<-- Archived --> (Battle Engine and Combat)

[Xela]

I am going to try and create a mockup gui for the BE tonight. Otherwise most of the stuff is working, just needs a bit of polishing out...

[Xipomus]

FYI i've setup up some backgrounds for render.. only my render pc is in use with a comic project.. that should be done about the 6th of February.

So hopefully i can render it then and i'll drop it on dropbox with a post here.

Good luck setting up the GUI Xela.

[Xela]

Kewl.

I just don't know what to render, Dark believes that there aren't any decent forest BE backgrounds on the net... I didn't check thoroughly but he's prolly right.

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Edit: I got sidetracked so graphics will have to wait till tomorrow

[Xipomus]

I just don't know what to render, Dark believes that there aren't any decent forest BE backgrounds on the net.

I did a forest render for Dark waaay back after the Arena. But that was a more dark render. I still have it somewhere.
Dunno how Dark liked that one.. i never got any feed back over it.

The forest one i know have ready to render is a different set.

I'll post them both when the render pc is done.

[DarkTl]

I don't remember it, it was a long time ago. We can use both forests for sure.

[Xela]

First pics from the BE:



The character who's turn it is gets a reddish frame. Normally only the portrait and bars are shown, when you mousehover over the portrait, the whole window slides out with name, stats in numbers and maybe in future, active effects.
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Everything we had in Jake's BE is working + Rows. Some kinks need to be ironed out but BE is more or less ready. There is a lot to be done in a sense of content and details but it's playable already

Going to get some sleep...

[DarkTl]

Looks good, though I highly dislike some elements, like bars for example. I'll see if there is something good in my db for BE gui.

[Xela]

Looks good, though I highly dislike some elements, like bars for example. I'll see if there is something good in my db for BE gui.

They look more than ok so it's np even if you don't find anything. We'll update graphics closer to 1.0 anyway...

[DarkTl]

I also dislike that window with commands right the center of the screen. Untransparent, huge gui elements should never be in the center, they close the view and kinda force you to act only to get rid of them.
I'd rather have a set of buttons in the bottom of the screen, with icons instead of text, that always located there and don't disappear after you select an action. Like these ones for example (just an example, I don't want to actually use them). I may be able to draw something after we will finish with packs and items.

[Xela]

I also dislike that window with commands right the center of the screen. Untransparent, huge gui elements should never be in the center, they close the view and kinda force you to act only to get rid of them.
I'd rather have a set of buttons in the bottom of the screen, with icons instead of text, that always located there and don't disappear after you select an action. Like these ones for example (just an example, I don't want to actually use them). I may be able to draw something after we will finish with packs and items.

I am not going to create that kind of GUI for beta version of BE, we may change god knows what as we go and it may have to be renamed every time. For now this will but I can make the choices transparent I think.

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So we have this gui, simple ai, all the attacks we had in Jakes BE (not purrfect yet, I kinda rushed things), targeting, rows, some base for events, knocking out/dieing and etc.

Still to do:

- Add overlayer for stats.
- Figure out a way for greater interaction between items and BE + Maybe add some new fields to items if required. <-- I am still foggy about this part.
- Add Changing Rows to profile screens.
- Iron out all kinks in attacks.
- Add more attacks.
- Add explanation of abbreviation used in battle log (because they are hard to guess and full sentences look really bad).
- Add non-attack skills and find graphics for them.
- Add conditions for "Double turns within one battle-queue".
- Test, test, test and test...
- Add to Arena instead of old BE.
- Maybe add separate defence vs magic, based off intelligence and defence stats, or something along those lines.
- Fix sprites where we left empty spacing for offsets.

--
Prolly more... it'll be a while till this is ready

[Xipomus]

First pics from the BE:

Looks good mate.

fyi. Found the old forest clearing render... at least a test version of it.
http://www.iedereenkanlerenduiken.nl/pyt_forest_clearing_firstrender_only175pxof1000px.png

Let me know what you think.

[Xela]

Proportions are prolly a bit off. And landscape where sprites should stand needs to be plain. I'll see if I can load it into BE later...

[DarkTl]

Another cool bg for wildness. Possible bg for the city if we won't find anything more suitable. Possible bg for meadows.

Possible bg for forest, however there probably not enough space for default sprites positions. That's the main problem, usually forest bgs don't leave enough space even for our 6 sprites.

[DarkTl]

- Add overlayer for stats.
- Figure out a way for greater interaction between items and BE + Maybe add some new fields to items if required. <-- I am still foggy about this part.

Let's see.
- Health, mp and vitality are obvious.

- Attack, defense, magic, magic defense, agility. Maybe luck for critical hits. We might not know how to use them yet, but we will, basic stats are useful no matter what.
I don't know why you avoid magic defense so hard, it's just another battle-only stat provided by items and training 

- A new items field, spells damage modificators. Like fire spells damage +5%.

Possible advanced options:
- Damage provided by weapons. We should agree on how to set it if we'll use it. Either it should be an interval, like for example in NWN 2d4 means 2 x dice(4), or it should be one value, like 4, that may or may not be randomised inside BE somehow. Of course NWN way is more fun.

- Perhaps armor provided by items as well. It could be relative or absolute, ie armor 5 could mean -5& damage or -5 damage.

- I recall you wanted dodge. It could be provided by the difference between attack and defence, it could depend on luck and agility, it could be a new evasion stat.

- Add Changing Rows to profile screens.

There are basically three possible formations. All in the first, one in the first, two in the first row. I think it will be simple enough to create icons for them.

[livingforever]

Hi!
Just checking in here to mention this: The UI still is a horrible pain in the ass.
Yes, I can redesign it, but it won't happen this week.
Have fun!