Worklog for Subirenihil
Planet X
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| Planet X: Adaptation Every time you play you'll get a different civilization, whether it be humanoid, insect, alien, robot, giant ameoba, walking plant, ghost, reptile, or something else. As well as having a random civ, you have a random tech tree, based on the world you encounter. The point is, you must adapt to your conditions or face extiction. Different resourses are on different planets, so you have figure out which ones you need and which to avoid. There are hazardous substances on you planet. But those materials may be vital to the survival of another race. Research is not just "research this tech to upgrade that thing", you spend money on research in various areas, like; how to combine resources, how to improve a specific attribute (damage, hitpoints, stealth, etc.), how to resist damage from something, etc. You might get lucky and get a result quickly, or you might be less fortunate and spend half the game trying to find a better way to harvest wood. Of course, the more urgent something is - like say your enemy has guns in the stone age - the better your chances of getting quick results - like you rapidly develop bullet proof leather or something. "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall internet the Earth" |
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I developed a scalable GUI for Planet X. It should appear pretty much
the same on any screen or resolution. Mouse functions included like
clicking, double clicking, dragging, etc. Menus and buttons still in
progress. "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall internet the Earth" |
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I have written and tested the code for telling a unit where to go.
Although I have no pathfinding code yet, I do have the ship accelerate
and decelerate properly. It will even backup and turn around. I fixed
bugs where the ship would fly circles around the destination, where it
would avoid the destination when it was pointed the wrong way, where it
would fly in reverse, and where it would flip rapidly back and forth for
a few seconds once it reached the destination. But all that is fixed. Now for waypoints. Then on to the pathfinding routines. "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall internet the Earth" |
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| For Planet X I'm working on creating my own image format - RGBAP (Red, Green, Blue, Alpha, Player
color). The RGB information is combined with the player color
depending on the value of P. The alpha is clamped onto the resulting
RGB to produce the RBGA of each pixel. Another way of understanding
what is going on is to use the P as alpha information, blend the texture
with a flat texture of player color, then use the A value as the alpha
of the resultant texture. Some sort of compression will be used to store the 40bpp texture and an editor will be included with the custom mapmaker. I may or may not make a custom model format. What I mean is, that I may incorporate a X format mesh into a system where I can have particle emitters, shadows, sprites, and anything else that might be nice - like attachment points for things like weapons, armor, or special effects. Further custom file formats - like maps, AI's, etc. may follow. "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall internet the Earth" |
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| Way back a few years ago when I was using the demo version of BlitzBasic, I began work on a RTS (real-time strategy
game). I got far enough into it to have all the objects in there. I
could tell my spaceships where to go. I could select them in groups.
The ships would autofire on enemies within range and mine from planets
within range. Ships could repair themselves and others. Debry left
from ships could be mined for small amounts of cash. But, it was way too demanding on the processor. And loading time was also rediculously long. So I started over mostly from scratch, improving some of the systems I had developed for the original. Then I bought Blitz3D. Now I'm working (slowly) on rewriting an improved, 3D version. (Sorry, no screen shots) If anybody is interested in the original, poorly made version, email me (I don't check my email very often, so it might be a week or two before I send the code to you). You may use any of the ideas/graphics contained therein. Just be aware that not all the code is well-written. "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall internet the Earth" |