Prerelease/Expans 2.001ZA (2 New Mines, Remains Rebuilder, Cleanup Drone, Perf+)

[FFLaguna]

Doubtless the colour tint will be procedurally cycled slowly by the game anyway so I wouldn't worry about it too much. 
 

I prefer a set color for deflectors. If/when other weapon type deflectors are introduced, different colors can be used to represent these.

And how do I add these to my game? Should I just turn my 32x32 deflector sprites into 768x768 sprites with the included particle animation?

[x4000]

There's not a way to include them with the game until I code them in.  Looks good, though!

[x4000]

and they're a moderately rare experimental ship anyway

Tell that to the 3 MkIII decoys i found in each system in one of my games!

That would be an Experimentalist you are playing against, then -- they are the only AI type that uses decoys at all, actually.

[x4000]

This doesn't respond to everything here, which I will do later, but I wanted to get this update out to fix the multiplayer desync reported here and elsewhere.


The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar2001ZA.zip

Updates in 2.001ZA:

-Infiltrators no longer absorb dark matter (and that ability has now been entirely removed as redudnant with the counter-dark-matter flares).

-When lasers are fired into the area around a deflector drone, their power is now reduced to 1/4 of normal, but otherwise they are no longer redirected or absorbed or anything of that nature.  That also means that deflector drones are no longer immune to lasers, though they are quite resistant to them.

-Several bugs from the last prerelease have been fixed relating to remains.

-Fixed a multiplayer desync bug from the last prerelease.

[I-KP]

I prefer a set color for deflectors. If/when other weapon type deflectors are introduced, different colors can be used to represent these.

The particle cloud is so subtle that the colour of it will be largely unnoticeable.  As it stands you'd be hard pressed to even see it against the starfield when the Deflectors aren't moving save for the gentle colour cycling (if one is coded in) and the twikling bits.  It's a large png as well so one wonders if with it being so subtle will it be worth the extra memory; although, anything more prominent would look horrible, particularly when overlapping.  *shrugs*

[x4000]

I prefer a set color for deflectors. If/when other weapon type deflectors are introduced, different colors can be used to represent these.

The particle cloud is so subtle that the colour of it will be largely unnoticeable.  As it stands you'd be hard pressed to even see it against the starfield when the Deflectors aren't moving save for the gentle colour cycling (if one is coded in) and the twikling bits.  It's a large png as well so one wonders if with it being so subtle will it be worth the extra memory; although, anything more prominent would look horrible, particularly when overlapping.  *shrugs*

Yeah, I have a similar wonderment.  Although, it's not memory that's the worry, but rather GPU load -- a lot of these in onscreen at once would add to any slowdown during massive battles, though I doubt it would make a real huge difference.  For now, ZA doesn't have this in there simply because I haven't had time to look at it.

[FFLaguna]

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar2001ZA.zip

Updates in 2.001ZA:

...

-When lasers are fired into the area around a deflector drone, their power is now reduced to 1/4 of normal, but otherwise they are no longer redirected or absorbed or anything of that nature.  That also means that deflector drones are no longer immune to lasers, though they are quite resistant to them.

This just made my day. I could have made a post filled with "Thank you" over and over and over.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you... etc.

[I-KP]

I prefer a set color for deflectors. If/when other weapon type deflectors are introduced, different colors can be used to represent these.

The particle cloud is so subtle that the colour of it will be largely unnoticeable.  As it stands you'd be hard pressed to even see it against the starfield when the Deflectors aren't moving save for the gentle colour cycling (if one is coded in) and the twikling bits.  It's a large png as well so one wonders if with it being so subtle will it be worth the extra memory; although, anything more prominent would look horrible, particularly when overlapping.  *shrugs*

Yeah, I have a similar wonderment.  Although, it's not memory that's the worry, but rather GPU load -- a lot of these in onscreen at once would add to any slowdown during massive battles, though I doubt it would make a real huge difference.  For now, ZA doesn't have this in there simply because I haven't had time to look at it.

The cover range of the Deflectors is so large that a similarly large png might be unavoidable..?  I'm not so sure simply leaving the effect radius as invisible would help keep the player informed about what is going on at-a-glance.  Tricksy.

[x4000]

I'm not so sure simply leaving the effect radius as invisible would help keep the player informed about what is going on at-a-glance.  Tricksy.

With any enemy counter-shooter, holding Z+X shows you its range.  Or just holding Z and hovering over it.  But, that costs no GPU power except when that specific key combo is pressed, which is nice.

[x4000]

Sounds like a good excuse to make an overlay for Deflector Drones to move with a subtle, gently twinkling cloud of reflective particles around them to illustrate their radius of effect.  I'll whip the pixel-pushing monkeys into action shortly!
 

Very nice, I'm looking forward to this! Will multiple deflector drones next to each other stack their gameplay effects? What about their graphical effects?

Oh, and to answer this -- no, they don't stack.  Would be more CPU-intensive to stack them, plus it would be detrimental to gameplay, anyway, in my view.  I take it you probably prefer that they not stack, anyway.

[x4000]

x4000, when will we get researchable teleport rebuilders? Then I can build less per planet and still have decent, high-speed coverage. I always research T2 engineers for the same reasons.

I think this is a great idea for both the cleanup drone and the rebuilders, I'll add that probably tomorrow or the next day.  Thanks!

Also, what are your thoughts on turning on friendly-fire damage for all or some mine types? Turn it into a real-life no-man's land, turrets included. Perhaps both smart mines and dumb mines are on the table?

Definitely no friendly fire on the existing ones -- people tend to dislike micromanagement, and having ships that stray into the minefields would then require me to code AI to prevent them from doing that (then defeating the purpose of the no-man's land in the first place).  It's always an arms race with that sort of thing, it seems.

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2676.msg16686.html#msg16686