Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Plague 3.24

Minor bug fixes, still havent tackled the CPU-killing-AI issue.
  • fixed sprinting bug that stopped players form sprinting when an enemy was visible
  • fixed walking animations so it doesnt update while the game is paused
  • changed options check so options can be >= 0 (allows zero hives at game start)
  • removed a bug that would cause the game to crash when a gun was fired and there was no target_location.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Pyed Pypers page isn't visible to the public, so I can't really see anything on it. :)

To answer some earlier questions, I'm not interested in being an admin because I have a short time span - I tend to sweep in, give lots of ideas, and ride off into the sunset (ah, it burns, it burns!).

Anonymous said...

I've also re-written controls.player_controls() and controls.misc() to be almost entirely event driven. This should make them significantly faster.

You can get them from http://www.easy-share.com/1904172889/controls.py. :)

Benedict Carter said...

Fair enough. Thanks for that, I'll review those changes now.

I hope you'll continue to drop by to provide lots of ideas and the occasional snippet of code.

Anonymous said...

Me too. :)

I'll probably start looking into AI next to see if I can find a way to speed it up a bit. It seems to be our biggest hurdle right now.

Benedict Carter said...

I was going to do that until I found out that Sean actually getting into that tonight. Probably best to hold fire until we see what he's done.

Benedict Carter said...

Hey, how would you like to be credited?

Anonymous said...

Hmm... hadn't thought about that.

I certainly wouldn't mind being listed in a credits screen or "thanks to" screen, but it's not really a priority for me. My payback is getting back into coding after 5+ years away from it. :)

Alex Lindsay said...

Hi there,

In this version, I can't pass the first level, and it's exclusively because of the large grey zombie. I think I'll have to fiddle with the number of weapon spawns.

Also, because survivors have no vision through bushes, bushes are a total disaster when it comes to your formation, which disintegrates as soon as you step into a bush. Perhaps, assuming the avatar had a voice, that survivors in your pack will 'know' where you are within a simple range of 2-5 squares around you.

I was also pondering the dynamic formation position problem - and if each survivor evaluated their proximity to their intended position and took a 'ticket' on a closer position, the survivor who rates closest wins the spot. It would also allow the player to turn 180 and avoid the 'everyone tries to walk through the player' issue. You can even boil survivors with guns to the front by swapping their tickets and perhaps disallowing their reevaluation. I think I'll have to play with some ideas...

I should probably learn Python & read the code. :)

Benedict Carter said...

I like credit to fall where credit is due and I am thankful for your time and attention. :)

What name would you like to appear on the credits?

Feel free to gmail at my.name if you want to discuss this offline.

I see you found that I was double using key_8... I'm frankly surprised no one called me on it earlier. Its good though, kicked my rear into gear and the fix only took 5 minutes.

I like what you've done in controls.py - simpler, more standard and less "poll-y" than my code. I'll move the other controls in simobject over as well so that there are no "hidden" controls in Plague (not tonight though, it's late and I'm making typos).

Benedict Carter said...

Hi Smiboo,

To fight the large grey zombies, try running behind them and then keep behind them. They cant turn too fast. If you keep at them long enough they'll die. Fire is also good, or a well placed concussion grenade.

Yes, the "timer" on remembering leaders IS too short and so bushes are a problem. I'll set it to a longer time now so I dont forget (thanks for reminding me, I forgot to note that "bug"). It used to be 12 which was too long. 3 is too short. I'll try 8 seconds.

Good ideas on the ticket, it sounds like the start of a "formation place choosing" algorithm which will be necessary add smarter formations.

The beautiful thing about Python code is that you can read it without learning Python code! Just dive in.