Topics

21

General Announcements / contingencyplan is gone! (for the week, anyways)

« on: March 10, 2006, 05:08:11 pm »

Howdy all!

This is just to let y'all know that I'm gonna be gone all during spring break. I'm going on mission trip to LA with my church (First Baptist here in town) - we're gonna be building and remodelling churches in some of the poorer areas of the city. My bus leaves in less than 3 hours, so I gotta finish getting ready.

But don't worry, when I get back, I'll be ready to get to work on Precursors!

Thanks, and wish us well!

22

General Discussion / Use of Karma

« on: January 26, 2006, 02:44:52 pm »

After smiting [GoRC]STALION for the spam thread, I got to thinking: We still haven't nailed down what the karma on the forums should represent, or who should be able to smite / applaud whom, or anything like that.

So I figured I'd ask: What are some ideas for uses for Karma (including "ignoring the damn thing")? Who should be able to use it? How seriously should it be taken?

Lemme know what y'all think.

23

General Announcements / You got 2 weeks!

« on: January 17, 2006, 12:24:17 am »

Okay, everybody - I've noticed a HUGE slack-off of HUD contest submissions of late. If you want to get yours in, you should get started NOW. All you arteests, I want to see something from everybody. That means you, Cosmo, Trendykill, Reynard, MayorPhill, ryguy, National_Cookie, and whoever else I forgot because it's late and I feel like crap. And remember, you can send in multiple submissions (that don't even remotely look similar - that's how we'd prefer it, actually). So get to work, dammit!

(Note to morgul: We might should see about a reward for those who submit - maybe a special title, like "Official Art Contributor" or something if they submit more than, say, 2 or 3. Note this is a note, not an official policy statement - that's up to morgul.)

*This message brought to you by one of your loving forum admins. *

24

General Discussion / The Official "Congratulations to Caenus on His Recent Engagement" Thread

« on: December 18, 2005, 05:51:54 pm »

Let's all extend our well wishes to Caenus for recently becoming engaged to the love of his life!

Congrats, man!

25

General Discussion / Yay Sony!

« on: November 21, 2005, 02:24:30 am »

I don't know if y'all have heard about this, but recently Sony has come under fire for distributing software with their music CDs that requires you to install the software before you can play the CD on your computer. The software was found to contain a rootkit - essentially a piece of software that attempts to mask itself from the user on the operating-system level (i.e., not something you can find by selecting "Show Hidden Files"). I won't take time to rehash the story here - you can find it on numerous places, such as Wikipedia (they have a whole fricking article about it - I love Wikipedia) and Ars Technica.

The latest news is that Sony is now trying to undo the damage by recalling all the CDs that include the software. All I can say is it's about fricking time - they never should have done it to begin with.

The problem is that the music industry is now trying to stop people from ripping their CDs to their computers. I don't know about y'all, but that just screams "fair use violation" at me... What do y'all think?

edit: And apparently, you can circumvent the whole process with tape. Go figure.

26

General Discussion / Holy...... Crap!

« on: November 14, 2005, 10:22:38 pm »

Check THIS out:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051114-5571.html

Needless to say, I WANT ONE. Unfortunately, I'm a broke college student, so I can't afford one.

But wouldn't Precursors look SWEET on this baby?

27

Bug Reports / Need to fix the forums link on the main website

« on: November 12, 2005, 09:09:11 pm »

Currently, the Forums link at the top of the website doesn't point to the right place. Additionally, it takes users to the starting page (which we need to update some).

28

Precursors / Can we have one centralized login system?

« on: October 31, 2005, 12:22:56 am »

While we're doing all this new fancy stuff on Dawnet's servers (kudos to Dawn, Cosmo, Neo, et al), one question I have is whether we can set up a centralized login system - one for the forums, Trac, and the like. Preferably, we'd also like to tie this into registrations for the game. This would serve 3 purposes:

• People who are on the forums before the game goes live are guaranteed their username in the game
• People who register after the game goes live are already set up to post on the forums and submit bug reports through Trac.
• People who are not registered for the game cannot post bug reports. We might, however, allow them to post to the forums, or at least have some forums that are public accessable and some that are members-only (which makes things more complicated...?).
  

Anyways, how difficult to y'all think that would be to do?

29

Precursors / Interaction between the book and the game?

« on: September 19, 2005, 06:00:30 pm »

morgul, since you're writing a book that takes place in the same universe as the game, how much of a presence will those characters from the book have in the game? Will they be hero NPC characters, or characters controlled by admins, or what?

Just something I'm curious about.

30

Precursors / Precursors on Happy Penguin! ~Brian

« on: July 31, 2005, 09:00:15 pm »

I don't know if anybody's noticed, but somebody posted Precursors to the HappyPenguin website - http://www.happypenguin.org/ .  Nath, whoever you are, I want to thank you on behalf of the team for putting it on there.  We've been meaning to do so, but just hadn't gotten to it yet. Your review of the game is very positive, which we certainly appreciate.

Thanks Nath!
~Brian

31

Precursors / Soldier Types

« on: July 22, 2005, 04:04:40 pm »

I made reference to the three paths, one of which was a Soldier path.  In the process of thinking through the paths, I came up with some general Soldier types that we might think about using in the game, at least as a template.

• Grunt - these are your standard soldiers.  They can wield a variety of weapons, including rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, etc.  We'll have to do more about weaponry in a later post, but essentially these are your basic infantry, though some may be more attuned to heavier or lighter weaponry.  A good portion of these will be AI and beginning Players, since their required logic is lower than other kinds of soldiers. We might require that beginning Players (at least Soldiers, if not all military Players) spend a certain amount of time in this situation before being promoted to other areas.
  
  
• Special Ops - These are highly trained soldiers whose task is to surgically take out targets or accomplish tasks / missions with only a handful of troops. Their equipment is designed to be both tougher than the standard Grunt's, as well as allowing for hiding and silence when taking out targets.  Unlike Black Ops (below), their tasks full completely within the rules of war; however, those tasks are more difficult, and the Special Ops Soldiers accomplish those tasks with a much higher degree of skill and finesse than the average Grunt does, all while using fewer Soldiers to begin with.  Their tasks may be sniping enemy targets or taking out an enemy base or rescuing POWs.  Think Commandos in C&C.
  
  
• Black Ops - These soldiers do not exist, on record anyways.  They accomplish missions which are "officially" against the rules of war (and thus [maybe] the game).  Perhaps we as the admins know they exist, but we can't do anything to stop them unless they get caught. They are given access to weaponry and equipment that the other soldiers do not have, likely experimental stuff or equipment that is more powerful than it should be (i.e., upsets a balance in the game).  While many will want to be part of these groups (for whatever side, of course including merc covert groups), they are clandestine organizations - the knowledge of these groups is severely limited, and membership is by invitation only.  They exist, but they don't exist.
  
  
• Field Commander - One of the most important Soldiers.  They are a cross between the RTS-only Commanders and the standard Grunt.  They are higher ranked than the Grunts, and have access to a unique set of equipment that they use to lead their squad into battle.  Commanders will generally pass orders to the Field Commanders, who then take the initiative to order their troops to certain locations to accomplish that goal.  Further, Field Commanders may have certain traits or stats that enhance the traits of those under their command (e.g., better accuracy or stability in battle, etc.).  They have some interface (I was thinking either a wrist console or a brain implant) so they can switch from the FPS to the RTS interface and back - give their Soldiers orders, then go and carry out their assigned task in the Squad.  They are in the thick of battle, unlike standard Commanders.  For those born leaders who love the smell of napalm in the morning, this is the calling for you.
  

Any thoughts?
~Brian

32

Precursors / The 3 Paths

« on: July 22, 2005, 12:11:13 pm »

I figure it'd be a good idea to informally formalize the paths the Player can take throughout the game.  I'll post some about each area in additional posts, to break the line of thought up a little bit.  In my view, there are 3 paths the Player can follow:

[list=1]

• Soldier (FPS aspect) - The Players on the ground, in the trenches, fighting using guns and rockets and grenades and whatever weps they have in the future.  They advance by successfully completing tasks (individually) and their missions (overall).  As discussed previously, as a Soldier increases in skill and rank, they gain access to better equipment - the big guns, the better armor, etc.  Further, they also pilot ground vehicles (more on those in a later post).
  
  
• Pilot (Flightsim aspect) - The Players in charge of running the ships in the game.  As with Soldiers, as they perform well and win missions, they gain access to better ships and weaponry. The major difference between Soldiers and Pilots (other than the obvious change in venue) is the Pilot spends most of his/her time in the ship, while Soldiers only spend part of their time in vehicles. For the Soldier, the vehicle is more a minor thing, while the lives of the Pilots revolves around their ships.
  
  
• Commander (RTS aspect) - The Players concerned with commanding the other troops in battle.  In theory, the Commander is in some physical structure of some sort, like a destroyer or carrier or battleship or whatnot.  Thus, the foremost priority for the Commander is protection of that ship - if it dies, he dies.  Past that, there's a chain of command - one Commander is given the order to take the planet, so he orders his sub-Commanders accordingly.  One sub-Commander is tasked with taking the continent, so she orders her sub-Commanders to destroy certain bases and take strategic points.  If the whole system works, then the planet is taken over, and that particular side wins.
  [/list:o]
  
  Naturally, the FPS side is going to be the ubiquitous one of the three - everyone is going to be in FPS mode at one time or another.  However, if their character's stats + their natural ability moves them towards one direction or the other, then they can choose to go down each path.  Furthermore, every Player can do any of these, but going along with the experience system tossed around, Soldiers who have not spent a lot of time in a spaceship won't be able to pilot it as well as those who have followed a more Pilot-centric path.
  
  ~Brian

33

Precursors / RTS / FPS aspect, with comments on AI

« on: July 12, 2005, 11:46:09 am »

As far as how we interface the RTS aspect with the FPS and FlightSim aspects of the game, I am thinking something along the lines of Warcraft 3.  Only played it a little bit, but I've read enough to know that the premise of the game isn't to simply amass the crapload of units and overwhelm the enemy base.  The goal is to choose and buff your hero, and with supporting units use the hero to kill the enemy base.  Alternately, think of Commandos in Command & Conquer.

The point is that Players should be these hero-style characters, even if they're on the lowest rank in their group.  Commanders also can create / build AI-controlled soldiers, which are lower powered (requires less computer resources to handle them if they're fairly simplified), that are more or less expendable.  Further, the Commander can build tanks and vehicles and such that either have NPC pilots or Player pilots.  The Commander's goal is to use the NPC soldiers to protect their "hero" Player soldiers, while using both to wipe out the enemy base.  Likely strength as commander will be heavily influenced by the number of Players killed while under their command.  

The AI for the NPC soldiers would be that of most RTS games - pathfinding and such, combined with intelligent / realistic behaviors (like hiding behind crates when getting shot at, moving in groups [using flocking behaviors most likely], etc.).  They just have smaller / less  owerful weapons than do the Player characters.

Any other ideas?
~Brian

34

Precursors / We're still here

« on: July 08, 2005, 10:01:59 pm »

We know it's been pretty quiet on the main forums lately.  Just wanted to let everybody know that we're still here.  We've been hashing out what we want to do next and how we're going to fix some of the bugs that Precursors has at the moment.  But don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you!  We'll be going back through these forums to answer all your burning questions.  Stay tuned!

~contingencyplan

35

Precursors / Happy 4th of July people!

« on: July 04, 2005, 05:13:42 am »

Hey everybody,

Just wanted to wish y'all a happy 4th of July!  So what are y'all going to do - cookouts?  Parades?  Fireworks?

(perhaps we should make an off-topic forum for things like this?  Oh well.)

Everybody have a good day!
~Brian

36

Precursors / Experimental technologies?

« on: June 27, 2005, 11:24:20 am »

Looking over the technologies part of the storyline - black projects, horror stories, death and mayhem...  This gives me an idea:

What about these black projects?  Maybe we could give certain players (who have distinguished themselves or something) the option to participate in the experiments - with a high amount of risk vs. reward of course.  If the experiment goes wrong, then the player could potentially die.  However, if the experiment succeeds, they gain great recognition, and get a big reward (likely related to the experiment), in addition to a pretty big boost to their skills.  

The success would involve some amount of randomness, but would also rely heavily on the players' skills in research and the like.  Perhaps that could even be a specific skill area - Experimental Project Research or something like that.

~Brian

37

Precursors / Health

« on: June 22, 2005, 11:11:20 am »

Discussing the visor display gave me another question: How will we implement player health in the game, esp. in the FPS mode?  I'm not particularly in favor of a strictly health-points system, even if we have certain areas inflict more damage when hit (e.g., headshots, leg shots).  I think we could do something like Systems for the person him/herself: the legs provide the Service of movement, arms provide the service of aiming, etc.  When those get shot, they are typically damaged / disabled, and thus limit the abilities of the character.  The head / heart provide "life support" (literally), so if they're hit, you get deadded.  ;-)

What do you think?
~Brian

38

Precursors / Looking for a developer?

« on: June 05, 2005, 11:25:40 pm »

I was talking with whitelynx on #crystalspace earlier tonight about the game y'all are working on.  With the discussion, I was surprised and excited at how closely the ideas for your game resembled one I was planning on making in the future.  Thus, I was wondering if y'all would be interested in another developer.

I am a computer science student at a Texas university, just finished the first semester of my junior year (I'm a semester ahead).  My uni allows me to get a B.S. and a M.S. in Computer Science in 5 years, so I'm planning on taking advantage of that while getting a Philosophy minor.

I have been programming since 5th grade, and have a very firm grasp on general C++ (5 years experience, self-taught).  I am a fast learner if I have the resources available to learn with.  I am currently working on my own Crystal Space-based game, available on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/thalisstears .  You can download the code from the CVS to get an idea of my coding style.

At the present, I am interested in working on any aspect of the game.  However, my passions lie with artificial intelligence - machine learning, non-hard-coded logic (e.g., genetic algorithms, neural nets, etc.).  I am hoping to work on AIs that behave almost like humans - purposefully imperfect, but smarter than a lot of the ones out there now.   AI should be an asset, not a cause for aggravation.

Additionally, I recently took a class on Concepts of Programming Languages, during which I learned HOW you go about creating programming langauges.  I loved the class, so I would list that as another area of Computer Science that I am passionate about.  (Dunno how much that would help out in game development, but I figured I'd throw that in anyways... :-) )

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.  I am very excited about working on your game, and I believe I could be a strong asset to your development team.