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[Belimoth]

No one told me that this path would lead to baldness I hope it's not too late to turn back.

[Gregg Williams]

No one told me that this path would lead to baldness I hope it's not too late to turn back.

Yeah.. I think it might of been the routine 100 hour or more work weeks, and 2 hours of sleep a day. That and genetics =/

[Gregg Williams]

More work on hardware. Migrating the rest of my data from the old macbook pro, so it can be wiped, re-configured and shipped over to my partner. Which should help solve quite a few problems, and also hopefully boost productivity as well.

Also getting the whole project management side of things back in order, as my network and disks are busy transferring around way to many gigs of data.

Still need to do a few more revolutions through the infinite spiral that is data formats and handling as well..

[Gregg Williams]

So hardware is about sorted, but ya I finally started to play Shadowrun Returns, which is highly distracting even if its drek :/

[Gregg Williams]

Hardware stuff is all finished, and even some is boxed and ready to be shipped over to Kawe. Shadowrun is also completed. What a disappointment in ways, but I guess player created content could make it quite the rich game. To bad the tablet version doesn't have access to user content =_=

Returning to M.I.N.T work tomorrow. Data formats to figure out, even if I suspect the answer is a bunch of temporary solutions that will end up needing to be replaced.

[Gregg Williams]

Hmm windows exploding under your palm is no fun at all =/ Good thing I bought a big thing of super glue..

Somehow its always the hands taking damage..

[Gregg Williams]

Been working more on data formats. The biggest sticking point now really being how to handle weapons and equipment. Is there a nice way to define it all in data, or does every item need to basically be custom coded? I'm looking for the data solution at the minute, but this currently means generating massive amounts of weapon/equipment ideas to try an figure out values and properties that can be setup in data.

Also been looking at localization again... Suppose really should do the main euro ones at least.. Things like word order though and bitmap fonts seem less than joyful.

[Pineapple]

Lua?

[Gregg Williams]

Lua?

It's possible, though I'm not entirely sure what it would solve at the moment.

[Gregg Williams]

Still working on the weapon and equipment list, which has morphed mostly into modifiers. Also think localization is likely a go. Seems like the pain may be lessened by just using UTF8 for everything.

Also today is my 11111 day, joy although I suppose it marks around year 5 of continual game dev with about 12 commercial games made and released, not counting ports / multiple platforms.

[Conker534]

party 

[Gregg Williams]

party 

Haha cheers

[Gregg Williams]

Sometimes as much as I hate it, XML is just the lazy and easy solution..

Equipment and weapon list has been scrubbed into modifiers, properties, and in general values. With this completed, data format work can really begin.

Also there is this..

I'm sure some of you have wondered what happened to all the M.I.N.T art output?

Yep thats right.. My partner had been off in a galaxy far, far away..

[Gregg Williams]

Hmm yeah.. XML .. Nope. This property list is rapidly expanding fully out into hundreds of values and settings.

Its time for *key suspense music* a tool. A magnificent tool, with templates that also writes to a proper data format like binary..

*sigh* lots of work ahead.

[EdgarTheGame]

You don't see many wargames in the indie world lately. Also, the art looks great

[Gregg Williams]

You don't see many wargames in the indie world lately. Also, the art looks great

Cheers! Yeah the indie world is kinda strange like that at times it seems.

Also first cut of M.E.A.D (M.I.N.T Equipment & Arms Designer) tons of work still to do though.

[Conker534]

Awesome!

[Gregg Williams]

So I dreamt of fire arcs and hit chances. Which I believe has given way to how hit chances will be done.

So to share a bit more design bits (quite likely to change though) units have a health stat and an armor stat. Weapons have a base damage, armor penetration stat, a fire arc, and a point blank % chance to hit, along with a max range % chance to hit. (Before modifiers)

So when it comes to hit chance the actual percentage is extrapolated between the point blank and max distance chances along with modifiers.
This allows for a ton of flexibility in weapon design. Like lasers that have super narrow fire arcs yet super high or 100% base chance to hit. Making it a super accurate weapon, but one that calls for just right positioning to be able to be used.

Damage starts out as a flat base damage, but can be scaled up or down depending on roll results of armor and armor penetration. In this manor a high armor vehicle may well reduce light AP attacks to zero damage. While high AP may cause damage to be raised quite a bit. I think this respects weapon power and armor levels a bit more than just straight up variable damage.

While RNG is apart of the game, I'd like to in general allow tactical choices and strategy to influence results greatly and in that way minimize RNG at points.

[Gregg Williams]

Oh look its a fire arc definition grid.. or wait is that minesweeper? Either way I best have me some more Mead 

[Gregg Williams]

Tool dev continues.