XTA Development discussion - Page 16

XTA Development discussion

Discuss game development here, from a distinct game project to an accessible third-party mutator, down to the interaction and design of individual units if you like.

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Better then v7?

Poll ended at 08 Nov 2006, 03:04

Yes
23
82%
No
5
18%
 
Total votes: 28

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1v0ry_k1ng
Posts: 4656
Joined: 10 Mar 2006, 10:24

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

AF wrote: And what about the huge XTA player divide? Why should a total noob go through the demoralising and humiliating debacle of fighting you? In XTA your either pwned by a pro or wipe the floor of a noob who doesnt know howto queue units in a factory. The only midfield XTA option there is is the AI.
to that. I never found that problem.

they changed the name because the units all have seperate files named really randomly like 3966jbbmfl and kk6453nnd so they edited all of the names to made it easier to modfiy and edit in future. I actually think this is a good idea and once you get used to the new name system, again, its easier, where it works. cor_the_can dosnt work :(.

there will only be one xta, just its going through slight issues atm. it'll all be fixed in a month though and the changes ARE improving it overall. v8>v7
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aGorm
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Joined: 12 Jan 2005, 10:25

Post by aGorm »

I thought they were all in tradition TA short hand? How come they all had such odd names a 12gd4ys5t? Oh well I'll leave these name debates to people in charge of tehre respected areas...

And I dont want a fork, and yes I prefer v8 to 7... but its not flawless... :-)

aGorm
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The_Big_Boss
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Joined: 17 Jul 2006, 04:00

Post by The_Big_Boss »

Well AF what you said I agree with.




I understand the ai idea as a warm up, but the player should, if he wishes to contribute or play with the community, start playing with other players. I dealt with being embarrassed when I was a newb, when did embarrassment become wrong to deal with?

I talked to 8 guys last night who I will call ai xta players. We have a problem. Either the ai xta players dont speak english very well, or no one gives a care responding to a hello or a question involving the mod they are playing. They are about as useless. Heck the ai would be more useful to me because Id actually get to play it.

Id let the new guy win IF the new guy would just join the dumb game.

I think we should cater for anyone who is sincere enough to look through the stupid forums, put up with us, and post.
Last edited by The_Big_Boss on 27 Nov 2006, 22:49, edited 1 time in total.
Chojin
Posts: 141
Joined: 04 Oct 2006, 11:22

Post by Chojin »

Chojin wrote:Please use this file instead:
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... /XTAPE.sd7

as it will be included in tomorrow's installer.
Since this version just got included in the latest spring installer of 0.74b1, it has been moved here:
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/games/spring/mods/XTAPE.sd7
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1v0ry_k1ng
Posts: 4656
Joined: 10 Mar 2006, 10:24

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

what are the current problems with XTA? like a list of all of them.
I only have one, which is I dont much like the D-gun afterglow.
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Lindir The Green
Posts: 815
Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09

Post by Lindir The Green »

The_Big_Boss wrote:"It is the fact that I find the new standard far inferior to the old standard." Inferior to whom? You or the mod dev? Let alone explain how it is inferior.
Oh my god. Have you been paying attention at all? :roll: I will quote my two previous posts from this thread:
I wrote:What do you think is easier to remember, and to type, and to spell correctly:

CORALAB, or core_advanced_kbot_lab --- Or whatever it is! It could be core_advanced_k-bot_lab, or core_kbot_lab_advanced, or core_adv_kbot_lab, or core_adv_k-bot_lab, or core_adv_k-bot_laboratory!

Before it was easy, because there was both a clear standard and because each unitname had a small number of letters. But now it isn't. It's a stupid pain. It would take much longer for anyone to memorize, both newbs and veterans who had memorized the previous system, because all the unitnames are so long and without a clear standard.
I wrote:
[KnoX]ElementalGizmo wrote:"x1ecarmjtorn.fbi" being renamed to "arm_radar_jamming_tower.fbi" Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight thats BAD because ¿

Yes it means a slight adjustment on the vet players part, but honestly this is not a reason to scream your head off.
I don't mind that; I think it should be called the armrj or armradj or armradjam or armrjam. Probably the last one.

But what I *do* mind is the renaming of corfast and armfast to... core_freaker and arm_zipper, and the renaming of coralab to core_advanced_kbot_laboratory, and the renaming of the corsfig and armsfig to... whatever the hell they are now. core_voodoo and arm_... tornado?

And I am not arguing that the old naming system was perfect, but that the new one is worse than it. In both systems you have to memorize the names of the units. In the old way, those unitnames were shorter (more convenient) and easier to memorize. What you are arguing is that the new unitnames are easier to transition to for someone who knows the in-game unitnames. But the old unitnames are easier to transition to for anyone else, and also most current TA modders know them already, and so don't need to transition.

And, additionally, the old ones were much easier to work with for someone who knew them, because they were shorter.

In a programming language, you don't say:

Code: Select all

if the variable x is larger than the variable y, then do this
You say instead:

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if (x>y){
Because it is easier to work with. This is the same thing. The unitnames are used only by modders, and they should be designed to be as convenient to use as possible, not as easy to learn as possible.

But the new unitnames aren't even easier to learn, IMO.
There. Did you understand the part where I explained how the old standard was inferior? :roll:
The_Big_Boss wrote:"minority in charge" Point out who that is please. Lets stop using ambigous terms and drop the hidden blame and anger.

"majority of other XTA players" Point out who they are please. I want to see if I ever played them in xta.
I was referring to the 5(?) people who have agreed with me in this thread about the unitnames compared to the 3(?) people, including the person who seems to be in charge, who have disagreed with me about the unitnames in this thread. It is a majority because 5 is a larger number than 3. :wink: :roll:
Chojin
Posts: 141
Joined: 04 Oct 2006, 11:22

Post by Chojin »

I just wrote a small perl script, which converts files to the new naming scheme. Here:
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... convert.pl
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... onvert.txt

It can take one or more filenames of textfiles as parameter and will then try to replace all occurrences of old names with their new names. If the filename itself contains an old name as a word by itself, it will be renamed too. The resulting file/s will be saved in a sub folder "converted" within your current path.

To convert lindir's buildtree i issued this command (moving changelog.txt and global.txt out of the way first):

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./convert.pl *.txt mod.tdf cheat/*.txt
This is the result:
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... TA_BT2.rar
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... extracted/


After looking through it I saw a few typos in unitnames, which I tried to correct, and adjusted some filenames, which didn't have the old name as a word by itself:
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... TA_BT2.rar
http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/friends/giz ... extracted/

I still couldn't figure out, what unit is meant by "CORAL"... Anyone?


Contact me, if you need anything changed to the script or need help using it.
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Lindir The Green
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Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09

Post by Lindir The Green »

Great, thanks!

This really lessens the blow of the new unitnames.

CORAL... I'll check in the mod.tdf... I think that CORAL was a typo of CORAK, but that later I thought was an actual unit and so didn't delete it.

I'll look at the modified buildtree now...

[edit] This really illustrates what I hate about the new unitnames:

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fusion=arm_cloakable_fusion_reactor, core_cloakable_fusion_power_plant, arm_fusion_reactor, core_fusion_power_plant, arm_underwater_fusion_reactor, core_underwater_fusion_power_plant
So instead of cor/arm fus, with a possible uw or ck, I have to always type out the really long names, and remember that arm has fusion "reactors" while core has fusion "power plants."
Chojin
Posts: 141
Joined: 04 Oct 2006, 11:22

Post by Chojin »

Yes, well, I understand most of the points on why the old naming scheme wasn't all that bad.

But please believe me, it wasn't all that good either.

I hope the conversion script will lessen the blow, too, since Gizmo and Myg are currently able to modify just about anything about a unit within seconds.

So for the time being, we decided on this naming scheme.

Please, let us get over this technical fact and let's move our focus back to the modding itself.
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FoeOfTheBee
Posts: 557
Joined: 12 May 2005, 18:26

Post by FoeOfTheBee »

Argh wrote:I've read through the rationale for re-naming everything. Lindir, absolutely no offense meant to you, but I agree with the current XTA developers.

8-character names for units are a legacy of DOS. The processing overhead associated with nice, long, descriptive names is trivial these days. So why not use long names?
Argh is correct in principle here, but the principle's application to the XTA name changes is not so clear.

This isn't a new mod - imagine if Yeha, taking over the lead dev position, changed all the variable names to names that were about three times as long, and more descriptive. I expect the other dev's would not be 100% ecstatic, especially if they hadn't been consulted.
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FoeOfTheBee
Posts: 557
Joined: 12 May 2005, 18:26

Re: ...

Post by FoeOfTheBee »

Myg wrote:- Foe, this version is going in wether you like it or not. That "bug" is not an issue, it was intentionally left in because it didnt seem to upset the balance.
But wait - if this was intentional as Myg says here, why did Chojin fix it?

Also, geothermals and mobile fusions now self destruct with the new, huge nuclear blast. I think it's worse if these mistakes were unintentional - it shows that the current maintainers just don't have the knowledge and experience to be maintaining the mod that is released with spring.

On the other hand, if it's intentional it's another huge change that didn't make it into the changelog.

If you don't think this change is a big deal, You'll reevaluate your position after your next opponent uses a geo or a mobile fusion as a nuclear mine.

Chojin at least admitted the armor.txt change was a mistake and fixed it -I can't really ask more than that on that particular mistake. But what other surprises are there in XTA 8.1? And when new mistakes are found, how can we be sure we won't get a reaction like the one at the top of this post?
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Peet
Malcontent
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Joined: 27 Feb 2006, 22:04

Post by Peet »

They self-d'd with a nuclear blast all along, all that was changed is the explosion effect.
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FoeOfTheBee
Posts: 557
Joined: 12 May 2005, 18:26

Post by FoeOfTheBee »

P3374H wrote:They self-d'd with a nuclear blast all along, all that was changed is the explosion effect.
So this is another intentional change?
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Peet
Malcontent
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Joined: 27 Feb 2006, 22:04

Post by Peet »

You'll have to ask giz about that one. The difference is purely aesthetic anyway.
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rattle
Damned Developer
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Joined: 01 Jun 2006, 13:15

Post by rattle »

Did I mention the 1-2 fps I get from Argh's new nuke? I assume you are using his...
It ain't his fault, my stuff is simply too old, but I've seen people play XTA with less than I got (they're out there yes).
Sheekel
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Joined: 19 Apr 2005, 19:23

Post by Sheekel »

Yeah. Im one of those people^^^^

I suggest shortening the time of the dgun afterglow...make it nice and quick
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1v0ry_k1ng
Posts: 4656
Joined: 10 Mar 2006, 10:24

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

course its intentional, you cant make somthing exlplode with a nuclear blast by accident dude, its all in seperate files. what he is saying is its just the animation, the balance is the same.

edit: the can laser effect and sound still need changing its currently as a beef as the_barbie_mobile

edit2: why does the fido cost 590M at http://p15111940.pureserver.info/xta_v8/ and 400 in the newest xta? when did that change happen?
also, it has 64 dps againt the gunslingers 180 odd, low health, average speed, only 160 range more than the gunslinger. even 2v1 it loses against a single gunslinger. somthing needs changing to make it a valid unit, 64dps = lol
Chojin
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Joined: 04 Oct 2006, 11:22

Post by Chojin »

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:why does the fido cost 590M at http://p15111940.pureserver.info/xta_v8/ and 400 in the newest xta? when did that change happen?
You must have slipped in a line or something, Ivory_King... because:

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root@bastard:/Mods/XTA v7/units> grep Build ARMFIDO.FBI 
        BuildCostEnergy=3556;
        BuildCostMetal=398;
        BuildTime=10827;

root@bastard:/Mods/XTA v8/units> grep Build ARMFIDO.FBI 
        BuildCostEnergy=3556;
        BuildCostMetal=398;
        BuildTime=10827;

root@bastard:/Mods/XTA v8.1/units> grep build arm_fido.fbi 
        buildcostenergy=3556;
        buildcostmetal=398;
        buildtime=10827;
It's been the same since v7.
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Lindir The Green
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Post by Lindir The Green »

Chojin wrote:Yes, well, I understand most of the points on why the old naming scheme wasn't all that bad.

But please believe me, it wasn't all that good either.
Then how about some sort of compromise, where we keep the old unitnames that are really easy to understand, but change the ones that aren't.

I mean, does anybody *not* know what a corak is? armpw? corfus? armck? corasy? armrad? Maybe some really new modders wouldn't know, but when you figure out the fairly simple standard, almost everything makes a lot of sense.

But then you could change the x1coremjechorjus or whatever, and a few of the old cavedog names that are difficult to understand... I don't think there are very many though. Off the top of my head... well, I believe that the old land storage was corestore, while the underwater one was coruwestor, with no e... the should be made more consistant...
Please, let us get over this technical fact and let's move our focus back to the modding itself.
Never! My opinion is too strong on this matter.

Well, I suppose I'll let it drop eventually. But that day is not today.
Chojin
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Post by Chojin »

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:[Fido] has 64 dps againt the gunslingers 180 odd, low health, average speed, only 160 range more than the gunslinger.
Comparing the Fido to the Gunslinger is a little off, but I agree, that Fidos could be made more useful. What do you suggest?
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