Hi Everyone,
So it has been a while since my last big coding update, and I also know both Game 5 and Game 7 have been fairly stagnant.
That said, I did learn the lessons I needed to from those two games. Game 5 has pointed out a number of flaws with the UI in relation to large maps. I haven't found a fix yet, and I suspect some reworking of the way windows and positioning work will be needed to fix the Game 5 issues. As such, they're being shelved for now, to prioritize game functionality on 1-page maps and get toward a finished game.
Game 7 helped find and fix all kinds of bugs related to line of sight, flak, collisions, missiles, and I think was overall a success. There are probably still some lose ends, but overall I'd say the game is in a fairly playable state right now. One of the only gameplay features that I believe to still be missing is Friendly Fire, and before I can include that, I need to give the game the concept of teams. Teams, while useful, are a lower priority than letting you guys run your own games, though.
This brings us to Phase 6. Throw out all my old timelines and schedules; I've lost track of what was supposed to get done during the Alpha Phase 6. This is the new plan:
You can access Phase 6 through http://www.agespast.org/avacar/phase6/phase6.php. As with all new phases, you can continue to access Phase 5. They both read the same database, and both will process the games just fine. If more combat related code updates do come up, I may make those changes on the Phase 5, and then, once tested, port them up to Phase 6, as appropriate. That said, Phase 6 should be perfectly safe for playing and testing.
To start working on Phase 6 Part 1, I have adopted a new plugin, jeditable. This jquery plugin has solved most of the initial challenges with doing the edit-in-place concept for ship editing. At the moment, I haven't updated any of the permission layers, nor have I hardcoded it so only I can see the new features. This means that anyone on Phase 6 can "cheat" and edit ships. I've done this on purpose to both make testing easier, and to allow you guys to see the new feature and test it without hassle.
At the moment, you can edit ships in any turn, at any time, but realize that editing a ship in a past turn is useless and won't carry forward. I'll likely just make the current turn editable in the future.
The following features are already proven to be editable:
My short term plans are to tackle missiles next. This actually brings up the first point where some feedback would be nice. I can do the missiles in one of two ways:
After I get missiles working, I'll try to tackle rotating ships, then moving/adding ships, then pilot associations, in that order.
So it has been a while since my last big coding update, and I also know both Game 5 and Game 7 have been fairly stagnant.
That said, I did learn the lessons I needed to from those two games. Game 5 has pointed out a number of flaws with the UI in relation to large maps. I haven't found a fix yet, and I suspect some reworking of the way windows and positioning work will be needed to fix the Game 5 issues. As such, they're being shelved for now, to prioritize game functionality on 1-page maps and get toward a finished game.
Game 7 helped find and fix all kinds of bugs related to line of sight, flak, collisions, missiles, and I think was overall a success. There are probably still some lose ends, but overall I'd say the game is in a fairly playable state right now. One of the only gameplay features that I believe to still be missing is Friendly Fire, and before I can include that, I need to give the game the concept of teams. Teams, while useful, are a lower priority than letting you guys run your own games, though.
This brings us to Phase 6. Throw out all my old timelines and schedules; I've lost track of what was supposed to get done during the Alpha Phase 6. This is the new plan:
- Create a new overlay which allows "game managers" to edit ship stats on the fly, add new ships, delete ships, etc.
- Update the "game" database to include more information about who runs a game, who has permission like a manager for a game, etc.
- Update the user table to enable reverse game lookups, i.e. have games you're members of listed for you.
- Rebuild the front area to no longer be like the old WCTO page, but instead better reflect the fact that this is a dynamic site with updating games. Add features like "your games" "watch games" "create games" etc.
- Call for suggestions on the UI from users (all those ideas i've told you to hold on "until the future") and try to implement them.
You can access Phase 6 through http://www.agespast.org/avacar/phase6/phase6.php. As with all new phases, you can continue to access Phase 5. They both read the same database, and both will process the games just fine. If more combat related code updates do come up, I may make those changes on the Phase 5, and then, once tested, port them up to Phase 6, as appropriate. That said, Phase 6 should be perfectly safe for playing and testing.
To start working on Phase 6 Part 1, I have adopted a new plugin, jeditable. This jquery plugin has solved most of the initial challenges with doing the edit-in-place concept for ship editing. At the moment, I haven't updated any of the permission layers, nor have I hardcoded it so only I can see the new features. This means that anyone on Phase 6 can "cheat" and edit ships. I've done this on purpose to both make testing easier, and to allow you guys to see the new feature and test it without hassle.
At the moment, you can edit ships in any turn, at any time, but realize that editing a ship in a past turn is useless and won't carry forward. I'll likely just make the current turn editable in the future.
The following features are already proven to be editable:
- ship name
- ship hp
- ship shield strength
- ship afterburner count (if the ship has an afterburner)
- ship speed
My short term plans are to tackle missiles next. This actually brings up the first point where some feedback would be nice. I can do the missiles in one of two ways:
- In the case of "Dumb-Fire Missile x2" you could click on the 'x2' and a drop-down lets you pick how many missiles you want the ship to have. This has a problem, however. At the moment, when a ship runs out of a missile type, it simply drops it from the popup. To make this work, I'd have to add back in a "x0" to be clicked on for empty missile slots. This change would NOT be retroactive either, and would only apply to future turns.
- When you click anywhere in the "Missiles: " block, a side panel slides out, listing *all possible missiles* whether or not the ship can use them, with a counter beside each that can be set to any value. When you collapse this panel, the ammunition gets updated. This solves the problem of 1, as when you run out of missiles of a given type, it can still disappear from your list, but you're also able to add them back in. It has the additional advantage that you could equip missiles that shouldn't be on certain ships on them for specific scenarios. That might also be viewed as a disadvantage though...
After I get missiles working, I'll try to tackle rotating ships, then moving/adding ships, then pilot associations, in that order.