q3a mod: slugs and rockets

[UglyFoot]

Thanks. I would wait a bit before releasing a beta version, I have some little changes to do, one of them is moving the "You fragged..." message to another position because sometimes it overlaps with the top messages. I'll try to this soon.

I don't have new ideas but I remember I still need to take a look at muffin's work and see what I can do. The new skill for the bots is also waiting.

[Takkie]

Alright.
I remember muffinman had the idea of adding weapons.
Perhaps it is an option to have a "additional weapons" cvar.
When it is disabled you have the 'traditional' slugrock weapons.
When enabled the PG and GL come with the RL. And the MG and SG come with the RG.
It might be nice for those who want al bit more 'balance'...

[UglyFoot]

I uploaded the last changes I did. I would say this could be the beta if you agree, in fact I have already created the "beta" tag for it.

For now I wouldn't bother to add other weapons, maybe later when we'll have the multiteam working.

[Takkie]

I've downloaded the beta-tagged .zip and it compiles and plays smoothly.
Nice!

I'll write up a readme for it and make beta-version available to download from the first post and from slugsandrockets website by the end of the week.

For now I wouldn't bother to add other weapons, maybe later when we'll have the multiteam working.

I agree and i'm a bit suprised you plan to finish muffinman's work.
Would be great though to see some multiteam code in action.
Perhaps it would be good to get it working for TeamDeathMatch first and after that worry about CTF.
Because for multiteam TDM there are loads of maps available but for CTf we have to build our own and i expect the coding will be a lot of work too.

Cheers

[UglyFoot]

That's true, doing it for TDM is easier and I think I'll do that. I would like to finish muffinman's work but I don't know if I'll be able to, I have fixed all compiling errors but the game crashes when I start a game. I'll see what I can do.

[Takkie]

I've uploaded the beta version and wrote up a little readme.txt
You can download it here:
SlugRock_ioq3-beta.zip

Is there any demand for a non-ioquake3 version (-vq3) of this mod?
For this version you don't need ioquake3 but you will miss quite some of its features.
If so i have a version wich i can make available for download too...

[themuffinman]

That's true, doing it for TDM is easier and I think I'll do that. I would like to finish muffinman's work but I don't know if I'll be able to, I have fixed all compiling errors but the game crashes when I start a game. I'll see what I can do.

I never tried compiling it and now that I recently did I realise how sloppy my code is! Regardless, I fixed it all and it worked (it seems to not be compatible with quake3.exe, I'm almost certain ioq3 mods were compatible once upon a time). Did a good dose of improvements and the main issue atm is team ranking, but that's almost fixed. Other than that CTF needs fixing and TDM works perfectly.

Anyway, I feel like I'm kind of hi-jacking this thread so I'll start a new thread for this soon. Then I need to get clued up on how to work with Gitbash and Git Hub.

[UglyFoot]

Alright. To use git I recommend you using GitExtensions, it has a simple interface as well as integration with VS. Besides of that just letting you know there are some useful links about git scattered in the thread. Let me know when you'll have the repository in GitHub, there are some changes I could add, if you haven't done them yet.

[obsidian]

Windows Git GUIs

TortoiseGit works like TortoiseSVN if that's what you're used to.

GitHub GUI made by GitHub for Windows. Haven't used it myself but looks very Windows 8 themed.

SourceTree is now available on Windows. I have the Mac version installed and it's pretty slick.

SmartGit is pretty full featured. Haven't used it for Git, but I have used their SVN client with similar features.

[Eraser]

Windows Git GUIs

SourceTree is now available on Windows. I have the Mac version installed and it's pretty slick.

SmartGit is pretty full featured. Haven't used it for Git, but I have used their SVN client with similar features.

I previously used SmartGit at my job and have now switched to SourceTree. Not because I have a particular dislike for SmartGit, but most of my colleagues used SourceTree and I figured it'd be easiest to all use the same toolset.

I must say that SourceTree has a few advantages and a few disadvantages. In some areas the interface is slightly more better tuned. It has a few bells and whistles that SmartGit misses. However, my biggest gripe with SourceTree is that the built-in comparison tool shows a UNIX style comparison (with the little minuses and pluses in front of each line) and a multiple changes in a single file results in multiple "blocks" of code from one file being shown, rather than the whole file at once. SmartGit has a better comparison tool that just shows the two versions of a file next to each other. SourceTree allows you to open a comparison in your favorite comparison tool (Araxis Merge being mine) with a single click though.

[UglyFoot]

Well, I've added the new difficulty, now the bots are much better with the RG than in nightmare though their skill with the RL can be improved. I think you'll never again complain about that . For now it's called "New Skill" but I thought a better name could be "Terminator" and replacing the nightmare skull with terminator's . I don't know if I'll be able to do that, perhaps someone with a better skills at image editing could help.

[Takkie]

I'll never complain about the bot skill again
This new skill is great!
I was thinking about a skillname with a fitting image.
I like the terminator but image editing isn't my thing either.
So perhaps the skillname: 'insane' or 'master'
with the slugrock icon

edit2 new 128 x 128 icon proper channel:
.tga version size 128 x 128 (was 32 x 32) here: SlugRock-ioq3-skill6.zip
Just extract the .pk3 in your SlugRock folder. (test-4 version)
I think 'master' is appropriate.
I can make a bigger version of the slugrock icon if necessary (used the same size as the other skills for this one)

or you could use the menu/art/level_complete5.tga
and with that 'insane' seems appropriate.

[UglyFoot]

Ok, I'll use that icon for now. For some reason it can't load the tga file, I've changed the code so that you can see it yourself and maybe fix it. Now it looks for skill6.tga.

[Takkie]

I've changed the code so that you can see it yourself and maybe fix it. Now it looks for skill6.tga.

That helped!
I got it working on my system
This skill6 icon is size 128 x 128 (originals are 32 x 32 but are quite blurry imo) and is .tga
Download here: SlugRock-ioq3-skill6.zip
Just extract the .pk3 in your SlugRock folder. (test-4 version)

[UglyFoot]

Good, it works here too.

I've thought that it would be a good idea that others could test the future changes with no difficulty. To do that I thought we could create another repository for the mod files. GitHub creates a zip file every time a tag is added so it would be as easy as adding a tag for each new version. Could you create the repo (something like SlugRock-mod-files) and add me? I can do the rest.

Edit:
Actually if we do this it would be better to rename the current repo to SlugRock-code and name the other SlugRock, because when it makes the zip file it puts everything in a folder with the repo's name plus the tag name and this way the folder name will have more sense.

[Takkie]

I've thought that it would be a good idea that others could test the future changes with no difficulty. To do that I thought we could create another repository for the mod files. GitHub creates a zip file every time a tag is added so it would be as easy as adding a tag for each new version. Could you create the repo (something like SlugRock-mod-files) and add me? I can do the rest.

That's a good idea.
I never realised you can also commit a .pk3 file to a repository.

Actually if we do this it would be better to rename the current repo to SlugRock-code and name the other SlugRock, because when it makes the zip file it puts everything in a folder with the repo's name plus the tag name and this way the folder name will have more sense.

Done that.
And i added a README.md as a first commit.
I also added a SlugRock-vm.pk3 (wich contains the .qvm's) a SlugRock-media.pk3 (wich contains the skill6.tga) and the SlugRock.bat (wich contains the command line to start the mod).
I used the SlugRock-code-test-4 branch so this is the most up to date version

I also updated the upstream ioquake3 code to our SlugRock-code master.
(we may need to think about cleaning up the SlugRock-code repository, perhaps the test-branch and test-2 branch can be deleted(?))

btw. i just noticed if you download the .zip from the new repository it will name it SlugRock-master and the SlugRock folder in it will be named SlugRock-master too. ( master skill )
So the command line in the .bat file needs to change, and also the readme needs adjustment.

[Eraser]

You know what I love about this thread right here? That there's a bunch of people who picked something up, collaborated and actually got something tangible out of it. Kudos to you

[UglyFoot]

You know what I love about this thread right here? That there's a bunch of people who picked something up, collaborated and actually got something tangible out of it. Kudos to you

Hehe, thanks Eraser it has been a long time since we began and we still need to do the idea of having multiple teams of 2 players but since themuffinman has uploaded the new code I think we'll have it done soon. Also I think that having little releases at one click distance will raise the interest.

@Takkie Good, I was thinking of having just the scattered files for convenience, it will work too except that you won't be able to load the mod from the mod menu. That's a problem I tried to solve just adding an empty pk3 with the folder's name. It worked for "SlugRock" but not for "SlugRock-v1.1.0-beta", for some reason fs_game became just "SlugRock-v1.1.0-", maybe removing the second - might fix it, I'll try it later.

[Eraser]

Is there anything I could do? Would love to get involved.

[Takkie]

@uglyfoot i'll remove the description about loading the mod from the menu. (haven't used that option in ages myself )

@eraser i like this thread also for the obvious reasons and more, it really tells how the mod comes together and it's the only communication between uglyfoot and me.
If you want to be part of it you're welcome.
I can add you as a collaborator on github (if you are on GitHub that is...).
There are sounds needed to be done for the multiteam thing (team colour announcer).
I was thinking about a new scoreboard with a slug and rocket frag counter.
UglyFoot collected these bugs: bugs.txt
And perhaps you have some fresh ideas yourself?
Cheers

[UglyFoot]

Is there anything I could do? Would love to get involved.

The first I was going to do is merging themuffinman's code and polishing it, you could start taking a look at that or some of the things Takkie's said, I would forget about bugs if I were you, I think the first two are ioquake3's legacy but I'm not sure. Also, there's a problem with the git repo, it has been a mess all this time and I want to fix it, I'll see what I can do.

@uglyfoot i'll remove the description about loading the mod from the menu. (haven't used that option in ages myself )

Well, I figured that when a mod is loaded from the mods list the fs_game has a maximum of 16 characters so we'll have to use shorter names, like sr-vx.y.z-beta. It'll be handy to be able to load a specific version just running ioq3 and selecting it from the mods list.
A side of that I have seen that there's a better way to upload releases to GH, the way I told you is used for releasing source code, for the mod files it's better to use the GH interface and doing the zip manually. So I would rename SlugRock-code to SlugRock and the new repository to SlugRock-mod-files, I'll put the releases in SlugRock.

[Takkie]

So I would rename SlugRock-code to SlugRock and the new repository to SlugRock-mod-files

Done that.

A side of that I have seen that there's a better way to upload releases to GH, the way I told you is used for releasing source code, for the mod files it's better to use the GH interface and doing the zip manually....
I'll put the releases in SlugRock.

Go ahead

[Takkie]

In a weird moment of clarity it hit me....
There is a weapon switch option we haven't touched yet.

A timer based weapon switch.
Example: a tourney match of 10 min.
Both players start with RL. Time switch is set at 1 min.
After 1 min both players switch to RG and a minute later to RL.
There could even be a time-float so the moment isn't exactly predictable.
Just like the 'frag/spawn' weapon switch we could let the client and bots set their own starting weapon and have their own timer setting. For a more competitive style the timer and weapon start could also be forced by the server.

≠≠============================
edit: changed the description of the idea a bit an added some text to describe to what extend this option can be used.....
==============================

[UglyFoot]

Alright, I'll keep that in mind. For now I'll focus on the repo. I don't have much time so it's going to go slowly...

[Eraser]

Where's info on how to do a proper git checkout?