Xna Stage 0.3

[kafros]

The progress is definitely impressive and most appreciated by everyone

 

* Concerning the UI, well, the best of both worlds would be an icon UI with text tooltips pop-ing up when you float the pointer above them. Just suggesting, I'll leave the implementation to you (whoever takes it, if anyone takes it anyway)

* Feature-wise I can't think of much, but the UI could definitely get worked upon further. Not aesthetically-wise but user-friendly-wise. What do I mean by that...

 

Just like the weapon load change u did dteviot, something similar could be done for the soldier-craft screen. Select a craft, double click the soldier, he gets assigned. Right click him, he is free. Stuff like that.

In addition, the list in the soldier equip screen is good for selecting specific soldiers, but I think two right-left buttons would be much more practical.

 

* A 3rd point that was on my mind since long ago is customization. An options screen is a must in order to house the many-possible customizations. Graphics options (which globe texture to load, which shader version to use), sound options (list of music files to use), gameplay options (difficulty, such as setting the rate UFOs spawn and the possibilities of salvaging stuff), misc options (i.e. toggle mousewheel behaviour when scrolling, that is the ability to scroll in reverse), stuff like that. Of course, such screens are supposed to exist once you have the customizations implemented, that's why I guess we don't already have one

 

So, to make a long story short, a more user-friendly experience could be the intermediate stage before implementing the battlescape

 

Just my 2 cents

[[Mad]]

* Concerning the UI, well, the best of both worlds would be an icon UI with text tooltips pop-ing up when you float the pointer above them. Just suggesting, I'll leave the implementation to you (whoever takes it, if anyone takes it anyway)

This is not a bad idea, however, it's difficult to implement it in such a way, that the don't pop up too early, but you anyway are not slowed down by waiting for them to appear. And if I think of Windows with it's fabulous tooltips that tend to not appear exactly when you need them the most...

[Darkhomb]

We do have an options dialog. it is limited as of now, but the more we progress the more options it will have, sound is there but all you can do is change volume for sound and music and turn on and off. Graphics options comes much later, we just need it to work at 800x600 then we will change. Also we will have it change globe texture depending on the texture detail they select (low med high very high) Difficulty prob will not come into play until we get the battlescape working.

 

And Dteviot you do a great job as always!

Edited November 26, 2007 by Darkhomb

[kafros]

Yep Darkhomb I was aware of the options/sound options dialogs, my point was that it would be nice to see them... populated (with options of course).

 

* Concerning the globe texture, instead of waiting for someone to implement mipmapping we could just have an options dialog and some available textures, so that everyone could choose the best quality their GFX card can handle

 

* I forgot to add 2 examples in the usability issue in my previous post. The first one is the inability to use the keyboard (enter/space key) in order to skip some "Press ok" dialogs. I remember you guys tried solving it and couldn't find a solution but I think it's one of the most important usability issues. Second point: Take the soldier screen where you choose the soldier's position in the transport vessel. You assign them and then try to change their order. Bummer, error message. It would be neat if the soldier positions were "swapped" when you tried that action, it would let you have all the control you need.

 

I can't find anything else, keep up the good work

[[dteviot]]

Ugh, please don't, I hate icon UIs. They're cryptic, unflexible and unintuitive.

True, they can be cryptic.

On the other hand, if well chosen, it's not a big problem.

 

 

And we have enough wasted space as it is.

Here's where I disagree with you. The right hand menu bar on most screens takes up 25% of the screen area.

Compare the "equip soldier" screen Xenocide has, with the one in Apoc.

Or the Base Facility layout screens.

Hmm. Maybe I was using the wrong model for the Xenocide UI. Should have gone for Apoc, not X-Com 1.

Still You're looking at redoing the UI anyway.

[[dteviot]]

Not quite sure where to put this.

I've noticed that we have separate items in the tech tree for Plasma weapons and their clips.

This gives a small problem. Specifically, what happens if a plasma weapon has been researched, but it's clip has not.

As Xenocide is currently implemented, this means you can equip a soldier with a plasma weapon, but the soldier can't carry ammo for the weapon. (Not sure what happens in X-Com 1)

I suggest we combine the weapon and ammo into single research project. (And combine the X-Net articles as well.)

[[Mad]]

The X-COM way is exactly as we have it now. You can equip your soldiers but they won't fire a single shot. Packing those two items into one project would have it's benefits logic-wise, but could alter gameplay, since it would take you longer to get the bigger guns. until now you only needed to research the plasma pistol, rifle..., but not their clips to get the plasma cannon, which puts you in a position of huge advantage in airfights.

 

The original plan for Xnet articles was to split all weapon articles from their ammo parts so that in later versions different ammunition types can easily be implemented Xnet-wise.

[[dteviot]]

The X-COM way is exactly as we have it now. You can equip your soldiers but they won't fire a single shot. Packing those two items into one project would have it's benefits logic-wise, but could alter gameplay, since it would take you longer to get the bigger guns. until now you only needed to research the plasma pistol, rifle..., but not their clips to get the plasma cannon, which puts you in a position of huge advantage in airfights.

Ok, separate they are, separate they shall stay.

The original plan for Xnet articles was to split all weapon articles from their ammo parts so that in later versions different ammunition types can easily be implemented Xnet-wise.

Curses, that's something I missed, putting the ammunition stats onto the X-Net text for weapons.

Another job for the weekend.

[Zombie]

Not quite sure where to put this.

I've noticed that we have separate items in the tech tree for Plasma weapons and their clips.

This gives a small problem. Specifically, what happens if a plasma weapon has been researched, but it's clip has not.

As Xenocide is currently implemented, this means you can equip a soldier with a plasma weapon, but the soldier can't carry ammo for the weapon. (Not sure what happens in X-Com 1)

I suggest we combine the weapon and ammo into single research project. (And combine the X-Net articles as well.)

Like Mad mentioned, it was perfectly legal to research, say, only the Plasma Pistol and bring that along on a mission without the clip. However, unloaded weapons would never start in a soldier's hand - they stayed on the ground. That wouldn't stop someone from equipping a soldier with an unusable weapon though. As a note, the original game would allow you to fire a weapon if the clip wasn't researched. This only happened in reaction shots (during the aliens turn) and required you to scavenge loaded weapons off the alien corpses. Soldiers couldn't shoot the weapon during their turn. (I'm pretty sure you could load and unload clips unrestricted even though neither the weapon nor the clip was researched).

 

If we don't want to allow a weapon to be loaded on a craft when the clip hasn't been researched (or visa versa), we could always flag it so that the weapon would only show up in the equip screens when both the weapon and clip have been researched.

 

- Zombie

Edited November 29, 2007 by Zombie

[[dteviot]]

Progress:

• Updated Rtf2Xml to handle the X-Net.xml file format used by XNA version of Xenocide.
  
• Added xnetCtFiles.xna.xml to use to generate the XNA version of Xenocide
  

 

Notes

• As the CTD department is working on texts, I thought it would be a good idea to update Rtf2Xml, so that an X-Net compatible with XNA can be generated.
  
• I've also updated xnetCtFiles.xml for XNA, and saved it to the filename xnetCtFiles.xna.xml
  
• Updated source code has been saved to http://svn.projectxenocide.com/tools/Rtf2Xml
  
• Compiled executable, and new xnetCtFiles.xna.xml saved to http://svn.projectxenocide.com/assets/Creative Text Department/XNet
  

Mad, please let me know if anything is not clear

[[dteviot]]

Progress: Fixed issues reported by kafros:

• On Assign solder to craft screen. Double click on Solder or XCap assigns to selected craft.
  
• On Assign solder to craft screen. If move soldier and new position already taken, swaps positions of soldiers
  

[[Mad]]

The new xnet.xml can be downloaded from the CTD assets

[[dteviot]]

Progress:

• Added combatant.xml and combatant.xsd
  
• X-Net shows ammo capacity and damage for all clips and weapons that take clips
  
• X-Net shows stats for soldier's armor
  
• Can set armor solider is wearing
  

Notes

• Turns out easiest way to allow player to equip soldier with armor is to make armor another piece of equipment, and let player equip it like all other items. Although there are a couple of changes, in that the only place you can put the armor is on the chest of the person in the equip soldier screen. (Something to do when we next touch up EquipScreenBackground.png. Note, we also need to add sprites to InventorySprites.png for the 3 armors (None doesn't count as an armor.)
  
• Hopefully setting a solider's armor is clear, just select it as item, then drop it on the soldier's chest. To remove, click and drop on ground.
  
• You will need to research the armors before you see them. (Hack research.xml if and startsettings.xml if you don't want to have to research and build the armor.)
  

Edited December 9, 2007 by dteviot

[[dteviot]]

As usual, feedback would be appreciated.

[Guest Azrael Strife]

I think counting armor like any other piece of equipment is a great idea always thought it was kinda uncomfortable to have the armor being set up in a separate screen.

[[Mad]]

Very nice. I'm always stunned to see how much the game developed in the last months. I like the implementation of the equip screen.

• Are you planning to supplement the item list with items on the ground? That would make it a bit easier to equip a soldier.
  
• Missing from the Xnet are accuracy, reload time, TU used when firing in aimed shot, auto shot, single shot. (I know it's not implemented and that you're probably aware of it. Just to be thorough.)
  
• I like the way of assigning soldiers to craft, but it would be nice if you could click on the soldier first and then on the craft just as well as vice versa. Now you have to first select the craft and then the soldier.
  
• placing the armor on the soldiers chest is a bit tricky... but maybe this'll change as soon as there's a box. Question: Do you want to keep it as this, or do you plan to change the soldiers model on changing the armor as in X-COM:EU?
  

[[dteviot]]

Are you planning to supplement the item list with items on the ground? That would make it a bit easier to equip a soldier.

Eventually, probably yes. The plan was for the items in an outpost (or on the ground) to be displayed in the "ground" cells. (Basically, it would work just like the Apocalypse one.) I put the outpost equipment dialog together initially because it was a lot easier than getting the ground to show all outpost inventory. However, I think it's good enough for the moment. (I'll probably get ground to show outpost inventory about the same time I get it to show the items in reach of the soldier when on the battlescape.)

Or maybe not.

Missing from the Xnet are accuracy, reload time, TU used when firing in aimed shot, auto shot, single shot. (I know it's not implemented and that you're probably aware of it. Just to be thorough.)

Yes, I'm aware of that. Will be a while before it's done however.

[*]I like the way of assigning soldiers to craft, but it would be nice if you could click on the soldier first and then on the craft just as well as vice versa. Now you have to first select the craft and then the soldier.

Probably could be done,

placing the armor on the soldiers chest is a bit tricky... but maybe this'll change as soon as there's a box. Question: Do you want to keep it as this, or do you plan to change the soldiers model on changing the armor as in X-COM:EU?

I'd like to change the soldier's model. But until I have the necessary bitmaps, I can't do it. This would require:

• Removing the soldier image from the current background.
  
• A sprite sheet, with 4 soldier images, one in each of the 4 armors.
  

(Also, I have a minor concern that it would not be obvious how to change a soldier's armor.) Just like t think it's not obvious that you right click on a weapon to unload it.

[kafros]

(Also, I have a minor concern that it would not be obvious how to change a soldier's armor.) Just like t think it's not obvious that you right click on a weapon to unload it.

What about a tiny hint area somewhere on the screen with 2-3 basic instructions?

Or even a tooltip-popup?

 

Imo the best solution would be a mix of them both: Showing text in a specific area of the screen when the mouse hovers over an area of interest. i.e. you hover above a weapon and you see some text on the top of the screen that says "Right click to un-equip"

[[Mad]]

(Also, I have a minor concern that it would not be obvious how to change a soldier's armor.) Just like t think it's not obvious that you right click on a weapon to unload it.

You could just leave the box over the chest where it is now, but instead of keeping the armor there after it has been drawn there, "just" change the soldier model. If someone wants to strip a soldier of his armor he draws a "standard issue battledress" to the chestbox or, since this is no existing item, you could add a button for that (strip soldier of armor).

[[dteviot]]

(Also, I have a minor concern that it would not be obvious how to change a soldier's armor.) Just like t think it's not obvious that you right click on a weapon to unload it.

You could just leave the box over the chest where it is now, but instead of keeping the armor there after it has been drawn there, "just" change the soldier model.

Well, I certainly plan on changing the model. But I can't do that until I have the other models. Hint to Art Department.

 

If someone wants to strip a soldier of his armor he draws a "standard issue battledress" to the chestbox or, since this is no existing item, you could add a button for that (strip soldier of armor).

As the "standard issue battledress" is an absence of an item, rather an item, creating an item that represents it results in lots of special case code (that I want to avoid.)

 

My concern, in a bit more detail is, how we indicate to the player WHERE to put the armor. All the other items have a grid which indicates the location, the soldier doesn't. A box on the chest would be a good hint, but would probably look ugly. Alternately, we could have a separate box labeled "Armor". Expect we want to get away from labels, because they're a translation problem.

 

Note, because soldiers start out with standard issue, I believe that once players figure out WHERE the "armor slot" is, it they will figure out how to put armor on a soldier without problems. And by that time, they should have discovered that that you pick up an item to remove it, and you can't t put an item in a place that's already taken. So they should realize that you just click on the armor and drop it on the "ground" to remove it. (If not, we can always write a manual. Actually, we probably should have a manual anyway. Job for CTD.)

Edited December 11, 2007 by dteviot

[[Mad]]

(If not, we can always write a manual. Actually, we probably should have a manual anyway. Job for CTD.)

Is in planning, but only after all the cts are finished.

[[dteviot]]

Progress:

• Added Susceptibility to Armor
  
• Added alien crew size info to ufos in item.xml
  
• renamed 'Item' class to 'ItemInfo'. And renamed derived classes.
  
• renamed 'ItemHandle' class to 'Item'
  

Nothing to see from gameplay, but hopefully the inventory management code is now clearer.

[[dteviot]]

Progress:

• Equip Soldier screen now shows available items on "ground" area of screen
  

Notes

• I still need to add a "number of units avaialble" to the items on the "ground"
  
• As always, feedback and bug information is desired.
  

[[dteviot]]

Progress:

• Add count of number of items in inventory to Equip Solider screen. Well, I show a count if there's more than one in stock.
  

Notes

• The equip soldier screen is about as far as I can make it, until we get art assets.
  
• Warning from microsoft:

  As with most types of software, font files are licensed rather than sold. Font licenses vary from vendor to vendor, but most don't allow redistribution of the fonts, and that includes redistribution of reproductions such as bitmaps containing the rasterized character set. This is even true of many of the licenses covering fonts that Microsoft supplies with applications and Windows. Be careful, therefore, to ensure that you have the required license rights to redistribute any font you include as a bitmap containing the rasterized character set in your game!

  So we're going to have to find a font we can redistribute.
  

[StaffSargeant]

So we're going to have to find a font we can redistribute.

 

Will this do?

 

http://creators.xna.com/Headlines/utilitie...-Font-Pack.aspx

[StaffSargeant]

Progress:

• Positioning of soldiers in craft now works even without having to select the craft
  
• Assigning to craft now works whether a craft is selected first or soldier is selected first
  

[[dteviot]]

Progress:

• Positioning of soldiers in craft now works even without having to select the craft
  
• Assigning to craft now works whether a craft is selected first or soldier is selected first
  

Thanks, and the font pack looks promising.

[Darkhomb]

Does anyone know where the fonts we have came from? I tried searching around couldn't find anything about them. I am hoping we own the 2 main ones.

[[dteviot]]

Does anyone know where the fonts we have came from? I tried searching around couldn't find anything about them. I am hoping we own the 2 main ones.

not me

 

Progress:

• small cleanup of StaffSargent's "Positioning of soldiers in craft now works even without having to select the craft" update
  
• UFOs now know the alien race they carry.
  
• Started construction of CombatantFactory
  

Notes.

• I've set the odds of a UFO being crewed by a specific race to grey & Satyrian = 40%, Viper = 10%, Morlock and Cloak = 5%. If anyone has better odds, please let me know.
  
• Also, a couple of questions.
  • Do we have the stats for the "integral weapons" that terrorist units are equiped with?
    
  • Do the integral weapons have ammo limits? That is, how many shots do cyberdisks and sectopods have?
    

[Guest Azrael Strife]

Does anyone know where the fonts we have came from? I tried searching around couldn't find anything about them. I am hoping we own the 2 main ones.

You mean the one that was used in the main menu? It's called Gottard.

[Darkhomb]

Well it is gotthard and the other we use is OCR A Extended.. However now that I am looking at the digital signature of them both. We can not use these

 

I will check out that font pack and see if they have some we can use.

Edited December 26, 2007 by Darkhomb

[SupSuper]

Shame, I liked OCR A Extended. (but Gotthard does gets hard to read)

 

There are a lot of royalty-free font sites out there though.

[Darkhomb]

I will look in to these and post up options for people to vote on.

[Zombie]

I've set the odds of a UFO being crewed by a specific race to grey & Satyrian = 40%, Viper = 10%, Morlock and Cloak = 5%. If anyone has better odds, please let me know.

Perhaps 35% for Grey and Satyrian, 20% for the Viper and 5% for the Cloak/Morlock would be better? Snakemen (in the original game) have a tendancy to show up fairly frequently and 10% seems rather low to me.

 

Also, a couple of questions.

1. Do we have the stats for the "integral weapons" that terrorist units are equiped with?
   
2. Do the integral weapons have ammo limits? That is, how many shots do cyberdisks and sectopods have?
   

1. Aye, see the Additional Stats section of my Alien Stats page at StrategyCore.
   
2. For aliens with weapons which could shoot, the ammo capacity was 255 (I think this is correct, it's either 255 or 250 and 250 was used for the Tank/Laser and Plasma Hovertank). Note that the 255 shot capacity was due to a limitation of how the game was programmed. 1 byte variables (values: 0-255) were used throughout most of the game to save on memory. I suppose we could make the ammo capacity 255 as well or just make it infinite. Either way, aliens never ran out of ammo on any type of mission I ran. The only way to expend all the shots was to Mind Control the alien and have it shoot every round. For melee aliens, they didn't have a "capacity" for the number of times they could attack with hand-to-hand combat. "Infinite" is the word here.
   

Hope this helps and sorry for the late reply.

 

- Zombie

Edited December 28, 2007 by Zombie

[kafros]

Make it handle multiple X-Corp craft fighting one UFO. I'm not sure how to do this, so any ideas would be considered.

• Have the interceptors fight one after the other "simultaneously" (ufo, inter1, inter2, inter3).

  UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 1 attacks! Interceptor 2 Attacks! Interceptor 3 Attacks! Next round

• Just like the above, but the UFO attacks each time! (ufo-inter1, ufo-inter2, ufo-inter3).

  UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 1 attacks! UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 2 Attacks! UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 3 Attacks! Next round

In order to make it more practical:

• Make it faster. If applicable, put different speed buttons (1 sec, half a sec, 0.25 sec, 0.125 s).
  
• In addition (which will be helpful in the faster speeds) implemend a "stop at threshold" feature, which will pause the attack in case the craft's available durability is

More beautiful...

Darkhomb is the guy for this xD (have a nice trip btw darkhomb!!)

Edited January 24, 2008 by kafros

[[dteviot]]

Simulating multiple craft combat itself isn't the problem, the existing engine can already handle that. (Unless we want to go to a 2D or 3D battlescape type scene. Say like Master of Orion. Which we might want to do. Feel free to put forward a proposal on how it would look and feel.)

But I digress, let me try and clarify what I see as the immediate issues with the "aeroscape" dialog:

• The existing dialog, while approximating the functionality of the X-COM dialog, is breathtakingly ugly. Making it nicer would be good.
  
• The layout is not designed to handle multiple aircraft attacking a UFO. So the redesign must take that into account as well.
  
• There is no way to indicate to the computer that you want more than one aircraft to attack a UFO simultaneously. When an aircraft reaches a UFO, either a battle starts, or the aircraft returns home. The questions are:
  • How to order an aircraft to "shadow" the UFO, until a sufficient backup arrives?
    
  • How to order aircraft to back up the shadow?
    
  • How to modify the aircraft state machine to implement the "shadowing" logic?
    
  • How to modify the aircraft state machine to implement the "backup" logic?
    

Note, I've never been able to get multiple craft to attack a UFO simultaneously in X-COM, so however it is done there, I don't think it's intuitive.

 

Make it handle multiple X-Corp craft fighting one UFO. I'm not sure how to do this, so any ideas would be considered.

• Have the interceptors fight one after the other "simultaneously" (ufo, inter1, inter2, inter3).

  UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 1 attacks! Interceptor 2 Attacks! Interceptor 3 Attacks! Next round

• Just like the above, but the UFO attacks each time! (ufo-inter1, ufo-inter2, ufo-inter3).

  UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 1 attacks! UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 2 Attacks! UFO 1 Attacks! Interceptor 3 Attacks! Next round

In order to make it more practical:

• Make it faster. If applicable, put different speed buttons (1 sec, half a sec, 0.25 sec, 0.125 s).
  
• In addition (which will be helpful in the faster speeds) implemend a "stop at threshold" feature, which will pause the attack in case the craft's available durability is

More beautiful...

Darkhomb is the guy for this xD (have a nice trip btw darkhomb!!)

Edited January 24, 2008 by dteviot

[kafros]

edited Edited June 24, 2008 by kafros

[[dteviot]]

So, my new proposal (which I hope is less naive):

[*]Implement a queue system in the upper part of the interception screen.

[*]There you can see images of the crafts with a number on it.

[*]If you minimize, you can then go to the geospace and let time flow. More aircrafts enter, so their images/number are added in the queue!

I'm having trouble getting my head around this. Can you draw me a picture? (Even a crude sketch might help.)

[kafros]

edited Edited June 24, 2008 by kafros