Author Topic: XML questions and answers  (Read 59344 times)

Offline PokerChen

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #150 on: January 31, 2016, 10:43:35 am »
A pinball machine boss.
Genius.

 Or, perhaps, the boss has mandibles that reflect shots back at you? It actually has only 1 health x 3 morphs, but it's extremely difficult to line a shot up to get back those mandibles.

Offline Ayrix

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #151 on: January 31, 2016, 03:11:21 pm »
. I haven't quite figured out how to have an entity dodge 90 degrees to one side on trigger, but with a bullet-pattern moving the entity, it w
The cardinal movement option does something awfully similar. Making a train like boss that moves like a game of Snake should be relatively easy, and quite a change.

for now I just want to make a (mid?) boss using (o)Rin's zombie mechanic from touhou 11.
i.e. spawns familiars that shoot and run at you, on death they become untargetable and stop moving, but then re-spawn in the same spot  a few seconds later.

Offline Misery

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #152 on: January 31, 2016, 03:41:06 pm »
. I haven't quite figured out how to have an entity dodge 90 degrees to one side on trigger, but with a bullet-pattern moving the entity, it w
The cardinal movement option does something awfully similar. Making a train like boss that moves like a game of Snake should be relatively easy, and quite a change.

for now I just want to make a (mid?) boss using (o)Rin's zombie mechanic from touhou 11.
i.e. spawns familiars that shoot and run at you, on death they become untargetable and stop moving, but then re-spawn in the same spot  a few seconds later.

The problem is that each seperate entity with the cardinal-movement behavior would be under it's own AI, and would soon split up.  You'd have parts going all over the place.

That's why most of the bosses dont move:  The AI behavior is too unpredictable (with the exception of the Zamboni one), and unpredictable movement can cause undodgeable attacks.  Annoying, but... that's how it goes.

Offline Cinth

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #153 on: January 31, 2016, 03:43:18 pm »
You could design the boss room around the movement behavior.

You want a boss to act like a train?  Give him a track to run that fits his movement pattern. 
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Misery

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #154 on: January 31, 2016, 03:52:03 pm »
You could design the boss room around the movement behavior.

You want a boss to act like a train?  Give him a track to run that fits his movement pattern.

They still switch direction at random, is the thing.

That being said, a cardinal-mover with a track will show up soon enough. Well, sort of...   That one wont be from me, but from Ptarth.   I wont spoil it though.  It's not ready though, theres a few things to work out with it first. 

Offline Cinth

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #155 on: January 31, 2016, 03:54:37 pm »
That's what I was implying.  Cardinal makes 90 degree turns when it runs into something.  You can design a room to work with the and get the desired effect.
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Misery

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #156 on: January 31, 2016, 04:54:47 pm »
That's what I was implying.  Cardinal makes 90 degree turns when it runs into something.  You can design a room to work with the and get the desired effect.

What I meant was, they can still make total 180-degree turns.  But without being predictable about it.  Like, you dont know which way they'll turn next.

The boss that already has a track does this (for that boss, that's totally fine).

Offline Cinth

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #157 on: January 31, 2016, 05:07:14 pm »
180s would be ok, I should think.  So long as the boss isn't inaccessible for an extended period of time (I have no idea about the one ptarth is making).

You all do a great job at making fun stuff.  I'll keep making sure it feels good at normal. ;)
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline ptarth

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #158 on: January 31, 2016, 05:08:56 pm »
A Train Boss or Pacman could be good fun and a change from the usual boss in one place mode. The current limitation I can think of for the Pac man is some form of a location-based trigger, or on-collision-change-angle-by-90-degrees thing. I haven't quite figured out how to have an entity dodge 90 degrees to one side on trigger, but with a bullet-pattern moving the entity, it would be possible to do a simplified Pacman move system.

I've been working on code like this for a while now. I have an entity that will move in a direction on hit, but it doesn't know WHICH direction to go. However, if it is a fixed boss room, we could do some crazy things. Have each and the corner turns filled with 2 invisible entities. When the enemy boss goes into a corner, it hits one, based on which direction it came from. That entity then has the boss turn in the appropriate direction. Since the boss is already acting on a movement pattern, the second one won't change its behavior. T intersections would simply have some systems with a chance of happening and the others would always happen (unless the first does and put it into movement mode again). It would take a large amount of scripting to work.

Quote
If only there's an easy way to make a Free-Space style sweeping beam...?

I've been obsessing about this one too. My best idea so far is particles on a very high salvo or just a gravity laser with a low firing_rate. But then it is effectively always on and still have targeting issues, I can't get it to target where I want. On the other hand you can do fixed point targeting, which only will really work for a stationary boss. Although, thinking about it now, perhaps something like the the rotating shots Zharmad made recently might work out. There would be a lot of angle finagling involved.

That's what I was implying.  Cardinal makes 90 degree turns when it runs into something.  You can design a room to work with the and get the desired effect.

I spent some time on this with my first attempt at a pacman level. When a Cardinal mover hits a wall it chooses a random 90,180, or 270 path to follow. It will also ignore T-intersections and treat them as straightaways (for the most part). They aren't very good at doing anything rather than an aimless wander in a pacman style grid. The Zamboni did better a little better, but what was needed were all the variations of Zamboni movement, not just the right & down version. Mixing the movement types in the entities in the pacman grid was okay, but it really needed the pac pellets do make it really cool. I had tried a version with the maze filled with $1 credit pickups. That was actually really cool, and the sound effect was awesome. But they didn't want that much money seeded into a single miniboss room. Now though I have found you can have nondamaging shots that do the same thing, but I haven't pursued it again.
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Offline ptarth

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #159 on: January 31, 2016, 07:43:22 pm »
re:Zharmad

After about an hour of working on your Blademorph code I have successfully made them stop firing completely and occasionally force Stardward Rogue into locking up. I'm going to try again later.
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Offline Ayrix

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #160 on: January 31, 2016, 08:27:45 pm »
Getting there with the reanimating zombie familiars, the problem is making them go away after the boss dies.
Am I going to have to implement them as a very strange type of bullet, would even that clear them?
Essentially, I designed them as 2 entities, which both become the other on death.
(one chases and shoots you, the other is static, immortal, and just sits there and self attritions to trigger the re-spawn.)

Offline PokerChen

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #161 on: January 31, 2016, 09:07:05 pm »
re:Zharmad

After about an hour of working on your Blademorph code I have successfully made them stop firing completely and occasionally force Stardward Rogue into locking up. I'm going to try again later.

Maybe the game doesn't like bullets travelling at the speed of light... also, the XML reload function gets slower as slower until it locks up the game. Some sort of memory leak issue introduced with the extra fussiness?

Getting there with the reanimating zombie familiars, the problem is making them go away after the boss dies.
Am I going to have to implement them as a very strange type of bullet, would even that clear them?
Essentially, I designed them as 2 entities, which both become the other on death.
(one chases and shoots you, the other is static, immortal, and just sits there and self attritions to trigger the re-spawn.)

At the moment, the engine doesn't support several types of direct communication between a parent entity and the entities it spawns. What is your implementation like compared to the guardian turrets of the Warden / Backfire / etc. ?

One possibility is to check whether the boss can alter the ammo count of entity systems around it, and then have the reanimation be fueled by the ammo then set to zero on boss death. It's going to be a modifier that checks targets within the area of effect, but I haven't used this before. The ammo count for an entity system definitely works on enemies (I had this for the gemini sister, but took it off later IIRC) so you can have a limited ammo on death respawn that could potentially be set to zero ammo.

EDIT: Okay doesn't work or can't find the ammo of the target. Have you tried simply to set all of the minions as "is_familiar_that_dies_when_parent_dies", or does this not work when the entities spawn each other?
« Last Edit: January 31, 2016, 09:31:12 pm by zharmad »

Offline ptarth

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #162 on: January 31, 2016, 10:31:39 pm »
You might try a on death system that spread to all enemies that causes them to self destruct
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Offline Ayrix

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #163 on: January 31, 2016, 11:44:42 pm »
nope I need to get them to regen health, or for one type to become immortal. That would stop the respawning.

Offline TheVampire100

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Re: XML questions and answers
« Reply #164 on: February 01, 2016, 06:55:10 am »
When I design a Mech, is the mech selectable on the mech selection? or do I have to replace another mech?
Can I somehow make it selectable?

 

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