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[Texashawk]

It does, as far as I know. The only real issue that I'm coming across is the recursion. For example, if I have a System object, one of its properties is the planets that it contains. So far, so good. Where the problem lies is when the property start to read in the Planet object, it will eventually find... a property that tells what System the Planet is located in, at which point it throws a recursion error. There are a few ways to go about fixing this:

1) Generate unique IDs for each object in the game. Then, any given object will only need to refer to a number/letter combination instead of linking to an entire object (planets in particular are very large objects). This is my preferred solution, as it will also make the memory situation better and make programming events easier. It will require something of a rewrite, however, but it's something I should have done earlier.

2) NonSerialize the properties that are causing the issue and rewrite the properties to generate the object on-the-fly instead of storing the object statically. In other words, instead of telling System that it contains certain Planets statically, I would write a dynamic property to search each Planet in the Sector and add any whose Planet property says they are in that particular System. It would be easier, but it would not materally solve the issues raised in fix #1.

3) Rewrite the objects so that they do not recurse. Similar to #2, but taking a broader look at each object and rewriting the data flow. I will probably do some of this as well since I'm already at this point.

4) Write the Save/Load game class to manually write and read all non-dynamic properties in each object in the game. This is the 'easiest' in that it means that I don't have to do any rewriting, per se, but it would be incredibly tedious because instead of simply writing a Manager class to the SaveGame object, and letting inheritance do its thing, I would have to write every single property out and have it pull manually, meaning literally hundreds of calls for each variable of data, and then writing an equally torturous load game class.

Fun, eh? For now, I'm looking at #1 with some #3 thrown in for maintenance.

Steve

I apologize in advance if I missed a detail in your description that obviates what I'm about to write. Ditto if there's a detail you didn't mention that makes the following stupid.

You don't have to serialize every property of an object. So when you have bidirectional links like that, could you have the owning structure serialize its child objects, but *don't* serialize the child object's references to their parents? So, in your example, just set the System reference in the Planet to not get serialized.

You'd need to populate it when you deserialize it, of course, but there are any number of ways to accomplish that in initialization.

Not a problem. As it happens, I have pretty much solved the issue, and while it will be tedious, I will be able to incorporate at least quicksave/load functionality in the next build or two! :-)

[Zireael]

Then I wonder if it's a font issue. If it were a programming/empty object issue, it wouldn't work for 99% of people. Can y'all check to see if you have a specific font on your computers? Segoe UI Light I think may be giving the issue. If you don't have those fonts, you can download them and add them to your system. Try that. I have absolutely no programming explanation left if the intel screen is crashing every time.

The game doesn't crash if I don't touch any planet. If I mouse over one or click the intel screen = instant crash.

Tried:
1) installing Imperia as admin
2) reinstalling the Segoe UI Light font
3) unticking the box in Control Panel which hides some fonts due to regional settings (it was auto-ticked on)

... nope, still the same. What gives? Maybe we could get a test version with a standard font, like TNR...?

Zireael,

Sorry for not getting back to this sooner. RL stuff. Anyway, I'm working on the load/save system this week. Maybe that will shed some light. Other than that, maybe I can like you said create a TNR-based test download. I can also program a quick test hotkey to disable the system info bar, to see if that's really the issue. I can get that out as a test download tomorrow. Would that help?

Either of those would be great - especially now that I have more free time to test.

[ptb_ptb]

Voted in the poll. Comment is on blog

imperiagame.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/poll-what-2-features-are-most-important-to-you/comment-page-1/

[Texashawk]

Voted in the poll. Comment is on blog

imperiagame.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/poll-what-2-features-are-most-important-to-you/comment-page-1/

Noted. And I think that would be pretty easy to do, sort of. The thing is that the entire point of the game is to survive as long as possible and to attain immortality. However, that sounds so damn cool that maybe it could be added as an 'alternate play' mode. That really does sound cool. :-)

[varsovie]

I've tried to run it on Linux using WINE. So far not luck, it seems I can't read the manifest.
Anybody got it to work?

Code: [Select]

fixme:actctx:parse_assembly_elem wrong namespace L"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2"
fixme:actctx:parse_manifest_buffer failed to parse manifest L"H:\\imperia\\Imperia V.230 Setup Package\\Imperia V.230 Setup Package\\Application Files\\Imperia_0_2_3_0\\Imperia.exe.manifest"
err:mscoree:load_mono Could not load Mono into this process


[Texashawk]

I've tried to run it on Linux using WINE. So far not luck, it seems I can't read the manifest.
Anybody got it to work?

Code: [Select]

fixme:actctx:parse_assembly_elem wrong namespace L"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2"
fixme:actctx:parse_manifest_buffer failed to parse manifest L"H:\\imperia\\Imperia V.230 Setup Package\\Imperia V.230 Setup Package\\Application Files\\Imperia_0_2_3_0\\Imperia.exe.manifest"
err:mscoree:load_mono Could not load Mono into this process


Hi Varsovie!

I am using XNA 4.0; don't know how friendly it will be to Linux. The default installer is easy to use, but not very flexible. I will probably use a freeware or light commercial installer soon, since more people are playing now.

-Steve

[Texashawk]

Good news!!! I have fully implemented save and load functionality for the next build of Imperia, as well as adding some title screen options (load, load last, start new game, etc) and I am also adding a few goodies that people have been asking for! There is not a lot of content in this release since the focus has been on getting the foundation ready for version .3 and getting the game save and load ready. I have made a lot of changes 'under the hood' that will make programming and error tracking easier, and thus updates should start flowing again shortly with content. Next up: the Emperor screen! Look for build .300 on Sunday.

-Steve

[Zireael]

That's great news, pity I'm leaving for hols

[Texashawk]

Release for tomorrow!

Imperia V.300 Change Log/Readme
6.30.14

Notes
* Please uninstall any previous version of Imperia before installing a new version. I have not yet added patch ability. The good news is that the install is relatively quick.

* I am updating the Sourceforge Imperia wiki periodically and this will be the best document for questions and how to play Imperia. Please refer back to it frequently.

Fixes
* Fixed numerous issues related to the save/load system
* Fixed an issue where the emperor power was not calculating correctly
* Fixed the ADM increase chance for the emperor – was almost impossible previously

Changes/Additions
* Added hotkey save/load system. F1 will hot save your current game and F2 will hot load from any point in the game. If there is a game version mismatch, the game will not load.
* Added system information display bar functionality hotkey ‘I’ to toggle between the system info bar displaying in the quadrant display as a player option while I chase down an annoying crash bug that results as a result of the SID bar displaying.
* Due to player request, pressing the ESC key in a screen other than the quadrant screen will act as a right click, i.e. take you one screen out. The ESC key on the quadrant screen will eventually bring up a popup menu that will allow you to exit, load, save, and return to the start menu; for this build, it will exit.
* When an unexpected crash occurs, a log folder is created under your C: directory, called ‘ImperiaLogs’. In addition, a popup window will appear explaining the specific exception and trace for the crash. This information will help immensely in tracking down some remaining bugs.
* Added loading and new game start screens
* Added launch buttons on the title screen (new game, etc.)
* Significant ‘under the hood’ revisions to error checking and data structure that will enable much faster updating and debugging
* Added credits page
* Fixed annoying screen whitespace on title screen and a few other screens

Balance
*

Unresolved Issues
* For a very small # of people (that I know of) mousing over certain systems causes a CTD. I am still investigating.

Read more: http://imperia.boards.net/thread/11/version-300-ready-tomorrow-change#ixzz368oqwqqT
I look forward to everyone’s feedback and getting back to adding some actual content!

Steve

[Texashawk]

Build .300 has been released! You can get it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/imperia/files/?source=navbar Enjoy!

Steve

[dennislp3]

would love to play....but no matter what it crashes on startup...gonna poke around the forum for answers I guess

http://imperia.boards.net/post/21

[Texashawk]

would love to play....but no matter what it crashes on startup...gonna poke around the forum for answers I guess

http://imperia.boards.net/post/21

Weird. Thanks for posting the log. The songs are not DRM protected AFAIK, they're CC MP3 files. The songs are played through Media Player; perhaps there are some restrictions that are set on your player?

Steve

[dennislp3]

Well looking through the songs they seem normal and fine...I can play them fine with VLC which is what I use for audio and video files. Also in the properties there is a field that says "protected" and that says "No"

[Texashawk]

Do you have Media player on your computer? I'm not sure how XNA takes to other players. 

-Steve

[Texashawk]

Good news! For those of you who have been unable to play due to the nasty mouse-over bug, try this build! Note: if you have not been having this problem, there are no other fixes in this build that will be visible, and no need to update.

Imperia V.301 Change Log/Readme
7.2.14

Notes
* Please uninstall any previous version of Imperia before installing a new version. I have not yet added patch ability. The good news is that the install is relatively quick.

* I am updating the Sourceforge Imperia wiki periodically and this will be the best document for questions and how to play Imperia. Please refer back to it frequently.

Fixes
* Hotfix to fix major crash bug with certain computers not running an exclusively English character set - basically the SpriteFont was running out of characters and couldn't cope, causing a crash whenever certain non-standard characters came up.

Changes/Additions
* None

Balance
* None

Unresolved Issues
* One crash due to computer flagging in-game music as DRM protected (it is not). Possible issue with WMP. Investigating.

-Steve