BOTMATCH SECONDARY PROTOCOL VERSION UPDATE DOCUMENTATION 1.2.8.1 JULY 2008 ============================================================= - Optimized socket engine. Previous performance of TCP packet handling with 32byte packets was avg. 7624 ops/sec on dev machine. After many tweaks we now have performance of avg. 8336 ops/sec. This should not make much difference to game performance but it may be noticable on a legacy system where the difference in performance becomes much larger. - Some minor tweaks and a couple bug fixes to do with the game lobby. 1.2.8 JUNE 2008 ============================================================= - Have a fulling working (albeit still under development) online lobby system, called "Match Finder". - Small tweak to map-drawing part of game loop that optimizes the drawing of large rectangles by culling the part of the rect. that is not on screen. - Fixed a couple bugs with how the game connects to a hosted game. Automatically attempts reconnects every 8 seconds so even if the client tries to connect before the host is listening a connection should still happen. - Now displays local IP address (and external resolved IP) when server is hosting a game. - A few more adjustments to weapons. - Changed power-ups to move in large circles around the map rather than in a small circle around the center. - Tweaked weapons a little for projectile velocity and damage. - Converted item data and price-sheet to binary format to make a little more secure (hardly though). - Made base speed of bots a little faster. MAY 2008 - Various game-play balance tweaks, the AI starts off considerably weaker, but gets more agressive at a more fair rate. - Tweaked character level-up system aswell. - Fixed a few bugs in various parts of code, looking almost bug-free now. - A couple more performance optimizations - Added more maps, and more maps with moving objects. - Increased the usability of the map-editor. - Added impact decals / bullet holes - Added more performance tweaking options for older systems - Now controls can be configured and controls and performance settings are saved configuration files in the config folder and are loaded automatically. - Changed the bot-shop help to consist of a small video showing how to use the shop, also this only shows when you create a new bot, and does not show after you've been through the shop once with that bot - Converted a few more graphics to 4-bit where it didnt impact visual quality considerably. This keeps file size and ram usage minimal. - Game now chooses a map randomly from the maps folder - In multiplayer games, a preview of the map is shown (wrote subroutine to draw map preview from map data) - Repairs no longer go into the negative credits, - Now you can not enter a match without first having at least an engine. - Various other tweaks, bug-fixes, and performance optimizations done. APRIL 2008 - fixed bug with impact detection code that got broken during recent code update. - Added mobile map objects that move accross the screen - Added a level system to give a slightly character building aspect to the game in that when you win a match your HP is increased. This also effectively balances the game for the earlier levels. 1.2.6 MARCH 2008 ============================================================= - Added a new feature to the polygon movie engine so it can do real-time zooming of polygons instead of being pre-animated. - Net play optimization, including bandwidth optimization and compression of internet protocal. - Added in-game menu system to choose between game modes of Single Player and Multiplayer. - Added second render pass and code as part of update to support in-world map objects - Added camera to game render code so the bot is not stuck inside of a box like previously. Now the player can move around the arena. Arena size is now upto 8 times wider and taller. - Added 3D "grid" to give a good sense of camera-movement when no objects are on screen. - Added ability to load map files and began work on in-house map editor, supporting 3D objects which can "float" between the 2 players and which can stop projectiles, making effective "hiding places" - Added another "power up" which is actually a negative, it subtracts 25% of your health. - Increased speed of bots to make the game faster-paced in light of the larger map-sizes available. - Engine speed now varies depending on which engine you buy. - To spite being a lot more code, the game may run only slightly slower because we are now covering old objects with the vbBlackness render-op instead of srcCopy sinse our background is black. Not sure how it will run on the legacy systems it was initially designed for 6 years ago. *Updated on planet-source-code March 2006* 1.2.2 - NET PLAY (TCP-IP) IS NOW FULLY FUNCTIONAL! (But not 100% perfected) even works on dial-up =) Can crash sometimes so DONT RUN IN FULL-SCREEN DURING NET PLAY! *NOTE: CsocketMaster Library code is NOT MINE* (Game type "4" is server, game type "3" is client) - Added smoke-effect (particle) system for rockets/missles/etc. Looks SWEET!!! - Found even further performance optimizations (about a 1% increase) Hopefully this will help balance out the slight performance-hit from some of the new features (particles/net play). [little things, like 55 calls to GetTickCount function in main game loop now replaced with one variable which keeps the current frame's tick-count] Performance shouldn't be an issue except MAYBE on legacy systems. Will still run on a 133MHz machine =) - Fixed bug with saving armor-plate health rating - Changed lightning-bolt power-up, it now gives a small dose of all power-ups plus full-sheild energy. - Many small gameplay tweaks such as friction and damage & muzzle velocity of weapons have been tweaked - NEW SAVE-GAME FORMAT, MAY NOT ACCEPT PREVIOUS VERSION BOTS, EXPANSION VARIABLES ADDED SO FUTURE FEATURES WILL BE COMPATIBLE WITH CURRENT SAVE-GAMES 1.2.1 - Some bugs fixed such as the exit current match - Smaller download size due to using EVERY-OTHER-LINE (EOL) bitmaps for some of the larger UI animations, this also creates a cool computer-screen effect - Some small graphics updates - A few small optimizations to in-game performance - Some code for internet play has been added, but not completed yet and should be completed on the next release 1.2 - Added tracking ability to projectiles, now missles can attempt to 'home-in' on the opponent. - Adjusted prices of items in shops to make them more expensive. - Added engine re-enforcement armor to shop -> Certain armors can now be purchased at three levels, or three stages, like light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor (Red, Yellow, Green). - Changed gun re-enforcement armor to be 3-staged - Added "made with VB" button that rotates at startup. 1.10 - Added a test version of 2 player mode - Re-wrote computer component purchasing so the computer buys better equiptment faster. - Fixed glitch in flipping box animation where when flipping away, box would be outlined in bright green. - Fixed 'OK' button in options box. 1.08 - Optimizations to main game loop - Computer is more agressive - Added option to disable animations on arena walls for low-end systems. 1.00 SUBMITTED TO PLANET SOURCE CODE IN AUGUST 2003*