Supreme Cmdr

I'm not here to take sides. When Rattler alerted me over ICQ, I decided to take a quick look. Then I went to the end of the thread to see why he closed it. Then I went back to the top and read every post. Hamblin is herebly banned from posting on the site, indefinitely, and until I find time to discuss the matter further with CAT. If he holds any fleet postions, he is hereby stripped of such responsibilities and ranking. If he's on the Beta test team, he just got himself kicked. Everyone loves a healthy debate - I should know, I'm the industry master of controversy. However, there is no need to call other people names, use profanity or show wanton disrespect to admin personnel. Thats that. The first person to protest or even do so much as to send me email (unless you are in the CAT team), will follow Hamblin. Carry on the debate and keep it civil.

Because of the open ended design, you guys can pretty much setup any kind of multiplayer rules you like. Here are some ideas. Hopefully someone in the Beta would make a note of them and remind me to make any code/script revisions required to make them possible. If you guys in the Beta can think of any other variations, feel free to suggest them. Perhaps someone in the Beta can create a similar thread in the Beta forum? I'm too tired. CAPTURE THE POD: One team goes to the region of the other team, grabs their pod and tows it back to their region for points. This can be played in space and on planets and in any kind of career. However, in space, only ships would apply of course. You could have the pod carrier using a shuttle, escorted by fighters. I don't think we'll let capital ships in on this game. STATION CAPTURE: Pretty straightforward I think. Capture the other side's station and hold it for as long as it takes them to get it back. Docking rules would be different though or it would be too easy since you can dock from 25 clicks. CASTE WARS: Different castes, one region, guns only, last man standing wins. NO WAY OUT: Asteroid belt, loads of AI mines, one unstable carrier about to go nuclear, two teams. The team with most people out of the region before the carrier blows (taking everything in the region with it), wins. ESCORT: An AI transport going from one region to another, escorted by one side - the other side has to destroy it before it reaches its destination. STANDOFF: Four regions, two teams, two stations. The team with the most kills at the end of the session, wins. GLOBAL DOMINATION: Several teams, lots of assets. The team with the most available assets at the end of the session, wins. Similar to STANDOFF but is much, much longer game. Of course, there are variations of the above for surface based games.

Those of you in the Beta program, be sure to make a note of these things and see if they are still issues in BCM. OK? Thanks Tyrn, thats happening because, yes, I am collapsing the debris field when you are no longer in scope. However, if its destroying the shuttles that shouldn't happen and I was not aware of it.

The minerals are Kryptonium, Strontium and Uranium. Have all these three in cargo bay 1 and it will blow a hole in it and cause radiation. Have too much and it will blow a nice sizeable hole in the ship. quote: I think the "problem" may well be that the TOD's happen too quickly for the crew to actually learn much more than where the extra underwear is stashed for the Salamanda hunt. Yep. And there's nothing that I can do about it. Besides, there is no difference in AI processing between FF and ACM anyway. So, ACM may well be a learning experience One of the things that I have been planning on doing, but which I have not done yet, is the ability to allow you to play any scenario, with the same profile. So, you could play Roam (was FF in BC3K) until your crew gains enough experience and then go play ACM. I haven't done it yet because it requires some dangerous architectural changes. I may look into it toward the end of the development cycle, sometime in the Dec/Jan timeframe.

I think either the manual or the version control file lists which minerals are certain to cause and explosion or radiation if you either have too much quantity or a certain mix. Of course Jo is a dumb as a fruit salad for quite sometime and God help you if you've be stashing minerals before she realizes that she has to check those levels periodically.

Check your install and your memory

I'm looking forward to laying my hands on I-War2 actually. And Elite 4 is definitely on my list. Hope David doesn't screw it up, now that he's signed the rights to Take2

Yep, ACM is the most CPU intensive portion of the game simply because it has to track a lot of stuff, especially when NPCs fly through and activate regions. And btw, there is NO graphics processing going on in regions that you are not in (or viewing), so, those framerate spikes are all 100% AI related if, eg, you are not even in a combat zone when the spike occurs. However, you should be pleased to know that a lot of streamlining has been done in BCM. Coupled with the increased system requirements, DirectX enhancements such as hardware transform and lighting (among others), Windows virtual memory management etc, BCM runs a lot faster. BUT it is still a CPU hog, even though, this time around, the graphics engine is not the primary bottleneck. It is still the sophisticated AI kernel. One day, someone will create AIPU for computers and I'll be happy. speaking of which, you see those 1280x1024 shots I posted last night? Well, in order to even go anywhere near a combat zone at that resolution, will all the bells and whistles turned on, you need a PIII 1GHz, 128MB RAM and a graphics card with 32MB or more memory.

quote: Been studying the ACMTOD1-4 scripts and am starting to get the feel for the FLAG1 ON now. Not quite a warm fuzzy but is starting to sink in some. Not crying fer help either, but will of needed. Think of them as variables which can be used for testing a condition later. e.g. code: events 202 !tod2m2tick IF FLAG1 ff1 RETURN IF ff1 TOWED THEN broadcast "ECV-STARBALL under tow. Returning to Starpath" dock starpath FLAG1 ON ff1 ENDIF endevents If the above snippet from TOD2 3/5, I use FLAG1 ON on the ff1 object when it docks at Starpath. This tells me that it did in fact, dock there. So, within the !tod2m2tick event timer if FLAG1 is ON (which it will be if ff1 did dock at Starpath) I immediately exit the condition without processing anything after that tick. Thats what the RETURN condition does. BUT, if FLAG1 is *not* ON, this means that ff1 has *not* yet been towed to and docked at Starpath, so it moves to the second line to check to see if it is in fact being towed, though it has not yet been towed to Starpath (and docked). And if it sees that it is in fact being towed, then it plays the message which appears on the third line of the condition check. So, this snippet says: if I'm being towed, it means I have not yet been towed to Starpath, therefore I am not yet docked. So, I will send a message saying that I am being towed to Starpath if I am, in fact, under tow. And if I was successfully towed to Starpath, which means I am docked, set the FLAG1 ON condition so that we don't waste time processing anything beyond the initial !tod2m2tick event because this will just waste CPU cycles since there won't be any further processing from me, now that I am docked.

Parias, there is a 5K hack that exposes the MS-DOS option under winME, somewhere on the net. Can't remember where I saw it though. Check ZDnet.

Apart from the weapons mask imagination part, Wold is right about the PTA acquisition cone. Its based on line of sight and range.

LOL!! (re: the blood in water gag) as for feeling stupid, nah, don't worry about it - we don't care about stuff like that. Unless someone was one of the developers, everyone was pretty stupid at some point or another. Be patient though.

You can only tell which version you are running either from (a) the Blue install screen ( in the game. I suggest that you go to control panel, uninstall and re-install. Then look at the version number listed on the Blue install screen.

Go for the Voodoo5 if you want backward compatibility with other Glide games you may have. If not, and you can afford it, go with the Radeon.

Merry Christmas!

quote: But unlike inflation, I am not (to my knowledge) able to determine which techlevel aplies to the station from the displayed stock numbers of all the numerous items. Read the navchart text file I posted again. You will see that there is a TLVL column which shows the tech level of the station/base listed on that line. Then read the navchart.pdf file again where it describes the tech level. quote: Or what the 'standard availability' is for items. Is it traceable from information in tradcom? (without the infopage ofcourse) The station/base is seeded from the default trade list at game startup. The info in Tradcom is parsed and derived from the files I posted in this thread. Which explains why it is not updated. The code will always be correct and one has to remember to update the docs. In this case, the appendix file pertaining to said changes. quote: I forgot (or can't remember where it was described) what influence NPCs or the player had on availablility and inflation. NPCs don't affect the station items through trading because I never implemented it. The player affects station items through trading. NPCs don't trade. The traders only cause the stations to be re-seeded. Nothing else. quote: You also got me curious about what the two last (undocumented) colums of the navchart text-file mean They are X/Y locations of the system map icons used in Navitron. When you click on a system to plot a course, these locations tell Navitron what map to display. [This message has been edited by Supreme Cmdr (edited 10-08-2000).]

For one thing, it is highly unlikely that the game ran better on a P166 and Viper card, as opposed to what you have now. Apart from that, you've upgraded to WinME which is not friendly to most older WIN9x games (if you didn't read about it before upgrading, then who is the fool?), let alone DOS based games such as BC3K, developed in 1998. The game was designed to operate under WIN9x and any other OS, even WinME, is unsuppported. Use at your own risk. The game will only run in software mode and if your card has pitiful VESA support, you can install SDD and see if it helps. Read the FAQ. The TNT card is now considered sub-par at best and even for the upcoming BCM, you aren't likely to be running the game at anything higher than 640x480 with a desktop depth of 16-bit. And before you start yelling (you're that much closer to getting banned from the site), blame yourself for upgrading to WinME with 64MB RAM. heh, even WIN98 almost choked on 64MB of RAM.

OK, the code is definitely correct. It is the appendix that is wrong (as per the crafts). I think I must have reduced them but forgot to update the appendix. Below is the table that is parsed into the index file that the game uses (for BC3K, that is). The prices for GALCOM HQ, as quoted by Steve, are correct. It is an AD type station, so the Crafts are cheaper and AG items are slightly more expensive. Rico, the chart above which I posted was not from v2.09. It seems to be the original version, so I've gone and restored the 2.09 version and updated it. You will see that the inflation rates vary in Sol. Also, the navchart.pdf appendix files, explains how tech levels are calculated. www.3000ad.com/gbs/trade.txt [This message has been edited by Supreme Cmdr (edited 10-08-2000).]

uhm, hmmm, whats the deal with Gamespot?

Yep, as long the UCV designated ship is not a hostile. If there are no human players on the server, an NPC might come out, just like they do in single player.

Cruis.In, just like the man said, we need as many red shirts as we can get. Guess who made the list?

baptism by fire. LOL!!! Gallion, if you need help, just post (make sure you post the script fragment too, if needed) and if I see it, I'll pitch in. And since you're going to be on the Beta test team, the more people I have who know at least a little about GBS (besides my guys who already do, the better.

You still having problems then Dave?

Sounds good. I'll check them out. Stephanos, lemme know when you put in the new exploding Canlon pic. Speaking of which, Gallion, I've beefed up your security to Level 2, now that TAC's off for awhile (anyone know when he's coming back?), which makes you Fleet Leader.

The site looks fine and I've linked to it from the main Fleets page, however... I think its just too slow (even for my cable and xDSL speeds) to be of any sort of interactive use. And its got too much information, some of it useless, confusing and serve no purpose that I can immediately see. Why you're linking to an Insurgent site from a GALCOM site, eludes me. The intro is very cool, though I question the explosion of a Canlon transport based on an exploding Insurgent station. Surely someone can come up with an explosion? Anyway, I just blew up a Canlon and coverted the frames to a GIF file for you. You can grab it at this link. I will be deleting this file from the server tomorrow, so make sure you grab it. www.3000ad.com/movies/ded-canlon.gif