Blood Frontier Alpha

by Acord on 09/20/2007 03:31, 344 messages, last message: 07/10/2008 09:56, 212896 views, last view: 05/16/2024 18:54

The Blood Frontier alpha is almost finished. I need one more thing: A master server. If anyone is interested, please contact me so I can change the necessary code to the IP address/ports required etc.

I will also need skilled people to try and compile the finished code for Macintosh and *nix. I've added no new files, but did remove ALL of the RPG related source code, so remember to do that before compiling. Also, make sure to rename the EXE or equivalent file and set it up so that it does not install over top of Sauerbraten.

This was developed under windows, but it should work with everything. I've *tried* to avoid windows specific stuff in the code, but I'm far from an expert coder.

Changes:
*Changed movement and gravity
*Added regeneration. Players do not constantly regenerate health, only after several seconds of non-combat actions such as shooting, being shot, or reloading.
*Health pickups/enhancements removed in favor of regeneration
*ALL NEW CONTENT. If I left anything that belongs to someone else/forgot to change it, please let me know so I can rectify it immediately.
*Most weapons have infinite ammunition, but must be reloaded when the clip is empty.
*Grenades have limited ammunition, but are very lethal.
*Most weapon behaviors are slightly different.
*Weapons now affect your actual aim when fired.
*Added a built-in snipe mode for the rifle, which will eventually become part of a secondary fire mode for almost all weapons. Bound to RMB by default.
*Removed RPG components
*Locked FOV to make gameplay fair. This may be changed in the future.
*Locked first person mode to make gameplay more fair, as third person mode allows you to see around corners.
*Added reload functionality, bound to the middle mouse button by default. So is repammo.
*All power-ups were removed. A self-regenerating player with infinite ammunition is pretty powerful already.

Gameplay:
If I'm thinking correctly here, the gameplay should become more centered around using cover and laying down suppressive fire. Could be wrong though - we'll just have to see what turns out.

This release is multi-player only - very little of the single player version is ready, except for the models and some stats. As a result, I'm leaving them out of this release.

I'm not educated as to how the -k switch works yet, so this is a *stand-alone* release. Hopefully, the next one will be under the aegis of Sauermod.

No new gamemodes yet, I want to get feedback first. There will be forums set up on the Blood Frontier sourceforge page for this.

Keep in mind that this is an *alpha*, and as such there are a lot of things missing, such as single player and some maps are not fully populated with models and ambient sounds yet. There is one known and annoying bug with the rocket launcher, being that it doesn't always damage the owner.

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#32: Re: bugs

by Quin on 09/21/2007 14:44, refers to #30

Yeah, I'll be helping Acord on the code/engine/packaging side of things soon, once I've merged/written the code and sorted out some revisions I've been doing to SauerMod's engine. Could definitely benefit from my experience, and will probably give him more time to create instead of hacking together code he doesn't understand :P

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#33: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by SheeEttin on 09/21/2007 15:36

Downloaded it, and I think it'll be fun--once it's finished. Right now, I cant compile from source (see Drakas' post), but the precompiled binaries work.

However, a lot of textures are missing or under a different name. For example, the crosshair has been renamed "bfcrosshair.png", but the game still looks for "crosshair.png". Same for many other files.

Also, the game looks for packages/models/vwep/rocket/tris.md3, but it's named tris.MD3, which is an entirely different file on case-sensitive filesystems.

I've only played a bit of the first map (in singleplayer), but I think that if that's any indication of the rest of the game, a flashlight is a must.

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#34: Re: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by SheeEttin on 09/21/2007 15:38, refers to #33

And one more thing: It may just be bad naming, but whenever I switch to a new weapon, it takes a really long time (about two or three seconds) to load something (the hudguns?) into memory. After you've had the weapon out once, it goes away.

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#35: Re: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by SheeEttin on 09/21/2007 15:45, refers to #34

Make that two more things.
Since you distribute it in a zip, Linux permissions are lost. That's the reason Sauerbraten and SauerMod are distributed in a tar/bz2 archive. (The "executable" bit is part of permissions, which tells the OS that a file can be executed. Without it, sauerbraten_unix doesn't execute until it's set. After you set it, it says there are no binaries for your platform (because the binaries are not executable).)

(Your scripts also use the Windows newline, which breaks all the scripts on Linux.)

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#36: Re: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by Drakas on 09/21/2007 15:59, refers to #35

Simply remove the RPG bits from the Makefile, will solve everything.
and dos2unix for the enet/configure.

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#37: Re: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by SheeEttin on 09/21/2007 16:25, refers to #36

I got the dos2unix part fine, but the problem with compiling is this:

sheeettin@sheeettin-kubuntu:~/Desktop/tmp/Blood Frontier/src$ make
make -C enet/ all
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/sheeettin/Desktop/tmp/Blood Frontier/src/enet'
Makefile:255: .deps/callbacks.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:256: .deps/host.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:257: .deps/list.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:258: .deps/packet.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:259: .deps/peer.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:260: .deps/protocol.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:261: .deps/unix.Po: No such file or directory
Makefile:262: .deps/win32.Po: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `.deps/win32.Po'. Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/sheeettin/Desktop/tmp/Blood Frontier/src/enet'
make: *** [libenet] Error 2
sheeettin@sheeettin-kubuntu:~/Desktop/tmp/Blood Frontier/src$

Are you suggesting I remove those parts from the makefile?

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#38: Re: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by Drakas on 09/21/2007 16:41, refers to #37

cd enet && cp -R ~/sauerbraten/src/enet/.deps ./

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#39: ..

by Drakas on 09/21/2007 17:06

I get a segfault when switching to Shotgun.

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#40: Re: Looks nice--but missing a lot of files

by SheeEttin on 09/21/2007 17:11, refers to #38

That did it. Compiled from source.

However, something funny happened--the physics is off now. I jump about 1.75 times as far, and that much more slowly. (Same applies to bouncers (i.e. gibs, grenades...).)

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#41: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 09/21/2007 17:12, refers to #39

Rename packages/models/hudguns/shotg/BFSG.MD3 to BFSG.md3.

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#42: the good and the bad

by ATIRULE on 09/21/2007 17:29

ok I am just a player but here is my humble report after a few hours of play ... my pc is 2gz 512mb ram windows xp pro nv 6200 oc'd with a 450 core vrs a 350 stock core

the good Insane looking environment
Pwning HUD guns great music and well thought out maps
...
sigh now the bad ...
random pauses/and lagg spikes could be my PC but sauer runs fine...

sometimes when u scroll though the guns it will hang for a few sec and then reset u..
loading time when first start the game are pretty long when com paired to sauer


btw i find the rocket bug to be very useful in doing insanely long RL jump's don't fix it =/

ALL IN ALL GREAT FUKING PWNING JOB NICE ONE OMG PWNAGE

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#43: ..

by James007 on 09/21/2007 21:20

does the version you posted work on mac as well as windows? if not, will it ever get to the mac os?

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#44: ..

by Acord on 09/21/2007 22:46

Yikes! That's a lot of posts!

Yep, it's buggy. I'm definitely more of a hacker and not so much a coder - I mess with something until it works about right, and then I leave it alone so I don't break it. Thank God Quin's going to put it into SauerMod, because coding makes me cry.

As far as the lag times, some of the weapons are a *lot* more detailed than Sauer, including the skins for them. Once you've switched, it should stay in memory and not lag out. The other lag bug concerns the water - every time it loads it, it makes a lagball. Sauer did the same thing though. I think the lagball BF generates is larger though because the caustics are 50 frames and not 30.

Some sort of preloader for water/models would solve that, but make the load times longer.

The rocket bug will be going away - I'm going to implement a sort of double jump. Basically, it'll kick you straight in the direction you're looking when you jump in midair, but only once.

Yes it's floaty - The game takes place on Mars, where the gravity is about 1/3 earth gravity. It's meant to be that way, and adds some fun mechanics in mid-air, especially with the SMG.

I'm very sorry about the *nux bugs. I tried to catch everything, but sometimes MSC++ 2005 changes things on you that you didn't want changed, like the line breaks. And I don't have the money for an extra box, or even an extra HDD so I can dual boot right now.

Sorry it's so large - It's very heavy on the texture side. I'll probably reduce a lot of the weapons textures down to no larger than 1024, since some video cards don't like textures any bigger than that. There are also some textures in the release that weren't used, but will be used later.

As far as Mac goes, I've got a friend with a Hackintosh who's agreed to try and compile a Mac Binary. Before that happens though I'll need to fix the *nix errors, since Macs basically run on it now. The only Macs out where I live are very, very old ones, with the old OS.

Please continue to post bugs etc, so I can make sure to list and squash them.

Once this little beast gets more stable, I can start working on the singleplayer maps etc once again.

To that end, if anyone wants to make some fun multiplayer maps, I'll include them just so long as they're decent quality.

Two other things: I forgot to attribute my soundFX sources(gotta fix that ASAP) and didn't replace the lens flare image, since I never used it in the maps I totally forgot about it.

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#45: lagg

by ATIRULE on 09/21/2007 23:08

yea OK once i shot all the guns it don't lag anymore until i restart the map

the walk run speed is a little slow for me I will see how it plays in a 8 player game a go from there not very good for insta

But omg who made tho's HUG GUNS THEY PWN

I might use em with sauer ust for the hell of it if thats ok with u

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#46: Re: ..

by Drakas on 09/21/2007 23:11, refers to #44

Hey Acord, happy to see the effort you have put into this!

I think that you should leave the size as it is and textures as they are - I think that this should look as good as possible, and everyone should upgrade :PPP

What about downloading a LiveCD?
Specifically, I'm looking at ZenWalk GNU/Linux, it has compilation tools on its LiveCD (though can't assure that SDL will be available!)

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#47: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 09/22/2007 00:00, refers to #44

Heh, I was afraid that the floatiness was something wrong with my computer.

Anyway, since it's so dark, you can probably trim those hudguns down quite a bit. It's not what people are looking at anyway. (Well, maybe once or twice.)

Hope a real (i.e. complete, stable) release comes out soon! I'll be playing it, that's for sure.

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#48: ..

by Passa on 09/22/2007 00:19

Oh my gawd. Acord, this is absolutely amazing for a single-man effort. Hell, it's amazing even if it was a 10 man team effort.

I haven't had a chance to find anyone online so I can't vouch for the gameplay but the guns (with the exception of the shotgun which feels nerfed in the context of the game) feel really good, that SMG is awesome. I love the scope hudgun for the sniper too (although for the next release, lower the scale of it and the other hudguns in the model config, they clip walls, especially the scope).

Its on GamersHell now (http://www.gamershell.com/news/41851.html) so hopefully that should get some more online players. Come on people!

Oh, remember to change the server ports for your next version so it doesn't conflict with Sauerbraten servers.

Now, everyone hop on randumb.ath.cx and play! 8 client limit, hosted in Aus :)

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#49: ..

by Acord on 09/22/2007 00:22

I did all the visual work. And believe it or not, that probably accounted for about 70% of the time - That's how bad I am at coding.

LiveCD? Some sort of boot loader? I used one to recover parts of my HDD after the win32/virut thing, and I had one for my modded XBox(I wonder if I can make it run on that?)

As far as the speed goes, I'll agree and say that it's not great for insta, but remember that you only get 5 shots and then you get a nice long reload time.

Sadly, RL demands that I spend some time doing schoolwork etc, so I probably won't drop a patch until tuesday or so. If you can reconfigure the various compiler packages that come with it to leave the RPG section out, let me know so that we can get some bins for everyone.

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#50: ..

by Acord on 09/22/2007 00:30

Zoomed sniper rifle does extra damage - maybe too much. I didn't think it was that much extra.

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#51: ..

by randomcivilian [just found linux] on 09/22/2007 00:54

hey acord (i havn't downloaded this yet) does this use the same mapfile format as Sauer? if not can i port one of mine? i have in mind: http://www.quadropolis.us/node/624

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