New total of ships and fighters for a Rebellion Remake?

[Slocket]

New total of ships and fighters for a Rebellion Remake?

 

I need to know this answer. I think maybe due to limitations possibly, of the game engine, the maximum number to make the game still fun. For a single 3D battle, 100 capital ships and 1000 fighters per side?

 

I really want ships NOT to be spammed -diplomacy missions, sobatage, espinoige, and troops are going to be of importance morever from just brute force. Your ships are to be valued and tough, not just a pure war RTS game.

 

If it turns out to be a problem, make the fighter back into sprites? (yuck)..Maybe just low polygon models. So far, I figure it will not be a problem for the above.

 

I have made the sprite explosions, a basic panel showing what ship you click on, hull and shield , ship status. I will show a picture in the old thread I am mostly posting in. I would like to show the detail status as a new button pop-up. I am trying to give the most GUI feedback with the old style flavor without hogging up all the pretty pictures.

 

As for task forces, we will see, I never used them that much, but I can give the groups (then some kind of more intelligent commands to make it worth while). I figure with more resolution, I can place lets say 24 types of capital ships hot buttons / groups; maybe 8 fighter types/groups?

 

Opinions please, I am at that point. Been a busy bee with all this Iowa Katrina Storms from Hades here in Iowa (clean up) had to repair/replace my whole roof froma 110 mph wind gust...tornadoes...

 

Oh yes, ships and fighters will have limited protons topedoes to slug around as research upgrades, so you may decide to research 'advanced' proton torpedoes or a gravity well interdector quicker -flavor of Master of Orion.

 

Edit: typo 24 capital ship types instead of 12 for each side (I forgot to double the number ) over the basic starting force, so 32 in total. That is 2x the original game.

Edited July 9, 2008 by Slocket

[elfposer]

100 capital ships should be more then enough- Even in longer (1000 turn) games in multiplayer games we never had battles bigger then 30-40 capital ships each side with around 30 Fighter squads for each one.

 

If someone has more then 100 capital ships he should have stopped laming around earlier, and finished the game before.

[Evaders99]

I am against any arbitrary limits. If a machine can handle thousands of ships at once, why not let it?

As we increase computer hardware to future systems, we should be able to scale even further to higher numbers.

 

If we wanted a small number of ships, we'd be playing Empire at War.

If people want a 1000 vs 1000 ship slugfest, give it to them

[Slocket]

Indeed, if you can muster 1000 capital ships, with enough mines and refinerys, then you can. I just do not know how far I can push the graphics engine. I can know how much memory a single model hogs up the RAM, I have only 1 gig of ram on a old 2.8 Pentium 4 with a ATI 9800XT vid card. Fighter is about 13kb, ship around 137kb but adding a texture will increase that about 100kb. So I guess 10x fighters over ships, and using 500 meg of system memory /256kb ~1800 ships rendered (mipmapping which is working lowers ships farther away so I think 2000 could be achieved). I really do not know, the cpu has to have time to move everything within a 1/60 second frame rate and think. So maybe 500 vs 500 is it for my old computer. Yours could go higher.

 

Sooo...maybe a switch of some kind to allow more ships for bigger battles. I could even have different level of polygon detail models for high end/low end computers, and if people want a really huge battles! Of course maybe more input. EAW had a limit of only what was it around 25 ships per side? I guess there is a limit to what a engine can do graphically compared to number crunching all the stuff going on (everything has to be rendered and moved including lasers bolts and AI thinking).

 

I am just getting a feel for what people think and what they experienced in the old rebellion game. And mostly what would be cool. I believe everyone would want more fighter types and groups.

 

I made a bit of a typo in number of types of capital ships. I meant to say 24. There is no real 'limit' to this, just interface. What does the community think. 24 capital ships to research for each side and additional tech upgrades for all can be applied, with 8 fighter types?

 

Plus those 1000 vs 1000 ship battles can be done with 500 vs 500 then call in reinforcements like EAW. I will try to go for 200 vs 200 for a start and see if it pucks up.

 

And how big of a universe? 200 planets as is original. Higher resolution I can go to 400 I think and squeeze it into the interface. Turn based games are great to allow the computer to render and think alot AI between the turns, there is no real limit to this. And how many characters...scale with size of game...about 60 maximum per side?

[JeZuS]

I have been pondering this, and personally I am not sold on a ship limit either. I see where you are going, but it is not a feature I would be voting for.

 

As far as memory management goes, do you need a new visual object each time you have a ship on screen? I would have thought you only store them in ram (GPU or system) once per ship class with multiple pointers from different units using it.

[Slocket]

There is a command "Clone" so to speak that does make a new object from the original that is loaded in during start up. Unfourtanely, the clones do not maybe have the same independent properties as the parent. I do not fully understand this and how it relates to this darkbasic engine. If I am lucky, then maybe it will not be an issue. I think though if each ship is acting on its own, dynamically as I want them to, then I need a seperate entity for each ship.

 

Clones work for such thing as a bunch of static trees, or other things that do not really move independently of each other. As far as I can tell, from reading tutorials and examples, each ship is moving on its own and has to be rendered in real 3D space upon the 2D screen. All those calculations need to be made. If I had say a RPG game with a forest of trees then I could just clone a few variety of them and make it look like I have thousands of trees since they are all behaving the same within a tree type. I think. good question. I do not know.

[DarthTex]

I think I understand your concern with regarding the number of ships and/or fighters that would have to be displayed for a space battle. My question would be: if you want to see the entire fleet (or even larger portions) the scale would be such that "ship detail" would be almost non-existant; why not adopt the Rebellion way of handling this? Having a "close", "medium", and "far" version of ship detail. Having the computer render 1000 ships at low detail (an overall view) shouldn't be more taxing (graphically) than rendering approximately a dozen ships (at close quarters) at high detail (at least I think so, but what do I know about these modern fangled programs & stuff ). Just my two bits worth

 

I really don't like the idea of having limits for the number of ships/fighters, but ... you have to deal with this somehow.

 

As for the number of task forces/fighter squadrons for the tactical battle; if this could be setup automatically (initially) from the fleet data and be modified thereafter that would be a good start. So basically this could be unlimited or maxed out to one ship per task force, but who would ever want to do that? It would be overally time consuming micro-managing, but it would be the most flexible.

 

For the fighters, there should be at least a couple of more "missions" other than the original "attack capital ships" & "attack fighters"; how about "defend task force/fighter squadron" (then select the task force/fighter squadron); when selecting a specific enemy capital ship to attack, you can make that a list or priority targets; being able to attack "specific" enemy fighter types or groups.

 

Just some ideas

[Moribundus]

No limits! No, no no. Or if you want to cap the gameplay somehow, do it so that it can be modified, eg. server can choose max. number of ships, depending on it's CPU power. The possible reason why commercial game have this sort of hardcoded stuff might be quality assurance. It's the easiest way to make sure user doesn't break his game and won't be disapointed. However you aren't developing a commercial game, so you don't have to answer to the market (and management), only to the players (and they say NO to limits ).

 

Indeed, if you can muster 1000 capital ships, with enough mines and refinerys, then you can. I just do not know how far I can push the graphics engine. I can know how much memory a single model hogs up the RAM, I have only 1 gig of ram on a old 2.8 Pentium 4 with a ATI 9800XT vid card. Fighter is about 13kb, ship around 137kb but adding a texture will increase that about 100kb. So I guess 10x fighters over ships, and using 500 meg of system memory /256kb ~1800 ships rendered (mipmapping which is working lowers ships farther away so I think 2000 could be achieved). I really do not know, the cpu has to have time to move everything within a 1/60 second frame rate and think. So maybe 500 vs 500 is it for my old computer. Yours could go higher.

 

It actually works a bit differently than you might think (If I understood your post correctly). Common data like textures and vertex data are copied to the graphics card and are referenced during rendering only indirectly. This minimizes memory and bandwidth requirements of your card (and system). Any reasonable 3D engine takes this into account and allows you to "share" hw resources across different models. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Dark Basic, so I cannot help you there, but know that 1 GB RAM is enough For example my Terra with sample scene consisting of 350 ships (3K triangles each) eats only 1 MB RAM

 

Bigger issue is how many triangles your card can actually draw per frame (in millions per sec ) and how efficient your engine is, but you should be safe, unless you're using fancy visual effects (which you can't with the basic Dark basic) or extremely high-poly models.

[Slocket]

Thanks for some insight into this. Maybe I should just try out a quick 1000 model load stress test and see what it does. I really hope this Dark Basic Engine can handle it. I do know I have the Pro edition that can be written over to C+ language, to gain alot in FPS, if I read off their website correctly, compiling it with MS Visual 2008 Express edition. I guess that compiler library is more effecient for generating the code.

 

If it cannot do it then I am in big trouble! I hope by keeping the FX simple, and low poly counts, it could handle it. Well, I better check it out, else I will need to use another engine. I think their are benchmark tools to see how much memory the engine is using.

[Evaders99]

Textures are going to be your main memory issue (at least for the graphics card). One instance of an object should share the texture of another instance of that same model.

 

For reference, the HW2: Warlords models have textures normally around 1 MB to 5 MB. The highest is the Sovereign, something like 27 MB. Given decent mid-range cards now hold 256 MB, 512 MB, or even 1 GB of video memory, I don't think you'd reach that limit, esp if you're rendering what is essentially a space background with some ships. If we were talking a complicated 3D FPS with walls and floors and trees and monsters, yea you may definitely exceed that limit.

 

Of course you do have to worry about how fast the video card can process. You may end up with having to deal with how many vertex or pixel shaders are needed. Older cards are limited that way, while newer cards have more generic programmable shaders to handle either case. Still there is a finite limit on how many vertices or pixels you can process and still make it playable (30 FPS or larger)

 

(I realize I used FPS twice.. one as First-person Shooter and the other as Frames-per-second hehe)

[Slocket]

You know, I just did a load test. You guys are correct! These ships have a low polygon model with a half decent (though not finished blank placeholder) texture. About 256 kb total. I rendered 1000 VSD ships (though they are not moving so no cpu cycle there). The Windows task managers says the game engine PF memory usage increased from 50 meg to 130 megs. So I do not think it will be a problem for that as you say, my hard limit is a total of 65,000 objects (images are separate). That is good news. Here is a picture. Just for laughs I added in a line from the movie "300".

DarkBasic may not be a great engine, but for simple render stuff, I think it can handle it!

 

1000 ships will blot out the Sun...

 

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4535/10kvsdpp5.png

 

EDIT: actually that is 1000 ships. Uses 100 meg system ram. I can only go to 3000. system ram says 1 gig.

Edited July 16, 2008 by Slocket

[JeZuS]

I just wanted to say how awesome that pic is.

 

DIE REBEL SCUM!

[Slocket]

If you got that many ships, that is one big battle. Opps! I found out that I goofed. That is only 1000 ships. I also made them move, so the cpu can do the cycles.

 

I made it to 3000 before my old video card says 500 meg limit and/or the system memory says 1 gig RAM. So the limit of my ATI 9800 XT 256 vram and 1 gig RAM is at its limit. So others may get to 10,000. It is either my video card, system RAM, or the engine..

 

Maybe if I make, DarthTex said and in original game, different LOD models for far distance away to show nice model close, then medium, then low poly model. I wonder if that has to be done in the engine or I must program what model to load in, and discard. I am learning the hard way.

 

We are the Clones...

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7172/3kvsdla0.th.png

 

Still. That is alot of ships!

[Slocket]

Sorry for the double post.

 

OK, I guess I understand the problem as was pointed out by Moribundus and Evaders99. The regular commands from DarkBasic Pro does not reference (point to) the loaded original specific model such as the VSD.x. I have at about 70 kb and loading 10,000 times into seperate memory locations in an unique instance of each object is not the way to go. It hogs up RAM extremely fast. I want a solid 60 Frames Per Second. 30 minimum.

 

I would have to limit the number of ships (not fighters so much) per side and make them more strategic in the 3D battle -you can still have thousands in your empire, but only so many to fight in the battle engine, calling in re-inforcements like they did in EAW. The game should be about strategy and saving your valuable capital ships, not a RTS slug fest, which negates for gameplay the whole reason for diplomacy, troops, and agent missions. Why bother? with ship repairs and detail damage and such. Use the 'Big Stick' approach is too RTS.

 

I do believe obviously the engine I am using is not the greatest, but... I think I found some solutions.

 

Reading more into the manual, I can convert what I wrote into your basic VC++ and use custom made DLL that I can make to do what I want it to do at low level. Then compile it using MS free 2008 Visual Express. Nice idea and ability.

 

Another solution is my now learned knowledge, there are advanced command techniques already built into the DB Pro engine. I can use MEMBLOCK commands. I've seen this reading other programming game books. By using these, I can copy the original model mesh into a memory block in RAM, then reference that specific MESH and IMAGE, TEXTURE from that 'one' small memory spot location. Thus achieving what Moribundus and Evaders99 pointed out. I hope it works.

 

I do thank you gentlemen for steering me into the correct direction, and hopefully I can solve this ship limit issue before I continue on. Else I would be forced into a limit on the ship battles. Or use a better engine!

[DarthTex]

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7172/3kvsdla0.th.png

 

Still. That is alot of ships!

I better start jotting down ship names for future games, ... a lot of ship names

 

Please have your game automatically suggest a ship name when construction begins (for both the player and the AI). I really hate the AI running out of names and then doing stupid things like Escort Carrier #10, Bulk Cruiser #21, etc. I also hate trying to come up with names after constructing a plethora of ships. This is where the computer can help out with suggestions

 

Imperial starship names

Rebel Alliance starship names

 

If you don't mind

[Slocket]

A good idea, those links will be helpful, I need alot of names! Good news! By using a 'Clone' command I reduced the application system memory back down close to the normal 50 (few ships) to 70 meg system RAM (for 10,000 ships) instead of 1000 meg RAM hog.

 

The only real limitation now is my old video card limit of 400 million triangles per second. I aslo changed the frame rate to SYNC 30. So really it is not the CPU nor the system RAM, just how many triangle 'polys' need to be made and most cards today should blow mine away. I will keep as an idea some medium amd low res models to use, if it needs to be. Substitute low poly model for far away between frame sync would get to 100,000 I think (they become practically dots on the screen). Here is truely 10,000 ships at full detail.

 

10,000 B.C.

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/751/10kvsdux3.png

[DarthTex]

Could you show a video of the 10,000 VSD's assaulting the planet?

[Slocket]

Could you show a video of the 10,000 VSD's assaulting the planet?

 

I wish I could right now, but do not worry; I have a very nice in game Death Star that shoots a multipoint laser beam that hits a planet in game and blows it up with smoke and ring particles, just like in the movie. I am not finished with it yet, but it is a real kicker.

 

In this remake, you will see the Death Star slowly get closer to the planet, and it will fire on enemy ships, and then you can blow the planet up if you win the fight (or/and a timer countdown in range); but of course if the Rebels have fighters, they get at least one shot at the Death Star Run; and more Runs if they have and maintain fighter superiority. Then the Death Star goes 'Boom!'

 

That all will be in real time in game, not the movie clip (I am afraid LA may get upset if I pass around their movie cuts from the original Rebellion). Of course, you can always add them back in using your movies off the disk.

[Moribundus]

Hmm, what about audio? How does it sound it when all the ships fire at once? Doesn't it distort he sound a bit? My guess is it does (and quite a lot)

[Slocket]

Will the audio overflow its buffers? I hope the engine can handle multiple sounds, in a way similiar to the model loading. I was reading some OpenAL sound tutorials and they talk about how to load in sounds into temporary buffers in memory to be played; until the max of the sound card is reached. (other commands does sound exist test, is it playing, all co-ordinated into a maximum mix of sounds in a queue).

 

I think there are checks that can be made to how much a sound card can take, maybe also for a video card, since everyone's computer is set up different. It would solve and adjust for cards and video cards that may not be up to it. Something more to check. I think I can just load up of bunch of sounds and see what happens. A mix of maybe 16 sounds or a horrible screaching sound of 10,000 turbolaser firing.

[Moribundus]

No no, what I meant was interference of waves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference), although I couldn't remember the proper term. If two sound samples (waves) are played in very short sequence, the resulting sound very "distorted" by the interference (try playing two samples within few ms and hear what I mean ). Now that I think of it...perhaps one possible solution might be to use more than one sample of the same sound to add variability to the mix (or noise ) or keep track of each sample and simply skip it's playback if it's already started playing recently (in ms possibly).

[DavidAdas]

 

We are the Clones...

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7172/3kvsdla0.th.png

 

Wow. If I ever had that kind of fleet show up at my door, I'd quit the game for life lol. What happens when you hit fleet group 1? Does half the screen light up? Sweet Jesus lol.

[Slocket]

yeh, 10,000 ships is a bit overkill.

 

It turns the night monitor into a very bright GREEN color.

[JanDeis]

How come this thread died? I'm bumping this because this would be interesting to see in the near future..

 

No no, what I meant was interference of waves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference), although I couldn't remember the proper term. If two sound samples (waves) are played in very short sequence, the resulting sound very "distorted" by the interference (try playing two samples within few ms and hear what I mean ). Now that I think of it...perhaps one possible solution might be to use more than one sample of the same sound to add variability to the mix (or noise ) or keep track of each sample and simply skip it's playback if it's already started playing recently (in ms possibly).

 

So if we can restrict the play of sounds (which is definately possible) we can avoid that distortion. Maybe we can also do a "distance to object" test from the camera and only play the sounds close to the camera? And maybe alerts could be fed through the GUI via text instead of more sounds?

 

And as SLocket said, 10,000 would be overkill. So maybe the cpu power that it takes to reder the extra 9,000 ships could be used to render the enemy fleet, manage sounds, move the models, and particle effects like lasers, explosions, etc. If 10,000 ships can be loaded on the screen no problem though, I don't see why a low poly space battle with 1,000 ships per-side would be a problem...

[Slocket]

The game engine does restrict far away sounds from playing. There is fora ll cards a sound buffer limit on how many sounds can be played at once. The sounds are loaded up into the sound buffers 'files in memory'. Then the 3D calaculation are done to determine the mix and sound levels, etc. Using DirectX sound program funtions that come with DX9. So in reality you never hear 10,000 laser firing. Only those close lasers and engine sounds, explosions, all mixed together.

 

correct about interference. Some times a common mistake in programming. hardware delay etc. Causing beat frenquency (F1 -F2)

http://www.podcomplex.com/guide/physics.html

The game program must make sure what sound is being played, what is loaded and exists, then freeing up that memory and resources after it is played (mixed together). (so there is no interference as stated above, I wrote the program so each sound is tracked and make sure if one is being played 'exist'). I think maybe 16 dynamic sounds can be mixed and played at once on my very old SB card? So far I had no problems. The screen lighting up green is a bit of humor.

 

I think 1000 captial ships per side should be fine in a given battle. I want the game to be strategic and tactical, else why care if one or two captial ship get blown away. Why make each ship have a detail damage model. I want each ship to count for something and be valuable and complex. Not a simple RTS mindless million unit Zerg bum rush.

 

Even more so than in the original Rebellion. Similiar to StarFleet Battles you have armor, shields, shield generators, engines, power plant, auxillary power, hyperdrive, targeting control, life support, tractor beams, damage control, ship marines, officers, hangars, missiles, command and control, etc.