[ian-reeds-games] Re: Releasing Tactical Battle 1.11 in the next few days
- From: "Allan Thompson" <allan1.thompson@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:00:04 -0500
Hi Ian and everyone,
Ian, thanks for fixing those ai_flags. Unfortunately, I had fixed the zombie
map and updated it before I read your email.
I had never taken the zombie strike back map as anything but a lark. I had just
thought it would be fun for those first group of zombies to finally get the
first round on those gun toting humans. If people actually like playing that
kind of map, I know I can make it better. Especially the spawn points. I would
make them computer friendlies so that they would pop out zombies themselves
instead of having to go all around seeing if they are ready yet.
The error was not something that could be ignored. It had gotten so bad it made
the game unplayable. On a whim, I went to the move skill, and changed the
"empty_tile" flag to "tile" and now the game works really well. I have no idea
why, but there it is.
I decided to give each survivor their own cursor sound, so now all the
survivors each say something diffrent. Hopefully all their attack and death
sounds are in place.
I also moved all the spawn points to the map edges and then added a whole bunch
more so that there is a steady stream of zombies after the third or fourth
turn. It made the map a whole lot better overall. Later on I might make the
survivors more seperated, by giveing them weapons to find int he house or
something like that.
As of right now it is ready to go and without errors as far as I can tell.
Thank you for clearing up that heroic abuse. i thought that was seriously
annoying but again, I didn't think of it as being a serious map.
Oh, one last thing, I cut the station 2 and station 3 songs down to snippets.
I think Austen was right that in the end, if someone didn't read the user
guide, they would turn on those stations and have to sit for a few minutes
listening to the music they weren't prepared to hear, and could kind of ruin
the game. With the snippets, it is enough to get the flavor and fun, without
being overbearing on those who might play first and read later. My favorite is
station 3 by the way. Truly a classic.
The starship maps aren't fixed, and I apologize to everyone for that. I should
never release anything that isn't finished.
The gorn map is proveing to be tricky and I am not sure I can pull off what I
want to do. The total war map I am thinking of scrapping, cause it would
feature a huge amount of capital ships, plus all their firghter and shuttle
escorts, and in the end, it would be a nightmare. If people really want it, it
isn't a problem, but I might come up with something that ends the conflict a
diffrent way.
Resistance is a tough map, and I think it is unbeatable. I want to add a ship
or two more, but even then I just don't think it can be done.
The reason a map closes automatically is because a map requires a good unit,
plus either a neutral or an evil unit. If that requirement isn't met, the map
will close and play the victory music and then read the victory text.
In the academy briefing, the unit over the neutral unit has a skill called
"End". You ten tab so it is targetting the "kill this unit" and it should kill
it, end the map and play the victory text which would tell the player what ship
they would be assigned if they passed. Also the friend is told his ship, and
that ship shows up in other maps, finally ending in the birds of a feather map
where his ship is stolen and you must destroy it useing command codes.
I just realized I forgot to do the transporter and another brief so got to get
to that. In the end, the starship maps aren't going to be ready for any release
for a while.
Thanks Ian. I have to remember to change out those ai flags.
So to be official, yes, please consider my zombie map for inclusion in your
next release.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/68028683/starship%20battles%20basic.zip
"The truth will set you free"
Jesus Christ of Nazareth 33A.D.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ian Reed
To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 8:50 PM
Subject: [ian-reeds-games] Re: Releasing Tactical Battle 1.11 in the next few
days
Hi all,
Carlos, I updated a small thing in your user guide that said:
Most skills have hot keys. The hot key for a skill is listed if you
press I on a skill that has a hot key.
As I'm sure you know, the information key is now F4 and I updated it in
the copy of your user guide I have. Sorry there has been so much change
in the keyboard shortcuts.
Just wanted to let you know so you can update it for the future.
I did a brief run through of the Conquering RedWall Abbey maps and there
are no errors and the user guide looks good.
Austen, I tried both the 1.10 version of Kingdom at war and a fresh copy
downloaded from the map pack link.
Unfortunately the change that removes the old unsupported flags now
announces several errors with old flags that are still in the files.
I am sorry for this since the problem originally stems from the Tactical
Battle engine undergoing such a large change when we got the new point
system.
If you want to finish converting the maps for the new system I can try
to put them out in this release.
Otherwise I will just leave them out until there is time to get them
converted.
Allan, I just listened to the stations on the radio for the first time.
Station 2 and 3 are hilarious!
The map music interferes with them, but there's not a lot we can do
about that right now.
I will be adding scripting for those map creators who don't mind doing a
little coding themselves.
Once this is in I'm sure we can find a way to mute the music while the
station plays and then unmute it afterwards.
Neither map has any initial errors.
The AI in the zombies strike back map was using Heroic when it would get
no benefit from it.
I changed the ai_buff flag on the heroic skill to be ai_heal and they
are much smarter about it now.
Not as smart as a human player, but significantly better than when they
completely wasted their heroic skills.
It makes the map more difficult for the player, try changing it and see
how you like it.
I also had a brief look at the starship battles maps.
Very creative use of a map for the academy briefing.
The end program skill didn't seem to work for me, but players can always
just return to the main menu by using the option they get after pressing
escape.
I got an error when loading training mission 2:
use_sight_range is not a recognized flag in Data for TB\Map
Packs\starship battles basic\Maps\02 - training mission 2.txt on line 6
This is my fault since I originally used that flag around dev 5 or 6 and
it later changed into 2 separate flags of use_unseen and use_unexplored.
Also noticed an error on Hunt for the Gorn:
Could not find a unit with the name for the death defeat condition in
Data for TB\Map Packs\starship battles basic\Maps\08 - Hunt for the
Gorn.txt on line 224
The total war map finishes before the player gets to take a turn.
You probably knew about these errors but I thought I'd point them out
since I'm briefly going through some of the maps.
Pretty cool intro for the resistance map by the way.
I used your test map to see the bug where the borg uses assimulate on
ships with no crew.
This is because the ai_curse flag was set on the skill.
I replaced it with the ai_attack flag and the problem is solved.
A quick note for everyone on those AI hint flags.
ai_buff and ai_curse are intended for skills that add effects to their
targets.
If the skill only restores points or inflicts points then it fits better
into the ai_heal and ai_attack flags.
The other problem as we've discussed is that you can't prioritize the
use of skills. This will come at a later date but we'll just have to
live with it for now.
Allan, I wasn't sure if you wanted any of your maps included or not. We
can try to fix that bug, but as mentioned before, if it's rare it may be
worth releasing as is.
Thanks everyone.
Ian Reed
Other related posts:
