---

Hello, welcome to MECHWARS!

Here comes a demo and some screenshots:





Demo: http://www.vbmyadmin.com/taylor/MECHWAR/mechwars.rar (10 MB)

To increase loading time download media package here: http://www.vbmyadmin.com/taylor/MECHWAR/media.rar (2 MB)
Extract the files where the mechwars.exe is located.

---

Screens look pretty sweet

---

Feature list:
- Advanced Terrain with "Fog of War"
- Create different buildings (Tankdock, Walls e.g.)
* must be near other building
* only on "flat" terrains
* RIGHT CLICK to rotate, LEFT CLICK to build
- Create different units in buildings
* Buggy
* MadCat
- Player Money and Units/Building cost
- Unit movement (automatic path finding)
- Mulitselect (one current group)
- Unit can attack enemy building
* Units shoot rockets
* RIGHT CLICK on building
- Sky background
- 60FPS
- free cameralook
* MIDDLE CLICK or LEFT+RIGHT CLICK + mouse movement
- Some things are not finished yet and a user menu is missing, sound is not present.

BTW: all in less then 2000 lines of DarkBasicProfessional

Everything is "unlimited"! Have fun and report if you like to!

---

I'm impressed.

EDIT: I'm VERY impressed.

---

Thank you! I'm still going on... but I have to buy the 3D Cloths & Particles-Plugin to have nice smoke and explosions.

---

the screens look AWESOME!!! hope the game is ill give some feedback in a little bit!! nice job with geting everyone impressed so far tom !

---

ah looks awesome.. *Downloading*

---

Wow, amazing, I'm gonna download and try it for sure

---

gave it a quick test-run, and it seems to work very well! the object selection, and overall interface was very smooth.

only a few suggestions:

once a part of the map has been explored, it should stay lit. right now it's only lit if a unit is nearby. unless you meant it to be that way...

also the camera gets a little strange when you get to the edges of the map at an odd angle. I think it's probably because you're limiting the camera position, and then moving a hidden point that it looks at. anyway, it rotates strage at the edges of the map, which makes maneuvering the camera in the corners difficult.

other than that, fantastic start!! great to see an RTS!

---

i have some error, saying "3"..

---

Thats a great start, everything seems to be working quite well!.
Now I dont usually point anything out at such a early stage.. but its just a few things to think about. The first is the pathfinding.. which I see is present by some means, but I think they are too keen on going a straight line.. they do work they way around buildings.. but its painfully the way they do it secoundly: When building walls you should keep the tool open.. so I dont have to press the main building every time.

These are just things I noted me while playing.. I'm sure they are on your to do list aleady.. thanks for a good time.

and once again, great job so far

---

Wow... I'm impressed! Gonna d/l it right now...

---

The screens look very impressive, though I have noticed one thing (not certain since I haven't had the chance to download it, I've been capped). The map seems to just disappear at a certain distance from the camera. If this is actually how it is, maybe smoothing it over a bit?

All in all, a very nice project. Keep up the good work.

JW

---

Wow, nice hints from you all!

... yes, this should be like this - only if I add radar or something, the part of the map stays clear!

... yes, I have to fix that for edges!

... hm, but they are pretty intelligent, walk around complex building groups and ANY walls! It's done with collisions, and you can move tonns of units in a group... Maybe you tell my why it's too painfull for you like they drive.

EDIT: I dont't use any "path finging" method like A*... I just use collisions and never let something enter any "illegal" position. So every new single step is calculated again! This keeps your units "free" and let them react in - hopefully - every situation.

... yes, for sure!

Thank you very much so far. I keep coding and make updates for public!

---

When you repeated the word painfull, it kinda sounded worse then it was meant.. but what I mean is that perhaps you should try a different sort of pathfinding.. when I play RTS I often do a lot of things while the units are moving twards a target.. so its nice to know if they get *plays game to confirm* get there without my help.. and they do so in most cases.. but whenever they meet a wall or building.. it looks like they are trying to drill through it.. and some times they even turn and walk in the oposit direction. just walking.. and walking.. etc. in another test they started walking around the wall, looping.. as if they where patrolling.. in every case.. I placed them (five units) on one side of the wall, and asked them to go on the other side.. quite a bit far from the wall on the other side.

So it seems kinda buggy, thats all.. I'm sure you'll sort it out though.. another thing you could do, is when creating more units.. have the units that already are at the spot move.. they do move.. but they are pushed kinda.

Still, great work on this!

---

Yes, you are right! The moveing in not very accurate in this demo. I tell units to stop in a big range from your cursor. This is only for this demo, so large group behave some better

They move around like guarding, that's true. If you enter the cursor into any building, they try reaching the point, but cannot. Any units are pushed away. I can simple increase the distance they are pushed, so it looks like they drive away. Means, pushing is the same logic like driving.

I will add something like "arrangement" of units in different situations (when you attack, move, group, etc). And the "time factor" is important too. I will re-calculate movement after some time for every unit. So they stop doing stupid stuff But this "time factor" is not in the demo - yet.

---

after i downloaded it i ran it it gave me an erorr report i moved the midea into the folder and it just said loading for six minutes then i got tired and exited out then i copied all the midia from the folder to the file and ran it did the same thing. so what am i doing wrong i want to play it it sounds exiting to me. please tell me!!

---

Must say ive been looking foreward to this game since i saw the progress in the other boards...going to run it now, back soon !

Plays very nicely...the pathfinding was impressive considering there was no algroitm involved but it did seem a little awkward around some buildings. However doesnt matter too much...
Other than that not much to say as a critic other than that both the vehicles shoot at the same rate and make the same type of explosions.

Very nice work though man, keep it up !

---

hi and lovely work i yust loved mechcommander 2.
and an tip for nice smoke untill you buy the plugin i found this when i was looking around in the code board.
have a look at it it looks really nice and all in simple dbp code.
+ Code Snippet

Rem ***** Main Source File *****
` This code was downloaded from The Game Creators
` It is reproduced here with full permission
` http://www.thegamecreators.com

`Smoke particle effect
`By Joseph Thomson
`17/10/03

`Setup
sync on
sync rate 40
hide mouse

`Number of smoke particles
numSmokeParticles=50

`Particle value arrays
dim smokeParticlesPos#(numSmokeParticles,3)
dim smokeParticlesVel#(numSmokeParticles,3)
dim smokeParticlesSize#(numSmokeParticles,3)
dim smokeParticlesFade#(numSmokeParticles,2)

`Create smoke image
create bitmap 1,50,50
`REMARK FOR DBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ink rgb(130,130,130),0
`UNREMARK FOR DBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
`ink rgb(200,200,200),0
`Draw random dots in a circle shape
for x=1 to 1000
   ang=rnd(360)
   rad=rnd(20)
   dot 25+sin(ang)*rad,25+cos(ang)*rad
next x
`Blur smoke image
blur bitmap 1,8
get image 1,0,0,50,50
delete bitmap 1

backdrop on
color backdrop rgb(0,0,0)

`Make particles
for x=1 to numSmokeParticles
   make object plain x,10,10
   texture object x,1
   hide object x
   `Deactivate ambient light
   `REMARK FOR DBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   set object ambient x,0
   `Make black areas see through
   `REMARK FOR DBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   set object transparency x,1
   `UNREMARK FOR DBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   `set object x,1,0,1,1,1,1,0
   `Ghost particle
   ghost object on x
disable object zwrite x
next x

position camera 0,20,-50

do
   `Position new particle at origin every nth time
   inc count
   if count=2 then count=0
   if count=0
      `Increase number of particle to reset
      inc currentParticle
      `Loop round if you reach the end of the particles
      if currentParticle>numSmokeParticles then currentParticle=1
      `Reset particle values
      `Position
      smokeParticlesPos#(currentParticle,1)=0
      smokeParticlesPos#(currentParticle,2)=0
      smokeParticlesPos#(currentParticle,3)=0
      `Scale
      smokeParticlesSize#(currentParticle,1)=50
      smokeParticlesSize#(currentParticle,2)=50
      `Velocity (randomize)
      smokeParticlesVel#(currentParticle,1)=rnd(200)/1000.0-0.1
      smokeParticlesVel#(currentParticle,2)=rnd(100)/1000.0+0.1
      smokeParticlesVel#(currentParticle,3)=rnd(200)/1000.0-0.1
      smokeParticlesFade#(currentParticle,1)=200
      `Show the particle
      show object currentParticle
   endif

   `Loop through particles
   for x=1 to numSmokeParticles
      `Re-position and scale particle values
      for y=1 to 3
         smokeParticlesSize#(x,y)=smokeParticlesSize#(x,y)+0.5
         smokeParticlesPos#(x,y)=smokeParticlesPos#(x,y)+smokeParticlesVel#(x,y)
      next y
      `Fade particle value
      smokeParticlesFade#(x,1)=smokeParticlesFade#(x,1)-1.5
      `Position, scale and fade particle object
      position object x,smokeParticlesPos#(x,1),smokeParticlesPos#(x,2),smokeParticlesPos#(x,3)
      scale object x,smokeParticlesSize#(x,1),smokeParticlesSize#(x,2),100
      fade object x,smokeParticlesFade#(x,1)
      `Point at camera
      set object to camera orientation x
   next x
   sync
loop

---

@BF game programmer: Yes, i had that, too. So i added the media package. If I copy the files like that to my desktop, it loads fine.

MEDIA-MAP-terrain01.dat
MEDIA-MAP-terrain01_base.bmp
MEDIA-MAP-terrain01_detail.bmp
MEDIA-MAP-terrain01_map.bmp
MEDIA-MAP-low_terrain01.dat
MEDIA-MAP-low_terrain01_base.bmp
MEDIA-MAP-low_terrain01_detail.bmp
MEDIA-MAP-low_terrain01_map.bmp
MEDIA-MAP-TILEMAP1.jpg
mechwars.exe


Wow, this is a very nice smoke effect! I take a closer look at the code and I try to improve my explosions by that!
Thank you!!

EDIT: You gave me exactly what I was looking for! Now I attach the "particle-objects" to rockets and so on. This kicks ass!

---

STILL dosent work i might be doing it wrong ive taken them out of the folder and put them back in it with the mechwars on the desktop but it STILL dosent work tell me what im doin wrong!

---

I think the function "FILE EXISTS" doesn't function at your directory. If the MEDIA\MAP\ path in there, the demo doesn't create the files (which takes long!). If "file exists" does fail, it will not load the files! Try it maybe at your root directory

---

Great start, but I've found one problem:

The camera only rotates around the that pylon you start with. I can't move it anyway where else.

Other then that it's good, although I'd speed up the animation of that walker mech you've got, it's feet slide on the ground slightly because it isn't walking as fast as it's going.

---

@Avan Madisen: Simply move your mouse to the very left of your screen and your camera moves left... Top, right and bottom is the same.

Animation speed is not FINIAL. I code first rules and laws, then the gameplay will be adjusted! Thanx for any kind of advise

---

nice that you found it usefull are my self going to implent it to my game now.

---

I added new smoke and explosions effects! Look at the updated picture above. It's not in the demo yet. Next post I upload new demo so you can see it in action!

@Cliff 3degs network: This is the result

---

---

Woah! Where did you come from! I've never heard of you around these forums and you've got what looks like an absolutely amazing game! Downloading now!

---

@Jonny Ree; That's alot of missiles!

---

All right... got the nice particles! It's in the DEMO now! Link above is updated.

@Cliff 3degs network: Look at new starting screen. YOU'll like it

No longer! Jeeps cannot shoot anymore... They are used later to refill units and do special stuff.

---

woohoo! 2 FPS! , Oh, how i love my computer.

---

Yes, it's a HIGH-DETAIL game. The objects are not complete optimized yet and advanced terrains need fast grafix card. I had FX effects for water, too. But water is deacivated in demo for better testing. Screen resolution is fixed to 1024x768 in 32Bit colors and FPS fixed to 60.

---

yes thats much better tom.
and that snippet is yust an small sample of all great code snippets at the codebase by the gamecreators.

---

Very nice particles there...but damn they eat the fps !

---

yes i know baggers but there is alot you can do to speed up the original code.
first is probably to shorten all the particle state names for instance so that the engine dont have that much to go thru each loop.
old
smokeParticlesVel#(currentParticle,1)=rnd(200)/1000.0-0.1
new
smkPaVel#(cuPar,1)=rnd(200)/1000.0-0.1

wouldt that help a tiny bit?
iam my self an newbie still

---

hmmm dont think that will have any significant impact due to the fact that the drop is from the creation and deletion of the plains.
Things that have an impact are generaly: the number of particles, how often they are being deleted and created, how long they stay in existance etc.
What will be great is when the "exclude object" command is working as we can create all the plains to begin with, exclude them and then show and hide them when they are needed, this will increase speed a great deal.

Another way im looking at is to make use of the new vertices commands so that a trail of smoke can be one object rather than numerous ones. But thats a project for another time !

---

Some new models and grafix are ready included. Gameplay will be much better on slower machines now. Improved shoot, unit and overall collision detection.

* Unit "Helicopter" (very fast but weak, can fly over low buildings and walls)
* Building "Refinery" (earn money with goods and oil) This is not fully implemented, but your money will increase
* Code optimization to keep constant framerates

On the map is a small enemy base, waiting for a nice demonstration! I still work out the user menu and add the AI logic. So the enemy will -hopefully- discover the map and produces units.

But I like to here your feelings about it so far!

---

looks cool, but you need to change the sky.

---

holy crap, that's publishing material in the first screenshots! Keep up the awsome work!

---

Thats really impressive dude, nice work. It ran at 17 fps for me. I do have a suggestion that'll speed things up a bit... for things that use multiple plains(such as explosions) use a single object(per explosion) and multiple limbs, it is much faster.

What are you using for the terrain? If you are using your own system that uses multiple plains, then god please use a single object with the plains as limbs, you'll get so much more speed.