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[marcgfx]

Yeah that was the idea. Tower defense really. In the upgrade-phases the player gets the option to build a base. Some buildings improve your income, some provide energy for other buildings, others buff and some even attack. It might be kind of fun if it were possible to beat a twin-stick with a static building. Not sure if I will follow through with the idea though.

[Alain]

Sounds interesting, keep us posted on whether you decide to follow through with the idea!

[marcgfx]

I always want to write, but end up putting it off. One of the main things that annoys me, is that I can't get any sensible videos showing. I know I solved this issue a long time ago using webp, but I had to host the images on my own server and it was just a bit annoying to do. But I think I might have a nicer solution. https://postimages.org can host webp!

To make my life easier, I also improved my .bat knowledge. I found out you can drag and drop on a bat file, to pass a path as an argument. This allows me to write an ffmpeg script that converts my mp4 to a webp and also limits it to <24mb as that is the limit for postimages.

_ToWebP.bat

Code:

ffmpeg -y -i %~1 -vcodec libwebp -fs 24000000 -filter:v fps=fps=20 -lossless 0 -compression_level 3 -q:v 70 -vsync 0 -s 800:450 -loop 0 webp/%~nx1.webp

I wrote some code for Imgur/Mp4 in case someone is interested: _ToImgur.bat

Code:

ffmpeg -y -i %~1 -ss 0 -t 60 -r 30 -c:v libx264 -b:v 4M imgur/%~nx1

So I've been working on a creature today. It boost towards it's target and leaves toxic terrain behind it. My biggest issue with this creature has been that it is visibly hollow, but the game treats it as full. My engine only supports circles, so this is not straight forward. You can see on the minimap that I had already created some smaller objects, but they are not connected to the big creature yet.


Well it's kind of straight forward. I made a ring with hidden objects and with a bit of magic (passing collision information from small to big + having big circle collide with fixed structures)


The red outline is my doing, I am debugging various things at the moment. The outline informs me if pointer-lock is working. All bullets have damage information on them, as do explosions. I've noticed that it helps me understand what is going on. I have added a lot of new weapons and without some visual feedback on the stats it's very hard to notice if something is working as intended.

On that note, I recently added DPS (damage per second) calculations for my units. As I have explosive area damage, I've tried adding a metric for that too, I call it APS.

The following output is for the right arm of my robot, the Devader (DevGGUfo in my DB):

Code:

**** DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm
14:50:25.209 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W0: 4.17 dps 4.17 aps 0.00 // duration 0.24 dmg 1.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.209 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: DefaultGun: 6.67 dps 6.67 aps 0.00 // duration 0.15 dmg 1.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.209 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W2: 2.00 dps 2.00 aps 0.00 // duration 0.50 dmg 1.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.209 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W3: 2.08 dps 2.08 aps 0.00 // duration 0.24 dmg 0.50 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.209 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W4: 2.08 dps 2.08 aps 0.00 // duration 0.24 dmg 0.50 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.209 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W5: 2.08 dps 2.08 aps 0.00 // duration 0.24 dmg 0.50 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W6: 49.86 dps 1.25 aps 48.61 // duration 0.24 dmg 0.30 area 11.67 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: W7: 170.14 dps 2.08 aps 168.06 // duration 0.24 dmg 0.50 area 40.33 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: Flames: 10.00 dps 10.00 aps 0.00 // duration 0.10 dmg 1.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: Fireball: 14.01 dps 0.93 aps 13.08 // duration 2.15 dmg 2.00 area 28.12 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: MineGun: 3.77 dps 3.77 aps 0.00 // duration 0.53 dmg 2.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: SawBlade: 4.17 dps 4.17 aps 0.00 // duration 0.24 dmg 1.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: Neutralizer: 6.67 dps 6.67 aps 0.00 // duration 0.75 dmg 5.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: FaderGun: 11.11 dps 11.11 aps 0.00 // duration 0.27 dmg 3.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: Charge: 61.31 dps 1.79 aps 59.52 // duration 1.68 dmg 3.00 area 100.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: BurstGun: 12.24 dps 12.24 aps 0.00 // duration 0.98 dmg 12.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: StrikeGun: 9.26 dps 9.26 aps 0.00 // duration 0.54 dmg 5.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm: SpiralGun: 8.33 dps 8.33 aps 0.00 // duration 0.06 dmg 0.50 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00
14:50:25.210 dps.js:112 **** DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm> Pup
14:50:25.210 dps.js:127 DevGGUfo> Waist> Shoulders> RightArm> Pup: PupGun: 4.17 dps 4.17 aps 0.00 // duration 0.24 dmg 1.00 area 0.00 effect 0.00 particle 0.00

edit1: Just made another webp, I'm loving this :D

I've got an even larger amount of stuff now. Things that used to be clearly separated can now be used in tandem. So one big worry is that stuff does not really work together. The circling balls cause an explosion whenever they collide with something, turns out the protective ring is a good thing in this combo -> more collisions. Dmg debugging while using the flame thrower is kind of crazy.


edit2: I noticed tigsource was cutting off my images (960 is too wide), so I've reduced them all to 800x450 and added another webp for good measure.
_
This is what happens when a weapon fires just a little bit too quickly

[Alain]

To make my life easier, I also improved my .bat knowledge. I found out you can drag and drop on a bat file, to pass a path as an argument. This allows me to write an ffmpeg script that converts my mp4 to a webp and also limits it to <24mb as that is the limit for postimages.

_ToWebP.bat

Code:

ffmpeg -y -i %~1 -vcodec libwebp -fs 24000000 -filter:v fps=fps=20 -lossless 0 -compression_level 3 -q:v 70 -vsync 0 -s 800:450 -loop 0 webp/%~nx1.webp

I wrote some code for Imgur/Mp4 in case someone is interested: _ToImgur.bat

Code:

ffmpeg -y -i %~1 -ss 0 -t 60 -r 30 -c:v libx264 -b:v 4M imgur/%~nx1

This is super cool, thank you for sharing this with us!

[marcgfx]

@Alain: np, hope it's usefull! webp seems like a pretty cool format to me.

I currently have two larger appendages that can be arranged around the Devader. In the first version they overlapped, so that was no good. I also didnt like the second version, where the arrangement was based on pick-up sequence. So I came up with a fairly simple algorithm to create the arrangements I wanted. The debug-examples can be also seen in the video.

[Alain]

Interesting! It took me a bit to figure this out. So these appendages are the stash of weapons you can switch between? What is the cap here? I think we see 8 in the video.

[marcgfx]

@Alain: The appendages can be bought between rounds. I am not planning to cap the amount, I think the price and likelyhood of one being purchasable in the shop will do that for me. But I will have to see, still have not got the game back to a good playable state yet. Will require quite some price balancing and I also have some bugs to squash.

[marcgfx]

Did some bug fixing today, but needed to do something fun. Added an electric attack to the towers, currently they all do exactly the same. I am planning to change range and damage for the 3 slightly different towers, but I think they will maintain a similar attack.

[mobilelast]

There’s something hypnotic in these circular creatures. I was stuck staring at them for over a minute.

[Alain]

@Alain: The appendages can be bought between rounds. I am not planning to cap the amount, I think the price and likelyhood of one being purchasable in the shop will do that for me.

I see, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining

[marcgfx]

Adding this build-mode was not as easy as I expected.

I've had to recode how the viewport is handled, as so far it was always centered around the robot. Now the focal point must be the cursor and it should only really move when the cursor is close to edge. I've not yet tested this with multiplayer... hope it wont get too complicated.

Buildings sometimes cost money, sometimes they can be gained through other means. As I want players to get a 100% refund on buildings in the turn they were built, but only 50% later on, I need to keep track of what was built and how/when it was payed for. This was quite a mind bender. In the end I simply keep track how many buildings of a type were bought. Whenever I remove a building, I first check if I bought a building, if so: refund! It gets a little more complicated as some buildings like walls come in batches of 4. So you only get the refund if you remove 4 walls again.

I will be adding automated production, that will e.g. give you 2 towers per level. As towers are a little more valuable, this could allow players to sell off some static defense to invest in something they really need. Could be interesting. Getting the prices right will probably be difficult.

edit:
I've added a black line around all the freshly placed buildings, this might make it easier to work with.

[Alain]

It is great to see your base building is progressing! As you say, I can imagine that coming up with prices is difficult, but I am sure you'll figure it out

[marcgfx]

Thanks Alain. I always wonder what is actually worth posting. The majority of the time I'm solving problems I have trouble communicating, or at least presenting in a semi-interesting manner.

Before I even started thinking about adding base building, I already had some elements that could be considered parts of a base. A large stationary gun and two kinds of platforms that provide benefits come to mind. One of them is a large shield generator. So far the shield generator was selected as upgrades and was then placed by the game. Now that there is base building, auto-placement is kind of stupid and annoying. As the generator doesn't fit into the standard base building I have created a simpler way to place it, but still using the same building placement code.

I did not have any ready made code to calculate the hexagons large buildings will be occupying. The other buildings all use only one or 3 hexes.

My solution is quite simple (as all my objects are circles). Calculate spokes in 6 directions.

Fill in between the spokes by connecting the hexes on the same radius. Here I have not yet connected first and last spoke.

Placement is now only for one object, so I decided that simply clicking where you want will move the building until you are satisfied. Seems pretty straight forward.

[Alain]

Interesting, we are again working on the same aspects like shield generators, placing objects etc. Btw. hexagons always intrigue me, but I am quite glad I am on a square grid Your solution for placing the big shield generator seems straight forward and effective!

[JobLeonard]

It looks gorgeous man.

I have to say, there's something that's just incredibly pleasing about base building on hex grids. I don't envy the programmers working with hexagons though

[marcgfx]

finally got most of the explosions done for my buildings. Not all of them do something yet, but I hope inspiration will strike me while test-playing. I'm thinking about abandoning the factory and resource gathering buildings, looks like they could become a real pain to handle as the small vehicles they create might require actual pathfinding to work.

@Alain/JobLeonard: Squares are much easier to handle, but for an isometric game it ends up looking very boring. In 3D it works much better visually. I've avoided doing complicated things on hex so far and got away with it.  

I guess shield generators are just not very unusual for games, hard to not have some kind of overlap. But the implementation can still be entirely different

[JobLeonard]

Oooh, those animations are niiiice

[marcgfx]

Thanks Leonard :D, I'm starting to like my base building. Was highly sceptical so far, but I think it might work. Still very worried about how many bosses this might break though.



This is what it currently looks like in the "building menu". Top right you can see all upgrades the player has chosen (might be able to sell them back for 50% of investment). The buildings are in the bottom right. Blue line indicates free parts due to buying a "fabrication"-upgrade. The little domes produce a tank and they are all bunched up on the right due to bad code... I think I will make them patrol the area in front of the building that created them.


Currently on the fence about what to do with repairs. Do I just auto-repair everything (easiest)? Or could it get more player involvement if the repairs actually cost something. Right now the buildings seem to be fairly stable and I have not really lost much even during boss fights (I did build a lot of walls though). Walls might be too strong, or maybe the shield-walls, I have absolutely no idea atm. Shield walls have 4 levels of shield and slowly regenerate. There are currently no upgrades that improve on buildings, but maybe that should be tackled as well. Too many things to think about.

[Alain]

The first screenshot is quite trippy Great to hear things are starting to fall into place!

[JobLeonard]

Trippy but in a fun, juiced-up graphics way