Privateer: Ascii Sector

Kyznetsov doesn't sound right... he's probably not Ky- but Kuznetsov. funny thing, I have an uncle by the name of Grigory Kuznetsov :)
if there are some more Russian names in your name generation system, maybe I could proofread them - just in case there's more mistypes.
 
How does the "expiration date" thing work? In other words, what determines how time passes within the game?
 
Shere Khan said:
Kyznetsov doesn't sound right... he's probably not Ky- but Kuznetsov. funny thing, I have an uncle by the name of Grigory Kuznetsov :)
if there are some more Russian names in your name generation system, maybe I could proofread them - just in case there's more mistypes.
Click to expand...

I'll PM you the list of Russian names later today -- I haven't got it on the computer I'm at right now. :)
 
Ijuin said:
How does the "expiration date" thing work? In other words, what determines how time passes within the game?
Click to expand...

The internal game time passes all the time, unless you've paused the game. In the mission screenshots from the nav computer you can see the game clock in the bottom of the screenshots.

If you fail to complete a mission before it expires (or you simply fail the mission), your "reputation" will suffer. The Guilds have a ratings system (Harmless, Mostly Harmless and so on for the Mercenaries' Guild -- yes, borrowed from Elite/Frontier! -- and Iron, Steel, Bronze and so on for the Merchants' Guild), and your rating determines how many missions will be available to you in the mission computer. Higher ratings means more missions to choose from and a better pay. But the missions will sometimes also be a lot harder.
 
please resend: that address was no longer operational, but now I've replaced it with a working one. sorry for the inconvenience
 
done, all names fixed/replaced. there should be two messages from Crius.net in your inbox; please send me your direct e-mail address if something goes wrong with the delivery.
 
I've received both of them. Thanks a lot! I really appreciate you taking the time to do this! :D

Now, if there are any Italian, French, German or Chinese people on these boards that would like to take a look at the other names and correct any errors, please raise your hand...
 
got an idea: java gameplay in a browser. there are dos virtual machines for java (JPC can even run VGA titles), so it must be quite possible. it saves the player from downloading, installing and task switching between his browser and the game; and it makes for a good netplay platform, if you ever plan to implement any online components into the game.
 
Hmmm... I've never heard of DOS virtual machines for Java before. I'll be sure to look into it, but I think I can say with 99.9% certainty, that online multiplayer won't be a feature of the game within the forseeable future. I'm designing the game and its engine for single player and I have absolutely no experience with internet, server/client or Java programming, so that's not something I'm currently planning on doing.

But, then again, never say never... :)
 
I took a break from working on the non-plot missions for a day and instead did this: the Ascii Sector movie player! I've now added a feature to the game where you can start recording a movie by pressing F6 (and pressing F6 again to stop recording). The movie will be stored in a formatted text file, which is pretty large, but can be compressed a LOT, so it's perfect for downloading on the Internet. Also, the quality is 100% -- what you see in the movie is what the game will look like on your computer!

Here's the player:
http://www.asciisector.net/download/playasc.zip (0.006 MB)

And here's a movie where I complete a "Defend base" mission:
http://www.asciisector.net/development/07-04-14/movie001.zip (1.4 MB zipped / 46 MB unzipped)

I've tested the player in DOS, Win95, Win98 and WinXP. It works perfectly in DOS and Win95, but it tends to freeze and stutter a lot in 98 and XP when playing a movie. I haven't tried running it in DOSBox, but if somebody tries, please let me know how it runs!
 
Chris Knudsen said:
Now, if there are any Italian, French, German or Chinese people on these boards that would like to take a look at the other names and correct any errors, please raise your hand...
Click to expand...
You're welcome to e-mail me your list of German names. French ones are okay as well, although I guess there are some French native speakers among us... :p
 
For those of you that haven't used DOSBox before, if the movie player is too slow, you can use CTRL + F11 and CTRL + F12 to turn CPU cycles up and down. Play around with it a bit and you'll find the optimum number of cycles for your computer. In the DOSBox package I've created, the default number of cycles is set to 22000. If you find that the optimum number of cycles is different for your computer, you can change this default setting in the configuration file, so that you don't have to change it every time you start DOSBox. Also, if your DOSBox window is maximized, just press ALT + ENTER to make it into a window -- you can then see what the CPU cycles are currently set to at the top of the window.
 
It's almost been two weeks since my last update, so here's a quick status report:

I'm still working on the non-plot missions and I've got most of them finished (except for those that require landing on a base, as I haven't integrated my "land on base" procedures with the main program yet). When I've completed the last few non-plot missions, I'll finish up the flight engine. As far as I can tell, all that's missing is (1) ECM, (2) different ship identification speeds based on which radar you've got installed, and (3) ships spinning and changing directions during collission (right now they just stop). That should complete the flight engine and I'll then move on to the bases.
 
Non-plot mission are done for now and I've implemented the three ECM packages and different identification speeds of your target based on the radar you've got installed. Collissions are next, but I've discovered that I need to generate random Kilrathi names for at least one of the non-plot missions (the bounty hunting mission). Generating human names was easy, as the program just pairs a randomly selected first name with a last name. But how does Kilrathi names work? Do they have a first and last name like humans, or are they made up differently? And does anybody know where I can find a list of Kilrathi first and last names (if that indeed is how they are made up)?
 
Kilrathi from the noble clans use their clan names, but I do not know about clan naming for commoners.
 
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