Battleships Forever Info | 0.90d released 14 Apr

Natch · Post by **Natch** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:17 am

When will shipmaker allow you to change Beam Duration?

TormakSaber · Post by **TormakSaber** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:03 am

-Blasters no longer create shrapnel. Damage increased from 12 to 17 again. The bits of shrapnel just weren't working out as I wanted them to.

I rather like the shrapnel, for a "fireworks" effect. Too bad they didn't work out.

Hope this doesn't unbalance my ships that are Blaster heavy too badly.

Natch · Post by **Natch** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:00 am

th15 wrote:Development has stalled a little bit as I'm learning PHP now to re-write the highscore and ship database stuff myself (right now it's just a script I ripped off somewhere), sooo don't be surprised at the relatively lean changelog now:
v0.80
-Fixed bug where GUI arrows would appear in the wrong place while scrolling
-GUI arrows will now fade over time if they remain on-screen
-Blasters no longer create shrapnel. Damage increased from 12 to 17 again. The bits of shrapnel just weren't working out as I wanted them to.
-Fixed a bug that occured with ships with more Deflectors than sections
-Removed some superflous code in the ship and section initialization
-Implemented new highscore upload system. Should be less glitchy.
The new highscore upload system is the client side stuff. Basically the game now opens the highscore webpage within the game instead of having to launch your browser for it (which was rather glitchy).

However, you'll probably be interested to know that I've been working on getting an encounter maker into the game. I'll be realistic and say that if it works in the end it'll be pretty simple, just something to allow you to plonk some ships (including custom ships) down and fight it out.

Could you give us an option to turn shrapnel on and off in the next shipmaker?

Post by **Arcalane** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:08 am

Natch wrote:Could you give us an option to turn shrapnel on and off in the next shipmaker?

Better; an option to specify how much shrapnel the shot generates (if any - the damage could either be set per shot, or automatically be a set % of the shot's HP, so a 40 damage shot with 10 shrapnel setting generates 10 4-damage shrapnel shots; would allow for some fun flak-cannon style stuff against patrolcraft), and how much railgun shots penetrate.

Post by **th15** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:00 pm

I might introduce a new weapon with shrapnel, but there's no point giving two versions of the Blaster. Honestly the shrapnel really didn't have that much effect at all. The trade off is that the shrapnel was relatively CPU intensive for the small effect that it had on the game.

The Blaster shrapnel was introduced into the game because iwanted there to be some strategy in how you used the blasters. The point is that the srapnel tends to fly back in the direction it came from so in order to maximize the damage you got out of them you had to target an eenmy that was deep inside a formation of ships. That way the shrapnel would be sure to hit something on the way out rather than just bouncing off into space. This mechanic didn't really pan out all the way though so there's no point keeping it.

pwhk · Post by **pwhk** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:26 pm

Wait! Do you have ShipMaker 3.0 along with BF v0.80?

Post by **th15** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:38 pm

Meh, shipmaker is giving me a headache. Trying to work ou the bug with the depthing right now.

Post by **th15** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:37 pm

Little teaser as to what will be in v80, there's a new kamikaze AI. Look at the text in this screenie.

Game_boy · Post by **Game_boy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:24 pm

...Wow.

--

Depthing is always the worst part. I tried to make an isometric game using just a 2D engine and it was practically torture trying to sort out what objects appeared where.

New Noob · Post by **New Noob** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:06 am

Perhaps you could give the homing missiles a bit of a fiery smoke trail effect? I was looking at screenshots of WF and noticed how nice it looked.

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TormakSaber · Post by **TormakSaber** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:25 am

If you wanted an idea for a shrapnel gun too, those purple clusters might do well. They fire, and break up when they hit something or hit the end of their range.

Post by **Anna** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:10 am

th15 wrote:Little teaser as to what will be in v80, there's a new kamikaze AI. Look at the text in this screenie.

Eeep! Poor Trance Gemini got blown to pieces!

Hehe. I like this Kamekazi AI.

Danny420Dale · Post by **Danny420Dale** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:25 am

Those beams in WF look _exactly_ like Railgun shots from Quake 3. That is win and awesome in one!

Also, maybe an idea for a Platform Deployer that makes user-definable small ships like the Kamikaze Missile?

Post by **Anna** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:27 am

Danny420Dale wrote:Those beams in WF look _exactly_ like Railgun shots from Quake 3. That is win and awesome in one!

Also, maybe an idea for a Platform Deployer that makes user-definable small ships like the Kamikaze Missile?

This would be awesome. Being able to launch Kinetic Missles or HYTs from your ship... nice.

Danny420Dale · Post by **Danny420Dale** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:32 am

TormakSaber wrote:If you wanted an idea for a shrapnel gun too, those purple clusters might do well. They fire, and break up when they hit something or hit the end of their range.

Take the purple-cluster idea, use the green bolt sprite at the lower left with a bit of yellow instead of white gradient instead. Voila, SW blaster/turbolaser bolts!

I also LOVE the Core design for the WF boss ship!