Slocket

Have you looked at RebEd mission editor? There is a TB editor in there that shows and changes what the orginal Rebellion probability Tables are. They were based on (and this is in the manual) a score and look up tables. The score was based upon the agents and decoys trying to get through each was tested against the foilers/enemy forces detection. Diplomacy mission was based only on up on diplomacy stat and planet loyality. Sabotague based upon combination of espinague and combat skill rating. etc. But those mission can be foiled by detection checks by enemy forces on the planet upon entering the system, and while on the ground. What the actual algorythms were and are is a guess.

Well try it and see how it works. It might also help to send all messages at once in a single packet (compressed if possible). Microsoft recommends to keep your bandwidth under 64 kbps, which isn't that much (depends on your desired network framerate). But I'm sure you'll make it work It's sad with DB going to be Vista only. I have recently downgraded to WinXP, since Vista managed to destroy themselves through some auto-update (I suspect .NET service pack being the culprit). I hope they keep DX9 though. Sorry, I just posted. Thanks for some info on maximum data rate. I think i can do it since this game is not that complicated for a RTS part. Even though they may go DX10, I think the DX9 stuff will still run for a long time I hope. There are alot of games made in the last 10 years I do wish to keep playing, so I want to stay with XP. Eventually in the future, the code can be upgraded as needed without too much effort. I hope too, since that is what I know. As long as people can run XP and normal Vista, I have the DX9 DarkBasic Pro edition and I can keep gong for quite awhile. Maybe MS wants us all to go XBOX> The fellow did say the same, try to keep it in one packet (instead of a whole bunch of smaller ones), he gives alot of tips and tricks in a tutorial. Another trick you mention is compression. According to encoding theory, I can take the data for hull health and shield strength and combine it into one number for example using a codec. Thus that one number is only half the size to transmit the same data. It does require the PC game program to encode and decode, but the computer CPU is much faster than the net connection. The use this for streaming video and audio. I can compress say a WAV file from 2 megs down to only a tiny 50 kb OOG file. Same for video. By using the same techniques, I can cram a whole lotta data into that one packet to the limit of the Shannon Bandwidth Theory limit. The PC game has the key to compress it, send it down the internet, then decompress it at the receiving computer. Of course redundacy error checking must be in place, but generally you can get alot of data through (depending and how much error the gmae can stand).

OK the previous post is a bit long (who needs to know the commands?). I read on the forum of Game Creators alot fo stuff about Network gaming. I read real life examples used in games, article on packets size, loss, checking, error if packets are loss, throttle control etc. MP opens up a whole new game theory on how to send enough data to keep the game going and not enough. I check for lag, packet size and control. If I have up to around 1000 objects going on, most of thestuff does not need updated every frame. I would use the HOST to keep track and send out the data packs below the MTU of around 1300 bytes to about 4 per second should be good. The ships and projectiles willl keep flying and moving to their logic, every so seconds make sure the action keystoke inputs coming back from the CLIENT computers are actually matching the true ShipLocation () data and stuff to make sure they are staying on course. If a command to move your ship to x,y,z location the ship will by itself try to make it there on its own, the actual path is predictive if packets are lost (which will accur) to show a smooth motion. I think this game is simple enough in physics that I can keep track of alot of stuff (inputs form the client players) and then making sure things are going the way it should every so often so to speak. There are alot of articles on this Network theory, and thankfully I have some experience with 'Information Theory' on getting what is important back and forth to all the players. I suppose it means you can have more than one verse one player (you could have two players controling two Imperial fleets against two Rebel fleets within the same game battle). Or just let the AI fill in. I was going to keep it simple for the initial game to one vs one or vs the AI. DB seems to be a bit buggy they claim to Network games (more likely its other upgrade GDK has the problem). BD pro is using DirectPlay form DX 8.1 it seems. I think MS wants to drop that. But it should still work just fine on XP and Vista using up to DX9 libraries. Heck, are not people still able to play Rebellion 1998 over the Net without problems? I think peeps may be having trouble due to the physical hardware physics going on with transmitting packets over a crappy internet connection which is inherent. Lucky I learned electronics hardware so I understand very well what is going on there. I do not expect to have any probelms writing in a MP component. I hope. I am a n00b to MP software coding since I never done it before. I guess I will be in for an exciting lesson of Network Packet transmission Theory and Design.

Yes, you definitely know your programming skill, Moribundus. I appreciate your insights into what can happen and avoid pitfalls to run into. Does DB use TCP or UDP, hybrid? That is a good question which I never looked into to be honest. DB can make a game over the NET or play LAN. I know of these basic commands. Now the TB messaging I was going to do is going to run into a problem in the 3D real time combat. I was going to send very basic messages between only two people to start, so that lossy packets will not be a problem, since there really is not a whole lot of data going through. I need to look into this! It can handle both TCP and UDP. I seen this plugin that seems to go more for the TCP route. Says its easy to use. I can trust this persons free code or make my own. Sadly, I think the company is going to ditch DX9 of DB pro and go with DX10 Pro integrated with Microsoft's method of changing every five years (rather annoying). MS seems to lend alot of free support to DB. It is on their website for making games, MS seems to promote this Dark Basic stuff. It is where I found it years ago. ------------------------ Multisync Multisync is a multiplayer plugin designed for DarkBASIC Professional, utilizing the TCP protocol and the client/server networking model. It is best used in games where it is important that data isn't lost, as the TCP protocol makes sure data is always delivered to its recipient. This means that the range of games it is useful for is large, ranging from simple card games to complex RTS games. It is very easy to use, and requires minimum networking knowledge. Features: Windows Firewall integration. Easy client/server setup. Easily manageable client ID's. Supports most standard datatypes: byte, word, long(dword), integer, float, string. Informative error reporting. Stable and robust. ------------------------------ SEND NET MESSAGE FLOAT Player Number, Float Value SEND NET MESSAGE INTEGER Player Number, Integer Value SEND NET MESSAGE MEMBLOCK Player Number, Memblock Number SEND NET MESSAGE MEMBLOCK Player Number, Memblock Number, Guarentee Packet SEND NET MESSAGE STRING Player Number, String Return Value = NET MESSAGE INTEGER() Return Value = NET MESSAGE FLOAT() Return Value = NET MESSAGE STRING$() NET MESSAGE MEMBLOCK Memblock Number PERFORM CHECKLIST FOR NET CONNECTIONS PERFORM CHECKLIST FOR NET SESSIONS CREATE NET GAME Gamename, Playername, Number Of Players CREATE NET GAME Gamename, Playername, Number Of Players, Flag FREE NET GAME JOIN NET GAME Session Number, Playername SET NET CONNECTION Connection Number SET NET CONNECTION Connection Number, Address Data PERFORM CHECKLIST FOR NET PLAYERS FREE NET PLAYER Player Number GET NET MESSAGE Return Value = NET GAME EXISTS() Return Value = NET GAME NOW HOSTING() Return Value = NET GAME LOST() CREATE NET PLAYER Playername Return Value = CREATE NET PLAYER(Playername) Return Value = NET MESSAGE EXISTS() Return Value = NET MESSAGE PLAYER FROM() Return Value = NET MESSAGE PLAYER TO() Return Value = NET MESSAGE TYPE() Return Value = NET PLAYER DESTROYED() Return Value = NET PLAYER CREATED() SEND NET MESSAGE BITMAP Player Number, Bitmap Number, Guarentee Packet SEND NET MESSAGE SOUND Player Number, Sound Number, Guarentee Packet SEND NET MESSAGE MESH Player Number, Mesh Number, Guarentee Packet NET MESSAGE SOUND Sound Number NET MESSAGE BITMAP Bitmap Number NET MESSAGE IMAGE Image Number NET MESSAGE MESH Mesh Number SEND NET MESSAGE IMAGE Player Number, Image Number, Guarentee Packet

I would like to add on multiplayer. Network is important and I have thought about it. Lucky for me there is code inside DarkBasic to make life simple. The data packets are received ascyncronized, the packets have a the day time stamp for the game (day 100 for example) and it waits for the response. IE both players must wait for both to send and receive data before the next 'day' turn TBS can occur. Thus they are always in sync. This will not work so good for a Real Time Game. The most simple data exchange is darn near like IM e-mail, the time for delay in TBS would be around say 100 ms which is totally not good for real time shooters. But it is most easy to do, and reliable for TBS. Combat 3D is real time, but I make the hidden delay of packet sent and up date invisible since in reality your playing 100 ms in the past and both sides. It seems smooth but that is the illusion. Einstein's time dilation --------------------- Sorry for my spelling, I was forced to go to a public school.

The C languages are the best for modern games plus knowledge in all that DirectX and such. Many use languages that are off shoots to specificly deal with certain avenue of prgramming. Such as graphics heavy, web based, Xbox/PC multiplatform gaming language stuff I think they call XNA. It gets real complex and may take years of college to learn in order to do anything really useful. A easy way was Visual Basic but the graphics are very limited. If you want to make quick fast games to get the hang of it -this is not really for a career per sey- use that simple Dark Basic Pro. It does all the hard work for you. I taught myself, and just do it for a hobby when I got time. I had to take a part time job to pay the bills in this nasty economic down turn. In the end, how much time do you want to spend? Do you want to do it professionally? A full blown game can get very messy and wanky with the simple languages, thus C and other higher level languages maybe the only real way to go. It depends on how complex of a game you want to make.

Good ideas. I would like a more complex economic model. I want each capital ship to be important, not a throw away. I want fewer capital ships, not a thousand over each planet. Each ship will have a complex model to build. If you lose a ISD to your enemy, you will feel it. This is part of the multiple strategy; economic warefare, agent missions, diplomacy, etc. These are important too. I will have ground battle, I like them. But the ground battle will be a more simplified 2D card based mini-game attack/defend. It will not be a tedious 3D ground assault as was in EAW. Much quicker, but more fun to watch. A decent AI governor that you can mold, to take care of basic micro-management of each planetary system if you wish. That was a bit tedious in th original game.

Yo Amigo! Indeed, welcome back. Plus with several new Rebellion project versions comings up for Summer, Rebellion Cards and pics may just be in great demand.

Believe it or not, in real life the galaxy rotates as a whole at the same angular speed. That means the center, mid and outer rim rotate as one. That was a huge surprise... Thus the astromoners and physicst assume there must be alot more gravity to hold everything together, they call this unknown unseen mass "Dark Matter". This is no BS.

I am remaking the whole game. It takes more than a year. I am using recycled and new graphics from rebellion. There are alot of different size pictures. I will take them all. See my thread or my post around this forum about the Rebellion 2008: A New Source. So I am not limited to 30 per side. I can do whatever I want. THX for any pictures you can give me. It is not going into the old Rebellion game. It is for a new rewrite of the game. Should make old fans happy, plus no more head aches getting to run on XP or Vista I hope.

OK. There is no hurry. I have access to quite a few character infos. I am not close to being finished yet. I can use a certain format, for a place holder, so new pictures can be swapped out in place of the old ones. I wanted more agents per side, about 40 per side. For a large universe of 300-400 planets. How many total characters do you have? I can use more than the stock game. Plus what size bitmap size are your pics? IE How much information in pixels and color depth to be specific. Example, small pics and big pics. 40 by 40 pixils at 32 bit color (or 256). I want peeps to be able to set the 'common' pool size of major and minor characters to recruit from in a game, I also thought about some gameplay change where several characters can be recruited to both sides, so it gives a choice to recruit fast and early to get the most characters out of the pool, and balanced againts getting agents out into the field to work doing missions. Plus more of a chance that characters can be traitors and join the other side. You just never know. Traitor Missions to make convince an enemy agent to flip sides. So characters will have a Morale rating so to speak that is hidden from the player. Also in battles, characters can impart special ability, along with standard units they command while in a battle, ground assault, or Special Missions. RPG light just to spice up the characters and missions. Some are good at doing certain things. A bit of role playing. Card games -with a RTS touch/ turn based sort of strategy.

pictures are good. I assume the text is the same? I need to place them into a new format.

THe application "before_the_storm .exe" says it contains a low level virus. Could just be my scanner. Can you make it so just the pictures? I only need the pics in what ever format you wish. Running EXE is bad for me. Bundle pics up in seperate foler and zip download. No EXE. ThX

Can you PM me? I do not wish my e-mail to be public. I would be able to use those in a new remake of SW Rebellion ( I suppose so would others). I can give you the credit. I would like to see them.

I never got to it, since I decided to try to make a new version of Reb 2. But the things I learned will be helpful. Yes, a real Windows GUI application written in C+ would be more user friendly and look good. I should fire up Visual Basic 6 (which I have) and it makes things quick too, but it is seems very restrictive for manipulating Files: I need to learn more about it. That would take ful C+ and Microsoft's free Express compiler to do hex data. Sooo...since my skills are rusted to say the least... ...I have made editors for the new Reb 2 , they are simple Windowed DOS command line like programs but it will read in a hex file of .dat just like the original files of Rebellion and manipulate the hex data within that file. The progam I am using is really easy to use, it reads in files, change the data, then output file. I guess I should be able to flip one out quickly if you want to try it out. It is based upon the code Editor I made to go with the New Source Reb 2 Galaxy Mapper. (I know, it was done 3 months ago, but I tried to make things too perfect and pretty, which is not realistic, so I am just going to 'get it out the door' and see where I need to go from there). IE. I would read in the savegame file, look for that particular 'pattern' of hex data (according to that editing thread) associated with that planet number (Coruscant was 166 decimal) then change: 1). Planet energy present/max 2). Planet mines present/max 3). The loyalty number?? -I never could figure out from looking at it. Nor could I completely understand the format pattern for the troops, ships, and buildings on the planet. I think someone does know how its done. Some of the those numbers for troops, ships etc 'look' familiar. Remember that chart that you sent me? It diagramed what was known about the savegame format. It be useful to make a Savegame Editor for gameplay to set up planets (either custom or random or script) changing the total Energy, Mines, basically everything? I know I can do Energy and Mines. I would like to figure out those loyalty numbers. I am learning that I should not be a perfectionist and just put something out I know that will work for now, and always can improve upon it later. I think just having even a primitive editor with limited editing may generate enough interest to warrant the community to really put the Mark I Eyeballs to that savegame format to elucidate that which evades me. --------------- I even thought about writing and AI module so to speak which can take in the multiplayer data and then it can spit back out its moves into the game. IE Instead of playing against a Human, I can take that data savegame or multiplayer data and you would be playing against the new AI.

You can edit the savegame to give the AI a huge advantage. I was going to write a simple editor to do it over in the Rebellion Editing Thread. Increase power, change loyalty, starting conditions. But the AI is really, rather lacking. I sat back and just let the AI try to conquer me, it took over hundreds of turns even though Coruscant was undefended. I wanted to see what routines the AI used to play with.

Oh, that is about as good as 'Babylon A.D.'

I like the original turn based (stop for battles) of the original "Rebellion" (also similiar to "Total War" series). In a big strategy game I do not want to get hurried by the RTS nature of Sins. Too much annoying micromanagement on a large scale universe. Then again, I am old school, and just plain older. I like to take my time in a game.

I upgraded my video card to a HD 3650 and it works. Sometimes I think maybe the sound card. The installer wants to run a opening window with sound before it installs. If there is a way to bypass that installer screen. Can you take the full install folder from your other computer and just copy the whole thing onto your problem computer. Then update the registry so the computer can find it and your optical drive.

Remember espiniague missions are important to 'detect' those fleets in motion. I would leave that part of 'detection' in the game, instead of a flat out radar. I do like the concept of waypoint, more limited travel. But I think a sabataque mission should be able to be done behind enemy lines just like the original and in real life.

Oh it is always good to learn something new or how to do someting in a new way. It can come in handy. Welcome to the forum goryani! I am glad you still like SW Rebellion. We all would like to ressurect this good old diamond in the rough game to its greater glory. So it will run on new computers and OS, plus the 5 essentials for gameplay such a decent AI to fight against, and to make in more moddable via XML or in my humble version, text files (custom script but simple to use). You can change constants and scripted events, make your own story scenarios too! I only had a minor in computer science decades ago, but wow this old dog of me can still learn a new trick! I wish we had computers like this back in the 1970's when I grew up. I would have earned a degree in computer science (programming) instead. Alot more money and fun!

There is no way to add another faction without the source code. Two player game. One vs. One MP, or the AI in SP. Thus many, and I, try to create a new game, or remake so you can change alot of things...but I had no idea of a new faction planned. Maybe something for the future. It is taking me alot more time than originally thought to get things done. Plus real life issues take my time away from gamming as of late (part-time job -was retired- due to investment income lost). But I hope we all finish our projects. It is a good thing that many are working on different versions. If one drops, the others can keep going where the last left off. Well, that is my long winded answer to a simple question.

Agree. The original multiple windows based drag and drop it a real "drag" alright. Why not just display 12x TIE Fighters instead of a iconic list of twelve pictures of TIE Fighters? I feel it too. There must be a better way, you would think.

Thx Arcanewinds. I did make so it can be in a window mode, so that can be resized horizontal or verticle, bigger and smaller, within your monitors native resolution. Thus the game will be 1024*768, but by using window mode it should display just fine (though it would look like a smaller box view). You can stretch it like a normal window application to adjust any Hzl or Vrt elongation. edit: Sorry everyone for the delay. Just busy with other stuff I need to take of.