Battlezone Universe

New guy here with an old game, but a new one to me. I am a collector and did not have the time to play alot of the games I picked up over a long period of time. Now I have time and Battlezone is the one I am trying right now. Already fixed one problem I had, but another one is how do I go about upgrading a weapon. I was able to make the weapon, but when running my ship into it as I did with ammo and repairs, it did not take on the new weapon. Of course, I already have a full array and that may be the problem. How do I jettison one weapon for another?  thanks

well, it could be that something is wrong with the powerup ODF..

other thing is that, is the ship that drove over it a normal hovercraft with "_c" type weapons, or was it an assault unit, or a morphed unit?

if after checking that is is truly a "_c" (combat) vehicle and not "_a" (assault) vehicle. You're still having problems, then just post a ctrl-c of your POWERUP ODF (examples: apmini, applas, apmort, apchain) you get the idea  :wink:


oh yeah, welcome to the BZ2 community  :-)

Quote from: Rocket on August 09, 2009, 11:09:40 PM
well, it could be that something is wrong with the powerup ODF..

other thing is that, is the ship that drove over it a normal hovercraft with "_c" type weapons, or was it an assault unit, or a morphed unit?

if after checking that is is truly a "_c" (combat) vehicle and not "_a" (assault) vehicle. You're still having problems, then just post a ctrl-c of your POWERUP ODF (examples: apmini, applas, apmort, apchain) you get the idea  :wink:


oh yeah, welcome to the BZ2 community  :-)

WRONG GAME

@Topic

Make sure the hardpoint of the weapon you want is a hardpoint you have on your ship. Cannon, rocket, mortar, and special are the hardpoints, designated by C R M or S next to weapons in HUD. Cannon is denoted by a two pronged cannon thing, rocket is missle shaped, mortar is some kind of sideways blimp, and special is some squat thing with a flat top. Make sure your tank (has at least one of each besides rocket) can take the weapon.

Also, if you already have the weapon, it will not take.

erm... then welcome to the bz1 community...  :lol:

Quote from: Rocket on August 09, 2009, 11:47:19 PM
erm... then welcome to the bz1 community...  :lol:

Mostly knocking you for using scary ODF mod talk on someone who doesn't even know how to upgrade their weapon in stock bz1. What were you thinking  :-o

oh, i thought he was wondering how to do something else....

Quote from: bb1 on August 09, 2009, 11:45:03 PM

Make sure the hardpoint of the weapon you want is a hardpoint you have on your ship. Cannon, rocket, mortar, and special are the hardpoints, designated by C R M or S next to weapons in HUD. Cannon is denoted by a two pronged cannon thing, rocket is missle shaped, mortar is some kind of sideways blimp, and special is some squat thing with a flat top. Make sure your tank (has at least one of each besides rocket) can take the weapon.

Also, if you already have the weapon, it will not take.

Thanks for the replies. Must weapons be added in sequence. Such as an AT-Stabber before a SP-Stabber?

No.  The weapons can be added however you want.

Quote from: VSMIT on August 10, 2009, 08:50:50 PM
No.  The weapons can be added however you want.

No, that's not true, Battlezone has a weapons priority number.

Yes, but he was asking about an "upgrade" system (AT>SP, etc.)

"Must weapons be added in sequence"

Doesn't sounds like upgrading system to me. The sequence is from 0 to 10

IE:
Raves = wpnPriority = 0
At Stabbers = wpnPriority = 3
Mag Cannon = wpnPriority = 4
SP Stabbers = wpnPriority = 5
Blast Cannons = wpnPriority = 10

Quote from: Flash on August 10, 2009, 08:40:15 PMSuch as an AT-Stabber before a SP-Stabber?

That sounds like an upgrading system to me, with AT being a prerequisite on a ship before you can add/exchange for SP.

Quote from: VSMIT on August 10, 2009, 11:14:36 PM
That sounds like an upgrading system to me, with AT being a prerequisite on a ship before you can add/exchange for SP.

AT Stabbers is not a prerequisite on a ship and you don't exchange weapons in Battlezone.

A upgrading system is what Bz2 has, you can upgrade tanks with new weapons available once you have the armory and the tech center built, you get the upgraded tank at the new cost when built.

you're all nuts for coming here to listen to us babble about it.

Just do what I did, drive over each weapon and play around till u know what everything is :)

These replies are all nuts. Wepon priority? Sounds unused. As is weapon masking...no AI that I am aware of listens to it.

As far as I can tell, bz1 didn't put much code in for weapon desisions: Dual blasts on a czar when only the golem is supposed to hold it because of weight; Sasquatch with ATs when those are obviously a terrible option when tanks and others can dual wield it.

Well, the weight bit is not just the weapons, it's the ammo and hull also.  Golems are tough cookies, and all that biometal adds a lot to the mass.   :)

(oh no, it's AVATAR!  And he's talking like the game has to make SENSE!  Again!  Run away!  Run away!)

Lol...

Welcome to the greatest game ever made, Flash!  (I love your cannon, btw, at least until 1.3 gutted it.)   :wink:

BZ1 does have some weapons priority, but it tries to keep the two strongest weapons when it does take a powerup.  This is not to say it won't let you drop Minigun powerups on a Walker, hint hint...

You can drop powerups on pretty much everything, and if you've patched the game to at least 1.3 you can even drop health pods on buildings that are damaged.

Like GBD said, drive around and experiment.  In the 'Training' missions there's a map called "The Playground" which lets you do just that.  Another nice thing is the built-in editor in BZ1.  You can use that in conjunction with maps like the Playground to experiment with everything, even enemy units.

You'll get a mixed bag of weirdness hanging around here, btw, but someone will always step in and try to help if you have questions.  There are also some dedicated boards for BZ1, but be warned that only the most devout are still playing this game after so many years.   :)

-Av "we put the 'tic' in 'fanatic" atar-

Quote from: bb1 on August 11, 2009, 01:18:33 PM
These replies are all nuts. Wepon priority? Sounds unused. As is weapon masking...no AI that I am aware of listens to it.

As far as I can tell, bz1 didn't put much code in for weapon desisions: Dual blasts on a czar when only the golem is supposed to hold it because of weight; Sasquatch with ATs when those are obviously a terrible option when tanks and others can dual wield it.

I assure you bb1 weapon priority is used and so is weapons mask and the jammer too.

What does weight matter when you have bio metal? ;)

velocJam is a lie. It does not exist. GO AWAY! *Twitch*

Quote from: General BlackDragon on August 11, 2009, 09:23:59 AM
you're all nuts for coming here to listen to us babble about it.

Just do what I did, drive over each weapon and play around till u know what everything is :)

I tried that, but I could not pick it up  :?

4 types of weapons... if your ship isn't allowed to have the weapon, it will roll over it and ... make some type of noise (I've forgotten, I've had so many different sounds play over the years) just sit there.

Experiment. Things in the cannon category go in the tanks and scouts, rocket category goes in bombers and rocket tanks, special goes in almost every ship with few exceptions, and mortar goes in tanks and walkers.

Quote from: bb1 on August 12, 2009, 10:32:30 AM
velocJam is a lie. It does not exist. GO AWAY! *Twitch*

That's just a label, the jammer is set to zero, that's why if you sit still, it's like red field. velocJam is the pget label that would have let you adjust the jammer at different vehicle speeds.

So setting it to 20 on say a tank would mean radarless at full speed?

Quote from: Dx on August 11, 2009, 07:03:51 PM
What does weight matter when you have bio metal? ;)

Who mentioned weight?  I said mass...  :)

Golems could hover, and do if you thump them, but you'd be an out of control hockey puck if they did.  The legs give you control, moving an almost weightless mass of biometal.  I'd go so far as to say the legs act like the turret ground anchors, grabbing the terrain, but that might be taking things too far.

In the end biometal ignores gravity, but it doesn't ignore mass.  Biometal ships are bound by inertia the same as any other, and the massive amount used in Walkers means common controls (thrusters, repulsors) don't cut it.

Told you to run, didn't I?  :evil:

-Av-

Quote from: bb1 on August 12, 2009, 12:57:09 PM
4 types of weapons... if your ship isn't allowed to have the weapon, it will roll over it and ... make some type of noise (I've forgotten, I've had so many different sounds play over the years) just sit there.

Experiment. Things in the cannon category go in the tanks and scouts, rocket category goes in bombers and rocket tanks, special goes in almost every ship with few exceptions, and mortar goes in tanks and walkers.

Ok, so if I have 4 weapons on vehicle, can I add a fifth, or is it possible to jettison a weapon and then add another type if allowed on that vehicle?

Quote from: Avatar on August 11, 2009, 02:47:44 PM

Like GBD said, drive around and experiment.  In the 'Training' missions there's a map called "The Playground" which lets you do just that.  Another nice thing is the built-in editor in BZ1.  You can use that in conjunction with maps like the Playground to experiment with everything, even enemy units.

Hmm, I have only three missions for Training and saw no "Playground". Atleast for single player. Is it located somewhere else?

Quote from: Avatar on August 12, 2009, 02:06:59 PM
Who mentioned weight?  I said mass...  :)
Told you to run, didn't I?  :evil:

-Av-

Actually I didn't read your post, i'm refering to bb1s comment.  :-D

Flash,
"Ok, so if I have 4 weapons on vehicle, can I add a fifth, or is it possible to jettison a weapon and then add another type if allowed on that vehicle?"

Yes you can add a fifth weapon from 1 of the 4 weapon types. The weapon types allowed on a vehicle depends on the models hard points for the type of weapon.

Flash, to get to the Playground mission, you have to be in one of the training missions launch screens, and then if you click on the "Mission Archives" button in the corner you should see a mission list and "The Playground" should be in it, if I remember right. You can also launch it from a command box like an IA mission, e.g.
bzone play01.bzn /nointro

There is also a built in test mission called "inst01", however this has black terrain, needs a proper MAT and TRN file to play it properly.

You can add a weapon into the fifth slot, but need to make a custom odf and add it in there, for example at the bottom of the tanks weapon list you can add:
weaponHard5 = "GS1"
weaponName5 = "gboltmin"

you can then drop Arc Mines out of your tank.  :-D

I'm wondering if we've answered the question...  since I'm not really sure what level the question is being asked on.   That last answer was almost going into Mod territory... maybe we should get back to basics.

For a stock tank, while playing the Single Player Missions or in Multiplayer, you can add any weapon shown in the weapon slots.  Each slot has a symbol next to it that tells you what type of weapon it is, Cannon, Mortar, Rocket and Special.  You can pick up the proper powerup for each slot you have.  If you have two of a slot the game will try to keep the most powerful for you while still taking the powerup. 

For example, if you have an SP Stabber and an AT Stabber and run over a minigun it'll put it in place of the AT Stabber.  If you run over another minigun you'll end up with two miniguns.  If you run over a rocket powerup and don't have a rocket slot nothing will happen.  For weapon slots you don't have you'll just pass through the powerup, and the 'reject' noise will play.

For stock tanks you can't add another cannon, or for that matter change any of the slots.  If you want to do that you can learn to make a mod, or modded tanks, but there are issues with playing Multiplayer with modded assets so you'll want to read up on this at the fan sites.

So, in the game itself you can't 'upgrade' a slot from say, a rocket to a cannon.  You can upgrade from one weapon to another, but I'd say it's more weapons switching than upgrading.  Prior to 1.3 my favorite 'upgrade' was dropping a Flash Cannon powerup (or two, for CCA) on a Gun Tower.  Roasted things very nicely. 

I hope that pretty much answers the question.  I know at least one bumbler that played the entire SP Mission arc without ever figuring out what the Armory was for.  I can't image being without my dual SP's, especially once the Furies show up, but he did it...   

-Av-

You don't jetison a weapon... it is simply replaced by the weapon of the same type.

Don't know how much I can dumb it down from there.

GBD gave the best advice, and hopefully the Playground mission will be found and played until it's all second nature...  :)

-Av-

That playground was the most boring excuse for anything that game has to offer. AI should send sporatic flankers at least, especially to the guntowers. I wanted to watch them rip something to death fast.

Good ol' bz1. Wish I saved my box, but in my excitement of its arrival I tore the thing to shreds. That's a whole other story in itself. What fascinated me was the i76building class... AKA useless box class. Cafeteria, launch pad, shieldtower (although applause are due to dx for getting that working, even though pre placement on a map is the only viable option and I have no clue if the AI path around them... not to mention no graphic for the shield, but why would a magnetic field have a graphic anyway?) Oh well. I can't even believe I remember that classlabel, even though it was used so often there is no way I could forget.

Now I'm all worked up. Making things turret class buildings could make cafeteria and command tower useful at least.

i believe the playground mission had to be earned up, by finishing all of the NSDF missions  :wink:

so you couldn't play with all their ships before the NSDF ever got the technology to invent them.

Quote from: Rocket on August 12, 2009, 10:04:05 PM
i believe the playground mission had to be earned up, by finishing all of the NSDF missions  :wink:

so you couldn't play with all their ships before the NSDF ever got the technology to invent them.

No, you just had to do all the training missions.

you can use shieldtowers for a variety of things other than massive great ordnance deflectors. Im talking from BZ2's perspective here but shieldtower hasnt changed much since then.

i76building class is great! 'uselessbox' would have been a better classlabel name though.

The Playground mission will not show up even if you play thru all the training missions, IIRC, at least not in 1.4, but all the training missions will always show up in the mission archives, unlike in the SP list, which only shows missions you have gotten thru so far.

ShieldTower class seems not to be very useful in bz1, even tho Dx has got it working. A more useful shield would be "active" to the AI, so it would attack a shield like it was a Gun Tower or tank. Then you could use it to block deliberate attacks on your recycler, that is if the AI was smart enough to do that in the first place.  :cry: As far as some of the "i76Building" stuff goes, some of those buildings were planned as useful things but never developed - the cafeteria was supposed to enable Heavy APC-Heavy Infantry in the MUF, for example.

playground's always shown up for me :)

And its fun, atleast, I found it fun, playing around, building a massive base, destroying it while playing with different weapons. When i was like 12-14 i'd even explore the rest of the map, hide vehicles in the tops of mountians, and pretend things.

Those WERE the good times. After playing the demo missions 200 times each and  learning on go-through #134 that no matter how many turrets you place in your base on mission 2 and how badly you are annihilating the enemy as they attack your base, you STILL lose. I've figured ways to deploy the APCs countless times while also attacking the czars myself. They wouldn't have stood a chance in non-linear gameplay D-':

I wanted more... so much more. The day my BZ box came in I shredded it to bits and found the CD inside. I had to play through mission one and two again...but then it loaded 3- the Mars mission. Well, let's just say I wish I could play BZ for the first time again. Sniff.

As said, those buildings could be made useful. Give them turret class with the hardpoint on the inside as the turret spinning part, load the cafeteria with a dispensor and have it drop heavy infantry- a new base defense. Switch the command tower to gun tower and give it no spin, but a massive radar line. It still won't paint targets...but still... Plus it has inherent issues with wobbliness, unless that has been fixed even further.

It's true, the INF files give you a glimpse at what they intended for the game to become.  I used to blame Activision, but now I just figure that if the game had been a commercial success we'd have had patches that enabled it all.  That means it's the public that is clueless, Activision is just greedy...  :)

Still, what a shame it wasn't worked on until everything hinted at worked...   :-o

Now, don't you think some of the INF files were put in as jokes?  For instance, the Cafe:

CAFETERIA:
The cafeteria will help to
feed your troops better.
Upgrades all light infantry
to heavy infantry.

COST: 6
HULL: 2000

C'mon, "Feed your troops better, upgrading them to "HEAVY" infantry!".  Get it?  They'll be too fat to fit into their spacesuits!  Lol...  APC's dragging butt out onto the field...  and after all that heavy eating we now know why the Soldiers say "Ah, Fresh Air!"...    :roll:

Still, what they didn't do then we can do now.  If you want to take the INF files literally the BZ2 DLL capabilities means it can all work.  Every last INF file can be made to work exactly as they state...   For the Cafe I've played around a bit and enabling things like 'heavy' infantry means swapping out your Recy for one that produces a Factory that produces an APC that produces Heavy Soldiers, and the Factory if it already exists, and any APC's that already exist, and any Infantry that already exist.  The DLL can do this easily.

If you don't want to resort to DLL work the requirements can do something similar, you just let the Factory make two APC's, a "Light" and a "Heavy", and make the Cafe a requirement for making the Heavy.  Simple... if not exactly what the INF files says.

Shields always fascinated me, even though they were inactive, so I used one as a 'Recycler tether' (aka docking clamp) in ThoIWalk.  I have them working beautifully in BZC but not exactly as stated (yet).  They make a 'sonic fence' between the two poles that deflects missiles and ships but not energy weapons.
(can't tick off the Golems, no, no, never upset the Golems...  :| )

(http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s314/BZ-Avatar/Shields.jpg)

They don't have to go between the Solars, just have to have one nearby.  The little blue balls slide along the blue lines from one pole to the other and are actually sonic shells, deflecting enemy ships and ordnance.  Flash or Blast go right through them but everything else is deflected. 

I always thought it'd be cool if the BZ1 launch pad actually brought in troops, especially if it could drop you some reinforcements when things got tight.  There'd have to be some major advantage to having something that large sitting around...

You got me going now, didn't you???

-Av-

How do you have solar power at night?

lol

batteries

Why, Av has backup batteries under the S-Powers, of course. You don't think all that power they collect when not in use is wasted, do you? Plus, there are are probably backup cables leading to the shields from the portable nuclear reactor in the command tower...  :-D

Those are some cool shields. I made something similar for bz1, copying off of Floating Point's shields in Absolute Zero. If you make sbshield a vehicle and add 2 cannon HP to the frame, you can make an indestructable gun tower type unit and have the team 2 unit attack the team 0 unit, making an impassable beam barrier - at least until you destroy the power supply for it.

BTW, if you want something to attack you in the Playground, just leave an empty tank by the neutral barracks and wait for a pilot to get into it - it'll come right for you when you go back over.

Quote from: General BlackDragon on August 13, 2009, 06:24:38 PM
lol

batteries

LOL NO WAY!

NASA don't pack lead into the rockets. ;)

Quote from: Dx on August 13, 2009, 06:11:42 PM
How do you have solar power at night?

You only use them on planets with very long days, or that always face the sun...   :)

I see why they were used in the game but seriously, if biometal can do a Flash Cannon or Daywrecker type reaction we'd have actually used 'biometal reactors', like 'naquada reactors' were in Stargate.  (for that matter you can probably substitute 'biometal' any time you hear 'naquada' in Stargate without too much trouble...  very similar science in many ways)

-Av-

What energy are those things diverting away from firing my blast cannons?

Toast that solar power in 2 seconds and the shield tower is useless. Heh. So are all those gun towers. I guess it is another one of those "seemed like a good idea until the devs' crack wore off"



Or pepperoni pizza in Tony's case.

Well the power should be protected inside the shields.

how are you supposed to get by?

Kill the shield tower, dummy! Heh. You haven't played around with the shieldtower (hell) class yet, have you? The boundary is IMPASSABLE (utterly, it acts as a map boundary so you can not get through at all.. one way IIRC maybe not). The tower, albeit one of if not the toughest stock building, can be destroyed with concentrated firepower. It is unprotected. Except for the gun towers behind them.

In bz1, I think the only way to fire thru M-Curtain fields and a Shield-Tower type unit is with a beam weapon - flash or blast, though i can't remember if this applies to weapon fire vs. the shield tower - I only played around with this class once. Flash Cannon (stock) is now so wussified a blast cannon is your only option. With dual blasts and a supply of ammo pods you can quickly reduce such barriers to scrap, however.

I think all the powerplant options for bz1 are a bit unrealistic - they all depend on environment, and you can't always count on sunlight, or lightning or wind when you really need it. A better option would have been power stations like in bz2, BUT with some way to specifically link them to the units they are supposed to power, maybe via the smart reticle. Base takedowns would be tougher that way and you would have more flexibility in setting up defenses.

Quote from: bb1 on August 14, 2009, 03:59:13 PM
Kill the shield tower, dummy! Heh. You haven't played around with the shieldtower (hell) class yet, have you? The boundary is IMPASSABLE (utterly, it acts as a map boundary so you can not get through at all.. one way IIRC maybe not). The tower, albeit one of if not the toughest stock building, can be destroyed with concentrated firepower. It is unprotected. Except for the gun towers behind them.

you mean you have to destroy your own shield towers to get in and out of your own base?...

that's... um... ridiculous  :-P

Hopefully you aren't encompassing your base with them, you should be blocking bottlenecks or force people through certain sections of the base.

In any case, they cost 10 scrap per pair, also negating the ability to have a continuous shield wall. That gets expensive FAST; you can't just spend 10 scrap for the first two, then 5 5 5 to build a wall, it is 10 per fence and we don't have enough info to see how far away the shield barrior stays effective.

50 meters in each direction but you can customize it.

Well, the INF file leads me to believe you'd win the game if you could get a tower at each side of a flat map...  there's no limit mentioned for how far away the second tower could be, just how close to a PS each tower had to be.  I assume the game simply wouldn't let you build one beyond a certain range to keep it real.  Then there's the issue of angles, so maybe the game wouldn't let you build them in anything but a straight line.  Then there's terrain height, so maybe the game wouldn't let you build them on different heights...

So yeah, they were troublesome and left for the last, or working but not the way the Dev team wanted...

The BZC version is a pair as one build just to work around all of those issues listed above.

As to getting in/out it only affects enemies.  BZ2's teamfilters make it invisible to your own side, both ships and weapons.

And yes, just blast the tower, or the PS, or mortar over it.  The lines have a fairly tight range so a mortar can go over, or the tower hit by careful shots.  You don't want them too powerful, just a sort of a flat MCurtain.

-Av-

Yeah, I would guess that getting the area to be shielded down properly is what left the devs scratching their heads and caused shields to be left out of bz1. Plus you would have to extensively mod the AI to effectively counter them and get thru... Just a line of custom M-Curtains is enough to completely guard a base, the AI can't deal with it. Only fighters seem to attack mine-class objects, and they don't do very well at it either.

Now I can see the shield operators letting vehicles through, but not ordanace...it should deflect weapon fire in totale. I wouldn't want the shields to go down at other times.

/real

Quote from: bb1 on August 12, 2009, 06:37:29 PM
You don't jetison a weapon... it is simply replaced by the weapon of the same type.

Don't know how much I can dumb it down from there.

(Sorry it took me a while to get back. We lost a family pet we rescued 14 years ago, just before my wife and I got married. Very emotional for the family, me included. He was sure a good dog. R.I.P Scooter. )

Actually that was pretty good.  :-D
I found I was in the wrong vehicle and it would not accept the ST Stabber. I finally made it off the Planet Mars and now am trying to enter the base and take out the Radar Aray. I have tried two approaches, staying with original vehicle and launching Hornet Rockets but even with a lock, I cannot take out the gun towers.  :?
I also tried switching from the Rocket Tank to the regular tank and going in (I think) between 6 and 8 o'clock only to be cut down by the gun towers. Any suggestions for the old guy??

Depending on how new you are to BZ... I would say rush in and kill the lightning power with linked weapons. Thumper will choke the stock gun towers because of a glitch.

Fly up the hill next to the base and land on the side behind the L power (not sure if it has more health than a solar power) and it should go down quickly. This will turn the gun towers off.

Otherwise, get to the hill where the scout tells you to eject and proceed. Inside the base, there is an empty APC. You can get in that and use the deploy key (default K) when near gun towers or just near the radar array in general. Snipe the other one or find an empty ship to use and join the party.


-----Off Topic----

Was it ever decided on how the pilots deployed from a stolen APC become yours?

Heh heh... having CCA soldiers automatically defect to you when you steal an APC is always funny... they should have found a way to switch the pilot type when team switches though, IMO.

Flash... the CCA outpost is surrounded by a wall and there is supposed to be a script in which a scout in the hills tells you to eject into the base, but this part of the code can be buggy and won't always tell you what to do. Anyway, bail out of your tank next to the wall at the BACK of the outpost. Float in and you should see some empty vehicles - 2 tanks, a fighter and an APC, plus there is more stuff in there too, like a tug and so on.. ignore these for now and get into a tank. Once you start shooting stuff an alarm will go off and pilots will come out of the barracks - if you want to keep the extra vehicles for yourself zip back over there and kill the pilots/soldiers after popping a shot or 2 at the radar array. Now... first thing is to blow up those 2 turrets by the barracks that become active at the alarm, Hunt and kill any pilots that eject. Next zip along the wall and come up behind the L-Power so the Gun towers can't shoot at you. kill the L-Power to neutralize the Gun Towers. Next, go back and destroy the extra stuff in the outpost (tug, constructor, etc.) BEFORE you kill the radar array. Ditch the tank and switch to the extra when ammo runs low, you may have more fighters and turrets come in while you are doing this, kill them also. There are some ammo/repairs by the crates you can use also. Finally, blow up the radar array. Your Recycler and Factory will then spawn nearby. Now the neat part is since you have cleared out the outpost you can bring all your units inside and set up a pretty much invulnerable defensive position. Deploy your stuff on the geysers and clear out the remaining stuff (dead gun towers, barracks, etc.), set up turrets near the base entrance with tanks following them and you are all set, all you have to do then is go take out the CCA recycler to win.

I totally did not know there were geysers in that outpost.

You really went through all that trouble? I got in the APC and hit K and the base was levelled. The AI isn't fond of shooting pilots.

the scout never told me to eject... all i heard was yeehaw! and then he exploded :?

i thought it was a glitch and i finally made it over the wall.

There's a lot of touchy things in that game.

Remember that one mission where the golems show up on venus? After the Golem killed the recy on a certain run through, I was going to attack the CCA base... only for 2 APCs to spawn tasked to the gun towers. Collins came on saying how Eldrige's APCs were joining the attack and targetting the gun towers... even though the Colorado is dead...

I'm not sure if leftover bad code from another build got triggered somehow, but on my looks through the ZFS I could not find the voiceovers I heard that time in the mission. Maybe I was hallucinating while playing BZ, but I'm pretty sure it was real.

The APC guys won't hit everything in the outpost as the GTs are too far away for them to see if you eject them in the back... best to save the APC if more company shows up while you are blowing up everything else with a tank...  :lol:

I looked at the mission code for that first Venus mission... it looks like you have to do some things in a certain order for the Scout script to play out just right, otherwise, it won't happen. There's some unused code in there too... apparently the devs intended for you to find a test range and get into it with an experimental CCA tank (remember the wierd CCA tank that fires purple MAG balls? It was used in Bridges IA map.)

Flash, let us know if you need help on the last Venus mission... I remember figuring out how to beat that gave me a huge headache...  :-)

Oh- the one with the navdrop reticle and fully charged mags? That weapon was pure evil.

Also, is there anything in the code for the map with Colorado base to allow eldrige APCs to deploy? I want to know if I was imagining things or not.

Hmm, not that I can see. Are you sure you didn't just hit the "R" button early on and just play the initial wav file over again?

There is some code that will cause extra attacks on you if you try to get to the Colorado base early on.

I hate that so bad. I hacked a ship to fly uber speed and kill the golem in one hit and that recy still dies. So linear.

actually i was able to drive and save the colorado with my grizzly...

and of course the script killed it afterward  :-P

Yeah, there is not much flexibility in the game scripts, they will chug along even when you try to play "out of the box" mostly, this is to "bulletproof" the missions and keep them from hanging when the player tries something strange.

One hangup I found - on the second Mars mission (at the volcano) the CCA recycler is off the map, but not TOO far off. I had a really souped up Scout available with a huge radar scan and some REALLY long range heatseeker missiles, and just for fun I put it in the recycler odf and used it to blow up the entire off-the-map CCA base. The CO then said, "General, Grizzly One has destroyed the CCA recycler!" After that nothing happened - the bombers never showed and the mission never ended, lol.

Quote from: bb1 on August 20, 2009, 01:08:46 PM
There's a lot of touchy things in that game.

Remember that one mission where the golems show up on venus? After the Golem killed the recy on a certain run through, I was going to attack the CCA base... only for 2 APCs to spawn tasked to the gun towers. Collins came on saying how Eldrige's APCs were joining the attack and targetting the gun towers... even though the Colorado is dead...

I'm not sure if leftover bad code from another build got triggered somehow, but on my looks through the ZFS I could not find the voiceovers I heard that time in the mission. Maybe I was hallucinating while playing BZ, but I'm pretty sure it was real.

That would be quite strange...

As for the radar array mission, I usually meet up with the two tanks at the nav point, he says look at the camera, I do..   Then we have two fighters which I kill.  Then I go to front entrance and get shot at by the two gun towers.... once I'm hit I get another voice over about the "front door being locked up tight".  A little after that came the Razor1 reporting, I've worked my way up to a cliff where I think we can eject into the base from here.  He ejected... but I rather like to keep my grizzly which I switched with back at the nav and therefore I just had my tank climb the wall.

Quote from: ssuser on August 23, 2009, 12:24:27 AM
Yeah, there is not much flexibility in the game scripts, they will chug along even when you try to play "out of the box" mostly, this is to "bulletproof" the missions and keep them from hanging when the player tries something strange.

One hangup I found - on the second Mars mission (at the volcano) the CCA recycler is off the map, but not TOO far off. I had a really souped up Scout available with a huge radar scan and some REALLY long range heatseeker missiles, and just for fun I put it in the recycler odf and used it to blow up the entire off-the-map CCA base. The CO then said, "General, Grizzly One has destroyed the CCA recycler!" After that nothing happened - the bombers never showed and the mission never ended, lol.

I love little snippets like that. Easter eggs I guess.

Even in the stock mission you can just send your AI in to wipe out that base...  it's only defended by what? four Turrets?

The Mars volcano mission was about the most touchy, right behind identifying the starport buildings...   there was always a turret lost in the ravines that hung the mission up.  I also found that even if you go to the volcano and then run like a dog the CCA just go and sit in the crater.  After that you can toast them easily...

***

Quote from: ssuser on August 20, 2009, 05:25:28 PM
I looked at the mission code for that first Venus mission...

*blink* *blink*

You can read the mission scripts?  I think I need to fire Dx, with real fire maybe... 

Obviously this interests me, as I strive to make the BZC missions as close to the originals as I can...   I thought they were part of the engine?

In an unusual burst of greed I have to ask if there's any way to get an outline of the mission scripts?  To see if I have things nailed as well as I hope I do...

-Av-

Anything you do with those mission scripts probably surpasses the bolt and nail the original had.

I for one would like Eldrige to be a condition, but still the assets don't exist for it to survive and you aren't really supposed to know about the golems showing up...

I could probably hack a VO into saying "Eldrige will send apcs to fight the CCA base"

Hush!!

If GBD hears you, he will crush us all like a... crushy thing.

You must not make anything in BZC different to the original!!

Quote from: Avatar on August 23, 2009, 05:55:57 PM
Obviously this interests me, as I strive to make the BZC missions as close to the originals as I can...   I thought they were part of the engine?

In an unusual burst of greed I have to ask if there's any way to get an outline of the mission scripts? 
-Av-

Yes they are compiled as part of the engine in the misn****.cpp files.
I didn't want to outline the missions cause it would take too long but i decided on recording all the single player missions so i can go back and look at the tricks that was used. Will help me a lot when i try and make new missions. :)
Besides, i fixed several bugs while going through the recordings.

Quote from: bb1 on August 23, 2009, 07:38:57 PM
Anything you do with those mission scripts probably surpasses the bolt and nail the original had.

I for one would like Eldrige to be a condition, but still the assets don't exist for it to survive and you aren't really supposed to know about the golems showing up...

I could probably hack a VO into saying "Eldrige will send apcs to fight the CCA base"

The golems are already on the map when you start, in fact there is code to deal with them if you run over by the CCA base and meet up with them early on, try it, when you get close Simmons will say, " I'm picking up something BIG on your radar, Commander!"

That mission is actually kind of wishy washy, as only 3 Golems will come at you during the whole mission, and the rest of the CCA attacks leave something to be desired also. Be nice to have more Walkers rolling in on you. One thing that would be good is to have survivors from the Colorado come running back to help you out with reinforcements. As it is, the Colorado is just a team 3 recycler that you watch get blown up via a nav beacon. Sometimes a pilot will eject from it and if you go over there later you can watch as one of your "own" pilots tries to take you down with a plasma rifle. maybe he is upset that no one came to get him when the Colorado blew up, lol.

Ya one thing i was thinking of doing is setting trigers all over the map, no matter where you go, you'll come under attack. I like missions that let you use the whole map not just the path you're told to take.

Maybe you could make the mission scripts compile to DLL and make BZE load the DLLs? Then make a quick base so ppl can make their own mission scripts and compile them.

We've been over this countless times: not going to happen.

Quote from: bb1 on August 24, 2009, 09:45:18 PM
We've been over this countless times: not going to happen.

Really? Never noticed. I've never found much of anything said about BZE before, so I would have no idea if it was ever said before, since it was not said here. EVER.

I mean, I don't know about this case, but in my experience in two situations converting my code to use external files when it used to be hard coded was nothing more than mapping out a plan and taking the time to do it. Those were not compiled DLLs but all the same I don't have the most experience.

Bet OM could do it, if he ever had time and wanted to.

Oh. It has been requested at BZC and OC and sector zero many many times, each dismissed as too much work not enough pay off or just not possible on the engine, or some combination of each. I'm not totally sure on the reason.

Indeed, there are too few programming modders to justify the payback.

Yes, I think that would be the best option, recode the game to be able to pick up and load a compiled dll, I don't think much could be effectively added by tweaking the instant action code module as it stands - there just isn't much you could do with it without tying into a LOT of complexity in a big hurry.

In order for ppl to use it someone would also have to build a utility like the DLL Scripter for bz2 as well, if they expected any good IA missions to be authored - I don't believe anyone is going to sit down and write 20-30 KB of C++ code for one IA mission.

I think this would be doable, as Brad Pickering said awhile back that is one thing he would have liked to do with the bz1 code, along with having the game read assets straight out of ZIP files, which would be convenient.

Dx, that brings another question to mind I was meaning to ask you at some point. I know you are limited in how many assets you can stuff into the zfs as you have had to remove some things along the way. But - what if there were a way to have multiple asset loads for the game? By which i mean you could have several sets of assets that could be selected from the shell when first starting the game, and you would then have access to a specific set for IA, DM and strat for the duration of the session. In this way you could have a classic stock asset version, the BZE version, maybe a TRO version, and so on. In this way one game (BZE) would allow for the creation of all kinds of mods using all races and so on depending on which set you were working with. I don't know how practical this would be and it would obviously increase the size of the game considerably, but you could have the different asset packs set up as separate downloads so people could grab what they wanted as needed.

If dll's get made it's not up to me, as i don't know how to do it. Not sure what bb1 is going on about. It's not like Bz has coders jumping out of the wood work to help work on bz code. No one is really interested but the hackers.

Ssuser BzE is striped down because the stock sp mission assets are removed. Adding to the zfs is not a problem, (now that i have the code) i added to memory.
But with the game turning into bloatware, how would i find and fix problems with soo much more that could be the problem, too much to back track. I want to keep it small and simple for now.

As for what Brad wanted to do... i would rather have the game secure from hackers than have it fully open and have hacks.

Ah, I see, so it could be done. I can see your point about keeping it simple though, and there are not many who would work on code now, as you point out. Still an intriguing idea though.

Quote from: ssuser on August 23, 2009, 12:24:27 AM
Yeah, there is not much flexibility in the game scripts, they will chug along even when you try to play "out of the box" mostly, this is to "bulletproof" the missions and keep them from hanging when the player tries something strange.

One hangup I found - on the second Mars mission (at the volcano) the CCA recycler is off the map, but not TOO far off. I had a really souped up Scout available with a huge radar scan and some REALLY long range heatseeker missiles, and just for fun I put it in the recycler odf and used it to blow up the entire off-the-map CCA base. The CO then said, "General, Grizzly One has destroyed the CCA recycler!" After that nothing happened - the bombers never showed and the mission never ended, lol.

That's interesting... I destroyed the recycler once with splinter mortars that fired rocket bombs... but couldn't find a way to get rockets over there.  Despite tripling shotspeed and lifespan, my hornets die out before they make the 900 distance to the factory.  I never was good at editing odf files though, so perhaps I was missing something.

An insanely fast firing tracer of enormous damage that fires 1e-6 with a .001 fire rate WILL hit it.

Of consequence, I theorize a weapon with ammo cost 0 and shot delay 0 will crash the game when fired, if not when the game is launched with the weapon in place. Not sure, I just thought it was interesting but never tried it out.

Vid - since they were heatseekers they may have just dipped down and hit the geyser between the legs of the factory - that is a unit you have to get just the right angle on, and heatseekers go nuts for the huge heat sig of geysers. Also, if you set the coneAngle too wide, they will fly off and go for things you weren't aiming at. Rocket bombs from splinters... lol. You should have put the rave balls in - they are prettier.  :-D

bb1, you should try the zero-delay gun and report back to us. One thing I know that will crash the game is if you set the radar scan range to zero - I have tried this.

Sounds like a divide by zero float crash thingy.

They actually looked like they were disappearing, like any shot that went 600m out of my range disappeared or something.  However I'll try again with imagemsl. 

*cough*DAYWRECKER*cough*

My ramblings:

I've tried very hard to outline all of the different things that can happen in the original missions, but it's impossible to get them all...   

I've tried hard to NOT fix everything, as some of the odd things that happen are cool, like Flying Furies pushing Fury Tanks into view at lightspeed.  (last mission did this to me, very startling...)

In that mission I think they say "I'm picking up something BIG on your radar" when you get close to the first Golem, no matter where it is.   They also barely attack, and when they do dual SP's and a small hill are all you need, or a Splinter.   It's also the only mission where I've had Golems shoot me with poppers when they die.  Not sure how/why that happens and it seems like it only happens in unpatched play...

Eldridge and friends running over to your base...  very cool idea that I'm stealing as I type...  :)

I've used the HARD difficulty setting in BZC to release my inner demons...  things are fixed, more attacks, bases rebuild themselves, the player is targeted, all while trying to keep things roughly the same.  By that I mean no Golems in earlier missions, no waves of Furies or Rave Tanks.  Just more attackers, varied groups, and from random directions.

Quote from: ssuser on August 25, 2009, 04:07:57 AM
Yes, I think that would be the best option, recode the game to be able to pick up and load a compiled dll,

*cough*BZC*cough*   Seriously, while I love the BZ1 physics and feel, and grudgingly admit that BZ2 (so far) can't seem to capture that magic, I do think the move to another engine is worth it just for the DLL/Scriptor capabilities alone.  That's without mentioning the effects system, the smarter AI (no Scav Traps!!!) and the new classes (aircraft!  assault hover! morphing!).

-Av-

Quote from: ssuser on August 26, 2009, 10:36:57 AM
Vid - since they were heatseekers they may have just dipped down and hit the geyser between the legs of the factory - that is a unit you have to get just the right angle on, and heatseekers go nuts for the huge heat sig of geysers. Also, if you set the coneAngle too wide, they will fly off and go for things you weren't aiming at. Rocket bombs from splinters... lol. You should have put the rave balls in - they are prettier.  :-D

bb1, you should try the zero-delay gun and report back to us. One thing I know that will crash the game is if you set the radar scan range to zero - I have tried this.

I upped the ammo so it would make one full turn of rocket bombs... its scary to lay a mits mine, fire 4 splinters into it, then leave the soon to be nuked area.  I supercharged shadower the same way I did hornet and they worked on the factory/recycler, so I'm thinking you were right and the hornets were hitting geysers.

It's fun to put all sorts of things on splinters....   rave shots, Mag full charge shots, sp stabs, rocket bombs(duck or you'll be nuked), regular mortars(ground nuke), and popguns(30-40 of these from a  splinter = dead enemy in an instant).

I keep a stock addon folder for when I'm not playing around.

Vid, missile flares will disappear after they get far enough away, not sure what the actual range for that is. To get a sure kill, try adding mega splash damage to your custom Hornets (look at the rocket bomb odf for ideas), this will  really increase their killing power.

Av, Dx sent me a zip containing just the single player and IA mission code a while back when we were trying to figure out how to improve upon the default instant action code - it does contain some useful info on the hidden/unused stuff in the missions. I can't post it up since it's proprietary code and I will respect Dx's wishes on keeping this stuff secret, but I bet if you ask him real nice he would send you the zip, or I can send it if he gives permission in a subsequent post.

I would love to see some of the unused stuff implemented for BZC - for example, the search for the CCA test range and the run thru the mines and encounter with the CCA experimental tank on the first Venus mission. I don't know where this would go on the map though.

The Walkers firing the poppers is mission specific and based on a weaponMask change right in the C++ code - that's why you never see them doing it in any other map.

I always try to use my MDM mortar for knocking out Walkers - it is pretty effective once you practice the technique, and you can engage them this way starting at about 250 meters on relatively flat ground, or if you have MAG Cannons, these are also very effective. Gotta keep away from them Blast Cannons...  :-D

What I never understood was that scrap level where you needed like 5 silos or something. The mission could have also been the one here you get a CCA APC and tank at Bravo Nav (start in bomber with sandbag) not sure if these are one in the same anymore. Anyway-

There is a point in the map that if you fly by some object, Blum (can't remember his character) says WHOA, stay back...you don't want to upset that thing. Collins agrees, but I can destroy it or move near it and nothing different or unexpected happens in the mission. What does it do?

I think you just had to collect 75 units of scrap in that mission.  There are 4? static furies in that mission, and you randomly get hit by flying furies if memory serves.  Theres a small hangar/fieldhq with a non-working gun tower, and you get 2 CCA tanks and an APC at the start.

Supposedly I think that is supposed to be a fury factory... or where they come out.  However as you said, there seems to be no penalty in destroying and the furies still come out if memory serves.

The building you are thinking of is the Tartarus Prison - ubtart.odf. All that happens when you go near it is General Collins warns you to stay away, nothing else. I'm assuming that something else they didn't have time to finish, as I recall, there is a warning about activating a defense grid when you ID it. Maybe for BZC Avatar could make it spawn 4 furies next to you when you go near it the next time, and General Collins could cuss you out: "God Da** it, Grizzly One, you've really done it this time!" and then you could be treated to a cutscene in which a blizzard of Furies destroys your recycler.  :-D

Or, for a kindler, gentler mission, just double the Fury activity after that.  8-)

Tartarus is, in Greek mythology, where the Titans were imprisoned.

So of course I have plans for it in BZC...      :evil:    Now, once BZC is out I have several plans, in no particular order:

Do the same thing for TRO.

Do an 'extended campaign' for BZ1, fleshing out the missions, adding side missions, enhancing effects (ala BZ2 type effects) and branching off into the 'inbetween years' up to where Braddock establishes Pluto Base and the Scions are born.   I've written a bit along those lines in 'Uncle Avatar's Storytime'.

Do the Ancients Campaign.

Which one I do first depends on my mood, but I'm leaning towards the Ancients as I have them pretty fully fleshed out and, of course, they did come first...  that would also let me do a few things that would echo into the BZ1 extended campaign.

TRO I'm not really looking forward to as the missions were very hard, and it won't be easy for me to play through them 1000x like I have during the BZ1 missions development.  OTOH I can just cheat my way through them so maybe it won't be that bad.   ("Hmmm, OK, four Golems spawn there...  editor delete...   next!")   :-P

-Av-

Adding in some side missions and fleshing out BZ1 sounds like a cool idea. There is so much stuff that went unused. For example, you never see those Hydra units - I'd like to see a better Io campaign, where you actually get into Lerna and see its ruins - I think they truncated the Io missions because the darn AI loves to go swimming in the lava so much.  :-D

The Havoc Cannon never makes an appearance - that would be fun to try out.

Also, there is the American Fury - I did put that into the Shrieking Eagles campaign, I'd love to see a storyline with mission following these guys out to Pluto. Strange that it never made it into the SP missions.

I don't know were you get the American Fury mesh since the vdf is just HPs.

Don't forget about ROTBD Avatar :-P.

Quote from: ssuser on August 27, 2009, 10:56:54 PM
I think they truncated the Io missions because the darn AI loves to go swimming in the lava so much.  :-D

Funny how in BZ2 the units don't spend as much time in the lava, but they do get attracted to buildings like magnets and can't ever seem to get free from inside a gun tower... well at least treaded units.  They tried to fix one thing, and another broke :)

There was an American Fury in BZ1?  Or do you just mean hypothetically since Americans also worked on the same technology, they must have made one too.

An unused texture/model. For sure texture, not sure model.

Havoc cannon was the one that made you spin out of control, wasn't it? I remember in an IA map I played, that's how they did the Havoc. Totally fried the controls. They never worked MAS Grenade into the campaign; it was more likely designed as a harrassment weapon in strat because of the complete nonsense in a campaign that an NSDF vehicle would turn and start shooting everything it owns just because of a radar glitch.

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 28, 2009, 12:24:36 AM
Don't forget about ROTBD Avatar :-P.

Ack...  EDIT!  I need an EDIT here!   :)

***

I have all of the unused models found in BZ1 working in BZ2.  Everything from the Comet to the Popgun is there, larger than life.   :)   The Havoc Cannon in BZC grabs you and tosses you around a lot, but it uses the omegakick values that I believe cause issues in MP.  If so it'll be an SP item only...  it's more annoying than anything but it does tie up one unit at a time such that they can't hit anything.

***

I think any storyline starts out as an outline and changes as the missions are created and actually played.  This is exactly how movies go together, and why later on you usually see a 'Directors Cut' that includes everything that ended up cut from the release version.

So, we need to do a Director's cut for BZ1...  right?  :)

-Av-

Yep bb1, the texture was full, the American Fury model was just an invisible piece. But the texture fits perfectly on the standard Hadean sav if you just change the parts to the new skin. I made some Havoc Cannon mines for Hard Case - maybe that's the map you are thinking of. I basically made a reversed Sandbag that would make your controls super sensitive - you would spin around uncontrollably when you tried to move. I found that for player use you had to make this weapon fire only in the interval of the effect - if you hit a unit with multiple shots otherwise it would spin faster and faster until the game crashed.

Av, I've made a few working relic models myself for BZ1 since Dummy released his VDF editor - nasty Flash Cannon relics and Pop Guns that drop full rockets on you - ouch. Do you have the Comet relic files? I think they are found only in the bz1 demo - I don't see GEOs anywhere in BZ1, not in 1.4, anyway.

What's the name on it, i'll check the beta assets.
I never looked for a american fury skin...

The comet name? It's obcmmi.odf - has no associated SDF file or GEOs in normal BZ, as far as I can tell.

It would be useful to have - imagine an IA map in which comets are launched at you from 400m out whenever you get near the enemy base...

I think the fury skin is avsav00.map - It too is an incomplete unit, appears in the game as an almost invisible 2d polygon. You can drive it though, if you alter the bzn file. BS'er used it as a trigger in his mission Recovery, IIRC.

i remember asking dx for obcmmi he never found it?

obcmmi.sdf i found in the bzone.zfs assets, the geo is Ahcc1bda.geo which isn't there.

Name:         Comet Missile
Class:         Radar Guided Missile
Constructed By:      Olympian Council
Date of Construction:   3241 NR
Engineer:      Paternus
Information:

A highly accurate radar guided smart missile
engineered by Olympian scientist Paternus in
the year 3241 NR. First used during the
assault of the Hadean city Argus where an
estimated 2,000,000 Hadeans were killed. 
Paternus was profoundly saddened by such a
staggering loss of life and vowed never to
produce such a weapon again." 


[GameObjectClass]
classLabel = "i76building"
scrapCost = 0
scrapValue = 0
maxHealth = 7000
maxAmmo = 0
unitName = "Comet"

2 million? Wow, that's something... NSDF really screwed up when they replicated that missle; it kills at most a tank or something.

Who said they only fired 1 comet?  Besides the outrageous ammo usage restricting it to 1-2 comets for a whole full tank of ammo.

Build four Supply Bldgs, hop in a Bomber and sit in the middle of the Supply Bldgs, target and fire, target and fire...    :evil:

Comets will lock in on the previous comet, making a conga line into an enemy base...

http://www.bz2md.com/smf/index.php?topic=1176.msg12533#msg12533

Quote from: ssuser on August 28, 2009, 11:05:26 PM
Do you have the Comet relic files? I think they are found only in the bz1 demo - I don't see GEOs anywhere in BZ1, not in 1.4, anyway.

There actually is a model?  I made my own from some of the other Olympian buildings but if there actually is one I'd love to see a shot of it...  I made a comet, too, but was never really happy with it...

-Av-

i was just thinking.. what were the fury tanks for anyway? i mean, the flying ones were much more effective.... and i just thought, maybe the fury tanks were the ones that planted the arc mines that were always lying around.... were the furies the ones that made those mines?

Fury tanks must have utilized less resources, especially where the "flight drive" is involved. The flying furies also have a 200 forward velocity, which must have also taken much scrap to achieve.

I think a better question is: how did a bunch of flying ships with no arms or legs build a rocket to escape into space?

With a constructor.

Dx - knew there was something missing, guess the sdf is there but not the GEO - I remember trying to place the Comet relic on the map during my early days of experimenting and having the game crash instantly.

Av, I have a picture of the Comet relic - can't remember if it is one you sent me - kind of reminiscent of a bird? I thought Killer Instinct had told me he had pulled the Comet files out of the BZ1 demo - he got some strange looking repair pods too - I may be misremembering though.

2 million dead - for that I would think the comet should have the explosion radius of the Day Wrecker missile, lol.

Fury tanks never drop Arc Mines, I think they are just in to add variety - they are not very dangerous and easy to kill. The mines are just set in place on Titan and Achilles - on Mars though, they are spawned objects, notice if you kill some of them they will reappear later to zap your scavs when they get to a couple of spots on the map.

Quote from: bb1 on August 30, 2009, 10:54:05 PM
Fury tanks must have utilized less resources, especially where the "flight drive" is involved. The flying furies also have a 200 forward velocity, which must have also taken much scrap to achieve.

I think a better question is: how did a bunch of flying ships with no arms or legs build a rocket to escape into space?

Granted it may be my newbie-ness when it comes to editing odfs, but.. I've put some custom tanks in, and gave them very high velocities.  Still, nothing I can make so far is able to keep up with a flying fury when it wants to get across the map in a hurry.  Even with 400 or 500 velocity, they toast me easily.

Quote from: ssuser on August 31, 2009, 03:25:04 AM
Av, I have a picture of the Comet relic - can't remember if it is one you sent me - kind of reminiscent of a bird?

If you're refrerring to looking like a hawk's head, that was the Red Field relic.

Somehow, they act as pilotless ships and belong to another set of physics than the ones of a piloted ship. Imagine an empty ship with infinite acceleration.

Hell, I don't know, I'm speculating.

General BlackDragon, the comet picture I have is a much bigger head than what is on the Redfield and also much more elongated - totally different relic. That redfield relic is nice looking though, for an Olympian relic.

Furies almost seem to teleport across maps - it's curious the way they appear and disappear on radar also. Other strange characteristics they have is the ability to travel THROUGH terrain, and zap pilots on the ground with an invisible death ray. They also blow up whenever they go off the map edge.

I think the Fury Tanks should have been MUCH harder to kill, given how slow they are AND seeing as how most non-hovering biometal units (walkers) are explained as having too much armor to hover...    I have some theories on that, though...

Now, the Fury chunk from Io is a tail piece of the exact same Fury we end up building.  This could be the result of us following the plans pretty much exactly as the Hadeans wrote them, or the inherent 'memory' that biometal has (feed it? watch it regrow the missing pieces?)  or it could be that the Dev team never got around to making a different model for it...  :)  I like to think we followed the plans, slapped a coat of paint on it, and ended up with exactly the same thing as the Ancients.

The fact that the CCA Fury Hovertank is so lame makes me think that we might not have gotten it totally right, though...
Some observations and deductions: 

Furies are created from the biometal vehicles a race creates, so they start out as not much more than a smart version of the original tank.  They don't stay that way, though, as we find in the BZ1 SP campaign.  Originally weak, the Furies were later described as having found a way to make their skin invulnerable to our weapons.  This implies that they can alter their own makeup.

Quote from: bb1 on August 30, 2009, 10:54:05 PM
I think a better question is: how did a bunch of flying ships with no arms or legs build a rocket to escape into space?

Good question... to add to it there's the CCA Hangar they used as a Fury Production Facility.  This implies that the Furies can alter themselves or each other as well as OUR buildings (upgrade?) which could also mean they can create their own buildings as well.   This gives us Furies that can act as a Constructor.  Since we only saw the two types we either didn't see the Fury Constructor or that function can be done by one of the two types we saw...

There's also the change they undergo, ditching the original paint job for the same color scheme the original Hadean Furies had.  Both the ability to change our technology and themselves seems to indicate some sort of racial memory...  or a really fast learning curve.

Finally, we have the fact that while they seem to be all doing their own thing there are instances of coordinated moves.  I've seen the Flyers pushing the Tanks across the map, and groups of four or five Flyers descending on my base the moment I get far away or near an objective (oh for crying out loud YES I know the Devs scripted it that way, give me a break here... :) ).  This implies they cooperate and can communicate.

Enough observations and deductions, time for speculating...   

I propose that along with racial memory, Furies have a hive intellect.  Each unit is semi-autonomous, but part of a collective whole.  What one knows they all know, and there's no need for communicating when there's one mind.

I like to think that the Scions achieved a mild form of this when converted, also... 

I propose that each Fury can alter themselves and other buildings in a way similar to the BZ2 'upgrade' process.  This isn't the same as creating a new unit or building, it's just rearranging something that already exists and can be done without huge scrap stores.  This is important as we haven't seen the rest of the biometal food chain (Scavs, Extractors, Silos, Production Units) so they may not exist.

I propose that to create a new unit or building a Fury must alter itself or another unit into the new one.  I'd further propose that multiple Furies could join together this way into single, larger units.

This means that the Fury Tanks were originally Fury Flyers that 'upgraded', or were created from a converted building like the Hangar on Titan.

That means the same for the Fury Transport, or that it was made from the bodies of multiple 'upgraded' Furies who merged and formed the Transport.  I find that a very cool concept...

This sort of 'upgrading' ability fits in well with the biometal developments shown in BZ2, and means that the longer the Furies were around the more variety of form we'd see and the stronger they'd get.  Who knows what they might eventually evolve into, or how strong they'd get?

Good thing we took them out early...  :)

Quote from: ssuser on August 31, 2009, 11:47:42 AM
Av, I have a picture of the Comet relic - can't remember if it is one you sent me - kind of reminiscent of a bird? I thought Killer Instinct had told me he had pulled the Comet files out of the BZ1 demo - he got some strange looking repair pods too - I may be misremembering though.

General BlackDragon, the comet picture I have is a much bigger head than what is on the Redfield and also much more elongated - totally different relic. That redfield relic is nice looking though, for an Olympian relic.

That rings a bell about KI, wonder if that's where I got the design?  It is the head of the Redfield on a much smaller base...  like I said, it never really worked like I wanted, which was sort of a "Pez comet dispenser).  :)   I wanted the head to move up and drop a comet, but could never get the recoil to work right...

-Av-

So DX, how does the game make SAV go SO fast? Is it just because of the AI process?

---

The 1.3CP really should put an easter egg in a mission which when you I key it, you get "Grizzly 1 Meteor" :D

Quote from: Avatar on August 31, 2009, 03:22:11 PMWho knows what they might eventually evolve into, or how strong they'd get?

Good thing we took them out early...  :)

You've shown us we haven't.
(http://www.bzcomplex.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:FilePath&file=Bz2classic_unit_furywalker.jpg)

that pilot wouldn't last long...  :-o

put this in orbit and he wont even need "long"

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/Myrodin/furymothership.png)

A fury "mothership" of my own design. :) Featuring a continious bolt cannon, duel smart wasps, and an elliptical force shield. I even thought about increasing the size and replacing the wasps with fury flyer dispensers.  :evil:

I find it interesting that you found a way to make the shield an oval shape...

I like the ship.. kinda hard to distinguish the shape though, with the black background...

Pressure finally get to you to EXPLODE the secret, eh? I've read this and now I will never have the WTFFFFSPLOSION moment if I hadn't known it was coming :(

Those walkers look like they'd have messy animations. If not, I applaud you.

Eeeeee, those new Fury things make my skin crawl! I'm flashing back to "War of the Worlds". The ship is freaky too, but it's also kind of... pretty, the way a mud dauber wasp or a coral snake might be.

I believe we never saw much of what the Furies were and could build simply because the devs didn't have time to get very much into it. I would say that a Fury would be able to detach parts of itself and these subcomponents would be able to build and manipulate objects that a full blown combat Fury could not. I also think that Furies would be able to morph themselves into the various vehicles needed -  scavenger types, defensive turret emplacements, and so on, though we never see them. The tanks could morph into fliers too, I presume, given time and material. I agree with Av that the fury tank should have been a tougher kill - how about 10000 hull, plus a WASP that does 150% damage?

Both the Fury tank and flying Fury are very easy to bounce around with heavy weapons, fly them yourself and they are almost impossible to fight in as wingman type vehicles.

I disagree with differently-functioning roles. A fury would probably be a multi functional unit.

The flier could probably scavenge scrap when it had free time. Imagine the speed with which it could harvest scrap and bring it to a drop off point. 3 seconds? Furies are about efficiency.

The same would be say for turret/gun tower type buildings. They most likely would not have existed since a fury is most likely an infinitely patient specimen and would have no problems parking in the middle of a canyon pass for days or weeks even, where a human turret pilot would get tired and want to fly to base to maybe exchange vehicles with the next ship.

Furies are supposed to be frenzied and mad aren't they? Dangerously intelligent but also dangerously unpredictable.

Well, they are certainly big enough to haul scrap around - and I think you could pack a LOT of scrap inside a fury tank hull. Still, maybe they could employ better weapons when morphed into a more static defensive unit. I could imagine a better 1st Achilles mission, in which the Furies are busy building and deploying all sorts of nasty defenses to slow your progress at their big factory complex. Also, those buildings should be active, instead of just empty i76 class buildings.

Can you directly attach images on this forum? I've got a pic of the comet relic to post - the "insert image" button just inserts tags.

You will have to upload the image elsewhere and then include it here via [img]url[/img].

It has to be out on the web somewhere already when you img it... btw. 

I'd like to point out a couple of things to consider when thinking about Fury capabilities beyond what we saw.

Furies are intelligent craft, a blend of organic and metal parts, and the ultimate expression of biometal (intelligent, living metal beings).

Furies start out weak and get stronger, so maybe they start out simple and get more complex...  in both structure and intelligence.  I hate to tease  :evil: but if only you could see Coxxon's Fury Race you'd know what I was thinking here...

Biometal technology was new in BZ1 and TRO...  but it's nothing new in BZ2.  IOW in BZ2 we've been shown capabilities of the technology that I feel should point the way to what Furies in BZ1 were ultimately capable of.   This would include not only 'upgrade' type changes, but morphing, blinking (there's your answer to the speed bit) and instantaneous transmission of biometal. 

I picture a Fury 'collecting' biometal by just hanging over a scrap field and absorbing the scrap.  To us it would just disappear, to the Fury it would be a meal of sort.  Once absorbed it could be used by the Unit that absorbed it or become part of the Racial stockpile to be used by converted buildings to create more Furies.

The Furies we saw originally took the form of the CCA Fury Tank, but we built that tank based on ancient designs.  Maybe we got it wrong, but even if we got it right it might have been only one type of Fury.  For all we know they're the Scouts (would explain the speed and flying), the lightest and weakest of the Ancient Units.  If so, Heaven help us if they'd gotten to the AssTank or Walker designs...   :)

Just some thoughts...

-Av-

Yeah, morphing, blinking and so on - all part of the technology later incorporated by the scions, was what I was thinking of. I think the Furies would have embodied these things in a more involved BZ1 campaign.

I put up a thread at BZC forums containing a pic of the Comet relic, so you can view the relic here:

http://www.battlezoneclub.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2539

Also a request to killer instinct for anything he remembers about it.

Quote from: bb1 on August 31, 2009, 03:49:23 PM
So DX, how does the game make SAV go SO fast? Is it just because of the AI process?

200 FWD speed that is why they dart from place to place.

That Fury Mothership looks a tad like The Defient from DS9.

Saw a post on TAG cannon in a BZ2 weapons thread...

Reminded me of when I tried making a laser guided missle for BZ1, by having the tracer be a short, thin line that fired with shot delay .000001 and shotspeed (or whatever that variable was) VERY VERY fast all with no effect for terrain or building. When you fired, it would seem like a constant beam almost and when you turned, the shotspeed was so fast it turned with you like a beam. As soon as it hit, a missle would shoot and acutely track the enemy. Very effective fudge.

Reminds me of how fun it is making things work that have no business being in bz1...ah...

One thing I always wanted was a thermite missile - one that you would fire at an enemy tank, and it would stick, like a sandbag, and slowly melt through the armor... come to think of it, a thermite projectile would be fun for sniper levels too - slower speed with a burning trail, and only one shot before you have to reload - but it sticks anywhere, and burns and burns... aah, aah, aah, OOOOHH... AAAAHHHHH!  :-D

This would require a new weapon class, though.

it exists in BZ2 1.3

Anchor can stick to an enemy and do damage over time now.

Yeah, but I want it in bz1... maybe later on Dx can add such a thing to BZE if he gets into modding new weapon classes.

:P

It might be in bzc ancients. a kool hadean weapon  :evil:

"Phosphorous bullets" are the real life equivalent, and such a thing would fit in perfectly with the Ancient Hadean philosophy.

:evil:

-Av-

You mean incendiary/tracer bullets? I suppose they are sort of like that, but I think they are more geared towards starting fires than actually melting into what they hit. There's phosphorus grenades - those are wicked. Real thermite is a mix of iron oxide and aluminum - when ignited, it is extremely exothermic and produces an actual puddle of molten iron. I don't think it can be effectively used in projectiles, just bombs and grenades, maybe mortar shells.

As an aside, Av, have you ever thought it odd to see the Arc Mines guarding the Olympian facility so early in the game? No other electric bolt technology surfaces until you hit Titan, and it seems more of a Hadean/Fury trait than something Paternus might have thought up.

You mean the Olympian version of the arc mine around the Lemnos Facility on Mars?  I never really thought about it as not fitting Olympian tech, which I didn't really look at until I started messing with BZC. 

Well, Paternus can't be the ONLY weapons designer on the Olympian side, just as Nexus probably wasn't the only Hadean coming up with weapons.  And Furies are shown to just use whatever technology they can grab/convert.  They probably encountered the Arc Mines and copied them, upgrading them in the process.

-Av-

Mmmmm, but... the Furies have Bolt Buddies, which show up nowhere else in SP, plus the WASP, which is another unique weapon and seems to be an inherent Fury device, at least by the shape and color of its design. So I am thinking that electric arc technology is of Fury/Hadean origin.

I suppose it is possible that the Arc Mines were originally Olympian, it is just curious to me that they show up like that on just the one Mars mission, almost as an afterthought. Also, the INF file for these shows up as saying these are "Much more destructive than the Olympian version", this is for both the Mars mines and the later ones, maybe a mistake by the devs, or maybe they found they couldn't spawn a custom one later with a custom odf?

BTW Av, is that Comet pic I posted up above yours?

It is totally irrelevant since the beam class was broken. It isn't destructive at all.

its not broken in 1.0 :P

It was broken in 1.0 too, it's not doing what it says in the odf.

Quote from: Dx on September 13, 2009, 09:01:40 PM
It was broken in 1.0 too, it's not doing what it says in the odf.

Quote from: General BlackDragon on September 13, 2009, 07:29:48 PM
its not broken in 1.0 :P

FACE

---

In any case, why would we talk about old versions? That's counter productive to the conversation. That's like, in this forum, me trying to say how THERE WASN'T EVEN A BEAM WEAPON IN THE OLD BZ (arcade) Ehhhh?

There are a few "beam" weapons in bz1, are you referring to the flash cannon? There was a discussion about this quite awhile ago, comparing the "old" flash odf with the newer one. It seems at least as far as single player goes you can fix the odf to make it work, but IIRC Dx found in the actual code some problems with the packet stuff for MP making it not work right. Dx, would this also apply to stuff like the Bolt Buddy in multi?

He meant the proper, original Battlezone. The Atari one.

Quote from: ssuser on September 13, 2009, 10:15:52 PM
IIRC Dx found in the actual code some problems with the packet stuff for MP making it not work right. Dx, would this also apply to stuff like the Bolt Buddy in multi?

The flash is classLabel = "beam" and the Bolt Buddy is classLabel = "bolt", beam class has the problems.
I didn't mess with the bolt so idk, if it used the code from beam class i'm sure it has a problem.

Quote from: ssuser on September 13, 2009, 10:15:52 PM
There are a few "beam" weapons in bz1, are you referring to the flash cannon? There was a discussion about this quite awhile ago, comparing the "old" flash odf with the newer one. It seems at least as far as single player goes you can fix the odf to make it work, but IIRC Dx found in the actual code some problems with the packet stuff for MP making it not work right. Dx, would this also apply to stuff like the Bolt Buddy in multi?

Joke Fail  :-(

Quote from: Dx on September 14, 2009, 07:07:23 AM
The flash is classLabel = "beam" and the Bolt Buddy is classLabel = "bolt", beam class has the problems.
I didn't mess with the bolt so idk, if it used the code from beam class i'm sure it has a problem.

gmbolt is a beamgun

Quote from: General BlackDragon on September 14, 2009, 03:47:05 PM
gmbolt is a beamgun

GBD look in the ordnance file not the weapon file.

Ack! All this odf stuff is so confusing... my head hurts...  :-D

I was thinking that since the Arc Mines also use a continuous beam they might be subject to the same problems in multiplayer. Since the Bolt Buddy is one quick pulse I think that would be ok. Although a steady stream of Bolt Buddy damage is fun to implement.  :evil:

I think that they should have made the Bolt Buddy a bit more powerful, IMO it is fairly useless as a weapon - not too many shots, short range, and it seems to do little damage compared to other weapon loadouts. And, its expensive.

Quote from: ssuser on September 12, 2009, 09:53:14 PM
Mmmmm, but... the Furies have Bolt Buddies, which show up nowhere else in SP, plus the WASP, which is another unique weapon and seems to be an inherent Fury device, at least by the shape and color of its design. So I am thinking that electric arc technology is of Fury/Hadean origin.

I suppose it is possible that the Arc Mines were originally Olympian, it is just curious to me that they show up like that on just the one Mars mission, almost as an afterthought. Also, the INF file for these shows up as saying these are "Much more destructive than the Olympian version", this is for both the Mars mines and the later ones, maybe a mistake by the devs, or maybe they found they couldn't spawn a custom one later with a custom odf?

BTW Av, is that Comet pic I posted up above yours?

This link:


http://www.battlezoneclub.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2539

Requires that I log in to see the pic...   
Trying my usual username/password tells me it's invalid. 
Asking to change my password tells me the username/password information could not be accessed.
Trying to register tells me my username and email address are already in use...

*sigh*

I'm always happy to get pictures in email at bz-av spammers can bite me atar spammers can bite me @ sbcglobal.net.   :)

(We just had a web site dedicated to my buddy's old Navy Ship mined for email addresses, which these poor guys didn't know to NOT ever post in a forum.  Very sad, messing with Vets like that.)

Been a rough week already...

-Av-

gmbolt is the weapon used by the boltmine, it's a beamgun.


[WeaponClass]
classLabel = "beamgun"
ordName = "mbolt"
wpnName = "Bolt Buddy"
fireSound = "gbmin01.wav"
wpnReticle = "octagon"
wpnPriority = 0
wpnCategory = "CANN"



there isnt a problem with the bolt code. he was referring to the bolt mine wich also uses beamgun. i.e. a blue flash cannon :P

In SP the gmbolt isn't very powerful at all. You can stand in front of the mines and take aim and kill it when you're good and ready.

GBD doesn't know which odf does what. hehehe  :-(

actually, i looked at the files themselves. I'm looking at the ones for the boltmine.

Bolt mines are more of a nuisance in SP than anything else, although I find it hard to shoot them while they are zapping me. If you are on foot, of course, it is a different matter.

I wonder what the "octagon" reticle was supposed to look like? It seems not to exist, as the mbolt weapon has just a little dot for the reticle.

Av, I'll email you the pic.

Quote from: General BlackDragon on September 15, 2009, 08:51:58 AM
actually, i looked at the files themselves. I'm looking at the ones for the boltmine.

The boltmine has the same screwed up code as the Flash Cannon, they use the same beam class.

Try this:
[OrdnanceClass]
classLabel = "beam"

shotGeometry = NULL
xplGround = "xlgtgnd"
xplVehicle = "xlgtcar"
xplBuilding = "xlgtbld"

ammoCost = 0
lifeSpan = 100e-6
shotSpeed = 1e6
damageBallistic = 100
damageConcussion = 0
damageFlame = 0
damageImpact = 0

[BeamClass]
segmentRadius = 0.1
segmentLength = 1.0
segmentVariance = 0.5
segmentTexture = "beam_b.1"

Yeah. Thats the ordinence. I thought the "beamgun" classlabel in the G file was what's broken? ooooh. Right, the beam code controls the ordinence and hitting stuff.  :| my bad.

I keep thinking it's partial to only the flash cannon class, beamgun.

The classlabel, beam, has broken code. Someday if I ever become a programmer and get my hands on the code for it, I'd like to take a looksie to see what the hell is wrong with the damage per second variables. Beam is an amazing weapon in general, as the sheer pwnage one feels when firing is pure goodliness. It doesn't transfer over network well, with the beam appearing fragmented and broken (would be a lot more difficult to fix then a damage issue).

I believe part of the problem in the code may or may not have to do with the beam class supposedly suppressing the tank's engines by overheating them. This is not seen in game, however.

i doubt that's real.

I think all damage in bz1 is a simple reduction in a units health; though you get some other effects, like impact shock to a unit, these are peripheral effects.

It would be neat in a new incarnation to see units suffer other types of damage, like engines cutting in and out, disruptions in comms (difficulty in contacting units, loss of Satellite link, etc.), loss of weapons, and some different vehicle sonds to reflect damage done.

hehehehe I can imagine a grizzly with a blown off fin, spinning around in one direction.

I always liked the tech upgrades in Cyberstorm, apply that to Bz and it would be very interesting. :)

Biometal distributes any damage across the entire mass, which is why they hold together until the very end and then go BOOM...

It's just how it is... 

:)

-Av-

Even Damage Distribution

Or "CDP": Convienent Damage Programming

Quote from: bb1 on September 17, 2009, 08:55:47 PM
Or "CDP": Convienent Damage Programming

Or the lack there of sorting plans for damage effects.

*cough*PENTIUM*cough*...

They would have if they could have, but they couldn't so they didn't...

I can't even imagine how they got what they got when we had what we had...

:)

-Av-

well, even with all of the power of c++ to change an older engine, i don't think you could ever get pieces of ships blown off, or damages that realistic.. *sigh

then the subject of a "BZ3" kicks in.. :evil:.....

You might be able to add tracking damage by GEO piece, but for many of the ships that wouldn't be much better (or more realistic) than it is now.

I agree that some day someone will make something very much like BZ in a modern engine, with all the goodies and playable only on the latest 20Ghz systems...  :)

-Av-

Quote from: Avatar on September 18, 2009, 04:09:19 PM
*cough*PENTIUM*cough*...

They would have if they could have, but they couldn't so they didn't...

I can't even imagine how they got what they got when we had what we had...

:)

-Av-

I'm not so sure, the sorting was already there from prior games (dx3 games?) and all it's doing is switching the model that is being rendered similar to LOD1 , 2 , 3. I had a PII 350 back then so i would say it was more than possible at the time.

Even sprite based games before that time would show damage to enemies, I don't think it would have been too much harder to implement more types of damage in the bz1 engine even back then, though I think it would have slowed down those antiquated systems.  :-D

A slightly later patch could have added damage to skins and perhaps altered GEOs, the top end systems from 1999 or so could have run stuff like that very easily.

Are you forgetting that where a GEO meets another leaves a hole?

What I meant was, is that you could have the game do an on-the-fly substitution of a GEO piece - say a front panel - with an actual gouge or dimple in it in conjunction with a different MAP skin to show damage. This of course would require more code as the game would have to track each individual unit on the map for damage status  -you would use a lot more memory too as you would be keeping more GEO pieces and skins loaded at a time.

Wholes in the geos don't matter as the damaged geos are not the same piece, they probably wouldn't use more memory as they are not loaded till the lod1 geo is unloaded, same with the texture.

In UT2k4 the damaged ship replace the lod1 ship and tossed in some smoke and sparks before it exploded to nothing. Bz explodes the parts of the ships to chunks, toss in the flash bang and smoke. There really is no reason to do the damaged versions unless like in some newer games you has damaged buildings left behind. That would demand a lot more memory and cpu in that case. Would be cool to do that, i resently tested Bz up to 286,100 poly count @ 8.2fps on my new pc. If only i could get a longer view distance.

Quote from: ssuser on September 19, 2009, 07:26:39 PM
Even sprite based games before that time would show damage to enemies, I don't think it would have been too much harder to implement more types of damage in the bz1 engine even back then, though I think it would have slowed down those antiquated systems.  :-D

I could barely even RUN BZ1 when it came out.   Remember what was common at that time?  486Dx2-266?  RIVA 4M (that's MEG!) graphics cards?  Nobody had a gig of ram, that would be nuts...

A hot system was a Pentium 120 with linked dual Voodoo2 graphics cards (SLI is nothing new...).  My current video card has more computing power and memory than my first three DOS boxes combined.  :-P

They didn't even have enough clock cycles to give Scavs real brains...    :lol:

I think they did what they could, given the time and hardware they had.  I also think, as I said, they would have done more if they could have, but the hardware at the time and the time they had to code weren't enough to go nuts with.

In 1998 when BZ1 came out the new systems you could buy were hotter than that, though, and would run BZ1 easily. I first played BZ1 on a "budget" PC that I bought in 1999, had a 466 MHz celeron and 64 MB of memory, BZ1 just smoked on that, though I was stuck at 640 x 480 screen res ( had the low budget motherboard video).

Gotta keep upgrading Av.  :-D A 486 would have been painfully obsolete by then. Though you could probably play Duke Nukem 3d on it ok, though.

I wonder what Windows 7 is going to take to run well? I assume 4 gig of memory is going to be regarded as the new "standard" by Microsoft.

486DX2 was very old from back in 1992, if you played bz on that in 1998... too funny. I had got the dx4 chip and sold the whole thing for 400.

When bz was release we had PII 586 and 66Mhz bus speeds an shortly afterwards became a 100 Mhz bus.
My old I740 video card at 8Mb got 45fps back then in Bz.

I used to have an ancient 486, it had a VGA adapter but you could really only play 80's style games on it well, even when you ran a "small" dos program like edit you could actually watch it load, lol.

Anyone here planning on upgrading to Windows 7 right away when it comes out? I wonder if BZ1 will run on it.

I tested the beta version and i think it will run it ok. People using Vista should get windows 7 asap when it comes out next month.

I have the full blown release thanks to MSDN.

It chugs along just fine on 2gb PC26400. Wasn't a painful -upgrade- at all. I haven't attempted to run BZ1 on it yet.

How different is it from Vista? Does it seem to be a better OS in general - features, stability, and so on? I will be needing a new PC soon - never did get Vista, heard it was bad - and I will be getting Windows 7 with it of course.

Visual Studio 2010 is supposed to be out fairly soon too, I heard, that is supposed to have some new stuff in it as well.

It is nice. It is more streamlined than XP and seems to have a better "flow." I particularly like the full screen thumbnails in the taskbar. Old DX games, you may want to install the redist that came with them. At least for bz2, I had to install the DX9 that came with 1.3ta5.1 before it would execute. It is worth the update. In general, it actually runs faster than my old XP install, may it rest in peace. I tried not to let this become the win7 thread... it IS the longest bz1 thread to exist in months if not years (factcheck if you want).

Windows 7 is beautiful.

It just works how I want it to.

I grabbed Vista with the Win7 free upgrade offer, and plan on going to it when it comes out.  Even my most diehard M$ hating friends like Win7 so I'll have to see what mind control system it's using to change their attitudes.  :evil:

***

I said, "remember what was common then", not top of the line gaming machines.  That 486DX2-66 cost me $3000 back in the day...  My P2 system was over $2000...  Your average family wasn't about to buy a new system every couple of years just for their kids to play games on, that's what $200 Atari or Nintendo systems were for.

Things are amazing now, both highly powered and low cost, but times are tough also...  I tend to upgrade only when I absolutely have to, which is now.  I'm going from an Athlon XP 2000 (1.6 single core), 2Gigs DDR, GeForce 6200, 200Gig IDE drive to a Dual Core 2.98Ghz, 4G DDR2, GeForce 9800 1G, 320G Sata2.   Quite a jump...

And I'm not upgrading for BZ1 or BZ2, which I'll be playing primarily on my 1.6 Athlon still.   I need the new rig for Operation Flashpoint 2, and might finally get to see Hellgate and BF2 as more than just a lowres mess...  :)

In fact, I'm keeping a Win98SE P3 system around just to run BZ1 the way it used to be run...  :)

-Av-

Good idea. I think BZ1 runs best on win98SE.

You are right of course about PCs costing so much more back then, they weren't so much a part of society as they are now. Prices didn't really start to drop until later in the 90s. The whole computer paradigm was different - not regarded so much as a gaming system in the early 90s - who would shell out $2500 plus just to play Doom?  :-D

To get us back OT (at least to BZ1) what are some of the IA maps people really remember fondly from the early days? I am thinking of stuff that was around on the net pre-Battlegrounds. Toni Chaffin had some stuff floating around, and of course so did you Av. I wonder if there are maps people remember that are not around now.

I paid 2000 for my 486dx2 (big waste of money), after that, i built my own pc's, and still do.

Bz ran best on 98, 98se started the slidding i think.

The best IA missions was yours, ssuser. :)

Mmm, thanks, but I was thinking of stuff that would have been out in 1998 to early 1999. I didn't start putting out missions until 2001. First one was hilltops, I still like that one.

My picks would be "Though I Walk" by Avatar (that mission start just blew my mind), "The Crucible" (m2crucbl) by Mick brown,  "Part Three" (on Titan) by slingshot, "Heroical", by whom I forget, and I have to include "Downhill" by BSer, even though that one came out a bit later on - still one of the best, IMO.

That's basically my list also, although I credit Mowerman with how ThoIWalk turned out.  I just put the pieces together, he was the creative force behind it all.  He was VERY specific about how it should all work.

Crucible is VERY tough, I remember playing it out time and time again until I beat it.   Mick was a master at setting up huge paths for the AI to follow, spacing out the timing of attacks by mixed groups.

M3Runaway by Mick Brown is also one of my favorites, simply because of the feel of it.  It was the first mission that made me feel like I was a part of a much bigger war effort, guarding a huge convoy stretched out for a mile.  Very cool.

Floating Point had a map that included running a quick side mission to bring back a Power Supply to power a 'shield wall' for your base.  While he couldn't do decent terrain if his life depended on it,  :-P he did have a way of pushing the engine in unique ways that made me love trying his maps.

There was a LOT of creativity shown in BZ1 using an engine that really wasn't meant to be modded.  Sometimes it's the limits that drive creativity, rather than the capabilities.  :)



-Av-

Yeah, Runaway was good too, though not as good as The Crucible. I thought Floating Point's terrain was always pretty good - by which I mean it was fun to fly around on and admire. The AI had alot of trouble with it though, Vertigo was particularly bad in this respect - tons of stuck units. He did push the odf system to the max, didn't he?  :-D

Ships can go almost over any hill with the right code change, i think scavies could go up a verticle cliff when i tested it.

FP's terrain was all carved and very unnatural, which is very much NOT my style so it grates on me.  It suited his maps, and became part of his style, but it's still strange to navigate in my mind.  I much prefer a more natural look, like Lizard's stuff.

-Av-

spAce owns lizard when it comes to maps.   :-P

I think BBB may own everyone now...

Quote from: General BlackDragon on October 20, 2009, 06:11:30 PM
spAce owns lizard when it comes to maps.   :-P

Oh.. is there a site i can see his maps? Any good 4 player strat maps?

Yes, links please...

I always liked Floating Point's maps because all that dense terrain made them seem bigger than they really were, felt like more was going on, even when it wasn't. You could get lost in all those chasms on Vertigo and Firefox if you weren't careful.

Natural rolling maps are still the best for fighting on. I think BSer's Downhill is still the best IA map for general gameplay ever made just due to the superbly executed rolling terrain. It needed more Walkers though...

Jamsh's new maps are amazing. Not BZ1, though.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/kristian.agren/

Zepher :D <3

also see: http://www.3d-output.com/zemod/

Remember that FE mission with the hang-gliding recycler (at least i think there was one). It was the best terrain because of all the foliage and the difference in altitudes.

The hang gliding recycler wasn't in FE. You got a hang glider WEAPON, a special jet pack. The recycler was normal, slow and etc.

The "flying recycler" was a model made by somebody...forgot who, i think it was TimeVirus, or Zeeder.  Not sure though. I only saw it in somebody's avatar.

Aagh! This is turning into a bz2 thread...  :-D

I sure wish there were transport rockets for bz1, It would be neat to have to protect one coming down thru enemy air activity in a flyer. Have it dump the recycler on the ground and then explode, then you rendezvous with some tanks and scoot through enemy territory to your geysers... Didn't Avatar model a bz1 transport some time back? You would need new classes to have this work right though.

Yes it's possible and Yes there are nsdf/cca transports in BZC.

It's possible to make that kind of mission. Might poke Avatar about it for his Extended Campaign.

Yes, I know you can for bz2, I was just indulging in wishful thinking for bz1. I remember Av posted a big green rocket model up quite a ways back, looked pretty cool. Though I'm not sure green is an appropriate color for space - well, maybe the beginning part of space, but what about when you get to outer space?  :wink: Also, the Soviets painted their mobile nukes green. Hmmm....

Did you guys do a Soviet version of a Lunar Lander for BZC? That is something I would like to see.

yes there is one

Good. BTW, what's the status on BZC? How close is it to being done? Have you guys put out any betas yet? Got a link to more pics and stuff besides what Av put up on his site awhile back? I WILL reinstall bz2 to try this mod, even though I don't care for bz2 in general.

They put out a demo for PB4 a way back, it was pretty good, but they took it down again. Still on BZScrap IIRC.

That demo is for PB3. I took it down because people were installing it on PB4 and getting confused. Plus I thought the next Demo was going to be soon(ish).

I'm waiting on Avatar to finish the Strat DLL atleast to the point of functional lives limit before putting out a Demo 2.0 for the purpose of testing the Strategy DLL. This demo will be for TA5.1

As for the mod, mostly done. Needs AIPs, MPI/IA/ST DLLs, and bugtesting/fixing. Due to DLLs being broken, atm only DM works right.

Looking forward to it. So you don't have any links other than the mods forums up at the moment then? I've been busy collecting links to bz1 stuff over the last couple weeks as I really had no idea what is still up or not - The Wall's page is apparently gone, NavBeacon took down bzfiles.net, and so on.

There's www.bz2md.com and www.bzcommand.com