Showing posts with label Progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Progress. Show all posts
What goes up must come down... and preferably explode
by Kyzrati on 20110906 , under Progress, Screenshots
You can now toss things around. The throwing model pretty closely follows the X-COM strength/weight-based range system, with one major (and no doubt highly-anticipated) exception: you won't encounter problems caused by limited arcs.
The game will first try the "ideal" peak for your throw (according to distance) and plot a parabola through that. If the path is blocked, it will successively attempt worse and worse peaks until it finds an unobstructed one (if any). This flexibility isn't free, of course! The further away you are from the ideal peak, the lower your accuracy. So while you can theoretically try to throw your grenade like a fastball straight across the entire map, you're probably going to miss. And missing can be a big deal with a primed grenade, since the miss trajectory could send it bouncing off a nearby wall or ceiling to land not far away...
Here are some normal throws (the side view of course comes in very handy for checking your throwing trajectory):
A throw onto a roof:
A throw from a roof:
One exception to the friendly arcing system is the map ceiling, which unfortunately does limit your throws--fortunately throws from high positions to other high positions (which are the only ones really affected) aren't very frequent. You can still try your throw from building-top to building-top, but thrown objects cannot leave the map so you'll have to risk a pretty straight trajectory (the drawback is negligible if it's close, so don't worry about that). Throwing from a high position (even at the top of the map) to a lower one usually won't be affected much by the ceiling, since the peak will be quite low, generally even level with you.
(On a technical note, throwing makes no attempt to use actual physics or gravity modeling; it actually just picks a peak and two midpoints and draws up to four lines between them.)
Oh yeah, and thrown objects can crash through windows:
Thrown items are integrated with the particle engine (they're actually particles themselves), so they can have special effects associated with them as well (smoke grenades trail smoke while flying through the air, electro-flares pulsate on their way to a target). I designed a few placeholder particle effects for throwing, but I'll wait 'til next time to put up a video together with a few of the other new additions.
The game is not, however, quite to the point where you can play hot potato with primed grenades--grenade priming is coming next, though currently any grenades that require no priming (i.e., smoke) will go off instantly.
Any item can now be attached to both/either/none of a "firing" explosion (usually for explosive ammo) and "throwing" explosion (usually for grenades), so it would be pretty easy to make interesting objects like alien bodies that explode when you throw them, or a kind of explosive ammo that can also be thrown to make it detonate... Imagine some super buff soldier grabbing a rocket and literally tossing it at a group of aliens :)
The game is not, however, quite to the point where you can play hot potato with primed grenades--grenade priming is coming next, though currently any grenades that require no priming (i.e., smoke) will go off instantly.
Any item can now be attached to both/either/none of a "firing" explosion (usually for explosive ammo) and "throwing" explosion (usually for grenades), so it would be pretty easy to make interesting objects like alien bodies that explode when you throw them, or a kind of explosive ammo that can also be thrown to make it detonate... Imagine some super buff soldier grabbing a rocket and literally tossing it at a group of aliens :)
Conflagration Propagation
by Kyzrati on 20110828 , under Progress, Video
Ready to roast some aliens? The newest additions are all about various ways to turn up the heat.
First, explosions of any kind can now be attached to props and entities, so UFO power sources, cyberdiscs and more can now explode. How to do a suicide run on a UFO:
Taking out a cyberdisc (2x2 units aren't yet implemented, but it blows up just the same):
Incendiary weapons now create fire which ignites terrain and entities. Here's a rocket launcher firing incendiary rockets, after which you can see the fire spread a little (it would spread much more in a wheat field). Burned terrain will produce varying amounts of smoke/dust based on its composition (also occurs when destroyed or when props fall from heights and smash into the ground).
Although not as effective as incendiary ammo for the job, HE weapons may of course cause some small fires, too:
Fire is naturally useful as a makeshift light source:
Smoke grenades make a much denser, longer-lasting patch of smoke (throwing not yet implemented--this is shot from a weapon):
Smoke affects FOV (kinda the point):
And for the grand finale, lets burn that house to the ground, just because we can (and then blow it up afterwards, because that's fun, too :)
On a side note, even though the videos were already cropped down to nothing, YouTube still felt compelled to compress them to nothing. Maybe next time I'll just record the entire window in HD instead. (I wish I could use screenshots instead, but the latest updates are best shown in videos...)
So here are the latest major additions:
Current state of the near-term TODO list:
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First, explosions of any kind can now be attached to props and entities, so UFO power sources, cyberdiscs and more can now explode. How to do a suicide run on a UFO:
Taking out a cyberdisc (2x2 units aren't yet implemented, but it blows up just the same):
Incendiary weapons now create fire which ignites terrain and entities. Here's a rocket launcher firing incendiary rockets, after which you can see the fire spread a little (it would spread much more in a wheat field). Burned terrain will produce varying amounts of smoke/dust based on its composition (also occurs when destroyed or when props fall from heights and smash into the ground).
Although not as effective as incendiary ammo for the job, HE weapons may of course cause some small fires, too:
Fire is naturally useful as a makeshift light source:
Smoke grenades make a much denser, longer-lasting patch of smoke (throwing not yet implemented--this is shot from a weapon):
Smoke affects FOV (kinda the point):
And for the grand finale, lets burn that house to the ground, just because we can (and then blow it up afterwards, because that's fun, too :)
On a side note, even though the videos were already cropped down to nothing, YouTube still felt compelled to compress them to nothing. Maybe next time I'll just record the entire window in HD instead. (I wish I could use screenshots instead, but the latest updates are best shown in videos...)
So here are the latest major additions:
- Exploding Props & Entities
- Effects of incendiary weapons/explosions
- Fire burning/propagation and light emission
- Entities catch fire and burn
- Smoke results from fire and some weapon effects
- Smoke affects FOV and stuns units
- Materials can release varying degrees of smoke/dust when burned or destroyed
Current state of the near-term TODO list:
- Light-emitting items
- Variable animation speed
- Throwing
- Sound effects
- 2x2 units
- Reaction fire
The Sky is Falling
by Kyzrati on 20110808 , under Progress, Screenshots
It's been a little while since the last update as I wasted (spent?) a couple days fretting over how to code the interface windows. Eventually decided to put that off and continue with the mechanics--next on the list was gravity.
Gravity is optional for terrain, but obviously adds some fun tactical considerations.
Damage inflicted by/to falling objects is calculated based on mass, or relative mass in the case of multiple objects (obviously there are armor and other modifiers). Objects can displace each other as they fall, and most objects leave rubble if not completely destroyed--a battlefield littered with rubble is a little harder to traverse (higher TU cost). Terrain now also has a stability property which determines how likely it'll fall apart as it loses support from other connected terrain/objects (i.e., the more holes you shoot in a large section of wall/roof/floor, the more likely it is to come crashing down).
Here are the results of one test on a house (an exact replica of an actual X-COM house, btw),
where I opened up on it with my heavy plasma using unlimited TU and ammo :) At present, rubble is represented by semi-colons.
Apparently there were entities in that house after all! I only fired at the first floor walls, and you can see that half of the second floor collapsed, which brought down areas of the roof as well.
Next up: Explosions! Probably won't be so much rubble left after this next update...
Progress Report (copy of public changelog):
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Gravity is optional for terrain, but obviously adds some fun tactical considerations.
Damage inflicted by/to falling objects is calculated based on mass, or relative mass in the case of multiple objects (obviously there are armor and other modifiers). Objects can displace each other as they fall, and most objects leave rubble if not completely destroyed--a battlefield littered with rubble is a little harder to traverse (higher TU cost). Terrain now also has a stability property which determines how likely it'll fall apart as it loses support from other connected terrain/objects (i.e., the more holes you shoot in a large section of wall/roof/floor, the more likely it is to come crashing down).
Here are the results of one test on a house (an exact replica of an actual X-COM house, btw),
where I opened up on it with my heavy plasma using unlimited TU and ammo :) At present, rubble is represented by semi-colons.
Apparently there were entities in that house after all! I only fired at the first floor walls, and you can see that half of the second floor collapsed, which brought down areas of the roof as well.
Next up: Explosions! Probably won't be so much rubble left after this next update...
Progress Report (copy of public changelog):
- Units spurt blood when taking critical wounds, and may trail some blood while moving (color of blood, if any, set by race)
- Added Material class to describe properties common among certain groups of terrain objects
- Added system of terrain degredation to be followed when terrain objects are destroyed
- Added terrain/object destruction handling
- Added [optional] effects of gravity on terrain/objects which have insufficient support from connected terrain
- Added mass property to units/terrain and relative damage calculations for impacts
- Added projectile collision handling for all object types
- Added dynamic updating for light/FOV maps due to terrain/obstruction changes
Death from Above
by Kyzrati on 20110725 , under Progress, Screenshots
Today was all about dishing out the pain! Projectiles now deal their respective damage, cause critical wounds, etc...
After that, went ahead and implemented gravity for entities so that shooting the flying ones out of the air has its proper effect. Killing/stunning a flying unit sends him crashing into the ground (or whatever happens to be below him, hopefully his friends).
Certain objects on the ground may cushion your fall, so you can intentionally jump off a roof into some bushes and hopefully not break anything (probably still a bad idea from the third floor). Or if you're breaching a house from the roof SWAT style, choosing a spot over a bed might be a good idea :)
Here's a screen of testing where units were jumping off the house like so many lemmings... splat!
Such a fall usually wouldn't kill outright, but for testing I had everyone's health dropped to 1, which also made stun tests significantly less of a hassle.
And by extension you get the offensive leap, AKA death from above. You can theoretically jump off a building and drop down on an alien's head--hopefully he'll take more damage than you (wear powered armor for the best effect!).
That gives me an idea for later: What about a quick dog-like alien ally that hangs around on roofs and does exactly that to your soldiers... Now that sounds like a scary terror unit.
Primary recent changes:
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After that, went ahead and implemented gravity for entities so that shooting the flying ones out of the air has its proper effect. Killing/stunning a flying unit sends him crashing into the ground (or whatever happens to be below him, hopefully his friends).
Certain objects on the ground may cushion your fall, so you can intentionally jump off a roof into some bushes and hopefully not break anything (probably still a bad idea from the third floor). Or if you're breaching a house from the roof SWAT style, choosing a spot over a bed might be a good idea :)
Here's a screen of testing where units were jumping off the house like so many lemmings... splat!
Such a fall usually wouldn't kill outright, but for testing I had everyone's health dropped to 1, which also made stun tests significantly less of a hassle.
And by extension you get the offensive leap, AKA death from above. You can theoretically jump off a building and drop down on an alien's head--hopefully he'll take more damage than you (wear powered armor for the best effect!).
That gives me an idea for later: What about a quick dog-like alien ally that hangs around on roofs and does exactly that to your soldiers... Now that sounds like a scary terror unit.
Primary recent changes:
- Added damage effects of non-AOE projectile-entity impacts, taking into account armor, modifiers, etc.
- Added critical wound system
- Added body items for unconscious/dead entities
- Added handling for unit death/unconsciousness/revival
- Added faction FOV update on member status changes
- Added falling damage and handling for special cases while falling
- Added items to map display
Open Fire!
by Kyzrati on 20110722 , under Progress, Screenshots
Finally fired the first rifle shot today! Not at anything in particular, and not that it matters much since projectiles simply die after impact rather than having any kind of effect...
Been working mostly on the internal firing mechanics lately, thus despite a fair amount of progress there still isn't a whole lot to see. Copy of the latest changelog:
The shot below shows a Line of Fire. LOF is shaded depending on exactly how much of a cell it traverses. Each cell on the map represents a 3D cube of space, and some objects may not entirely fill their space, e.g., props and entities. Thus in some cases even when your LOF passes through a cell, it may not hit objects within that cell (unless of course you're aiming at the object). As in X-COM, LOF is more restrictive than FOV, meaning you can sometimes see targets you may not be able to shoot at.
If something is blocking your LOF, the obstruction(s) will be highlighted in red and the LOF will also be shaded red.
Here is a soldier standing behind a short fence aiming at a target (currently lower case letters and single walls are used to depict shorter objects, while upper case letters and double walls are used for fully-obstructing objects).
But when that same soldier kneels down (currently represented with a smaller triangle), he can no longer hit the target because he's hiding behind the short fence.
Not enough time tonight to post how the side view works while aiming at targets. I'll put that up this weekend.
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Been working mostly on the internal firing mechanics lately, thus despite a fair amount of progress there still isn't a whole lot to see. Copy of the latest changelog:
- Fixed misdirection in flying movement handling around obstacles
- Fixed FOV to improve accuracy of obstruction by prop objects
- Added Faction LOS check between their members and those of other factions, to record visible entities
- Added kneeling/standing
- Changed unit icon size; now larger while standing and smaller while kneeling to reflect smaller profile
- Added Race data class, which holds data common to all Entities of a given race
- Added prop height value, determines how they block FOV of entities of various heights (e.g., when kneeling) and LOF
- Added targeting/firing mode to battlescape interface
- Added accuracy calculations
- Added volume parameters to props and entities to define their profile for projectile collision detection
- Added ray shooting class for calculating projectile trajectories (subdivides map cells to properly detect collisions by object volume)
- Added LOF calculations in two varieties (option to switch between them): STRICT traces a direct line to the target and considers anything it passes through to be an obstruction; LENIENT will trace multiple lines to target corners/extremeties and try to hit any part it can when the primary LOF is blocked (enables you to hit the sides of large targets that are hiding around corners). So each map cell actually represents a cube of space, and LOF travels through different parts and segments of different cells as in a normal 3D map; visually, LOF is shaded based on its length through a given cell.
- Fixed visual oddities on side view display when based on high-angle LOS
- Added Projectile class with collision calculations and simple bullet animation
The shot below shows a Line of Fire. LOF is shaded depending on exactly how much of a cell it traverses. Each cell on the map represents a 3D cube of space, and some objects may not entirely fill their space, e.g., props and entities. Thus in some cases even when your LOF passes through a cell, it may not hit objects within that cell (unless of course you're aiming at the object). As in X-COM, LOF is more restrictive than FOV, meaning you can sometimes see targets you may not be able to shoot at.
Here is a soldier standing behind a short fence aiming at a target (currently lower case letters and single walls are used to depict shorter objects, while upper case letters and double walls are used for fully-obstructing objects).
Not enough time tonight to post how the side view works while aiming at targets. I'll put that up this weekend.
Giant strides...
by Kyzrati on 20110709 , under Progress
...Hopefully not to be followed by baby steps.
I'm starting development with the battlescape, primarily because its design is potentially problematic so it's the best place to start in order to determine the feasibility of this project. (By comparison, the geoscape should be relatively easy to represent in ASCII.)
Progress during the first week of development:
Next up: Firing your gun at stuff. This could take a while longer, because I'll be trying out some new methods I haven't used before...
Screenshots will come soon, after I make the tiny test level a bit prettier--right now it's pretty random...
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I'm starting development with the battlescape, primarily because its design is potentially problematic so it's the best place to start in order to determine the feasibility of this project. (By comparison, the geoscape should be relatively easy to represent in ASCII.)
Progress during the first week of development:
- Expanded personal game library (which has only been used for basic 2D applications in the past) to include 3D LOS/FOV functions, a 3D pathfinding class, more 3D matrix methods, a handle manager template, and a generic logging system.
- Defined all major game flow handling classes/modules
- Defined all major data classes (Cell/Prop/Entity/Item)
- All data objects loaded from files
- Can load a rudimentary static battlescape map, with objects, from a text file
- Map props can be static light sources; entities/items can be dynamic light sources
- Visibility, and map shading, dependent on time of day setting
- Can control members of a test faction, walking or flying around the map, which is revealed as per FOV rules
- Can activate side-view map to see a vertical cross section of a unit's LOS
- Implemented randomized unit stats, and TU costs of moving/changing facing
- Moving units will correctly climb/descend sloped terrain/stairs (fortunately they no longer leap off buildings unless capable of flying) and open doors
- The entire game state can be saved/loaded at any time
Next up: Firing your gun at stuff. This could take a while longer, because I'll be trying out some new methods I haven't used before...
Screenshots will come soon, after I make the tiny test level a bit prettier--right now it's pretty random...