Prerelease 3.189 (Balance Changes And Bugfixes)

[keith.lamothe]

Actually Unity is C/C++, they just happen to support game logic written in Boo, Javascript (a form of it), and/or C# (which uses the mono implementation).  So it doesn't run on Linux and won't until they port their core stuff to use the c/c++ libraries available on linux.  They've said they want to do this but don't know when they'll have time because it's a huge undertaking.

That said, the mac version will likely be _much_ easier to hack into a running state on linux than the windows version has been.

[carlosjuero]

Ahh - I misunderstood the Mono impact then ; I know that the current Linux implementations (on Ubuntu at least) of Mono have much better support than has been the case for ages but I didn't think about other possible limitations.

Actually Unity is C/C++, they just happen to support game logic written in Boo, Javascript (a form of it), and/or C# (which uses the mono implementation).  So it doesn't run on Linux and won't until they port their core stuff to use the c/c++ libraries available on linux.  They've said they want to do this but don't know when they'll have time because it's a huge undertaking.

That said, the mac version will likely be _much_ easier to hack into a running state on linux than the windows version has been.

[x4000]

That said, the windows version of Tidalis (which is also on unity) reputedly runs great under even the older versions of WINE before the last one just came out.  And you don't need any crazy installers for .NET 3.5 or any of that good stuff.  So, I imagine it would be pretty trivial to run it under WINE on linux with the windows version at the very worst, but we'll see.

[carlosjuero]

Thats what I was basing my thoughts off from. Considering Mono is a Linux package for running .NET and that Tidalis runs good on Linux I put 2 and 2 together and somehow got 3.85 O.o

I would be willing to test it out - I have a separate Ubuntu install for various testing/fun purposes.

That said, the windows version of Tidalis (which is also on unity) reputedly runs great under even the older versions of WINE before the last one just came out.  And you don't need any crazy installers for .NET 3.5 or any of that good stuff.  So, I imagine it would be pretty trivial to run it under WINE on linux with the windows version at the very worst, but we'll see.

[x4000]

No worries, it's an easy mistake.

And, thanks also for the offer of testing it out on Linux, too.  Will be nice to hear how it does, I have my fingers crossed.  I used to run Redhat, then SUSE, then Mandrake, then pretty much got out of the Linux arena.  Things have sure changed a lot since then!  WINE was mostly just a partially-working pipe dream back in those days.

[carlosjuero]

I used linux quite a bit in those days as well - WINE has come leaps and bounds further than I ever thought it could have. Heck, I can get Lord of the Rings Online (fairly new) running in Linux w/ a Mono based launcher replacement. Biggest problem right now, in my eyes, for gaming on Linux is the lack of driver support - Mac sort of has the same issue, but with Mac it is Apples Apathy for quality drivers [from what I hear] that hurts them {I mean how is it possible for the same Mac to run SC 2 on High Settings w/ a Bootcamp Windows and only be able to touch Medium/Low with native Mac?}

Most of the DX 9 libraries are semi-supported now, and older DX versions are quite easily supported [though, of course, games based on OpenGL get native support from the kernel]. You won't be able to offer 100% guarantee for Linux usage, but you may be able to put a little disclaimer on the product page saying it has been known to have "limited operability on *nix based systems" - or something markety speechy wise

No worries, it's an easy mistake.

And, thanks also for the offer of testing it out on Linux, too.  Will be nice to hear how it does, I have my fingers crossed.  I used to run Redhat, then SUSE, then Mandrake, then pretty much got out of the Linux arena.  Things have sure changed a lot since then!  WINE was mostly just a partially-working pipe dream back in those days.

[x4000]

Very cool!  Thanks for all the info, I'm glad to hear it's come so far along.

[Spikey00]

I like the new sound effect for the machine gun turrets on the riot starships, but shouldn't that me more of the sound a dreadnought [should] make?

[keith.lamothe]

That's kind of funny, I actually didn't change that sound effect at all

[Spikey00]

That's odd, then maybe I just wasn't hearing of it for some reason (or maybe not using the machine gun).

[Vinraith]

That's kind of funny, I actually didn't change that sound effect at all

Perhaps the new shot spacing is causing it to sound different?

[keith.lamothe]

It does have a main gun, and the shotguns actually have a very nice sound effect that I-KP made for us (though regretfully I never did manage to get it at the right volume level; pretty tricky that).

But it could also be related to the new firing pattern logic for those guns that are supposed to be rapid fire but have just fired clusters rather than streams in the past because we had no performance-friendly way of doing it otherwise.  I don't see why that would cause a change in the sound, but maybe.

[keith.lamothe]

That's kind of funny, I actually didn't change that sound effect at all

Perhaps the new shot spacing is causing it to sound different?

I guess so.  Thing is that it was creating all the shots at the same time before, and it's creating them all at the same time now (it just has each subsequent shot "wait" X cycles before leaving the ship), so dunno.  It may just be the semi-related change that I made to increase the number of shots per salvo (but equally reducing the frequency of salvos).

How does the new shot spacing look to y'all, by the way?

[Spikey00]

It looks pretty cool, much more like volleys than individual shots, though it does look a bit "artificial."

[Lancefighter]

I like it, but with a question:

I'm running fast and dangerous, does this change how often the shots shoot relative to the total reload length, or the base time?

It seems to me that generally the machinegun module shoots fairly constantly for most of its time, then waits a short time, but the laser shoots 8 shots then waits considerably longer before firing again.

I was just wondering if the same proportions of firing were held as a constant, or the timing itself is constant.