NanoBlobs 0.41 + NTAI 8.0.

[Argh]

0.2 had, if anything, higher unit counts. I think people will be very surprised when they see the gameplay reset to 0.2's values. The issues with lag are very complicated- I think there are serious issues with S3O efficiency in Spring, but I'm not sure what's causing the problems yet.

[Mecha Sonic]

Are you gonna add the variants now, or add them on a later version? Whatever you do, hurry up and release it. I really wanna see how the MegaSheep works

[AF]

There is indeed a slowdown, but the tests I've made using the beta version of Arghs nanoblobz run much faster than the earlier 0.3 versions, the archers firing weapons for examples lagged my computer horrendously in 0.31 but not in the latest versions...

i find that in the latest version running 4 NTai's on nanoarena, ti lags but mostly when I'm looking at sheep and autofacs building, otherwise the fps quadruples as soon as they're out of shot or they all stop building...

[Argh]

The next version will feature DDS textures, now that I've figured out to make them draw properly in Spring. Should speed things up somewhat, although players desiring really high, stable FPS should still turn their settings down, especially particle effects, which seem to be a major framerate-killer.

[Drone_Fragger]

0.2 had, if anything, higher unit counts. I think people will be very surprised when they see the gameplay reset to 0.2's values. The issues with lag are very complicated- I think there are serious issues with S3O efficiency in Spring, but I'm not sure what's causing the problems yet.

So its going back to "Spam rooks and nothing else becuase everything else explodes asnd kills everything if you try to use it"?

[Egarwaen]

0.2 had, if anything, higher unit counts. I think people will be very surprised when they see the gameplay reset to 0.2's values. The issues with lag are very complicated- I think there are serious issues with S3O efficiency in Spring, but I'm not sure what's causing the problems yet.

So its going back to "Spam rooks and nothing else becuase everything else explodes asnd kills everything if you try to use it"?

No, he's providing a variant with 0.2-style gameplay.

[Drone_Fragger]

So tahts a yes.

[Min3mat]

1.02 STYLE gameplay. aka fast and mericless (but he will balance it)

[Drone_Fragger]

1.02 STYLE gameplay. aka fast and mericless (but he will balance it)

Wrong. 0.2 was slow and useless, Because all you did was spam Rooks Faster than the enemy in a meat-grinder situation.

[Egarwaen]

So tahts a yes.

No, it's a no. It'll be a variant, not the main release.

[Argh]

Here are the gameplay variants planned for 0.4. Please keep in mind that this is still at least a week or two out- it takes a bit to get everything balanced properly.

1. The standard build. Exponential gameplay, huge spawns of units, and if you have a slow computer, you should avoid it. I did some experiments over the weekend, and it appears that I can get over 10 FPS on my rig, with dynamic water, if I just turn shadows off. It's definately still very playable even during heavy combat, though- the DDS textures have helped quite a bit.

2. Slow-time variant. Everything (including the Lord) will build about 8X more slowly, making it a much slower game, and much more about preserving units and micro'ing them. I've already tried it out, and it plays much differently, and not in a bad way :)

3. OTA variant. Lords can build mexxes, solars, Holders and AutoFacs. AutoFacs can build all mobiles except for Lords. Everything will be balanced against metal/energy costs in OTA style, instead of the dynamic ramping of the original game design- in short, it will become a game of scarcity. I will probably make some Heaps, although for the first version, they will probably be very simplistic. If it turns out to be a popular variant, then I'll make it fancier.

4. 0.2 variant. Gameplay will be returned to 0.2 values, for health, firepower, weapon types, value and speed. I won't bother with making the scripts exactly-equivalent, but otherwise it will be a good clone of 0.2.

[Min3mat]

4. 0.2 variant. Gameplay will be returned to 0.2 values, for health, firepower, weapon types, value and speed. I won't bother with making the scripts exactly-equivalent, but otherwise it will be a good clone of 0.2.

drone was right. wtf are you thinking. rebalance it but keep the gameplay please.

[Mecha Sonic]

A week or two?! Aw man...

I like it that you will put in a 0.2 variant, will play good on Mini Chess. :D

[Argh]

Got the 0.2 variant done, pretty much. The core gameplay of 0.4 is almost done, too, including some nifty big explosions for certain things.

After playing it again, I was really quite amused by how much 0.2 sucks. I'm still not sure why people are still insisting it was more fun than 0.34b, but hey, that's just me... and now people can do an apples vs. apples comparision test.

Now I just need to get the resource structures done, and I can make the last two variants really quickly. The "slow-time" variant is really quite fun, imho.

[Argh]

Dynamic water is cool. Especially after you fix the bitmap problems

[AF]

*_* There goes a joint XE8/0.4 release out the window, and NTai plays it sooo well

[Argh]

Eh? Whatcha mean, AF? Done already? If so, I'll tweak the buildtrees and do a release of them as part of a NanoBlobs installer package, or something. The current buildtrees will work just fine with 0.4, and I've already made a set for the 0.2 variant, just to make sure that that variant is supported by NTAI at release.

[AF]

erm, Just send me any buildtrees you have and I'll release them with XE8 ready for when you do 0.4. I'll be re-releasing XE8 with 0.4 packaged anyways like I did last time..

[Argh]

I will be releasing 0.4 later this week, and that will be the final release of this mod. I will be starting my next project at this time. The OTA-style gameplay variant is cancelled, but the other three will be in the release.

[AF]

XE8