May 5, 2001: * UPLOADED v3.3 to Aminet. .lha filesize = 16.8 million bytes. I downloaded it from aminet to my Amiga in 2 minutes and 8 seconds (132K per second). DSL Rules! May 7th, 2001: * I hacked and slashed in all the code to get the screens and windows and bitmaps to open into 640x512 mode! It actually works on the first try! It doesn't crash or anything! Its amazing! * Adjusted the positioning of the screens to be correct. * Loaded the new 256 color palette next onto the main screen. Now the colors are correct. * MORE SASC Compiler strangeness: I had to remove the leading 0's from all decimal numbers beginning with 009, 01,07,05 etc. SASC kept stopping with an "invalid number" error. Strangely I didn't have to remove it from 034 or 000 When I added the palette to load onto the spell panel (Its identical to the above palette except the background is dark blue) the game started randomly crashing during the startup and I have conducted many experiments and commented out LOTS of code but everything has gone to hell and I can't figure out what is going wrong and all progress is halted. :( I got it to a point where I get a recoverable alert 0100 000F which means a memory header is corrupted somewhere. But _which_ memory header? And what is causing it?? On 08-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > It was a good hunt - I found dozens! And I wrote them down. I leave the > dirty work to you, all this killing and tracking down. So here is your list. > And James: Good luck. > 1. During casting phase there is a lot of stuff in the text-display at the > bottom of the screen. Then at the beginning of the movement phase you should > check what is under the mouse and display the according "Robin's something > (life 66) 9 movement points" stuff. I would really like to know how you got a something with 66 life. :) > Right now you have to move the mouse > away from the object and over it again to get this text displayed. NOW FIXED in the movement phase. I also added code to fix this in the SpellCasting phase also. > 2. Alternography: > a) I couldn't cast my Dark Powers on a Golem that I could see through my > opponents eyes (but not through my own). That's bullshit. Uhmm... Hmmm.. > b) When one of my allied wizards was killed, I could still see his dead > creatures using my alternography (not without). This is how it is supposed to work. > 3. Dark wood dungeons are damned hard to survive in! And those Pool dungeons > are quite hard to kill anything in. Not good for the demo-version, I > couldn't kill a single creature in all 18 turns! My heart weeps. > 4. When you attack a cloaked creature with ranged weapons, it seems that the > full amount of damage is done! Anyway, the full damage is displayed. NOW FIXED. When you shoot a cloaked creature it now shows the real amount of damage that you are doing. > 5. I built up my Tower with two creatures: After the Basilisk it had full 63 > life, then with the Inanimage it had full 7 magical resistance and 15 > intelligenz and a good healing rate, perfect combat and heavy ranged combat. > Unfortunately it couldn't move :( > Questions: a) What happens after a StoneToFlesh? The same as usual. But you should try it and see. If you are looking for more bugs, the tower is a good place to search. :) > b) What happens when an undead enters the tower? A hires MPEG movie with academy award winning voice-acting and 72 fps animation is shown, describing the history of the tower, what powers it currently has and clues as to what other powers it could gain in the future. Either that or a flag is raised. > Does it become undead too? Try it and find out. :) > Can it attack undeads? Yes absolutely. > c) The Tower's max_life didn't increase while the actuall life > grew fast. Is this willingly to keep the tower destructable? Yes it is intentional. You must have read my mind! > 6. Consecrate a) makes corpses vanish! Yes it is supposed to do that. > b) effects only 8 squares! the upper-left corner is not > effected! I just played a test game and all the 8 adjacent squares were affected properly. However I did find a bug: * BUG: The creature in the center is not affected by a Consecrate! NOW FIXED. > 7. A wizard suddenly threw a hand-granade somewhere into the landscape! > Fortunately there where no casualties. ;) Hehehe. I'm glad you survived to tell the tale. :) > That's all. I like the new version very much. The gfx and sfx did really > advance! Cool. 8-) But I feel a bit reduced with this 18 moves demo... Check your mail for a new version coming soon. May 9, 2001: * I sent version 3.31 executable to Robin but I forgot to bump up the version number so it says 3.3. Filesize = 434896. * I sent version 3.32 to Xav. Filesize = 434836. * PROBLEM: Combat and Chainsaw are just about identical. SOLUTION: Robin says to leave Combat as it is and to change ChainSaw so that it raises combat to 15 AND allows attacking the life statistic. NOW FIXED. May 10, 2001: * Enforcer doesn't work on my A1200T 060. It just crashes. I think enforcer knows nothing about the 060. * I installed Muforce + MuGuardianAngel. This works but it really really SUX because it doesn't cooperate with SASC debugger (CodeProbe CPR)!!! With enforcer, if I get an enforcer hit the program stops and the cursor is placed on the offending line. This saves me many many hours of trying to recreate obscure bugs! But with muforce, nothing happens!! :( The hits are dumped to the screen but the program is not stopped and I have _NO_IDEA_ what line of code caused the problem! * Using MuguardianAngel I had to single step through my program to figure out exactly which line was crashing my machine. It was the 2nd LoadRGB32() line. * I resumed work on the AGA version. The bug in LoadRGB32() was that you must have a 0L at the very end of the table to mark the end. * I converted all the rest of the colortables from 4-bit format to 32-bit format. But only the ones that I was required to do. There are some 16-color tables used on 16 color screens and these I did not convert. * BUG: When playing Chaos from a strange filesystem that doesn't support the p bit, Chaos plays NO digital sound fx! This was noticed by FD when playing from a PC-formatted partition. I have now added Resident c/JCsound PURE so this is NOW FIXED. * FLAW: You can see the right hand side gadget flash up on the screen right before the setupscreen appears when first loading the game. It looks unprofessional and Robin complained about it many months ago. NOW FIXED. * Sent FD v3.33. Filesize = 434848 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 10-May-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: > * When I attack a cloaked creature with special combat (shocker), the amount > of damage is displayed as "15". Is this correct ? Doesn't the cloak affect > special combat ? Yes, cloak affects special combat. > I guess this is the same phenomenon as ranged combat. Not actually. I could fix this but it requires a complete rewrite of CellEffectList() and that constitutes "adding a new feature" and I am not adding any new features to Chaos OCS, only fixing bugs. Once the AGA version is up and running 100% you can remind me and maybe I'll fix it then. Or maybe I'll just leave it like it is. I don't know. > * I attacked a sleeping lion, causing it some wounds, and it was animated > again. NOW FIXED. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 11, 2001: * Make new 640x512x8 versions of all the 320x256x6 asm routines! Then when I'm ready to make the switch to 32x32 tiles I can switch to all of these new routines at ONCE! DrawBlankCell() DONE. DoTheHighlighting() DONE. UnDoTheHighlighting() DONE. All 8 of the Octant routines for LOS testing. DONE. TestPixel5_320() -> TestPixel8_640 DONE. TestPixel1_320() -> TestPixel1_640 DONE. Generated a Mult640Table for use by the above TestPixel routines. DONE. None of the other asm routines needed any adjusting. * Installed Devpac assembler on the A1200T. It seems to work better on the A1200T than on the A3000. *. Adjust all the setup code and global variables that store cellheight,width, x,y coords of cells, etc. DONE. * Replace hardcoded numbers with variables: Replace all appropriate occurrences of 16 with CellHeight or Cellwidth. Replace all appropriate occurrences of 8 with HalfCellHeight or HalfCellWidth Replace all appropriate occurrences of 17 with CellHeightPlus1 or CellWidthPlus1 Ditto for the numbers 15, 7 and 9 and 320. I had to replace many occurrences of 24 with (CellWidth+HalfCellWidth) I made hundreds of replacements! I already replaced all <<4 and >>4 and all variations years ago. Frédéric Delacroix writes: > * My biohazard spell did not affect the dungeon's shadow wood, but it did on > a player's magic wood. It seems this spell does not affect objects belonging > to nobody. NOW FIXED. > * I think a non-arborist is not able to cast trees next to a scroll of > magic/etc wood. NOW FIXED. Joar writes: > im back again , and i'll sign out next week, really this time... really! > they have a "deassemble pc keyboards for recycling" place there, and I > checked it out (I always want to destroy pc's) , BUT when i saw the pile of > keyboards, i also saw an commodore 64 ! ..... it looked fine but missed a > few buttons. i got surprised ofcourse (why throw away goldies????)... > then i got a suspicion... if they have that... do they have?... Yes thats > right!! .. I found an A500+ . it looked completely hole. but same with > this, lacked some buttons. i didnt find any other. > I couldnt let it be opened and tortured in pieces,, so i quickly stole it, > regardless if it worked or not.. I wouldnt get any sleep if I didnt either. > im "home" now, so i'll try it soon Hehehe! Go Joar go!!! Save the Amiga!! :) May 12, 2001: * Sent Joar v3.34. Filesize=435056. * Sent Artur v3.34. Filesize=435056. * I converted init.c SetupScreen1 and SetupScreen2 to be formatted for 640x512 screens today. Works perfectly. Still need to obtain or make 640x512x8 setupscreen.iff files! On 12-May-01, Joar Berntsen wrote: > i played a game today, long, actionphased and cool. > it was a great game, > but the wizards ran out of spells.... > i hate when that happens!!!!!!!!!!!! (is it enough !'s) > and i died 4-6 turns afterwards :( > doesnt it happen to you? I only run out of spells sometimes. And if I do its no big deal. I just kill something to get more spells. > i've told you this before, but ........ > pls! pls! plsss!!!! do something about it!! > the game is 100% playable until you run out ofem, then its down to 34%. > ideas at empty spell list (or other??): > -grow meditation trees > -turn walls into castles . bizarr ;) > -sacrifice your own creatures/creations for 1-3 spells, by choice > -drop 6 spells on the board at random positions > -certain growths grow spells to its owner > -turn the game completely=get a "steal creatures from board into spell list" > spell, steal from enemy only ofcourse. > -all trees/wood convert to apple trees > -you automatically get a mana battery beside you, or in the spell list > -you get random spells equal to the amount of undeads you have > -you get random spells equal to the amount of creatures you have > -you get random spells equal to the amount of your wizards kill list > -all dead creatures become spells , to be taken > -generators create spells around them > -uncertainty pops out creatures for the wizards to use > -all the creatures turn into undead dragons, and may the... most kvantity > win I might implement some of the above ideas as a spell that you can cast. > pls!!!! , just one ofem pls.. ( im a bit naggy here ;) ) > its so sad to have an empty spell list :/ There are very easy ways to keep your spell list from getting empty: 1. Hurry up and win the game. Even in Texas Trash'em you can't realistically run out of spells until turn 55. That's 50 turns of your original spells + 10 bonus spells that you accumulate through the game. So just win the game before turn 55 and you have no problem. 2. Turn off Texas Trash'em. Then you _absolutely_ cannot run out of spells until turn 99. Realistically, turn 120. 3. Quit discarding your Magic Wood spells! You need them to get more spells! 4. Kill more dragons and get more bonus spells. 5. Kill more walls and get more bonus spells. 6. Kill more Generators and get more bonus spells. 7. Kill more stuff and get more bonus spells. 8. If you are REALLY desparate you can kill one of your own creatures to get a bonus spell. I've seen people do this before in real multi-human games. And Frédéric has told me he has done it before. 9. Start the game with some scrolls laying around. Even if you only pick up 3 scrolls... well that's 3 extra spells for you to use. 10. Cast Uncertainty. 11. Cast Mana Battery. 12. There are other ways but I'll let you find them yourself. I don't want to ruin all the fun. So, as you can see, there are already a large number of ways to get some extra spells. Use the strategy, Luke. :) > misc ideas not at empty spell list: > -a gadget you can press to see wich creatures you havent moved yet, because > i tend to forget 1 or 2 of my creatures often , and pressing # for my > wizards ownings is a bit time consuming.. and the buttons on the keyboard > are so small :) Okey, I'll think about it. But I _won't_ do it until the AGA version is up and running 100%. Its about 30% right now. I'm not adding any new features until the AGA version is 100%. I am still doing bugfixes on v3.3x though. > i dont like the ingame "not discovered land" (its too bright) so i included > 1 draft of my own to see if u liked it, > btw , i made an animation for cloak, but it didnt animate :/ . bugger Currently there is a rule that magic spells don't animate. The pic you sent was not animated. But it looks very nice. It looks like a very good Terrain tile. Ok, its purple... so it must be some magic or radioactive terrain... :) I made the Unexplored Territory tile the way it is because it can't possibly be confused with terrain, it looks to uhmmm... non-terrainy. :) Your new tile is very good but it looks exactly like a purple terrain tile. I may switch to your tile anyway, because I like it. I will climb into my Magic Castle and meditate on this. > i would like to make a smoke kind of thing for cloak. > do you think you will make it animate? Well it just so happens I know the programmer and he can change the rules. Maybe he will change the Magic Spell Animation rule? :-D In the meantime you can _for_sure_ make 32x32x256 versions of some gfx for the upcoming AGA version of the game. I don't have to do any special programming for that and it will guaranteed work. :) You should probably start with something easy first, like a magic spell that has only 1 tile. On 12-May-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: > * Computer players cast the blonde spell multiple times on the same target. Are you sure about this? I just peeked at the stupidity checking and it looks completely impossible for such a thing to happen. Please send an autosave. May 13, 2001: I read the docs to Fblit and Ftext. There is no programmer documentation how to access the routines in Fblit.library! * PROBLEM: When someone downloads the game from aminet and runs it, it spends several minutes rebuilding _ALL_ the indices for ALL the gfx files, all the sounds files and all the multilingual translation files! This whole thing should not be happening. It is only happening due to a bug in the lha command: lha does not preserve the dates of dirs! It only preserves the dates of files! With FD's help I have now implemented a solution to work around this. NOW FIXED. A few of the details follow. List DIRS ALL took 28 seconds on my A3000 so I figured out that I really only need to do list the dirs in 3 directories: gfx/ sounds/ and SpellDescriptions/ This takes only 1 second. The drawback to this method is that someday I will create a new dir that needs datechecking and I'll forget to add it to my list and this will not be 100% (but it will still work so no real harm will be done). I am using the SetDate command because it is more than 5x smaller than the touch command and it is built-in to everyone's OS. But can I make SetDate be resident? I can't find my OS 3.0 book to check. :( I discovered that Touch and SetDate can accept dates like 28-05-01 (28 May 2001) so with my clever trick of using a date of 01-01-01 everything will always work, no matter what country or locale the program is run in. Some locale's may switch the order of the parameters. But 01-01-01 is always the same everywhere. Now all I need to do is to execute >NIL: VirginityHandler and delete VirginityHandler each time Chaos starts up. It should work as long as I remember to add the file to the archive before uploading it. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- On 13-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > 1. I'm not sure, perhaps I told you this before: Consecrate: You cannot cast > it on inanimate objects (as well as Dark Power and Justice), but if you cast > it on a creature next to an inanimate object, this object will be > consecrated too! Its one of the mysteries of Magic. :) > 2. I just killed Vulcano and a Flood appeared?!? Because the Volcano was cast on top of a Flood. > 3. And a nice story from the "duplicated wizards' bugs tale book": My enemy > wizard duplicated himself. Both copies were cloaked and had Sanctuary and > Armour, it was quite hard, I needed 3 Higher Devils and a Floating Eye and > much time, but finally I got it and killed one of the wizards (the one that > was actually casting spells). Then I used my Wake spell to make the > remaining wizard-reclicate my slave. 8) It worked! That is TOTALLY FREAKING HILARIOUS!!!!! I never heard of anyone doing this before!!! You _captured_ an enemy wizard!!! That should be worth 1000 points. :) > But more than this! > Suddenly I realized that I have become Wizard 7!?! My own wizard couldn't > cast spells any more, but my slave did for me?!? Ooooowwwwww I'm laughing so hard I can't think straight! ROFL!!!! > At least I kept my spell list. :) A good slave will treat you right. :) > I think you should disable casting Wake on Wizards? Yes I think I will have to. Or I could try to just hack in some extra code to check for a real wizard who belongs to a different person.... Hmmm... that could get really really messy.... damn.... that will never work. There would be bugs under bugs on top of other bugs so I'll just make Wake illegal to cast on an exposed wizard. That will solve everything. HEY!!! It is already illegal to cast Wake on a square containing a wizard! Hmmm... the game checks the Wizards[x].alive bit and it says "0" so this wizard is dead. Yet he is sleeping and not a corpse... Its a Nondead! ;) NOW FIXED. Its amazing that after all these years of heavy duty playtesting that you can still come along and find something totally wacked out like this! Chaos must be a really amazing game! Either that or the coding is just crap. I let you decide. 8^D > Two things concerning the Tower: > My Exorcist refused entering the Tower with the message: Unable to attack > the living. :( NOW FIXED. > Why don't send my allies creatures into my tower? 1. You can't send your allied creatures _anywhere_ . You can't even click on an allied creature. 2. Your allies don't really trust you anymore. They keep remembering when you shot them in the back that one time. :) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- * BUG: Tower Level 4 S is in a group all by itself. NOW FIXED. May 14, 2001: * BUG: The little dots that indicate the player number are drawn in the completely wrong squares. This bug has existed for many months. NOW FIXED. * Converted the Level Editor to AGA. Artur writes: > F. There's still some bug/feature which lets you see some of the stats > of Cloacked (and maybe unexplored too ??) object - the trick is like > that: you get to the stats screen of some cloacked object, move the > mouse pointer more or less to the place where normally "Combat" is > displayed, and click the left mouse button there. You'll just see > color-cycled names of some stats and EVERY graphical stat (though > without numbers) and it's enough to let you know how the thing is > doing. ;)) Yikerz! Thank you for reporting this. NOW FIXED. May 15, 2001: * Lowered Aesculapius: Ranged Combat -2 -> -1. Magic Resistance 7 -> 2. Probability -2 -> -1. When you kill Aesculapius you get to choose 1 bonus spell from a list of 4 (used to be 3). This should fix all balance of power problems in Human vs. Human games. When Ruthlessness is turned on, I think the independents will be smart enough to kill an Aesculapius with normal combat. * Fixed the Paradigm Shift spell description. I converted all the tiles in the game using FD's nifty conversion proggies but afterwards I realized they are all off by 1 pixel so they must all be converted again. And the most of the CellEffects/#? files failed to convert because some strange reason they are 266 pixels tall instead of 256. May 16, 2001: * Wrote the code to build the JCformat tiles from the iff files. * Wrote some code to draw JCformat tiles to the board with and without ShadowMasks. May 17, 2001: * Improved the HowToMakeSpells docs a little bit. * I Spent all day making THOUSANDS of changes to the code and writing gobs of new routines to support the new "Tiles in Fastram" stuff. init.c Team Gadgets are pointing to JCtiles! This will not work! I must convert the JCtiles into real struct image things for this to work! DONE. May 18, 2001: * Fixed the bugs of yesterday's coding session. * Fixed LOS to work from the fastram shadowboard always, even if exploration mode is off. * The game engine is now fully 100% operational on AGA! The only things left to do now are to convert the load/save/quit/newgame/about screens and to properly load in the gadgets/skins. May 19, 2001: On 19-May-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: > Hello James > On 18-Mai-01, James Conwell wrote: > Anyway, here are a few playing notes sitting on my HD for a while: > * There's a sleeping vampire out there, he's not dying at all. I think > sleeping creatures don't do any recovery at all. That is always the way it has worked. > * When the dungeon is made of apple woods, special combat takes an > eternity!! And thus was born the "Silent Special Combat" menu option of v3.3. > * An enemy lion was running across the screen to attack a weak wall and > during the attack, it was displayed movement points=-96.50. Robin Adds: -> I've seen this very often. It seems to occur if the monster attacks -> with its last movement point and only if it kills the target. Since I had double the info on this bug I tried to recreate it so I could fix it. I found that the bug happened _any_ time a computer creature got engaged while moving, not just on its last MP. And it happens whether it kills the target or not, though it is easier to see it when it kills a creature because the text is displayed during the death scream of a dragon for example. Its all NOW FIXED. > * After casting vox angelica (and heal and vox celestes too probably), > inanimate objects that were converted to flesh become stone again. NOW FIXED. Stone to Fleshed objects now retain their fleshiness when Healed or Voxed. > * I think that when music is turned off in the spell selection phase, the > tribal dance is never played and "out of chip ram" is reported. Nope. I turned off music and my Tribal Dance is working... I'm moving faster and manuverability is going up as I type this message at you. 8^D Next time you are going to cast Tribal Dance, check your largest chunk of free chipram then check the filesize of Tribal Dance. Then you'll see why it doesn't play. > * I had Converted an enemy ghoul and then someone else exorcised it ! Uhmmm... I think that is impossible. Maybe one of your enemies healed the Ghoul first, then it got Exorcised. > * My dungeon was made of radioactive land and someone cast curse. I expected > the radioactive land to die (life 0) but it didn't. I guess curse does not > target nobody's objects. This was also the case for biohazard and I expect > it to affect more spells (disruption etc). Biohazard seems to be working perfectly but I had to fix the following spells: Curse, Disruption, Charm, Disection, Drain, Eidetic Xenogenicide and Meddle. NOW FIXED. On 19-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > Hi Joar! > I thought about some .spl's for the Warrior and the several promotions. Have > a look at them, the Warrior is still your invention, I only wanted to make a > purpose. They are all quite entertaining. I have various ideas about the Knight etc. but I'm keeping them to myself. I don't want to distract you guys from your mission, you are doing quite nicely on your own. :) > James, you can look at them too and tell if it's possible to make such > things as we thought about. Everything is possible. :) I would have to add several new statistics into the game engine in order to fully implement everything in your .spl files. As to the horse capturing/killing thing its a great idea but I haven't figured out how to implement it in the game engine yet. Mainly it will be a bitch to do the AI for the computer Knights and the movement routine with the FindAllPaths() thing. Hmmm... but if he has to just "kill" the horse then I don't have to adjust any AI and it will be easy. But I'm not sure that it makes sense to kill the thing you are going to ride around on, actually I'm pretty sure it doesn't make any sense. :) So I don't know what I'm going to do about the mounting horse thing... Options: A: Forget it. B: He can only "mount" a friendly horse, this makes the horse disappear and the warrior is promoted to a knight. This is such an easy promotion, maybe he should start as a Page or Squire and he must first capture a horse to become a warrior. Then he must kill a dragon to become a knight. Oh darn now I've told you some of my ideas that I was keeping to myself. :) C: Hack in some weird "if this guy attacks any horse he automatically captures it and gets promoted to a knight" type of code. This would probably wreck all my current movement AI routines. D: Same as B but can work on Allied horses also. Robin and James are in an alliance. Robin's Squire/Page/Horseman mounts James's Horse and becomes a Warrior (Horseman? Mounted Infantry? Cavalry 1st Class? ??) James: "Hey you stole my horse!" Robin: "Relax friend, we are allies, my horse is your horse." James: "No! My horse is _your_ horse!" Robin: "You don't even have a horse." James: "I had a horse but you stole it!" Robin: "Search your heart, how could allies steal from their friend?" James: "Yes, that's what I want to know! How could you steal my horse from me!?!" Robin: "I don't have your horse, look all I have is a Wizard and a little Knight, no horses at all." James: "!" I've been trying to think up a creature called a Horseless Headsman or somesuch. It would be a regular guy and he needs to capture a horse to be useful. But what is a Headsman and what does he do? Collects people's heads I guess. That's about all I've come up with so far. May 20, 2001: Jilles Tjoelker Writes: > - When killing a sleeping creature with Horror, the clone (also asleep > of course) is animated. I spent an hour testing this and fiddling around with things. Finally it is NOW FIXED. > - Computer wizards cast Hyperclone when they have no creature at all! Ok, I adjusted it so they will not cast Hyperclone when they have no creature at all. NOW FIXED. > - Devastation does not destroy generator scrolls. NOW FIXED. > - Computer wizards are often not interested in such powerful scrolls as > demons, dragons and Uncertainty. Ok, we added a bit of extra code so that they will go for scrolls more intelligently. I didn't write a whole new routine to perfectly go for the best scrolls. So a human will still be much better than the computer at grabbing scrolls. But at least the computer will now choose to grab a Fire Demon over a Giant Beetle when they are close to each other. * While I was munging around in the movement routines I added some extra math so that now, theoretically, wizards should abandon a heavily damaged mount in favor of a strong healthy one. Unfortunately the MoveWizard() routine has no concept of dismounting and it is totally impossible for any computer wizard to ever dismount. The MoveWizard() routine would need to be totally rewritten and I haven't the time for it right now. However, if a computer wizard is near several mounts/meditations he theoretically will now choose the healthiest one. May 21, 2001 On 21-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > I messed around a bit in the Talklist files and now the scavenging text is > as perfectly as I can make it with a reasonable amount of work. I had to > make some restrictions though, for example with the Dire Wolf. You can't > make the impression "Dire Wolf meat" in German, for this would mean "Dire > meat of a wolf" making no sense at all. It's simply "Wolf meat" now. Ok, that will work. Or you can just make a new list of all the objects in chaos with the name of this grammatical situation stuck on the end for 100% perfect translations. Or maybe you already did this? Its up to you. > "The > Exorcist" has been reduced to "Exorcist", this is what you should do in the > English version as well. Grammatically the answer is: Yes I should do that. But I knew that when I made "The Exorcist". :) I made it that way on purpose to sound exotic. > It should be "Wizard 1's xxx eats some Exorcist's > meat", same with Hippocrates and Aesculapius. And perhaps even with > Wolverinem though I'm not sure if this is a name or just a name, if you get > what I mean. :) I mean: Is Wolverine and object or is it a class (ie. is > there a species called Wolverine or is it just THE Wolverine) ? Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor not a zoologist! :) > There are some problem with all creatures having a 'two word' name, like > "Red Dragon" or "Floating Eye", but I solved this more or less. More lists can solve any and every problem. :) > Can scavengers eats a dead Vampire? Sure, why not? They can eat any dead thing at all. > What happens if the program uses a list that does not exist (say I have > forgotten one creature)? Then you'll get something on the screen like "James's {Arctic Wolfm} tears the legs from Robin's soon-to-be-dead Vampire" At least that is what it is supposed to do. It has never been tested. > I also added the GENDER stuff to catalog.line206. You said you only added > the code for the scavenging stuff, so I'm curious what will happen when I > start the game. It would be nice to have an executable with all that new > lists' stuff implemented. Then I could continue/finish translation and test > it. But take your time, I have other things to do until you manage to add > the code. ;) I added the 100% perfect translations code to line 206 now also. So for now line 49, 50 and 206 should be 100%. On 21-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > Hi James! > ->> I messed around a bit in the Talklist files and now the scavenging text > is ->> as perfectly as I can make it with a reasonable amount of work. I had > to ->> make some restrictions though, for example with the Dire Wolf. You > can't ->> make the impression "Dire Wolf meat" in German, for this would > mean "Dire ->> meat of a wolf" making no sense at all. It's simply "Wolf > meat" now. > -> Ok, that will work. Or you can just make a new list of all the objects in > -> chaos with the name of this grammatical situation stuck on the end for > 100% -> perfect translations. Or maybe you already did this? Its up to you. > I'm not sure what you mean here? Once again: A construct like "xxx eats some > Dire Wolf meat" is illegal in German. It has to be "xxx eats some meat of a > Dire Wolf" but that'd suck for other creatures ("xxx eats some meat of a > Golem"). So I somehow have to know whether the creature has a one or > more-parted name, which is impossible to know with the current kind of > system. > So pls explain how you think further lists can solve this problem. BEGIN_LIST {Red Dragon1Word?} N * BEGIN_LIST {Harpy1Word?} Y * > ->> There are some problem with all creatures having a 'two word' name, like > ->> "Red Dragon" or "Floating Eye", but I solved this more or less. > -> More lists can solve any and every problem. :) > See above. > ->> Can scavengers eats a dead Vampire? > -> Sure, why not? They can eat any dead thing at all. > Because a rat cannot attack a living vampire, but it can eat a dead one? That's because a living vampire is undead but a dead vampire is not truly undead. It is also because attacking a monster and eating a corpse are different things. > Does the gender-code handle these gender-flags: "M", "F", "N", "-M", "-F", > "-N" ? When you say 'No' it's no problem changing it to only one-char-flags, > but I need at least six different flags, indicating the gender AND whether > it's a name and doesn't get an article (for Hippocrates, Asclepios and some > more). I am sorry but the answer is "no" it doesn't handle multi-character genders. I didn't realize you needed so many. Maybe you can cheat and use "m" instead of "-M". Though I think your -M makes much more sense. Or you could use "C", "D" and "T" for Chick, Dude and Thing. :-D On 21-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > Hi James > ->> So pls explain how you think further lists can solve this problem. > -> BEGIN_LIST {Red Dragon1Word?} > -> N > -> * > -> BEGIN_LIST {Harpy1Word?} > -> Y > -> * > Ahh, now everything is easy. I just add the following lines to the talklist: > IF {%3s$1Word} = N THEN > SAY "xxx eats flesh of this Red Dragon lying here." > ELSE > SAY "xxx eats something else. Might have been a Harpy in better days, but > who knows?" > END IF > I really wonder how that'd work... =) > So PLEASE be more detailed what I can do with these list. I still don't see > how to solve this problem other than I already did. BEGIN_LIST {Robin'sSecretListY} %1$s eats something else. Might have been a %$3s in better days, but who knows? * BEGIN_LIST {Robin'sSecretListN} %1$s eats flesh of this %3$s lying here. * The line in the catalog would look like: {Robin'sSecretList{%3$s1Word?}} See how easy that is? If %3$s is "Red Dragon" then the catalog line becomes: {Robin'sSecretList{Red Dragon1Word?}} Then that becomes: {Robin'sSecretListN} Then that becomes: %1$s eats flesh of this %3$s lying here. Then that becomes: (assuming %1$s = "Orc") Orc eats flesh of this Red Dragon lying here. P.S. I proprose replacing "Robin'sSecretList" with "CatalogLine206" in the above example. > ->> -> I added the 100% perfect translations code to line 206 now also. > ->> -> So for now line 49, 50 and 206 should be 100%. > Btw. I can't remember to have seen this text (line 206) ever since you > killed that "Comrade Nobody: Is it okay with you me casting my xxx next to > your Nothing?" bug. But okay, now it is translated... Its very rare. It only happens when computer players are casting pits/walls/trees and they are about to cast it adjacent to an allied human-owned object. They are very polite and don't want to block you in, so they ask you first if it is ok. In the future this line of the catalog file may be used for more stuff so it is important. On 21-May-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: > * The dungeon is made of apple woods, but my creatures don't gain a single > MR point. Are you in an Alliance with the Apple Woods? No. Then why should they help you out? I have reports that you once chopped down an Apple Wood tree and those Apple Woods really hold a grudge you know? :) The special combat of the Apple Wood is set to NOT apply to hostiles. We could change Apple Woods to work like Pools and heal everyone. This would make the Dungeon Wars Apple Wood mode far more interesting .. BUT .. it would diminish the usefullness of casting Apple Woods in every other dungeon and in all "normal" games. I think we should make a new thing which works like the Apple Wood but heals ALL surrounding things, friend and foe alike. Then sometimes the dungeon will be built of these things and everything will be great and everyone will be happy. A Mulberry Tree!!! <- YUM YUM Sounds like more work for the gfx dept. :) > * The bird lord's sight range is less than that of the eagle. Isn't it > supposed to be better than the eagle in all respects ? The spell description doesn't say "better than an eagle in all respects". It is supposed to be a "king of the avian species" so perhaps it _should_ have eyesight equal to that of the Eagle. But my viewpoint is: The Bird Lord is already superior enough and it is already easy enough to map out a level so the game doesn't need any more far-seeing creatures. If lots of creatures have good eyesight then it will greatly diminish/dillute/ruin exploration mode IMHO. May 22, 2001: * BUG: Robin reports the game is locking up when scavening with his new 100% scavenging translations and talklists. The lockup was caused by the game getting into an infinite loop due to certain lists didn't exist. My infinite loop detection code was bugged due to a misunderstanding of how C works. NOW FIXED. * Sent Robin v3.35. Executable filesize=437284 bytes I was afraid something like this might happen. This is why I haven't put in the 100% translations code on every line of the catalog file. If I had done that it would have taken me hours today to fix all 231 occurrences of this bug. * So what caused there to be nonexistent lists? 1. There were various missing { which caused the {} to be unbalanced. 2. At some point it tries to do a {GENDEROF%3$s} which is {GENDEROFJames} but obviously there is no such list. So your parameters seem to be mixed up. :) 3. When a Red Dragon ate some dead orc meat it said "{EatJames}leichnam" 4. It also tries to do {EatGenArt%3$s} {EatGenArtJames}. > That cannot be! The code somehow swaps %1$s and %3$s! The bug is in OS Locale.library/FormatString(). For more info see April 29, 2001 entry. * I had to write my own positional parameters routine from scratch. Bad points: It was annoying and obnoxious to have to do so. It stopped my work on the AGA version. Good points: My 100% translations code is much cleaner and faster and smaller now. My new ReplaceParameters() routine has ReplaceLists() built in so it can totally do everything in 1 subroutine call. May 23, 2001: On 23-May-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: > Here are three experiences I made with the replicate spell: > 1. I replicated my Thundermare, but the corpse of the Unicorn that lay > underneath was replicated too. I think, you corrected the same bug in the > Teleport spell some months ago. We only _talked_ about the possibility that I might change the way Teleport works. It has always worked that way because it is programmed to work that way and its easiest for me to leave it alone. So I'm going to leave it the way it is. > 2. One more delicate thing: I replicated my wizard (ohh yes baby, give it to > me!) in a dungeon of Magic Woods. Then both wizards entered a Magic Wood. > And suddenly one of my wizards disappeared completely. I couldn't move it > out of the meditation, and more! My other wizard could enter the tree that > was already occupied by me 1st wizard! I think I have lost one copy. And > that's a pity, I had hoped to have two wizards meditating (and gaining > spells) in this level. :( First you tried to enslave enemy wizards, now you are trying to manufacture new ones! Are you trying to conquer the whole universe or something?! Where will it all end!? 8^D > 3. When my wizard enters a mount and I replicate the mount, my wizard is not > replicated. ;) 2 & 3: The spell description warns that casting Replicate on one's own self can be very disorienting. > I had my 1st try with JClevel1. I didn't get far. :( Its a hard level for expert BattleMages only. :) > But I saw several scrolls there being animated!? This bug only happened when loading /old/ levels into the new animation system. NOW FIXED. > And when I shot at them, they left corpses!? They've always done that. It even says so in the history file somewhere. It's magic. :) > Is that normal? No. Its total chaos. ßþ > I don't play with scrolls very often, but I believe they > hadn't been animated and didn't leave corpses before? May 24, 2001: var[x] is defined as *(var+x) as long as var is some kind of pointer. * LOAD GAME BUG: If you have a Memory Master and some creatures standing on corpses when you first load a game, you cannot see what your creatures are standing on! You must first take your turn and move your Memory Master before you can see the corpses. NOW FIXED. May 25, 2001: * Sent v3.36 to Robin. Executable filesize = 437088 bytes. This version has the new translation code in it. * Applied the patch from MMU.Library to the narrator.device to stop all those low stack warnings from MuGuardianAngel. On 25-May-01, Joar Berntsen wrote: > what is the Sircon Foundation? An ancient and very powerful collection of ArchMages who have devoted their lives to the spread of Chaos to all nationalities, all tongues and all ages; that no man should escape the Chaos. Neither the man who toils in the field nor the man who sails the seas, nor the warrior, nor the peasant, nor those with rank and prestige or power in high places. All must succumb to the Chaos. All Chaos flows from the wellspring of the Sircon Foundation. Chaos is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. For in Chaos did all things arise and in Chaos shall all things end. So as it was, so shall it always be, even unto eternity. Thus sayeth James. * Skins for the right hand side are now working. Xav sent in lots of skins but I only thought of ideas for 15 of them. There are some other good ones in UnusedGfx/Skins/ May 26, 2001: ********************** BEGIN LORES MODE *************************** Put in the 640x256 autoscroll option for people who don't have flicker fixers. ONLY the screen (mainscreen) and the HiResScreen (text screen at bottom) will be opened differently in LoResMode. screen will have AUTOSCROLL set. All those PutScreen() commands for the HiResScreen will need to be changed. All rastports and allocmems and bitmaps are all EXACTLY THE SAME. I added a -l (lores) option to Chaos. This open opens the main screen in 640x256 AUTOSCROLL mode. This option is only useful to those people who (unbelievably) don't have a flicker fixer yet, nor even a 31Khz monitor. I spent all day trying to get the main screen to autoscroll correctly. BUG: Amiga OS doesn't Autoscroll child screens properly. Try the -l option and you'll see what I mean. I tried many experiments and adjustments but I could not get it to autoscroll correctly. However, you can manually scroll it just fine. Left-Amiga + Left mouse button + moving the mouse around scrolls it exactly the same as it does on every other amiga program/screen. If everyone had a flickerfixer (or at least a 31Khz monitor) I wouldn't have even bothered trying this lores option. They've been selling flickerfixers since 1988. Being lame I didn't buy my first flickerfixer until 1991. I owned 2 flickerfixers from 1993-on. These days brand new fancy 17 inch PC monitors are selling for $100.00 so there's not much of an excuse not be able to display 31Khz screens. Possible solutions to the lores mode: A. Forget it. This one is the easiest one. Frédéric already told me I should forget about autoscroll screens. B. Have someone tell me the secret hack around this bug. (?) C. Have someone patch the OS to work correctly. (?) D. Turn off autoscrolling on the main screen and implement my own software autoscrolling. E. ??? What are your opinions on this? I have never liked strategy games with scrolling screens. Not even 50 fps scrolling screens. I don't like to spend my time constantly moving the screen around. I want to concentrate on strategy. After playing Chaos in scrolling-screen mode I think I now _hate_ scrolling strategy games. Yuk. :( I like to see everything at once. 640x512 rules. ********************** END LORES MODE *************************** May 27, 2001: * I converted all the tiles using FD's nice little conversion proggies. Since its going to be a lot of work to make 32x32 versions of all the gfx, I cheated and I converted 83 files using the quadruple method. :) This will help to get things started. We can redraw them later on. May 28, 2001: Robin writes: > In my test game something happened to my Dark Woods: Suddenly I could 'move' > them (all of them) (with 0.5 movement points) and they had the 'Stone To > Flesh' symbol in their stats panel. But the creature-flag was not set. So my > Haste spell did no work on them. But the Speed spell of one ally did. Then I > could use one of them like any creature with Combat 0 and 10 movement and > special combat. But it wasn't a creature (the flag-panel was totally empty: > The tree was neither a creature nor an inanimate nor flying nor growing nor > eating nor a meditation nor anything else). > What did happen here and did it happen the way it should? What happened was that 10 days ago I had to fix the Vox spells to handle Stone to Fleshed creatures but I accidentally put a | where there should be a &. This bug was only in your version and is NOW FIXED. > And concerning AI and scrolls: The computer keeps shooting at scrolls, > even if there are exposed wizards next to that particular scroll. > Strange. I have now changed it so that computer creatures will not shoot scrolls which are adjacent to an allied wizard. NOW FIXED. May 29, 2001: HOW TO CREATE AN AGA VERSION OF CHAOS: 1. Copy your current Chaos v3.3x dir to another dir. (Chaos_3.5) Keep your original v3.3x intact. It is a guaranteed 100% working game. You'll want to keep it in case v3.5 turns out to be unstable. 2. I will send you an archive. It will be large and some of you have special email addresses for large files. Check them soon. 3. Put this archive into your Chaos_3.5 dir and unpack it. It will automagically put all needed files in all needed subdirs. This is just an alpha. The load/save/quit/newgame screens are all messed up. Don't bother reporting them to me. :) I'll fix them later when I decide what to do with them. The setupscreen .iffs are not finished (or wrong). When someone makes new ones they will appear correct. We probably need a 16 pixel tall x 8 pixels wide ChaosPearl8x16.font. The gameplay should work 100%. The only problems you find _should_ only be graphical glitches. This version contains all the bugfixes of all reported bugs, some enhanced AI, etc. This should be enough for you to see the graphical direction the game is going in. For those of you who want to play ChaosAGA in Lores mode, read the readme about the -l option. If you run Chaos from Shell you MUST have a stack of at least 8000 bytes. Sorry for the delay of getting this to you. Everyone keeps bombarding me with huge lists of things to do to the game and I keep getting sidetracked onto a million different things. I am trying to catch up but its not really working. :) All the tiles are all converted to the new 32x32 format. Examine them to see how its done. :) In your c/ should appear 2 programs ConvertTiles and QuadrupleTiles by the one and only F. Delacroix: IFF CodeWarrior of the 3rd Circle. You can use these to convert any old unused gfx to the new 32x32 format if you ever need to. Note to Xav: Once upon a time you made a better Orc. I liked it but it was too big for the old game and I told you I would use it when we switched to 32x32 tiles. But now I can't find it! Its been kidnapped! Augh! I can't find your new Ogre either! Do you have them in Xav's Secret Databank? :) May 29, 2001: * I sent an alpha of Chaos3.5AGA to the Chaos gfx dept. FD, Joar, Xav, Robin but I forgot to bump up the version number. Oops. I started an exploration mode game with music off to test chipram usage of OCS Chaos vs. AGA Chaos 904248 bytes 404536 bytes AGA Chaos uses 499712 bytes less chipram than OCS Chaos! If I would have just included 2 more tiles of animation into the game it would have been saving 500000 bytes! Don't be surprised if you start to hear music in the game that you never heard before. :) With all that extra free chipram, you may be able to hear some of those HUGE mods that wouldn't load on your system before. Chaos AGA can use an infinite number of gfx files, each with an infinite number of animation frames and it will all use 0k of extra chipram. This is very good because the AGA tiles use 6x as much memory as the OCS tiles. I watched a German movie in honor of Robin Schmidt: Das Boot. For 3.5 hours I completely cleared my mind of Chaos. After watching this movie I now realize that the life of a Deutschian is a hard life indeed. :) May 30, 2001: * Improved DangerousnessRating() to take into account: Towers, the exact stats attacked by combat, ranged combat, special combat and some other things. I studied how to make gadgets have transparency. May 31, 2001: * BUG: When changing languages, some gfx on the screen get corrupted. (They lose some bitplanes of color). NOW FIXED. * BUG: Changing languages trashes the right hand side skin!!!! NOW FIXED. I spent all day trying to make the gadgets have transparency. There is no built-in easy way to do this in Amiga OS so basically I just wasted the whole day. There was a fire and explosion in the maintenance shed. June 1, 2001: * BUG: Bonus Spell Window is too small for the 32x32 tiles. NOW FIXED. June 2, 2001: * BUG: There is a chipmem leak of around 9300 bytes! I tracked this down (finally) and ... YIKERZ, its not a regular memory leak! It is caused because some vars got overwritten and set to 0! So the memory leak bug is caused by a memory corruption bug. This whole thing never really caused me any harm on my system but maybe this is why Robin has been experiencing random crashes. NOW FIXED. * TRANSPARENT GADGETS! Finally after 3 days of battling memory corruption and bugs and thinking up methods... The "transparent" gadgets are done. 1. They aren't "really" transparent because there is no easy way in the OS to do this. 2. I secretly render the gadgets so that they have the current background built-in each time the skin changes. 3. The gadgets now use twice as much chipram because they each have their original bitmap + the "rendered" bitmap. They also use twice as much fastram now because each gadget now has 2 bitmap structs + 1 rastport struct. 4. I had to write huge amounts of code for this. This increased the size of the executable by over 2k but luckily I found 2k of old OCS->AGA conversion code in the program that I commented out so the code size is still the same. 5. The game now uses a few K's more chipram. 6. I have determined that there are an infinite number of ways to corrupt memory using C. Furthermore, there are another infinite number of ways to corrupt memory using the OS. Therefore debugging takes 2 x Infinity amount of time. Sent out a new ChaosAGA Update #1 (v3.51) This new update ONLY NEEDS: 1. New executable. (filesize=451536) 2. New gadgets/english/QuestionMark#? and EndTurn#? END OF VERSION 3.51 June 3, 2001: * BUG: There is a memory leak of 90K of fastram. But it only happens when you start a real actual game. Just loading chaos and then quitting on the setup screen leaks no memory. You must start an actual game, then when you quit you are missing 90k of fastram. This turned out to be because the code that loads the skins was opening a file with the iff.library but never closing that file. I guess if your skin changed lots of times during a game that you'd eventually be missing a whole megabyte. It took 3.5 hours to track down this one bug. NOW FIXED. * GRAPHIC GLITCH: CellEffects are all off by 1. Thus they draw the control dots during the animation. This is a bug in the program not in the IFF gfx files. NOW FIXED. * SLOW: When you design a new gfx, it takes FOREVER for the tile indices to be rebuilt. Timing test performed with gfx screen in front. SetupGfxData() took 11191 frames = 223 seconds = 3:43! SetupCellEffectsData() took 1443 frames = 28 seconds. SOLUTION: Decode all the gfx into fastram instead of chipram. Timing test using fastram decompression buffer with gfx screen in front. SetupGfxData() took 2468 frames 4.53x faster! SetupCellEffectsData() took 316 frames 4.56x faster! NOW FIXED. June 4, 2001: FD Writes: > * Another AI issue. Merlin had his pegasus near to Elric's haunt and he cast > you cow catapult next to both creatures, so that nobody gained control of > it. There were 3 other places where it would have turned to Merlin. So my > suggestion is that a computer player should cast a cow catapult to where he > is almost sure to gain control of it. I spent 2 hours trying to think up an algorithm to take into account EVERYTHING. This was too complicated so I gave up on it and made a simpler algorithm to take into account various things. I spent 1 hour coding + 1 hour testing and refining the algorithm + 1 hour playing a test game. This AI is not perfect but it is far better than nothing and should work well most of the time. I spent 5 hours on this 1 routine (+360 lines of code, +524 bytes to the executable) and it is only used for the casting of *1* spell! NOW FIXED. * NEW LEVEL: CatapultWars. It worked out very interesting when I played it because the generators generated lots of stuff that made it very exciting! If the generators didn't generate much stuff then it might have been boring. (?) I got killed on turn 10! * GRAPHIC GLITCH: When choosing multiple bonus spells, the spell you just picked is not erased like it used to be! NOW FIXED. * BUG: The text in the titlebar of the window gets corrupted or truncated sometimes if you click out of the window then back into it. NOW FIXED. I ate a sheep. Well... ok, not a whole sheep. Just a large hunk of one. My brother had a $35.00 coupon for the Outback Steakhouse and he took me there to eat Aussie foot. But my eye saw something on the menu called New Zealand Rack of Lamb. So since Sean never cast his Teleport spell on me to transport me to New Zealand to eat real New Zealand lamb I had to settle for American imitation New Zealand lamb. This was the first time I ever ate lamb in a restaraunt. June 5, 2001: I watched the movie Dungeons & Dragons. 6:00 a.m. weather forecast says there will be some rain over the next couple of days, no big deal. 5:00 p.m. We are in the middle of a surprise Tropical Storm Allison. 6:00 p.m. the streets are flooded. We got hit with 10.8 inches of rain. * BUG: When creatures scavenge, the scavenging text is no longer printed! Instead some strange phonetics are displayed like "SPAYDER #Q". This was caused by the fact that the hunk of code that does the 100% translations somehow got deleted! NOW FIXED. * Conwell's Cow Catapult should have a MINIMUM RANGE! It absolutely should not be allowed to shoot at things adjacent to it! Catapult MinimumRange=2. NOW FIXED. * 5 NEW CATALOG LINES for Minimum Range stuff. * Modified the "s" and "r" keys accordingly to handle the new minimum range. DONE. * Modifed the range graphing on the info panel to show the minimum range. * LONGSTANDING BUG: If you ever get a creature with 14 range or 14 move, the squares overwrite part of the number! It looks trashy. NOW FIXED. June 6, 2001: I watched the movie Taxi Driver. I spent hours wandering around the net reading about how scientists slowed down light. 3 new sound/ dirs for ranged combat. Launch/ (plays when you click the mouse and before the gfx through the air are drawn) ThroughTheAir/ (Plays while the through the air gfx are being drawn) Impact/ (Plays during the impact of the shot) New macros: HasLaunchSound() HasThroughTheAirSound() HasImpactSound() June 7, 2001: * BUG: If you have an empty sounds/#?/ dir then the game won't start. So if someone were to delete all their Sounds/Combat/#? then the game would no longer run. NOW FIXED. * Moo sound for Sounds/ThroughTheAir/Conwell's Cow Catapult Got my hair cut, got sick, had to sleep all day. June 8, 2001: * Included Robin's 99% perfect Deutsch translations. * Fixed main combat routine to allegedly do impact sounds. * Fix parameters on WeaponEffect() and rewrite the WeaponEffect() internals to handle a char *SoundFile parameter. This is required for the cow catapult moo sound to work 100%. Allegedly DONE. Car battery went dead, had to fix it. June 9, 2001: Revenge of Allison. Allison came back over Houston and dumped 20-35 inches of rain in 24 hours causing the worst flooding in Houston's history. Never trust a female storm. I spent all night and all day checking the flood level at my apartment and watching the floodwaters on TV. Many many many vehicles were completely submerged. Many people were trapped on the roof of their house. June 10, 2001: It stopped raining for a few hours while Allison goes back over the ocean to build up power before turning around to attack the US again. * Due to popular demand I put in some informational messages in the early startup so people know what is going on when Chaos has to rebuild all those indexes. * HAM8 Title Screen: I finally put in Xav's Ham8 Title Screen. It is displayed in early startup while Chaos loads its files and builds its indices and allocates its memory and stuff. Normally it is only displayed for a few seconds but if some files have changed then it is displayed for a very long time. I spent most of the day watching the TV news coverage of the flood. June 11, 2001: I spent all day working on my car to comply with government regulations. June 12, 2001: Robin Writes: > In the last turn of my game my tower attacked an > adjactant bolter and a magic tree with the special combat of its Mind Flayer. > It killed both. The strange thing is, that both things belonged to me!? NOW FIXED. * NUCLEAR EXPLOSION: I put in Robin's new explosion. I just replaced the gfx/celleffects/Goblin Bomb with this new file. And the sound file is in Sounds/Nuke.8svx. I had to move the tiles because they were not in the right place and I had to change the pic to use the correct palette. Then I put in the programming and... WOW!!! It looks and sounds REALLY GOOD! * STRANGE BUG: When someone Vengeances my wizard, square 1 gets erased (because I'm player 1). Square 8 is erased when player 8 is Vengeanced, etc. NOW FIXED. * GRAPHIC GLITCH: Bonus Panel text overwrites the bonus spells! NOW FIXED. * BUG: Worm animation is totally messed up! He keeps crawling forwards then backwards! This is caused because when I moved the index rebuilding into fastram, the OS ReadPixel() function stopped working! (It can't work with fastram). I wrote a new asm ReadPixel function that works on fastram so this is NOW FIXED. * Dungeons are now sometimes constructed using the Optometron of Omniscience. * Miscellaneous graphical fixes. June 13, 2001: More work on my car. More government regulations. Gag. * QUADRASCOPES UPGRADE: The Quadrascopes have been a lot slower since I made the AGA version but nobody ever complained (probably because nobody looks at them). I have now moved the Quadrascopes into fastram. They should now take /4.5 the amount of time to draw. This also saves the 256 bytes of chipram. Whoopee. I mention this because 2 or 3 people complained about the quadrascopes "use too much chipmem so they should be deleted." The quadrascopes now use 0 bytes of chipmem. * QUADSPECTROGRAMS UPGRADE: I moved the QuadSpectrograms into fastram, as above. These were much more efficient to start with so they should only be 3.8x less time to draw. This saves 512 bytes of chipram. The QuadSpectrograms now use 0 bytes of chipram. They are now perfectly 32-bit aligned for maximum speed. Note to FD: Above upgrades mean I have updated AsmMusicSystem/flash.asm June 14, 2001: I sent a complete SpellDescriptions/English/ archive to Giulio today. I contacted a hacker about fixing Dpaint 5. No response. I put Robin's GrenadeExplosion.anim into Gfx/UnusedGfx/Robin/ until we decide exactly how to include it and what format it should be in etc. Its a very good explosion! ******************* NEW GFX FROM XAV *********************** I will now take a nice long break from coding and go through all the wonderful gfx that Xav has been sending me over the last 2 weeks. ----------------------- Unused for now: ----------------------------- Arctic Wolf -> UnusedGfx/ArcticKittyWolf I think I will put this in with the next batch of new spells. If the Snow Kitty attacks you it will claw your eyes out. Possible Names: Arctic Kitty Wolf, Ice Kitty (Despite its adorable appearance, the heart of the _______ is cold and hard like the icy glaciers of its homeland.) Cheetah -> UnusedGfx/Cheetah I will FOR SURE put this in with the next batch of new spells!!!!!! EndTurn.iff -> UnusedGfx/EndTurn.iff I like the one on the left but I am unsure if we should have a big end turn gadget because it will cover up the beautiful Xav-textures. If people want to use the new end turn gadget then I will put it in as soon as someone makes a "pressed" version to go with it. Explosion: I put this into Gfx/UnusedGfx/ for the moment. It is a great explosion so I _must_ use it for something... but which something??? Does anyone have an idea for this? Human01 -> UnusedGfx/OldManWithAlbinoOwl Is there any creature in Chaos currently that can use this? Is there a creature in the next set of creatures that can use this? Pumpkin -> UnusedGfx/Pumpkin I have a great idea for using this in the next batch of new spells! Demon -> UnusedGfx/Demon It looks like an alien of some sort so I will try to use this in the future. Shadow Wood2 -> UnusedGfx/Shadow Wood2 Very weird. Tiger -> UnusedGfx/Tiger I can use this for the next batch of new spells. Vampire -> UnusedGfx/Vampire It looks like a vampire but I really like Xav's original vampire much better! Perhaps Xav could make a new 32x32 version of his original vampire? (I think the bat could maybe be left as is and only the "vampire" frames need to be enlarged and smoothed.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- Included: -------------------------------- Bat: A very good Bat animation! But I really liked the original Xav-Bat so I will try to use the old one for some other creature someday. Apple Wood Dark Wood: A very spooky looking tree! But I really liked the old Xav-Dark Wood so I want to try to use the old one for something (possibly redrawn to be 32x32). Elephant: The animation is very good. But I liked the tusks on the old Xav-Elephant. Someday if someone makes a Winged Elephant and bloody Elephant and etc damaged versions based on this new elephant then we can use the old elphant as the Baby Elephant (after some turns of growing a Baby Elephant becomes an Adult Elephant). Does anyone volunteer to make the damaged versions of this new Elephant? Can anyone draw tusks on it? Fire: TOTALLY AWESOME! Fire Elemental: Possibly this is overly cute for a powerful undead, but the old Fire Elemental has always been SO LAME that this new one is much better. The gfx seem extremely blurry. Gorilla: Part of Xav's plot to seduce lots of girls into playing Chaos. :) Green Dragon: I had to amputate the last 5 frames from this one. I also rearranged the animation frames to try to make it move smoother. Horse.IFF -> Thundermare Xav only sent in 1 new horse gfx + 1 knight on horse gfx so I am making this gfx to be the Thundermare. Note that this Thundermare needs a dead image. It has really awesome animation but it REALLY needs to be antialiased. Secret bonus: this file has a Knight on horseback animation in it also. Lion Wings -> Manticore: Since there is only a new "Lion Wings" but no new regular lion, bloody lion, 3-legged lion, lame lion, etc. I have decided that it is just easier to make this gfx be the new Manticore. But if this is the Manticore then it needs a spiked tail. Does anyone volunteer to draw a spiked tail on this gfx? Magic Wood: The 3,4,5 can be made into an animated Magic Squirrel Wood in the future. Ogre -> Ogre Warrior: There is only 1 new Ogre graphic so I am making him be the Ogre Warrior since he is MUCH bigger than all the other Ogres. Someday if someone makes new Ogre, Ogre Mage and Ogre Assassin gfx then I might re switch them around. Pegasus: I really like the way the old Pegasus runs while it is flying. But this new one is bigger and higher resolution so it is a little better. Therefore I am switching to this new one. Red Dragon: Another good animation! Shadow Wood: Xav writes "I'm not completely satisfied... But ... ;-)" I agree. It could somehow be better. :) 15 new gfx! WAHOO!!!! ************************************************************* June 15, 2001: * I assembled a new ChaosAGA Update #2 (v3.52) for the ChaosAGA playtesting and gfx dezine dept. I sent it to all people who are currently working on Chaos AGA: Battle to the Edge of Time. (Xav, Joar, Robin, Frédéric) New update needs: 1. Levels/CatapultWarsEasy.lha Levels/CatapultWarsMedium.lha SavedGames/NukeTripleTest.lha SavedGames/XavsNewCreatures.lha 2. Sounds/Nuke.8svx 3. New sound effects dirs+sounds Sounds/Launch/#? Sounds/ThroughTheAir/#? Sounds/Impact/#? 4. New executable 5. All the catalogs because I had to fix line 49 and I added new lines to all catalogs. 6. All Deutsch Talklists and spelldescription files! (For FD). 7. Screens/English/Ham8TitleScreen 8. Gfx/CellEffects/Goblin Bomb 9. Gfx/Spells/ all those new Xav gfx. I hope I didn't forget anything! You will receive 2 different archives. One has the new executable and the other has everything else. You _MUST_ install *both* of them before running the new Chaos. Happy Gaming! :) ChaosAGAupdate2.lha filesize=582322 Xav & Joar Chaos Executable filesize=455932 Robin Chaos Executable filesize=455936 Frédéric Delacroix Chaos Executable filesize=455944 END OF VERSION 3.52 BEGIN VERSION 3.53 * BUG: Goblin Bomb kills itself by jumping into pit, thus damaging walls all around itself but the damage is not shown until the next creature noves. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Mod.ChaosTheme16 messes up at the beginning! This is once again because the built-in Chaos protracker replay routine is bugged on fast processors so the solution is to convert it to MED. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED: Robin's up-to-the-minute 100% Deutsch Translations. * AWARDED "Speedy Translator of the Month Award" to Robin for sending in translations within a few hours of receiving the original English! It even makes full use of Deutsch genders on 2 different words in the sentence. * Once upon a time Robin wrote me that his Brother or Cousin or somebody he was playing Chaos with accidentally trapped himself in with some of his own pits. He tried to sacrifice one of his orcs to get out but it said you can't attack your own team. He then asked me to make it so that you can enter your own pits. I did this a long time ago but I forgot to write it into the history file. June 16, 2001: Robin writes: > I had a test with the Goblin Bomb and a pit: When a Goblin Bomb jumps > into a pit it explodes. But same as the elementals I think it should > explode IN the pit not NEXT TO it. NOW FIXED. * NEW LEVEL: Pits!.lha I watched Maximum Exposure tonight and it was TOTALLY HILARIOUS! June 17, 2001: Robin wants me to remove the "Protect c/JCsound +p" "resident c/jcsound PURE" to see if those lines are triggering the bug in his extremely buggy Dopus Magellan 5.82. Sent Chaos version 3.53 to Robin for testing. Exectuable filesize=455764 END VERSION 3.53 BEGIN VERSION 3.54 On 17-Jun-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: >RS * FLAW: the special combat phase should enable the user to fasten it up by >RS pressing a key (space). reason: you often forget to use Silent Special >RS Combat mode. And if you use it, you can be sure that Grim Reaper appears >RS and you can't watch him harvesting... :) I made it so pressing _any_ key toggles Silent Special Combat on/off. NOW FIXED. >RS * FLAW: I miss the earthquake shake screen feature! Why did you delete >RS it?!? I didn't delete it. It just mysteriously stopped working. How long has this been going on? OS MoveScreen() no longer works so I replaced it with OS ScreenPosition() and now it seems to be working again. >RS> JC After studying the code I can now easily add in 'X mounts Y' code for >RS> JC objects which ANYONE can mount at ANY time. If we need to add code for >RS> JC just certain creatures to mount just certain objects then it will >RS> JC still be troublesome. >RS But I still think we need this code for various features. The >RS Warrior+horse->Knight for one, the Grey Elf+Wall->Bolter as another, and >RS furthermore I'm planning a new, highly complicated creature: The >RS Paradroid! Instead of attacking it simply mounts enemy creatures (perhaps >RS even performing this cultic little 'Paradroid Wars' game depending on the >RS intelligence of both creatures). If the Paradroid wins the take-over, it >RS destroys its former host and moves on to its next pray. >RS Or, to form it with chaotic terminology: 1. Paradroid is a small and weak >RS creature 2. Every time the paradroid attacks, it in fact casts a variation >RS of Subversion that looks not only at the intelligence of the target but >RS also at the Paradroid's intelligence. A very cool bonus would be to have >RS the Paradroid War game as a bonus game here (in case you don't know that: >RS one game lasts for max. 30secs). Anyway there should be the possibility >RS for the paradroid having intelligence=0 still conquering a creature with >RS intelligence=15. I sometimes managed to take over the commander 999 with a >RS 'naked' paradroid 001... 8-) 3. Did the paradroid win the combat? Proceed >RS at 5 then. 4. Paradroid dies. >RS 5. Paradroid disappears. The target creature gets subverted to the owner >RS of the paradroid. Now change some stats of the just subverted creature: >RS Name:=Paradroid >RS Combat: Each attack will make the Paradroid try to take over the target >RS again. RC and Special Combat may remain for active attacks. Promote:=NULL >RS Reincarnate:=Paradroid 6. GOTO 2 >RS I suddenly see that this has nothing to do with the mount code stuff any >RS more, but I think it's a mega-cool idea! ß^D I hope you are keeping these notes and designs in your "Robin's Compendium of Proposed Creatures Exotic and Bizarre" for future reference. Then you can keep updating your ideas from time to time and refining them and adding more detail. Then someday when I am adding new creatures in the game and I say "Hey Robin I need the blueprints to that weird Paradroid creature" you can say "ok, here is the latest up-to-date version" then we'll see what happens from there. RS> * BUG: Cow Catapult: it first shows up the archery gfx, then the sound RS> played. it should happen simultanously JC> It depends on the angle of the shot. I implemented 2 different methods JC> to see what people said about them. RS> Up to now I only saw: 1. draw the bow 2. mooOOOOooo 3. display damage. I RS> don't like that. :( Okay I changed it just for you. It draws the arching line while mooOOOoooing. Robin writes: > * BUG: in the Pits! level wizard one has only crappy spells! That's not a bug! Its a custom designed level to be challenging! Use the strategy, Luke. :) Artur says all the old levels are way too easy so I tried to make Pits! be a little harder. June 18, 2001: My hard drive has been making strange noises lately and Robin keeps scaring me with tales of his hard drive crash. So I backed up my Chaos development dir over to the A3000 in CD_Image1:Chaos35SourceCode.lha 34 megs .lha Frédéric is 1 year old! :) After spending years playing Chaos and honing his sorcery skills to a very sharp point, Frédéric Delacroix joined Team Chaos 1 year and 1 day ago. A direct descendant of Napoleón Bonaparte (via multiple Reincarnations), Frédéric has made many worthy contributions to the Realm of Chaos. Without the efforts of Dr. Delacroix there would be no AmigaGuide documentation, no tab-cycling in the name gadgets, no foreign-language fonts, no foreign-language translations whatsoever and there would be countless unreported bugs wreaking havoc in the code. While some lazy people expect free unlimited versions of Chaos for life without having to do anything for them, Frédéric is always willing to help out in any way that he can. This is quite amazing when you factor in that he has been hit by a Marriage spell and a Thesis spell and is under the effects of both simultaneously! Long live Frédéric, Defender of the Chaos! June 19, 2001: ChaosAGA currently uses 4.36 megs of fastram. ChaosAGA currently uses 0.68 megs of chipram. June 21, 2001: I spained my brain trying to think up the new DungeonWars AI so I spent the last few days playing some games. It just so happens that I downloaded many games to play back in 1997 which I never played because that is the year I started working on Chaos. The Chaos consumed me like a Gooey Blob on my soul. So I have huge piles of games on my HD that I never played. So I decided to play a bunch of them. Some of them didn't work. Some of them worked (more or less) but sucked. One of them had some potential. All of them had TERRIBLE fonts and they all have worse gfx than Chaos! Yikerz! Aminet games don't seem to be very good most of the time. I have a few old commercial games I never played. Maybe I'll play them today? Didn't happen. * Magyar translation of Wood Elf: I had to change Fa Elf to Erdei Elf. Fa Elf means Wooden Elf and Erdei Elf means "Elf who lives in the woods". * GRAPHIC GLITCH on Load screen NOW FIXED. * GRAPHIC GLITCH on Save screen NOW FIXED. * I played the Pits! level again to test the new load screen it seems to work perfectly. I got a Touch of God spell as my first bonus spell! Some turns later I got a Replicate and a Conwell's Cow Catapult! Even with all this awesomeness it still took me to turn 17 to win! Wow! It was fun! I played tons of lame aminet games yesterday but now I found a good one! Its called "Chaos: Battle of the Wizards"! :) June 22, 2001: Joar broke Chaos (again) :-D Joar drew over 1000 new frames of animation. Joar put them into Chaos. Chaos exploded. *BOOM* He likes doing this every few months to keep me on my toes. :) * BUG: Chaos had a limit of 2500 tiles for the creatures & spells. Since we were only using 1945 of those tiles I thought it was enough. I was wrong. :) I am now increasing it to 4000. NOW FIXED. Sent v3.54 to Joar for testing. Executable filesize=456072 * Robin took the Attack#? CellEffects and 32x32x256atized them. Included. Now I can see how much damage I'm doing just like in the OCS version! Yahoo! Sean sent in some new "read wizard names from a text file" code. FD asked for this feature a year ago because he wants to have "French" versions of every wizard name. I'm looking at the code and I see 3 mallocs and 1 free. This means memory leaks every time the language is changed. Then it hit me! I'm so stupid! If we need editable wizard names there are some very EASY ways to do it! A: Make a WizardNames list in the talklist file. B: Add the names into the .catalog file C: Make a new ".catalog" file called EnglishWizardNames and use that. I am thinking of doing B as the easiest option and adding in 100 lines to the catalog (or 200 lines? or ?) Do you have any thoughts on this? June 23, 2001: I'm soooooooooooo tired today. I have no energy for coding. There is only one thing to do. Play a game of Chaos. :) * BUG: I turned off sound, speech and combat sounds so I could relax and listen to the wonderful music throughout my entire turn but the music keeps stopping after the spell selection then the game is in silence! NOW FIXED. Ok now I can hear the music throughout my entire turn. I'm going to cast Biohazard now... * PROBLEM: The blitter is soooooooo slow on AGA 640x512x256 colors that the screenmelting effect of Biohazard now takes Forever×2! NOW FIXED. * BUG: Biohazard says: Biohazard* Releases a deadly but selective toxin into the air which will cause infections to run amuck in the wounds of the enemy. All enemy creatures will be slower at recovering from any wounds they receive. 1: It also affects enemy inanimate objects! 2: It poisoned my allied wizard!!! He's not my enemy! Grrr! Should I change the spell description to make it = what the programming does or should I change the programming to make it = what the spell description says? Or what? Everyone has a different opinion about how it should work. If the game was primarily played human vs human I might leave the spell affecting your allies. This would make it more challenging to use and might start some wonderful arguments between team mates. :-D But since the game is primarily played human vs computer I am choosing to make the spell behave in the manner which is easiest to program AI for. Which coincidentally and conveniently means we do not have to change the spell description. * RULING ON BIOHAZARD: It officially does not affect Allies. DONE. Now the only unresolved issue with Biohazard is whether or not it should affect inanimate objects or not. On the one hand I agree with Sean that it is "more logical" for Biohazard not to affect inanimate objects like walls. But a lot of inanimate objects are trees and I can't think of any particularly great reasons for Biohazard not to affect trees. Gameplay-wise I agree with Frédéric and I would like it to affect inanimate objects to help get rid of dungeon walls. * RULING ON BIOHAZARD: It officially affects enemy inanimate objects. DONE. * I have now changed the spell description of Biohazard. I changed 1 word "creatures" -> "creations". You should probably update the description in your native language. * Sent new Biohazard description to Giulio. June 24, 2001: * Included Robin's new 32x32x256 Toxicity effect. It is MUCH MUCH better than the old one!!! * Included Frédéric's new ChaosPearl and ChaosPearlHUPL 16 tall x 8 wide fonts. Now someone can lay out the new AGA 256 color setupscreens. June 25, 2001: * BUG in Amiga OS: I positioned the second screen of the information panel at 0,65 yet it is covering several pixels of the Foes Vanquished gfx! The foes vanquished gfx only go down to line 63! I finally got it to work by positioning the 2nd screen at 0,70 so we now have several more pixels of overscan on this panel now. NOW FIXED. Above bug is caused by AGA hardware being so ridiculously slow in 640x512x256 color mode. The bug is probably still there in DBLPAL mode. * Included Robin's fixed Biohazard description and FD's fixed Français.catalog. June 29, 2001: Robin lost his Chaos! Isn't that as bad as dropping the Olympic Torch? So I had to send him a new complete archive of v3.55. Executable filesize=456124 Maybe now he'll make some more cool upgraded 32x32x256 fx. Artur Writes: AC> 2. PatchWork shouts when copper-weaving-screen effect is shown that: AC> exec.library FindTask("ChaosWavyTask") Severity 2: Forbid() missing, AC> unreliable result PC=019A93D8 TCB=018ADD28 ("Background CLI") Data: AC> 019D5B76 00000000 00000000 018FF94C 000000D9 000000D9 00000001 00000004 AC> Addr: 0189AA54 019D5B76 0193C57A 018FA9E4 018F6FC8 018FAD74 01080D50 AC> 01A0BD00 ----> 019A93D8 - "chaos" Hunk 0000, Offset 0001B898 Ok. I'm not 100% sure this is _really_ a bug in this case because it is finding its own self which I _think_ is safe to do. If it had been finding some other task it would have been a 100% terrible horrible bug. Anyway its all NOW FIXED. AC> 3. Sometimes MuGuardianAngel shouts that NotePlayer is nearly out of AC> stack. That is interesting. I wonder why my MuGuardianAngel never complained the same thing? Perhaps running patchwork or other patches uses extra stack space that pushes it close to the limit? AC> Maybe sometimes it really runs out of stack and thats why there AC> are some problems with MODs in Chaos from time to time ? I suppose anything is possible. But it seems like it would crash bigtime if it overflowed the stack. In any case I looked at the code and... the stack of the NotePlayer was only set to 256! Wow! That's the smallest stack I've ever seen! I increased it to 1024 so MuGuardianAngel complaints are NOW FIXED. June 30, 2001: I spent some hours recruiting a new Magyar translator. He fixed the Biohazard description, finished the Magyar.catalog translation and translated the entire talklists file his 1st day on the job! Rachy Rulez! ---------------------------------------------------------- June 30, 2001: ChaosAdmirer writes: How is Chaos comming along, I recently played the version 3.3 demo of AmigActive magazine and I have to say that the game has improved a lot since. The graphics are much better now (than 2.x). It is clear that a lot of work has gone into the new version of Chaos, just looking at it alone is proof enough. It is sad that nobody else has registered a masterpiece such as this, in my opinion this is one of the best ever and most original games on the amiga. With a few more improvements and a snazzy look it certaintly will become an amiga classic. The amiga needs programmers like you who stick to the amiga no matter what happens. I think there is something special about the look and feel of the amiga that so many amigans around the world have stuck it out for eight years now. > Did you play the game straight off the CD or did you > put it on your hard drive first? No I didn't have any problems with the game when I played it straight from the CD. > Is Chaos in the "Aminet" section of the AmigaActive CD? No Chaos was included in the games section, I must say that there was about 6 or 7 games altogether but all of them except chaos was shite, I mean C64 games would be of higher quality then this load of trash. ---------------------------------------------------------- July 1, 2001: I spent all day discussing gfx card programming techniques, etc. with some amiga programmers. Its going to be a LOT of work to rewrite everything to work on gfx cards. July 2, 2001: I sent the missing 24 Magyar spell descriptions to Rachy. Robin must have cast a couple of level spells on himself because look what I found today: :) * Included Robin's new DemonicDoorway and Circle CellEffects. * Included Xav's new colorized English and Deutsch setup screens. I had to antialias various parts of the text. Especially the capital A & S & N but many other places as well... wow... what a lot of work! There are still a jillion places that need a little antialiasing but at least the most blockiest looking things have been fixed on the English setup screens only. Maybe I should code an intelligent fastram chunky antialiased fonts system? * Included Artur's new colorized Polski setup screens. Everyone has been having fun drawing gfx lately except me! So today I will have some fun and make some gfx! Don't expect them to be good compared to what the Chaos Graphicians can do, but at least I can make a few gfx better than the OCS versions. * NEW GFX by James: Vox Angelica, Vox Celestes, Speed, Slow, Haste, Drain. Woohoo! That was fun! I'm sure the Chaos gfx dept. can make them better but at least these are better than the old OCS versions. July 3, 2001: * Included Rachy's 24 Magyar spell descriptions. Magyar SpellDescriptions are now 100% complete. * I scooted all the gadgets on setup screen 2 down 8 pixels to be aligned cd with the new gfx. * NEW GFX by James: Brain Drain and Brain Boost. * GRAPHIC GLITCH: Select "Load" from the menu. Then select Cancel. The top row of the screen doesn't get redrawn. NOW FIXED. ----------------- NEW Xav GFX put into UnusedGfx/ ---------------- Dragon02: This looks like a small dragon sneezing a huge amount of fire. Dragon Head: I'll have to think about how to use this one. Explosion2 -> UnusedGfx/MeteorStormFX I plan to use this for when a meteor strikes an object. Face01.iff: an frightening face. I will probably use this as an undead. Monkey: Totally hilarious!!!! I must think up a way to use this!!! Skeleton01 -> UnusedGfx/Skeleton Warrior: I am FOR SURE going to put this into the next batch of spells! He looks AWESOME!!!! Vampire3: Thiøs looks like the Face01.iff with animated hands added. This will make a good undead or scary magic spell. White Panther: This can be the Arctic/Polar/Ice/Snow Cat/Leopard/Lion/Puma/Lynx/Tiger/Jaguar/Panther in the next batch of spells. It looks VERY VERY GOOD!!! Wizard03: Wow! A mind-boggling animation that has overloaded my synapses! And its very funny also! And this animation probably needs me to program in the control codes into the animation system. And I can't decide if this should be Wizard 1 or 3 or ??? Or a new ShapeChanger or ??? -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- INCLUDED These New Gfx from Xav: ----------------------- Fire Bat: Very good animation! We need to use the old Fire Bat as a new creature, but what? Liquid -> Water Elemental It had a nice dead image but since undeads don't get a dead image I moved the dead image into the animation to try it out. This would be a good animation for Joar to add some frames to. Skeleton02 -> Skeleton: Totally completely AWESOME! It needs a high frame rate. Vulture: Very good animation! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * INCLUDED Robin's Glitch-fixed Attack CellEffects. July 4, 2001: * I had to go back and smooth Vox Angelica and Vox Celestes. * NEW GFX by James: Exorcise, Points, Mass Resurrection, Mass Petrification, Dark Citadel. * INCLUDED Robin's new 32x32 Green Circle and Xav's new Heart which Robin stamped the numbers onto. The heart is SUPER AWESOME! * I put all 32 of the old healing files into UnusedGfx/OldHealingEffect/ July 5, 2001: --------------------- New Gfx from Robin: ------------------------------ INCLUDED: Kill: (Skull Version) I modified it to look like a magic spell instead of just a skull object. I included Robin's bugfixed (yet again) Heal and Attack celleffects. He erased the yellow and red numbers and stuff so I readded them to the "Attack" file only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNUSED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Put into UnusedGfx/Robin/ for now: I put the other versions of Kill into gfx/UnusedGfx/Robin/Kill because I am vaguely planning to use one of the other versions for the Assassination spell. Boil: Its a nice Boil gfx but the fire looks lame. Grenade.iff: I will definitely use this as the Grenade through-the-air animation once I get around to implementing my gfx routines that use the shadowmasks. Though it looks like it needs more frames of rotation for the handle. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------- New Gfx from Joar: ---------------------------- INCLUDED: * INCLUDED the Wizard 8 which was made by Joar and improved by Xav. I am still REALLY HOPING that Joar will go back and improve the frames based on Xav's tile 1 in Wizard 8_2 because the Wizard would look REALLY AWESOME if he did that! Please Joar please! :) Currently Wizard 8 does not look so pleasing to the eye because of 1. Blockiness in upper half of body. 2. His hands have disappeared in many of the frames. This means the eye cannot follow the hand movements like in the original Joar Wizard 8. Hopefully Joar will fix this. Vulture -> Bird Lord The previous Bird Lord and Eagle were very similar looking so this helps make the Bird Lord look different. It does sort of look like a Roc to me though. The animation needs some adjusting. Tower: Wow! Ok this Tower doesn't have Xav's cool lighting fx on it. And I think my Tower was more clever with the up & down height thing. Also the previous Xav tower had more character to it. But the new Joar Tower top is much better looking and the flag animation is way better! And the rest of the Joar Tower looks good so this is the new Tower. Joar must really like the Tower to make it so awesome! :) I put the old original tower into gfx/UnusedGfx/OriginalXavJamesTower/ Wizard 8: Now in 32x32 with some Xav enhancements added. Its still blocky in parts and needs more smoothing/redoing/work. PUT into UnusedGfx/Joar/ brain boost, brain drain, wizard wings.senttoxav, SoulSucker and SoulSucker.trans: I plan to use the .trans version for the new SoulSucker creature. UNUSED for the moment: knight.pic -> sc:NewSpells/ (with the rest of the knight stuff) warrior.pic -> sc:NewSpells/ (needs smoothing, but at least there is lots of blood on the dead body) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Adjusted the positions of the gadgets on setupscreen 1 to be ok. July 6, 2001: * I speeded up the heart rotation of the heal fx. It had a WaitVBlank(3) now it has WaitVBlank(1); * NEW GFX from James: I pirated Xav's Fire and made a new Quench and Separation. I also antialiased the Alliance a little bit. Its been 3 weeks since I sent out a mass update!!! Auuggh! Time to get everyone 100% synchronized again. This AGA update needs: Gfx/Screens/ ALL gfx/CellEffects/Toxicity, DemonicDoorway, #?Circle#?, Heal#?, Attack#? gfx/Spells/Fire Bat, Water Elemental, Skeleton, Vulture gfx/spells/Wizard 8, Bird Lord, Tower#? gfx/Spells/Kill gfx/Spells/Vox#? Speed, Slow, Haste, Drain, Brain Drain, Brain Boost gfx/spells/Exorcise, Points, Mass Resurrect, Mass Petrification, Dark Citadel. gfx/Spells/Alliance, Separation, Quench Levels/James_Conwell/Pits!.lha Music/Mod.ChaosTheme16 New executable SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewCreatures (updated) I hope I didn't forget anything! Raw size = 3,798,986 bytes Making the archive with lha -v0 = 970k Making the archive with lzx -9 = 578k 178 files tested, all files ok. Robin executable filesize = 456140 Xavier executable filesize= 456140 Joar executable filesize = 456140 Frédéric executable filesize = 456148 END OF VERSION 3.56 BEGIN VERSION 3.57 July 7, 2001: I worked out a way to do the multispeed animations then I got really tired and couldn't do any coding all day long. :( July 8, 2001: * INCLUDED Giulio's Italiano spell descriptions. All 373 of them! Wahoo! But wait, there is a problem! They say e' instead of è or é! Augh! Turrican^ says he will translate the Italiano.catalog file. July 9, 2001: Robin Writes: RS> 1st) Generating creatures happens in three passes. Pass1 - wizards. Pass2 RS> - Lesser Generators. Pass3 - Generators. During Pass1&2 the status panal RS> always shows, what kind of creature is being created ("Dragon Nest - White RS> Dragon"). But when the true, real, only generators create things, the RS> status panal still shows the last Lesser Generators' output. I'm hereby RS> complaining about this! :) NOW FIXED. * Giulio rewrote the Italiano description of Iridium Horse. He deleted some adverbs and used more pronouns. It is now short enough to fit on the spell description panel. July 10, 2001: Robin Writes: RS> 2nd) The Reincarnation spell should not be applyable on creatures with R=0 RS> (no reincarnation; such as wizards, Conwell's Cow Catapult, Blood Worms, RS> etc...). You simply waste a powerful spell by that, and it's hard for the RS> player to remember all creatures that are not reincarnateable. The computer players always remember perfectly which creatures are reincarnatable and which ones aren't. But for the benefit of weak humans who cant remember a simple list of a few hundred creatures ßþ I have now changed the rules of casting so that Reincarnate cannot be cast on nonreincarnatable creatures nor on creatures which already have reincarnation. This will not benefit computer players in any way but it will help human players. NOW FIXED. This means there are now 2 new messages in the catalog file so I must remember to send out ALL the catalogs with the next update. RS> And here another story of 'Robin played a game'... RS> A friend of mine visited me, and after having a look at the game, he dared RS> to test his skill against me! Harhar! I started a game, only he and I ... RS> and 4 generators. There's no need telling what I did. I didn't want to RS> kill him at once, so I built up a Castle, meditated and fought a few RS> struggles with the independents. My friend cast Double on turn 1. Next RS> turn he cast Global Thermonuclear War twice! He got 4 Nukes, I got 2. Turn RS> 3: I nuke one generator, he nukes two. Turn 4: He got the Chaos Lord! RS> Goddammitnowitsout.... He cast Chaos Lord (twice ;), this spell that I got RS> only once in all my lifetime, and he get's it in his first game! :( Now he RS> begins throughing 6 Nukes per turn, then replicates himself (6 times), RS> cleans away all the dungeon and destroys my Castle, the only thing he RS> didn't destroy so far... I couldn't believe it! He didn't cast one single RS> creature all the time! Arrggh. But my revenge will follow... :) July 12, 2001: * BUG: Bleeding creatures which regain full health due to recovery or scavenging retain the bloody gfx instead of reverting to normal imagery. NOW FIXED. Friday the 13th, July 2001: * Speeded up the healing Special Combat effect. WaitVBlank(3) -> WaitVBlank(1) On 13-Jul-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> When I play with many scrolls (>50) then ALWAYS and ONLY in the first RS> round, "Nobody" gains some scrolls as well. "Nobody" normally gets 10 or RS> 20 scrolls, but the scrolls do not disappear, so it doesn't really matter, RS> but it's annoying. This was caused by the fact that some scrolls were inserted underneath other scrolls. I have modified the initialization code to not insert scrolls underneath other scrolls so this is NOW FIXED. July 14, 2001, Robin Writes: RS> 1 - My Tower (Combat=15, RC=1, Range=1) attacked an eagle an killed it RS> with the blow. Then I clicked on it again to shoot at the other eagle RS> that's been right above my tower. But instead of shooting, I've been able RS> to attack the eagle again with direct combat! After that I could shoot RS> (but didn't hit anything :( ). This is the exact same way that Shadow Woods have been working for years. Towers work the same as Shadow Woods. RS> 2 - My wizard mounted a Thundermare. This one got hit by the Demonic RS> Touch. And though the Thundermare has Combat Recovery = 1, it didn't RS> recover from that evil wizardry! Due to the last fancy changes I made to the combat#? recovery methods there was a new bug introduced whereby if your Combat or Ranged Combat or Special Combat became 0 then the recovery didn't work. Recovery did still work if your Combat#? was _reduced_ but not actually 0. Its all NOW FIXED. RS> 3 - Status panel again... I point on my creature (eg. Spider (Robin) life RS> 5 movement 3.50), select it. Then I point on an adjactant square (eg. RS> Green Dragon (dead) life -5) and click on it to make the spider move into RS> this square. The spider moves... I didn't move the mouse, so the mouse is RS> now pointing directly on the spider. What do you think does the text say? RS> Hint: I does not say Spider (Robin) life 5 movement 2.50 nor 2.09 nor RS> engaged to enemy! NOW FIXED. July 15, 2001: * BUG: Negative combat against cloaked creatures is inaccurate. This was caused by shifting (>>=2) the combat value. It is illegal to shift negative numbers so I replaced it with /=4. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED Robin's Party Pack. Main highlights are new CellEffects: UncertaintyAppearance, FireBall1 and improved DemonicDoorway. July 16, 2001: * BUG: Highlighting sprite is off by 1 pixel. This is caused by YABITAOS. NOW FIXED. * PERSONALITIES: Robin designed some personalities for the computer wizards so I programmed them in. Have fun. :) Wizard Personalities: Wizard 1 is a good all-around Wizard. Wizard 2 is the "Chaotic" one. He loves to cast spells like Turmoil, Mass Morph, Mutate, Alter Reality, Subversion, Free All, etc. Wizard 3 is the "Biologist". He finds creatures more reliable than spells, and will quickly build up a huge army. Wizard 4 is the "Master Of Death". He will prefer undead creatures, casting Lich or Lich Lord on himself is his greatest dream. Wizard 5 is "The Magician". Fireball and Lightning go hand in hand with Sleep, Dark Power and Nukes. He won't cast many creatures, perhaps a Flying Carpet every now and again... Wizard 6 is "The Artilleryman". "Load the Cow Catapult! Elf battalions: open fire! Camels, give me the spitt-fire! Dragons take aim! ..." Wizard 7 is a good all-around wizard. Wizard 8 is a good all-around wizard. July 17, 2001: I spent all day studying possible Ham8 tricks to display the game in 1280x512 mode using a "virtual" display of 640x512 with 256,000 colors. 1. The system can work. 2. It would be a lot of complicated work to implement it. 3. It would be about 3x slower than the current system. Since it would be 3x slower I have decided to forget this Ham8 256,000 color system. But I did learn something quite exciting: 1280x512 mode works on my hardware flicker fixer perfectly!!!! So there is nothing stopping me from using 1280x512 mode any time I want! July 18, 2001: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Explosion system upgrade CellEffects: Explode is used for things that die from beam spells. MeteorStrike is now used by Meteor strikes. QuadrupleHealingSpell is now used by Touch of God and Chaos Lord. ExplodeBig is now used by Colliding Tempests and Hand Grenade. MeditationCollapse is now used for collapsing meditations. ExplodeDeath is used by Virtue and when a wizard dies all his Generators and Meditations explode with this effect. ExplodeBrainDrainDeath is used by Brain Drain and Brain Drain Beam. ExplodeCorpseBlownAway is used by many spells that destroy corpses. Any of these spells cast onto a dead body: Ball Lightning, Magic Bolt, Lightning, IceBreath, X-Ray, Bury, Fireball, Pyrotechnics, Storm. The dead body always disappears when hit with one of the above spells. SleepingCreatureCollapse is used when a sleeping creature collapses. ------------------------------------------------------------------- What should I use QuadrupleTwirl for? CAST_FREE spells? * Changed all spell rankings according to Robin's party pack. Notes: The Giant Spider is the one that lays webs. I think Ditzy Blonde should have a higher rank than Brain Drain because if a wizard has both spells on his list then he should cast Ditzy Blonde first then Brain Drain. Don't you agree? I reduced Elf Boots to 39. I'm not 100% convinced it should be reduced to 15. It is important for Wizards to not get engaged so that they can mount creatures and meditations. Magic Wand is so high because it makes computer players cast all creatures and all other spells better. Ditto for Ubiquiscope, Crystal Ball and Oracle. Depth does not assist in casting creatures. * FLAW: FD reports that the WizardExplode effect is not properly erased. This is allegedly NOW FIXED. July 19, 2001: * SENT: v3.57 to Robin for testing. Executable filesize=457716 bytes. The following strings in the Italiano.catalog are several chars too long: Resistenza della magia Combattamenti variati Combattamenti speciali Blocchi della linea della Vista They must be shortened by several chars each. NOW SHORTENED. Sent Giulio Italiano.catalog + executable. On 19-Jul-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> 5th - I experienced the following: A sleeping Falcon exploded, imediately RS> after that the square it had been into changed sides due to impurities. So RS> suddenly my enemy has been the owner of one piece of 'Nothing'! That RS> didn't matter much, until this piece of Nothing took control over my Cow RS> Catapult!! NOW FIXED. Furthermore, a sleeping creature could collapse and then the empty square could warp out due to impurities! NOW FIXED. Furthermore, there were many other screwey wacked out bugs that could possibly (rarely) happen in the same batch of code (BoardUpdate()) ALL NOW FIXED. July 20, 2001: * Included Giulio's bugfixed Italiano spell descriptions and generated an Italiano info panel. July 21, 2001: On 21-Jul-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> There is a very evil, cunningly hidden BUG in the game! RS> I sat in my Shadow City and my ally got into trouble. So I cast a Dark RS> Citadel next to him - he was safe! Yeah. Some turns later another ally RS> cast StoneToFlesh on even that Dark Citadel. So I thought: "Let it walk!" RS> :) I moved around with it a bit, and then suddenly I discovered that the RS> wizard that was sitting in this Citadel somehow still remained on the RS> position the Citadel had before! Or, to say it the other way round, when RS> Wiz8 had to cast a spell, a "Nobody's Nothing" cast a spell for Wiz8 RS> instead! When a creature (Shambling Mound) came by, Wiz8 made it a RS> Shambling Mount an travelled around with this... RS> After I saw this I tried to enter the Citadel myself. I entered and found RS> it empty, so Wiz8 really jumped off when the building started to move. I RS> then walked around with the Citadel again and saw that my wizard was RS> better in citadel-riding than Wiz8: I stayed within the Citadel until it RS> collapsed. Allegedly NOW FIXED. Sent v3.58 to Robin for further meditation testing. Executable filesize=457724 July 22, 2001: I was happily typing along on my Amiga typety-type-type clickety clack smack *BBZZZZZzzzZZZZZAAAAAPPPPP!!!!* My monitor blew up! It scared the crap out of me! Was it one of my _old_ 1980's 1084S monitors? Nooooo... It was my newest and fanciest monitor I ever owned! If one of my 1084S monitors had blown up it would have been ok because I've been using 1 of them and have 4 extra ones laying around doing nothing! My Commodore 1960 Multisync Monitor. Born 1992. Died July 22, 2001. R.I.P. Sync rates from 15.75Khz to around 36Khz (800x600@60Hz) So now I'm back using an old 1084S in interlace mode. Argh! * Made Robin a new level with 3 Towers, 3 Shadow Cities, 6 Stone to Flesh, 2 Horses, 2 Magic Carpets, 1 Oracle and 1 Depth so that he can conduct his diabolical experimentations. :) July 26, 2001: * Included Giulio's new Italiano talklists and catalog and stuff. * Sent Giulio the help files for translation. * Included Robin's new 32x32-atized ExplodeCorpseBlownAway and ExplodeBrainDrainDeath celleffects. * I manufactured 2 very nice looking explosions by simply stamping the original Xav 16x16 versions of ExplodeCorpseBlownAway and ExplodeBrainDrainDeath gfx on top of Robins new 32x32 versions. I sent them to Robin the Explosionographer to figure out how to use them. He improved them and I reincluded them. * I added in Robin's new Explosion sounds and programmed them into the game: MeteorStrike.8svx MeditationCollapse.8svx Explode.8svx ExplodeBig.8svx ExplodeDeath.8svx ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A new person discovered Chaos! His name is Knut and he wrote me that he has "been playing Chaos since 2 days and 2 nights". Here is some of what he has to say: I searched the aminet for good new Games, and saw your 5.7 meg big file, so I downloaded it to see if there are good new games or Ideas for Games at all. Chaos is the best Aminet game and the best game Idea I saw the last few years on all systems. It is great and makes a lot of fun for a very long time I think. I think that this game has a very high potential. (Regarding paid registration): One reason is that I like to provide the last men that are keeping the amiga alive and use its excellent system for good programs and this is one of the best. P.s.: I hate roule playing card or board games like "magic the gathering" but your game is really great. The game (called "Schlachtfeld", available in Aminet), a Battletech clone with tanks instead of mechs is crap your game is great. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- July 28th, 2001: Around 1 week ago I was talking to Jerry in his room. I noticed a shiny DVD box sitting on his shelf, it looked like he had bought a new game! Ah but what was it!? I grabbed it and looked, it said Grand Turismo 3 for PlayStation 2. I said to him "What!? You bought a new game!?" He said "No, I'm borrowing it." Yesterday he returned the game to his friend then came home and raised a ruckus: "Where is GT3!? Somebody stole it! DAMMIT now I have to pay $50.00 for the game + the late fee to the place I rented it from!". So he has now completely changed his story to "I rented it from the store". This is all an evil attempt to blame roommmate David for the theft of the game. Its such an obvious lie because the game was not ever in a game-rental-company case. It looked just like any game you buy at the store (or borrow from a friend). He wants David to move out or else. Repeatedly threatened physical violence against him, etc. Now for some psycho reason he also wants my brother Joseph to move out! Jerry is drinking (and possibly doing drugs again) and acting very agitated and aggressive and stupid. I cannot afford to have 2 roommates move out! Especially when all 3 roommates (James, Joseph, Dave) get along just fine and the only one having any problems is Jerry. Jerry wants to double my rent! That would cut my Chaos-working-time in half! David is black and Jerry has always been extremely racist against blacks. He calls them niggers. He downloads nigger songs from the internet and makes fun of blacks and laughs about it. Last night I was talking to Jerry and he accused dave of sneaking into his room to steal money from his wallet so I asked him why he didn't set up my camcorder secretly to catch him in the act, because then we could put him in jail. He said "Fuck that! Put him the hospital! Who cares!". Later on in the same conversation we repeated that whole sequence again almost word-for-word. July 30, 2001: * Included Giulio's Italiano help files. July 31, 2001: Kreton made a new banner for linking to Chaos website so I put it on the actual Chaos website also. I like it a lot better than the old one. I updated the website. Joar wasn't in the credits of the gfx section!? Oh that's because the website is based on v3.0. I put the Italiano credits section in also. August 1, 2001: * I made Robin a new level containing some independent generators and independent martyrs blocked off behind independent force walls. In his spell list is something like: 1 Magic Castle, 3 Towers, 2 Shadow Cities, 6 Stone to Flesh, 1 Oracle, 2 Camels, 2 Magic Carpets and 1 Depth. He can now test for strange bugs. "StoneToFleshLevelForRobin". August 2, 2001: * Included Rachy's translated Magyar help files. * Sent TrueBASIC Language System to Joar. August 3, 2001: On 03-Aug-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> I just created a sleeping Magic Wood! I've never seen that before! RS> Sleeping Magic Woods create a problem very similar to that one with the RS> walking Castle. I sat in a sleeping MW when it suddenly collapsed. But it RS> did not give a bonus spell to me, it simply said: "Well, I'm sleeping, I RS> go to bed now!" and left the board. It left a "Nobody's nothing" again. My RS> wizard could not move, but I could cast spells. So I tried to use the RS> Teleport spell to get out of this mess. I teleported a Nothing and out RS> came... well nothing. I then tried to cast a Shadow City right upon myself RS> (the spell allowed me to do that!). When the SC collapsed in the same RS> turn, my wizard came out of it! And he brought some spells! WhaHoo! :) I modified the Reinstate() routine to now allegedly correctly handle sleeping things collapsing that have wizards mounted on them. NOW FIXED. I hope you saved your game so that you can quickly and easily test this to make sure that it really works 100% now. :) The changes I made _should_ work perfectly but... who knows what evil lurks in the heart of Chaos? P.S. THANK YOU for finding this bug! I've been mentally handicapped for weeks now and I was hoping you would find a nice little buggy for me to kill. I've been mentally exhausted and unable to create new code. It is much easier to just edit some old code and get going again that way. James bestows "Bughunter of the Month Award" to Robin der Bughunter. * Sent v3.59 to Die Bughunter Robin for further testing. Executable filesize=458188 * BUG in Italiano spell descriptions: I tried to play the game in Italiano and I noticed that a lot of the Magic Spell translated names were all wrong. I eventually tracked this down to a missing * on the first line of the Kill description. This was causing the translated name of Kill and all magic spells after Kill to be wrong. NOW FIXED. * Uploaded Chaos v3.4cd to Aminet. This replaces v3.3 and is the FINAL and LAST ocs/ecs version ever. Executable filesize=439156 ChaosHeavy.lha filesize=16999793 August 7, 2001: On 07-Aug-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> Here is the result of some excessive testing concerning StoneToFlesh and RS> Towers: RS> 1. I've been watching the intro sequence to the end! You seem to read out RS> the creatures list and display it. Thus there are many appearances of RS> "Leopard 3 Legs Wings" and so on. NOW FIXED. RS> 2. The Curse spell seems to hit all OTHER creatures/growths+stuff, not RS> only all ENEMY ones. It's just like Biohazard has been. I changed the programming to match the spell description. NOW FIXED. RS> For the following paragraphs I define these abreviations: RS> SC = my StoneToFleshed Shadow City RS> T = Tower RS> W = my wizard RS> AW = an allied wizard RS> 3. SC can enter T. T does not become a meditation for W. OKAY RS> 4. SC can't enter T while W is meditating in SC ("Wizards can't enter RS> towers"). OKAY RS> 5. SC+AW can't enter T ("Can't attack your own team"). Should say "Wizards RS> can't enter towers". **FLAW** NOW FIXED. There may still be problems when its your wizard that is mounted in an allied SC. This is melting my brain. RS> 6. I can dismount AW from SC by pressing the "D". Out comes not AW but RS> Wizard 1 (Nobody) !!! This Nobody's Wizard 1 is casting and moving instead RS> of AW, but gets attacked by his own (former) creatures! He can't attack RS> them himself ("Can't attack your own team"). SC is empty after that, W can RS> enter it. ***BUG*** RS> I suggest you shouldn't be able to dismount AW from you meditations. NOW FIXED. RS> That's all I found up to now. But I think it's enough to start with. ;) Excellent work! * Sent robin v3.60 then v3.61 for further experimentationalyzing. :) Executable filesize=458296 August 9, 2001: Joar sent in some new mods. 1 of them is really really nice and relaxing! August 12, 2001: We watched a DVD: Dinosaur by Disney. WOW! This movie is even better than Prince of Egypt! This movie renders all animés null and void. August 13: 2001: I traded Dave one of my surplus 1084S perfectly working monitors for a chair. At this moment I now own 3 1084S monitors and I am using 2 of them since my 1950 and 1960 monitors broke down. Sometime I need to go buy a new PC monitor, 17" or 19" so I can resume using my flicker fixer and/or gfx card. August 14, 2001: Try to fix screen scrolling of -l option using this technique: I could try making the main screen be nondraggable but the HiResScreen could be draggable! This way the main screen (should?) autoscroll correctly (I think). The text screen will be draggable out of position but its easy to bring up another screen which restores everything back to default positions. Ok it was produced an interesting new effect but it was completely worthless.... After some hours of conducting countless trial and error experiments I finally got a random combination of screen settings to start working in an improved manner. It still isn't perfect but its the best I can do with the OS. IF (LoResMode) THEN // DO NOT EVER PutScreen(screen,0,0)!!!!!!!!!!!!!! // It will destroy the scrolling! So I must now replace every occurrence of PutScreen(screen,0,0); with IF (LoResMode) THEN PutScreen(screen,0,-256); ELSE PutScreen(screen,0,0); END_IF Ok, now the autoscrolling in lores mode at least works in a halfway ok manner. PROBLEM: The only problem left that I might have any control over is the fact that after viewing any info panel the main map gets pushed all the way up to the top regardless of where it was. I am not explicitly doing this. The OS must be moving the map screen all the way up when I do a PutScreen(SP1HiResAutoScrollScreen,0,-512) upon exiting any info panel. I don't know how to fix this! Argh! Possible solution: Set screen to be DRAGGABLE temporarily, then do the PutScreen(SP1HiResAutoScrollScreen,0,-512) then put the screen back to NONDRAGGABLE! yes! There is no way to do this so I must forget this idea. Possible solution 2: Keep track of the LeftEdge and TopEdge values of SP1HiResAutoScrollScreen before displaying the info panel and then do a PutScreen to these values upon exiting. THIS IS THE ONLY SOLUTION THAT I THINK MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK! Ok, I tried it and it works perfectly. PROBLEMS in lores mode: 1. Bug in OS that messes up autoscrolling when moving the mouse to the top of the screen. 2. The sprite is the wrong size! What is the correct way to fix this? Must I have 2 seperate sprite animations and use one for lores mode and the original one for regular mode? Ask FD and Joar if they have any desire to play the game in -l lores mode to see if I should be spending any time on this. They both report no desire for a lores autoscrolling mode so I am abandoning this feature. August 17, 2001: Whilst I was adding in the Agressiveness AI I noticed a strange bug. The strange thing is that in the code, it looks like a bug. Yet I never saw the computer creatures acting strangely. * BUG: CanSourceKillDestinationWithItsShot() doesn't check for corpses! * BUG: CanSourceKillDestinationWithItsAttack() doesn't check for corpses or scrolls! Now here is the strange part: this "bug" should have accidentally made the computer creatures smarter! They should have always tried to stand on top of the corpses of powerful creatures or on top of scrolls because those items have life=0 and the Ruthlessness AI should have been thinking it could "kill" those items by moving onto them (of course the actual movement routine would simply move them onto the square without initiating combat). Did anyone notice such behavior? I added some extra checks for corpses and scrolls so the function should always return the proper values now. We will have to play some test games now to see if the computer creatures are acting stupider than they had been. ALLEGEDLY NOW FIXED. * BUG: isStupidAttack() wasn't checking for scrolls. So it would think that moving onto a scroll was a "smart attack" but if the scroll was undead and you couldn't attack undeads then it thought it was an illegal attack. NOW FIXED. * BUG: isStupidAttack() wasn't checking for a completely empty cell. So empty cells were considered "smart" attacks. I believe that this bug mostly explains the tendencies of creatures to move straight up one cell when there is nothing else interesting to do. Straight up is the shortest distance to the lowest numbered cell that it thought it could attack. NOW FIXED. * BUG: isInvalidAttack() wasn't checking for corpses and scrolls in the correct order! NOW FIXED. * BUG: SearchForSpectacularKill() wasn't checking for an InvalidAttack() before checking for a StupidAttack(). This is totally wrong and produces wrong results! Argh! How could Ruthlessness mode have been working with all of these bugs? Perhaps this bug explains why computer creatures didn't make spectacular kills very often? NOW FIXED. * PROBLEM: Frédéric, Robin and Artur all complained about computer players trying to crunch through walls instead of simply walking around the wall and killing the enemy. This behavior is especially bad when the dungeon is composed of pits or radioactive land since then the creatures can never destroy the intervening obstacle. * SOLUTION: * AGGRESSIVENESS AI: I added in some simple aggressiveness AI. Aggressiveness mode is exactly the same as Ruthlessness mode with a few additions: If a ground creature cannot make a spectacular kill then he will make any kill he can. If he cannot make any kill at all then he will attack the most dangerous enemy. If he cannot attack any enemy then he will move along the path to the nearest enemy creature but if there is no open path to an enemy creature then the creature will move using the old original SAI movement code. For the next few weeks Aggressiveness mode will always be on so long as Ruthlessness mode is on. I advise everyone to play test games with Ruthlessness=ON and Exploration=OFF to test the new AI. Don't forget to leave the autosaving on and your enforcer or muguardianangel running. August 18, 2001: * BUG the gfx of the "other" row are not drawn in the proper position on the bonus panel. NOW FIXED. I played a complete test game of Chaos: Battle for World Domination. Me on 1 team all alone vs. 7 allied enemywizards! It was a tough battle! It took me 46 turns to win! Admittedly I made a very stupid mistake at the end and I could have easily won on turn 43 if I had been paying attention and surrounded the last generator like I should have. Because I left 1 adjacent square open, the generator generated an Earth Elemental and when I killed it, it turned into an earthquake which grew into 2 earthquakes. During the game the AI acted just as I hoped it would. I flew my eyeball into a very well protected area. This area which would have been 100% safe in ruthlessness mode because it was against the bottom left corner of the screen. It was completely blocked off on 2 sides, with a very long long wall above it. This long narrow hallway eventually opened up into a HUGE room filling most of the center of the board. I put my floating eye there and I noticed 3 different creatures in the room started moving away from the center and towards the entrance to my hallway! But years of playing Chaos taught me to ignore this. The creatures never chased you down if you were well hidden on the edge of the map, besides it would take 10 moves for them to get to me at least. So I ignored them. But a few turns later and auuugh! They were at the entrance to my hallway! They were coming after me to kill me!!!! So I panicked and ran! I was hit by brain drain on turn 1 of the game so I had to be really defensive with my wizard the whole game. This is why it took me so long to win. At some point halfway through the game I killed a Floating Eye in the center of the board. There were no creatures close by so I didn't think I would get attacked. But as soon as my creature landed out there some crazy fast moving land creature charged up at me, zig-zagged around some walls and whacked me upside the head! Wow! The new Aggressiveness AI really works and can surprise someone who is conditioned to not expect it! Ok, so after 5 hours of playtesting I finally won on turn 46. The AI seems to work ok. Soon I will have to send this to the playtesting department to see if they can find anything wrong with it. * BUG: A wizard's fire grew on top of himself and killed himself. So this naturally put all his other fires asleep. But the one that grew onto him is asleep but still animated. All other fires are asleep and nonanimated. Proposed Solution: When any growth grows over something, copy over the original growth ownership and if the owner is ASLEEP then call PutToSleep() on the new growth. NOW FIXED. August 19, 2001: * PROBLEM: The MeditationCollapse effect still plays the old algo sound fx at the same time as the new sound sample. This doesn't really sound very good and it slows down the speed of the fx animation. Same problem with Explode and SleepingCreatureCollapse. NOW FIXED. * SENT Robin v3.62 for testing Aggressivenes and sounds of celleffects. Executable filesize=459128 * Talk Delay feature: Joar wants it so I programmed it in. If you turn this on then each sentence spoken by computer wizards during the spell-selection phase is displayed for 2.5 seconds. * BUG: Silent Special Combat on/off is not loaded correctly from the prefs file. NOW FIXED. I played another test game to try out the AI. Me against 7 enemy wizards. The 7 wizards are all in an alliance with each other. DungeonWars=ON, Scrolls=10, Generators=4. Turn 1: There is a large room in the center of the board containing 2 wizards. I am in a very safe location in a long tall hallway on the right hand side of the board. There are 2 very large connecting rooms on the left hand side that all the other 6 wizards are in! Wahoo! This will be easy! I cast pits on my 1st turn to block off 2 generators and I blocked off the exit of all those 6 wizards!!!! Those 6 wizards can't reach me!!! I can win!!!! The dungeon is made of Power Walls (all recovery rates = MAXIMUM). The computer players are notoriously bad at being able to kill these. By Turn 5: I have killed the wizard closest to me. The next closest wizard is protected by Eye for an Eye. I don't really have good enough spells. And I've found something very bad. Locking 6 allied computer wizards into a room with each other is a very bad thing. They keep casting all sorts of weird creatures and then the other guys cast all sorts of weird powerups on them. They are rapidly manufacturing an army of turbocharged monsters. They now have a combat Juju Zombie which can kill ANYTHING in 1 hit. It is mowing down 1 piece of Power Wall each turn. By Turn 10: I've made no real progress toward becoming super-powerful nor of killing the closest enemy wizard. The computer guys now have TONS of super-powerful monsters! They now have a Double Range-Boosted Recognomancer! It can kill ANYTHING in one shot! Damn they are blowing away 2 Power Walls per turn! By this time the Juju Zombie was nearly at the top of the screen away from the mass of other monsters so I decided to try to fly my wizard up at it and cast subversion on it. This was very very tricky to accomplish, I had to keep blocking paths so certain creatures would not charge me and kill me. At some point the Juju and Recognomancer had blown away so many walls that there was now a small open path between my wizard and all those enemies. The Juju moved first, no big deal, he only moves 1 square each turn. He backed out of his hole he had dug, went down and around and zig zagged out the passageway and killed the independent generator close to my wizard! WHAT THE HELL!?!?! Somebody had cast Speed on him and I didn't know it!!!! He had probably had Speed for many turns but he had no reason to use it until now! Why is he being so aggressive!?!? What kind of psycho coded this AI!?!?! Now the Juju Zombie can easily move up and kill one of my White Dragons! This sux! I now had to do all sorts of wacked out maneuvering to keep the Juju from having a path to my wizard or my White Dragons. I even had to blatantly sacrifice one of my creatures to do the blocking. It was a tough battle but FINALLY I was in position. I subverted the Juju Zombie!!!! Wahoo!!!! Now I can win!!!! But I couldn't kill any wizards with the Juju Zombie just yet. There were far too many undeads around the wizards and since a Juju has only 6 life points, one must be VERY careful with how you use him. Each turn I had only *1* proper attack with my juju to keep him from getting killed and I was slowly moving him away from the enemy wizards. This continued for 3 turns I think. Then a wizard cast subversion on him and got him back! AUUUGGHH!!!! It went steadily downhill from here. You see, while I had the Juju I had cast Fly on him so that I could fly him away from the mass of enemies and attack from a distance. Now the Juju is able to fly 10 squares and kill anything he wants. This is not good. I could have survived at least 10-15 more turns if I had really wanted to and played defensively but I lost patience and I made a daring maneuver to try to fly my wizard (mounted on Magic Carpet) down to a dead Recognomancer so I could cast Raise Dead on it. This required at least 3 turns to get there. But my very first move put me within 8 or 9 squares of a Speed Air Elemental. So naturally he zig-zagged around and whacked me! This annoyed me so much that I exacted Vengeance on him the next turn. Hmmm this didn't work out so well... now there was a Tempest adjacent to my wizard so _Naturally_ it moved into my wizard and teleported me all the way across the screen into the mouth of hell! I was completely surrounded by the most horrible abominations ever seen by human eyes! I could have survived 1 or 2 turns but _naturally_ my Magic Carpet chose this very moment to collapse so I was standing naked in an ocean of Evil. I died on turn 25. DAMN: If the Power Walls had been properly redrawn they never could have cast Subversion on my Juju Zombie and I probably could have easily won within 15-20 turns. But since the Power Walls are still 16x16 there are huge holes that allow line of sight. * FLAW: Combat Juju Zombie surrounded by Power Walls will always kill the one directly above him because it is 1 mp away and is the lowest numbered cell. When a ground creature can kill multiple things and each one of them is identical and each one is the same distance then it always chooses to kill the thing in the lowest numbered cell. I think this is unfair to anyone in the upper-left part of the board. NOW FIXED. * STUPID: Computer Wizard cast Simulacrum/Replicate on Golden Dragon that was surrounded by creatures so the spell couldn't possibly work! NOW FIXED. August 20, 2001: * Included Giulio's Italiano QuickstartDocs.txt. Sent Robin v3.63. Executable filesize=459564 Robin has had the new Aggressiveness AI for 24 hours and he hasn't written me any emails begging for mercy and crying about how the computer guys keep beating him so I must make the AI tougher. RS> This is, because I LIKE the new AI! 8-) * AGRESSIVENESS ENHANCEMENT: Flying creatures still move exactly as in Ruthlessness mode except if they can't make a kill then they always attack an enemy wizard if possible. RS> I had a test game... 6 generators, 3 wizs vs 3 wizs vs 2 wizs, dungeon. RS> RS> Works okay. BUT: They do even attack my wizard when he sits in a Magic RS> Wood or any other mount/meditation!!! That's damned HARD! Now I could make it so that the flying creatures will always attack a HUMAN wizard over any computer wizard! WAHAHAHAHAH!!!! So a flying creature who could attack any of the 8 wizards, but only one of them was controlled by a human, would always attack the human-controlled one. Should I do this? * KILL THE HUMANS! AI ENHANCEMENT: When this option is on then all Computer controlled flying creatures will always prefer to attack enemy human wizards instead of enemy computer wizards! The computer players are uniting against the evil tyranny of the humans! DEATH TO THE HUMANS!!!!!! DIE DIE DIE!!!!! RS> I don't like this. I know many games where it seems like the computer is RS> always and only hitting the human player. This normally ended in some very RS> impolite verbal explosions and complete frustration. Such games aren't RS> fun. Be careful when adding such features! RS> Arrrghh! It's deadly! I only survived because there was only 1 aviary in RS> that game! All other wizards perished one after another in the claws of RS> 'The Birds', my only chance was to teleport somewhere far away. The birds RS> do not track enemies down yet, but began to attack the dungeon walls. I RS> landed next to an enemy wizard. "Well", I though, "you'll manage to get RS> rid of him." Him cast double Green Dragon then... I survived this round RS> due to my cloak, sanctuary and 2xscavenging, after that, I cast the Vortex RS> for the 1st time in my life - I didn't saw any way than luck... and I've RS> been lucky, VERY lucky! And I won the game in turn 64. If someone ever wants me to add in the "birds track down enemies" code then I will add that into the "I want to die young" AI option. Since Robin was able to defeat the new AI in only 64 turns I went crazy and hacked and slashed in some more new AI. * KILL THE HUMANS! AI OPTION: Kill the Humans! This option will cause the computer players to realize that the humans are the most dangerous players in the game and they will rate EVERYTHING owned by a human or allied to a human more dangerous than computer-owned stuff. So the computer players will prefer to kill human-owned stuff over computer-owned stuff. If a creature cannot make a kill then it will prefer to attack any human-owned thing it can (or something owned by a computer player that is in an alliance with a human). If it can't attack any such thing then it will try to attack some computer-owned thing. When "Kill the Humans!" is turned on, computer-controlled creatures will prefer to kill, attack, shoot and charge towards human-controlled creatures. Hasta la vista, baybee. However I only did things the easy way. The computer players will still kill a computer-owned object over merely damaging a human-owned object. I'm not sure if I should change this or not. I think if the option is called "Kill the Humans!" then computer players should ALWAYS attack a human under all circumstances but if they CANNOT attack any human then they can attack some computer player using the regular Ruthless/Aggressive AI. (?) I don't know what to do about this. Actually I didn't bother to rewrite all the various bits of code that would be needed to fully activate "Kill the Humans!" mode. So as of right now, computer players will still kill a Wall belonging to NOBODY instead of killing the Pegasus that the Human Wizard is riding on because the wall grants a Bonus Spell. I will probably change this but more playtesting is needed so I will just leave it this simple way for a while. *** Forwarded message, originally written by Robin Schmidt on 19-Aug-01 *** >> 1. The Teleport spell duplicates corpses. > It teleports everything in the cell. That was the way Sean programmed it > so I left it that way. >> Nonononono! Read it again, Sam! I said: It *duplicates* >> corpses! I had a vulture beneath me. I teleported. The >> vulture's corpse still lay where it's been before. I thought: >> "Cool! James fixed that annoying little bug!" Then I stepped a >> bit aside and lo! there was another dead vulture beneath me! >> Fuck! Ok, I can easily fix this. But should I? 1. First we must decide: Is this corpse duplication a "bug" or a "feature"? 2. Which way benefits gameplay the most? 3. Which way benefits strategy the most? 4. Which way is the most fun? I would be interested to hear anyone's opinion on this matter. My opinion is that it makes more sense if I would fix it to erase the original corpse after teleporting. Thus the entire cell would be teleported and nothing would be duplicated. Everyone seems to agree that _something_ needs to be done so: * TELEPORT Spell has now been changed to not duplicate corpses. The entire cell is still teleported. As I looked at the programming for the Teleport spell I realized there are a great many things that could be done to the Teleport spell to perhaps make it better or more interesting. But its only one spell and I'm in the middle of increasing the AI so I guess I will pass on this for now. >> 3. 033p1AutoSave: All suriving creatures are in league, the generators are >> blocked off. Why doesn't the game end? > Probably because 1 of your "allies" is not really your friend and you must > kill him. If he was your enemy on turn 1 then you must kill him before the > game ends. >> Hmm. One of my allies cast Alliance on Wiz5. How can I kill him >> without breaking the Circle of High And Old Sorcerers (also known >> as C-H-A-O-S ;) ?? You could put your most powerful creature next to wiz5 to protect him and guard him against any possible danger or assassination attempts. Then in order to demonstrate your gracious magnanimousness you could free this creature from his life of slavery to yourself by casting the Free spell on him. Once he is free he can do what he likes. If he just happens to decide to kill wiz5 on his own free will then how can you be held responsible for that? 8-D >> I mean, well... I could shoot him in the back of course, set some >> dragons and my quickshot-boosted wizard on him, but is that fair? >> ;) I will let other philosophers ponder the weight of this question. :) *** End of forwarded message *** * Famous Quote of the Month: "Time is just an engine that processes the destiny of the universe." -Joar Berntsen, Philosopher "Time is fate's engine for processing the destiny of the universe." -Joar Berntsen, Philosopher August 21, 2001: Sent Robin v3.64 for testing AI while I spend some days trying to do the animation upgrade. Executable filesize=459636. * Rewrote the AI system. August 22, 2001: Sent Robin v3.65 for testing AI while I spend some days trying to do the animation upgrade. Executable filesize=459888. I played a test game with the new Ruthlessness+Aggressiveness+Kill the Humans! I was very scared so I just played on default settings. Me vs 1 enemy wizard. 4 Generators. 10 scrolls. Dungeon Wars. The Dungeon was composed of Magic Wood trees. Lots of places to hide. But I was scared because there was 1 Aviary and it was close to me and far away from the enemy wizard. Turn 1: I cast Halfling. Enemy wizard casts Justice on my wizard. My wizard strategically hops into a tree which allows me to follow a line of trees one direction toward the Aviary or the other direction to the enemy wizard. Aviary generates Spectator. Turn 2: I cast Wizard Wings in case my tree collapses and I need to hop somewhere. Enemy wizard casts Stone Giant and proceeds to advance toward my Halfling. I plot to use my Halfling to draw the Stone Giant away from his owning wizard. I advance through the treeline 1 square in a manner which makes me closer to both the Aviary and the enemy wizard. I'll have to make a decision next turn which one I am going after. Turn 3: Both our trees collapse. I donno what spell the computer got but I got to pick either an Inanimorphobiosis or something else. WOW! So I picked Inanimorphobiosis!!!!!!! Oh look, my tree has collapsed and I have Wizard Wings. I am free to fly 6 squares into a tree adjacent to the Aviary!!!!! Turn 4: I capture the Aviary!!!!!! WAHOO!!!!!! I can't believe Robin thought these AI settings were overly hard. :-D I proceeded to make lots more exceedingly strategic decisions on each turn. When a Grim Reaper popped out of a Generator at one point I didn't kill it. I harnessed its power and used it to help me kill the enemy wizard. A few turns later and I finally won on turn 11. I never lost a single creature! My monsters love me because I don't get them killed! :) I captured 1 generator, blocked 2 generators off with my large air force and killed the last generator (which I had just blocked off). Wow! What a fun game!!!! The whole game only took me a couple of hours. What a great game! Chaos RULEZ! I had MuForce and MuGuardianAngel running the entire time and there were no hits. August 23, 2001: ======================================================================== Variable-Speed Animation System Upgrade ======================================================================== Once upon a time Xav sent me some super mega awesome creature gfx. Namely: Skeleton, Thundermare and Fire. When I beheld the awesomeness of the GrafixWizardy contained therein, I knew that I must somehow implement a variable-speed animation system! Showing these gfx and others at only 3 fps was a complete waste of graphical talent! But there was a problem, many people told me it wasn't feasible. "AGA is too slow" they say, "not enough bandwidth" they say, "Amiga is too lame" they say, "25Mhz cpus are not fast enough" they say. So I was very discouraged. But Xav wanted this feature so I had to try for his sake. So I did some calculations and... well... it seems like it can work. The trouble was that had forgotten the first 2 laws of Computer Science: Rule #1: Amiga Rulez! Rule #2: Chaos Rulez! I just did some very rough approximations but it seems like if I code efficiently and properly harness the power of the Motorola CPU that I should be able to sustain a board that has 50% nonanimated things on it and the other 50% having creatures animated at 12fps. That would d be the maximum and anymore would start slowing things down. We can forget about having the entire screen filled with 12fps stuff, that would just bog down to 6fps. Or we could have a board 100% filled with 6fps stuff without slowdown. This is all theoretical. * Modified SetupGfxData() to read in the fps pixel and set up the data array, save it and load it. THIS MEANS EVERYONE MUST DELETE GFX/DAT/#? FOR THE NEXT UPDATE!!!! Because the format of the dat files has changed! * Modified AnimatorTask to draw the animated monsters based on their fps. In order to reduce overhead I am making this system work based on 24 timing pulses. The only animation speeds that are supported are 0,1,2,3,4,6,8,12,24. If these speeds are not good enough for you then let me know and I will consider to change or replace this system with something better. 1 everybody (1,2,3,4,6,8,12,24 fps) 1 fps happens here and nowhere else. 2 3 12 4 8 5 12 6 6 7 12 8 4 8 9 12 3 6 10 8 11 12 12 13 12 6 24 8 2 4 14 15 12 16 8 17 12 3 6 18 19 12 8 4 20 21 12 6 22 8 23 12 24 NOTE TO GRAPHICIANS: On line 32, the 1st byte controls the type of Playback. (coord 0,32) The 2nd byte controls the speed in fps. (coord 1,32) The rest of the line is currently unused. Ok now I will run the game and see if it works... OHMYGAWD!! ITS TOO FAST! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SLOW DOWN!!! It seems I made a small mistake and everything is running at double speed. Oops. :) NOW FIXED. Ok, now the new multispeed animation seems to be working ok but everything is still moving at exactly 3fps. Now I will adjust the gfx files of the following creatures to see if I can make some things go faster. I don't know exactly what speed these animations are _supposed_ to be. Xav told me once upon a time but I forgot. So I'll just try some stuff out: Manticore 6 Thundermare 12 Fire 12 Skeleton 12 Thundermare and Fire look excellent at 12 fps! Skeleton looks UltraMegaSuperb at 12 fps!!!!!! The system seems to be working! But it will be interesting to see how it performs on a heavily loaded system on a board filled with lots of stuff. And remember you all have Xav the GrafixWarrior to thank for this amazing new feature!!! Hail the Xav!!! ======================================================================== END Multi-Speed Animation System Upgrade ======================================================================== On 23-Aug-01, Jilles Tjoelker wrote: JT> I've downloaded it on my laptop (500MHz Celeron) and tried to play it JT> using UAE 0.8.15 running under FreeBSD 4.3-RELEASE. I'm using only a JT> "filesystem" mount, so some 2.0 packets may fail. The filesystem does JT> support the hspa bits. Its main advantage is that it's so easily accessed JT> from FreeBSD. The AmigaOS installation is somewhat incomplete (no JT> narrator.device, *very* bare-bones Startup-Sequence, e.g. no iprefs, no JT> conclip). ROM is the same as on my A4000 (OS 3.0), emulated CPU is an JT> 68020. The libraries in Chaos/libs are not in LIBS:. JT> With some parameters UAE 0.8.15 will core-dump, e.g. 24-bit screenmode, JT> audio with some other parameters. Perhaps I should download another JT> version (0.8.15 is what the FreeBSD Ports Collection JT> http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ has.) JT> When I try to play ChaosHeavy, or even the old ChaosLite, everything goes JT> fine until after selecting a spell, then it hangs, with the blue square JT> painted in and the selected spell printed on the bottom of the screen. JT> Xoper says it's waiting for signal mask 0x200000, and sigalloc=0xDFE0FFFF, JT> sigrecvd=0x50008104. UAE sux. JT> I can vary a lot of things but the problem remains. JT> I have a ~80K SnoopDOS log, but it doesn't say much. Tell me if you want JT> it. JT> By the way, an AGA version would probably not run on UAE. UAE can only do JT> OCS (ECS?) or Picasso. JT> For checking write-protectedness, best use Info(). Thank you for the tip but I am already using a standard C way of determining write protectedness. JT> GetProgDir() returns a JT> lock on PROGDIR: that must not be unlocked and must not be used for JT> directory listing. I never tried to use the GetProgDir() approach. JT> An stupid use of Execute/SystemTagList is to delete a file. There's JT> DeleteFile() for that purpose. JT> An option to completely shut off all audio would be useful. (but there is JT> already the possibility of allocating all channels with another program.) JT> AGA Mouse sprite corruption can be avoided by not using any other sprites JT> at all. JT> Instead of Enforcer, you can use on the 68060: CyberGuard, MuForce. JT> "chaos -h" should exit immediately after printing usage information. NOW FIXED. * I made a backup copy of Thundermare into gfx/unusedgfx/ThundermareB4antialias then I changed a few pixels to try to smooth the Thundermare a bit. It only made a very tiny difference. Probably not noticeable to anyone. * PROBLEM: The Water Elemental does not smoothly change from a water puddle into the large creature. So I added 3 extra frames of animation. It now looks smoother but it still needs work. August 25th, 2001: Today I felt great mentally but my back was totally bothering me for some reason and it made me very very tired and constantly distracted me from my computer work. I really wanted to work on Chaos all day today but instead I had to give up and go to bed. Later on I kicked back, relaxed and watched some TV. I watched a DVD movie about life in France: "Chocolat". August 26th: I made a new dir. Gfx/UnusedGfx/RecycleThese/ From now on I will put all replaced gfx into this dir so that way when I want to make a new creature or upgrade the gfx of some old creatures I can look in here first and maybe find something that fits really well. * INCLUDED Kreton's new 32x32x256 Wizard 1. It still needs to be animated. * INCLUDED Joar's amazingly fantastic Wizard 6 animation! Wow! It is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than the old Wizard 6!!!!! Parts of the animation look like it was made by Robin or Xav. Either Joar has been using a teamwork spell or he has gone up a level. 202 frames! Totally cool! * INCLUDED Xav's new English, Français and Polski Start & Quit gadgets designed for minimal flicker on interlaced screens. I am thinking about deleting the Pool and replacing it with Xav's Magic silver rotating heart. Does anyone have an opinion on this? I need to get Robin's opinion of how to use Xav's 2 different beating heart fx and killed fx and Dragon01/03 and Wizard05. I am planning to soon use Xav's rotating star fx for Magic Wand, Ubiquiscope and Crystal Ball. It could also make a good inanimate object.. a magic star of some sort... perhaps it could increase your command level... (?) * INCLUDED: Xav's new 32x32 Heal, Tribal Dance and Telescope gfx. * I AM ABSOLUTELY positively going to use Xav's Tongue Monster as a future monster!!! I just have to figure out what his statistics and powers should be. He's totally wacked out!!!!!!! * INCLUDED Xav's new T-Rex, Demon and Ghoul! Wow! Very high quality! * INCLUDED Xav's new 32x32 Crocodile. He's very very cute. I'd like to have a serious scary mean looking Crocodile but this one looks better than the old simple small one so this one gets included. * MOVING Jann, Necromancer, Recognomancer old gfx into UnusedGfx/RecycleThese/ * GFX BUG: Wizard 4 cpontains a line of hard black pixels. I erased it with color #0. NOW FIXED. Old Wizard 4 becomes Jann. Old Wizard 3 becomes Necromancer. Old Wizard 7 becomes Recognomancer. I had to cut & paste dead bodies into them. Someone might want to make more appropriate dead bodies for them. Xav's Wizard04 becomes the new Wizard 7!!!!! Xav's Wizard03 becomes the new Wizard 3 Xav's Wizard02 becomes the new Wizard 4 I couldn't find a Wizard01. I guess there isn't one. I couldn't really decide which Wizard gfx should be which Wizard # (?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On 26-Aug-01, Joar Berntsen wrote: JB> do you want every bug,be it small, big, wierd, to be reported with no JB> hesitation from the reporter? Not "no hesitation". You should always stop to think about the alleged bug first to make sure it isn't simply that you forgot about some magic spell that is in effect. JB> this has happened 3< times now, its in the move phase. JB> when I select my creature and clicks on an enemy creature, my creature JB> just moves over it without no fight, and the enemy creature kinda just JB> disappears... allthough it has enough life to enduur the attack. Thank you for this bug report! JB> I tried to reproduce it with an autosave but it didnt happen again. JB> I played with music only. Congratulations! You are the first person I have known who played with music only!!!! How was it? JB> but now im starting to think its because I had impurities on, and the JB> fight isnt displayed for some reason, maybe no sound + impurities + music? * BUG: When anything attacks a _creature_ with >15 combat the cell effect is not drawn and the attack sound is not played. This does not apply when attacking an inanimate object or growth. This means if you have Impurities on and do a MegaHit or if you cast BattleCry and do >15 points of damage you'll see this bug. I'm surprised nobody noticed this before! This bug has been there since I did the last sound effects upgrade with the chainsaw stuff and the "variable volume according to how hard you hit" code. So this bug has been in the game for months. :( The problem was that I had IF (combat==15) instead of the correct IF (combat>=15) NOW FIXED. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Chaos now has 4397 tiles of animation. August 27, 2001: Its been a long time since I sent out a mass update to the gfx department. This AGA update v3.66 needs: 1. New Executable. 2. gfx/celleffects/ #?explode#?, #?twirl#?, #?HealingSpell#?, #?collapse#?, MeteorStrike, UncertaintyAppearance, Fireball1, DemonicDoorway, 3. Catalogs/ all 4. Sounds/MeteorStrike, MeditationCollapse, Explode#? 5. #?.prb just to be safe 6. Talklistsdir/#? just to be safe 7. SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewestCreatures.lha for testing the high-speed animation. 8. gfx/Spells/Water Elemental, Manticore, Thundermare, Fire, Skeleton 9. Gadgets/#?/#?Start#? and #?Quit#? 10.gfx/Spells/Jann, Necromancer, Recognomancer, Wizard 7,3,4,6,1, Crocodile, T-Rex, Demon, ghoul, Heal, Tribal Dance, Telescope, Sent v3.66 update to Robin, Xav, Joar, Frédéric. Executable filesize: Robin = 460556 Frederic = 460564 Xav = 460556 Joar = 460556 BEGIN Version 3.67 * INCLUDED Robin's new Floating Eye and Spectator gfx. But I really wish the Eye would blink. And I wish the Iris had some color. * BUG: If you cast Vodka on NOBODY then the effect is permanent. NOW FIXED. * BUG: When all sounds and speech are OFF but music is on ("Music Mode") then the scavenging and artifact-changing music messes this up. NOW FIXED. August 28, 2001: Sent Robin v3.67 executable for testing music mode. filesize = 460652 bytes. Begin v3.68 * Included Robin's antialiased English start and quit gadgets. On 28-Aug-01, Joar Berntsen wrote: JB> when its music only and any creature scavenges, the music isnt "replayed" JB> after the scavenging music, and sounds play for the duration of the round. JB> until spell selection. NOW FIXED. JB> while this happens, ChaosDigitalSoundProcess fails returncode 150 numerous JB> times. and is typed in an output window on my workbench, but the game isnt JB> changed other then that. When JCsound can't allocate any sound channels it fails in that way. When the music is playing it hogs all 4 sound channels so JCsound will always fail. Ok, I hacked all through the program and put in lots of checks to see if a mod is playing and if there is a mod playing then don't try to run jcsound soundfile. NOW FIXED. August 29, 2001: * PROBLEM: The Armageddon1 level seems to animate about 10% slower than the Xav&JoarNewestCreatures level. I don't know if this slowdown is visible on Xav's or Joar's or Robin's machines since they have a LOT more bandwidth than I do. I have the lamest accellerator ever produced by Amiga civilization. This slowdown is because 3 frames each second the animator has TONS of stuff to draw and the other 47 frames a second it just sits around doing nothing. I have now made some adjustments to the animator task so this is mostly NOW FIXED. The animations should now run faster and smoother when there is a LOT of animated stuff on the screen. Part of the animation slowdown is beyond my control: The more work the animator has to do, the more chances that the OS will preempt its task and give the CPU to another program to run for a timeslice. * INCREASED FRAME RATE of Wizard 4 to 8 fps. He looks much nicer now! * PROBLEMS WITH MANA BATTERY: 1. You can't store mana in it. 2. You can't withdraw mana from it. 3. There is no mana in Chaos. 4. There has never been any mana in Chaos. 5. The gfx is too small so that it doesn't really look like a battery to me. 6. If it is going to look like a car battery then it should have some really cool animated electricity fx drawn on it. Therefore I will replace the Mana Battery gfx with Xav's new pentacle gfx at 24fps. I am now renaming "Mana Battery" as "Palluau's Pentacle" since it doesn't give mana, it gives bonus spells. Having Xav on your team gives you bonus gfx so having Palluau's Pentacle on your team should give you bonus spells. Makes sense to me. Palluau's Pentacle* From deep within the hidden recesses of Palluau's secret databank comes this amazing object of unequaled magical power. Palluau's Pentacle is a flowing source of magical and psionical energies. Any wizard who stands next to it will gain free bonus spells each turn as its mystical properties charge the psyche. Independent creatures loathe Palluau's Pentacle as it invariably results in a worse life for the independents. * I made a very simple improvement to the Range Boost gfx. August 30, 2001: * MUSIC MODE: Now when you have Music=ON and Speech & Sound =OFF the scavenging and artifact changing music is no longer played so as not to interrupt the flow of the theme music. I watched 2 movies about communism: Scarface and The Terrible Lightness of Being (or something like that). Communists suck 1000x worse than I had been thinking. August 31, 2001: * Show Cast improvement: Robin wants the "Show Cast" menu option to have a delay during the casting phase when playing in MusicMode so that a human can actually see what the computer wizards are casting. I put in a 2 second delay at the part where the speech would normally happen. Is that long enough? * Included FD's new Français.catalog, FrançaisWizardNames.txt and Palluau's Pentacle description. * Included Xav's new Magic Castle: Damn! When Frenchmen make a Magic Castle, they REALLY make a magic castle!!!! :) * BUG: The "m" key shows that I can move onto allied mounts. This was a small bug in FindAllPaths(); NOW FIXED. * JOAR EXPLODES CHAOS AGAIN: Joar made 1000 frames of gfx and Chaos blew up because of its 4000 tile limit. I have now increased the memory allocation to 5000 tiles. NOW FIXED. Sent v3.68 to Joar: Conqueror of the Chaos. Executable filesize = 460924 Sent PowerWallDungeon1.lha to Joar for testing his new power walls. END V3.68 BEGIN v3.69 * I 32x32atized Simulacrum and Replicate. I'm not exactly satisfied with them. Oh well. September 1, 2001: WOW! Somebody finally registered Chaos! There were no registrations for over a year! :( They registered ChaosHeavyECS. Nobody ever registered ChaosLite, so much for making small versions for communist countries. September 2, 2001: * BUG: I was listening to the Chaos theme music while Emailing and I noticed some horrible messups in Mod.ChaosTheme39! I have now converted this to MED format so this NOW FIXED. * Joar wants the Show Cast delay to be increased from 2 seconds to 2.2 seconds. NOW DONE. * Show Cast 2.2 second delay should only happen on computer wizards NOT human wizards. NOW FIXED. September 3, 2001: I'm so happy from receiving a registration that I have decided to do something to improve the gfx. * I pirated Xav's Thundermare and made some new versions: Horse = light tan Nightmare = purple Iridium Horse = red This one I set to 24fps. Its really to fast but I did it because 1: Its very very rare and 2: It does move faster than the other horses (6mp vs 4mp). * I manufactured a new Fire Demon using Cut&Paste. :) * PROBLEM WITH GHAST: Ghast is a bonus spell! Yet it doesn't even have Exophagy + Scavenge like the Ghoul! I have now changed Ghast to have Exophagy and +4 Scavenge. NOW FIXED. * I am now changing Ghoul to be blue and Ghast to be purple. This is they way they were in the olden days and it keeps the principle that purple creatures are more dangerous than blue ones. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED Xav's new beautiful 24fps Falcon! * INCLUDED Joar's new Dao! But I _LOVED_ Joar's old Dao! What will I use the old Dao for now?!? The way the old Dao's arms wave and make sparkly things is sooo cool! But the new Dao has really cool flying balls so I have to include him. I can't decide what to do about Joar's White Dragon and Stone Giant. Joar's Jann: Its totally ok. But the old one looks small and weak (which the Jann is). I sort of like the old one better because he flies aroud in a circle. I am thinking I will use this new Jann as the next Djinni or Genie creature that Chaos gets. Djinni/Genie will be more powerful than the other spellcasting creatures. * INCLUDED: Joar's new Triple, Bird Lord and Aerial Servant. I included Joar's new Achiyalabopa because it "looks" bigger/better but I really don't like way it is animated. The body floats up in an unrealistic manner I think. Joar's Inanimage and Inanimatologist: well they are sort of ok but they are sort of blurry so I don't really like them all that much. * INCLUDED: Joar's greatly improved new Power Wall! * I put all the new creatures onto the Xav&Joar'sNewestCreatures level and I damaged Joar's new Powerwalls so that you can see how they look when they are damaged. But the level editor doesn't do the "damaged object recalculation" thing so you'll have to cast a spell before you can see how the new Power Walls really look. * Chaos now has 5322 frames of animation! Wow! --------------------------------------------------------------------- On 03-Sep-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> Hi James! RS> Here we are again: I just created a 'sleeping' wizard. I use '' because it RS> was not really sleeping, but wait, I should start at the beginning RS> (leaving out the parts with 'In the beginning I created the Earth and the RS> Sky' here). RS> My enemy cast Lich Lord and then replicated himself. RS> I killed one of the replicates. RS> The one I just killed became a lich-wizard. The other replicate fell RS> asleep. RS> Then the wizard attacked me, with BOTH replicates!! He faked to sleep! RS> In the next round, the sleeping wizard still was asleep, but from this RS> replicate the spell was cast in this round! RS> Unfortunately I had no Wake spell at this moment! Darn! RS> I killed the lich wizard and the game was over. RS> SaveGame attached. RS> Have fun! aha ha 1. Thank you for this very strange bug report. 2. Thank you for including the savefile from right _before_ it happened! This just saved me hours of work! 3. I tried to reproduce the bug but couldn't. That was because I was killing the _real_ enemy wizard (not the replicate). Killing the real enemy wizard works perfectly. 4. AUUUGGH!!!! All this hacked up death sequence code is killing me! Its very confusing and convoluted and hard to understand! My brain nearly melted down trying to figure out what to do! 5. SIMPLE SOLUTION: I put in a check so that the death of a wizard can never try to put any real wizard to sleep. The game doesn't understand how a real wizard could be asleep. He must either be alive or dead. NOW FIXED. Warning: killing replicates of wizards is still going to do strange confusing things ESPECIALLY if the real wizard of the replicate has Lich Lord or Dead Revenge. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- September 4, 2001: THIS AGA UPDATE v3.69 NEEDS: 1. new executable 2. Gfx/Spells Floating Eye, Spectator, Wizard 4, Palluau's Pentacle, Range Boost, Magic Castle, Simulacrum, Replicate, Horse, Nightmare, Iridium Horse, Fire Demon, Falcon, Ghast, Ghoul, Dao, Triple, Bird Lord, Aerial Servant, Power#?, 3. DELETE "gfx/spells/Mana Battery" It is no longer in the game. 4. Gadgets/English/ Start.iff, Quit.iff 5. "SpellDescriptions/#?/Palluau's Pentacle" 6. Music/Mod.ChaosTheme39 7. SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewestCreatures.lha Sent out v3.69 update. Executable filesize Xav 460916 Joar 460916 Frédéric 460928 I FORGOT TO INCLUDE Joar's new Achiyalabopa into the update! September 6, 2001: * INCLUDED: FD's new Français spell descriptions, catalog, genders, .ref explanation file and ValidateSpells.rexx script which can handle genders. September 7, 2001: * BUG: Healing Special Combat leaves the heart graphic drawn over any nonanimated object that it heals. (The square isn't being redrawn at the end of the fx.) NOW FIXED. September 8, 2001: * I tested and then sent out FD's new DefaultFrameRate proggy along with a scriptfile and simple instructions. This script file + proggy will set the framerate of all unset gfx files to 3. The gfx files which already have a proper framerate set are unchanged. INSTRUCTIONS: Place the file "ExecuteMe" into your gfx/Spells/ directory. Place the file "DefaultFrameRate" into T: cd gfx/Spells/ execute ExecuteMe This only needs to be done once then we should never need to use this program ever again. Executing this script is required to be 100% compatible with all future Chaos versions. On 07-Sep-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> * I cast Delacroix's Decloaker but the wizard was not graphically FD> uncloaked until his cell was refreshed. Maybe this was fixed yesterday FD> with the bug about special combat already. Thank you for reporting this! It was a very silly mistake on my part. NOW FIXED. FD> * When picking spells on the bonus pannel, the french line FD> Mr T: Choisissez 2 sorts. FD> should change to FD> Mr T: Choisissez 1 sort. FD> for the last one. At least according to the catalog. yet it becomes: FD> Mr T: Choisissez 1 sorts. FD> which is gramatically incorrect. I think this was just an erasement problem and is NOW FIXED. September 9, 2001: * COMPLAINT: Both Jilles and Frédéric have complained that Chaos opens a file called "ENV:TZ" hundreds of times when rebuilding indices and gfx files and things. I have never opened any such file. This behavior is triggered by the standard C-way of determining if a file exists or not (The stat() function). The stat() function for some unknown reason checks the TZ environment variable. I used FD's suggestion to rework the code to avoid this ONLY on gfx file rebuilding. NOW FIXED. When Chaos must rebuild the translation lists I still use stat() because: 1. I need to know the length of the file which stat() tells me. 2. Its a multiplatform compatible thing. 3. I don't really think that those RAM:TZ accesses make a noticeable slowdown. 4. The rebuilding functions of Chaos are never called for normal Chaos players. Its only the devteam that keeps triggering the rebuilding by adding new gfx, sounds, translations, etc. September 10, 2001: * Sent v3.70 to FD so he can test the bonus panels to see if they really work or not. Filesize=461060 * Sent Sean's Menumaker.c proggy with example .txt files to FD for his examination. ====================================================================== SELECTED COMMENTS FROM ALLEGED NEW ChaosHeavy v3.4cd REGISTERED USER Hello James, I just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I am registering your wonderful Chaos game :-) The cash is winging it's merry way to you right now (posted yesterday, but I have no idea how long it takes mail to travel from England to USA) I love the game, by the way ... it plays really well. So, just to confirm that I would like my registered version sent to me via email please. Address as per my signature. Keep up the good work, I will really enjoy playing the full version with my 2 sons, and look forward to seeing you improve the game even further :-) On 08-Sep-01, AG wrote: AG> Hiya James, AG> I just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I am AG> registering your wonderful Chaos game :-) AG> ->JC WAHOO!!!!!!! 8) AG> Hmmm, nice, cool, laid-back reaction there ;-) AG> Incidentally, the machine I'm playing on is a fully towered up A1200. I AG> have an 060 accellerator, but I've never been able to get it to work in a AG> stable manner from new, so I'm still running on my old Blizzard AG> 030/50mhz/fpu for now. I have 2mb chip and 48mb fast ram onboard, and use AG> 8.4gb and 4.2gb seagate IDE drives. AG> ->JC That is my goal. To make the game have the BEST gameplay in the AG> ->JC world! Gameplay, gameplay, gamelay! Gameplay rulez! AG> Well, so far, since I got this new version of the game, I've played it AG> every day, for about 5 days now. I play either till I'm dead, or to the 18 AG> turn limit, then start all over again. I might play it for 5-6 hours at a AG> time like that, and I ain't gotten bored with it yet :-) AG> ->JC Btw: How have you been playing the game? (which sorts of options AG> ->JC on/off?) AG> Hmmm, it varies a lot. But I don't like the dungeon thang at all. All AG> those trees all over the place, just like to get in the way, you know? I AG> haven't really tried the new exploration option properly yet. Seems a AG> might difficult to me at the moment. Maybe when I can remember more of the AG> spells etc, I'll try that out. I've got blood switched on all the time, I AG> like that. Agent Casting is always on too, not that anything ever cast me AG> a good spell yet :) AG> If I'm playing alone, I tend to use Texas Trash'em, but that's turned off AG> when I'm playing with either of my sons, as they don't like it at all. (A AG> bit TOO much brain work involved for them). AG> I don't think I ever have the Classis Chaos option. I remember trying the AG> first versions of Chaos, way back when, and I might have a game with that AG> option now and again, just for the nostalgia :) AG> I vary the number of artifacts from 0-30ish. The scrolls vary from 0-15, AG> usually hidden. I've never tried hiding the artifacts yet. AG> I usually have scroll rules set to be picked up by anybody, but sometimes AG> I vary that too. So far, scroll delay has always been set to 0. AG> I tried the Ruthlessness option, but died so quickly I haven't tried again AG> ;) AG> ->JC I am always curious to know which of the options are popular and AG> ->JC which are unpopular. AG> ->JC How long have you been playing Chaos? AG> Playing properly, regularly - about 5 days. Since I got this latest AG> version from Aminet. But I first looked at the game many moons ago when it AG> was at version 1-something. I thought it had promise even back then, but I AG> had higher priorities at that time to spend my money on. I then looked at AG> Chaos 2, and got each new update as it appeared on Aminet. AG> ... AG> I did think that it had improved a lot, and determined to keep my AG> eye on it's development. Which brings us to Chaos 3 (v3.4cd). I tried it AG> the first time, and thought bingo! That's it! NOW I can register it! So AG> here we are, with my dollars taking a Manticore ride to you :-)) AG> I'm not usually a big games fan, and play very few games at all, but Chaos AG> is so different from the mainstream computer games that I like it enough AG> to gorge myself on it. The other games I play are also the type that AG> require a small amount of brain work. Such as The Settlers, The Patrician, AG> Ballmaster, various puzzle games, and a few patience card games to pass AG> the time. AG> I can't wait for the game to arrive, I'm getting good at it, and 18 turns AG> just isn't enough any more :-) On 09-Sep-01, AG wrote: AG> ->JC I have the same thing with Apollo 060 accellerator and it works AG> ->JC great. AG> Grrrr! I could have bought the Apollo 060, but I chose the Blizzard one AG> because I'd had the Blizz 030 for years with no problems. Trouble is, I AG> could only get an Apollo from Eyetech who I think are brilliant, and AG> always buy from. The Blizzard I could only get from Power Computing, who I AG> think are shit! They proved it again after I spent the 300 GBP on the AG> Blizz 060. I tried it, it didn't work. I fiddled and tried again. Still AG> didn't work. So i called the Power Computing technical people. They were AG> no help at all, and basically said "You bought it, it shows up on your AG> computer, we won't take it back. So tough!" AG> Which meant I was 300 pounds out of pocket and couldn't afford to buy the AG> Apollo 060. I WILL get one someday. Either that or the new Amiga. Not AG> sure. AG> ->JC Do you have any gfx card? Do you have PCI? Do you have a AG> ->JC flickerfixer? AG> No gfx card. No PCI (yet). Yes, I have the scandoubler/flickerfixer from AG> Eyetech with a Compaq 14 inch SVGA monitor. I also have the Eyetech PS2 AG> mouse adapter and am using a 5 button PS2 mouse. Plus I have the Eyetech AG> keyboard thingy for the tower, with an A4000 keyboard. AG> ->JC The dungeon can slow you down and hinder your progress. But if you AG> ->JC play against 15 generators then you need the dungeon so you can have AG> ->JC stuff to hide your archers behind, keep your wizard safe from harm, AG> ->JC prevent the huge army of Independent Elementals from charging you and AG> ->JC slaughtering off your creatures one by one, etc. AG> 15 generators??? Gawd! Anyone that plays against that number is a braver AG> man than I, Gunga Din! AG> ->JC> haven't really tried the new exploration option properly yet. AG> ->JC That's really for more experienced players because it makes the game AG> ->JC harder. You should just not play that option for many months until AG> ->JC you get tired of regular mode. Then someday you can turn on AG> ->JC Exploration and *poof* its a whole new game. :) AG> Yeah, that sounds good to me. AG> ->JC I might actually rename "Classic Chaos" to "Beginner Mode". AG> That sounds like a good idea to me. Makes more sense for the people that AG> have never seen the old Chaos versions. AG> ->JC Wow! Hiding the scrolls must make the 18 turn demo really tough!!!! AG> It does. But I prefer a challenge. I get a whole spell list, so the AG> scrolls are a bonus really. AG> I tried the Ruthlessness option, but died so quickly I haven't tried AG> again. AG> ->JC Hehehehehe!!! That's good! Now someday when you think "Oh I am so AG> ->JC good at this game, I can win every time" then you can turn on AG> ->JC Ruthlessness and get a new challenge. :) AG> Well, it would certainly be a big challenge. You've programmed things so AG> that they seem to be more intelligent than the player! They really know AG> how to hurt you :-)) AG> ->JC It was very interesting that you play with artifacts because I think AG> ->JC that is possibly one of the least popular options. AG> Really? I find that interesting. I love the artifacts. Especially the AG> bolter walls. If there is one of them on the board, I whizz right over AG> there, give it brain boost and start blasting things. If I get a range AG> boost spell in my list, I slap that on it too. As for the Daleks and AG> Robots etc. I get a creature next to as many as possible and then cast AG> Haste or add speed to them individually. It's a great way of adding very AG> strong creatures to your forces. I know you have to have at least one of AG> your creatures next to them at all times, but that's not so hard to do. ====================================================================== On 10-Sep-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> * Added a {GENDEROFcloaked creature} list in the french talklist to fix a FD> bug with cloaked creatures scavenging corpses. I hope other translators are reading this. :) FD> * I am playing a non-exploration mode game, yet a wight has the FD> cartography icon displayed on its first info pannel. Even if its wizard FD> cast cartography, I suggest this not be displayed (since the exploration FD> stats aren't). I'm not going to remove the cartography icon because I need some indication when the computer wizards do something stupid such as casting Cartography or Telescope in a nonexploration game. The real question here is whether the wizard did something stupid or not. I have coded it such that they will not cast exploration spells in nonexploration mode. So he must have been in a very dire situation. Perhaps he had only a few spells available to him due to Necropotence or Forget/MindBlank and of those few spells none of them had good targets so he cast Cartography/Telescope as a way of wasting his least valuable spell. Or perhaps he was surrounded by stuff and had no LOS for his good spells so he just threw away the Cartography by casting it? FD> * A computer wizard cast thermonuclear war, but they all used their nukes FD> on the dungeon's power walls in the upper left corner instead of FD> targetting the generators out there. Almost every noncreature spell in the game needs AI. FD> * I cast destroy wall in the hope of getting rid of the dungeon's power FD> walls and end the battle, but they were imune to that spell. This should FD> either be documented in the spell description or changed. 1. I assume you mean Force Wall, not Power Wall. 2. Ok I quickly changed the programming to check for PowerWalls and destroy them also. NOW FIXED. 3. This is going to be on ongoing problem each time I add a new walltype. FD> * (NEW GAME) A wizard cast mass morph on the dungeon (nobody) and it FD> turned the standard walls into magic woods. But it also changed the FD> scrolls into woods, which should not happen. According to the spell description; what happened in your game was correct. This might make a good question for Joar's trivia game. :) FD> * I cast reincarnation on my Demon just before another wizard justices it, FD> but it didn't reincarnate, it just disappeared ! I'm baffled by this one. FD> * A wizard killed a generator with his earthquake, but there was no FD> allelujah, so I guess he was not awarded a bonus spell. He deserves it ! If there is an Earthquake in the woods and it kills something powerful, does its Wizard deserve a bonus spell for that? FD> * Suggestion for a third option on the "you have won!" requester: free FD> all, to let the battle start again with the wizard against all his FD> creations. Hmmm... these last 2 depend on how strongly others want it / don't want it. NOTE: Joar strongly wants it. * INCLUDED: FD's latest Français talklist, catalog and spell descriptions of Higher and Lesser Devil. * NEW FRAMRATES: I set Wizard 3 to be 1 fps because 2 fps seems a bit fast but 1 fps seems a bit slow. I dunno what to do. I set Wizard 7 to 4 fps because 3 fps seemed to slow and 6 fps seemed to fast. September 11, 2001: I was hard at work on Chaos so that I could release the new update tomorrow. I was editing sound samples and getting LOADS of good work done. It was 9:?? in the morning and Joseph suddenly came home and said to me "They ripped you off! The Chaos is everywhere! What is going on!?!" and I was like "uhhh, what are you talking about?" and he was all paniced and said "The Chaos, the whole world is in chaos! Its everywhere! Its all over the tv!" and I was like "Joe, calm down, what are you talking about?" and he said "Get in here and see" as he went to the TV room. So I was thinking to myself "What in the world could be on tv that has anything to do with Chaos?" September 12, 2001: Spent all day watching the news reports and horrible stories of people who were talking on the phone to their husband/wife when the plane hit or after it hit and they were trapped in the building and couldn't get out and smoke was everywhere and they knew they were going to die then the phone went dead. September 13, 2001: Spent all day watching the news. * Joar wants casting delay for agents who cast spells in MusicMode. NOW DONE. September 14, 2001: Spent all day watching the news. * Included Giulio's spell-corrected Italiano spell descriptions. September 15, 2001: On 11-Sep-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> * I saw a wizard cast 2 dark woods on the same position ! FD> Happened on turn 11. No bug escapes detection by the eagle eyes of Delacroix the Destroyer. The bug was in IntelligentDarkShadowWoodCast(), IntelligentMagicWoodCast(), IntelligentCreatureCast() and IntelligentConwellsCowCatapultCast(). NOW FIXED. Due to the fact that I used totally different coding techniques, the bug was not in IntelligentPitCast(). September 16, 2001: I spent all day editing sound samples so I could release the next major update to Team Chaos. All my samples got corrupted so this upgrade is a failure. :( Time to switch sound software. A lot of people tell me SoundProbe is good. September 17, 2001: I woke up this morning fuming mad! GRRR! I couldn't concentrate on any coding. Damn the terrorists! September 18, 2001: * BUG: Text on Bonus Spell Panel is STILL not correctly erased. Doh! I had accidentally switched the Y parameters so NOTHING was being erased. I traced through the code on a test level and this is really NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED Xav's AWESOME NEW: Giant Spider Force Walls Mnemicide Radioactive Land Dragon Nest Free * INCLUDED: Kreton's Awesome New: Lich Lich Lord He drew these years ago in 64x64 long before Chaos could load IFF files in the ecs version. Finally they are now included to the game!!!!!! Kill (I shrunk down his 64x64 version and modified it.) * Robin's Kill becomes the new Eidetic Xenogenocide. * INCLUDED: Robin's new: Biohazard (Sharper than Joar's version) Rocks (I had to fix some broken pixels first) * INCLUDED: Joar's Awesome new: Wizard 1 (I modified this so he would wave his wand more) Winged Elf Boots Pox Shield Anger, Alternography, Arborist, Alter Reality, Ball Lightning Cursed Sword, Chainsaw, Curse, Cloak & Reveal Double, Depth, Demonic Touch, Demonic Touch Beam, Dark Power, Exit, Encumberance Beam, Elf Boots Gravity Sphere, Horse Disrupt (I modified this one + put a D on it) I think Archery should be an arching line with an arrow on the end. Archerotomy should be the same as Archery but with a big red X over it. * BUG in old Boil gfx NOW FIXED. September 19, 2001: On 19-Sep-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> * We are all in one league against a whole lot of independents and one of FD> my stupid allies cast necropotence ! NOW FIXED. * Included FD's AnimToTiles1.2 into chaos/c/ September 20, 2001: * BUG: Boil doesn't destroy Pools! NOW FIXED. On 20-Sep-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD>>> The 100% translation features work fine for scavenging, but I can't FD>>> them to work with other lines of the catalog, and I don't FD>> understand why. FD>> Probably because you are using lines of the catalog that haven't been FD>> programmed to support the 100% translations yet. :) FD>>> These lines are the promotion messages, the tempest killing FD>> something. FD> OK. "Search GENDEROF" in cygnused gives lines #49,63,64,65,177,206,234 in FD> Français.catalog. NOW FIXED. FD> I won a battle against 99 generators today :-) This surely must be a bug! :) FD> * When a general generator generates, the owner of the generator should be FD> indicated in parentheses, as for bipedal generators, aviaries and dragon FD> nests. This has been bothering me for years. NOW FIXED. FD> * I have tried playing with music only (no sound) and it works great ! FD> There's just a little delay missing when a creature gets hit by ranged FD> combat: the damage disappears too fast. I changed the shoot routine to be more alike the combat routine so this is hopefully NOW FIXED. September 21, 2001: Sent v3.71 to Frédéric so he can test the new 100% translation catalog lines and music mode, etc. Executable filesize=461588 * Passage now grants the caster +20 points just for attempting it and +20 more points if it is successful. September 26 to September 30, 2001: I spent all day each day reading encyclopedias, history books, news reports, etc. October 1, 2001: * Included Zoltan's updated Talklistsdir/Magyar.txt The problem with having only 1 coder working on the game engine is every time a world war breaks out, the coding progress screeches to a halt. October 4, 2001: * I edited Joar's Wizard 1 to make him wave his magic wand more. END of version 3.72 October 5, 2001: 3.72 update needs the following files: c/AnimToTiles v1.3 gfx/Spells/Boil, Wizard 3, Wizard 7, Achiyalabopa + all other new ones. SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewestCreatures.lha Sent v3.72 to Frederic, Xav, Joar and Robin. Executable filesize Frederic=461616 Xav=461608 Joar=461608 Robin=461608 October 6, 2001: BEGIN version 3.73 This next part was hard. I had to consider what to do about Coercion, Discard and Necropotence. I was thinking of renaming Coercion to Mind Blank. What do you think? * Included Joar's new Discard gfx. * CHANGED Confidence, Eye for an Eye, Vodka and Battle Cry powerups to appear on creature info panels. Within this group of 4 powerups Eye for an Eye is displayed first in case we run out of room. Sent v3.73 with level editor to Joar so he can try to design some levels. executable filesize = 479536 ----------------------- Level Editor Docs -------------------------- Choose Edit Board from main menu. Edit Menu: Clear All, Clear Under, Reset Exploration Bits, Quit (back to main game) all work. The other options I've never tried and they might crash the machine; I donno. Experiment with them at your own risk. I have never used Load, Save or Save As. Maybe they are really cool? I don't know. I always quit back to the main game before saving my level because I know for a fact that it works perfectly that way. Player Menu: Use this to select who owns the objects you are placing on the board. Use Amiga x,c,v, to cut, copy and paste just like you would in Ibrowse or any other Amiga OS program since 1985. Secret Key: Alt-o brings up a menu of object groups. Pick an object group with the mouse and then pick an object from that list then place the object on the board. Arrow keys move the mouse pointer exactly 1 square just like in the main game. Years ago Sean programmed arrow keys to change the player number. Should I change this so arrow keys don't mess up the current player number? When you are in the Level Editor you can edit the stats of creatures on the info panel by clicking on the number you want to change then press amiga-x to erase that number then type in the number you want. Above feature can be useful for starting the player with some damaged creatures that need to be healed immediately. It can also be used to creature super-powerful computer creatures for the player to fight. You can also rig up weird special situations that are a puzzle to get through, such as a line of Bolter Walls that can only shoot with range of 2 thus the player must go around them and fight through some other monsters in order to survive. On the 2nd info panel you can toggle on/off all the stats (such as "Flying") by merely clickling on it. Be careful when you are in a hurry not to accidentally press a mousebutton onto one of these stats or you will accidentally change the stats in an unintended manner. NOTE ABOUT WIZARDS: BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN CUTTING AND PASTING WIZARDS. 1. ONLY have 1 of each wizard. I don't know what will happen if you place down 2 of the same wizard. Experiment with this at your own peril. 2. When moving a wizard, cut him, then immediately paste him down where you want him to be and everything will work great; otherwise I don't know what will happen. -------------------------------------------------------------------- End v3.73 Begin v3.74 October 8, 2001: I went to dad's house with both brothers and we played board games and ping pong all day. October 9, 2001: * STUPID: Sometimes computer wizards cast cats when there is an enemy Cat Lord on the board. NOW FIXED. * STUPID: Sometimes computer wizards cast Raise Dead or Resurrection onto dead cats when there is an enemy Cat Lord on the board. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED: Robin made an enhanced version of Xav's Dragon Nest with better antialiasation. The left edge definitely looks smoother. * BUG: Robin forgot to convert the Dragon Nest back to the Chaos Game Palette. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED: Xav's new 32x32 Vodka gfx. Where is the shotglass? Stefan writes: > Why is the Stone Golem Artifact not able to injure an enemy, which > is standing next to him? I think maybe the artfiacts have become broken. I have now changed it so that any artifact next to an enemy creature will ALWAYS be engaged to it thus it will always be able to attack it. NOW FIXED. * Sent an updated version v3.42r to Stefan so he can test the artifacts some more. Executable filesize=439800 October 10, 2001: * Jilles Tjoelker says I should replace all occurrences of Execute("delete filename >nil:",0,0); with DeleteFile("filename"); DONE. This saved 120 bytes on the executable filesize. * Jilles Tjoelker says I should replace all that lame ChaosGame: code with PROGDIR: DONE. This saved 332 bytes on the executable filesize. * The file t:ChaosGamePath is no longer created. This should make Frédéric very happy. :) * BUG: Artifacts belonging to NOBODY are animated! I guess this happened when I impmlemented the new animation system. NOW FIXED. * ELIMINATED all references to the lame constants CLOAKED and STATIC_IMAGE. This saved 308 bytes on the executable filesize. HAND OPTIMIZED core.c Saved: InsertArtifact() 32 bytes InsertScrollUnder() 28 bytes InsertScroll() 24 bytes InsertCorpse() 24 bytes InsertCorpseUnder() 24 bytes ClearUnder() 0 bytes ?! ClearVisible() 12 bytes BackUp() 20 bytes Promote() 2644 bytes RecalculatePowerups() 396 bytes RecalculateAllDamagedObjects() 452 bytes October 11, 2001: * Stefan wants artifacts to be able to attack adjacent Generators, walls, growths and things. I had to completely rewrite the Engagement routines in order to accomplish this and at the same time I went ahead and removed all the old Sean-Code and replaced it with cleaner coder using my AdjacentCell() function. This saved 564 bytes on the size of the executable! TOTAL SAVINGS FOR OCTOBER 10-11, 2001: 4970 BYTES! I reduced the size of the main executable by over 1%!! The routines are now a teensy bit faster. I just removed 1 line of code and somehow the program GREW by 120 bytes!?!?!? C compilers are wierd. * ARTIFACTS can now attack any adjacent enemy object! Stone Golem artifacts will now be much more useful. While testing the new engagement routine I noticed that my allied computer wizard was attacking walls when an enemy wizard was right next to him! * BUG: Due to a very sneaky bug in the DangerousnessRating routine that only affects KillTheHumans mode, computer controlled creatures were always choosing to attack the dungeon walls or anything belonging to NOBODY instead of attacking the adjacent enemy Wizard! This bug was caused by the fact that Wizards[NOBODY] is not marked as being computer controlled (it isn't controlled by anybody). So I had to add an extra check that the wizard is within the range 1-8. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED Joar's first level: "ILOVEtheEditor" into the Levels/Joar_Berntsen/ directory. October 12, 2001: * BUG: My allied Stone Golem artifact did not attack the adjacent enemy Shambling Mound! Ok, I had to rewrite the movement routine several times and retest the artifacts several times before I got the new artifact-attacking to work 100%. Whew! That took a long time! NOW FIXED. * Sent an updated v3.43r to Stefan so he can continue his artifact testing. Executable filesize=439408. * INCLUDED: Robin made 32x32 versions of Xav's Command and Battle Cry gfx which are quite beautiful! * BUG: Robin forgot to convert the new Command and Battle Cry into the Chaos palette. NOW FIXED. October 13, 2001: It took me a very long time to find a decent sound sample editor! I am using a very nice freeware aminet program called SampleZ. Rainer Mueller RuleZ! I spent all day re-editing all the sound samples from scratch. I am now caught up to where I would have been on September 11 if those damn psycho muslims hadn't attacked us. October 14, 2001: I must now volume convert all ABC speech files to either 200% or 158% because the current volume is not loud enough. I can use sox to convert entire directories of sound samples all at once. sox-12.16-base.lha mus/edit 267K 92+Multiformat sound converter (src) sox-12.16-bin.lha mus/edit 194K 92+Multiformat sound converter (bin) To convert a file from any format to 8svx: sox -t auto filename -t 8svx filename To convert a file from any format to 8svx but first double the volume: sox -V -v 2.0 -t auto filename -t 8svx filename The following 2 lines produce a file IDENTICAL to the above single line! I had to test this to make sure that the volume was changed in 16 bit before converting down to 8 bit. sox -V -v 2.0 -t auto Abath T:Abath1.wav sox -V T:Abath1.wav T:Abath1.8svx I converted the male "Abath" and then listened to the 8bit version and the 16 bit version and they both sound virtually identical! list >t:ExecuteMe lformat="sox -v 2.0 -t auto *"%n*" -t 8svx *"T:CreatureNameSpeech/English/M/%n*"" * INCLUDED: Joar's new 32x32 gfx: Wake, Vitality, Virtue, Turns, Toxicity Beam, Seismology (I still think Seismology could be better and look more like a printout from a real seismograph). Ubiquiscope: I love the background of this gfx! But I am not satisfied with the +1 because it looks too blurry for me. I sharpened the + a little bit but I'm still not 100% satisfied with the +1 part. Uncertainty: I improved it some. I put all the new speech and gfx and level files into an archive and sent it out as an update to Joar+Xav+Robin+Frédéric. Sorry that I didn't have time to put in the code to use the speech files but I have to send out the data update fast before Joar disappears for another week. Maybe I'll have the speech coding done for next weekend. October 15, 2001: * Sent v3.74 executable to Joar+Xav+Robin+Frédéric. Executable filesize Joar=457516 Frédéric=457524 Robin=457520 Xav=457516 October 16, 2001: * Included Xav's new Singular Earthbind and Dual Earthbind gfx! October 17, 2001: * I finally got Ann's registration from Britain! It is postmarked 06-09-01 Royal Mail. Over 5 weeks!?!? Well I guess we know how good the Royal Mail Service is now. If any Brits are reading this right now then please register the game using airmail! She nearly died of a heart attack thinking that her registration got lost in the mail! We were both terribly worried about her letter! BTW: The stamp has a picture of a Queen or Princess or some kind of worthless layabout on it. Harumph. * Sent Ann's Registered v3.43r to her. Executable filesize=439396 * Read and corrected Sean's new Chaos Beastiary: Centaur and Pegasus. I wrote a new paragraph for the Centaur section. October 18, 2001: * BUG: "m" key doesn't work anymore! The AI doesn't work anymore either! Auugh! The game is all screwed up! This happened when I rewrote all the engagement stuff to allow 0 mp artifacts to attack any adjacent object. This means everyone's version has been totally broken all week long! NOW FIXED. ======================================================================== Speech Coding Upgrade Should the SayCreatureName() routine simply try to open the file and if it is not there then try to open the other backup file? Or should there be an array HasCreatureNameSpeech[Language,sex,id] Build the array and save it to disk? Or do it the complicated way like with the sound effects? I have to have an array or macro because otherwise damaged objects in french mode would have to 1. check damaged object name in french male 2. check damaged object name in french female 3. check damaged object name in english male 4. check damaged object name in english female 5. check groupID object name in french male 6. check groupID object name in french female 7. check groupID object name in English male voila finally found it! That's 7 silly file checks for damaged objects! SO I MUST HAVE AN ARRAY AND/OR MACRO! Every ID * Every Language = around 5710 items * 2 sexes * 2 bytes = 24K of ram! Generate a list of all files in each dir. Read in this list. Go through each object and check the list. If its name is in the list then mark that element of the array with a 1 else 0. Now I must decide if the array should hold the id of the speech to use? Or should I use a separate macro that determines that? I could just go ahead and build in the id into the array then I don't even need the stupid macro; that sounds easiest to me! So instead of marking the array with a 1 or 0 simply mark it with the id # of the speech to use! This way damaged objects are handled AUTOMATICALLY! 1. Hack & slash in lots of code to build lists of which language/sex/spells have speech. DONE. 2. Take into account damaged object variations. DONE. 3. Modify SayCreatureName() and SayCreatureNameAsynchronously() to use the new digital speech. DONE. 4. If digital speech is not available then fall back to the old narrator.device code. DONE. Should the speech routine use its own JCspeech? Or should it just use JCsound? How do I know which is best? How do I decide? I guess it has to be its own program for one SIMPLE reason: If computer speech did WaitJCsound() then it would keep waiting and waiting and waiting until ALL sounds are finished even though it might be waiting on some different sound that has nothing to do with speech! So maybe I have to make it be its own separate program because of this? 5. Recompile JCsound as JCspeech and change its port to "JC Speech Port" DONE. 6. Make JCspeech be resident just like JCsound. DONE. 7. Make spell casting use the new digital speech. DONE. 8. Make Generators use the new digital speech. DONE. 9. Make Agents use the new digital speech. DONE. It actually seems like it works! ======================================================================== * INCLUDED: Robin's improved Biohazard spell description (changed from Chemical Attack to Biohazard). * INCLUDED: Robin's improved Talklistsdir/DeutschGenders (Cloaked Creature) * TRYING a new color cycling algorithm for when you press a number key to see all your creations. I like this new way better but I'm still not 100% satisfied. * FLAW: The level editor never calls RecalculateAllDamagedObjects() Joar's damaged Power Walls are incorrectly drawn as full health Power Walls. I have now changed it so that the level editor calls RecalculateAllDamagedObjects() upon exiting the editor. NOW FIXED. * RESAVED: SavedGames/Xav&JoarsNewCreatures Everything looks correct now. * HUH? NIGHTMARE animation (Purple Horse) looks bad because 1 frame is noticeably darker than all the others so it sort of flickers badly. Has it always been like this!??? * INCLUDED Robin's new Iridium Horse with multi-trails and Nightmare with multi-trails! Very Freaky! Should I reduce the speed of the Iridium Horse down from 24 fps to 12 fps now? When I talked to Robin about making trails creatures I thought he would just make 1 single trail not several levels of multicolored trailing! Wow! This is wild! A single level of trailing might look good on certain creatures? Or maybe not? Who knows? * BUG: Robin's new Iridium Horse and Nightmare have a few pixels on the last frame overflow onto the beyond-the-last frame. This makes the animation flick off and on in a most terrible manner. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Robin's new Nightmare looks awesome BUT THE HORSE IS INVISIBLE! It should actually be composed of hard black pixels (color #32 of the game palette). I'm afraid this will look terribly bad when I add in the terrain. :( Hopefully Robin will fix this. NOW FIXED by Robin. October 19, 2001: * Sent v3.44r to Ann and Stefan. Executable filesize Ann= 439816 Stefan=439828 * INCLUDED Robin's new 100% bugfixed Nightmare and Iridium Horse. * ROBIN is hereby placed in charge of creating digitized speech for the Faun. Note: all current speech samples are 22050 Hz in 16 bit. October 20, 2001: * Redo color cycling to be blue only. DONE. * Start the oscillating color at 0,0,0 BLACK in the beginning of the program! DONE. * The flashing blue square highlighting looks nice but the allies are already shown in nonflashing blue squares so I think your unmoved creatures should be shown in flashing green squares. DONE. I like the new green flashing highlighting with the number keys. What do you think? ========================================================================== Bugs caused by Jilles Tjoelker's DeleteFile() idea for the last 10 days! ========================================================================== * BUG: Autosaving no longer works! * BUG: Menu option "Save" no longer works! * BUG: Menu option "Save As" no longer works on previously existing filenames! * BUG: Games appear to be saving but really they are not! This is all caused by the fact that DeleteFile() doesn't work with filnames that are surrounded by qutotation marks. An example is: "SavedGames/001p1AutoSave.lha" ALL NOW FIXED =========================================================================== * I finally finished editing all speech files D-E-F. v3.75 update needs the following files: chaos executable SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewCreatures.lha c/JCspeech gfx/spells/Nightmare, Iridium Horse, Singular Earthbind, Dual Earthbind, CreatureNameSpeech/English/#?/D#?,E#?,F#? I hope I didn't forget anything! Sent Chaos v3.75 to Joar+Xav+Robin+Frederic. Executable filesize Joar=478584 Frederic=460920 Robin =460916 Xav =460916 RS> There are several creatures that names are NOT spoken even though there RS> are files existing. Ex: Eagle, Falcon, Conwell's Cow Catapult. Others ARE RS> spoken, so there is no bug in general. Those creatures I noticed are NEVER RS> spoken (I tested them 3x). * BUG: Creatures that have spaces in their names are not spoken due to I forgot to enclose the pathname in quotation marks. NOW FIXED. If your Eagle and Falcon aren't working then I think this must be a lzx bug. Just delete CreatureNameSpeech/English/#?List.txt This will force the Chaos Engine to rebuild the lists of available speech files. This probably means you can't see the new gfx files either so you better delete the gfx indices also. I think I'm going back to lha. * Sent v3.76 to Robin for further speech testing. Executable filesize=460920 October 21, 2001: * INCLUDED Joar's new gfx: Stomp, Sluggishness Beam, Still, Torment. * INCLUDED Robin's new gfx: Ubiquiscope (he sharpened the +1 of Joar's Ubiquiscope). * INCLUDED Robin's new gfx: Still (he only changed the arrow a little bit). * INCLUDED Robin's new gfx: Elephant (he added tusks to Xav's elephant!) * BUG: Robin's Tusky Elephant is animated using mode #199. (?) There is no mode #199 so it is being played in ping-pong mode and looks very strange! I changed the line 1 color #199 to be color #1 so this is NOW FIXED. On 21-Oct-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> FLAW: You can only hear digitized speech when you switch to "English". RS> When I play in German, I hear the old narrator.device speech (in English), RS> but no digitized creature names. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Some magic spells play the speech of a completely different spell! Some magic spells crash when playing the speech! This is all because I used a InitialData[id] instead of InitialData(id). Grrr. NOW FIXED. October 22, 2001: * I _FINALLY_ finished the G-H speech files! Now I will relax and play a test game using one of Joar's fresh new levels. * I played Joar's level "Closed Dragon Gate"! Wow! I made one mistake and died on turn 6. But I have the most points so really I win! ßþ hehe I had 63 points and Professeur Mad had only 37. My first request gave me a Marid which cast Range Boost on one of my Golden Dragon Artifacts. It was fun to get killed in only 6 turns! Wow what a challenge!!! * 2nd try of Closed Dragon Gate. I died on turn 9. But I almost won! My Requests sucked: Giant Beetle, Faun, King Cobra. * 3rd attempt: My Request gave me an Eagle! Something useful for a change! My next Request gave me a Golden Dragon! I won on turn 11! Let's see you try to beat that! Note to Joar: Did you intend for the Shadow Cities to be collapsing automatically even though they are empty? Would you prefer to have a new meditation object that is undead and won't collapse when empty? * BUG: Speech STILL doesn't work in Deutsch mode. This was all because I had accidentally typed "Language" instead of "language" in 1 instance in the setup code. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Digital Speech on human player's turn isn't multitasking asynchronous anymore. NOW FIXED. Sent Robin v3.77 for testing the speech + betatesting Joar's Closed Dragon Gate level. executable filesize=460952 I played Joar's new level "ComeAndGetSome". I died on turn 6. I only managed to kill 1 enemy wizard. * BUG: When you are under the influence of Vodka there is erroneously a vodka gfx on everything that you look at. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Whenever you have active Eye for an Eye, Confidence or Battle Cry there is erroneously that gfx on everything you look at. NOW FIXED. I played Joar's new level "FortificationFabric" and won on my 1st try on turn 7. ====================================================================== Xav inscribes a scroll about LZX ====================================================================== Hi Friends! LZX I use it all the time, and it's very very reliable, but you need to know that you MUST: - use the original 1.21r - use the 68000 version ONLY to create your archives, even on a 68060!!! It's IMPORTANT! - always test your archives (but you already do this with the other archivers, don't you? ;-) How to use it: Create archive (if you put the files to archive in RAM:) lzx -r -e a drive:path/newarchive.LZX ram: (-e : to archive empty directories, we never know... :) Test lzx t file.lzx If you use LZX 68020, 040, or 060, you may have corrupted datas in the archive. But LZX won't report the bug during the archiving operation. It will report the bug in the test, or on an extraction operation. Since I use the 68000 version on my 68040 : bugs = 0. I'm 100% satisfied. Note : in the default settings, LZX doesn't keep the date attributes... If you want to keep them, just set the option on. Note2 : you can use 68020, 040 or 060 LZX version to extract files from an archive made with the 68000 version, you'll have no bugs in the unpacking operations. LHA2 Don't use it, please! You can only use it with the CLI. You can't use an AppIcon, or GUI with it because you'll have software failures! LHA and ZIP Very reliable, but LZX is the king of compression rate. Take the gfx directory of Chaos and archive it trying LhA, ZIP, LZX : LZX rules! All my HD backups are made with LZX, and all is ok for a long time. Don't be afraid to use the 1.21r 68000 version of LZX. ====================================================================== End of Xav's scroll about LZX ====================================================================== October 23, 2001: * I downloaded lzx121r1.lha from aminet. Lzx has problems dealing with files newer than the year 2000. I find this unbelievably lame. I downloaded a patch LZX_Y2Kfix.lha to fix it but I'm afraid to install the patch for fear of messing up the lzx. * My A1200 and A3000 now both have lzx 1.21r 68000 version with keyfile in L: ONLY. I wiped out the old versions. Its a shame that Xav says I shouldn't use the 020 or 040 version. :( * BUG: After a Hand Grenade explodes the affected cells are not redrawn but are instead left blank. NOW FIXED. * BORING: Hand Grenade and Goblin Bomb explosions happen 1 cell at at time instead of all simultaneously. NOW FIXED. * STUPID: Computer wizards cast Hand Grenades adjacent to themselves thus taking 7 points of damage! NOW FIXED. * SUX: The sound for the explosion of the Hand Grenade. I renamed ExplodeBig.8svx to ExplodeUnused.8svx for possible future use. I installed a new ExplodeBig.8svx sound effect so this is hopefully NOW FIXED. October 24, 2001: I don't like the brighten/darken color cycling method on the board for highlighting creatures. I don't like the brighten then flash off to black color cycling method on the setup screen. I have now programmed 2 different color cycling methods: 1. Brighten/Darken for setupscreen text. 2. Brighten/Flash for the main game board. 3. There is a 3rd method which I didn't really like for anything so it is currently not used. Look at the color cycling and tell me if its ok or it annoys you or hurts your eyes or ??? * I spent some time trying to fix the font problems on the req.library filerequester but it seems to be impossible. I would need the source code of the library in order to make it quit using the wrong font in certain places. :( * Sean prefers the alternate pronunciation of Derro so I need to include the new Derro speech file. * I Spent hours discussing the probabilities of Ditzy Blonde and Tower only to then find out they were not talking about the normal game! Knut had radically altered the probabilities. So I won't change these probabilities until someone who has played the game a lot with normal probabilities complains about them; then I will be happy to reduce them. * REDUCED: Conwell's Cow Catapult from probability 9 to -19. * REDUCED: Tower probability from 35 to 29. * INSTALLED: Xav's new date-patched lzx onto my A1200 and A3000. Yahoo! It seems like it really works now! * DITZY BLONDE: I changed it so Computer players will not cast Ditzy Blonde unless they also have a Subversion or Brain Drain in their spell list. October 26, 2001: * INCLUDED FD's new Français Solar description. * I finally finished all 16-bit speech samples I-J-K-L-M and installed them into the game as .8svx. Whew! October 27, 2001: This new update v3.78 needs: New executable #?.prb files New Derro speech gfx/Spells/Stomp, Sluggishness Beam, Still, Torment, Ubiquiscope, Elephant, Sounds/ExplodeBig.8svx SpeechFiles G-M Levels/Joar_Berntsen/ClosedDragonGate, ComeAndGetSome, FortificationFabric I tried to archive the data using my normal lzx method: lzx -r -a -e -9 a ram:ChaosData378.lzx #? but I get an error -9 unknown option! -9 used to always work! Ok I will try -3 instead. lha -v0 = 1926192 bytes lzx -9 = doesn't work. lzx -3 = 1674747 bytes lzx = 1679665 bytes lzx saved 251k more than lha. Sent v3.78 to Joar+Robin+Frederic+Xav Executable filesize: Joar=479520 Robin=461848 Xav =461848 Frederic=461852 * BUG: Menu Speech OFF doesn't work on Digital Speech. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED Joar's new Thundermare gfx. I'm not really sure how much I like the weird color fx on this one... I could like them more if they were somehow different... October 28, 2001: * PROBLEM: Knut says that he hates having to wait 7 seconds for the scavenging phase and 7 seconds for the artifact changing phase. He wants to be able to press a mouse button or a key and make those phases go super-fast. Believe it or not this took me 3 full hours of coding/testing/debugging. Yikerz! Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. NOW FIXED. * PROBLEM: The filerequester is too narrow and you can't see long filenames. Part of the filename is not shown. I now widened the window so this is NOW FIXED. * BUG: If you load a game that has a 30 character filename the "SavedGames" path gets erased! This was caused by the string gamefilename being 1 char to short. Thus its terminating null was overwriting the first byte of the next string which was gamedirectoryname. NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED: Xav's great new 32x32 gfx: Global Thermonuclear War, Nuke. October 29, 2001: I've been sick for several days now. Today I was too sick to get anything done. Slept all day + coughing and sneezing. :( October 30, 2001: * Knut's registration finally arrived! He told me he was sending it in 3 months ago. But he didn't actually send it until 1 week ago. * Sent Knut his registered v3.45r. + updated #?.prb files + updated mods. executable filesize=440164 * Knut says he doesn't like the feature that HE ASKED FOR that I spent 3 HOURS programming in for speedy scavenge/artifact changing! Grrr. No more features for Knut until he can decide what he REALLY wants! October 31, 2001: * Ok I finally forced myself to investigate all these weird reports I've been getting from people about Cat Lords sometimes not taking control of cats. Well it turns out that Cat Lords ALWAYS took control of the normal cats and NEVER took control of the bloody cats. The simple fix was easy. NOW FIXED. A more generalized fix for the above problem and many other problems related to damaged objects will require a lot more work. Maybe I'll attempt it someday. * Sent Knut his registered v3.46r since he is one of the people who reported the Cat Lord bug. executable filesize=440180 * NEW FEATURE: I have always wanted the "r" key to work over the spell list to show me the range of the spell. I've been needing this feature to figure out if I'm in range of various spells such as Brain Drain, Subversion, etc. NOW DONE. November 1, 2001: I studied the new sprite functions of OS 3.0+ so that I could try to figure out how to get rid of the sprite corruption bug. I haven't had much luck yet. Searched aminet for example AGA sprite code but couldn't find anything :( FD showed me where on the DevCD there is some sprite information. It specifically says you can't use attached sprites for the mouse pointer! That was 90% of the reason I wanted to do a sprites upgrade! Nowhere does it even say you can use an 8 color sprite with Amiga OS 3.1. (!?) This kills my motivation and I guess I'll just leave the damn sprites the way they are. * INCLUDED: Robin's new 32x32atized Bless + Restoration! November 2, 2001: * INCLUDED: Robin's new 32x32atized Cartography. I liked it so much that I framed it for him. :) PROBLEM: The Strong Wall (White Wall) flickers terribly in interlace mode. PROBLEM: Xav sent me an excellent Stone02 gfx which isn't being used for anything yet. SOLUTION: Use the beautiful Stone01 as the new Strong Wall! This way when dungeons are constructed of Strong Wall they'll look really great and they won't flicker quite so much. Cool! We can solve 2 problems at once! UHOH: But Strong Wall is already programmed to use the damaged variations so now I need a volunteer from the audience who would like to make the damaged variations of this gfx. This wall doesn't need any animations. Its ok to just have a single tile for each damage variation. I don't know which person from the Team Chaos gfx dept. is most qualified to do this. I think it should go to the person who most enjoys mangulating perfectly good gfx into damaged pieces. :) VOLUNTEER NEEDED: If you volunteer to do this important gfx job then please sign your name below. Thank you for playing Chaos. :) Joar says he'll try it. November 3, 2001: * INCLUDED: Xav's new "Stone Giant" gfx. I agree that it looks more like a Knight in Armor with a Battleaxe but such a creature doesn't exist in Chaos yet and I don't want this nice gfx to go to waste in the meantime. I may reassign this gfx in the future if: A: We get a better Stone Giant gfx or B: I program in the Knight-Warrior with Battleaxe creature. * INCLUDED Speech files NOPQR. This v3.79 update needs: New executable. Speech files NOPQR gfx/Spells/Cartography, Bless, Restoration, Global Thermonuclear War, Nuke, Thundermare, Stone Giant. SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewestCreatures.lha * Sent 3.79 to Joar. Executable filesize=480292 * INCLUDED: Joar's new Strong Wall damaged variations (good fast work!!!!) November 4, 2001: * INCLUDED: Joar's new animated version of the Dragon Nest and Golden Dragon. * I finished all S speech files. * Joar is going to disappear for 10 months!!! :((((((((((((( * DAMMIT I need a HyperClone! With 2 Robins and 2 Xavs under my command I wouldn't need a Joar anymore! 8-D * I'm going crazy with TONS of GREAT ideas for gfx and cool things to program into Chaos! But I've decided to hold back and continue on with my plan to finish the speech upgrade first. This way I won't add any new bugs to the game. It would suck if Joar got stuck with a buggy Chaos for 10 months straight! * AUGH! I'm so hyped up sometimes I can't concentrate! I just keep being flooded with millions of fantastic ideas! November 6, 2001: * I've decided I don't really like having the speech be on only 1 channel so now I'm going to try it on 2 channels to see how that works/sounds. November 7, 2001: * INCLUDED: Xav's great new Clay Golem! It didn't have a dead image so I quickly made a stupid one. I also quickly manufactured a Stone Golem and Basalt Golem from the original one. * INCLUDED: Xav's great new Bolter Wall! It didn't have a dead image so I made one for it. HEY! This rock wall is awesome! It connects smoothly on all 4 sides!!! * INCLUDED: Xav's Tentacle creature as the new Pyrohydra. Technically the Hydras are supposed to have 5 heads and this gfx looks like 1 head + 2 tentacles without heads... but oh well... Someone can make a better one someday. At least the tentacles should be changed to look like they have heads on the end. * I tried to make a greenish version of the Pyrohydra to be the new Hydra but I really don't know what I'm doing. I think Robin or Xav could make a better one. Until then we can use my crappy one. THE PSYCHO APARTMENT PEOPLE STOLE MY CAR! THEY HAD IT TOWED OFF! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE STUPID DUMBASS ASSHOLES! I WAS GETTING TONS OF WORK DONW AND NOW I'M FUMING MAD AND I CAN'T CONCENTRATE ON ANYTHING! November 8, 2001: I called the apartment people at 8:30 a.m. Some lady told me she didn't know anything about it, that Kara was the person who handled these things and to call back at 9:00. I called back and 9:15 and asked for Kara but the lady told me she wasn't in yet. GRRR. I called later on (around 10:30 or so) and some different lady (vernessa) told me that Kara was in but she wouldn't talk to me. (!) Well I'm to upset to anything that requires problem solving so I can't put in those new inanimate objects right now. I would have to decide the exact stats and relationships and stuff. This totally sux. I was feeling so mentally great the last 2 weeks and now its all ruined by fantastic stress! :( So all I can concentrate on is editing more sound samples. Even that is troublesome for me because I'm angry and impatient and lose my concentration. * INCLUDED all speech files S-Z. Yargh! Finally. * Xav sent me a dead body for the new Golems but I already made a silly one. I love Xav's dead bodies (maybe he used to work in a morgue? :) but I can't decide which dead body is better, mine or his. I asked Robin which dead body to use without telling him which was which. He chose my silly one so that is the one I am including into the game. * Xav's Stone Golem is darker than mine! I think mine is toooo bright so I'm going to have to use Xav's Stone Golem. I don't know how to darken a gfx so I will have to use Xav's dead body also. November 9, 2001: 3.80 update needs: new executable Speech files: Air Elemental, S-Z, gfx/Spells Golden Dragon, Strong Wall#?, #?Golem#?, Bolter, #?hydra#? SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewestCreatures.lha Sorry I couldn't put all the other new stuff in but I'm super stressed out and can't concentrate. At least Joar should now have a 100% no bugs version for the next 10 months. Sent v3.80 to Joar+Xav+Robin+FD executable filesize Joar=480304 Frederic=462644 Xav=462636 Robin=462640 Yikerz I forgot to include the Strong Wall damaged variations! Ok I sent them out now. November 10, 2001: ************************************************************************** Xav's LZX Tests ************************************************************************** LZX : TEST OF THE 68000 PATCHED VERSIONS ---------------------------------------- Step 1: I place the 3 versions of the 68000 LZX in my C directory: LZX_Original LZX_Titus LZX_Mikolaj Step 2: I place a directory with files (dates: some files before 2000 and some from October and November 2001) in ram:, and I type successively: LZX_Original -r a ram:DIRTEST_Original.LZX ram:dirtest/ then, LZX_Titus -r a ram:DIRTEST_Titus.LZX ram:dirtest/ then, LZX_Mikolaj -r a ram:DIRTEST_Mikolaj.LZX ram:dirtest/ The 3 archives are : DIRTEST_Original.LZX created with LZX_Original DIRTEST_Titus.LZX created with LZX_Titus DIRTEST_Mikolaj.LZX created with LZX_Mikolaj Case 1: Decompression of DIRTEST_Original.LZX Extraction with: Results for the dates after 2000: lzx_titus Good lzx_mikolaj No lzx (original) No unlzx No unlzx2 No xadunfile (xadmaster.library) No Case 2: Decompression of DIRTEST_Titus.LZX Extraction with: Results for the dates after 2000: lzx_titus Good lzx_mikolaj No lzx (original) No unlzx No unlzx2 No xadunfile (xadmaster.library) No Case 3: Decompression of DIRTEST_Mikolaj.LZX Extraction with: Results for the dates after 2000: lzx_titus No lzx_mikolaj Good lzx (original) No unlzx No unlzx2 No xadunfile (xadmaster.library) Good File Editor Test: I compare the archives with DFM2 (DoubleFilemaster) Results: DIRTEST_Original.LZX and DIRTEST_Titus.LZX : no differences. DIRTEST_Original.LZX and DIRTEST_Mikolaj.LZX : there are differences. Conclusions: Titus' patch is fully compatible with the original LZX on compression and extraction. Mikolaj's patch is compatible with xadmaster.library. Notes: - unlzx works only for dates before 2000. - unlzx2 doesn't take care of ANY date attributes (before or after 2000). ************************************************************************** End Xav's LZX Tests ************************************************************************** November 11, 2001: * INCLUDED: The new speech versions of Palluau's Pentacle. * INCLUDED: New female speech for "Wizard 1" * INCLUDED: Joar's new Dragon Nest gfx even though it looks exactly the same as the last one. cmp says its different though so I guess some pixels have been smoothed somewhere? I think he set it to a faster framerate. MiscellaneousSpeech UPGRADE: 1. Install miscellaneous speech files into MiscellaneousSpeech/ DONE. 2. Test to see if the lists are built correctly. DONE. 3. Program the game to actually use the miscellaneous speech. DONE. 4. Don't try to use digital speech when a mod is playing. DONE. 5. Fix various speech bugs. DONE. * I played Joar's new level "SurroundedByFait". I won on the first try on turn 9 with a score of 518. I got Archery and Ubiquiscope as early bonus spells. As I won the game, the bagpipe music started playing and coincidentally at the same time Joseph walked in wearing a kilt saying he was going as an Irishman to some old-timey costume thing. * BUG: Speech for Gryphon isn't working. This is because I named the speech file wrongly as Griffon. NOW FIXED. * I played Joar's new level "EquallyUnfair". I'm not sure what that means because the level is very unfair against the computer. I easily won in 8 turns. I could have won on turn 4 or 5 but the last enemy wizard cast Irvine's Invulnerability so it took me some time to kill him. Maybe he meant "ExtremelyUnfair"? * INCLUDED: Joar's 2 new levels into the game. Note to Xav+Joar: I had to play some test games to test out the new miscellaneous speech and the new Strong Wall looks really great in the game!!! Whenever a level or dungeon has Strong Walls it looks VERY professional!!!! Notes to Joar: 1. Thanx for the new levels. I needed to play 2 complete games in order to work out all the bugs in the MiscellaneousSpeech/ subsystem so it gave me a great reason to test your levels. 2. The damaged variations of the Strong Wall look great! November 12, 2001: * XAV REPORTS: there is an extra speech file in CreatureNameSpeech/English/F/Devil that isn't supposed to be there. There is no such creature as "Devil" in the game. Please delete it. * INCLUDED: Joar's new Mullac De Irvine gfx! Joar sent in a new animated Wizard 2 but I am including it as Wizard 5 because I I think the current Wizard 2 looks better than the current Wizard 5. The current Wizard 5 looks a lot like a Marid so it gets the new gfx. * INCLUDED: Joar's new animated Wizard 5 gfx! I Like the way it uses the color cycling color! Joar sent in possible new versions of: Nightmare: Yuck. Thundermare: Interesting but it looks smaller than the normal horse. Iridium Horse: Looks cool! But it looks like a Gold Horse to me. If someone ever thinks up a good idea for a Gold Horse creature let me know. I have only very vague ideas. Marid: The animation is good but the actual image is blocky! I hate blocky gfx! Please start with a nice smooth frame 1 before making a 20 frame animation. I would rather use the old small not-blocky Marid than a new large 32x32 blocky version. Wizard 6: Its a modified version of the current Wizard 6. I'm not sure what all is changed but the soul of the wizard is not color cycling anymore. I really like the color-cycling soul so I am not including this one but am sticking with the old one. * BUG: When pressing the Help key, the mouse pointer turns dark blue like the background and is very difficult to see! This was caused by the fact that I only loaded the first 16 colors (0-15) since it is a 16 color screen but ALL screens need colors 16-31 to be correctly set so the sprites will look right. NOW FIXED. * PROBLEM WITH GAMEPLAY BALANCE: The Dread Elf is tooo powerful. I've played at least 2 human vs. human games where it all came down to whoever got a Dread Elf first. So I've decided to reduce the Dread Elf's range from 7 to 6 to weaken it a bit. It is still exceptionally powerful due to its archery and amazingly high magic resistance. * Chaos currently uses 7,413,848 bytes of fastram and 404,216 bytes of chipram with music off. November 13, 2001: LHA timing tests. I did each one in a script file 9 times on my 50Mhz 060 The file to be compressed is Xav&JoarsNewestCreatures renamed as "file". In all tests the lha command resides on the hard drive. v1.38 evaluation version: lha -qrade -0 a T:file.lha t:file 5 seconds 6697 bytes lha -qrade -1 a faT:file.lha t:file 4 seconds 5335 bytes lha -qrade -2 a T:file.lha t:file 6 seconds 5219 bytes lha v1.35r lha -qrade -0 a T:file.lha t:file 4 seconds 6697 bytes lha -qrade -1 a T:file.lha t:file 4 seconds 5335 bytes lha -qrade -2 a T:file.lha t:file 4 seconds 5219 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -q -r -a -e -1 a t:File.lzx t:file 12 seconds 5247 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav with lzx executable in the current directory which is the RAM: disk. lzx -q -r -a -e -1 a t:File.lzx t:file 12 seconds 5247 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav with lzx executable in the current directory which is the RAM: disk. lzx -q -r -a -e -2 a t:File.lzx t:file 11 seconds 5117 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav with lzx executable in the current directory which is the RAM: disk. lzx -q -r -a -e -3 a t:File.lzx t:file 20 seconds 5071 bytes ---------------------------------------------------------------- Same tests as above but performed on 25Mhz 030 lha v1.35r lha -qrade -0 a T:file.lha t:file 24 seconds 6697 bytes lha -qrade -1 a T:file.lha t:file 21 seconds 5335 bytes lha -qrade -2 a T:file.lha t:file 21 seconds 5219 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -q -r -a -e -1 a t:File.lzx t:file 78 seconds 5247 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -q -r -a -e -2 a t:File.lzx t:file 61 seconds 5117 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -q -r -a -e -3 a t:File.lzx t:file 135 seconds 5071 bytes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USING A BIGGER BUFFER on 50Mhz 060 lha v1.35r lha -b300 -qrade -0 a T:file.lha t:file 5 seconds 6697 bytes lha -b300 -qrade -1 a T:file.lha t:file 3or4 secs 5335 bytes lha -b300 -qrade -2 a T:file.lha t:file 3or4 secs 5219 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -Qf -q -r -a -e -1 a t:File.lzx t:file 12 seconds 5247 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -Qf -q -r -a -e -2 a t:File.lzx t:file 11 seconds 5117 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -Qf -q -r -a -e -3 a t:File.lzx t:file 20 seconds 5071 bytes ===================================================================== 50Mhz 060 I tried changing the huffman buffer size on lha but it didn't seem to make any difference. USING -bo and -bi options of lzx seems to cause possible bugs?! No real speed increase detected lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -bi100 -bo20 -Qf -q -r -a -e -1 a t:File.lzx t:file 11 seconds 5245 bytes!? lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -bi100 -bo20 -Qf -q -r -a -e -2 a t:File.lzx t:file 11 seconds 5117 bytes lzx Dr. Titus version from Xav lzx -bi100 -bo20 -Qf -q -r -a -e -3 a t:File.lzx t:file 20 seconds 5069 bytes!? ============================================================================= Xav sent me a program called Fimp. (File Imploder). Here are some tests. As always the test is repeated 9 times in a script. fimp >nil: t:file t:File01.lha -M0 -IO 4 seconds 11676 bytes. fimp >nil: t:file t:File01.lha -M5 -IO 16 seconds 6154 bytes. Fimp is slower than lha and isn't as good at compressing the data. Fimp is designed for high DEcompression speed but what chaos autosaving needs is high compression speed. ==================================================================== Chaos needs more eye candy so today I am going to edit and assign various gfx that Xav sent in so that the dungeons of Chaos AGA can be more varied and more beautiful and more interesting. I will set them all to probability 0 or -1 for now. The purpose of these objects is mainly to allow more variations in generated dungeons and for custom designed levels and screenshots. Hard Wall will be equivalent to Strong Wall for now. (unless/until someone has an idea for how they should be different.) Hard Wall Purple version = undead Hard Wall Red = poisoned Hard Wall Gray = normal, Hard Wall Blue, Hard Wall Green, Hard Wall Yellow, Hard Wall Cyan I couldn't get Hard Wall Gold or Hard Wall Brown to look good so I skipped them. Rock Wall will be equivalent to Weak Wall for now. (unless/until someone has an idea for how they should be different.) Rock Wall Purple = undead Rock Wall Red = poisoned Rock Wall Gray = normal, Rock Wall Blue, Rock Wall Green, Rock Wall Yellow, Rock Wall Cyan Rock Wall Gold = color 127 Rock Wall Brown = color 11+ substitute wrong reds for color 139 Baby Fir is like a Fir but with 1/4 hitpoints. Baby Fir Baby Fir Purple Baby Fir Red Thin Fir is like a Fir but with 1/2 hitpoints and 1/2 recovery. Thin Fir (Fir03) Thin Fir Dark Green (Fir02) Thin Fir Light Green (Fir04) Thin Fir Purple Thin Fir Red Fir Purple Fir Red Dirty Snowball, 27 new things!!! (400 total!) November 14, 2001: * Create spell files for all the above gfx. DONE. November 15, 2001: 1. Program the 27 new things into the game. DONE. 2. Add the checks into the intelligent wall casting code for all these new walls. DONE. 3. Modify Acid Rain and Destroy Wall to handle these new objects. DONE. 4. Modify Inanimatologist to be able to cast a Dirty Snowballs and Hard Wall Red. (Inanimage does not cast these 2 spells.) DONE. 5. OOPS I forgot to make SpellDescription/ files for the 27 new things. DONE. 6. Modify the dungeon generation code to be able to generate dungeons out of the above objects. DONE. 7. Include speech for the 27 new things. DONE. Joar will now have 27 new objects to construct levels from! On 15-Nov-01, Knut wrote: KS> Autosave 39: KS> Cat Lord is there but I can move wounded Lions. NOW FIXED. KS> Autosave 46 KS> Cat Lord doesn´t attack generators or move cats to it or does simply KS> anything useful The actual bug is: * BUG: Cat Lords don't move wounded cats. NOW FIXED. KS> Autosave 37 *38* 39 : KS> Ispelled consecrate on wizard Janine. A dead body turned into a dead KS> gryphon with the picture of a living one. I think it can be killed, but KS> you can walk over it. I changed it so the Gryphon belongs to NOBODY instead of DEADP. NOW FIXED. KS> In turn 46 I killed the one wizard of Markus at the left with a demon, but KS> the other one at the right exploded. When I killed the other one in the KS> same turn with the mind flayers the dead body at the left exploded - KS> Halleluja. I loaded the autosave and killing the real wizard worked perfectly but killing the fake wizard caused the bug. The actual bug is: * BUG: Killing a duplicate of a wizard (killing a fake wizard) causes wacked out things to happen. NOW FIXED. * Added Knut to the scrolling credits under Playtesters. November 16, 2001: * I replayed Joar's level "ComeAndGetSome". I won on turn 40 with 672 points. * BUG: If you accidentally try to load a file which is not a chaos saved game then that file becomes locked and you can't save over it with another program until you quit chaos, thus releasing the lock. I have now changed it to release the lock immediately. NOW FIXED. November 17, 2001: Sent v3.47r to Knut. Executable filesize=440324 bytes. * BUG: The female speech for Double is missing. NOW FIXED. New update v3.82 needs: New executable #?.prb MiscellaneousSpeech/ all Speech/Gryphon M&F, Palluau's Pentacle M&F, Wizard 1 F, Double F, DELETE the old speech files named "Griffon"!!! DELETE the female speech for "Devil"!!! Levels/Joar_Berntsen/EquallyUnFair.lha, SurroundedByFait.lha gfx/Spells/Dragon Nest, Mullac De Irvine, Wizard 5, Hard Wall#?, Rock Wall#?, #?Fir#?, Dirty Snowball SpellDescriptions/English/Hard Wall#?, Rock Wall#?, #?Fir#?, Dirty Snowball Speech/Hard Wall#?, Rock Wall#?, #?Fir#?, Dirty Snowball .lha archive size = 1168088 .lzx archive size = 989316 .lzx SAVED 178772 bytes Joar is in the military so I only sent v3.82 to Xav, Robin, Frederic. Executable filesize Robin=467396 Xav =467396 Frederic=467404 November 19, 2001: * BUG: Knut reports that if he accidentally presses the "z" key that some development testing code gets activated and he must then answer "n" for no 500 times in a row... but its easier to just reset the computer. This is caused by the fact that I accidentally left one of my secret dev routines in the code! NOW FIXED. * Removing that dev code saved 1400 bytes on the executable filesize. * Sent Knut 3.48. Executable filesize=438924. On 19-Nov-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> * The enemy has a dread elf adjacent to my red dragon. However, the elf FD> does not attack my dragon (and he does not flee either). He just shoots my FD> dragon, but does not attack. FD> * I was very surprised to see the dread elf, which was now asleep, move FD> away ! Then on the next turn it was destroyed during board update, and I FD> saw another wizard was riding it ! These 2 bugs are caused by the fact that Joar had a Wizard 2 who was "there but not there". Thus when an Elf belonging to another player walks over him it "picks him up" and the Wizard 2 becomes mounted on a creature belonging to another player. I hearby declare that making a level with a wizard who is "there but not there" is a bug and must be fixed. I easily fixed all this weirdness but just inserting Wizard 2 into the square where he was supposed to be. NOW FIXED. Please note that Joar turned off Ruthlessness for this level which probably means all the other AI options are effectively off also. So I take no responsibility if computer creatures move or attack strangely. I played a test game of Closed Dragon Gate. It worked fine and I won on turn 16 with Life=346 and Score=553. It was a very interesting game!! The computer players had 0 points except for professeur mad who had 18 points from killing my Wolverine and my Beetle. FD> A bug I noticed that's not in this list because my machine crashed in the FD> meantime. This was with the "fortification fabric" level: my "crazy ally" FD> got control of the shadow wood artifact, and the game went into an FD> infinite loop (apparently) when my ally tried to move the tree. I tried to FD> freeze the task with scout but it locked up the machine. I replayed the level to see if I could reproduce the bug. Turn after turn my ally controlled his artifact Shadow Wood flawlessly. Finally I was just about to win and give up on ever reproducing your bug report when *wham*! It happened! This bug does not affect normal artifacts. It could only affects Shadow Wood Artifacts or Tower Artifacts. The hacked in Shadow Wood / Tower code was conflicting with the newly hacked in Artifact with 0 move code. NOW FIXED November 20, 2001: Worked on Knut's Magic Wand some. Studied backdrop gfx. November 21, 2001: * INCLUDED FD's Français spell descriptions for all the 27 new objects. This is the first time ever that he translated something faster than Robin! * Knut wants wizard names saved in the prefs file. I think other people have asked for this also but I can't remember their names. NOW DONE. * Now that Wizard names are saved/loaded in the prefs file there is no longer any need for namer.c random name generation so I am removing it completely. The additional prefs code was rather large so the net savings is only 268 bytes on the executable filesize. * I made a new level "Defend Your Base". Its very cool. I died the first time around the 3rd turn. On the 2nd try it was tough due to the enemy Generators kept generating lots of dragons. But I eventually won on turn 36. I suffered MANY casualities. I lost 3 Memory Mages, 1 replicated max combat wizard, 3 Shocker Abaths and numerous other miscellaneous creatures. November 24, 2001: I need to mirror image Lich Lord to get the lighting right! DONE. The eyes look weird now that I flipped it... Its very strange. I liked the eyes better the other way for some reason. Slowed down Stone Golem to 1 fps. Speeded up Clay Golem to 2 fps. Speeded up Basalt Golem to 3 fps. The framerates of the Golems now reflect their movement rate. Speeded up the Vulture animation to 6 fps. I made a new Repulsion gfx. * INCLUDED: Knut's enlarged and smoothed versions of Abduction: I fixed a couple of pixels. Meteor Storm. Reflector: I changed a couple of pixels. Level: The entire tile was out of place so I had to move it + I fixed 2 pixels. Summons: I had to center it, fix it, shade it and vary it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 24-Nov-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> Hi James! RS> At last I mangaged to have a look at the update you sent me a week ago. RS> Speech really grows better! I did get this program from Jan yet, so I RS> couldn't do anything in that direction. RS> I tested Joar's "Equally UnFair" level. It's really much too easy. I RS> didn't loose even 1 creature. And one turn 4 I cast double-Hyperclone... RS> it's been a stampede! 8-) And my army of Marids froze all remaining RS> enemies nearly each turn! Harhar! :) Hehehe this is hilarious! RS> This level would be good to include RS> to the Demo version of Chaos - it's always a good idea to allow potential RS> players a quick 1st success before they venture deeper into the Reals of RS> Chaos. I agree. But there is no loading code in the demo version so there is no way to load the level. RS> I attached the translations of the new objects. I used FDs list of thing, Should be 27 things. This was the 1st time FD was faster than you at translating! I was very worried about you! I thought you might have had a bad encounter with a Basilisk. :) RS> didn't check if it's complete. It's been really strange to play without RS> the translations: Suddenly all the spells were named differently (eg. RS> Double suddenly was names Turns, spell description said Turns as well but RS> described Double ?-) some even English but mixed up nevertheless. I didn't RS> have any of the new objects in my spell list. Well, this should be fixed RS> now. I think that when that happens, all you have to do is delete SpellDescriptions/#?.txt then Chaos will rebuild the indexes and I *think* everything will work. If it doesn't work then its a bug and I'll try to fix it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Since Joar escaped from the military for 1 week and I never sent him v3.82 I am now sending him v3.83 Executable filesize=484796 November 25, 2001: I wasn't going to send out an update this week but in order to celebrate the return of Joar I have decided to send out a small update. This update needs: gfx/spells/Rock Wall, Vulture, Repulsion, #?Golem#?, Lich Lord, Abduction, Meteor Storm, Reflector, Level, Summons, Levels/Joar_Berntsen/ClosedDragonGate.lha * Sent to Joar, Xav, Robin and Frédéric. November 26, 2001: * Arrgh! I spent all day studying gfx card programming techniques, gameboy color coding techniques and talking to amiga game coders. Now my brain is completely fried! November 27, 2001: Xav has written me several really great emails explaining super cool gfx tips and tricks for Dpaint but I never saved them into the history file so I can't find them and my brain completely forgot them! :( So from now on all gfx tips and tricks will put put here so I can find them for future reference and so future people who join Team Chaos can benefit from them. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Joar gfx tip #1: Hello, I have used this procedure with enlarged ecs and aga gfx, and it gets great in 9 of 10 cases. so I thought I should share it with the rest since I find it so easy and fantastic. more steps than I thought, but its explained in a newbie fashion. 1. load the tilepic in personal paint. 2. grab 1 tile, or the whole drawn area (below Y position 31) into a shape. 3. place it in a free place. (copy) 4. click the right mousebutton on the box above the grab shape box in the gui 5. there you'll find all the operators. select EDGE DETECT. 6. now draw that operator as a box (or free) around the copied tile(s) 7. they will become strange in colors, thats supposed to happen :) 8. darken the tile(s) with DARKEN -25% (or what you please, or not at all) note that you can make your own operators, like darken -50% as I have. 9. grab the edge detected tile(s) into a shape. 10.select any kind of BLUR'ing operator, try out different 1s (make your own) 11.leftclick the operator gadget about 2 times, you'll see a box tipped over 90 deg. that one is to enable the shape to function as a mask for the operation. 12.position your mouse exactly over the original tile(s), (you will notice a sudden darkness in them) 13.click without loosing position. 14.voila ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Enhanced the faq. * INCLUDED _EXCELLENT_ GFX FROM JOAR!!! Aesculapius, Agathion, Air Elemental, Amphisbaena, Blood Worm, King Cobra, Thundermare and Worm. I think Joar has gone up some levels in the gfx arts! * Renamed EquallyUnfair.lha to SuperEasy.lha and then included Joar's new bugfixed EquallyUnFair.lha level. * I won EquallyUnFair.lha on the first try on turn 27. It took me a few turns at the end to go around and kill all the independent Violet Fungi. November 28, 2001: Sent v3.491Stefan to Stefan. Executable filesize=438988. * Joar doesn't like the female speech for Wizard 2 so I have tried to remake the female speech for Wizard 1, Wizard 2, Dread Elf, Gray Elf. * I increased Bat and Fire Bat to 6 fps. November 29, 2001: Many months ago Xav bombed me with some really awesome heart gfx. I'm not really supposed to be putting new objects in Chaos right now, instead I am supposed to be doing gfx coding but these heart gfx are so awesome that I am FORCED to include them into the game now as new objects. It would be a crime against Chaos not to. * 3 NEW OBJECTS: Red Heart, Silver Heart and Heart of the Undead (Purple Heart). * NEW STAT: SpecialCombatAccept. There was no way to have the Heart of the Undead affect only undeads using the current special combat engine so I had to add this new stat. ALL of the bits in this stat MUST be present in the defending creature or the attack does not happen. The Red Heart is exactly the same as the Pool except: 1. Red Heart blocks LOS but Pool doesn't. This makes a huge difference in my DefendYourBase level. 2. Red Heart has awesome gfx but Pool looks simple and boring. * Redo my level with the Red Heart as DefendYourBaseEasy.lha pool version will be DefendYourBaseHard.lha DONE. * PROBLEM: People always write me that Generators are cheating because they recover 63 life points per turn instead of 7 like the graph says. Knut helped come up with a nice simple solution: edit the font to have an infinity sybol and simply print this infinity symbol over all the recovery graphs. NOW FIXED. * DOH! I printed the infinity symbol over ALL the recovery graphs but now that I look at the code, it is only life that has the 63 point recovery! Infinity symbol removed from all graphs except life. NOW FIXED. November 30, 2001: * Knut wants the info panel of a wizard to show his true level #, not just a level spell icon. So I am creating 2 new gfx/CellEffects files for the game to hold Knut's gfx for the Level and Magic Wand powerups. These are not true celleffects, I am just putting the gfx there because these numerical gfx versions are not spells so they shouldn't go in the gfx/Spells/ dir. NOW DONE. * The Lich Lord spell is UTTERLY USELESS unless you die! Since it is normally useless why is it a bonus spell?? I think it should be a normal spell so that every once in a while when you start a game that is hopeless and you are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it (as in the game I just played 5 mins ago) you can cast your Lich Lord and save yourself from oblivion. I just change Lich Lord Probability from -80 to +20. DONE. * Installed updated gfx for Magic Wand and Repulsion. Played a test game and they work perfectly. December 1, 2001: * Modified Dungeon Generation code to allow the use of hearts as secondary objects. DONE. * Installed the speech for the Hearts. * Included Robin's new circular Boil gfx. v3.84 update needs: New Executable #?.prb gfx/Spells/Aesculapius, Agathion, Air Elemental, Amphisbaena, Blood Worm, King Cobra, Thundermare, Worm, Bat, Fire Bat, #?Heart#?, Magic Wand, Repulsion, Boil, CreatureNameSpeech/English/F/Wizard 1, Wizard 2, Dread Elf, Gray Elf, #?Heart#? SpellDescriptions/English/#?Heart#? Levels/Joar_Berntsen/SuperEasy.lha, EquallyUnfair.lha Levels/James_Conwell/DefendYourBase#? SavedGames/Xav&JoarNewCreatures.lha fonts/ all Gfx/CellEffects/Level,MagicWand Sent v3.84 to Joar, Xav, Robin, Frederic. Executable filesize Joar=485436 Robin=467788 Xav=467784 Frederic=467796 * INCLUDED Joar's Good new Gfx: Marid, Magic Knife, Hydra, Pyrohydra, Shadow City, Emerald Dragon. The Hydra and Pyrohydra look soooooooo much better now that they have heads and are animated!!! * Included Joar's new Wizard 8 99% version! Note to Joar: In the newest Wizard 8 I can't really see the blue dots circling around on the 3rd row. I think they should be lightened like they were in Wizard 8.2 or so. I smoothed the first 2 frames of the flat rotating wizard. I never liked the way he rotated because it looked very blocky in the 32x32 version because it is using blocks of 4 pixels (2x2). You can see them on the next to last line of tiles. Please don't lose my fixed version. I might fix the rest later if I get sick of coding. I didn't include Joar's very nice looking Magic Glass because it allows LOS through the corners. I'm waiting on a squareified version, possibly set in wood or stone (could borrow the Hard Wall texture for this). * Included Joar's new levels: DontHurtMyParadise and HealingBorder. * I played Joar's new level DontHurtMyParadise and won on the first try on turn 29. Wow! What a wild game! I never cast a creature the whole game! I raised 1 creature from the dead though. December 2, 2001: * PROBLEM: Biohazard screenmelting effect is waaaay tooooo slooooow on AGA. NOW FIXED. * Knut complains that Exorcist + Tower = Win the game and has proposed that The Exorcist's Ranged Combat should not affect Magic Resistance. NOW DONE. * Knut sent in some language/flag drawer icons but tons of them are missing so I didn't bother to include them. But I did include the icon for Chaos and the ones for the AmigaGuide documentation. There was also no icon for a "Documentation" drawer. :( * Included Robin's Deutsch spell descriptions for the 3 hearts. December 4, 2001: * Included the new Magic Wood gfx. December 5, 2001: * Zoltan reports some sort of problem with Artifact Changing and Scavenging always happening to fast on his computer. The problem was that when I cut & pasted the code from ChaosAGA into ChaosECS I forgot to copy 1 extra line. I think that Knut tried to report this same bug but his English was so bad that I couldn't understand what he was saying. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Ever since I added in all those new Baby Fir trees I can't cast any trees! It always says I'm not an arborist! The STUPID C debugger/compiler went completely insane so it took me over 1 hour to track down and fix this bug. It was just a misplaced ) in an IF-THEN statement. NOW FIXED. December 6, 2001: * BUG in Joar's HealingBorder level. There is an inanimate artifact Platinum dragon which is being animated even though it is inanimate! I modified the game loading code to check for this type of thing and stop the animation on such objects so this is NOW FIXED. * BUG: My Silver Heart that I control is healing my enemies! This was a flaw in the spell file. NOW FIXED. * Above bug means I had to fix the HealingBorder level by replacing all the old Silver Hearts with new fixed ones. NOW FIXED. * I played Joar's HealingBorder level and won on turn 69 of the first try. I would have won around turn 30 but just as I was about to deal the death blow to the last remaining evil wizard he cast an Alliance spell on me!!!! And of course he was recover boosted and reflectorized and several other powerups so it took me 35 grueling turns to accumulate enough spells to kill him. December 8, 2001: On 08-Dec-01, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> * A wizard has cast "no grow" + "stone to flesh" on an earthquake. The no FD> grow icon is shown on the info pannel, but not the stone to flesh icon. NOW FIXED. FD> * The invert spell really lacks a sound effect. The celleffect is FD> happening too fast. Ok tell me what sound to use. FD> * An hybsil has just come back from hyperspace and it has two FD> eye-for-an-eye icons on its info pannel. In fact, it was ridden by a FD> wizard, so maybe that's the reason. Yes that is the reason. You've discovered Chaos Secret Tip #452. :) I rode my Hybsil into hyperspace. Where I met the devil face to face. We talked for a while. Seemed like a real nice guy. Asked me for my Wizard Wings so he could fly. I said no way, gonna need those later! He told me hand'em over, soon and now. Or he's gonna feed me to an alligator! You'll never kill me, this I vow! His forces advanced from far away... Nearer and nearer they came to slay... So I whipped out my chainsaw and went to town I cut him left to right and then up and down He yelled and he screamed such a pitiful wail His detached arms twitched in a flail. He begged me to stop and I said "no way!" "I'm all out of mercy on this fine day." There was a pool of blood when finally I was done I couldn't believe it. Damn this game's fun. December 9, 2001: * Knut, Joar, myself and others don't like the fact that shooting a radioactive land square magically kills the shooter. As an easy fix I have now changed it so that shooting a radioactive land square is now the exact same thing as shooting a pit; nothing happens. NOW FIXED. * OFFICIAL RULE: Shooting Radioactive Land no longer kills the shooter. * Included Knut's new enlarged Range Boost. The arrow doesn't look so great but... its better than nothing. * Included an alternate Volcano gfx into the Volcano file for possible investigation by Joar. * Included FD's new French heart spell descriptions. 3.85 Update needs: New executable #?.prb Levels/Joar_Berntsen/DontHurtMyParadise.lha, HealingBorder.lha, Gfx/Spells/Marid, Magic Knife, Hydra, Pyrohydra, Shadow City, Emerald Dragon, Wizard 8, Magic Wood, Volcano, Range Boost, CreatureNameSpeech/English/#?/#?Lich#? Please delete CreatureNameSpeech/English/#?/#?Litch#? because those are spelled wrong! Start_Chaos.info Documentation.info Documentation/#?.info Documentation/#?/#?.info Executable filesize Joar =485836 Robin=468188 Xav =468184 Frederic=468196 December 11, 2001: FD> * The computer often casts vodka on nobody. NOW FIXED. FD> * I killed an independent generator with my range-boosted quickshot-able FD> battle-cry-boosted chainsaw wizard, got an "allelujah" but no "aaaaaah". The crowd was shocked into silence at the sight of your extreme barbarity. :) FD> * The devastation effect lasts way too long (several minutes) ! One should FD> at least be able to abort it with the mouse button or a key press. This is due to the extreme slowness of AGA. I reduced the iterations so this is NOW FIXED. December 12, 2001: * I talked to pipe and he quickly coded me a nice little asm p2c routine! Now I can implement the backdrop pix finally!!!!!!!! Thanx pipe! * OOPS! Pipe says that all the c2p routines on aminet require a noninterleaved bitmap! ARRRGH!!! :( * OOPS! Never mind! Kalms says he has one that works on interleaved bitmaps! YAY! :) December 14, 2001: * Included Giulio's Italiano heart and pentacle descriptions. December 18, 2001: On 18-Dec-01, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> Hi James! RS> I just had a game. When everything was over, one of my allies cast RS> Alliance on the last remaining enemy wizard. Okay, some more work for me, RS> I thought, and began killing his Manticore with my Bolter artillery and RS> Pox. RS> * FLAW! * There is no Pox icon displayed on the info panel! 1. There is a little "P" displayed on the info panel. Is that not good enough? RS> When the manticore was dead, I shivered... the wizard was boosted with RS> nearly every power-up available! The most annoying things in this case RS> where Reflector and Lich Lord, but Sanctuary and Magic Shield didn't make RS> him easier to kill as well... Then I looked at my spell book, and lo! RS> there was a Restoration spell at hand! RS> * FLAW! * When I restore a wizard, the Magic Knife icon is still displayed RS> on his info panel, though he has combat 1 and can't even attack undeads RS> any more. I have now totally removed the Magic Knife icon. RS> All his power-ups stayed, giving me a very hard time to kill him. Plasma RS> beams and grenades finished him at last... RS> * Question! * Would you and the rest of the Inner Circle mind to change RS> Restoration to completely clear all power-ups and even all kills of a RS> creature? I personally have always been against that idea. RS> * Question! * In which order are creatures killed with a hand grenade? I'm RS> asking because I think it's possible to kill a generator with a grenade RS> when there's a Goblin Bomb around. Just place them that the Goblin is RS> killed first, weakening the Generator, and the grenade does the rest... RS> 8-) 123 894 765 December 19, 2001: 1. I could easily move the Reincarnate, Horror and Pox stats into the normal creature statistics area. 2. I can easily change the info screen and any macros to work with the stats in this new area. 3. The problem is that there may be code which wipes out these stats by clearing or partly clearing board->info. This could cause bugs. Search for all occurrences of REIN_FLAG, POX_FLAG and HORROR_FLAG to see whats up. I think I can implement this without causing any bugs. Make some new macros HasReincarnation, HasPox, HasHorror. The trouble is that there are already 28 stats in the stat var so if I add these 3 new ones in that will only leave 1 left! Argh! I donno what to do! * Installed Sean's new myth/ website into my webspace. * Xav was nice enough to set up a counter for it and I installed it into the webspace. December 20, 2001: * WASTED CHIPRAM! The chipram data for the old ecs question mark and end turn gadgets were still being compiled into chipram! This was wasting 128 bytes of chipram! NOW REMOVED! I think that some text should be printed at the bottom of the screen when the gamer points the mouse at any of the gadgets. Here are my proposed texts. If you don't like them or have better ideas then speak now or forever hold your peace. :) End Turn Gadget: --------------- End your spell selection phase. End your spell casting phase. End your movement phase. This will end your turn. --------------- ? Gadget -------- Click this to enter "Query Mode". Click this to exit "Query Mode". -------- Click this to dismount your wizard. ALL DONE. December 21, 2001: * PROBLEM: I don't like the Dismount gadget being displayed during the gamer's entire turn. I think it should only be displayed when a mounted creature has been clicked on. NOW FIXED. * I Made a Dismount.iff and DismountSelect.iff gfx for the gadget. * I changed the gadget loading system to load the Dismount gadget just like all the other gadgets are loaded. This means Total Chaos is now using +704 bytes more chipram than before. This took quite a few hours of work because there was one tiny bug in the gadget initialization sequence (partly due to I had to hack into the gadget struct and set width and height to 0 when disabling the gadget to make it not be drawn on the fancy texture anymore) which was crashing the game; one of the crashes changed the time in my clock!!! Its all NOW DONE. * For the moment the DismountSelect.iff gfx is exactly the same as the Dismount.iff gfx until someone draws a pressed version. * Removed the old hexadecimally coded gfx for the old Dismount gadget from years ago. December 22, 2001: * PROBLEM: Newbies don't understand the chaos. * PROBLEM: Robert is allegedly registering the game yet he didn't even know about the cool keypresses that make the game 10x more playable. Such as "c" over your spell list to show you all the legal targets for each spell! * SOLUTION: Place a help option in the menus! Doh! I can't believe I never did this before! This should really help the new people embrace the ways of Total Chaos. * I spent ALL DAY trying to figure out how to fix the messed up text and highlighting in the menu bar! It isn't in any way obvious how to do this within the OS. Chip-Nat helped me very much but Snipah came up with the final solution. Thanx guys! I finally got it to work but now I have fixed one thing but now other things don't look as good. :( December 23, 2001: * First mail-in American registration ever!!!! Robert sent in his $35.00 registration + he gave me a $15.00 tip!!! USA RULEZ!!!!!!!!! * I fiddled around with the menus some more and eventually got them spaced out much better. * Installed Steve's mods that he gave me. I converted them all to med. mod.castle-dungeon -> Mod.ChaosTheme63 ok mod.escape -> Mod.ChaosTheme64 very cool! mod.grin_memories -> Mod.ChaosTheme65 very relaxing! I am thinking this one should be only used for the "game over" screen where scores and/or statistics and/or credits are shown. But I don't want to forget about it so I am just throwing it into the game so it will always be there to remind me. mod.moon_massacre2 This mod is GREAT!!! It's very atmospheric and very cool and spooky and everything! Ok it is maybe to sci-fi for chaos but the sci-fi sounds could easily be changed to medieval/monster fighting sounds. But I had Joar and Robin taste test this mod and they don't like it! They say "Don't put this into Chaos" so I'm not putting it in. But damn this would go great into an Alien Breed style game! * Installed Mod.ChaosTheme66 by Spooky Mod.ChaosTheme67 by Purgatory Mod.ChaosTheme68 by Allan Kirkeby Mod.ChaosTheme69 by Darryl December 24, 2001: On 24-Dec-01, Robert Miles wrote: RM> Wow, I'm glad to hear you got my check! When you said $35, I immediately RM> thought - well shit, I've PAID $50 for some really crappy games. I figured RM> maybe you could ASK 35 bucks in order to attract attention and make it RM> attainable, but of course, everyone must pay you more than that. They RM> must! How could they not? How could they live with themselves?? December 29, 2001: * I modified one of Xav's 256 color "Holy Symbol of Mighty Power"(tm) images which is known to some people as "The Amiga Checkmark" and inserted it into the menus. One of the pixels was the color cycling color so I just replaced it with a random shade of green. See the file "Gadgets/English/CheckMarkForMenus.iff if you want to improve it. I would like to put in "The Holy Symbol of Mighty Power" object into the game. What should it do? One idea is that any player who owns one of these objects gets +2 healing power each turn for all of his creations. Does anyone have a 3D rotating supercool looking Amiga Checkmark symbol from the web? I am thinking of adding an "Amiga 500" object into the game also. One idea is that anyone who owns the Amiga 500 gains +2 attack for all of his creations for as long as he owns it. But if he loses the Amiga 500 he loses his +2 attack. * CHANGED TEXT IN all Catalogs: "End your spell selection phase." to "Don't cast any spell this turn." "End your spell casting phase." to "Abort and discard your current spell." 1. Try an experiment with having a texture in the menu! The texture will be composed of a chain of 32x32x256 tiles. a. First item must draw an image. b. just try it with any image that I already have handy. e.g. the EndTurnGadgetImage thing. See how it looks/works/ It APPEARS to be working ok but I can't really tell until I try a bigger image. 1. Make a fake image struct. struct Image MenuTextureImage[40]. 2. Copy a tile into this fake image struct. THE TEST WORKS! The Intuitext JAM1's right over the Texture perfectly!!!!! 2. Now that the test has passed I can now move forward with the implementation. a. Make a dedicated chipmem area for the gfx of the texture. b. Make a dedicated array of Image struct to hold all the image linkages. Put these in to menu.c somehow DONE struct Image TextureImageForMenus[4][51]; DONE. c. Create a way to link the images in such a way that it is always wide enough and tall enough for the menu but not excessively so. DONE. d. Now just redo all menus (but just 1 at first to test. Bump up all menu numbers by 1 and add the fake menu item at the top of the list. Or easier: Just -1 the number from the IDCMP. e. REMOVE ITEMTEXT from the first fake menuitem. DONE. BUG/FLAW/PROBLEM/LIMITATION with Intuition Menus: negative LeftEdge coords are changed to 0 for the 1st image in a chain! (Perhaps they all are). This is a problem because it means I can't overwrite the Intuition drawn lefthand border. The image chain automatically overwrites the right hand border! (!?) NEXT PROBLEM: The Image is clipped, this is good. But it isn't clipped until it has overwritten the right hand side border of the menu! + it goes out 1 pixel! (!?) NEXT PROBLEM: Intuition doesn't clip the gfx vertically when there is more than one image in the chain. Memory gets corrupted and the computer crashes. SOLUTION: Add a fake invisible element to the end of the menu to raise the height of the menu to coincide with the texture. Ok, after 50 trial and error experiments and recompilations resulting in 25 crashes of the machine I finally worked it all out so it more or less works ok. Check the Language menu and see what you think. Is having a texture in the menus a good idea or a bad idea? January 7, 2002: * I played Joar's new level OvergrownCave. I won on the 1st try on turn 43. It was quite an interesting strategic problem to try to figure out how to approach the enemies. It was also very sneaky the way Joar put an Aviary into one of the enemy Wizard's spell lists! Or maybe not? Maybe he just got the Aviary as a bonus spell? * I downloaded ColorType from Aminet. It appears to be a very nice color font editor! * I edited a nice little 256 color colorfont called "Highlight". It is 12 points tall. It has only one purpose in life: to highlight the menu items. It has only 3 chars: A, B and C. Corresponding to [=] to draw a highlighting box around a menu item in the 8 point font. Man, this was WAY easier than using Typesmith! Each Menu IntuiText must now be edited to link to an appropriately sized highlighting box. Should the Highlighting box be drawn first or last? It basically doesn't matter but... I will draw the highlighting box last in JAM1. Ok I tested this in the game menu and DRAT! I FORGOT SOMETHING! I can draw a super cool looking highlighting box around the item that the mouse is pointing to @ 50fps but then there is no way in Intuition to erase it! I could sort of fake it by having each menu item always have a box around it. For example: on a purple texture have a purple box around each item. The purple box will change to a color-cycling box when the mouse pointer moves over it. When the mousepointer moves away it turns back to a purple box. I don't think I will bother trying this. Having boxes drawn all over the textures will probably destroy the beauty of the textures. I could try to have the color cycling boxes on the 2nd menu with a black background just to see what it looks like. This means: A: Linking a black box IntuiText to each MenuItem in the Menu. DONE. B: Linking the ColorCycling box Intuitext to each MenuItem when the mouse is over it. DONE. C: Creating a StupidBlackBox font with 3 letters ABC drawn as a box in color #31 hard black. Oops never mind! Make the font as a monochrome font! Then I can easily draw it in any color I want! DONE. Ok everything works EXCEPT that Intution is displaying my colorfont as if it was a monochrome font! It can't handle colorfonts in menus!!!! :( So the super mega cool color cycling has NO EFFECT! :( YARGH!!!!!!!!!! I have searched the devcd but I can't find any secret way to make colorfonts work in menus! :( I dug up my Amiga OS 3.5 Developer CD v2.1 which came with my Amiga 1200. This is much better than my old developer CD because this one has the RKRMs on it. I couldn't find any indication that Intuition supports colorfonts. Possibility: Fake it by using 4 different monochrome fonts. (My 256 color font was only actually using 4 colors so this is possible). I can guaranteed make this work, its just a lot of extra trouble. Also, when you switch from 1 item to another the OS will have to print an extra 4 lines of text so it might be noticeably slower. I'll try to wait a while before I try this in case Frédéric or anyone knows some secret way to make the colorfont work. January 10, 2002: * + and - keys change the texture in the menu. Now you can try different ones and see how they look. * Included Joar's new Orange Jelly. I smoothed out some of the blockiness. * Included Joar's new Magic Glass. He made multiple good versions. I would like to use the octagonal version for something sometime... but what could it be? * Included Joar's new Volcano animation. The animation could be better. * Ok I am about to add in all of the following cell effects into the game. I'm unsure how to actually program them. I have no idea about framerate or number of repetitions or sync to algorithmic sounds or ? I'll just throw them all in and then we'll have to work out the details later. ========================================================================= New Cell Effects from Joar Pox Joar says to use this when you cast Pox on someone. CellEffect1 Joar says he wants this to be used for Raise Dead and Resurrection. This might be especially good for transparency. What framerate do I use? Do I play it once? Or twice? Or 3 times? In Ping-Pong? or looping? What about the algorithmic sound? I donno what to do! CellEffect2 Joar says he wants this to be used when you cast Reflector or Shocker. Mainly for Shocker. CellEffect3 Joar: Exorcise, Dark Power, Disrupt. Robin: Vanish, Hide, Ball Lightning. I can't decide on this one!?!?!?!?! CellEffect4 Joar: Summon Growth. CellEffect5 (white version of CellEffect4) Robin says White Version for Freeze simultaneously on all creatures of the target. This sounds like a very good idea. Pox, CellEffect1, 2 & 3 were missing the first tile. This caused Total Chaos to crash in a most spectacular manner. I had to power down to regain control. This was easily fixed by scooting the tiles over 1 in Dpaint5. ========================================================================= * New cell effect from Robin: Stomp. This one really needs transparency. When I add transparency to the gfx engine I'll have to go back and fix this one for sure. * Included Xav's new Total Chaos: Battle at the Edge of Yesteryear ham8 title screen. January 11, 2002: * I took Xav's improved Range Boost, converted it to iff and then made the feathers fluffier + made the plus sign thicker and more shadowy. Included it as the new Range Boost gfx. I think I should send out an update now so that Frédéric can see how my colorfont gets monochromatized by Intuition in the menus. 3.86 Update needs: New executable Gadgets/English/CheckMarkForMenus.iff,Dismount#? Music/ mod63-69 fonts/ all new fonts gfx/Spells/Orange Jelly, Magic Glass, Volcano, Range Boost gfx/CellEffects/Pox, Stomp, CellEffect1-5 Screens/English/Ham8TitleScreen Catalogs/#? Levels/Joar_Berntsen/OvergrownCave.lha Executable filesize Frederic=477084 Xav=477080 Robin=477080 Frédéric told me the secret way to make colorfonts (and theoretically anything and everything else) work in the menus! He says I can just set the MenuItem type to IMAGE and then set the image depth to (WORD) -1. This is the secret option that tells the OS this is a BOOPSI image (whatever that is). Then somehow you can make a BOOPSI image that calls your own special rendering routine. It looks like I have a lot more OS studying and RKRM reading to do.... Ok I spent some hours reading the OS 3.5 Developer CD and I can't find any mention of this trick. So I'm back to square 1. January 12, 2002: * Included Robin's new Deutsch.catalog. RS> Indeed! The "texture-menus" are buggy. They are printed in English, though RS> I play in German. As soon as I highlight one item, the text gets RS> overwriten by the German text in a different (highlighted) color! Even RS> changing the language didn't help (but restored the menu at least :). * OOPS! I forgot to test them in other languages. It was a simple syntax error and only took 1 min to fix. NOW FIXED. RS>> Pox RS>> Joar says to use this when you cast Pox on someone. RS> ...and whenever the Pox are spread! * NOW DONE. * Sent Robin v3.87. Executable filesize=477216 On 11-Jan-02, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> Hi James! RS> Hippocrates does never "attack" any friendly creature that has full RS> health, instead it simply does nothing. :( NOW FIXED. (But not yet tested.) * I don't think there is enough contrast between bright yellow unselected and bright white selected so I darkened the yellow in the texture menus. January 13, 2002: * Frederic suggests to try FPF_COLORFONT in my colorfont TextAttr. I tried it and it seems to have no effect (at least in Intuition menus). On 12-Jan-02, Robin Schmidt wrote: JC> Ok so what exactly do you want Raise Dead / Resurrect to do? RS> 1. select spell RS> 2. point on corpse RS> 3. click on corpse RS> 4. delete mouse pointer (so that you can watch the animation in full) RS> 5. play Anim1 (transparency); start playing sound RS> 6. raise dead (ie. display the "living" creature's image) RS> 7. play Anim2 (you should really start working on this RS> transparency thingy!) RS> 8. stop playing sound RS> 9. set stats of the risen creature RS> a. restore mouse pointer * NOW DONE except for the transparency. * I gave Raise Dead a real sound effect but I had no ideas for Resurrect so it is just using the standard algorithmic effect. * The Raise Dead effect seems a bit fast. It is using a WaitVBlank(3) (the standard delay between frames). I am thinking of increasing it to WaitVBlank(4); What do you think? Sent v3.88 to Joar. Executable filesize=495332 * I spent hours on irc talking to guys about gfx card stuff. 2 guys sent me alleged 640x512 drivers for P96 and Cybergfx. * I put Robin's super awesome bonus panel pic into the game and got the bonus spell selection working on it in a simple way. Lots more work to do on this. On 13-Jan-02, Joar Berntsen wrote: JB> the freeze spell seems to pick out a random cell at top of board... NOW FIXED. JB> the growth and shocker cfx is good! Thank you. :) I haven't ever seen them yet. JB> so is the pox, but I didn't know how it spread until now... btw, the P is JB> too little. you simply ignore any char after the name, if it doesn't get JB> an other color though. I have now put the Pox gfx on the info panel of infected creatures. Ditto for Reincarnate and Horror. NOW FIXED. JB> the raise and ressurect will look cool when you add transparency to the JB> 2nd anim. JB> STARTUP CRASH: I ran the new exe, and when it come to loading cfx, it JB> crashed. then I saw through the gfx, and discovered stomp to have a blank JB> frame 0, I draw some near black pixels on top and it worked afterwards. I thought I had fixed all the new celleffects but apparently I somehow forgot Stomp! And somehow it worked on my machine anyway!?!? I scooted all the tiles back one so this is NOW FIXED. January 14, 2002: Ok, Joseph got a free broken 17" monitor from someone at church. Its cursed and does strange things. It sux on his pc because the pc frequently switches Khz gfx modes in games and the monitor cannot do this after it has warmed up. When you first turn it on everything is ok but after a while it just gets stuck in whatever gfx mode its in and it can't change. So now I'm trying it on my Amiga 1200. All the modes I use all run at the same frequency so the monitor doesn't have to ever switch. Except for my CED which is a very old v3.0 from many years ago. It insists on opening an NTSC screen so I had to go to aminet and download ModePro to force CED to open a PAL: Hires Laced screen (which is hardware deinterlaced by the flickerfixer). That took some time but now everything is working great! Except the monitor sometimes goes wonky and turns itself off. It seems to turn off permanently after a few hours of use. GOOD NEWS: Wow! Total Chaos looks WONDERFUL on this monitor!!!! I can see all those old 16x16 superanimated wizards/genies that Joar drew perfectly!!!!! They look small and detailed and cool and completely clear and easy on the eyes!!!! Amiga + 17" monitor rulez! Unfortunately there is something very strange about the color on this monitor. I'm not sure what it is but the colors look "strange". The good news is that editing text on this monitor is much easier on my eyes than on my ancient history 1084s! I think my coding productivity can go up now!!! I talked to the coder of aml.library and he explained to me that it is SUPER EASY to send/receive emails with AmigaOS!!!! * INCLUDED Joar's new Python gfx into the game. Its much better than the old one! I put Joar's ideas/ dir into DL:Joarmods/ideas for future inclusion into the game. I edited the descriptions and sent them back to him. We watched Angel on tv and my brother paid for us to go see Lord of the Rings at the theatre. January 16, 2002: Robin's new bonus panel screen!!!!! 0. Put the 640x512 screen file into Screens/English/ clone DONE. 1. Load the screen and display it and only it. This is easy. 1.1. Push the bottom screen to back. 1.2. Just IFF load it to the main screen. DONE. 2. Display the text at the bottom of the screen if you recognize something. DONE. 3. Display the spells at the proper x,y coords. This is easy. I think I need 28 different arrays to know where to put the spells. Write them out in ascii. How do I represent the x,y coords in the code? Just use a struct BBox array! Just pick any x,y coords and then add 80,72 to each coord! 80,216 raw DONE. 4. Robin forgot to have an exit gadget. Write email about this. He sent me a new screen with a built-in exit gadget. DONE. 4.1 Add code to activate the Exit gadget. 4.2 The centerpoint of the text used to be 320. Now I changed it to 297. I hope that's right. DONE. 5. Fix the auto mouse reporting code to work with the new system. DONE. 6. Display the kills and other in the proper spots. 6.1 Make hotspots for them. DONE. January 17, 2002: * Included Zoltan's latest Magyar translations. Magyar.catalog is out of date and Palluau's Pentacle is missing. Sent him files that need to be updated/translated. 7. Improve recognition system so that the player is clearly told which creature is telling him about the spells that are recognized. DONE. January 18, 2002: * STRANGE: Joar says he can't see the load/save screen ever since I added that IntuitionMenuPens[] array for the OS menus. He says the load/save screen is 100% green. I guess its due to his workbench customization. I have now removed the IntuitionMenuPens from the load/save screen. This is a good reason to have different screens for different things? NOW FIXED. * BUG: With combat sounds off I can still hear swoosh ugh during attacks! NOW FIXED. * BUG: With show cast off I can still hear casting digital sounds! NOW FIXED. The free 17" IBM monitor is freaking out. The picture constantly jitters from side to side and up and down and its hurting my eyes. Ow. I'm going to go do something else. Joseph's friend Felix came over and took the monitor to try to fix it. Now I'm trying out Joseph's other free monitor. This one is a Gateway 2000 EV500 with 13.9" viewable screen. Yikes. This one doesn't go berzerk like the other one. It just always draws 2 of everything all the time. There is my text on the screen and there is a faint image of the text to the right of it. Very blurry and crappy looking. This monitor handles 31.5Khz to 68.6Khz January 19, 2001: Ow my eyes... How the hell can a 1998 PC monitor look soooooo bad!?!? 8. Figure out transparency for the spells. This one is easy easy EASY since the shadow mask is ALREADY calculated! 8.1 Make a special routine to copy the data to my secretchiprambuffer and copy the shadowmask data to a secretshadowmaskbuffer. 8.2 Startup will have 2 struct bitmaps setup for the secretchiprambuffer. 1 bitmap is for the data and the other bitmap is for the shadowmask data (1 bitplane). 8.3 simply BltMaskBitMapRastPort() the data! Easy easy easy! I just wasted 3 hours trying to get the spells to draw with transparency on the bonus panel. I finally figured out that there is a * BUG In BltMaskBitMapRastPort()! It doesn't work with a source bitmap that is interleaved! YARGH! When I use an interleaved source BitMap BltMaskBitMapRastPort() writes tons of garbage but BltBitMapRastPort() works perfectly! I had to rewrite everything so that the source bitmap would be stupid noninterleaved. Now the spells are appearing properly with transparency. Total time wasted: 4.5 hours. 9. PROBLEM: Sometimes when exiting the bonus panel, my cpu routines start drawing on the screen before the blitter is finished clearing it via SetRast(rastPort,0); Possible Solutions: A: Do as much cpu stuff as possible then do a WaitBlit(); B: Write a super high speed mem clearing routine that will be at least 2x as fast as OS SetRast() but can't work clear the screen in the background while the cpu does othere things like the blitter can. C: Put fake lores screen in front to open up the bandwidth to max thus allowing any clearing routine to operate much faster. This can be used in combination with A: or B: The easiest thing right this second is just to add the WaitBlit(); DONE. Yuck it sux. SetRast() clears the memory in the wrong order on interleaved screens. Totally lame. A: Write super fast mem clearing routine. This has the advantage of being usefull for general purposes. B: The very _fastest_ thing to do is to add a ReallyRedrawAll flag to the animator task and have it redraw the whole screen. * WipeMainScreen() superfast screen clearing routine NOW DONE. * I now use the new WipeMainScreen() routine upon exiting the setupscreens and the bonus panel screen. The transitions off of those screens is now much cleaner! January 20, 2002: * Added Robin's new Bonus Panel strings to the catalogs. Source code for TotalChaos is over 3 megabytes! Is this good or bad? I watched Enterprise, Special Unit 2 and Max X on tv tonight. Very refreshing. January 21, 2002: 10. Figure out transparency of text. This is easy. 10.1 Figure out the rectangle that the text shall reside in. 10.2 CopyMemQuick this rectangle to a fastram buffer. 10.3 Make a WriteNearTopBonusPanel() routine which always does a fast copy of the background in the fastram buffer to the screen then does the printing. This routine will check if the buffer exists. If it does not exist then simply allocate it and copy the memory from the screen to the buffer. If it does already exist then just copy the data from the buffer to the screen via CopyMemQuick() and print the text. ALL DONE. * Included Valwit's updated Polski.catalog. January 23, 2002: * Included Zoltan's updated Magyar translations. Miraculously, the Magyar translations are now 100% up to date! 11. Figure out how to load and display Robin's gate animation. What is the best way for me to load and play Robin's doorway animation? Maybe I should convert it (once) to a series of individual .iff files? Once it exists in converted form I can easily load it quickly into fastram. I think that is how I'll do it. Perhaps when converting it I should store the number of frames somewhere? Each SpecialAnim gets its own dir. Robin'sGate.txt has the number of frames in it. Robin'sGate/ Robin'sGateFrame001 Robin'sGateFrame002 ... Robin'sGateMask001 Robin'sGateMask002 ... I can set up NumberOfFrames BitMaps. Perhaps each one will be the same size as frame 1? The problem with this method is that its slow to open a jillion individual files each with 1 frame of an animation. It would be much faster to open 1 file with all the frames in it. My goal is to be able to load Robin's gate animation into a bunch of fastram bitmaps (1 for each frame) in FASTram. The bitmaps should be rounded to a 32 pixel width. Height is irrelevant. Once they are loaded into bitmaps I can generate the shadowmasks for each frame without to much trouble. P.S. Is there some kind of anim format that stores any number of frames + any number of shadowmasks all in the same file? Or maybe we should have 2 anim files. 1 is for the gfx and 1 is for the shadowmasks of the gfx! Then we just need a proggy to generate an anim of shadowmasks based on a standard anim file. Then the program can call a LoadAnim() function (or somesuch) and load the animation frames and shadowmasks all into fastram. How does the shadowmask get made? Do I do ReadPixel? Or TestPixel? or ????? Or do I round the size up to a multiple of 32 width? Then do the or.l trick? I could use Frederic's anim loading routine. This would hopefully load an entire anim in all at once. Once that is done then I must make a routine to copy the memory from fastram into chipram + copy the shadowmask from fastram into chipram and blit it onto the screen. This sux because I must convert the shadowmask from interleaved to noninterleaved. 12. Display the gates 1st at the proper x,y coords. This is medium, requires blitting from chipram to chipram. Also somehow requires loading the frames in (?) 13. Display the closing curtain anim. Hmm... This requires real work I think. Hafta copy each frame from fast ram to chipram then blit it onto the screen. Hopefully each frame is exactly 64x64. I need to work it out so that the anim is only loaded when the actual bonus screen is displayed, thus saving a load of ram. blahblahblah. I couldn't decide what to do. Its a mess. February 12, 2002: * Included Joar's great new Tempest and Vortex gfx! They are much better than the old ones! * PROBLEM: I have never liked "return key = end turn". I have upon 3 different occasions, when flipping back and forth between IRC and Chaos, ended my turn prematurely because of the return key. I could activate end-turn-confirmation but: * REQUESTED FEATURE from JJ (The pscyho anti-amiga one). He wants Chaos to be able to be played entirely with the keyboard. Well let's see here, you can already examine monster stats very quickly with the keyboard, you can already move the mouse around with the keyboard, you can already do all those other cool keypresses with the keyboard so all that needs to be done is allowing him to select creatures to attack with and allowing the movement to be cancelled. This is easy: · Return key = LMB = select creature, select square to move to / attack. · Space Bar = RMB = cancel movemnt of currently selected creature. Perhaps this should be backspace and/or delete key? · Escape key = End turn. (only in movement phase, no effect in spell selection phase. Should Escape key work in spell selection phase?) I Tested it. The whole thing sux. Argh. MOUSE RULEZ! I used to love keyboard control when I was a kid with my Commodore 64. But I must admit that mouse control is much more elegant, faster, nicer, easier, cooler, smoother, neater and just plain better. 1 hour of work more or less wasted. Hope JJ likes it :) * BUG: When you get a spell from a meditation such as a Magic Wood, the Magic Wood gfx is way out of position on the bonus panel. It goes off the right hand side of the screen! NOW FIXED. February 14, 2002: * Color Cycling Menus: 1. Make the 4 different fonts. 1a. Edit/create the fonts. Highlight1, Highlight2, Highlight3, Highlight4. DONE. 1b. Each font is only 1 color! So each font is a standard monochrome amiga font! I will just draw the text 4 times, once for each color! 2. Link them into the menus using linked IntuiText Structures! DONE. 3. Poke the text into all the new items. DONE. 4. Activate the color cycling! DONE. For now it is just a 1 dot of blue, 3 dots of black. It looks to dark and boring. 5. Try 1 dot of yellow, 3 dots of black. 6. Think about making the highlighting be configurable? How should it be configurable? In the prefs file like: MenuHighlighting1Red: MenuHighlighting1Green: MenuHighlighting1Blue: MenuHighlighting2Red: MenuHighlighting2Green: MenuHighlighting2Blue: MenuHighlighting3Red: MenuHighlighting3Green: MenuHighlighting3Blue: MenuHighlighting4Red: MenuHighlighting4Green: MenuHighlighting4Blue: Above way allows the user to configure his highlighting to look any way he wants. Or should there be a gfx file that Chaos reads the 4 colors from the palette (252-255)? Perhaps a CellFx/MenuHighlighting? If anyone wants this feature let me know and I'll add it in so you can experiment with different types of color cycling. * I tried some different types: 2 pixels of yellow + 2 pixels of black, it looked good. Then I tried 3 pixels of yellow + 1 pixel of black, it looks good also (each yellow pixel is darker than the previous one). Now I am trying this back at 50 fps. Darn, 50 fps is just toooo fast for 4 pixels of animation. I would need to have 8 pixels of animation to use 50fps. I'm setting it back to 25fps now. February 15, 2002: * I smoothed out Wizard 8 (the part where he is spinning around). It still isn't perfect but it is better than it was. I just did it very quickly; my smoothing is probably not very accurate. February 16, 2002: Options for backdrop screen of setup screen 2: 1. Manually produce each screen as a planar screen myself in Dpaint. DISADVANTAGE: Each time the setupscreen foreground is changed I must manually reproduce everything myself. Yuk. ADVANTAGE: Only 1 screen is needed in the screens dir thus saving HD space. I could maybe have Xav do this but I doubt he wants to mess with this. 2. Write code to produce the combined screen based on the foreground and background files found in the screens dir. This requires 1 extra screen file for each language: 1. Foreground screen. 2. Background screen. 3. Combined screen. The super easy to code way is to just use ReadPixel() WritePixel() which is ungodly slow. Oh well, this won't affect normal users because the gfx mixing will only need to be done once any time the backdrop pic is changed. 3. Write code to real time mix the screens together. DISADVANTAGE: A lot of extra work to get it to go fast. ADVANTAGE: No extra screen files needed. I don't feel like doing the required c2p and p2c coding for this option to work. 1. Check out my planar asm readpixel and writepixel routines to see if I can use them for this. I HAVE NO WRITEPIXEL ROUTINE!!! POSSIBLE SOLUTION: 1. Load backdrop pic into chipram. 2. Load foreground pic into fastram. 3. asm ReadPixel each pixel from the foreground pic. If it is not 0 then OS WritePixel it to the chipram buffer. POSSIBLE SOLUTION: 1. Load backdrop pic to temp buffer. 2. p2c it to FastRamBackDrop buffer. 3. Load foreground pic to temp buffer. 4. p2c it to FastRamForeground buffer. 5. Do the chunky readpixel/writepixel mixing. 6. c2p the resulting image and iff save it to disk. POSSIBLE SOLUTION: 1. Load backdrop pic to temp1 fastram buffer. 2. Load Foreground pic to temp2 fastram buffer. 3. Read all 8 bitplanes (32bits) into vars. Or them all together and that is the shadowmask. 4. Use move.l or.l and.l to generate the shadowmask + merge the 2 pix together into temp3 fastram buffer. * I finally did this last solution. It works great. BUG IN IFF.library: I cannot save interleaved bitmaps with iff.library! Only noninterleaved bitmaps save correctly! Arrgh! * I am simply saving the SetupScreen2Combined as a raw dump of the 640x512 bytes screen memory. It works and it loads much faster than loading an iff pic. February 17, 2002: * Included Trevor Hall's excellent title screen pic as the backdrop pic for SetupScreen2. At first I couldn't read the text worth a flip so I outlined the text with 1 pixel of hard black (color #32). This definitely helped but wasn't quite good enough. So I added a 2nd pixel of hard black #32 to the foreground text and now it is much better. NOTE TO GFX DEPARTMENT: If you can improve the backdrop pic then please please do so! The pic was originally drawn many many years ago in only 16 colors!!!! So I know it is somehow possible to improve its shading and texturing. * Included Xav's new 24x24 check and x gadgets. I asked Xav to make these for me because I thought I was going to use a backdrop pic that filled the entire 640 pixel width of the screen. Thus I needed gadgets that were solid so I wouldn't have to worry about transparency. But Trevor Hall's setup screen 2 pic does not fill the entire width so there is room on the edges for the old style gadgets. I don't know what to do. OPTIONS: A: Leave everything as it is. B: Trim 10 pixels off of each edge of the Trevor Hall pic. C: Switch to Xav's b&w monster pic instead. D: Keep the Trevor hall pic but switch back to the old gadgets. E: ???? * gfx/Screens/Deutsch/SetupScreen2.iff was mysteriously missing! I asked Robin to send me a replacement. When it arrived the mystery was solved. The filedate is July 2, 1980. I didn't get my 1st Amiga until 1987! No wonder I didn't have that file! :) * I pushed the gadgets on the right hand side of SetupScreen2 all the way up against the right hand side of the screen. * I adjusted the positions of the numerical gadgets so that they would line up with the text on the screen perfectly. * I edited the gfx/screens/English/SetupScreen2.iff by scooting over the right hand side text +48 pixels and the left hand side text -48 pixels. The texts are now very near to the gadgets and there is TONS of empty space in the middle to view the backdrop picture. This also makes the text easier to read because it isn't so much in the "busy" parts of the gfx now. Robin says it has been over 1 month since I issued the last update and that's too long. V 3.89 Update needs New executable Sounds/CastingSounds/Raise Dead Screens/English/BonusPanel Catalogs/ all Talklistsdir/English.txt gfx/Spells/Python, Wizard 8, Tempest, Vortex, gfx/CellEffects/Stomp gfx/Screens/English/SetupScreen2Backdrop,SetupScreen2.iff Fonts/High#? all Gadgets/English/Old#?, X.iff, Check.iff Sent v3.89 to Team Chaos. Executable filesize Robin = 484664 Xav = 484664 Frédéric = 484672 Joar = 502308 February 18, 2002: * I finally added in the gadgets for Aggressiveness and Kill The Humans. * I rigged the gadgets so that Aggressiveness and Kill The Humans cannot be turned on unless Ruthlessness is turned on first. Kill the Humans cannot be turned on unless Aggressiveness is turned on first. The 3 AI options represent ascending combined intelligence. * BUG: Menu item "Help me/I'm Lost!" doesn't work anymore! NOW FIXED. * BUG: Menu item "Help me/I'm Lost!" is always highlighted in English, even when the current language is something else! NOW FIXED. * Included Robin's updated Deutsch catalog and talklists. * Included Robin's updated Deutsch, Français, Polski setup screen 2 files. * VOLUNTEER NEEDED: to scoot over the texts on the Deutsch and Française and Polski SetupScreen2.iff so they will be in the same positions as the English version and to apply the 2 pixel black outline of color #32. DONE by Robin. On 18-Feb-02, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> * maybe-BUG (but a really cool feature!): My Gryphon was engaged, my RS> wizard wanted to dismount but couldn't. Instead I could attack with my RS> wizard from the Gryphons back without dismounting. THIS IS COMPLETELY RS> AWESOME!!! So now you can decide which attack-features you use: The RS> mount's or the wizard's. This has been a feature for years. Welcome to Chaos. :) RS> I spent some hours with PPaint and outlined the SetupScreen2 and fixed the RS> text positions. I also edited the background picture, it's a bit too RS> colorful and dominant to be a good background picture. I made several RS> versions, pic the one you like best. (My favourite is No.1) Good fast work! In general, I agree that background pix should be dark and non-dominant. However I still like the colorful bright version best because, to me, it looks like something from a comic book. And because I think it looks awesome. * Included Joar's new muchly improved Memory Mage and Memory Master. February 19, 2002: On 19-Feb-02, Joar Berntsen wrote: JB> Hello, JB> I summoned an air elemental, and hoped that I would kill the annoying JB> undeads. JB> then, ofcourse, one enemy wizard cast sleep on him right after I summoned JB> it. JB> some rounds later I got restoration, and cast it on my air elemetal, to JB> see if I could awaken it. What happened was that the sleeping air JB> elemental starts moving again, but doesn't change its sleep status. and I JB> couldn't command it. JB> I find this very puzzling.... I bet you have coded that restoration always JB> starts animating its target...? NOW FIXED. JB> I also tried to attack with my wizard on the manticores back, but JB> allthough I had magic sword, I couldn't attack the undead beside. NOW FIXED. Thank you for the autosaves; it made it very easy to fix these bugs with little stress. Sent v3.90 to Joar for further testing. Executable filesize=503048 February 20, 2002: * Included Joar's new Mod.ChaosBonusPanel into the Sounds/ dir. * Coded the bonus panel to always play Sounds/Mod.ChaosBonusPanel. * PROBLEM: I don't like the way the Gadgets/English/Check.IFF gfx looks. The yellow part of the check bleeds into the background texture to much for me. This might be a problem with using a 1084S monitor, perhaps it looked ok on a 31.5Khz monitor? Anyway I have now drawn a hard black outline to make the check stand out more. NOW FIXED. Sent v3.91 to Joar for further testing. Executable filesize=503176. * BUG: Impact/ sounds don't work. NOW FIXED. February 21, 2002: Joar reports that his "bolter" Launch/ ThroughTheAir/ and Impact/ sounds don't work. This is because the file must be the exact name of the creature: "Bolter" not "bolter". This is because the list is sorted into alphabetical order. "bolter" sorts after "Conwell". I renamed the files to their proper names and now they work. * BUG: ThroughTheAir/ sounds only work for archers! NOW FIXED. * ANNOYING to Joar: Joar says its annoying to hear the next song start for 2-4 seconds then to be interrupted by the bonus panel music. I have now hacked in some peek-ahead code to NOT play the next theme song if it is about to be interrupted by the bonus panel music. NOW FIXED. Check if the next human player is getting a bonus spell. If he is then DO NOT change the music! If the next human player is not getting a bonus spell then just change music as normal! * I really like the new ThroughTheAir and Impact sounds for the Bolter! They are great! * Now that there is an impact sound for the Bolter, all the other shooting creatures that don't have impact sounds seem really lame, like something is wrong. Sent v3.92 to Joar for further soundfx testing. Executable filesize=503608 February 22, 2002: * BUG: C is lame. Music usually doesn't play during spell selection anymore now due to I accidentally typed a semicolon after my FOR statement. This completely NULLIFIES the entire LOOP without reporting any errors or anything! NOW FIXED. * BUG: Shooting creatures who have no defined Impact/ sound no longer make the default algorithmic impact sound like they used to do. NOW FIXED. * FLAW: Having spacebar = cancel sux! I hate it! I have now changed it so that backspace is the "cancel" key = RMB. NOW FIXED. * BUG: Joar's Protracker BonusPanel mod randomly freaks out and makes weird sounds on my 50Mhz 060. I have now changed it to med MMD1 format so this is hopefully NOW FIXED. * Ack! There are still 2 definite pops at the beginning of the mod!?! Why didn't I hear this before?!? Grr... I think for some reason there are more random pops when the med routine plays the mod. I guess I'm switching it back to protracker format for now. Can anybody get rid of these pops??? HELP!!! Sent v3.93 to Joar for further soundfx testing. Executable filesize=503496 Joar claims his sounds and music are not working right so I spent some hours playing some test games but everything always works for me. I think he is using the old v3.92. * Add the SetupScreen2 help texts into the catalogs. DONE. * Setup the bbox struct for the SetupScreen2. DONE. * Make an array with whichever bbox goes with whichever helptext. DONE. February 23, 2002: * Add auto mousemove detection code into SetupScreen2. DONE. * Make a WriteBottomSetupScreen2() function which writes a 3 line formatted text. Figure out how to do word-wrapping. DONE. * Add transparency to WriteBototomSetupScreen2(). DONE. * Move Classic Chaos gadget to be under Blood gadget. Raise Ruthlessness gadget up 1. DONE. * Include scooted over version of SetupScreen2Backdrop. DONE. * Edit SetupScreen2.iff in Dpaint to fix positions of Classic Chaos and Ruthlessness/Aggressiveness/Kill the Humans! DONE. SetupScreen2 English ALL DONE. Now waiting for Robin to update the foreign language versions to match the English version. v3.94 Update Needs: New Executable gfx/Spells/Memory#? gfx/Screens/English/SetupScreen2.iff, SetupScreen2Backdrop Savedgames/Xav&JoarNewCreatures.lha, BonusPanelTest3.lha Gadgets/English/Check.IFF Sounds/Mod.ChaosBonusPanel Sounds/ Launch/ ThroughTheAir/ Impact/ Bolter Catalogs/#? Executable filesize: Robin = 486808 Xav = 486808 Frédéric = 486816 Joar = 504452 I tested a backdrop pic on SetupScreen1. The string gadgets make big ugly black boxes into the backdrop pic. Yuck. I'll have to hack in some special transparency code before I include a SetupScreen1Backdrop pic. * Increased the width of the Wizard name text boxes by 1 char so now the text box is big enough to hold the WHOLE string without scrolling around in the box. February 24, 2002: KEYWORDS: iff.library sux iff.library bugs iff.library is broken iff.library can't save interleaved bitmaps iff.library problems SaveIFF() routine ======================================================================= Frédéric Delacroix Writes: I have finally found some time to devote to the iff saving routine you requested and written a function that should do it. The only thing that remains to do is a ByteRun1 compression function. I was exploring the amiga developper cd to see if it contained one and found something better. It's a shame that this package is not better arranged and indexed. In the directory NDK_3.1/Examples2/IFF/ you can find everything you ever dreamed of. More precisely, the file modules/saveilbm.c contains exactly what you want. It is a collection of high level routines to write ILBMs that call the lower level routines from ilbmw.c. I did not extensively test them to see if they support interleaved bitmaps but I think they do. If they don't, the only thing to do is enhance/upgrade putbody() from ilbmw.c. I can do it if needed. I think you really should turn to using those routines and remove iff.library dependencies in Chaos. They are much more flexible, intelligent and bugfree. They require iffparse.library v39 to be opened and details are available in the NewIFF.Readme file. Those routines make mine a bit obsolete :-) ========================================================================== Dear Frédéric: I have stored your email here in the history file so I won't forget it and will be able to (hopefully) easily find it when needed. I don't know when I will ever try those routines because I have already worked around the bugs of iff.library and everything is running smoothly. However next time I have a problem I intend to switch to your above mentioned routines. Thank you very much for your assistance in this matter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transparency options for setupscreen1: A: Copy the ENTIRE pic into a fastram buffer. A.1: cpu copy pieces of the pic back onto the screen as needed. DISADVANTAGES: Uses 200K more fastram. So what. ADVANTAGES: Makes for a more generalized system of doing things. (I _might_ use this system again in the future but its doubtful). I could theoretically use this system on other screens. B: Copy just the box area of the wizard names. B.1: cpu copy this special box area as needed. DISADVANTAGES: I hafta code a SPECIAL routine for this box copying stuff. ADVANTAGES: Saves 200K of fastram. So what. I'll use system A. If I had done this at first I could have used this system on the SetupScreen2 and BonusPanel screens. 1. Make a routine that can cpu copy any chunk of memory as long as the x coords are always longword aligned. CPUCopy(Source,Destination,UpperLeftX,UpperLeftY,LowerRightX,LowerRightY) DONE. 2. Add code to generate a SetupScreen1Combined from SetupScreen1.iff and SetupScreen1Backdrop. DONE. February 25, 2002: 3. Load the SetupScreen1Combined to fastram from disk. Then copy it into the chipram screenbuffer. DONE. 4. After drawing the gadgets on the screen, restore the background of the text gadgets with CPUCopy() and then manually redraw the text gadgets using JAM1. DONE. 5. Draw the Wizard images onto the screen with transparency. DONE. What should I do about the Team images??????????????? OPTIONS: A: Leave it as it is. NO, it looks ugly with a black box around it. B: Add in more code to restore the background and redraw the gadget manually with transparency. C: Make a new CellFX file with all the team symbols in it. C.1: Make the Team Images be a large number on a texture. C.2: Make the Team Images be a large number on a texture with the small text TEAM written on it. C.3: Make the Team Images be the same symbols as now, but drawn on a texture. C.1,2,3 don't need any transparency code since they are all 100% opaque to begin with. I like C.2 what do you think? What should I do about an "About" screen? The best idea I have come up with is to have a 24bit super mega awesome image with the Total Chaos Logo at the top. This image will be displayed in HAM8. At the bottom will be a small text area with the version number. It will be similiar to the title screen but with different gfx. I spent an hour going through all my floppies to look for a certain pic that I got circa 1993 which I had been saving for the day when I made a fantasy game. But now I can't find it!!! :( It was on a disk with several jpeg pictures + a ham8 pic of a really hot fuji film girl in 1280*512 ham8. I can't find the pic so I will try to pick out a backdrop pic from Vicki's website. Ok I picked Northern Lights and wrote her an email about it to see if she has a 640x512 or larger version of it. SP> -I spoke "Resurrection" on a vampire corpse and the vampire wasn't undead SP> anymore. Is this normal? Yes 100% normal. Resurrection converts corpses into living things not undead things. Raise Dead always converts corpses into undead things. SP> -"Animate" doesn't work for magic glass. Why? It's an inanimate object. I have now changed it so that Magic Glass morphs into Amphisbaena and all other normal inanimates become Halflings. SP> -I killed a ghoul with my shadow wood and there didn't appeared a corpse. Ghouls never leave corpses. No undeads leave corpses, except for Vampires. (A direct contradiction to Buffy & Angel :) SP> -If masked or invulnerable creatures are attacked with special combat, the SP> values, which appear in the special combat phase, are wrong. It's a bit SP> misleading. True. Maybe I'll try to fix this sometime. FIXED on March 9, 2002. SP> -Sometimes creatures lose movement points without any reasons. Each time a creature gets attacked there is a small chance that it will lose a movement point due to battle wounds. Haven't you ever noticed that someties your Lion or Elephant lose 1 of their legs during an attack and all that is left is a bloody stump? This is caused by the battle wounds. SP> -This one is very important for me: SP> Could you please change the display you get by pressing the m button? SP> It would be MUCH clearer, if ONLY this squares are highlighted, in which SP> the SP> corresponding creature can fly or move and NOT the ones, it could reach SP> by attacking/killing an enemy. Sometimes it's very important to know, if SP> the creature is able to reach this position directly or not. I was going to do this as keypress f (fly) but f is already taken by feel so.... * NEW KEYPRESS: Y (flY). NOW DONE. February 26, 2002: SP> Another thing: Sometimes there is the vodka symbol on the information SP> screen of things, nobody possesses, at the beginning of a match. NOW FIXED. * GFX LAYOUT FLAW: The Team icon positions are higher than the Wizard icon positions by +4 pixels! NOW FIXED. * I cast Charm, Subversion, Motivation & Creativity onto Vicki. :) February 27, 2002: * PROBLEM: The Team Icons look terrible with a big black box around them. SOLUTION: Make 8 new 32x32 Team icons which are 100% solid in the file CellEffects/TeamIcons NOW DONE. * Program the game to use the new Team Icons. DONE. * PROBLEM: The 8 color scrolling credits intro looks bland and lame. SOLUTION: Disable lame-looking 8 color scrolling credits intro. I want the very first thing the gamer sees to be really awesome (such as the title screen). NOW DONE. Once we figure out a cool way to do the scrolling credits I'll reactivate them. (Perhaps with Frédéric's new ChunkyFonts.library coming soon to an Amiga near you. :) * Updated docs with keyboard controls and "y" key. * Updated "help/Show me all the keys" file with "y" key information + other improvements. * Installed Robin's new Deutsch and Polski SetupScreen2.iff. I didn't try to figure out if his English version was better than mine or not. My version is still in the game. * Included Robin's new 100% Deutsch.catalog. * Robin fixed the Turns gfx to be hard black. Robin Writes: RS> I just had an awesome game! Some things to mention about it: RS> 2.) Chaos is a dangerous game! While playing it, you could be starving RS> without even noticing!!! February 28, 2002: * PROBLEM: When you exit the info panel, there is a lame slow OS SetRast() call. This is too slow and flickery and looks terrible. SOLUTION: Use my high speed WipeMainScreen() function instead. NOW FIXED. * Replaced the SetRast() with WipeMainScreen() when users clicks from 1st info panel to 2nd info panel. 2nd panel appears slightly faster now. * Replaced many SetRast() calls with WipeMainScreen() in the help routines. Help screens are zippier now. * Replaced SetRast() calls in Magic Spell description display routines. The screens now pop up a bit faster. Going from 1st spell panel to 2nd spell panel seems to be a lot faster. March 1, 2002: * PROBLEM: When quitting the game, all sorts of crap flashes up on the screen during the shutdown process. This is unprofessional. 1. I now erase all screens as the first thing in the shutdown process. This helps some, but there is still lots of lines drawn up by the OS.. I guess each time a window is closed or a screen is closed it draws some lame line across the screen. 2. I removed all SA_PENS, IntutionMenuPens from all screens that didn't need them. This didn't actually seem to help any. * PROBLEM: HAM8 title screen turns to garbage for a split second before the setupscreen is displayed. NOW FIXED. * BUGS: Various pixels in the SetupScreen1.iff texture are transparent! This allows the backdrop pic to shine through the texture and looks terrible! NOW FIXED in all languages. March 2, 2002: * Installed Joar's new undead creatures: Wight, Wraith, Haunt, Spectre. They are much better than the old ones! Joar also sent in a great new Gooey Blob and Chronomancer! But I'm not 100% sure I want to replace the old ones... decisions decisions. For now they are stored into DL:JoarMods/gfx/ March 3, 2002: I had a problem today while trying to implement Robin's BonusPanelDoor where these 2 variables were giving very strange errors. One of the vars was redefining the first one! At first this freaked me out but after some research I finally figured out that it was because SASC has a 31 character variable name limit. They are called "identifiers". You can have them as long as you want but only the first 31 chars are actually used. This 31 char limit is easily overcome by using idlen=40 in compiler options. idlen can be anything from 31 to 255. 1. Load all 15 door pix to fastram in little 80x64 bitmaps. Make them all be noninterleaved bitmaps so that they are compatible with AmigaOS BltMaskBitMapRastPort() DONE. 2. Load all 15 door shadowmasks to chipram because AmigaOS requires them to be in chipram and they only take 9600 bytes total. DONE. 3. Set up a temporary bitmap in chipram to hold 1 temp frame for use by AmigaOS. DONE. March 4, 2002: * Included Mandi's updated Polski translations. * CHANGED line 291 of the catalog to: Computer players will aggressively advance on your position and destroy you, even if it means navigating complicated mazes and avoiding multiple obstacles. Hasta la vista, baby. * CHANGED line 289 of the catalog: cunningly -> ruthlessly. * CHANGED line 272: I removed the : * NOTE TO TRANSLATORS: If you want to keep your translations 100% up do date you know what to do. :) I'm thinking of changing "Kill the Humans!" into "Out for Blood!" ... Hmmm... * INCLUDED Robin's door anim into gfx/BonusPanelDoor80x64/ March 5, 2002: I spent hours and hours trying to get Robin's bonus panel door to work! All I could get was random garbage pixels in the shape of a door! :( I finally figured out the problem: a misspelled variable name! Argh! * Open Door is now drawn on the bonus panel screen after many hours of testing and debugging and hair-pulling. * Error message is now printed if the door allocation fails. * BUGS: There are many different weird places in Total Chaos where some memory must be allocated or a file must be loaded and if for some bizarre reason this fails, the game terminates. In some rare cases the game will crash. I don't think anyone has noticed this becuse the memory allocations are so small that they always succeed. You'd need to run lots of other programs to eat up _all_ of your memory to trigger one of these failures. Anyway, I've now fixed it so that these 1 in a million game terminations quit cleanly back to workbench without crashing the computer. NOW FIXED. * Quit & Cleanup code now more robust. March 7, 2002: I am now examining Victoria's new about screen with red + white unicorn. 1. I am stupid and forgot something! HAM8 is a lossy compressed gfx format that stores 3 bytes of color into into only 1 byte. The limitation of this is that a ham8 screen cannot suddenly change from one color to a completely different one in 1 horizontal pixel! So where the gfx suddenly change from blue to red or from red to blue there is fringing. :( The original 2 white unicorns was very very smooth for whatever reason. I think Xav's text logo was so smooth because it has black edges all around it. Its easier to change from black to red than from blue to red. 2. I am comparing the new about screen (red vs. white unicorn) in fjpeg_aga which does dithering and in visage which does not. Visage: Red Unicorn gfx has more fringing, doesn't look good at the edges. :( But the red "TOTAL" logo is very sharp and smooth! Fjpeg_AGA: Red Unicron gfx has a little fringing but looks much much better than Visage. :) But the red "TOTAL" logo has become rough and blocky on the edges! :( Thematically, red vs white unicorn is better. Ham8ally, the 2 white unicorns are better. I converted the pix from .jpg to HAM8 using gfxcon using 2 different methods: A: Normal, looks ok, text is a little bumpy blurry messed up. B: Floyd-Steinberg dithering. Yuck! It looks awful! * INCLUDING both of Victoria's about screens since they each have their own advantages/disadvantages in HAM8. When the user accesses the about screen, a random pic is loaded. Someday when I make a gfx card version all these problems will simply vanish. * I programmed the about screens to appear. Tested and seems to work ok. * INCLUDED Victoria's new Dueling Unicorns + lightning + new super cool Chaos logo about screen!!!! This pic fixes all above problems and is more energetic and chaotic! * PROBLEM: The new about screen covers too much space and the about text is covering up part of the "Battle at the Edge of Yesteryear" NOW FIXED. March 8, 2002: * FLAW: Special Combat gfx fx does not show the correct amount of damage when used against cloaked creatures. I think every single member of Team Chaos has complained about this + all registered users + some unregistered users. Since the game is finally nearing release my stress level is gone and I can now finally force myself to fix this. NOW FIXED. March 9, 2002: * INCLUDED Joar's new fixed Mod.ChaosBonusPanel!!! It sounds better! The beginning pop is gone! I've been listening to it in the game, on the bonus panel (in protracker format) for a whole hour and I've never heard that mysterious "freak out" bug that was in all the other versions! Joar is still using a couple of A#3 notes which are totally illegal for normal mods, yet still everything sounds great! ******************************************************************* *************** TIMING TEST JC vs. AmigaOS *********************** ******************************************************************* Time to draw 100,000 tiles to the game screen. Timed with the game compiled in optimize mode. Multitasking is always disabled during the tests. Interrupts are always enabled during the tests. CPUblit patch is active. James Conwell's A1200 Apollo 060 @50Mhz AmigaOS DrawImage() =4769 frames. 20.97 tiles/frame. 1048.44 tiles/sec. JC DrawCellAndShadow()=1489 frames. 67.16 tiles/frame. 3357.96 tiles/sec. JC DrawCellOnly() =1400 frames. 71.43 tiles/frame. 3571.43 tiles/sec. My routine is 3.4x faster than AmigaOS DrawImage() when CPUblit speedup patch is installed and running Now you can see why any program that uses OS drawing routines is pathetically slow. * Would you like to see how much faster your amiga is than mine? you can do these timing tests yourself until the next new version is released. Here's how: z key = AmigaOS DrawImage() test. x key = JC DrawCellAndShadow() test. v key = JC DrawCellOnly() test. I would appreciate it if some people would try these timing tests, write down the results and email them to me so I can see how fast your machine is at animating critters on the screen. Robin's Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260 060 cpu @50Mhz Speed tests: DrawImage: 10207 frames DrawCellAndShadow: 2162 frames DrawCellOnly: 2085 frames Why is this so slow!?!?! What is going on!?!?! I'm redoing the tests on my machine now. Last time I might have had the music turned off. I can't remember. Anyway its on now. AmigaOS DrawImage() =4829 frames. JC DrawCellAndShadow()=1488 frames. JC DrawCellOnly() =1418 frames. My routine is 3.4x faster than AmigaOS DrawImage(); Music is still on. Now I'm removing my CPUblit patch for the true speed test! James's True unpatched results: Apollo 060 50Mhz AmigaOS DrawImage() =5518 frames JC DrawCellAndShadow()=1488 frames. JC DrawCellOnly() =1420 frames. My routine is 3.9x faster than AmigaOS DrawImage(); Joar's Results: Apollo 040 40Mhz drawimage =9764 drawcellnshadow=2995 drawcellonly =2844 Xav's results: Apollo 040 40Mhz DrawImage() 5530 frames DrawCellAndShadow() 1695 frames DrawCellOnly() 1594 frames ******************************************************************** New v3.95 update needs: New Executable gfx/spells/Wight, Wraith, Haunt, Spectre, Turns, gfx/Screens/#?/SetupScreen1.iff, SetupScreen2.iff gfx/Screens/English/SetupScreen1Backdrop, SetupScreen2Backdrop, #?About#? Help/English/Show me all the keys gfx/CellEffects/TeamIcons gfx/BonusPanelDoor80x64/#? Catalogs/#? Sounds/Mod.ChaosBonusPanel Executable filesize: Joar = 507532 Robin = 489900 Xav = 489896 Frédéric= 489904 March 10, 2002: * CONVINCED Joar to finally buy a flickerfixer + high quality monitor to ease stress on his eyes and to make Chaos look better. DONE. * RECRUITED: I spent some hours recruiting a new 3D Graphist to join Team Chaos. He is 100% into LightWave 3D. YAY!!! Hopefully he can render some great gfx for Total Chaos!!! I am making a new dir for him in my sc:newgfx/Nico to store all his sent in gfx. We will see if he is any good or not. He sent in 65 rock images in 32bit color. * I added Robin's proposed new Team Icon symbols into the existing TeamIcons file. * POOR JOAR! For a whole year the gadgets on the Clear All and Clear Under and About requester of the level editor have been completely trashed! NOW FIXED. * INCLUDED Mandi's new help/Polski/Show me all the keys * INCLUDED Mandi's new Polski.catalog. There was bug in the file, it had 1 extra line but I fixed it. * INCLUDED Robin's new help/Deutsch/Show me all the keys and Deutsch.catalog On 10-Mar-02, Robin Schmidt wrote: ------------------------------- RS> * FLAW: I think you should auto-activate Aggressiveness when you click on RS> "Kill the humans!" Right now, activating Kill... is just blocked if RS> Aggressiveness is inactive. NOW FIXED. RS> * BUG: Bonus spells should not be displayed transparently any more! NOW FIXED. RS> * FLAW: You should build up the bonus panel in a different order: Spell1, RS> door1, spell2, door2, etc. I now blacken the entire screen while building it so this is NOW FIXED. ------------------------------------------------------------------- * BUG: cursor in text boxes on SetupScreen1 flickers strangely and badly and looks icky. NOW FIXED. March 12, 2002: * I removed the z,x,v timing test keys because the x was interfering with amiga-x = cut in the level editor and sent v3.96 to Joar. Executable filesize = 507764 * INCLUDED Frédéric's 100% updated Français.catalog and Talklistsdir/Français.txt * Frédéric told me the way to detect the user exiting a string gadget so I have now fixed the SetupScreen1 to restore the background each time the user presses return. March 13, 2002: * PROBLEM: Stefan doesn't like it when the m key doesn't show anything on already-moved creatures. * SOLUTION: shift+m now shows the full movement range of the creature even if it has already moved. NOW FIXED. * ADDED an easy to use, more complete Timing Test Suite. Just press alt-t and Chaos will run all of its timing tests and save the results into T:TotalChaosTimingTests.txt so that you can mail them to James very easily. :) This way I will know how much work to put into optimizing the animator, what techniques to use and so forth. And I'll have a way to measure my progress. * I doubled the speed of the timing tests but I added 3x as many of them. March 14, 2002: * PROBLEM: Ack! Quit screen looks like crap! Its the old ECS code stuck onto the AGA screen and looks terrible! I removed all the old ECS code so this is NOW FIXED. * PROBLEM: End Turn Confirmation looks like crap ecs. * BUG: End Turn confirmation doesn't work! NOW FIXED. * BUG: New Game menu option no longer works correctly! NOW FIXED. * CHANGED: Music now plays from highest number to lowest number. I'm going to try this out for a while. * REMOVED: All the old Lissajous color-cycling box code to save some K's on the executable filesize. March 15, 2002: * INCLUDED NEW GFX FROM JOAR: Orc, Orcs, Mighty Orc. I actually sort of like the old orcs better because they are small and wimpy looking. These new orcs are so big to have only 4 hitpoints. But the bottom line is that these new Joarorcs LOOK better than the old ones and that is what this new upgrade is all about. Making things look better. The sword on Joar's Mighty Orc was to blocky for me so I smoothed it a little bit but its still much blockier than the Orc sword. I dunno how to make it smoother. (?) * NOT INCLUDED gfx from Joar: A very very very fuzzy out of focus Generator. Joar's new Fire.big looks pretty cool! But I can't decide if it should be a new type of fire or replace the old fire? I still can't decide what to do about the Chronomancer. Xav sent me an Orc gfx years ago and I meant to include it but I lost it. :( * Since communists in communist countries keep communistically complaining about the K's of Chaos being completely cumbersome such as "16 megs is far to large for a computer game" (WTF!?!?!) I have considered a code change for Total Chaos to keep the game cruising even if all the source gfx/Spells and gfx/CellEffects have been deleted. NOW DONE. * Game now runs without the source gfx. Only the compiled gfx are used. This saves 12.6 megs of HD space! (3.6 megs .lha) I already made it so the combined screens don't need to be distributed (they get remanufactured the first time you run the game) which saves 2.6 megs HD space. (941k .lha) * TOTAL .lha savings = 4.6 megs! * I took Zoltan's Thunder-1 + Thunder-2 + Thunder-3 + Thunder-4 + Thunder-5 and combined them into 1 long thunder sound for the about screen. DONE. * ADDED: Thunder sound to about screen. If you have a better thunder sound (and I _know_ you do! :)) then please send it to me. Of course you will only actually hear the thunder sound if the music is off. On 15-Mar-02, Frederic Delacroix wrote: FD> The options I title picture is just great (all of them are) but I think FD> the border should be enlarged in height to enclose the whole picture (or FD> maybe just remove this border). Robin removed the border so this is NOW FIXED. FD> My wood elf shot an enemy ogre assassin and during the arc drawing I got FD> this muforce hit: FD> BYTE READ from 00000000 PC: 77FF6A36 USP : 77FAF808 SR: 0009 (U0)(-)(-) FD> TCB: 77DDA2A0 Data: 000000C8 00000085 00008E5A 000000C8 00000001 00000320 FD> 00000085 000000C8 Addr: 00000000 00000011 00000000 780BEBD2 77F9DF20 FD> 00000000 7800E200 77802374 Stck: 00008E5A 000000C8 00000001 00000001 FD> 00000085 00000009 780C3388 7800E200 Stck: 77AB0358 00000280 0000001F FD> 00000007 000001D2 0000001C 00000002 780E977F Name: "Background CLI" CLI: FD> "Chaos" Hunk 0000 Offset 00038A7E Thank you for reporting this! It was very easy to fix. NOW FIXED. March 16, 2002: * Robin modified all SetupScreen1.iff files for all languages: He removed the texture border. Since both he and Frédéric wanted this I immediately included all of them into the game. * Tested: "You have won!" screen. Still works ok. * BUG: Random graphical glitches on Bonus Panel under P96. NOW FIXED. * PROBLEM: Color cycling animated boxes in the menus are often jerky. Hopefully NOW FIXED. * I did some heavy magic to the animator task so that the anims should now be running faster and smoother under load now. * INCLUDED Robin's new Rendered Generator gfx! Cinema 4D r0x! v3.97 update needs: New executable c/bustest gfx/screens/english/AboutScreen2.HAM8 gfx/screens/#?/SetupScreen1.iff gfx/Spells/Orc, Orcs, Mighty Orc, Generator, gfx/CellEffects/TeamIcons Sounds/ThunderAboutScreen.8svx Executable filesize: Joar = 505820 Robin = 488200 Xav = 488196 Frédéric= 488204 March 17, 2002: On 17-Mar-02, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> * BUG: The Aggressiveness and Kill the humans! settings are not saved when RS> you save the settings. NOW FIXED. RS> * FLAW: The "skins" do not change after spell casting phase, but only RS> after the first user action. AFAIK this is NOW FIXED. March 18, 2002: ****************************************************************** *** MAGIC MENU BUGS *** ****************************************************************** A few days ago Robin reported to me that Magic Menu has a bug that uglifies the menus of Total Chaos. Xav reported the same bug the next day, then Frédéric reported bug(s) in MagicMenu also. Then Frédéric got mad and said there were not any bugs in Magic Menu after all and that it "works perfectly". So now I must waste my time to download it, read the docs, install it and test it to see what is going on. Ok I downloaded Magic Menu v2.34 direct from the website. BUG: MagicMenu does nothing! I installed it exactly as the directions say and reset my computer. Nothing happens. No menus are changed. There is no effect whatsoever. In fact, there is no MagicMenu program running in my system. Ok I have now run the program manually and am testing the default settings. YARGH!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?!? It turned my nice menus into some utterly horrible looking monstrosity!!! BUG: Magic Menu makes my menus look like crap. BUG: Magic Menu draws the text in the menus in a random color. Sometimes this color is the color cycling color which looks UTTERLY CRAP! BUG: Magic Menu does not use correct colors. BUG: Magic Menu does not properly unhighlight menu items as you move the mouse up and down the list, thus it destroys the background texture. BUG: Magic Menu does not use the colors I tell it to use. BUG: Magic Menu murdered my 256 color Amiga-Checkmark and replaced it with some lame looking checkmark. BUG: Magic Menu uses the WRONG highlighting method! No matter what highlighting method I order the menus to use, Magic Menu just ignores it and uses the box highlighting method! There may be lots more bugs, I donno. I only tested it for 10 mins. BUG: Magic Menu makes my CED menus look worse also. Magic Menu makes my workbench menus look sort of better. Not really better, just different. Its nice to have a change after all these years. But so what? How does this help me? It really makes no difference. MAGIC MENU WITH DIFFERENT SETTINGS: I have now changed the following 2 settings in Magic Menu: Pull Down Menu Look = STANDARD Pop Up Menu Look = STANDARD Aaaahhhhhh! Now Magic Menu becomes useful!!!! :) There's only 1 bug I can see: BUG: Magic Menu murdered my 256 color Amiga-Checkmark and replaced it with some lame looking checkmark. This bug should be fixed! And it should be reasonably easy to fix. PROBLEM: Many Magic Menu Users don't change the settings from buggy default settings to standard working settings so they think my game looks like crap! :( PROPOSED SOLUTION: MagicMenu will open a port called "MagicMenuPort". My game will during startup do a Forbid(); MagicMenuPort=FindPort("MagicMenuPort"); Permit(); IF (MagicMenuPort) THEN // Send Magic Menu some sort of message telling it that it *MUST* // use STANDARD working settings with my program! END_IF I don't care what the user sets his settings to but Pull Down Menu Look MUST BE Standard for my game menus and Pop Up Menu Look MUST BE Standard for my game menus to work. So now all that must be done is to decide on the format of the message that I will send to Magic Menu. IDEA: Perhaps I should just send MagicMenu a message saying "Load this prefs file" with a complete pathname of a prefs file and then every time Magic Menu does an operation from my program it uses MY prefs file. This way the menus will look great instead of mangulated. BETTER IDEA: Or I could send a message saying simply "StandardLook" then any time MagicMenu processes a menu operation from my program it will use standard look menus! This will work!!! And it should be very easy to implement! ****************************************************************** *** END MAGIC MENU BUGS *** ****************************************************************** Sent above info to the coders of Magic Menu. Reply from Stephan Rupprecht: So far he says there are no bugs in MagicMenu therefore he can't fix the bugs since they don't exist. I got on irc and asked "Has anyone ever had any problems with MagicMenu?" 1 person from Germany said "yes" Cobra said it locks up with StormC. Cobra says there are also random lockups with MagicMenu in cybergraphics due to a bug in cybergraphics. Chip-work said it locks up with wizzard.library. Henes said "magicmenu is a poor piece of crap creating deadlocks :-)" He also said he removed it from his system because after 4 years of deadlocks he got bored. Artlace says MagicMenu is buggy and it says so in the docs. Fabius says "I don't use magic menu since "padrino" times" Several people said they never used MagicMenu. Using "Standard" look menus in MagicMenu: BUG: Magic Menu refuses to display my Hotlist menu in Ibrowse2.2. This may be because the Hotlist Menu is 2 colums and covers almost the entire screen. WORKAROUND by pressing the alt-key. CORRECT SOLUTION would be to either A: Fix bug in MagicMenu so that it can render large double-column menus. B: In any event where MagicMenu knows that it cannot draw the menu for any reason, just fall back on the Intuition routines instead of doing nothing. March 19, 2002: * Stephan Rupprecht finally decided to fix the checkmark bug. I'm still trying to convince him to fix the others. * BUG: When you get killed by a computer player the "Do you want to start a new game?" starts out with an invisible mouse pointer. NOW FIXED. Spent all day trying to figure out how to fix Magic Menu. March 20, 2002: * Collecting a Scroll now awards +1 point to the collector. Frederic reports a bug in his menus: There is a blue box drawn around all the items in the control menu. Yuck. I installed VisualPrefs onto my computer to see if it caused this problem but nothing happened. But I only tested it for 1 minute then I removed VisualPrefs. There are zillions of settings in VisualPrefs any of them might have be causing the problem but I still think the bug could be in MagicMenu. March 21, 2002: * CHANGED lines 178,179 of all the catalogs to TOTAL CHAOS Battle at the Edge of Yesteryear Sent v3.98 to Robin for testing as the proposed final edition. Today I played around testing more patches and trying to get Samba to work. I nearly got samba working in 1 hour but it only works on systems without passwords. I spent a couple of hours reading docs and it can be made to work with plain passwords or encrypted passwords but first I am going to test it by removing the password from the PC to make sure everything works before I go through the trouble of entering all the passwords and encrypting them. I played around with my MediatorVIRGE P96 driver in my devs:monitors/ Visage absolutely won't work anymore. It always opens screens onto the gfx card, which of course I can't see. Due to a bug in OS 3.9 the screenmode requester of Visage simply doesn't work anymore so I can't force it onto a normal pal or ntsc display! grrrr. More Bugs with P96 driver installed: Certain icons in ibrowse always display as garbage. Ibrowse seems to be a bit faster with P96 installed. Then suddenly I had an idea! I just realized that my CPUblit patch is conflicting with my P96 patch so now I am moving CPUblit to go before P96! Oh the joys of patches.... Now Ibrowse is MUCH MUCH faster at scrolling the screen with the P96 driver patch installed! I think this must be what it is like to use Fblit! I also notice that Ibrowse uses, eats and destroys much less chipram! Ibrowse is 4x as usable with the P96 hackpatch installed than without it as long as those graphical bugs don't corrupt innocent memory. Remember I'm doing all these tests on straight AGA. I have no monitor connected to the gfx card. Perhaps the score screen pops up a little faster with the P96 active. Its hard to tell... The Scroll panel still takes toooo long to pop up. We need fastram chunkyfonts to speed this up to a proper instantaneous speed. * Various code cleanups. March 22, 2002: *** Forwarded message, originally written by xavnet on 13-Mar-02 *** x> Gfx bug : there is a little gfx bug in the menus... Perhaps it's x> because I use MagicMenu. JC> What sort of gfx bug? x> The background of the menu is blue (it seems to be a texture), and x> when the mouse pointer is on the texts in the menu, it paints the x> background in white, text is in black. It's readable, but it's a x> strange fx... That bug is caused by the buggy "Multicolor 3D" setting in MagicMenu. Do not use "MultiColor 3D" look in MagicMenu. It makes all fancy menus look like crap. Just change it to "Standard" look and then the menus will look ok. Only your cool 256 color checkmark still gets eaten by another bug in MagicMenu. JC> Lightwave 3.5 is the fastest version for the Amiga 68k JC> 4.0 is much slower. x>I saw an advertising in a Mac magazine for Lightwave 7... Very very expensive! x> Almost 2000$!!! Ouch! Can anyone donate Xav a Mac Lightwave? :) *** End of forwarded message *** * I put a black border around the text on the DOScreen for Robin. I tried allocating all my own pens just for the hell of it to see if it stops the Robin & Frederic blue boxes but it doesn't work. The program just hangs forever because its MY screen and I already OWN all the pens on it. Spent all day trying to get W2000 to work with Samba or smbfs. It kept asking for a password. Then it crashed and refused to boot. We had to wipe the entire hard drive and start over. All the drivers my brother had dowloaded and installed had to be reinstalled, all the games were lost, all the patches to all the games were lost. All the settings and user-configuration were lost. Microsoft Windows 2000 is truly a piece of crap. Write detailed story of how to blow up any W2000 PC with only 18 innocent mouseclicks. <> March 23, 2002: Robin's Blizzard 050 50Mhz seems to be 11% faster at drawing tiles and 25% faster at reading & writing fastram than my Apollo 060 50Mhz. I ran MuFastChip then redid the timing tests but it made no difference. My 060.library must already be putting the chipram into imprecise nonserialized mode. * Miscellaneous code cleanups. * BUG: On your turn the right hand side skin always gets set to the previous player's skin until you move a creature or access an info panel or anything that causes the screen to be redrawn. NOW FIXED. Sent v3.99 to Robin for Final Testing. Executable filesize =488884 * I updated the ChaosDocs.texinfo with a new "troubleshooting" section. I leave it to Frederic to decide how to link it into the texinfo structure. * I somehow forgot to put Giulio into the credits! NOW FIXED. * YET ANOTHER BUG IN MAGIC MENU v2.34: Pressing on "Color Options" crashes the computer. Its essentially the same thing as pressing ctrl-amiga-amiga so if your keyboard ever breaks and you need to reset, just you MagicMenuPrefs. * I practiced making the archive for aminet. This took quite some time to make sure all files were included correctly. I did lzx a -r -a -e -3 t:TotalChaosAGA.lzx #? I then sent the resulting 28 Meg .lzx file to SMF. 45 minutes later the file was finished transferring. When he tried to unlzx it he got some crc errors on some files. Argh! So I did lzx t TotalChaosAGA.lzx It said all files were ok. So I did lzx x TotalChaosAGA.lzx and it got some errors on 2 files! Lzx sux! It corrupted my archive! But on his end he was getting errors on 15 files so there is also another problem somewhere. Then I tried lha a -rade -v0 t:TotalChaosAGA.lha #? I tested the archive. All files are ok. I unlha'ed the archive. All files decompressed ok. I irc'ed the archive to SMF. 45 minutes later it was finished and it was all corrupted! This could be a bug: A: That I've always had and never knew because I never tried to transfer a 28 meg file before. B: That he has always had and never knew because he never tried to transfer a 28 meg file before. C: It could be a bug caused by the fact that I am using P96 and/or MagicMenu now. D: It could be a new bug on his end because he just installed a new MMU.library and BoingBag2. He told me that his system was very unstable until he installed the new MMU.library so I think the problem is on his end. Many hours wasted. :( NOTE: I have transferred many 4 meg files in the past and they always worked perfectly. In the past I think I have transferred a few 20+ meg files and they worked perfectly. March 24, 2002: On 23-Mar-02, Robin Schmidt wrote: RS> * BUG: I cast Mass Petrification on a lion. For some reason he began to RS> animate again. SaveGame attached. It was a small bug in the Blood routine. NOW FIXED. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Graphics tip from Xav. Gfx tip: I put this here so I won't forget it. > I tried to use P016_2.gif in the game. I converted it to iff. > It made a palette going from brightest to darkest so color 0 is > white which looks sort of strange because the whole game uses > color 0 as black. I donno what to do. > > I guess I should have said "Make the palette any way you want, but > make color 0 = black." :) I can't control the indexed palettes with Photoshop, but the solution to your problem is easy: - convert the picture to .IFF format. - load it with DPaint (or PPaint) - go in the palette menu: Edit. - click on white, then click on EXchange, then click on the black color. Click ok. - load your picture again, then go in the palette menu, then click on "restore palette", then remap. That's all. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- March 25, 2002: I sent the game to several IRC people. The only compliments I got were: "Nice speech btw" from Steve. "Nice music btw" from Piru. "Good graphic and music" from Disney. How to work around cgx and P96 bugs: 1. Do not use 56KHZAUDIO 2. Enable KEEPAMIGAVIDEO 3. Do not try to promote (hijack) the screen. 4. Do not use MCP chip->fast hack. 5. You must open Workbench onto an AGA chipset screen before running the game.. For example PAL or NTSC or whatever. However you can allegedly run lots of OTHER cgx screens on the cgx monitor at the same time and flip between them with no crashes. For example PPaint or Ibrowse or AmIRC or ImageFX or etc. I propose you to run wb on AGA + TotalChaosAGA + 1 cgx screen of something and play a test game and switch to the cgx screen and do stuff on it periodically. Robin will you please test this? To make sure it really works 100%? Thank you. Sent v4.00 to Robin for testing of the proposed cgx/P96 bugs workaround. Executable filesize = 488952 Robin reports the workarounds for the P96/cgx bugs work 100% ok. I still wish the P96 and cgx coders would fix the bugs though. March 26, 2002: I spent all day today trying to figure out the crc bug with transmitting huge files on irc. I believe it is caused by AmIrc3.5.23 and I believe the bug has been fixed in AmIrc 3.5.23 When people send me 30 meg files with 3.5.23 and I receive them with my 3.5 everything works great. March 27, 2002: Joar threw a HAM8 main credits screen at me so I included it into the about screen. DONE. Joar sent in some new gfx: INCLUDED: Orc, Orcs, Mighty Orc. I like these new versions better because they are smaller and wimpier looking the way orcs should be. INCLUDED: Conwell's Cow Catapult because it looks better than the old one. NOT INCLUDED (yet): Spider: Why did you shrink it? Dread Elf: I might include this, I can't decide...(see below) Wood Elf and Gray Elf: These are 4x larger than the old ones. I am thinking of leaving the Elf gfx as they are since they are small wimpy creatures and using these new gfx as "Wood Elf with 50 health or high combat or high ranged combat" etc. That way we can use both versions. What do you think about this? Ditto for Harpy. (?) I had an idea for making the gfx-drawing routines faster by reordering the instructions. After several experiments all I could get was a .1% speed impmrovement. Oh well. March 28, 2002: Worked on readme file and documentation. * Included FAQ into Documentation/English/ March 29, 2002: Spent all day trying to get P96 to work. It was very complicated. The instructions were wrong. The installer program was wrong (reason #414 why Chaos will never have an installer program). It was very troublesome. After a whole day of fiddling around with it, finally it worked. Ibrowse seems to be a bit faster now. Easter, 2002: Ate Easter meal with family. Got terribly sick with 103° F fever. The next day my stomach started hurting and continued to hurt for a few days. It was very scary! April 1-2,2002: Unbelievably Sick. April 3, 2002: Fixed neighbor's Windoze 98 PC. Watched 2 movies: "Traffic" and "Original Sin". April 4, 2002: Installed CED 4.15. Fiddled around with colors and screenmodes and such things. Edited the docs some more. April 5, 2002: * Reassembled my Amiga, re-established the network and sent the docs to the Documentation Dept. for texinfoification, AmigaGuide Transformation, etc. * BUG in CyberGraphX and Picasso96: Some drivers do not correctly handle vertical blank interrupts (f.e. S3 Virge) so they return immediately. This means games that perform some small operation then free the CPU and WAIT for an entire frame never wait but in fact run CONTINUOUSLY and burn huge amounts of cpu time, thus severely interfering with multitasking. Operations in word processors and web browsers become very jerky and erratic, its like using a Mac or PC or something. This is a very serious bug in P96 and Cgx that has been there for 365 days a year for 6 years and they STILL haven't fixed it yet so I will try to implement a workaround in Total Chaos. I am thinking about changing the game so that the color cycling task will use Delay(1) instead of WaitVBlank(1) when the Chaos window is not active. But the color cycling should remain active on the information panels even though the main chaos window has gone inactive so this is REALLY very troublesome for me. Hopefully my hackaround will work without bugs. NOW HACKED AROUND STUPID P96 just crashed my computer! I can't run Chaos on AGA + have Workbench and CED on P96! P96 sux!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well I can run them all at the same time but I can't switch screens between them or I crash and burn. I did not have this problem with CyberGraphX. April 6, 2002: * BUG: You cannot use a % in a dirname in AmigaOS apparently list all fails on any dir which contains a subdir that has a % in its name I tried to "list all" my DL: and it always just stops when it gets to the "Lzx100%PatchedByXav/" directory. H&P sux! SOLUTION: Don't put % signs into dirnames. Someone told me that % means "empty string" in AmigaDOS pattern matching. I don't know if it is true or not. April 7, 2002: Need screengrabbing routine!!!! I took Frederic's idea about the iff routines from the developer CD. It was very much trouble because: 1. The routines don't compile. 2. They were incompatible with OS 3.5+ and wouldn't compile! 3. The makefile didn't work. 4. I spent all day doing around 50 compiles and edits to try to hack and slash the code into working order! Argh! 5. It would have been a million times easier if there was simply some sort of iff.library that actually worked. 6. C sux. 7. Getting this to work is in no way easy. April 8, 2002: I finally got the iffp/ routines to compile into Total Chaos. Hopefully they still work after all the minor changes I had to make to force it to compile. Please note I only attemptee to make the IFF screensave routine work. I made no attempt to include the IFF loading code. Ok it now compiles but the screenshots are only empty files. I had to add __stdargs to this weird stdio_stream function to force it to get arguments from the stack. (I had recompiled everything to use parameters=registers). Now it finally works!!!!!! But there is a weird graphic glitch at the bottom. Trace through it with CPR. 1st add code to put HiResScreen to back then restore it to front at end. * Screenshots now work. * Included Zoltan's updated Magyar catalog and talklist. * Included Frederic's updated Français.catalog * Included Giulio's updated Italiano catalog and talklist. * Joar sent in chaoscredits1.HAM8 and chaoscredits2.ham8. Joseph picked the v1 version to go into the game. DONE. * Joar sent in 6 new Beam spell gfx to replace the 6 awfullest looking Beam spells! YAY! Joar succeeded where Nico and Knut failed! Long live the Joar! :) SimplePPC sent me a "Lines" program to prove a bug in ElboxP96 S3Virge driver. Supposedly this bug is not in the TeamP96 P96 driver. The lines are drawn all outside the window and onto the workbench screen and any other P96 screens in the system when using the buggy driver. April 12, 2002: * Uploaded TotalChaosAGA.lha v4.02 to aminet. Executable filesize=496692 Archive size = 31225784 April 14, 2002: * TotalChaosAGA.lha finally appeared onto aminet around 12:30 p.m. I downloaded it to see if it was ok. I normally dl from aminet at 140,000 cps but today its going really slow at around 79000 cps. It took 7 minutes to download it! 3729 files tested, all files OK. April 15, 2002: * I uploaded 2 example screenshots of TotalChaosAGA onto Aminet. April 16, 2002: * EDITED Features.html, Requirements.html, Legal.html, Contacts.html, Left.html, * I edited Downloads.html and then I tested it to be sure that it worked right. I downloaded TotalChaosAGA.lha from aminet at 145,000 cps! It only took 3.5 minutes! All files test ok. 3729 files tested, all files OK. * I added 3 new animgifs to the website and included them onto certain pages. April 17, 2002: * AUUGH! I just realized that when I converted the .iff screenshots into .gif that the black background was left as transparent! This means those 2 screenshots I uploaded to Aminet look HORRIBLE!!! :( Xav told me to resave them with PPaint so I installed PPaint 7.1 onto my A1200 and loaded/saved all the screenshots again and now they look 100% ok. PPaint seems like a nice program. * REUPLOADED The 2 example screenshots of TotalChaosAGA onto Aminet. * REUPLOADED The TotalChaosAGA.readme onto Aminet. This version has Deutsch and Magyar added. * UPLOADED The TotalChaosAGA website now that the screenshots are fixed. At first many of the gifs appeared damaged. I reuploaded some of them and then they seemed ok. (?) * Urban Mueller refuses to allow the .gif screenshots of TotalChaosAGA onto aminet! He wants them as .jpg! When I showed him that the .jpg version were 3x as big and look worse all he said "Space is not a problem." - Urban Mueller about Aminet on April 17, 2002 I listed him multiple reasons why he should allow .gif screenshots of amiga games onto aminet but he just flatly refuses. :( He is against Amiga games gaining popularity. :( So now I must upload crappy looking screenshots in .jpg format which take up huge amounts of diskspace and take forever to download on 56k bits/second modems. Argh! He also refuses to allow games to have screenshots in the dir with the game! How is anyone going to SEE the screenshots if they aren't there with the game!?!?! Grrrr.... Now I can see why developers dump the Amiga and go to the PC. April 18, 2002: * Deleted superfluous files from Documentation/Deutsch/ * Spent some hours designing the rules for my next Total Chaos Upgrade. April 19, 2002: * Updated the TotalChaosAGA.guide * Stefan reports problems when he tries to choose a bonus spell: YARG! I forgot to include the entire BonusPanelDoor80x64/ dir! * UPLOADED TotalChaosAGA.lha v4.03 to Aminet. TotalChaosAGA.lha = 31291124 bytes 3757 files tested, all files OK. * UPLOADED TotalChaosS1.jpg and TotalChaosS2.jpg to Aminet. * I mailed out the missing gfx files to 3 different players. April 20, 2002: I downloaded some disk fragemention programs that didn't work. A guy wrote me that Chaos crashes his amiga whenever he exits the info panels. I tried to help him figure it out. We think it is something to do with MulitCX evil "remember windows" hack. When he removes MultiCX the game works perfectly. I Wrote down some ideas for some new creatures and did many hours of gfx work for them. April 21, 2002: * My Screenshots appeared onto Aminet today but NOT THE GAME!!!! ARGH! Now people will see the screenshots and download the game and get an incomplete archive! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH AMINET?!?!?! April 22, 2002: 1:55 P.M. TotalChaosAGA.lha finally appeared onto Aminet! Whew! I am about to start hacking and slashing in tons of new code into the game so I must now copy my entire dir into a new dir before I start making all these changes (in case things go wrong). * DELETED: Tons of old unused files totalling around 100 megs. Since I am going copy over this huge 105 meg dir I got to thinking... I wonder how fragmemted my Chaos: partition is? 4.Chaos:> dl:chkfrag/chkfrag/chkfrag -verbose >t:t.txt Total Directories > 867 Total Files > 23704 Total Fragmented Files > 1620 Average Fragmentation > 5 Largest Fragmentation > 381 Here are some examples of the worst fragmented files: 381 Fragments for Chaos:sc/NewGfx/UnusedGfx/Robin/Dalek.amin7S 57 Fragments for Chaos:sc/Chaos_3.5/History2001.txt 341 Fragments for Chaos:sc/Chaos_3.5/gfx/Dat/Tiles 105 Fragments for Chaos:sc/Chaos_3.5/gfx/Dat/CFXTiles 190 Fragments for Chaos:DevCD/CATS_CD.lzx 63 Fragments for Chaos:sc/History2000.txt <-- Redundant. I am deleting it! Remember that before I did this I had just deleted tons of files containing thousands of fragments. I will now makedir Work:Chaos cd chaos: copy all to Work:Chaos/ clone Delete "" all quiet copy Work:Chaos/ all to "" clone My Chaos: Partition should then be defragged. Total Directories > 867 Total Files > 23704 Total Fragmented Files > 636 Average Fragmentation > 12 Largest Fragmentation > 346 346 Fragments for Chaos:sc/NewGfx/UnusedGfx/Robin/Dalek.amin7S 16 Fragments for Chaos:sc/Chaos_3.5/History2001.txt 190 Fragments for Chaos:sc/Chaos_3.5/gfx/Dat/Tiles 64 Fragments for Chaos:sc/Chaos_3.5/gfx/Dat/CFXTiles 190 Fragments for Chaos:DevCD/CATS_CD.lzx I'm not sure that this ChkFrag program can be trusted. I saw some bugs in the output where it reported pathnames that do not exist. I am afraid that it does not truly calculate fragmentation. Every single file always seems to have 1 frag for every 28K in size. I think that might be the size of 1 track on the HD. Who knows? April 23, 2002: * Updated Requirements.html on the website. I have now copied everything from the old Chaos_3.5/ dir into the new Chaos_4.5 dir so that I may now begin the hack & slash process. :) I watched the movie "A.I." ack! Terrible story! April 24, 2002: More gfx work. Interview. FD upset me enough that I couldn't concentrate on coding so I did some research instead and piddled around with some gfx a bit. Argued with FD some more. I'll be glad when the French elections are over. * BUG: For some reason the old screenshot of the Turn 47 battle is corrupted on the new website! Why didn't I see this before?? NOW FIXED. * BUG: Downloads.html says the version is 4.02 but it is really 4.03. NOW FIXED. April 25, 2002: I'm having lots of problems with the counter on the website. I'm sending off the latest version of the website to Xav. Maybe he can fix it? He told me the secret way to fix it. Yahoo! April 26, 2002: *************** 4 EVIL BUGS CAUSED BY THE SAME THING ***************** * BUG: Paul reports to me crashes every time he switches from Main Game screen to workbench screen and clicks on the workbench window. There is no problem with switching from SetupScreen1 or SetupScreen2 back to workbench and clicking in the window. Merely switching screens never causes a problem. Its only when you actually click into another window. * BUG: My machine randomly crashes perhaps 1 time in 10 when switching from main game screen back to workbench screen and clicking in window. * BUG: Anytime I switch from main game screen to workbench screen and click in a window then click back to Total Chaos the color cycler task stops working! It is "there but not there"! It is listed in the system as running yet it somehow isn't doing ANYTHING anymore and it won't respond to commands! This causes the next BUG: * BUG: After clicking into any other non Total Chaos window it becomes impossible to quit the game due to the Color Cycler Task cannot be shut down! You have to leave the game up forever or reset the machine! SOLUTION: After many hours of screwing around and testing and deleteing and reinstalling P96 monitor driver and resetting and reforcing workbench from gfx card into AGA mode (all of these hours of work were caused directly or indirectly by bugs in P96 Elbox S3 Virge driver) I finally figured out what on Earth was going on: Right before I released Total Chaos v4.02 to Aminet I had a great idea! I had figured out a sneaky way to work around one of the bugs in P96 and CGX S3 Virge and other gfx card drivers that have broken Vblanks. I modifed the color cycler task to work with Vblanks when the game window was active and to switch to Delay() when the game window became inactive. Clever huh? Well its a big NO-NO because you cannot call Delay() from a task!!!!! It just freaks out the whole computer. You can only call Delay() from a process!!!!! I have now removed the P96 & CGX bugs workaround (removed the Delay()) So all these bugs are NOW FIXED! ************************************************************************* * End of v4.04