Coring with ICE

Development areas for Allegiance core (IGC) design.
Jersy
Posts: 250
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Post by Jersy »

So I've been poking around in ICE for a few days now, and some things I've seen there have raised some questions:

1. Probe features

- When opening any probe-type part in ICE, there is a set of features. Most of them are pretty clear, but "capture" and "resonate aleph". None of the existing probes have this enabled and when I tried use a probe with "resonate aleph" enabled, it did nothing. So how do these two work, if they work at all?

2. Treasure probablility

- Is the number of treasures that can appear in a sector at any given time limited, so that treasures with high probablility "overrule" those with the lower probability? Or is it unlimited and each treasure is calculated separately?

3. Direct hit / Area damage

- I've been already told, that "area damage" basically makes the projectile hitbox larger, by the area defined by the AoE radius. Yet I've seen many damage calculations operating with direct hits and AoE separately and even adding those up (9 points direct damage + 9 AoE damage = 18 damage in total). So how does area damage work exactly? Does the "area" form a sphere around the projectile, or is it just a circle? Is it stopped uppon hitting anything? Please, explain in detail.

4. Adding a new entry

- Is it possible at all? So far, the only way I found to add anything to any core with ICE is to duplicate some other entry and then change it. Is this the only way?

5. Minefields vs. Missiles, Guns vs. Minefields

- Do mines damage missiles passing through them by default, or are some changes required?
- Is it true that all it takes for weapon to damage minefields is AoE?
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HSharp
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Post by HSharp »

Jersy wrote:QUOTE (Jersy @ Feb 3 2011, 07:58 AM) 3. Direct hit / Area damage

- I've been already told, that "area damage" basically makes the projectile hitbox larger, by the area defined by the AoE radius. Yet I've seen many damage calculations operating with direct hits and AoE separately and even adding those up (9 points direct damage + 9 AoE damage = 18 damage in total). So how does area damage work exactly? Does the "area" form a sphere around the projectile, or is it just a circle? Is it stopped uppon hitting anything? Please, explain in detail.

5. Minefields vs. Missiles, Guns vs. Minefields

- Do mines damage missiles passing through them by default, or are some changes required?
- Is it true that all it takes for weapon to damage minefields is AoE?
3. Area damage does not make the hitbox larger, the AoE radius is simply the area of space (spherical) that gets damaged when the projectile explodes, now for determining where the projectile explodes is done by simply exploding at the range of whatever is targeted, for example you target an asteroid 1k away with your lancer equipped rix destroyer and you shoot, the projectile will explode 1k away regardless of where it was aimed, likewise if you have nothing selected you get the effect of the projectile exploding right in your face. It is this exploding property which actually makes it hard to do direct damage as AoE weapons have a habit of prematurely exploding if the target is flying away (thus increasing the range) of course most AoE weapons have the AoE doing most of the damage so it doesn't matter.

5. I can't remember if EoR or some other core had missiles being damaged by prox I could be wrong though (most likely). Minefields are weird but basically yes I think it's just having AoE damage, you would think as minefields use the parts AC (like missiles) that they would not be able to get damaged by PW EMP Cannons which does 0 damage to parts (and hence missiles) but they do get damaged by it, my own suspicion is that the AoE simply saps at the endurance of the minefield much like a ship moving through it, best way to test would be to get two ints with different killbonuses to kill two different caltrops with PW EMP to see if damage actually plays any effect into destroying the minefield. This also makes sense as otherwise it would be possible for a skycap turret to kill minefields in a second.
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Spunkmeyer
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Post by Spunkmeyer »

Jersy wrote:QUOTE (Jersy @ Feb 3 2011, 01:58 AM) So I've been poking around in ICE for a few days now, and some things I've seen there have raised some questions:

1. Probe features

- When opening any probe-type part in ICE, there is a set of features. Most of them are pretty clear, but "capture" and "resonate aleph". None of the existing probes have this enabled and when I tried use a probe with "resonate aleph" enabled, it did nothing. So how do these two work, if they work at all?
Those are for shooting probes, like station pods (or whatever they are called now) or combat pods. If the capture flag is set probe acts like nerve gas. I don't know if resonate aleph does anything - the probe has to target the aleph for that to work.
QUOTE 2. Treasure probablility

- Is the number of treasures that can appear in a sector at any given time limited, so that treasures with high probablility "overrule" those with the lower probability? Or is it unlimited and each treasure is calculated separately?[/quote]

Chance doesn't have anything to do with the number of treasures. This is a per game setting of 5 treasures at start, and a treasure every five minutes in home sectors and a treasure every two minutes in all other sectors.


QUOTE 4. Adding a new entry

- Is it possible at all? So far, the only way I found to add anything to any core with ICE is to duplicate some other entry and then change it. Is this the only way?[/quote]
That's the only way.
QUOTE 5. Minefields vs. Missiles, Guns vs. Minefields

- Do mines damage missiles passing through them by default, or are some changes required?
- Is it true that all it takes for weapon to damage minefields is AoE?[/quote]
Mines don't damage missiles. AoE is all you need.
Last edited by Spunkmeyer on Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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TurkeyXIII
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Post by TurkeyXIII »

Jersy wrote:QUOTE (Jersy @ Feb 3 2011, 06:58 PM) 1. Probe features

- When opening any probe-type part in ICE, there is a set of features. Most of them are pretty clear, but "capture" and "resonate aleph". None of the existing probes have this enabled and when I tried use a probe with "resonate aleph" enabled, it did nothing. So how do these two work, if they work at all?
They don't, as far as I know. They're there because expendables (missiles, mines and probes) use the same type of ability bit mask, and KGJV exposed the extra bits in ICE because he's weird that way. Missiles don't even have checkboxes, they have a drop down box to set the bits. But there's nothing that checks if a probe you dropped can res alephs or anything.

QUOTE 5. Minefields vs. Missiles, Guns vs. Minefields

- Do mines damage missiles passing through them by default, or are some changes required?[/quote]
Technically I believe it is possible, without any code changes. Sort-of. IF:
-Experimental mode is on, and
-The shootmissiles bit is set for the mines. ICE doesn't expose ability bits for mines because this is the only point it's ever used, and AFAIK nobody except KGJV knows about it. This makes it kinda difficult to set the bit - text2core should be able to do it, but that has bugs with guns.

But if those two conditions are met, the missile will hit the minefield as if it were a ship, deal damage and detonate.
QUOTE (Randall Munroe)14.2: Turkey consumption rate of the average American in milligrams per minute[/quote]
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Jersy
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Post by Jersy »

1.2.3.4.5. resolved.

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I've encountered a problem when trying to reduce the number of factions. Using zone_core as basis and deleting "Belters" entry from "Factions" (and all belter ships, bases, etc.), the server client then failed to load the modified core (didn't even get to the phase where crashing upon trying to join the game occurs). What needs to be done to successfuly remove a faction?
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Spunkmeyer
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Post by Spunkmeyer »

Hmm, sorry, I don't recall failing to load the core. With crashes it's almost always an existing object still using a missing faction ID (typically bases).


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NightRychune
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Post by NightRychune »

assuming you did a fresh install of allsrv to test your core on your own, did you make sure your modified core was in the server's artwork folder? I'm pretty sure you have to copy your own entire artwork folder from your main directory into your server folder's artwork directory or else things won't load
Cable
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Post by Cable »

NightRychune wrote:QUOTE (NightRychune @ Feb 3 2011, 10:21 AM) assuming you did a fresh install of allsrv to test your core on your own, did you make sure your modified core was in the server's artwork folder? I'm pretty sure you have to copy your own entire artwork folder from your main directory into your server folder's artwork directory or else things won't load
I think you can also modify the reg entry for file location your client files art work . The benfit to this is if Asgs updates your client files you will not have to move files around.

This is the reg key you need to open.


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance\1.0\Server]
"ArtPath"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Games\\Allegiance\\Server\\artwork"
"EXE Path"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Games\\Allegiance\\Server"
You want to change th "Artpath"

Oh and if you rename this test to a vbs file it opens the registry editor stright to the key


Copy from here and set extension to .vbs
'Launches Registry Editor with the chosen branch open automatically

'Author : Ramesh Srinivasan

'Website: http://windowsxp.mvps.org

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Dim MyKey

MyKey = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance\1.0\Server"

'Inputbox("Type the Registry path") remmed out so it will open stright to the key I set.- Cable

MyKey = "My Computer\" & MyKey

WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit\Lastkey",MyKey,"REG_SZ"

WshShell.Run "regedit", 1,True

Set WshShell = Nothing
End copy



Cable...
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Jersy
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Post by Jersy »

Spunkmeyer wrote:QUOTE (Spunkmeyer @ Feb 3 2011, 04:03 PM) Hmm, sorry, I don't recall failing to load the core. With crashes it's almost always an existing object still using a missing faction ID (typically bases).
NightRychune wrote:QUOTE (NightRychune @ Feb 3 2011, 04:21 PM) assuming you did a fresh install of allsrv to test your core on your own, did you make sure your modified core was in the server's artwork folder? I'm pretty sure you have to copy your own entire artwork folder from your main directory into your server folder's artwork directory or else things won't load
It will most likely be the case of forgetting to delete something using the missing faction ID... Otherwise, my whole game artwork folder got moved into the server artwork folder in day 2 of my poking around in ICE and I modify the files in the server artwork folder, not the other way around. I already was able to load my own core, only the one with delete factions encountered problems.

Well, then I'll try to poke around and see what I missed.

Also, thanks for the tip about modifying the path in registry - it will save me some annoying copying ;-)
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TurkeyXIII
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Post by TurkeyXIII »

The newer versions of ICE have a validate button at the bottom. It doesn't pick up much, but an ID pointing to something that doesn't exist might be detected.

I'd actually be kinda surprised if that were the issue, most of those things only refer to stuff within its own faction. Unless you deleted something else by mistake...
QUOTE (Randall Munroe)14.2: Turkey consumption rate of the average American in milligrams per minute[/quote]
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