> 26 (1560)..............92 =>22 (2024)
CLASS [3] 60=> 36 (2160)..............72 =>28 (2016)
CLASS [4] 60=> 48 (3880)..............59 =>34 (2006)
CLASS [5] 60=> 62 (3720)..............50 =>40 (2000)

[Wait time for 1 shield point] => [# of shield points] (total wait time for full charge)
* All shields recharge rates are modified by their total system HP and current system HP. (if the generator has been damaged lets say 2/8 hp, then the shields recharge at 25% of their normal rate.)
____________________________________________-
Motion detector (hyper space)

WAS:
10% chance per wait cycle of detecting enemy ship at less than 40 distance

IS NOW:

((20-distance) /2)% chance per wait cycle.
Examples: you have a 2% chance to detect a ship at 18 distance per wait cycle
You have a 9% chance to detect a ship at 2 distance per wait cycle

The new method makes ship detection impossible after 20 distance.

_____________________________________________________-
Cost of upgrades have been adjusted (most were slightly lowered)


Wait time for ship acceleration has been decreased (ship accelerates faster)

In hyperspace lowering shields yields 10% of the standard energy return (shields charge 10 times as fast in Hspace as combat, this means a player in Hspace could turn on shields charge them up rapidly, then turn them off and gain more energy than was spent to operate the shields. Can you say" perpetual motion"?)

It now takes about 50% longer for your escape thrusters to charge and warp you out of combat

Landing on planets now requires a token amount of fuel (about 400 energy points or 0.27 units of fuel from class 1 engines. only 0.16 units of fuel from class 5 engines) Different planets require different amounts of fuel ranging from 100 energy units to 2000 energy units.
____________________________________________-
I'll probably put some more up later.

[Risu2112]

Wow, almost done with this now, I need to get my sound working again (I lost sound about a month ago when I got my new mother board). As soon as I can figure this out I can put in sound effects for everything. Thats one of the few things left to do.

[LostOne]

ZoMbIe GuY, on Sep 17 2002, 09:01 AM, said:

I'm probably the 200th person who has said this but anywho, this game sounds great!! I can't wait untill its released, and um... Yeah, hurry up!

If that's true; I'm the 201st! Sound very cool. I can't wait for it to come out.

[Risu2112]

Argh, found some more work to do on it.

Here are the proposed numbers for the Lander upgrades

PL engine upgrade: Increases Lander energy from 60 to 90, also negates two levels of weather when computing recharge rate of its batteries. Cost~ 500

PL Hull upgrade: Increases the Hull points of the Lander from 18 to 36. Cost ~450

PL Cargo upgrade: Increases the maximum storage of your Lander from 15 to 30. Cost~350



Here are the proposed numbers for field repairs (values of minerals appear in parentheses)

Armor repair = 1 unit of aluminums (3) for 1 point of armor [normal repair costs 1 credit per point]

Hull repair = 1 unit of Titanium (6) for 1 hull point [normal repair costs 2 credits per point]

Engine repair = 1 unit of aluminum (3) & 1 unit of cobalt (2) for 1 engine point [normal repair costs 2 credits per point]

Weapon repair (laser and cannon) = 1 unit of aluminum (3)& 1 unit titanium (6) for 1 point of repair. [Normal cost is 3 credits per point]

Electronics (shields. computer, sensors) 1 unit of aluminum (3) 1 unit of platinum (5) 1 unit of silver (4) for one point. [Normal repair cost is 4 credits per point]


As you can see, field repairs are far more expensive than standard repairs; this is to discourage full field repairs. With high costs, it's only useful to jury-rig systems together (i.e. repair 1 point to a destroyed laser and you can get some use out of it)



Too bad I still have to make both of those screens

[Torte]

Arent you looking for Beta Testers *Wink* *Wink*?

[Risu2112]

The end, on Sep 19 2002, 10:19 AM, said:

Arent you looking for Beta Testers *Wink* *Wink*?

Right now, unless any one can convince me otherwise, there will be a closed beta testing phase. 1 Tester (An IRL friend with some MZX experience) To date I've argued to keep the beta away from DMZX, just release the demo and full games to ya.

And any way, I'm pretty confidant the only problems testing will procure are spelling errors: D

[Kuddy]

KenOhki2112, on Sep 19 2002, 04:13 PM, said:

1 Tester (An IRL friend with some MZX experience)

You should have more people test than one of your RL friends... since he is your friend, his opinion and bug reports will probably have a bias, though your game will definitely be awesome by the looks of it. Try having a MZXer whom you don't know all that well do some beta testing, too.

[Risu2112]

Went to the Rush concert last night.
Whoa.
Best fucking night ever.

[Risu2112]

Ok, a small bug has been brought to my attention. Seems on the planet screen, if the lander is damaged while passing between sectors, the display reads the overlay about 10 charaters too high, this means the contents of the text box are drawn a second time onto the main window. It of course corrects its self after the next refresh, which for some reason takes about 2-4 cycles when this happens.

Now it's rare and doesn't affect gameplay, but my friend also told me on occasion it forces the lander to jump to the end of the new sector and load a third one.

If I can recreate that I'll have to fix it, could be problems if the lander warps outside the map and can't get back . Anymore, simply changing the way damage is dealt to a seperate robot would probably fix the problem.

[Risu2112]

Fixed that problem up there, no more strange warping. On RARE occasions it is possible to force the earth quake robot to skip a frame of the animation.

Deal with it, that ain't bad at all.

[Risu2112]

Totaly sweet, Just got sound to work again after 2 months, now I can put in the sound effects & all.

Also: is there a way to set VDMS to run with MZX with out right clicking on the .exe and selecting it? I've got a quick launch for mzx3.1 and I'd hate it if I had to open up the Megazeux directory each time.

[Risu2112]

Bad news.
I discovered a real nasty flaw with hot spots on planets, I fixed it, however at the cost of some of the engines stability. As it turns out the screen is now FAR too unstable for me to wish away. This will cause delay as I will now have to break up the robot that draws the ground of the planets into mulitple robots.

Not sure how far this will set me back, probably looking at another 2 weeks to correct it.


On the plus side, if I manage to pull this off, the planet exploration aspect of the game will be vastly smoother.