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Author Topic: Battleship Commander  (Read 43042 times)

mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #75 on: October 22, 2014, 04:30:56 am »

About the scroll wheel, in fact it does work in the hull editor but not otherwise, tested on the new version with shields.
My mouse just died (logitech g9x). So i used another mouse and i got this bug.
The problem was that i used integers instead of float and when the mouse scroll was too small it became zero. It was just a 2 characters bugfix.
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rex4

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #76 on: October 24, 2014, 08:52:32 am »

So:
- With vsync, my mouse cursor has a slight delay, but without there is no fps limit and thus my gpu work too much for nothing, reaching sometime 180fps. Unless you fix it yourself, do you know a trick to have vsync but use windows cursor ?
- Why when I still have 30% fuel I can't use thrust anymore, does it count other fuels, or some are reserved for other modules ?
- Is what gyroscope does, rotate the ship with electric power only, possible in real life ? how ?
- Stopping the ship cease to work with game speeded up to 25 or more.
- Not like this is important but entering atmosphere doesn't heat anything, nor (maybe this is normal) damage anything, maybe it should when you go at 10000 km/h like I did.
- I cheated to control the earth station and destroy "going merry" with all weapons, but once it was destroyed, some missiles changed direction for the earth station itself, damaging it. Also if target is above the earth station, it will damage itself since missiles won't try to avoid the earth station.
- Do you plan to make that if g is very high the crew die ? Not like it's possible unless going very close to Saturn etc I guess.
- Is there any reason why we can't set a far enemy as main target on drop down menu ? If it's because being that far it can't be attacked, you should enable it anyway because it can be done while warping to the unit. Also add "set as main target and reference", when you do one you usually do the other too.
- How to easily warp at minimum speed, since it's there that it's most efficient if I understood well ? Right now it's hard to set it to the minimum and as soon as I set it slightly below the minimum the warp stop and it goes back to the default value.
- Why when warping to the moon it warp very far from it then does a 180° or does a huge triangle before finally aim the moon ?
- Do you know how I could invert left and right clicks ?
- Filters when trading would make more sense if when clicking one of them you see just this category, that is, if I want to buy a weapon I don't want to click everything except weapons, but only the weapon button.
- Sorting by "buy price" sort like "1 1k 1M 2 2k 2M" instead of "1 2 1k 2k 1M 2M".
- I buy for example a warp engine to an empty slot, for 440K. My credits are reduced by 440K. If I want to unmount it, it shows that I will get only 340K back, yet if I unmount it I get my 440K back. With a thrusters I see 16,5M to buy and 13,5M to sell and still I get 16,5M back. I guess the idea is that if one change his mind right away he won't suffer any penalty while he does if he leaves the station, it just looks a bit weird in that case. Also, why is the money given back = to 81,8181818181% the original price, not something more rounded like 75 or 80% ?
- Why is battery slightly used when weapons and/or their engines are on despite they are not being used right now, and why is it used a lot when gyroscope is on, same if not used right now ? It's also used a lot if radiators are on while the ship is cool already and nothing heat it up.
- Why the laser doesn't shoot as soon as capacitors reach 100% ? That is, I understand that weapons shooting bullets need time to move the bullets between 2 shoots, but why do lasers need some time between 2 pulses ?
- While it's good that time is set back to x1 when an enemy is close, you should allow to make it faster once again then, sometime battles are long and no actions are needed.
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Mono124

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #77 on: October 24, 2014, 11:16:13 pm »

- With vsync, my mouse cursor has a slight delay, but without there is no fps limit and thus my gpu work too much for nothing, reaching sometime 180fps. Unless you fix it yourself, do you know a trick to have vsync but use windows cursor ?
I would suggest trying a program like MSI Afterburner and limiting your fps using it. I use it for almost every game I play, mostly since I play on a laptop and without it I would end up overheating. It can also do a little bit of over/underclocking if you want, and has a bunch of other nifty features.
- Why when I still have 30% fuel I can't use thrust anymore, does it count other fuels, or some are reserved for other modules ?
I'm pretty sure the standard engines use two different types of fuel, maybe you are running out of one type but have plenty of the other? If that's the case though, it'd be nice if the % shown was based on the fuel that one would run out of first.
- Is what gyroscope does, rotate the ship with electric power only, possible in real life ? how ?
In real life we have CMGs or reaction wheels, which basically (as far as I know) spin around to impart angular momentum on the object they are attached to.
- How to easily warp at minimum speed, since it's there that it's most efficient if I understood well ? Right now it's hard to set it to the minimum and as soon as I set it slightly below the minimum the warp stop and it goes back to the default value.
As far as I know there isn't really an easy way. If you add enough engines to your ship, you can end up having your cruise warp high enough above warp 1 so you don't immediately drop out at low levels. Normally when I play I try to get a cruise warp of about 1.1 and max warp of 1.3+ and then I just lower my warp speed down to just below 1.1, and since that's quite a bit higher than the limit that drops you out of warp it works fine. I'd say just look at what your cruise warp speed is (in the buy mode) and try to be just below that.
- Why is battery slightly used when weapons and/or their engines are on despite they are not being used right now, and why is it used a lot when gyroscope is on, same if not used right now ? It's also used a lot if radiators are on while the ship is cool already and nothing heat it up.
I'm not entirely sure about all of these, but I know most systems can (and do) run off of your capacitors if you have capacitors installed and turned on. Since capacitors leak energy over time, this could be a cause of energy drainage. I would suggest turning your capacitors off if you aren't using your weapons or shields in the near future.
- Why the laser doesn't shoot as soon as capacitors reach 100% ? That is, I understand that weapons shooting bullets need time to move the bullets between 2 shoots, but why do lasers need some time between 2 pulses ?
Your capacitors are basically just temporary energy banks that you need to fire your weapons and (i think) charge your shields. I prefer to think that lasers work by drawing energy from the capacitors to their own built in capacitor, which is why they need time between pulses. It would also help keep them from overheating. Mostly I think they are set up needing time between pulses because otherwise you likely would not have enough energy for everything else on your ship without draining your battery to 0 in less than 30 seconds..
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #78 on: October 25, 2014, 05:21:37 am »

With vsync, my mouse cursor has a slight delay, but without there is no fps limit and thus my gpu work too much for nothing, reaching sometime 180fps. Unless you fix it yourself, do you know a trick to have vsync but use windows cursor ?
There is a fps limiter but was set to 240. I tried to fix mouse lag and now you can add the line "max_framerate 120" or any number to configuration.txt. The default max_framerate is now 150.
Here there is the fixed .exe download
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #79 on: October 25, 2014, 07:04:15 am »

- Why when I still have 30% fuel I can't use thrust anymore, does it count other fuels, or some are reserved for other modules ?
I'm pretty sure the standard engines use two different types of fuel, maybe you are running out of one type but have plenty of the other? If that's the case though, it'd be nice if the % shown was based on the fuel that one would run out of first.
Yes it is because there is more than one type of fuel in the ship. Fuel cells uses both LH2 and LOX, while nuclear engines use only LH2. It shows 30% because it is an average of all the fuel types and the LOX tanks are nearly full. There is no simple way to summarize many values into a single one. Maybe i should try to fit 2 fuel levels directly instead of a single averaged value.

- Stopping the ship cease to work with game speeded up to 25 or more.
When the simulation step is too long the AI can't control the ship with enough precision. There isn't much i can do to improve it.

Not like this is important but entering atmosphere doesn't heat anything, nor (maybe this is normal) damage anything, maybe it should when you go at 10000 km/h like I did.
I will implement this now.
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rex4

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #80 on: October 25, 2014, 08:01:02 am »

With latest version and your fix, if I set max framerate to 60 I have 32 in fact, and if I increase speed a lot I still have 180 in fact (I check with fraps), so for now I will use afterburner like mono124 said. For the cursor, you should really do like for most games, like for starcraft 2, that if the game goes at 10fps the cursor is still at 60. Maybe it's slightly tricky to do that with the windows cursor replaced by the one you made but I wouldn't mind seeing the windows cursor instead.
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #81 on: October 25, 2014, 11:52:33 am »

- I cheated to control the earth station and destroy "going merry" with all weapons, but once it was destroyed, some missiles changed direction for the earth station itself, damaging it. Also if target is above the earth station, it will damage itself since missiles won't try to avoid the earth station.
It could be that the missiles missed the target twice and when it was destroyed they was headed toward the station. Missiles don't target friendly ships and when they hit one for mistake the warhead doesn't explode. If it happens again take control of one of them and check their navigation commands.
Missiles don't try to avoid objects, they just accelerates away for a few seconds when launched. Usually this is enough and they don't hit the ship that launched them. If in the future with big ships it will become a problem i will improve the missile AI.

Do you plan to make that if g is very high the crew die ?
Yes.
Not like it's possible unless going very close to Saturn etc I guess.
Being near a massive body don't cause acceleration, for example astronauts in orbit are weightless. Acceleration is caused by engines or atmospheric drag.

Is there any reason why we can't set a far enemy as main target on drop down menu ? If it's because being that far it can't be attacked, you should enable it anyway because it can be done while warping to the unit.
Yes, it is because of distance. I'll remove the limit.

Also add "set as main target and reference", when you do one you usually do the other too.
It is not necessary because when you set the main target, the reference set itself to it. Unless you previously manually set the reference and is no longer in auto mode. If you are paused the reference will not update until unpaused.
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rex4

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #82 on: October 25, 2014, 01:34:47 pm »

- can you implement saving of position/size of windows ? For some people it may be a deterrent to play again to have to resize everything each time. Also, using restart in the menu closes every windows.

- Clicking on "look at" etc with nothing selected in the list, should maybe do it to the reference, it's quite weird to right click on an enemy to set it as a reference, and still have to find it in the list to do actions about it.
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LoSboccacc

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #83 on: October 25, 2014, 02:14:23 pm »

oh since we are at feedback, notice that the enemy screen when you sort by anything but distance you cant get back: when you sort by distance it does textual sort, so ship at 1gm are before ship at 25km which are before ship at 3gm and there is no way to get back to proper distance order
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #84 on: October 26, 2014, 03:31:10 am »

- How to easily warp at minimum speed, since it's there that it's most efficient if I understood well ? Right now it's hard to set it to the minimum and as soon as I set it slightly below the minimum the warp stop and it goes back to the default value.
I should add a way to set cruise speed.
Cruise speed is the maximum speed that can be maintained using power only from powerplants and all the heat produced can be dissipated with radiators. In pratice you can travel at this speed indefinitely.
It is not the most energy efficient speed. If after a battle you have only battery power then you should set your throttle so that a small 'e' appear after the trust %, indicating the most efficient speed. If there is a '!' the speed is too low and it is inefficient.

- Why when warping to the moon it warp very far from it then does a 180° or does a huge triangle before finally aim the moon ?
Its a simple way to avoid colliding with a planet or being trapped in its gravity well. It is not very smart and usually take longer routes.

- Do you know how I could invert left and right clicks ?
There is no way right now. Do you need inversion everywhere or only in specific interfaces?

- Sorting by "buy price" sort like "1 1k 1M 2 2k 2M" instead of "1 2 1k 2k 1M 2M".
It is a bug, it does a textual sort.
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #85 on: October 26, 2014, 04:47:22 am »

- I buy for example a warp engine to an empty slot, for 440K. My credits are reduced by 440K. If I want to unmount it, it shows that I will get only 340K back, yet if I unmount it I get my 440K back. With a thrusters I see 16,5M to buy and 13,5M to sell and still I get 16,5M back. I guess the idea is that if one change his mind right away he won't suffer any penalty while he does if he leaves the station, it just looks a bit weird in that case.
Yes, it is a refund but the price displayed is that of a sale.
Also, why is the money given back = to 81,8181818181% the original price, not something more rounded like 75 or 80% ?
When the trader sells it multiply the price by 11/10, when buy by 9/10. The ratio between the two price is 9/11=0.818181

- Why is battery slightly used when weapons and/or their engines are on despite they are not being used right now, and why is it used a lot when gyroscope is on, same if not used right now ? It's also used a lot if radiators are on while the ship is cool already and nothing heat it up.
Every component use some power just to stay on in standby. Usually this power is very low but the gyroscope need more power to keep its disc spinning. The radiators use power to cool the coolant.

- Why the laser doesn't shoot as soon as capacitors reach 100% ? That is, I understand that weapons shooting bullets need time to move the bullets between 2 shoots, but why do lasers need some time between 2 pulses ?
It is mostly a thermal limitation. In future i will implement the option to increase fire rate at the cost of reducing beam energy.

- While it's good that time is set back to x1 when an enemy is close, you should allow to make it faster once again then, sometime battles are long and no actions are needed.
Increasing time while there are bullets or missile flyings would breaks collision detection. When there are no bullets it might be possible to increase the time safely but it require some thought as faster time may cause problem also to navigation like the "stop" example above.
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rex4

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #86 on: October 26, 2014, 02:06:48 pm »

- What exactly defines when you beat an enemy ? My guess it's when it can't attack anymore nor move, whether because weapons and thrusters are down or no ammo/energy is available anymore. If so though, one case is particular: if the only thing it can do is warping but cannot do it right now because of warp disruptor.
This question came to my mind simply because many times I was still shooting an enemy and realised later that I had won already since I could speed up the game, I just didn't saw the message.

- Something special: a ship couldn't move nor attack, so I used stop with him as reference, then look at, then thrusted a bit, retrograde, stop again so I was very close to him forever. Yet, with cannon 20mm I couldn't damage the battery AT ALL, I checked by taking control, that was . And the reason of this was: the "dead" ship was very slightly rotating, so by the time a bullet reached the battery every of them went slightly bellow it. So, I don't know, sounds like while weapons anticipate huge speed and acceleration for translation, they don't do a single calculation for even a small rotation ?

- In "services" when trading, what does "repair structure" do ?
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #87 on: October 26, 2014, 05:18:17 pm »

- What exactly defines when you beat an enemy ? My guess it's when it can't attack anymore nor move, whether because weapons and thrusters are down or no ammo/energy is available anymore. If so though, one case is particular: if the only thing it can do is warping but cannot do it right now because of warp disruptor.
A ship is considered defeated when there are no working powerplants or batteries.

This question came to my mind simply because many times I was still shooting an enemy and realised later that I had won already since I could speed up the game, I just didn't saw the message.
When a ship is disabled its HUD icon go from bright red to dim red.

- Something special: a ship couldn't move nor attack, so I used stop with him as reference, then look at, then thrusted a bit, retrograde, stop again so I was very close to him forever. Yet, with cannon 20mm I couldn't damage the battery AT ALL, I checked by taking control, that was . And the reason of this was: the "dead" ship was very slightly rotating, so by the time a bullet reached the battery every of them went slightly bellow it. So, I don't know, sounds like while weapons anticipate huge speed and acceleration for translation, they don't do a single calculation for even a small rotation ?
Rotation should be calculated. I'll do some test to check if there is a problem.

- In "services" when trading, what does "repair structure" do ?
Structure is hull hitpoints. Explosions damage structure and when hitpoints reaches 0 the ship is destroyed.
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Sergius

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #88 on: October 27, 2014, 06:04:30 pm »

I remember an old Apple II game called Universe... 1, 2 or 3, you had to choose a ship then told to fill the "blocks" of the ship with different systems. This reminds me of that, but cooler.

I think I'll be following this.
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mauridadde

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Re: Battleship Commander
« Reply #89 on: October 29, 2014, 12:31:06 pm »

I just released a new version with most of the suggestions implemented
Changelog:
added "max framerate" to options
added reentry heat
added warning when shield generators are too small
radiators use less power when coolant is already cool
ships are considered disabled also when there are no working weapons,engines and warp engines
refit interface show refund cost when appropriate
mouse buttons can now be configured
game windows position and size are saved
ship info show 2 fuels instead of an average
cruise warp speed can now be set using ship popup menu
navigation window use 'reference' for some commands if nothing is selected
fixed sorting of items listed in trade window
improved item filters in trade window

download
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