Worklog for Rhodan
Worklog 1
Return to Worklogs
| ||
|
I have a basic multiplayer game working and I've had a lot of fun
getting there. I've learned a LOT about writing multi-user games - 99%
of the credit goes to fellow Blitzers who post suggestions and
critiques! There are still a number of things I need to learn how to do properly. I'm going to write some small proggies to test/develop concepts. I still have to try and figure out pathfinding for AIs. I have the old A* Blitz Library but I'm thinking its overkill for what I expect of AI troops. I think I just need to do obstacle avoidance (troops only defend a single fort and there's no other objects or landscape features that would be in thier way..) Heh, at the rate I'm going I won't be starting the re-write until after BlitzMax! is available... |
| ||
|
I haven't progressed much in the way of features to the tank game. I've
been implimenting radars and discovering just how complicated my
"cheatproof" methodology is going to be. I've already spent two days just sorting out how to handle enemies/friendlies going out of radar range and coming back. Since the client doesn't know where the out-of-range vehicle is, I had to figure out how to tell it to start showing the vehicle again when it comes back into range. It wasn't as easy as you might think since it had to be a function of the client, not the server. The solution was simple, just not easy to figure out! I have the main portions of radar working the way I want now, but a major part still remains. One of the perks to upper ranks is the ability to see all "known" enemies on a world map. Any enemy tank that appears on an allied tank's radar will also be visible on the worldmap to a "command" ranked player. I'm planning on having an array on the server player type that records the time of last sighting by apposing forces. Whenever they're visible to an enemy, the appropriate "seenby" element is set to the current milliseconds. As long as that time is within one second of the current milliseconds, the information will be sent to the appropriate commanders. It also occured to me that it would be useful to commanders to see last known enemy positions on the map. I won't just make the dots disappear when they are no longer in range. Instead, I'll let the commanders choose how long to keep displaying lost contacts. I'll probably try and show how "old" a contact is as well, though I don't want to completely clutter up the worldmap and end up hiding "live" contacts. I'm also agonizing over how to handle shooting! Yes, the most basic function of a tank game =) I have rudimentary physics implimented and I'm happy enough with the travel of shells. Range is a poser - I want people to have decent engagement ranges but I also want to keep the world feeling "large". Right now I'm aiming at (no pun - really!) long-range being 400-500 grid units. Problem is that my shell arc is gigantic at this range and the shell takes forever to get there. I'll definately flatten out the trajectory and speed up the shell, but then where's the "reality" in not letting people sit on top of a mountain and shoot folks 2000 grid units away? I'd actually like to let people do that but it would up my bandwidth requirements a LOT... Right now any tank not within visual range requires only a fraction of the data a visible tank needs. To let people shoot tanks 2000 units away, I have to up the visual range... Heh, believe it or not I still haven't done anything for damage. Shells hit and explode but don't actually do anything =) There isn't one bit of damage code in the game yet! I'm also still waffling over a firing interface. Right now I just have a camera view that sits slightly above the barrel and it pitches along with the barrel (though not as much). The shells are given the same world yaw/pitch/roll as the barrel and fire out from there. I have the mouse set up so that holding the right mouse button and moving the pointer off center will rotate/elevate in that direction. I don't like the feel of it though. I made a "dead zone" but it has to be fairly small. I find it difficult not to drift off target. The yaw control is pretty good, but elevation has to change. I'm going to try "seeking the pointer" instead. You move the pointer up and the barrel will elevate, but at the same time I'll move the pointer (by code) back toward center. When the two meet the barrel stops elevating. I dug out my old tank games (iM1A1, TP2, and Armored Fist 3) and realized that I really hated all three aiming mechanisms. I'm pretty sure they implimented TC positions simply because manual shooting was such a pain! Another poser. While making the shell leave the barrel in a "realistic" way is err, realistic... It makes actually hitting things quite difficult! Yaw and pitch are great but, roll really screws it up. If I roll the camera with the barrel and the tank is on a slope, it looks like the shell is disobeying physics. There's no decent visual cues to let you know you're on a slope. If I remove roll from the camera, the shells fire off to the side. I think I'm going to break with reality in the gunner's view. Camera and shell will have zero roll so your shot goes out from the center of your screen and having the camera upright removes the "water flowing uphill" illusion. Not realistic I know, but more playable. No, I'm not going to include laser rangefinding - all firing will be manual. Enough rambling for now. |
| ||
|
Had four people in. A server tank (for us to shoot), two people from
the LAN and one external. Fixed a couple bugs and its working well...
except for the 1.72 sound crashing! Waaah =( I should have kept a backup of 1.71... |
| ||
|
I've been working on a 3D multiplayer tank battle game for a few weeks
now. It uses a dedicated server (no renderworlds, no meshes, just
pivots!). I'm designing this so the server does all the critical work
(VIS, collisions etc) and tells the clients what to do. You can speed
your computer up and the server won't care. You can't move any faster
than the server tells you to. Figure out a cheat to move your tank
around? Won't matter, you will only see what the server's representation
of your tank can see. I'm aiming for 100% cheat protection here. It
means higher bandwidth/lower max players - but I'd rather have fewer
honest players than more dishonest players =) So far I have working: Terrain looks nice - takes about 2 hours to cross in a tank. Tank movement hull, turret and barrel rotations from the server Shooting - from the server again Hitting things - both server and client do this independantly. Client collisions are aesthetic only and just there to cut down network traffic. Server tells the client the starting x,y,z,pitch,yaw for the shell then the client takes over. Actual hits etc are handled by the server. I don't actually do anything with "hits" yet. Client just makes a different sound. Delayed sounds - Fire a shell WAAAY over -> there, you'll see the explosion then a little while later you'll hear the explosion. Same goes if someone far away fires at you, you'll see the shell fly past you before you hear him shoot. Radar - have a half-arsed World map radar working. Needs lots of work. Also have a HUD radar for tanks that is working fine. Just have to overlay hull/turret images so you can tell where everything is pointing. Not sure if I want the radar dots to be in relation to your hull facing or to compass directions... Have to see. I'm just tightening up the network messages. Changing from floats to ints whereever possible and eliminating some messages where I can let the client handle things without fear of cheats (like hull pitch/roll). Should be ready for external network testing tonight or tomorrow. Works fine with four players on my LAN so far, P3-866 uses 3ms to generate a frame with all four tanks in visual range. I have a frame every 33 milliseconds. Leaves me 30ms free so far! Not sure how many players that allows as the radar routines get exponentially larger (3 iterations per player with 3 players, 10 iterations per player with 10 players etc). Still to go: Multiple vehicle types - Scouts, artillery, aircraft - need models though Grouping system - Platoons Regiment system (guilds) Ranking system - Higher ranks gain abilities Fort placements - for refuel/repair/LR Radar Alliances - not sure if I'll make countries or just allow Regiments to ally/war on one another. |