"Free State" game would simulate 2050 New Hampshire

[Dave Ridley]

Dada like! 

[Errol]

Update

Nothing on the AI front yet.
Changes:
Reduced top speed (down to 2 pixels per frame at 30fps. Down from 2.5 pixels).
Must deactivate drones or antennas to score points.
Full screen capability. (full screen button).

In full screen mode, the 1, and 2 buttons don't work, but the space bar will still shoot left. I have a solution to this problem and it should be in the next version.

Had a busy week so I didn't get to much done, but progress is being made.

[Dave Ridley]

lookin better all the time... thanks errol.   I think the operational drone's top speeds are still too high... let's cut them by another 35 percent to avoid too much sensory upload during combat.

[Errol]

Sorry no progress in the past few weeks. Been busy, and had to invest some time in making my situation. Just wanted to pop in and say it has not been forgotten.

[Dave Ridley]

cool thanks errol

[Errol]

Allrighty!

An update has arrived.
Changes:
- You can no longer have negative health.
- Drones now have simple offense and defense roles. So far they basically just hang out in the area where they need to be, as opposed to just wandering anywhere. Half the team is on offense while the other half is on defense.

Sort of a lazy AI so far, but more is coming.

[Dave Ridley]

yay!  No problems or new suggested changes to report.

[Errol]

Update

AI Changes:

1. Added the hunter role (right now it is more like wander and shoot at anything that comes near me)
2. The attackers take at least one direct shot at an antenna when they fly in.
3. Sometimes drones fly into the walls an don't do anything for the rest of the game (more of a bug).
4. The bots on the losing team may decide to change roles, while the winning team drones will continue what they are doing.
5. Roles are assigned at random.

Game Changes:
1. Antennas are worth 30 points
2. You can no longer score points shooting already deactivated drones.

Other changes:
1. A sound effect is attached to antennas deactivating.
2. Drones will blink white when hit.

[Dave Ridley]

Thanks as always Errol... do you think it might be easier to harden the a.i. by simply going ahead and adding the forward firing option?   We need that eventually to enable "chasing down" of other players. and probably we'll want to have to have it in place before humans join the game since they'll be demanding it.   

Also before going muliplayer can we set something up so that when a player joins, the other side gets some sort of automatic boost which partially evens things out?  There should still be a net advantage to having more players on your side, but that advantage should be slight.

I should leave the details up  to you on how to set that up probably...

[Errol]

I don't think that forward shooting would make the AI any more competent at this stage. I think the Drones could still be a bit smarter.

One problem I've solved is getting the bots to turn in the shortest direction, before they would always turn in the same direction to adjust themselves. I can confirm that much at least. I'm also working on getting the hunting bots to seek out enemy drones.

I've also been thinking about ways to handicap the team with the most human players (dumbing down that team's AI perhaps), but I may work on that when the AI is smart enough to do so. Might also vary weapons range or health to handicap a team.

[Errol]

Insanity

I've got the bots doing seek and destroy, and it is a world of difference. I put the bots that acted at random against the hunters, and (removing antennas as a factor) and they won the game 200 to 11. Each time it is very one sided. A clear result.

[Errol]

Update!
http://www.errolpelchat.com/DroneGame/
I've got a few more ideas to improve the AI, but check it out so far.

[Dave Ridley]

I like the changes!  It's getting harder and I can see the enemy aiming accurately for things now.   

[Dave Ridley]

This is exciting Errol - a lot of game play elements have started to open up.   with some effort, You can block enemy drones from hitting your towers...they hit you instead but if you're in the circle you repair. 

There's the element of having to crush attacks on your base before going after the enemy... and having to attack the now dangerous base killing enemy on the way there.   attrition plays a role sort of as you crush attacks on your base and get some points and temporary screen dominance there, but the base still feels vulnerable and like a lucrative target ; that's good. I guess before long we'll want to increase the map size and put in multiple bases  so it's less 1 dimensional.

I've been playing it such that the artificial victory conditions I set for myself.... require me to get 200 points to win but the enemy only needs 100.

The fire keys still do not work in full screen mode  and the weapons dont really fire continuously if you hold the fire keys down.... even in windowed mode.

[Dave Ridley]

Arright so I have a question:  I was looking over the parameters I laid out for this initial 2d version of the game...and they have now all been met except for deploying the multiplayer online option.   However, if we were to go multiplayer at this point it might not have much effect. The game will probably not be able to draw much in the way of players until it has some more features.  I do have a new set of feature requests I'm working on.  I could present those and let you work on them, or we could wait until after the game is live.  What sort of features do you think are most important to incorprate next? 

Also I've been getting some feedback to the effect that this game should really be set up for android or other mobile play as opposed to PC.  The reasoning is that people play PC games for sexy graphics, like  Call of Duty or something but they generally only play these retro 2d games on their mobiles.  Which means, I am told, that the game shouldn't even be Windows compatible!  To me this seems nutty; who would even want a device that is windows incompatible?    but I'm not a mobile guy. Is it possible that we should be thinking of some other system as priority?   or maybe we could add a function where people can do strategic stuff their android's browser, even though they can't fly the ships on their android Your thoughts welcome on all of the above....