Major Requests for people who can recompile vegastrike.exe

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 12:48 pm

(1) A units.csv column that decides whether a unit can be tractored in or not. (not urgent)

(2) Tractor beams actually "eating" an object only when it's very close, right now as soon as your beam touches a piece of cargo, it's teleported in rather than brought close first. (urgent)

(3) Repulsor beams NOT eating cargo at all, please. (middle)

(4) Tractor beam ( weapons in the SPECIAL slot) being grouped with missiles as in the original Priv...

Thanks... Also if someone could tell me what I need to recompile vs.exe so that I may give this stuff a shot.

(Also, after watching the cartoons, I'm tempted to put a tractor beam on Scimitars, since they use it a LOT there)

Post by **klauss** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:28 pm

I compile with VC++, but I guess you don't have it. Perhaps it compiles with DevC++, downloadable and free, based on GCC. So, that would be a start (downloading DevC++). Plus, you need vorbis (you have to download the SDKs separately).

smbarbour · Post by **smbarbour** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:48 pm

spiritplumber wrote:(2) Tractor beams actually "eating" an object only when it's very close, right now as soon as your beam touches a piece of cargo, it's teleported in rather than brought close first. (urgent)

I don't know if it is just that way in WCU, but I've noticed that anything that will not fit in your hold will be brought close first.

(You can test this by flying a ship to an asteroid field and tractoring them in. In a Dodo, you can fit one asteroid fragment in your ship. Any more than that and it will draw it close before smashing your ship. I laughed and cried at the same time when it happened to me. It was hilarious, but saddening at the same time.)

Post by **klauss** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:58 pm

So it would be a matter of tweaking behavior so that it always draws it closer. Perhap's it's easy. I'll add it to the list of things to look into.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:42 pm

Things that don't fit in your hold get pulled close.

Things that DO fit are instantly sucked in.

What I would like to see is things that DO fit being pulled, THEN being sucked in when they're close (100? 50? impact?) to the ship.

Post by **klauss** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:49 pm

Easiest way would be, IMO, almost-impact. An almost-impact distance can be computed easily accounting for both objects' sizes (yours and the thing you're tractoring), giving the impression of entering the cargo hold on impact, but hugely easier to code.

If I'm right, fixing it would be adding a tiny-weenie line of code.

PS: (4), IMO, would be messy. How would that work? Would you trigger it with missileKey? But that is a single-shot key. I think the original privateer had a key for the tractor beam. But my memory could serve me wrong (many years since then have passed).

Halleck · Post by **Halleck** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:42 pm

I can recompile it, sure. However, tweaking it is not my forte, so I'll probably be of little use here.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:03 am

In WC2 the trac beam was fired like a gun.

In Priv the tractor beam was activated by targeting cargo, then you would tap ENTER and the beam would stay on until it either ate up the cargo, or got out of range. You could tow cargo a little ways by carefully varying your speed, same in WC4(not sure in WC3).

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:36 am

Two more things that would greatly enhance the feel of combat:

(1) "Splash" animation for blaster shots where they hit, if they hit armor.
(2) Missile explosions going as fast as the target rather than as the missile -- sometimes the explosions go right thru a ship.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 6:20 pm

At the vegastrike forums we've been discussing possibly using the ogre3d engine to replace the rendering back end of the vegastrike engine. If we do that, we'll get particle systems for free. That'd be the thing to have for 'splash'.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:15 pm

Even just a small explosion sprite would do...

Post by **klauss** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 5:51 pm

I had already thought of (1) beta (the second 1). But it's quite complicated due to the sheer number of sprites that would be generated. Some pooling mechanism should be created, for particle systems (in fact, redoing the work done in Ogre, but much simplified).

About (2)... Hm... I'm already thinking of a hack to do so easily. But the "propper" way to do it, is wait till (1) is done, and make missile explosions a special case of (1).

Also - I know, too ambitious - I was thinking about making explosion chunks move independently (perhaps creating independent subunits - that would be a way).

Progress report: The tractor beam is fixed. I'm now thinking about how to fix the slingshot problem, but that's not easy. Anyway, original (2) and (3) have been fulfilled, I just have to commit the changes someday.

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Major Requests for people who can recompile vegastrike.exe

Major Requests for people who can recompile vegastrike.exe

Re: Major Requests for people who can recompile vegastrike.e