Release 0.0.9

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Release 0.0.9

Postby Terl Obar » Tue May 05, 2009 10:04 pm


Let the battles begin!

This release introduces actual combat into the tactical game. You can move your ships, select targets and do damage. Right now it just does hull damage as if the weapons were firing against a reflective hull for "to hit" probability. For basic instructions on how to use the interface refer to the Release 0.0.8 comments for movement and this Feature Request Topic for the weapon and target selection interface. Full documentation (for what is currently implemented) is the next item on my todo list.

There are probably some edge cases in the weapon and target selections that I missed so if you run into any problems let me know.

The sample battle you can play pits 3 UPF Assault Scouts and 1 Frigate against a Sathar Destroyer and Light Cruiser. I'll be curious to see how many times each team wins.

Download the Windows version (~1.6 MB)
Download the Linux version (~4.4 MB)

It will probably be a while before another release comes out. I'm going to be doing some serious refactoring of the code behind the scenes and adding a bunch of unit tests. The code base is right around 10,000 lines of code and still growing. The next release will tie in the tactical game with the strategic one so that when the fleets meet in the tactical game, you can play out the battle and have the results sent back to the strategic game.

In any case, enjoy and send feedback
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby BD Cerridwen » Wed May 06, 2009 8:30 am

I like how the game is shaping up! I was enjoying my first little battle until the game crashed on me. It did this once during the strategic play as well. The crashes appear to occur during a movement phase. Even though I had moved the minimum required for all of that player's ships, the 'movement complete' button doesn't activate. The crash occurs as I continue to try to change the moves in order to get the button to activate.

I'm running Win XP SP3 with 2GB RAM and Pentium 1.6 GHz processor.

Some other things that I noticed during play is that I seemed to be targeting hexes and not a specific ship in a hex. At one point, I had an assault scout and both Sathar ships all in the same hex. The weapons indicated that they had a target, but bless me if I know what they were targeting. I'm guessing that it was the heavy cruiser as it was the second ship to die (after the UPF frigate). EDITED My bad. I didn't expand the window in that first game and see the little target blocks in the upper left corner.

Summary:
Round 1 was a draw due to a crash. There may have been a slight advantage to the UPF. I had two assault scouts left with only one damaged (3 points worth) and the destroyer had only 22 HP left.

Round 2 played all the way through. I made an effort to not stack the ships. The Sathar won with only their destroyer surviving with 4 HP left.

Round 3 crashed during Sathar movement phase after each side had executed one attack. No ships were lost. Status of remaining ships unknown.

Round 4 was also a Sathar victory. The destroyer was undamaged and the light cruiser was beat to hell - 8 HP left.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby Terl Obar » Wed May 06, 2009 6:40 pm

The window was designed to basically fill a 800x600 resolution window although you can make it bigger. If you click on a hex with multiple ships it should cycle through the targets in that hex. (Now that I think about it, there may be a latent bug here if you have one of your ships in the same hex.)

For the first crash you described, there may be a problem with the code that keeps track of movement, I'll have to double check.

On the Movement Done button not illuminating, it may be that you had two ships on the same hex. To get to the second one (or third, or fourth, etc) you have to click again on the hex and it cycles through all the ships. Eventually, I want to have a little pop up window there that shows you all the ships in the hex and lets you pick the one you want to work with.

It's strange you didn't see the target block in the upper left, that is supposed to stay in the upper left regardless of the size of the window. I'll have to look into that.

Where were the Sathar ships when you were trying to move them in your Round 3 game? The problem was probably caused by some weird edge condition but I need to know what edges might have been involved. (one of my refactoring tasks is actually an upgrade to how I store the map that will remove the edges, giving an effectively infinite playing field).

I actually haven't played this scenario all the way through. I did all my testing with only 1 AS so the Sathar always won. :twisted:

Thanks for the feedback. I'm hoping to have documentation out by Friday.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby BD Cerridwen » Thu May 07, 2009 10:42 am

I think I missed the target block simply because I'm blind. Once I discovered their existence, I have always seen them.

Concerning the Round 3 game, I think I clicked on a ship that I already moved. For example: I move the destroyer 6 hexes straight ahead. Then I click on the Cruiser, but decided I wanted to turn the destroyer to the right. When I click back on the destroyer to change its route, the game crashes. The game will hang or crash if I chose a direction that takes a ship off the edge with 0 MR left to turn it and not enough ADF to slow it. How about and escape option where ships can run off the edge of the map but not come back?

I have no problems rotating through the ships in a stack during targeting. That part works great now that my blindness is cured. I still can't reliably rotate through the stack during movement. If I move one ship in the stack, then click on an enemy ship, then I can click to rotate the movement stack - sometimes. This can cause a crash too.

The game will crash anytime the moving player clicks on the movement done button and one of his ships has a speed of zero, including as a starting speed.

There are limitless torpedoes. This is for both sides, although I first noticed it with the UPF frigate.

I played many, many rounds yesterday. I would say that the Sathar won 2/3 of the time. The keys to UPF victory include a high starting speed (15-20) and destroying one of the Sathar ships on the first pass, typically the destroyer since it can maneuver better. I once targeted the light cruiser on the first pass accidentally (blind - remember?) and actually destroyed it! The destroyer took two scouts and the frigate with it though. I only finished one game with all four UPF ships intact, but I think I played the Sathar stupid in that round by spread defensive fire between the attackers. The Sathar have a huge advantage by moving first, especially given the limitations of the map size. By the time the two sides meet, they can be in a good defensive formation and going fast enough to reach ships trying to sneak around the edges. The best tactic for the Sathar is to take out a Scout with their first shots (usually defensive fire).

The tactical game is shaping up nicely! You're doing a great job.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby simplymenotu » Thu May 07, 2009 10:48 am

I ran through the program a few times with only one crash.
I would suggest the "View Fleet" window be re-sizable (it's very long on my screen).

:?: Would it be possible to use the program to make my own fleets instead of using the Second Sathar War Fleets?
:?: Is there a simple way to resolve combat with fleets having more than 10 ships? (I'm talking using chits, dice and the KH hex map)
:?: When do you think the "battle map" will be ready?

Overall I'm very pleased with this game. Keep up the great work! :D
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby BD Cerridwen » Thu May 07, 2009 11:37 am

Check it out. The targeting hexes for AS 0 are way off. It was stacked in a hex with AS 1, both facing NE. I used the 'move, click enemy ship, traverse the stack, move' technique to break up the stack. I think AS 0 was at the top of the stack, but I can't be sure. I was still able to target the weapons on the cruiser though.

FYI, the cruiser took out Scout 2 and the frigate before being destroyed. The Sathar had crappy gunners and caused almost no damage in defensive fire.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby Terl Obar » Thu May 07, 2009 9:11 pm

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I'm working on some basic documentation for the tactical game right now and then I'll get on fixing bugs and adding some more functionality. Here are a few comments on your comments:

  • I know about the issue moving off the edge of the map. Or I should say that I knew there was an issue with movement off the edge of the map. I had just been avoiding it and didn't know exactly what would happen. I haven't decided exactly how to deal with it. And the map is actually 1/2 column bigger (every other row has one more hex) than the standard KH map that comes with the game
  • I never thought to test a ship with speed 0 to see what happens. I'll have to look into that.
  • I'll have to look into the target hexes issue. I thought I nailed that :( I know I spent enough time on it (I think I had to rewrite it three times)
  • It's strange that the torpedos don't get used up. Do the Rocket Batteries get depleted? Is it that the torpedo count doesn't go down or that when it gets to zero you can still shoot? I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter as I don't think I'm checking that.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby simplymenotu » Fri May 08, 2009 8:58 am

Terl Obar wrote:[*] It's strange that the torpedos don't get used up. Do the Rocket Batteries get depleted? Is it that the torpedo count doesn't go down or that when it gets to zero you can still shoot? I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter as I don't think I'm checking that.


It seems like I could not fire Torps. Also, does the software calculate a hit and damage? Am I supposed to push a button or something?
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby BD Cerridwen » Fri May 08, 2009 9:17 am

Terl Obar wrote:Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I'm working on some basic documentation for the tactical game right now and then I'll get on fixing bugs and adding some more functionality. Here are a few comments on your comments:

...

[*] It's strange that the torpedos don't get used up. Do the Rocket Batteries get depleted? Is it that the torpedo count doesn't go down or that when it gets to zero you can still shoot? I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter as I don't think I'm checking that.[/list]


They count down just fine. I tested the other LTD weapons this morning and found that this issue exists for all of them. I continued to test until I witnessed damage caused by a 'non-existent' weapon. Maybe you should keep this as an 'undocumented feature'. :D

Also, I discovered a new bug (sorry - I just can't get enough of playing this game!). During offensive fire only, some weapons are allowed to target ships beyond maximum range. I first noticed it with the Sathar canon weapons but have done it with a Sathar RB as well. The LC and RB had an extra hex of range while the DC had two extra hexes. These were beyond the hexes that were highlighted as targetable by that weapon. The target hexes highlighted correctly.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby Terl Obar » Fri May 08, 2009 7:58 pm

BD Cerridwen wrote:They count down just fine. I tested the other LTD weapons this morning and found that this issue exists for all of them. I continued to test until I witnessed damage caused by a 'non-existent' weapon. Maybe you should keep this as an 'undocumented feature'. :D
If player== UPF {don't check ammo count} :D. I actually haven't checked the code but I'm sure I know where this bug is.
BD Cerridwen wrote:Also, I discovered a new bug (sorry - I just can't get enough of playing this game!). During offensive fire only, some weapons are allowed to target ships beyond maximum range. I first noticed it with the Sathar canon weapons but have done it with a Sathar RB as well. The LC and RB had an extra hex of range while the DC had two extra hexes. These were beyond the hexes that were highlighted as targetable by that weapon. The target hexes highlighted correctly.
I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. Since it's MPO, I know where to look for the bug. Thanks.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby Terl Obar » Sat May 09, 2009 10:03 am

Larry,
It does all the calculation for you when you click on the "Fire Done" button. It doesn't display anything saying what happened at the moment but all the ship stats are updated.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby Terl Obar » Mon May 11, 2009 6:47 pm

Linux version now available. See the link in the original post.
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Re: Release 0.0.9

Postby Will » Sun May 17, 2009 11:07 am

BD Cerridwen wrote:Check it out. The targeting hexes for AS 0 are way off. It was stacked in a hex with AS 1, both facing NE. I used the 'move, click enemy ship, traverse the stack, move' technique to break up the stack. I think AS 0 was at the top of the stack, but I can't be sure. I was still able to target the weapons on the cruiser though.

FYI, the cruiser took out Scout 2 and the frigate before being destroyed. The Sathar had crappy gunners and caused almost no damage in defensive fire.


The Sathar normally have crappy gunners...in the stats given for the campaign game, I believe they used 2d-level techs to man their weapons.
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