Look at the transfer screens before you pick a side. Try to look for which will have the most possible links and pick that side to use 
420 and 821 are shielded now and alert status has been added. Alert status rises to yellow if you manage to kill 3 enemy droids in 8 seconds and to red if you kill 5 and it drops back to green after some time if you canāt keep the pace.
During yellow alert, you are getting 30% more points and 50% more during redā¦which reminds that i have to add the online highscores.
If you donāt like the alert lights - destroy themā¦ 
(Online) highscores are in (but still very ugly) and the blast ring/disruptor effect looks slightly different now.
Edit: The highscores will be displayed at the end of a game. They are also on the webpage (http://www.jpct.net/paradroidz).
This really is very good. Youāve definitely captured the ājust one more goā feeling of the original. That it plays quicker is actually a massive bonus.
Whilst youāre tweeking the scoring is there any chance of making the scoring for winning the transfer game more flexible? More points for having nodes remaining, score based on how many you won by and what sort of ājumpā you made (ie going from 302 to 821 scores more than 329 to 476). Of course, Iām only asking because I used to do a LOT of transferring in the originalā¦
Are there different armour levels implemented? My 821 seemed a bit pansy when taking hits from a lowly 476.
And on your site you say that:
[quote][*]Your current energy level is displayed (you had to guess that in the classic game)
[/quote]
Whilst I agree that your energy bar is more acurate, you didnāt have to guess in the original. The spinning ring that circled your droid would move slower until eventually youād return to (a thoroughly battered) 001 droid.
This spinning ring also appeared on enemy droids which allowed you to see the state of your opponents. This is important when picking a transfer target (no-one wants to transfer to a half dead droid) - and could also add a more tactical element to your alert status scoring, allowing you to deplete a room of droids and then pick them off in quick succesion.
Iām off to have another go! 
[quote]Whilst youāre tweeking the scoring is there any chance of making the scoring for winning the transfer game more flexible?
[/quote]
I was already thinking about this myselfā¦weāll seeā¦
[quote]Are there different armour levels implemented? My 821 seemed a bit pansy when taking hits from a lowly 476.
[/quote]
No, did the classic game do this? I thought about adding it, but i think that adding armour is basically equal to increasing hitpoints, isnāt it?
[quote]Whilst I agree that your energy bar is more acurate, you didnāt have to guess in the original. The spinning ring that circled your droid would move slower until eventually youād return to (a thoroughly battered) 001 droid.
[/quote]
:-[ I wasnāt aware of thisā¦now that youāve said it, i dimly remember itā¦I already thought about changing (darkening) the colors of the clouds the droids are leaving on the ground if they are damaged. What do you think?
Edit: Iāve updated the website to reflect thisā¦
[quote]'m off to have another go!
[/quote]
Glad you like itā¦
;D
Fantastic game!
Oh go noā¦you know it makes sense ā¦just in terms of gameplay balance. Youāve given those that play the game as a straight shmup a way of scoring extra points so you surely have to give us transfer freaks a bit of extra reward?
I think youāve got a point thereā¦maybe itās the laser strength then? It could be my hazy memory too. I might fire up CCS64 later and have a go!
Whilst weāre on the subject of lasers though; the odd little cylinders that you fire donāt look very impressive Iām afraid. Any chance of making them look a little fiercer? Particularly for the 821 (one of my favourites!) and 999 which had savage looking double lasers in the original. In the spirit of improvement on the original howās about different looking lasers for all the droids? And flamethrowers! Flamethrowers are always a good idea! ;D
That would be a start I guess. Kind of like theyāre leaking oil or fuel? Iām not convinced that itās quite the same though - it may be too subtle. I do think that the fact that you could look at a droid and immediately know what condition it was an excellent feature of the original.
Canāt quite knock you off the top yet! Iām sure the level with the 700s and 800s (about the 4th level from the bottom on the rhs) is much less forgiving in this versionā¦and thatās not a bad thing either.
Almost forgot to mention: This version has no end game detection yet, i.e. if youāve cleaned all the levels, nothing will happen. To get your score anyway, just press ākā to commit sucide and end the game. Iāll fix thisā¦i promiseā¦
[quote] This is by far the best single player game I have seen written in java so far. Sure its not technologically ground breaking, but my god is it fun to play!
[/quote]
yep, just my opinion!
perhaps adjust the explosion size to the power level of a droid?
I had some tiny problems accessing the elevator, the selection screen popped up and vanished again several times. When the game is paused, mouse input is handled. Not very important but confusing when there is much action and you pause the game.
[quote]I had some tiny problems accessing the elevator, the selection screen popped up and vanished again several times.
[/quote]
My faultā¦i introduced space as an additional key to select the deck in the latest versionā¦but itās also a key to enter the elevator. So you enter it and immediately leave it again. Press both mouse buttons instead to enter the elevator and itās not a problem any longer. Iāll fix thisā¦
Umm, i seem to be having occlusion culling problems. Some driods just disappear when i can blatently see them. Sometimes they are in complete view and turn behind a pillar and just vanish, i go closer and they reappearā¦
Grr. Damn OpenAL rebooted my computer :(.
Correction:
1st run: OpenAL crashed the JVM silently (which I know now becuase I have now seen everything else load and know that OAL was the point at which it crashed out that time)
2nd run: OpenAL crashed the JVM and rebooted the computer (linux)
Controls: need KEYBOARD, dude! No mouse attached, only trackpad :(.
Options menu - should this work? Hitting enter 20 times does nothing.
Play menu - had to press enter several times before it registered. Soā¦I guess perhaps options should work, but your keyhandler is dropping keys?
With OAL disabled, no sounds come out.
Not that I can get that far with no mouse, but ā¦ how do you play the transfer game? There are no instructions that I can see.
The idea is to obtain control of the centre using your colour. If your colour consumes more blocks than your opponent, then you are transfered onto that droid.
In the first 12 seconds, left/right chooses which side you want to be on. Choose the side with the largest amount of connecters to the centre panel, and with the fewest inputs (because sometimes you can have splits which only take 1 input and have 2 outputs onto the centre panel).
Once you have chosen the side, and the count down has reached zero, up/down to move the twidly thing and space to create an input on that twiddly thing and fire it to control that panel.
There are alot of strategies on that, some say fire quik and fast, others say wait for the pc to play first, then oppose his movesā¦etc
I think thats the best part of the game! ;D
DP
Youāve got a few seconds to pick a side, yellow or purple. Depending on the droid you control youāve got a certain number of zaps. The idea is to turn the bar in the middle more your colour than the other colour. To this end, you want to go for splitter connections and make sure the opponent has joiners and colour switchers and dead ends on his side. It doesnāt take long to figure out. Strategy tip: wait a little while while the stupid computer AI wastes his zaps, then near the end go and use yours to override his.
Bah! Forum lag!
Oh, and give up on that crappy linux box youāre having so much trouble with. Lifeās too short. Get a Mac Mini.
Cas
hehe, beat ya to it cas!
yer blah, no offence to you or the linux community, but linux is alot more hassle for a user than it should be.
Get a mac or stick with Win XP.
DP
I have more troubles getting Rimscape working right on Mac than on any other system. For me, if I can make it work on Windows, I can make it work on Linux. I never know if my features will work with Mac.
[quote]Correction:
1st run: OpenAL crashed the JVM silently (which I know now becuase I have now seen everything else load and know that OAL was the point at which it crashed out that time)
2nd run: OpenAL crashed the JVM and rebooted the computer (linux)
Options menu - should this work? Hitting enter 20 times does nothing.
Play menu - had to press enter several times before it registered. Soā¦I guess perhaps options should work, but your keyhandler is dropping keys?
[/quote]
No, āOptionsā donāt do anything yet.
Donāt know about your OpenAL, keyboard and sound problemsā¦ ??? ā¦iām using the standard LWJGL Keyboard-stuff and it works fine on my Linux box (together with OpenAL and even Javasounds works (but lags somehow)).
[quote]Umm, i seem to be having occlusion culling problems. Some driods just disappear when i can blatently see them. Sometimes they are in complete view and turn behind a pillar and just vanish, i go closer and they reappearā¦
[/quote]
Hmmmā¦but if they are behind a pillar, they should disappear. I had some situations where i thought that it was wrong too, but investigating it further, it turned out to be correct all the time. Maybe you can describe in more detail what exactly happens in your case?
The line of sight takes the destination grid, the source grid and the actual position into account. If any of them is visible from the player, the droid should be visible. If none is visible, the droid should be invisibleā¦with some transition time between these two states.