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Messages - ponkan

Pages: 1 [2]
16
Discussion / Re: Advancing the plot
« on: May 10, 2008, 11:22:07 am »
There are two basic points made in the article, which are that difficulty steadily ramps up, and there are changes in AI behavior according to what you do to their plans. So shooting down that scout will discourage them from harvesting and base building, but it will get them looking for yours. The ramping difficulty is there so that things don't get progressively easier as you acquire better ships, weapons, armor, and soldiers. Also means you'll have to move your ass, but it ramps up more slowly in the easier settings, so there'll be an option for everyone. Personally, I like knowing that I've got to kill the aliens before they kill me.

17
Discussion / Re: Save in Combat
« on: May 10, 2008, 11:13:00 am »
i would add my vote for a save feature, mainly for time issues, sometimes those missions take either a long time, or alot of tries....sometimes i play for awhile, and i have this theory in my head, ok ill play until something happens, then my base gets raided (new version), or i accidently hit the 12hr time boost, while my dropship is on the way.....opps cant save....i have to either play (really need sleep), or have to go from my last save which was 2 hrs ago.

if people dont want to save they dont have to, i know some people will use it to save\load, save\load, but that would be their problem.

implement this feature.

knightsubzero, the game quick-saves just before you go into battle. So the dropship arrives, you choose Fight, then immediately abort the mission. Load the quicksave with F2, your ship's back on top of the site (has to be told to engage though, for some reason it reverts to idle). F2 still works in the SVN version even if they no longer have the "Continue" button when choosing single player at the starting menu.

18
Discussion / Re: Laser Rifle - useless ?
« on: May 10, 2008, 11:06:01 am »
I agree with your conclusion, but not your starting point.  Actually, accuracy is a function of weapon length [or even more in detail, the distance between the rear sight and the end of the barrel/front sight].  A long barreled sniper type will be the best.  The assault type weapons should be midway between the sniper and the SMG type.  Machine pistol and pistol type will be the worst.

That only takes into account the sights' accuracy, in which case many telescopic sights are the most accurate (if adjusted properly), but not very long front to back. A longer barrel is more accurate in practice because it allows for more tolerance in sighting: if the front sight is adjusted a millimeter too much to the left, it's a bigger angular difference with a short barrel than a long one. A longer barrel also allows for more support to be applied, e.g. a two-handed grip. Also in play are dimensional and positional tolerances of parts. A sniper rifle (these days) is machined to much tighter tolerances because it must be accurate. SMG, not so much, so they allow a little more slop, which makes it much cheaper to produce, incidentally.

More power leading to better accuracy is only accurate with ballistic rounds. More power means higher speed, which means less drop at a given distance due to gravity (can be compensated for). More power is usually accompanied by greater projectile mass, which helps in the stability of its flight -- wind can't push it around so easily, imperfections in the bullet (uneven weight distribution) don't count as much. Since laser beams are massless the point is moot in both cases.

In the end laser (and other beam-type) weaponry is inherently more accurate than kinetic weaponry just because it is easier to manipulate light on a precise and consistent basis than matter. A rifle clamped to a very heavy base (to make recoil a non-issue) and fired four times at a target will show, in most cases, four different impact points. There's a lot of random stuff that can happen in the shell casing, propellant, slug, barrel, path to target that change the course. A laser, you clamp it down, and flash it four times, it'll hit the exact same spot four times.

In other words, laser accuracy is limited to human skill, where it's not necessarily the case with ballistic weapons. That said, human accuracy is generally better with long arms. My proposal is this:

Pistol: middle-of-the-range accuracy, both snap and aimed. Kneeling doesn't help much, since it doesn't stabilize the weapon itself.
Rifle: decent accuracy at snap, a little better than pistol. Aimed, it goes even higher, since here there is actually much room for improvement. Kneeling helps even more.
Heavy laser: It's big and awkward to carry and aim, so lowest accuracy while standing. Probably so unwieldy that a snap shot could go anywhere, but an aimed shot should have some chance of hitting its mark. Crouched, support really helps. Probably has a bipod under the barrel. Final accuracy is better than the pistol. If it's meant to be a support weapon ala M249 SAW (machine gun) final accuracy when crouched should be between pistol and rifle. If it's meant to be a sniper-type weapon as mentioned by Surrealistik (still a support role) then accuracy should definitely be highest, but only when crouched!

I do agree that the laser pistol and rifle are pretty well balanced (except for the accuracy cross), but the heavy laser isn't. Currently I never use it because the damage isn't really that much, TU usage is horrendous, and the magazine is tiny.

19
Ok, just did a clean re-compile of the source, with the patch applied. Double-clicking the bundle....

<cue Dr. Frankenstein>
IT'S ALIVE!
</cue>

Thanks for the patch.

20
First of all, I would like to thank all the developers for the amazing job they've done on the game so far. I stumbled upon it looking for some information on X-COM:TFTD, and it's been a blast playing it these few weeks.

So I tried to compile the svn version since I had heard such good things about the 2.3 branch. The UFOAI.app file prepared by make bundle errors out when opening, though the binary itself executes fine when I go down to the root directory and fire up ./ufo +set vid_fullscreen 1. This is the specific error I get when trying to open the bundle through the command line:
Code: [Select]
andreas-computer:~/src/ufoai/trunk/src/ports/macosx/installer andrea$ open UFOAI.app/
2008-05-08 03:37:58.717 open[15847] LSOpenFromURLSpec() returned -10827 for application (null) urls file://localhost/Users/andrea/src/ufoai/trunk/src/ports/macosx/installer/UFOAI.app/.

This is under a Macbook Pro 2.4GHz running Mac OS 10.4, if it's relevant. The way I got the application bundle was through the standard ./configure CPPFLAGS="-I/sw/include/" LDFLAGS="-L/sw/lib", make, make lang, make maps, sh archives.sh (in base), make bundle TARGET_CPU=i386.

The first time I ran make bundle I got this output, I noticed several permission denied errors, so I reran the command under sudo, which produced clean output that time, but in either case the bundle gave me the same error. Here's the output of the first make bundle:
Code: [Select]
../../../../base/0base.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0base.pk3
../../../../base/0snd.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0snd.pk3
../../../../base/0pics.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0pics.pk3
../../../../base/0music.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0music.pk3
../../../../base/0models.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0models.pk3
../../../../base/0media.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0media.pk3
../../../../base/0materials.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0materials.pk3
../../../../base/0maps.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0maps.pk3
../../../../base/0ufos.pk3 -> UFOAI.app/base/0ufos.pk3
Installing /opt/local/lib/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib...install_name_tool: can't open input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Permission denied)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 4096 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 1413120 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't close written on input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't open input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Permission denied)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 4096 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 1413120 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't close written on input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
done
Installing /sw/lib/libpng.3.dylib...done
Installing @executable_path/../Frameworks/SDL_ttf.framework/Versions/A/SDL_ttf...done
Installing /opt/local/lib/libssl.0.9.8.dylib...install_name_tool: can't open input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Permission denied)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 4096 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 294912 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't close written on input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't open input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Permission denied)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 4096 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 294912 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't close written on input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't open input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Permission denied)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 4096 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't lseek to offset: 294912 in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib for writing (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't write new headers in file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
install_name_tool: can't close written on input file: UFOAI.app/Contents/Libraries/libssl.0.9.8.dylib (Bad file descriptor)
done
Installing /sw/lib/libjpeg.62.dylib...done
Installing /sw/lib/libintl.3.dylib...done
Installing @executable_path/../Frameworks/SDL_mixer.framework/Versions/A/SDL_mixer...done
Installing /opt/local/lib/libz.1.dylib...done
Installing /usr/lib/libcurl.4.dylib...done
Installing /sw/lib/libiconv.2.dylib...done
Installing @executable_path/../Frameworks/SDL.framework/Versions/A/SDL...done
Finalizing ufo...done
Finalizing ufoded...done
Finalizing ufo2map...done
andreas-computer:~/src/ufoai/trunk/src/ports/macosx/installer andrea$

Could the case be that I have bad libraries? They're from MacPorts, it's the only thing touching the /opt tree. What I don't understand is why it's getting any files from there when I explicitly told configure to search under /sw?

Any insight on how to resolve this problem would be much appreciated.

EDIT: I've successfully done it on 2.2.1, though that was before I installed MacPorts. Should I just remove all MacPorts packages altogether? I had been hoping to make a universal dmg for 2.2.1, but that didn't work either, don't know why. The working 2.2.1 version I have is just i386, from before I installed MacPorts.

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