nice progress, keep us informed!
nice progress, keep us informed!
From brazil (:
Pascal pownz!
Added lighting to terrain along with little improved seamless but poor texture
Ok here is a new benchmark with 10000 units. CPU usage was showing at 0-2% (mostly 0) when i took this screenshot (i know the building model is bad...). Fps is on purpose limited to 32:
http://i44.tinypic.com/9u80ax.png
If you're interested in "how", the terrain is a vertex array (vertex,texture 3-dimensions,color) is 41x41 grid (rows of trianglestrips) while map itself is 1000x1000 in size (could be bigger later, but for now that would take unnecessary memory and time). It just updates only needed values where camera moves.
Very interesting User137! Please do keep us informed
Hey a cool new RTS!
I'm gonna want to play this. Keep us posted indeed. The idea of controlling my own super-cool Robot army to take out other not-as-cool-but-pretty-darn-close-to-as-cool robot armies is rather appealing to me.
Jason McMillen
Pascal Game Development
Co-Founder
Doh.. I always think too much, maybe more than should.. anyway i think it's impossible to create a storyline for game like this. Future wars are not held on planet surface, it doesn't make a difference to real outcome. Mobile big starship would be so much superior force... that is, unless the planet itself is turned in to a big weapon that can reflect long range attacks and bombing and fire back, and be able to start moving
Though i think it's critical to think of these things cause honestly i still don't have clear picture of what kind of objects are on the battlefield.
Ideas:
- Firstly i have long had this idea of modular structures, like cells form a living being, multiple parts would form a structure or capital ship. This needs an editor for it and if doing will be coming much later.
- Energy is needed as the only resource, open question is how to transfer it. Possibly visible light bursts or beams. Collected by small to big structures.
- Maybe unit that simply gathers mass (would be dynamic with modular structure) bigger and bigger until at any moment of building player wants to send it flying, stomping enemy base as it falls. Try stop such thing coming at you
- Walking mechs are very likely along with flying units, but something little more agile than those Imperial walkers known from Star Wars.
- Everything would be build with beams of matter and thinking of 3 things: Capital ships and small construction dedicated ships, both receiving their energy pulses as needed. And tall spike like structures which have some range to build all around it.
- New unit: BIG starship that is out of player control, build once and it moves to orbit firing at enemy bases. Long time to build, and vulnerable at it, but unless you have defence and counterattack, it's game over...
- Also i'm in favor of little customization in units. Player can decide if all things get more armor or attack power at cost of time, energy and mobility.
Finally, i think it's great idea for a game even for single-player if network game turns out not to work good enough. But i still don't see any reason it wouldn't work.
Hey User137, this game sounds right up my alley from a play perspective. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
Now, from a storyline and technical perspective let's see if I can shed some light on things.
Story:
Sounds like you want to go post apocalyptic/end of species modified storyline based on two similar races (no problem here). Don't worry if your "story makes perfect sense" players WILL ACCEPT IT (just look at the games on the market today, heck even SC/WC have oddities). Make your story open-ended to allow play based closure (shuffles through books and links, ahh... here they are http://lostgarden.com/2009/03/what-i...ign-style.html and http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...ers.php?page=5)
Technically Speaking:
Ok, you can't actually sync up 10'000's of units via TCP/IP (you already figured that out). Instead what you have to do is ONLY worry about what is going on on the players screen RIGHT NOW! If the player can see 100 new units then you send those 100 new units positions. As a unit changes position you send ONLY its updated position to the player. Remember you have to give the illusion of massive while keeping the reality of small viewing windows. Even when you zoom out to get a better view, switch display modes. You don't show 10,0000 individual units. Instead transmit that for quad x,y it has a weight of n. Then use this info to display the visual weight (who cares if visually its a bit off, its a satellite view).
Also, look base compression types. RLE, Dictionary, and many other types of compression theory come in useful. Of course you don't have to implement these types its just the idea behind them. EG: Dictionary Compressions utilizes a known set of conditions pre-recorded and then referenced during playback. If you took a similar approach in network communications you could send common party layouts via a single simple description that would be expanded on the client.
Transmit ONLY must know info on TCP/IP transmit non-important stuff over UDP. Take for example a moving unit on vector x,y/t (that's x pixels by y pixels over t time). Important details would be that it started moving and the position IT STOPS at, unimportant info would be the exact path it took to get there. After all, the people playing the game will never know if there is a small difference (in most cases they wouldn't know if there were a LARGE difference, remember they can only see a small part of the play field).
- Jeremy
- Jeremy
http://www.eonclash.com/
I think you missed my idea in first post
My plan is to make network game that have never been done before. Shows exactly same on every machine, on every map part and all times, while network traffic is even less than Starcraft. Who knows playable with old 56kbit modem for that 10000 units.
In example, i create a ground defence turret that shoots all nearby hostiles. There is only 1 packet total sent between server and clients which creates it, rest (shooting, deaths) is simulated only locally and synchronized in ticks. It's mainly ticks i'm worried about and having it look smooth.
I understood what you said, and if it were that easy all game companies would be doing it (no offense)
Also, read up about TCP/IP and UDP as your statement is incorrect. Depending on the TOTAL amount of data you send out the pipe will decide how many packets are utilized. This isn't something you have control over, the OS and hardware control packet size limits and will automatically breakup anything over standard size. Of course, if you mean "your private packet" then yes, you can do it in a single bound
No matter what you do, you need to make sure that you apply a thought process to them being dropped and what happens when you do drop one. Even TCP/IP can loose/drop a packet from time to time (timeout of packet errors).
- Jeremy
No, it is easier by miles but it's more vulnerable to cheating. As if you make fps in this way you'd know position of all players on the map and someone could just "toggle" hacks on and see players through walls. Also making fog-of-war with this kind of network would be bit pointless if someone manages to read map from memory. These things wouldn't be possible if server only transmitted data from visible areas. However in this game, above mentioned is not issue.Originally Posted by jdarling
I understood what you said, and if it were that easy all game companies would be doing it (no offense)
Also, the tick system may in theory cause a little sort of "lag" which doesn't fit any game.
I don't understand what you mean.. My packets should be averaging to 10-30 bytes, very rarely higher but not above 2kb. If i'm aware, TCP packets can go up to over 60kb. I don't know if OS gathers packets to send them in 1 go, and if it does how my game would handle it, and yes timeout errors are very annoying.Also, read up about TCP/IP and UDP as your statement is incorrect. Depending on the TOTAL amount of data you send out the pipe will decide how many packets are utilized. This isn't something you have control over, the OS and hardware control packet size limits and will automatically breakup anything over standard size. Of course, if you mean "your private packet" then yes, you can do it in a single bound
No matter what you do, you need to make sure that you apply a thought process to them being dropped and what happens when you do drop one. Even TCP/IP can loose/drop a packet from time to time (timeout of packet errors).
Still.. if you caught on my idea you know that for example AI controlled players, all their units and structures are completely played on client side and never send or receive any of their data except game beginning.
Before i let myself loose on network code which can mess up everything (because movement for now is not ticked), here is the first public Tech Demo of the game. Recent addition was ships that find a target and begin following it, randomly picking new targets so they will spread allover the map. Also optimization on particles which will not be created outside the view...
Controls: Arrow keys, both mouse buttons and mousewheel on main screen and minimap. Hold down right button to create ships.
Screenshot:
http://i39.tinypic.com/334nm8j.jpg
Demo:
http://uploading.com/files/3M55KK1A/TechDemo1.zip.html
or (slightly newer)
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f...4e75f6e8ebb871
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