Stuff to put in 1.09

[hotdog003]

OBJCFG?

 

[JTE]

Yeah, but they're both the exact same thing. I can't wait until we get custom animated textures... Man...

 

[a441]

OBJCTCFG.

You can use a .soc file directly, as long as it's named something dot soc. It gets treated as though it were a wad file containing only an OBJCTCFG lump.

 

[Blue Blur]

I bet this has been mentioned, but could someone tell me any news of a dedicated server for SRB2. I'm too lazy to find it myself, and an update would be nice.

 

[a441]

The code for a dedicated server is being worked on.

I don't know if anyone has the resources to actually run one, though.

 

[hotdog003]

What I'd like to see is the ability to use the console to reccord demos.

 

[Shadow Hog]

I thought you could?...

 

[a441]

No, they can be played back from the console, but recorded only through a command-line parameter.

 

[Blue Blur]

The code for a dedicated server is being worked on.

I don't know if anyone has the resources to actually run one, though.

Perhaps someone with an extra PC and cable, satellite, or DSL can host a neverending game on that extra PC. Or someone could set up a LAN on a good connection to run multible servers. Maybe you could make a separate, little program to run dedicated servers that can be kept in the background, rather than having to run SRB2 for every netgame.

(It's hard to believe I did this all off the top of my head in the two minutes it took me to type this, I need some more hobbies...)

 

[Shuffle]

*gets an idea from tribes 2*
If we were to have a dedicated server, then you should be able to start a poll so you can vote on which map you want to play/what rules you want (server sets the % required for the vote to pass)

 

[a441]

separate, little program to run dedicated servers that can be kept in the background, rather than having to run SRB2 for every netgame.

That's kinda the idea, although all the game logic has to be retained. It'll be SRB2 minus the display, render, audio, and input code, and will run in a console or invisibly.

 

[hotdog003]

Heh. I've had an idea of a "Virtual Netgame Player", an existing netgame that runs all the time. The computer reads the packets sent by the other computers, and processes them (not in srb2win.exe, probably), and makes choices based on what the other players are doing. This way, you can play the computer.
For example: The program reads that I've shot a ring, so it makes it's character that it's controlling jump. See?

 

[a441]

It's called a bot. Doom Legacy has them. The consensus is it would be too difficult to design a decent bot for a 3D platform adventure game like SRB2. To my knowledge, no commercial games of the genre have bots.

 

[Ritz]

I think being able to create custom weather effects would be awesome. Imagine a level where stars or hearts fell in a snow-like fashion.

 

[hotdog003]

WAD editing? Replace the sprites with your own.

 

[Shadow Hog]

It's called a bot. Doom Legacy has them.

Aye, both Legacy and ZDOOM have them, and both of them suck really bad (ZDOOM's is probably worse, IMO). I mean, they love pits of inescapable death, they sometimes are fascinated with random doors that they can't access since they don't have the key... in all brutal honesty, they're not terribly grand at navigating a map at all.

It's excusable, though. I mean, bots are hardly what people call "easy to program".

 

[Omega the Hedgehog]

JTE made a bot for JTE's pad that can be extracted into normal levels... but it's insanley hard and stuff, so... be careful 8)

 

[Gemini]

Personally, I don't find AI all that challenging to make in my games, just time consuming. I'm willing to bet bots could be put into SRB2 but it would likely take the addition of game elements that really aren't thought through and would take an immense amount of time to add.

For example, if a bot wants to get to a specific part of a level, it has to know how to get there. Each level would have to have basic navigation paths built in for the bots to follow. That alone is probably way too much effort for the game in its current state.

The difficult part would be testing not only the difficulty of the bots but their predicatability. An AI that can be predicted is no fun to play against, likewise an AI that is super-human yet still playing by the rules is also not fun. (Good example, Mechwarrior 4, set the bots to skill 8 of 9 and they still miss with a certain frequency, set them to 9 and they NEVER miss.)

Not to metnion the sheer amount of time it would take to program the bots behaviour. AI programming is more or less "Watch what the AI does and when it does something stupid program it not to do it."

Instead of bots in SRB2 we should have spectators :)

--- Gemini

 

[hotdog003]

Can a script execute a linedef executor, and can a linedef executor execute a script? Example: You have a console script in your wad file named SCRIPT001. The player walks across a linedef executor with a linefed named "Linedef Executor: Execute Script 1", then it executes SCRIPT001. Or, you have a console command like EXECUTE LE001 that can only be used via script running in tha background, and instead of sector type "Touch Floor", you have sector type "Script Executable 1" or something. Then, when the script reaches that point, it executes the linedef executor.

This would REALLY be helpfull in my Matrix level.

 

[a441]

The player walks across a linedef executor with a linefed named "Linedef Executor: Execute Script 1", then it executes SCRIPT001.

This will be possible in 1.09, but not with the lump name SCRIPT001, because it's nine characters. The reverse is not possible.