The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I'm basically finished with the starmap generator. I've made one that generates fair and varied maps - thanks for the algorithm Death999!  I'm gonna be posting it on Sourceforge or somewhere else soon.

Sweet!

Did you figure out how to put in loops?

Need help in anything I can do? ( Basiclly giving ideas and beta testing, I am only 15 ffs!)

A 3d starmap?  [gaping hole where a smiley used to be] I'll let you know I never use smilies, but this one warented a eye-poper.

I'm so happy this is acually happening, you can't imagine.

He didn't say anything about 3d. Though I agree that would be cool.

4d would also be cool, but the display problems would be far far worse. ;)

Isn't the original Starcon map 3D, but only visible in a 2D plane, like it is in SC3, only non-rotatable?

It would be nice if Starcon could show a way through the starfield before you waste a bunch of moves just to find it's a dead end.

Of course anything resembling Starcon using newer ships working on current OSs is welcome.

It's 2d. There is a very small chance 3d might be in the future, but don't count on it.

I recend my smily then.

[/grumpy]

Sorry guesst, but putting the starmap in 3d would be quite hard. Maybe I could just make the stars move back and forth, but not actually fade in and out like in SC1 - how does that sound?

Ace: Yes, you can display all the routes at once, or just one star at a time.

3D starmap w/ fading stars:  just have 20-30 differently shaded images for each color, and based on the Z value (into/out-from the screen; assuming this value changes), change which image you're using.

You could do that, but that would change the original Starcon style. In Starcon, the colors of the planets represented what type of planet it was:
White = unknown
Grey = dead
Red = mineral (minable)
Green = colony (or able to colonize)

Unless you did something else to represent both the Z value and/or type of world, I'd rather see the color system represent the type of planet.

Its easy enough to do.
Just use GL coronas (or direct3d)

Its what I use to render the SC2 map all pretty and in realtime (still 2D tho)

OR... you could use different color ratios for the planet styles, and intensity for Z.

For example:

purple: unexplored
grays and whites: dead world
oranges: metal world
blue-green: life world

Also, nearby ones can be larger.

The original SC1 stars were just dots that, as they moved forward and backward (really, just an aplication of the cosine function in relation to it's side to side move) they cycled through various shades of the above mentioned colors, Gray, Green, and Red. (I never really liked that unexpolred and dead worlds were practically the same. Maybe instead of purple Death_999, how about a noncommital blue. Like R0 G20 B200?)

I don't know anything about UQM's code, but it seems to me like it really wouldn't be that hard. I don't imagine any more than 5 shades of each color would be necessary (and they're probably already indexed in the code) and cycle through it, back and forth. That's if UQM uses indexed color. it uses RGB, it'd simply be a matter of adding or subtracting values from colors. (An array of values would still be a good idea, I think.)

It'd be cool to add a few more planet types:
Rainbow worlds, dot cycles through colors. Acts as a super-powerful mining world worth 3 RU per turn when mined.
Versitile Worlds, Purple - Minable OR Colonizable.
Precursor Fortification, Yellow - An automatic super fortification that requires 4 ships (or 2 UrQuans) to break. Also, colonizable. Great place to move starbase to.

Sorry, sorry. I really am grateful to have this project on the way. I don't mean to make demands. Ignore the above if you want. I promise I won't be offended.

You misunderstood what I said.  In SC1, the mineral stars changed from bright-magenta to dark-magenta, the unexplored stars from white to dark blue, the life stars from green to dark green, and the dead stars from white to dark grey: different shades/intensities for each color.  Same thing with mines, forts, colonies, except they were only magenta/dark-magenta, and cyan/blue.

Another update: It's been moving slowly lately but I'm making progress.  I have exams, and I don't really want to work on it during Christmas break. I haven't posted it on the internet yet for two main reasons: I'm not completely happy with the generator yet (it's functional, but sometimes the starmaps are too cramped), and I want to convert the program to a *real* graphics library, rather than the incredibly lightweight CMU, which is unstable and slow and the only one I know how to use right now.

New additions:
Stars fade in and out right now, though they still don't move (no guarantees that they will)

You can now move ships around the stars.

Stars are now assigned a type. Purple = unexplored, White = dead, Red = mineral, Green = life.

Colonies and mines can be installed now, but it's very basic: they pop up instantly. One team has orange installations, the other has blue ones.  Trapezoids are colonies, crosses are mines.

that sounds great. by the way, do u need beta testers? hint, hint.

~DEFIANT

Heck, alpha would be fine

I will get the first alpha up probably sometime in January. Right now, it's too unstable to even be an alpha release - it crashes on almost every computer, though not the one I'm programming it on of course. I've determined the problem is the crappy graphics library I'm using. Once I change that, I'll get it released.

Would anyone decent with computer graphics like to put together animations of special events (installations established/destroyed and the like)? SC1 had them, and it would be kinda cool if this did.

A decision that I'd like to hear peoples' opinions on: What should the ship limit be? I think SC1's 7 ships was a bit too restrictive. But we don't want to make it too high, cause things would just be too cluttered. I think 10 ships per side would be a good number. What do you think?

Well, from my own experience, when in doubt, make it user-definable. Either in game, or in a config file. I'd default to 7 though, just as a tip of the hat to the original.

Also, having three moves, which can be distributed as you please among the ships? This doesn't make much sense. On the other hand, each ship moving independently is also pretty unstable. How can we balance this?

How's this:
1) Each ship can move at least 1 on a turn
2) The starbase can move 1, OR it can beam energy to another ship, allowing it to move 2 additional times.
3) no more than N (default: 3) ships can go along the same route in one turn.

Problems: if you don't have a starbase, where are the extra moves coming from? Extermination etc. should remain functional scenarios.

Tweaks and quirks:
Matter Conversion Plant (built at Neutron Star): if your star base is beaming energy this turn, it may select an additional (distinct) ship and grant that ship 1 extra speed.

Hmm... I'm trying to remember the rules for SC1. Didn't you used to not lose moves when you were moving between fortified installations? Or did unfortified installations work the same way too?

My thoughts:
1. Each ship (and the starbase) gets one action per turn (move, colonize, mine, fortify, recruit, build, etc.)
2. Moves between fortifications are cost-free (except for the starbase).
3. The player also has two more free actions over and above this to use however he chooses.
4. Moving the starbase requires that the player spend his two free actions as well as the starbase's action.

Death_999, that's not how movement was in SC1. I still have the manual, I'd know. :) Here's how it works:
-  Starbase can move once per turn
-  Each Ship can move 3x per turn
-  Starting an installation uses all of a ship's remaining move points. So does besieging a fortification.
-  If a ship moves during the 2 turns required to start the installation, the installation is canceled.
-  Movement from colonies (but not to colonies) doesn't cost move points.

I don't think this needs to be changed, except possibly restrict the colony bonus so that a ship can only get one free colony move a turn, or maybe so that a colony can give two free moves a turn.

Are you sure it isn't that your ships have a total of 3 moves to be split up among them?

Death 999 is correct. You get 3 moves that can be aplied to 1 ship so it can move 3 times or as one sees fit.

You're both right;  each ship has a possible 3 moves, but you have 3 "command point" moves that you can spend to use the ship move points, so  building a fort uses up the ship's movement points, but only uses 1 command point so you can still order another ship to move or build something else.  It's not described that way in the manual, but that's the way it is...

I'd love to be your graphics guy. However, RL is a bit restricting at the moment, what with a wife, kid, and full-time job. I think it'd be great just to rip the original animations from the game. Does anyone have a way of recording animations from the screen? I'd be able to crop and extract, frame by frame, the animations if I could just get them.

Okay, about the rules of the game. Here's the way SC1's full game worked: (I've got the game open right now and playing it to conferm all these rules.)
3 command tokens at the beginning of a round.
- Any ship can use any or all command tokens, one at a time, except when noted. At the end of issuing a command to a ship you can select that ship again, or select another ship, to issue the next command until all command tokens are used. When the last command token is used, the round is over.
- Moving a ship from a friendly colony costs nothing.
- Moving a ship from anything else cost 1 command token.
- (most) ships cannot move from an enemy fortified position until it is successfully beseiged. (Arlou excepted)
- Moving the space station (one space) cost 3 command tokens (and therefore would need to be your first costing command and will effectively end your turn.)
- Moving to a location where an enemy ship is ensues combat. That ship is unable to recieve any other commands until the end of the turn.
- Building a mine, colony or fortification, 1 command tokens. Mining, building, or colonizing is completed at the beginning of the 3rd turn after the mining, colonizing, or building command was issued if and only if the ship that is mining, building, or colonizing DOES NOT MOVE from the time the command is issued to the beginning of the 3rd turn after. If that ship moves the command token is not given back and is wasted.
- Beseiging a fortification costs 1 command token. Besieging only has a chance of success. (I know for the UrQuan the chance is 100%. For everyone else I don't know if it's ship dependent or if it happens the same for everyone, but unless you're a 'quanny it seems to take quite a bit of besiging to bring down a fortification.) If beseiging fails you can use another command token and try again.
- If at the end of a turn 2 friendly ships (or 1 Ur-Quan) are on the same enemy fortification, it automaticly falls at the end of the turn.
- At the beginning of every turn your team earns 1 + M starbucks where M reperesents the number of friendly mines on the board.
- Building a ship at the star base costs 0 command tokens (but does cost the appropiate number of starbucks).

Now, for my personal variations. These are what I've though in the past would be cool to see. Don't worry about implimenting them. I'm glad that this project is underway.

I've also probably said these somewhere before, but I don't think ever so complete.

Variation 1: "Tactics" style
Recent "tactics" games have employed a "every peice gets to move once" sort of thing. So the idea here would be 1 command cycle per ship. An exception to this might be if you move your starbase it will need to be your first and last move.
You start by selecting a ship, moving it, or not, and deciding what to do when you get there; mine/colonize, fortify, or attack, whichever is appropiate. That ship is then greyed out and you choose the next ship. Moving through colonies would be handled by letting the player, after selecting the ship desired, being able to select a greated number of ending places, including the colonies in question and the spaces 1 away from the colonies. Once all ships have been moved, combats ensue, then it's the opponent's turn.

This form of gameplay is quite popular it seems and has sold well, especally on the GBA. FFTA, Advance War, Fire Emblem all play this way. While I personally love these games, I think this scheme greatly favors the first person to move.

Variation 2: "Chess" style
One command token. One ship gets to move. Then your opponent gets a turn.

To simplify matters, break your one move into a "build" phase, a "move" phase, and a "combat" phase. First, if you have enough RU for even the smallest of your ships, your space station is selected and you can then choose to build or not. Then you move one ship and decide (if you can) to colonize/mine, build fortification, or engage in combat. If you choose to move your space station you will automaticly pass the next 3 moves. Then, if applicable, combat ensues.

This format is much more balanced, much more stragetic, but I fear will be much less popular.

Variation 3: RTS Style.
The game progresses in real time. Command Tokens are issued at a steady rate, say 1 every 2 seconds, and you can use them or save them up to 5 at a time. (For quick issuing to rush your opponent or move more than one ship to a single space to improve your odds in combat) Once you have 4 or 5 tokens, the rate of issuing tokens for your opponent slows. (This is to favor people who can't keep up with the rate of play.) Save up 3 tokens and you can move your starbase. Once you move a ship into a space occupied by an enemy ship you have 3 seconds before combat starts to re-enforce the battle with addition ships, combat tokens allowing.

This would make for a very steady game of iron wits and quick decision making and, at the same time, I feel, be more strategic than a normal RTS's tactic of "build up a superior force and pummel the opponent."

Which one would I like to see implimented? All of them! I'd like the game play style to be selectable before the round started. "Traditional", "Tactics", "Chess", "RTS". Perhaps certian rounds, when programed, can limit which ones can be chosen. I think, tho, in practice, I'd probably choose "Traditional" most often because that's the kind of guy I am.

---
Yet another massive post from your friendly neighborhood guesst.

One command token every 2 seconds is too fast except for a clickfest of a game. Also, it gets harder to issue simultaneous attack commands.

Posted by: guesst Posted on: Dec 19th, 2003, 4:44pm

Variation 1: "Tactics" style
Recent "tactics" games have employed a "every peice gets to move once" sort of thing. So the idea here would be 1 command cycle per ship. An exception to this might be if you move your starbase it will need to be your first and last move.
You start by selecting a ship, moving it, or not, and deciding what to do when you get there; mine/colonize, fortify, or attack, whichever is appropiate. That ship is then greyed out and you choose the next ship. Moving through colonies would be handled by letting the player, after selecting the ship desired, being able to select a greated number of ending places, including the colonies in question and the spaces 1 away from the colonies. Once all ships have been moved, combats ensue, then it's the opponent's turn.

out of all your styles,  i like this one the most. it sounds fun.

~DEFIANT

I still like the idea of having a larger threat zone -- of having a small fleet be able to move comparatively quickly. It speeds up the early game to have a ship hurtling towards your starbase...

Hu? I've read this 3 times and it makes no sence. 999, you usually make sense, so explain this one to me.

The first thing that came to mind is adding a command "form fleet" (1 command token) be made so that you can have all ships around a star form into a fleet and move at once. (1 command token to move the whole fleet.) There's been times in the game when I wish I had this.

However, as I re-read your post I'm not sure this is anything like what you were talking about.

Oh, and if we can't get a beta, can we get a screen cap? I'd love just to see it.

What Death_999 meant was that when you have to distribute your move points between ships, a smaller fleet is more mobile. For example, a 3-ship fleet could move each ship in one turn, a 1-ship "fleet" could move three times in one turn, but a 7-ship fleet would plod along.

Oh, this had nothing to do with with a change in game play, but tactics in the old game.

And yeah, a small fleet in infinately more useful in the old game. I usually only kept a fleet of 3-5 ships. One or two would be mining, the rest would make up my attack force. In the 3 moves it took the one or two to mine and pave the way with colonies, my smaller fleet could usually be at the battle front. However, that meant that you had to choose your fleet to match what the enemy would throw at you.

Ahh, good times, good times.