Spring RTS Engine

I would be happy with being able to run the thing at 1280x1024 with 16x16 sprites and a mouse driven menu system and floating/resizeable sub-windows... with the ability to open up multiple viewports at the same time... A game like this doesn't need 3D and works good as symbolic... the problem is the interface not the graphics.

The great thing about MY idea is that there is no need to get a better computer if you can run the game already... the problem is that it seems like the programmer is an 18 year old with no formal programming education who is building the game by modifying the source of a dos-based game design engine like ZZT or Megazeux...

No he's a mathematician, probably very well educated, and using opengl for the graphics.

With the multiple levels a simple 3d display makes sense. It would still be ascii based just that youd have little cubes with ascii textures on the sides instead of on squares.

I was almost certain that the core code of the game was built around Kobolds Quest... and the GL interface is effectively a SDK he's using that allows text-mode games to be compiled for use in a windows 32 environment.

I'm probably wrong but it's the only reason I can think of as to why his game is using screen real-estate so incredibly inefficiently.

My theory is that he setup his graphics to work that way from the start himself and kind of like spring now it's hard to change.

He is building the game around an existing text based rendering engine... He does have a formal programming education, but he didn't generate his own GUI. He's incredibly lazy when it comes to solving problems in non mathematical ways. That's why his entire game is procedurally generated and the GUI is so atrocious.

I just tried this game on my schools PIII. My god I may aswell have sodomized the CD-Drive with a large ruler.

Why not do both?

Zpock wrote:No he's a mathematician, probably very well educated,

in fact afaik he was a math lecturer (in some uni i suppose?) before he got around to making the game full time and being able to support himself with it through donations, for which im really happy for him because obviously its something he wants to do and its great ^.^

LAVA FLOODING DEVICE > NUKE is this true?

MATHS QUESTIONS!

pharoph wrote:LAVA FLOODING DEVICE > NUKE is this true?

MATHS QUESTIONS!

In pre .33 liquids were infinite. Armok's liquids flowed without boundaries and limits. Simple streams could flood entire worlds till water would fall off the edges of worlds and drown entire galaxies.

Flooding things with lava now i believe always creates obsidian. Which is rock. Valuable rock. But rock. So....More crap to mine.

And lava is not finite. You have about like iunno...100 squares of 7 in a volcanoe? Im not really sure. But thats 700 units of lava. Its alot. But not infinite.

Muzic wrote:And lava is not finite. You have about like iunno...100 squares of 7 in a volcanoe? Im not really sure. But thats 700 units of lava. Its alot. But not infinite.

Lava now regenerates. I intending to drain a volcano, build a fortress inside it, and then let it fill back up. This will be awesome.

Lava only regenerates if it's an actual volcano, note. But yeah.

Just let me know when I can fill a 1280x1024 display with 16x16 tiles and control the game sufficiently with a mouse and I'll totally join this discussion again.

Meanwhile... has everyone started playing http://ikariam.org yet? Seems like the kind of this people who play strategy/Civ games would like... Maybe I should make a new topic.

Saktoth wrote:

Muzic wrote:And lava is not finite. You have about like iunno...100 squares of 7 in a volcanoe? Im not really sure. But thats 700 units of lava. Its alot. But not infinite.

Lava now regenerates. I intending to drain a volcano, build a fortress inside it, and then let it fill back up. This will be awesome.

But how are you gonna drain out the lava and build a completly leak-proof fortress on it before it fills back up? :)

manored wrote:

Saktoth wrote:

Muzic wrote:And lava is not finite. You have about like iunno...100 squares of 7 in a volcanoe? Im not really sure. But thats 700 units of lava. Its alot. But not infinite.

Lava now regenerates. I intending to drain a volcano, build a fortress inside it, and then let it fill back up. This will be awesome.

But how are you gonna drain out the lava and build a completly leak-proof fortress on it before it fills back up? :)

Oh well now thats awesome then if it regens.

Just be careful with the lava. Try not to do anything stupid. And make sure that you're planning its flood direction.

But how are you gonna drain out the lava and build a completly leak-proof fortress on it before it fills back up? :)

Step 1. Find chasm and magma vent next to eachother.
Step 2. On the bottom level of the map, make a 6+ wide passage between vent and chasm.
Step 3. Wait. Build the fortress with constructions as the vent slowly empties. (I am up to here).
Step 4. Bauxite floodgate, or failing that, a cave-in area above the passage to close it off. Vent re-fills.

Just be careful with the lava. Try not to do anything stupid. And make sure that you're planning its flood direction.

Psht. I know what im doing. Wait, why are all my guys on fire?

Or have a side gate leading out from it and a gate or several covering your main entrance.

Under attack? Close main gates, open vent gate.

wow this game IS really complicated...

and in the past i thought it wa a game thatv you just build a fortress or somewhat.

pharoph wrote:wow this game IS really complicated...

and in the past i thought it wa a game thatv you just build a fortress or somewhat.

in the end, thats exactly what its about, but it relaly is more complicated that it sounds

It IS a game where you just build a fortress, its just that it is higly realistic, so you need to do more than just big walls and guns :)