Presidium- An SF Citybuilder

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#121

Sorry for the long interim between replies, but I had my machine in for servicing and it took me a while to get back up to speed.

I’m probably going to simplify the UI for the sake of the upcoming demo, but Missions functionality has been implemented for exploration and combat, along with fog of war and building construction, basic recreational and medic-treatment behaviours are up and running, and I’m currently smoothing out the bugs in upgrades/research and citizen recruitment.

I do have a couple of technical questions to ask, if anyone’s willing to help. The first is that I’ve run into problems running the game on different or older platforms (under Windows XP on Boot Camp, for instance, the game slows to a crawl and transparent sprites turn black. Since it’s the exact same hardware that I use under OSX, I can only assume this is some kind of driver problem. My old desktop G4 runs faster, though differences in byte order seem to be messing with some of my alpha-testing.)

Secondly, what are the better options for creating a stand-alone executable out of a bunch of class files and LWJGL jars?

Thanks in advance.

#122

Sorry for the long interim between replies, but I had my machine in for servicing and it took me a while to get back up to speed.

I’m probably going to simplify the UI for the sake of the upcoming demo, but Missions functionality has been implemented for exploration and combat, along with fog of war and building construction, basic recreational and medic-treatment behaviours are up and running, and I’m currently smoothing out the bugs in upgrades/research and citizen recruitment.

I do have a couple of technical questions to ask, if anyone’s willing to help. The first is that I’ve run into problems running the game on different or older platforms (under Windows XP on Boot Camp, for instance, the game slows to a crawl and transparent sprites turn black. Since it’s the exact same hardware that I use under OSX, I can only assume this is some kind of driver problem. My old desktop G4 runs faster, though differences in byte order seem to be messing with some of my alpha-testing.)

Secondly, what are the better options for creating a stand-alone executable out of a bunch of class files and LWJGL jars?

Thanks in advance.

#123

Looking forward to the demo! :slight_smile:

I know of several options (For windows distribution):
Launch4j, used to ‘wrap’ your program (jar file) in an executable. Supports embedding a JRE.
Similar is JSmooth and others. Here is a good StackOverflow on the subject: How can I convert my Java program to an .exe file?

I personally like NSIS installers for Windows distribution, super easy to make, and you can package anything you want in any way you want.

What I do with them is I write a batch file that launches my jar file, compile the batch file using a batch compiler, this gives a nice exe you can apply an icon to. Then I put that in the installer along with the actual program and whatever assets I need, etc. and have the installer make the desktop shortcut, etc link to the launcher, which then calls your Jar file. I can elaborate if need be.
Did any of that make sense? :persecutioncomplex:

#124

Looking forward to the demo! :slight_smile:

I know of several options (For windows distribution):
Launch4j, used to ‘wrap’ your program (jar file) in an executable. Supports embedding a JRE.
Similar is JSmooth and others. Here is a good StackOverflow on the subject: How can I convert my Java program to an .exe file?

I personally like NSIS installers for Windows distribution, super easy to make, and you can package anything you want in any way you want.

What I do with them is I write a batch file that launches my jar file, compile the batch file using a batch compiler, this gives a nice exe you can apply an icon to. Then I put that in the installer along with the actual program and whatever assets I need, etc. and have the installer make the desktop shortcut, etc link to the launcher, which then calls your Jar file. I can elaborate if need be.
Did any of that make sense? :persecutioncomplex:

#125

Thanks for the pointers. I haven’t much experience with windows development, but I think I’ve messed around with basic .bat files before. I’ll give it a shot and see if it helps at all with the graphics problems.

Fortunately, the process seems to be relatively straightforward on OSX, though good luck getting anything java-based to run on iOS. :stuck_out_tongue:

#126

Thanks for the pointers. I haven’t much experience with windows development, but I think I’ve messed around with basic .bat files before. I’ll give it a shot and see if it helps at all with the graphics problems.

Fortunately, the process seems to be relatively straightforward on OSX, though good luck getting anything java-based to run on iOS. :stuck_out_tongue:

#127

Those arts look very well. You’ve got the skill.

Are you by any chance looking for cooperation in this?

#128

Those arts look very well. You’ve got the skill.

Are you by any chance looking for cooperation in this?

#129

I’ll PM you with the details, Keral. Of course, any help would be appreciated.

Oh, in other news, citizen recruitment and upgrades/research are essentially done (though I still need to hook up said upgrades to their in-game effects), ambient danger levels should now factor into pathfinding, and citizen purchases of new weapons/armour seems to be working okay.

I’ve decided that, to placate my thirst for more stringent realism, I’ll include an optional ‘hard core SF’ mode in the final release, where things like psion abilities will be reduced or eliminated, material and skill requirements for construction/manufacture are stricter, et cetera.

#130

I’ll PM you with the details, Keral. Of course, any help would be appreciated.

Oh, in other news, citizen recruitment and upgrades/research are essentially done (though I still need to hook up said upgrades to their in-game effects), ambient danger levels should now factor into pathfinding, and citizen purchases of new weapons/armour seems to be working okay.

I’ve decided that, to placate my thirst for more stringent realism, I’ll include an optional ‘hard core SF’ mode in the final release, where things like psion abilities will be reduced or eliminated, material and skill requirements for construction/manufacture are stricter, et cetera.

#131

Big bunch of small-to-medium updates (day/night effects, resting/recreation/performances at the cantina, medication and sick leave, plus tax and security patrols.) Kerai has been kind enough to create a working .exe from an older version of the project, but I need to add a few more features and include a main menu before it’s fit to demo, and there definitely seem to be serious performance problems under windows. I’ll keep y’all posted.

EDIT: Kerai is also talking about porting at least the graphics packages to use LibGDX, but I’ll leave him to fill in the details.

#132

Big bunch of small-to-medium updates (day/night effects, resting/recreation/performances at the cantina, medication and sick leave, plus tax and security patrols.) Kerai has been kind enough to create a working .exe from an older version of the project, but I need to add a few more features and include a main menu before it’s fit to demo, and there definitely seem to be serious performance problems under windows. I’ll keep y’all posted.

EDIT: Kerai is also talking about porting at least the graphics packages to use LibGDX, but I’ll leave him to fill in the details.

#133

All-night coding binge. Very tired, somewhat existentially disoriented. Some interesting stuff though.

I was running my ecology simulation reasonably smoothly on a 64x64 map at 25x game speed with a population of around 220 creatures, which in principle translates to handling more than 5000 creatures at normal simulation speed. Some actual profiling put the simulation-related CPU load at about 27%, up from 6.7% at 5x speed, which means that my original target capacity of handling 10,000 citizens on a 256x256 map ought to be feasible. Whoo! (Though on reflection that would probably be some kind of nightmarishly overcrowded hive-world dystopia.)

Rendering seems to be the more pressing bottleneck at the moment, and Kerai has done some very encouraging/promising work on porting milkshape models into the LibGDX environment. I’ll likely be looking into that next.

#134

All-night coding binge. Very tired, somewhat existentially disoriented. Some interesting stuff though.

I was running my ecology simulation reasonably smoothly on a 64x64 map at 25x game speed with a population of around 220 creatures, which in principle translates to handling more than 5000 creatures at normal simulation speed. Some actual profiling put the simulation-related CPU load at about 27%, up from 6.7% at 5x speed, which means that my original target capacity of handling 10,000 citizens on a 256x256 map ought to be feasible. Whoo! (Though on reflection that would probably be some kind of nightmarishly overcrowded hive-world dystopia.)

Rendering seems to be the more pressing bottleneck at the moment, and Kerai has done some very encouraging/promising work on porting milkshape models into the LibGDX environment. I’ll likely be looking into that next.

#135

This is looking very promising! How do you keep the AI load that low?

#136

This is looking very promising! How do you keep the AI load that low?

#137

Most of the simulation time is spent on pathfinding, so I put a lot of effort into a system for caching large-scale paths between different regions of the map. Individual pathing-searches only happen every couple of seconds/when needed and only extend for a dozen tiles or so. Proximity-detection uses a quad-tree registration scheme, rather than brute-force tile-checking. And anything sim-intensive related to other AI is time-sliced using a scheduling system.

And they called me mad! Mad they said! Bwahahah!

#138

Most of the simulation time is spent on pathfinding, so I put a lot of effort into a system for caching large-scale paths between different regions of the map. Individual pathing-searches only happen every couple of seconds/when needed and only extend for a dozen tiles or so. Proximity-detection uses a quad-tree registration scheme, rather than brute-force tile-checking. And anything sim-intensive related to other AI is time-sliced using a scheduling system.

And they called me mad! Mad they said! Bwahahah!

#139

Planning to introduce some new critters at the moment-

http://s24.postimg.org/lfkdawk45/artilects_shot.png

From bottom-left to top-right, you can see the ee-evil looking defence drone, recon drone, demolition drone, tripod, cranial and tesseract. At least a couple should be functional for the demo. Working on ruins placement atm.

#140

Planning to introduce some new critters at the moment-

http://s24.postimg.org/lfkdawk45/artilects_shot.png

From bottom-left to top-right, you can see the ee-evil looking defence drone, recon drone, demolition drone, tripod, cranial and tesseract. At least a couple should be functional for the demo. Working on ruins placement atm.