[ANN] The mrxak Challenge- Competition One

Bomb

Quote

Originally posted by Aprosenf:
**For multiple outfits, here's an idea: Outfit 128 has OnBuy: G129, OnSell: D129. Then, when you put your ship in the hanger, all the 128's go away, but the 129's persist. When you go to retreive that ship, it activates a bit (e.g. b100) that activates a cron with the iterative entry bit that has an EnableOn of b100 & O129, an OnStart of G128 D129 G130, and an OnEnd of !b100 b101. Then, you have another cron with the iterative entry bit with an EnableOn of b101 & O130, an OnStart of G129 D130, and an OnEnd of !b101. That basically allows you to count outfits by giving the player an equivelant number of a hidden outfit, and then that hidden outfit turns into the original outfit when retreiving the ship, and then another hidden outfit is used to restore the first hidden outfit. If you didn't have the second hidden outfit, you'd end up with the original outfit but you wouldn't have the hidden outfits anymore, so you wouldn't be able to regain the original outfit if you put your ship in the hangar and retreived it a second time.

**

That might work.. It'd give a developer a serious, serious headache though. But then again, this entire problem does that anyway..

_bomb

------------------
"that'll be 15 cents hippie!"

Lumpy the Elf

I am currently away from my ResEdit computer, but the "Critical Hit" problem doesn't sound too hard.

Just make 3 weaps for each normal weapon that have variable decays and submunition into each other in a continuous loop. The only problem I can see without testing it would be getting the projectiles to disappear.

------------------
(Shameless Advertising)
Visit (url="http://"http://evula.com")EVula.com(/url)
(/shameless advertising)

orcaloverbri9

Quote

Originally posted by Lumpy the Elf:
**I am currently away from my ResEdit computer, but the "Critical Hit" problem doesn't sound too hard.

Just make 3 weaps for each normal weapon that have variable decays and submunition into each other in a continuous loop. The only problem I can see without testing it would be getting the projectiles to disappear.

**

Why not just make a weap with a value in decay? That way, every time it had to travel farther or not as far, the impact would be different. It would probably appear to be random...

------------------
The programmer's code of etemology: there's always another bug.

Regulus

Quote

Originally posted by Bomb:
That might work.. It'd give a developer a serious, serious headache though. But then again, this entire problem does that anyway..:)

Speaking as the guy who came up with ncb binary arithmetic (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum26/HTML/002790.html")in the first place(/url), I'm pretty sure Aprosenf's alternative is the only one that stands a chance of working. The binary math hack simply doesn't scale well past a few 4-bit counters.

-reg

------------------
"Oh crap. I'm going to hell - I put the Bible next to Mein Kampf again."
-Her Holiness, Pope Jenne "Kirby" Hubbs

(This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 10-31-2003).)

Regulus

Now for something useful.

Criticial Hit

Method 1: Weapon submunitions into, say, ten homing weapons. Give the homing version an invisible sprite and a high jamming vulnerability. Give all other shďps an equivalent inherent jamming type.

Effect: Some of the submunitions lock on to the target and hit it; others are jammed and veer off course.
Drawbacks: Projectile is invisible after the initial round submunitions. If the initial round is intercepted by hitting a ship first, then it delivers full damage.

Patch: Use multiple launchers and "fire simultaneously" instead of submunitioning.
Drawbacks: Projectile is never visible.

Patch: Use shän weapon animation to simulate beam weapon to cover for invisible sprites.
Drawbacks: Beam length limited to maximum sprite length; beam will not "stop" when it hits a target; projectiles need to be configured to expire at end of visible portion of beam.

Method 2: Use a series of extremely rapid-fire or simultaneously launching homing weapons with a burst reload, of, say, 20. Equip defending ship with various PD weapons with different strengths and turreted blind spots.

Effect: Damage taken with then be variable depending the number of projectiles the PD turrets can shoot down; in turn dependent on ship's orientation relative to oncoming fire.
Drawbacks: Not truly random.

Method 3: Deploy a carried fighter to do the dirty work. Carried fighter has two weapons which it will fire: a one-shot visible weapon which will deal a very large amount of damage to the target, and a number of invisible jammable homing weapons as described above that provide negative damage (if this is possible).

Effect: Large ships will survive initial fire and then recover a random amount of shields from the impacts of the second weapon.
Drawbacks: 1.) Does negative damage work? 2.) Will AI ships fire negative damage weapons? 3.) Leaves an abandoned fighter lying around the system.

Patch: Issue 3 can be dealt with by using ammotype -999 on the last weapon to fire. Arrange this by making the regenerative weapon the primary, but give it a slightly slower speed than the visible damaging weapon, which should fire second and then destroy the dummy fighter. If timed correctly weapon exits will not be very far from the player's own sprite.

To be honest I'm at a bit of a loss on this one. I think you should upgrade the difficulty, personally - the groundwork for Escort 7 and Ship Hangar has been laid long ago (Jason Meltzer's "Dominated Planets" and general ncb voodoo, respectively) and are generally well known. Convincing a single weapon to behave differently each time it's fired is an entirely unexplored challenge. I'll hopefully have some better ideas tomorrow.

-reg

------------------
"Oh crap. I'm going to hell - I put the Bible next to Mein Kampf again."
-Her Holiness, Pope Jenne "Kirby" Hubbs

Aprosenf

Quote

Originally posted by Lumpy the Elf:
**I am currently away from my ResEdit computer, but the "Critical Hit" problem doesn't sound too hard.

Just make 3 weaps for each normal weapon that have variable decays and submunition into each other in a continuous loop. The only problem I can see without testing it would be getting the projectiles to disappear.

**

That might just work. If Nova is smart enough to use SubLimits for recursive submunitions that go A -> B -> C -> A instead of only for A -> A, then that should work beautifully. The only things that would be odd would be that the weapon would have infinite turning, be able to hit cloaked ships, and be unjammable. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

------------------
C:dos
C:dosrun
rundosrun

mrxak

Quote

Originally posted by Regulus:
< snip>

All three of your methods could work, but don't nearly enough produce the effect I would like (one is close).

It's rated as easy because I know of a very easy way to do this, that would produce the effect well enough to appear perfectly random.

Also, the ratings are an indicator of the size of the problem, more than the difficulty. "Escort Number Seven" should take very few resources to pull off. Same with "Critical Hit!". "Ship Hangar" will require many many resources, and is also hard to get ones head around the complexity.

(This message has been edited by mrxak (edited 11-01-2003).)

Azratax2

Quote

Originally posted by Aprosenf:
**The only things that would be odd would be that the weapon would have infinite turning, be able to hit cloaked ships, and be unjammable. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

**

Heh, yep. Only if it's guided...
Actually, i think I will fire up EVNEW and try this out later today (i have to go to some of those "class" things where you sit in a big room while some guy called a professor or somesuch talks at great length)
-Az
EDIT: completely reads what Regulus proposed thinks the idea of swarms and hordes of jammable homing weapons wouldnt work without raping the EVN universe (cause it would claim a whole jamming type) notes that the PD/homing weapons idea would result in breakage of the rest of the EVN scenario
EDIT: notes that negative damage doesnt work!
------------------

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-03-2003).)

Masamune

Damn it, mrxak... I could easily modify SS to do the ship hanger thing and/or the escort thing- but then I'd be taking time off from SS/giving away it's secrets. So I'll do the critical hit weapon. La la la la- invisible weapons are your friend, everyone. Oh, and hint- the only truly random variables you can put in a weapon are the subtheta and innaccuracy.

------------------
~Charlie
Sephil Saga Homepage: (url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")www.cwssoftware.com(/url)

mrxak

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
EDIT: completely reads what Regulus proposed thinks the idea of swarms and hordes of jammable homing weapons wouldnt work without raping the EVN universe (cause it would claim a whole jamming type) notes that the PD/homing weapons idea would result in breakage of the rest of the EVN scenario

This does not need to work with the EVN scenario at all. Consider all challenges to be "mini-TCs" if you'd like. Whatever you need to change to get them to work is fine by me.

mrxak

Well, somebody has submitted a plug-in for one of the competitions. I won't say who or which one, at least not until I've gotten a chance to actually try it out. I've looked at the resources though, and they appear to be pretty good. It is a different method than the one I would have used, so it will be interesting to try it out in the real game.

All challenges are still open. The glory of being the first to submit anything is not open for all of them though. As for actual official completion, that is still yet to be determined.

mrxak

I have now received two entries, both for the same competition. I have not begun judging, so first place is still potentially open for everything.

Mazca

You just got another entry... should have sent it earlier really, but whatever.

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.mazca.com/")Mazca(/url) , Moderator, (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=9&SUBMIT;=Go&urgaylol;=yes")EV Developer's Corner(/url)
Look over their! There doing a weird dance with they're hats! - Shenlon

mrxak

Dangit! I'm supposed to inform people when I get more entries.

mrxak

The good news is that now that I can open up .rez files, I can look at all three entries. Two of them use similar methods, and the other uses something a bit different. I'm looking forward to testing them all out in the game pretty soon.

The bad news? Uh, you all have ten weeks to live, sorry.

(This message has been edited by mrxak (edited 11-16-2003).)

Infinite

Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**The good news is that now that I can open up .rez files, I can look at all three entries. Two of them use similar methods, and the other uses something a bit different. I'm looking forward to testing them all out in the game pretty soon.

The bad news? Uh, you all have ten weeks to live, sorry.

**

Awww, c'mon you can do it faster...

------------------
"Saying Windows 95 is equal to Macintosh is like finding a potato that looks like Jesus and believing you've witnessed the second coming." -- Guy Kawasaki Don't click (url="http://"http://users.pandora.be/p0p0/stuff/youare.swf")here(/url) | (url="http://"http://users.pandora.be/p0p0/stuff/youare.swf")Click here(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/addons.html/")EVN addons(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/search.cgi?action=intro&default;=26/")Please use the search feature before posting(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum26/HTML/010559.html/")Don't act like whitedevil2(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/evn_fixes.html/")Slaghblahs quickfix page(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/walkthrough/")The EVNova Walkthrough(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/pilotlog.html")How to make a pilotlog(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/pilotlog_howtoread.html")How to read a pilotlog(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/faq")Gameplay FAQs(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/survival_guide/")The Survival Guide(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.resexcellence.com/support_files/resedit.shtml")Resedit(/url) | (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")Novatools(/url) | (url="http://"http://davidarthur.evula.net/")Mission computer(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/programs/evone/")EVone(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/PilotlogAnalyzer.hqx")Pilot Log analyzer(/url)
Pork Hock with Face of Stone - Some random guy who gave me Karma.

mrxak

Well, with the recent upgrade to 10.3 and being very busy with school (at least the second thing has gotten better), I've not been able to check them out yet. In the meantime, people can still be working on the other challenges...

Infinite

Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**Well, with the recent upgrade to 10.3 and being very busy with school (at least the second thing has gotten better), I've not been able to check them out yet. In the meantime, people can still be working on the other challenges...

**

OK then maybe not

------------------
"Saying Windows 95 is equal to Macintosh is like finding a potato that looks like Jesus and believing you've witnessed the second coming." -- Guy Kawasaki Don't click (url="http://"http://users.pandora.be/p0p0/stuff/youare.swf")here(/url) | (url="http://"http://users.pandora.be/p0p0/stuff/youare.swf")Click here(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/addons.html/")EVN addons(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/search.cgi?action=intro&default;=26/")Please use the search feature before posting(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum26/HTML/010559.html/")Don't act like whitedevil2(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/evn_fixes.html/")Slaghblahs quickfix page(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/walkthrough/")The EVNova Walkthrough(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/pilotlog.html")How to make a pilotlog(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/pilotlog_howtoread.html")How to read a pilotlog(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/faq")Gameplay FAQs(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/survival_guide/")The Survival Guide(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.resexcellence.com/support_files/resedit.shtml")Resedit(/url) | (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")Novatools(/url) | (url="http://"http://davidarthur.evula.net/")Mission computer(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ariossoftware.com/programs/evone/")EVone(/url) | (url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~slagblah/PilotlogAnalyzer.hqx")Pilot Log analyzer(/url)
Pork Hock with Face of Stone - Some random guy who gave me Karma.

mrxak

It's much higher on my list of priorities now, since I've gotten a lot of more important things out of the way...

Mazca

So, how's this doing?

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.mazca.com/")Mazca(/url) , Moderator, (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=9&SUBMIT;=Go&urgaylol;=yes")EV Developer's Corner(/url)
look through a faithless eye - are you afraid to die?