Brit

Yeah, I had setup the technology system so that people couldn't get too far in one branch while ignoring others. I don't know if I have the balance right. One thing that I didn't want to happen is this: some player would decide that aircraft was the only thing they wanted to research, then they ignored the rest of the tech tree and flew around advanced aircraft destroying relatively primitive enemy ground units and ships because those units didn't have the technology to effectively combat the advanced aircraft. You're right in saying that branch-specific technologies could be a way to make advancement through the tech-tree less homogeneous. Another possibility is that I could increase the cost of the applied technologies and decrease the cost of basic technologies. In that case, players could advance along exclusively one branch more easily. Although, that would allow players to advance their technology very exclusively in one area - allowing them, for example, to get advanced jet fighters while ignoring tactical bombers and strategic bombers. The branch technologies would at least keep sub-branches of the tech tree relatively equalized.

Thanks.

The unit and building images and animations are all in png format (24-bit RGB + 8-bit alpha channel). Pretty standard.

Yeah, I'd like to mess around with some of these rulesets, making stuff for other time-periods sounds like it might be interesting. (I'm going to keep the Official 1900-2030 ruleset as it is, though.)

[Edit: I just noticed you posted as I was writing this.] The rules editor lets people edit the units, buildings, and technologies in the game. You can create your own technologies, create a technology tree, setup "subunitsets" that allow certain players to have access to certain technologies and units. Units can be customized - you can define their production cost, iron cost, oil consumption, HPs, their combat abilities, how being entrenched and how terrain (forest, desert, city) adjusts their movement rates and defense values. You can define which units can be inside other units (e.g. the air-transport can carry paratroopers, missile-launchers can carry missiles). You can create your own buildings, and what kinds of effects they have. For example, a building can boost the production value of a city (by a predefined value, or as a multiple of the population). Or, you can say that a certain building has to be created before you can build certain units in that city. There are some limitations on the buildings (for example, the "Oil Refinery" increases your nation's oil based on your oilfields, but there is no way for a building to simply add oil or money to your nation). The building customization is done in support of the official ruleset, but I'm working on making it more flexible. There are some limitations in the images and animations. There is no convenient way to add new building images or new unit images to the game. (Right now, when you create a unit or building, you have to use one of the predefined images.) This means, for example, that you can't create your own "chariot" or "cavalry" unit images. There's also a limitation in that you can't add brand-new resources to the game. For example, you can't add "aluminum" or "diamonds" as resources. I'd like to eventually expand the ruleset system to allow players to add their own unit-images, building-images, and even their own resources to the game, but that's not something that will happen before the game's release. Oh, and the other thread may answer some more questions. (I'm looking around for it, but I haven't found it, yet. I'll post a link when I find it.) [ Edit: I found it: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=89047 ]

I'll look into it.

What would you like to know?

Thanks! It's much appreciated. Brit

Just a small update today. The main reason for the update is to give everyone a copy of the Demo that doesn't expire on October 31st. The new version will expire December 1st. If you are trying to get this update, and it's after October 31st (which means you can't run the application), just double-click the "Updater4.exe" application. It will download the update, and you'll be good until December 1st. Probably the biggest change is the Unit Combat Simulator. You can have setup units to fight against each other and get combat results. Notable Changes: - Unit Combat Simulator (on the reports panel) - Added "Show Patrols" to the reports panel. It can be toggled using the "j" hotkey. - "Report a bug" is now available inside the game (next to the save button) - Players can now toggle the Intro music on/off using the Preferences Window (inside the Game) - Fixed bug: The "resign" button is wrong if you load a game after resigning

Right, well I think you understand the problem. There is one "Dropoff GroundUnits Anywhere" flag. So, there isn't a way to dropoff tanks only in cities + dropoff paratroopers anywhere. Yes, in order to fix this, I'm thinking that maybe the pickup/dropoff system should be able to individually define the pickup/dropoff attributes for each unit category (rather than the current system that treats all GroundUnits the same).

If there's less than one turn of production left on something (say 0.8 turns), you should get a "city needs orders" message (left panel) and a city-popup. If you removed the transport from the build queue, then it wouldn't get finished. If that happens, then the transport should appear in the build options with a "0.8/14.0 turn" build time. Since the cities are growing in population, many of the units won't get completed in exactly X turns - they'll get completed slightly faster, which means instead of getting a transport in 14.0 turns, you'll get it in 13.8 turns. Can you confirm if this is what happened?

Without some additional work on the rules-system, I don't think I can get the transport-aircraft to do this. I had originally intended on allowing that, but I might need to add something to the interface so players aren't inadvertently crashing aircraft. (There is the white-circle to warn them right now, but some players really like to push their aircraft to the absolute edge of that white circle, so I need to make sure that calculation is 100% accurate.)

Quite a few people have been suggesting that, so it's only a matter of time until I add them. (nod) Yeah, some airpower balancing seems to be in order. Yes, those things should be added. I'm also trying to prevent the human player from getting too much of an advantage by manipulating the AI. For example, I don't want the player to play a game with two AIs and be able to consistently manipulate one AI to fight against the second one.

Ah, right - larger continents. Yeah, I didn't mess around with the land-mass sizes. I can take a look at that.

I was hoping to spend more time working on AI and game-balancing issues this week, but I got a whole bunch of bugs fixed instead. Enjoy! - Fixed a crash and some AI processing-speed problems - Fixed Crash that happens when you try to move GroundUnits off a transport near the coast - In the resources window, removed unused unit categories off the Oil-consumption and Food-consumption lists - Fixed bug: Can't type dates into the "New Game Setup" window - Fixed bug: The game crashes if you start a game with a scenario where one player has no cities - Fixed bug: When using the "Map is Known" option, the inital enemy city can be immediately found using National Summary / Animated History. - Fixed bug: Cannot pickup/dropoff units from a transport if it is inside a group - Fixed bug: If a carrier is inside a group, you don't need to select the ship to land an aircraft there - Fixed crash that happens when you right-click in the map editor - Fixed bug: In TradeAgreements, AI will no longer accept a technology hint if it already knows that hint - Fixed bug: Group-names were being reset to "Group" after loading the game - Trade Agreement window gives error information if you don't have enough money/iron/food/oil for the trade - Trade Agreement window allows for counteroffers - Fixed bug: Ships suddenly died when they attempted to capture a resource - Fixed bug: When aircraft have orders to move to the edge of their range, sometimes they fly-home before reaching waypoint - AI adjusts technology buy/sell prices based on foreign relations - Added x0.5 and x10 turn replay speeds - Added zoom-in/zoom-out hotkeys - Random Map Generator: Increased the amount of gold in a gold resource, so they are more valuable - Bumped up the Movement rate of Carrier (Class 1) from 60 to 75 - Added a second (inner) range circle for aircraft when they are in a mobile unit (carrier) - The second circle is the safe range no matter which direction the carrier moves - Added "Sentry for one turn" - Added "Sentry until repaired" - Enlarged the "free technology" scenario window to allow for 10 players, and sorted technologies alphabetically - Added a few new options to the 'Random Map Generator' options (in the MapEditor): Amount of Land, Rainfall, Mountains, Cities and Resources - Added an immediate Download button to the "Check for updates" window - Fixed typo Art Gorbett - Anytime you thing your smater... - Fixed typo Neutal->Neutral - Fixed tutorial: resource value of 10 is called "decent", but resources vary between 3 and 8 - Fixed tutorial: text says that city production can be set to "money", but it actually sets to "Produce wealth". - Fertilizer Factory too long in the resource window

Sure! Send it to the email address I put in your private messages.

Yes, when you play games while signed into your account, the game will keep track of your wins and losses, total hours played, total turns played, and so on. It does assign a rank based on this information. The random map generator only has a few options right now. I do plan to expand what it can do so that players can get mixes of land and water that they like. Hm. It should be building transports and things. I've watched the AI play lots of games, and it shouldn't be settling down. I suppose it might do that if you have overwhelming forces.

When this "how to" was originally written, you did have to click on the dropoff point, but one of the recent builds changed that to make it more convenient.

I'll give you an email address in your private messages, if you want to send me any files. I'd post it here on the forums, but I want to avoid spambots.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that. True, true. Right now, the rally points only move the aircraft from their original city to a second city, but that second city might still be a long distance from where you want the aircraft.

This idea does seem to be popular, because I've heard other people suggest the same thing. If the map is entirely visible, it would be easy to implement because I would just show all the labels all the time. But, if the map is unknown, it gets a little more complicated. I don't think we'd want labels appearing on the map over unknown areas. Do players reveal letters as they explore a territory (e.g. if they are in Egypt, can a player discover the "E" but not the rest of the word?) or should the entire word appear suddenly when an area is discovered? The later would probably be the best option, but I'll have to think about how and when a label appears on the map.

Yes, I suppose there's some historical precedent for that, too. Example: The Soviets in WW2 used a scorched earth policy in the face of Nazi invasion, and armies wreaked havoc on cities in the American Civil War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth

Is this bug in the latest version? I ask because I thought this bug was fixed in one of the updates, and I wasn't sure if you were running an old version.

Changes and Fixes: - Made the pickup/dropoff system easier. Players no longer have to select a (yellow) dropoff-point for GroundUnits in transports. - Changed the Trade Interface - Put a "Trade" button on the interface for easier access to the trade system. - Moved the 'current turn' information so players could read it when they are in the reports tab. - Fixed bug: Ships were running aground. - Fixed bug: GroundUnits sometimes get dropped off on little coastal islands instead of the intended large island - Fixed bug: Sea-unit groups give the wrong "Estimated Time Of Arrival" tooltip - City population grows, usually 1-3 additional population per 100 turns, zero growth for 25 population cities Oh, and if you had trouble loading old games with the last version (0.97.8806), you can load them again with this new version.

Yes, I'd like to fix that. I'll try to repeat the problem. Also, if you have any saved-games (maybe an autosave) that you can send me, it will contain the turn-replay information. I'll also be able to see if there was an enemy unit in the area, although a Battleship would take several hits before being sunk, so that doesn't seem likely. I sent you a private message containing the email address where you should send the file, if you still have it.