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Hosted Projects - Non-FreeSpace => StarShatter Open Source Project => Topic started by: MatthTheGeek on May 23, 2012, 12:37:56 pm

Title: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: MatthTheGeek on May 23, 2012, 12:37:56 pm
I guess directx is a good part of why it's not cross-platform, amirite.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 23, 2012, 12:39:52 pm
Correct.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Polpolion on May 23, 2012, 01:05:13 pm
oooooohhh real C++!
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on May 24, 2012, 01:17:58 pm
Thanks for the guide, E, I got it up and running. Now I just need to buy an idiots guide to microsoft C++. LOL
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 24, 2012, 01:26:58 pm
This tutorial (http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/) is a pretty good start.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: MatthTheGeek on May 24, 2012, 01:29:12 pm
So I suppose this code is proper, object-oriented C++ instead of FS2's C-based spaghetti code ?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 25, 2012, 05:02:58 am
Yes. The project itself is a bit disorganized (A part of the code resides in nGenEx, the other in Stars45), but the code is full-on object-oriented C++ from top to bottom.

I'll post a little guided-tour-like text to explain what each project does shortly.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 28, 2012, 04:05:24 am
While working on some of the reported issues, I have stumbled upon the sourcecode for the modfile utility. However, in order to test it, I need to take a look at the modfile.bat script mentioned in the bug report. Can someone post it here?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: pecenipicek on May 28, 2012, 04:29:19 am
whats with the OPCODE library i found in the source tree? its used for collision detection in the game or?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 28, 2012, 04:33:55 am
Yes. OPCODE is a dedicated collision detection library.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: rscaper1070 on May 28, 2012, 09:41:45 am
While working on some of the reported issues, I have stumbled upon the sourcecode for the modfile utility. However, in order to test it, I need to take a look at the modfile.bat script mentioned in the bug report. Can someone post it here?

Here's a copy of wdboyd's My Mod Example (http://www.mediafire.com/?efvabqi0pay0te2) that contains the createmod.bat.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Echelon9 on May 29, 2012, 12:26:47 pm
What licence has the source code and graphics assets been released under?

Comment at the top of each source code file is still a copyright in favour of John DiCamillo, i.e. not freely open source.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on May 29, 2012, 01:11:51 pm
John DiCamillo, aka Milo, is the game's author, who thus released the source and the game into the open.

(Unless I am somehow mistaken)
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 29, 2012, 01:32:26 pm
Yes, but he did not change the license agreement. I will try to contact him to see if I can arrange for BSD licensing for the code and CC-BY-NC for the data files.

On that note, does anyone have a valid email address for him?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on May 29, 2012, 02:08:58 pm
Do you have contact info for him? If not I can try to dig into the snapshots available of ssmods to see if I can find milo's email address. I was able to find a few addresses from site members via that method.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on May 29, 2012, 02:12:24 pm
My net searches have so far been unsuccessful (As I am on my Smartphone right now); the only address I was able to find was an address at Starshatter.com, which I suspect is no longer valid.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on May 29, 2012, 02:50:40 pm
I'll try to dig into the archived SSmods snapshots to see if I can find something out.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Echelon9 on May 29, 2012, 08:15:15 pm
Yes, but he did not change the license agreement. I will try to contact him to see if I can arrange for BSD licensing for the code and CC-BY-NC for the data files.

That would be a pretty good outcome, to clarify the position. Obviously the author has to be the one to agree, but those proposed licenses would work.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on June 03, 2012, 03:37:17 am
I have uploaded a new Starshatter build to the google code page: http://code.google.com/p/starshatter-open/downloads/detail?name=Starshatter%205.1.66.7z&can=2&q=

Please check it out.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: BlasterNT on June 05, 2012, 09:50:13 pm
Um.  Question about Starshatter itself.  Is there any way to reload or repair capital ships?  It seems like they're pretty useless after you've run out of missiles. 
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Alex Heartnet on June 05, 2012, 10:51:01 pm
Your missile supply will get rearmed once you end the mission.

But yeah, your X-Ray lasers just aren't all that great against ship hulls.  Missiles are your main anti-hull weapon - even the anti fighter missiles are better against ship hulls then X-Ray Lasers.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 05, 2012, 11:44:36 pm
A starfighter missile barrage is actually a very, very credible threat. It almost seems overpowered, really. At the same time, Starshatter manages to be neither capship- or fighter-centric. Fighters do what they would probably do in real life - lob missiles at ships, and only get into knife fights with other fighters and bombers. Getting within the defensive fire radius of a capital ship is a good way of ending up dead.

Capships seem to follow an automated repair algorithm - I actually wonder if it's exponential. Capships which are severly damaged will be repaired more swiftly, but as the damage is reduced, the rate of repair seems to go down as well. I don't like commanding capships in most instances, so I stick to fighters. Needless to say, commanding a capship is a bit more involved. There is a need to use the engineering screens, etc., etc., and other tools which let you manage the ship's resources. Actually, now that the source code is in the open, I wonder if you couldn't assemble a game which would not be unlike some of the social capship command games, where one player would work the weapons system, the other the navigation, another engineering, etc.

However, tangent aside, yes, you can and must repair your ship. Some of that is automatic, some of it you can prioritize. Do not forget that SS, despite what I would call flaws in the campaign engine, is a dynamic game (of sorts) and takes place over hours, days, and weeks. Each mission is spaced at about eight hours, and your ship will have been altered or operated on in that timeframe. The computer may have some virtual sorties within this period as well, but it's very... simplistic in comparison to what you, the player, has to deal with.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: BlasterNT on June 06, 2012, 08:57:54 am
Huh.  Interesting.  I recall them not reloading ever in an earlier version I had, but they do now. 

The capship PD also seems to be very unreliable.  It'll intercept missiles very well, and then it just stops firing, and all of a sudden I'm down to 25% health.   The amount of damage the same missile deals also seems to be really variable.  I once attacked a group of 2 hegemony destroyers, and the first one's barrage maybe dealt 5% points damage, wheras the second one would do 25% points per missile..  meh. 

Anticapship missions seem almost hideously easy when they're unsupported though, because those PD turrets take no time at all to disarm.  And they're outside of the shield, so you can actually damage a capship hull by firing primaries on the turret. 
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 06, 2012, 11:18:24 am
I got the impression... that although the damage model in SS is supposed to be pretty good, it and targeting functions are a bit lacking. The latter is with respect to the damage model, actually, as you'll use targeting to pick off specific subsystems, or try to do so.

Unfortunately, in my experience that never worked well. However, if you've started playing with the training missions, you'll take your Asher against a Wolf DD. The training message will relate that knocking out certain subsystems is more effective that knocking out others. Principally, taking out a ship's reactor is seemingly the ultimate goal in ship-to-ship combat, where an unstable or destroyed reactor can do horriffic damage to a ship even before the whole of the ship is destroyed.

Ultimately, what you have the option of doing now is going through the source code to try and make sense of how damage works in the game. As a simulator, I'll continually want a better simulation, which of course includes damage modeling. And certainly, depending on where you hit your adversary, some shots ought to do more damage than others. Even now, this is well illustrated in atmospheric strike missions, where a loss of your engine means a definate loss of your craft.

*EDIT: Keep in mind also... that not all ships are created equal. The Asher and Volnaris DDs go down pretty easily, but Spectre and Broadswords are pretty scary creatures that can take a lot of punishment. I've had plenty of strike missions where the flight could not eliminate a Broadsword on one run, even after a full missile barrage. Even if you can take out a capship with your guns, you still run the risk of dying in a fighter due to the blast. And Broadswords are covered in AA batteries... getting close is a good way of not returning that fighter or the rest of your flight to the carrier - launch your ordnance and go home.

As for the beam weapons... I have read that in SS's mechanics, shields are good at turning back laser fire, while torpedoes are good at hitting hulls directly. Unfortunately, torps have a way of getting shot down. If you really want to kill enemy ships... you need a cruiser with grasers.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on June 06, 2012, 11:26:47 am
I am not exactly sure what you are trying to say, or asking for.....
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 06, 2012, 11:40:23 am
In hindsight... yeah, that might have not been terribly clear.

I was noting that targeting (and thus firing upon) individual subsystems often does not seem to have an effect on the targeted subsystem. It is possible the weapon is missing its target, and just hitting the hull of the target ship. Otherwise, it might be a good indicator that the damage model of SS is a little bit broken. The rest is just observation and commentary.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 06, 2012, 02:20:29 pm
In hindsight... yeah, that might have not been terribly clear.

I was noting that targeting (and thus firing upon) individual subsystems often does not seem to have an effect on the targeted subsystem. It is possible the weapon is missing its target, and just hitting the hull of the target ship. Otherwise, it might be a good indicator that the damage model of SS is a little bit broken. The rest is just observation and commentary.
The difference in difficulty taking out some systems compared to others that you are observing is due to the fact that some systems are better protected than others. In the ship def files each system has a hull factor listed. I believe that the higher this number is, the more damage is taken by the hull instead of the system. So a system contained inside the hull would have a higher hull factor and would thus be more difficult to damage. An exposed system or weapon would have a lower hull factor and therefore more of the damage will be applied directly to that system instead of the hull. Hope this helps.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 06, 2012, 02:45:50 pm
That's sounding right on the money, actually. Furthermore... the more damaged the hull, is it then easier to damage a system with a high hull factor? That mechanic may make more sense in some situations than others, however, should it be the case.

My example comes from nuisance raids on enemy Dragon CVs - I'd try and knock out the AA batteries with a full barrage of ASMs, and there would seemingly be no effect on the battery. My approach angle was good, etc., etc.

...Actually... this actually makes me think of a few certain SAM/AA positions on Kolchev in Operation Firestorm - despite targeting the battery, and hitting it directly, the system takes no damage. Might this be a related bug?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 07, 2012, 05:30:56 pm
I have never experienced what you described in the game. Every time I have targeted AA/Sam sites and hit them, they have taken damage if not been outright destroyed. I tried several ground strike missions this morning attempting to replicate your experience and have been unable to do so. Do you recall what type of ordnance you shot at the sam site and which craft you were flying. I might be able to replicate what you saw if I use exactly the same conditions.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 07, 2012, 05:46:40 pm
I'm not sure the ship had anything to do with it, but you never know...

Again, this was Operation Firestorm. I was flying the F-34D (Eagle) for the entire operation. (Black Angels FTW. :D ) Ordnance consisted of the AGM for SEAD purposes - guns were also used for strafing.

That said, this is possibly a different bug, but I recall hearing problems with knocking out AA positions before on the old site. This was also one specific SAM battery, located adjacent to Kolchev's starport. Missiles, rockets, or guns, you could not destroy that launcher.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Lucan on June 08, 2012, 05:57:33 am
The invulnerability bug has been known to occur occasionally during surface strike missions.  This happened more frequently whenever we did multi-player combat. 
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 08, 2012, 07:41:59 am
The invulnerability bug has been known to occur occasionally during surface strike missions.  This happened more frequently whenever we did multi-player combat. 

The ultimate starshatter test pilot has spoken. My problem is that I spent far more time modding this game than playing it. Lucan was very active as a playtester and as such has valuable insights about such things. Thanks for the input Lucan. As I said before, I don't personally recall ever having this bug happen to me.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Lucan on June 08, 2012, 05:42:08 pm
CaptBlanc is the master test pilot, actually. :p

It is only on very rare occasions that the enemy surface targets (such as SAMs or AAAs) become impervious to damage.  Multiplayer? Now that's a different story.

To answer BlasterNT's comment about the PDBs no longer firing...here's whats' happening: the energy pool is basically depleted due to continuous firing.  One way to rectify this issue would be to modify the shatter.dat file by changing the values for the PDBs.

Below, are some examples as to what I am referring to.

Original code:

   recharge_rate:    20,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         1000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,


Modified code (highlighted in bold):

   recharge_rate:    200,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         10000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 08, 2012, 06:36:57 pm
That said, how hard is it to knock out a PDB on a starship, or are the Dragon's batteries just very well armored? Even as armored as they might be, I find it hard to believe that a barrage of at least four ASM's can't take out a targeted battery.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 08, 2012, 09:53:31 pm
That said, how hard is it to knock out a PDB on a starship, or are the Dragon's batteries just very well armored? Even as armored as they might be, I find it hard to believe that a barrage of at least four ASM's can't take out a targeted battery.

Here is a piece of the Dragon's def file that pertains to one of its many pdbs.

weapon:     {
   type:             "Rail-12",
   design:           "Bolt Weapon",
   name:             "PDB-1",
 
   aim_az_max:       120.0,
   aim_az_min:      -120.0,
   aim_el_max:        85.0,
   aim_el_min:        -1.0,

   loc:              ( 200, 118, 1150),

   size:             64,
   hull_factor:      0.8,
   explosion:        6

As you can see it's hull factor is .8. That means that 80% of the damage from your missiles is beind soaked up by the hull which protects the PDB. So even if you hit the area where the pdb is installed with 4 missiles, the amount of damage is not even equal to what a single missile would do to an unprotected component. Sometimes it's best especially when flying a small craft instead of a cap ship to just unleash your squadron's missile ordance against the ship's hull instead of focusing on components.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on June 08, 2012, 10:25:45 pm
I, in the end, just wound up doing exactly that. Now... this was a question from the other thread:

I rarely ever play with capships, as I do not really enjoy capship combat (though pummeling Marakan cruisers into dust with the Devestator was a good time), but is it possible to permanently knock out an individual ship's subsystems (and not by destroying the entire ship :p  )? How many times would one need to hit a gun battery to ensure that it wouldn't be repaired, or is this just not possible (or not applicable to the AI)?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Lucan on June 09, 2012, 07:48:06 am
I, in the end, just wound up doing exactly that. Now... this was a question from the other thread:

I rarely ever play with capships, as I do not really enjoy capship combat (though pummeling Marakan cruisers into dust with the Devestator was a good time), but is it possible to permanently knock out an individual ship's subsystems (and not by destroying the entire ship :p  )? How many times would one need to hit a gun battery to ensure that it wouldn't be repaired, or is this just not possible (or not applicable to the AI)?

That is a good question.  Certain subsystems for player-controlled vessels (e.g. laser couplings, energy linkages, capacitors, etc.)  can sustain permanent damage thereby causing engineering repairs to become all but useless.  If you open up the engineering panel, you'll notice the malfunctioning components are highlighted in either red or yellow. However, I am not sure how AI the ships handle such damage.  They may not have the sophisticated repair algorithms that players are accorded. 

Whenever time permits, I will post a screenshot of the components on the engineering panel...just so everyone can see what I am talking about.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 09, 2012, 11:09:50 am
CaptBlanc is the master test pilot, actually. :p

It is only on very rare occasions that the enemy surface targets (such as SAMs or AAAs) become impervious to damage.  Multiplayer? Now that's a different story.

To answer BlasterNT's comment about the PDBs no longer firing...here's whats' happening: the energy pool is basically depleted due to continuous firing.  One way to rectify this issue would be to modify the shatter.dat file by changing the values for the PDBs.

Below, are some examples as to what I am referring to.

Original code:

   recharge_rate:    20,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         1000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,


Modified code (highlighted in bold):

   recharge_rate:    200,
   refire_delay:     3.2,
   capacity:         10000,
   charge:           120,
   min_charge:       120,
   damage:           4,
   speed:            4.6e3,
   life:             16.30,

Speaking of Captblanc, is there any chance that he might show up here some day soon?? I haven't spoken to him in ages. I'm also trying without luck to track down Achilles.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Lucan on June 09, 2012, 02:55:28 pm
Speaking of Captblanc, is there any chance that he might show up here some day soon?? I haven't spoken to him in ages. I'm also trying without luck to track down Achilles.

I'll talk to him tomorrow since Sunday evenings are typically our flight time. 

It would be great to have Achilles on board, as well as Derek.  All of these guys have much to offer in terms of expertise.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 09, 2012, 03:55:54 pm
NO doubt they would be valuable members here. I really wish I could find a way to contact them. I have already gotten Dragmio, Toshiro, and a couple other guys through email. I think they have at least come here and checked this place out. Don't know if they registered yet though. I'd also like to track down Starbuck if possible.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Toshiro on June 09, 2012, 10:16:00 pm
Hi guys

Just wanted to chip in.  You can change  the torp and antiship missiles penetration values for better hull damage. Although it could also upset the balance of stock weapons.    Current stock weapons have a penetration value of 10% .    So a torp with 25000 damage points, 2500 get through to hull, then the hull factor value comes into play.  At least I believe thats the way it works.

Toshiro
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 10, 2012, 07:07:48 am
GOod point. I forgot to mention about the weapon penetration factor. Thanks, Toshiro, and I'm glad you made your way here. Welcome!
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: BlasterNT on June 12, 2012, 11:10:33 am
Actually, I've noticed that it's very easy to take out the PD turrets of enemy ships, even with primaries.  This seems to be because they stick out of the capship shields.  Incidentally because of this, repeatedly hitting PD turrets is a good way of taking out hulls with primaries. 

About the ground strike missions, I've run into instances where the ground turrets have a ridiculously high or low health, something like +-10^5 health.  They seem to go back to normal after mission end though. 
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: light_gemini on June 12, 2012, 04:03:08 pm
Hi there.

Recently found SSTGS has moved here and it is open source now yay!!  ;) I have been wishing it would be released someday.  Its sad starshattermods is no more.
Been away for way too long but after several jobs, house movings and being father I want to work again on this game.

I have very little C++ knowledge but would like to help in anything I can.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: braddw25 on June 12, 2012, 11:07:56 pm
Welcome,  Light_Gemini. It's great to have you on board here. It is sad that the old site is no more, but this is a great new home for us. We actually have three homes now. The source code project resides here, and all of the downloads from SSMODS have been preserved and are now hosted at www.spacesimcentral.com and at www.freespacemods.com.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: light_gemini on June 16, 2012, 07:09:38 pm
I found the chunk that handles carriers jumping away when damaged. I made it apply to all starships and it works  :drevil: . Amount of damage that triggers the jump order is there also (its 1/4 of ship integrity).
Any ideas if we really need this feature? If we do how should it work?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: The E on June 17, 2012, 01:03:49 am
The problem here is that, if this is applied as-is, it will make the game much harder. For example, if you are flying a bomber on an "attack target destroyer" mission, you are unable to complete that mission. Second, this mission outcome needs to be scored appropriately, so that you can at least.advance the campaign a bit. Third, you need to make sure that if the player ends the mission after following the target through the jump, he can continue the campaign in the same vessel even if he is no longer in his assigned sector. Fourth, if the fleeing ship is the lead ship of a squadron, her escorts should jump with her.

In addition, the amount of damage needed to trigger the flight response should be modifiable in the ships .def file.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: MatthTheGeek on June 17, 2012, 11:43:08 am
Question of the day:

Is there any way to turn on subtitles ? It's kind of a game-breaker for me...
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: light_gemini on June 19, 2012, 10:54:11 am
Ok, regarding ships  jumping away to escape I now have this:

Jumping to escape death can be toggled on/off in the ship def. Default is False.
Damage needed to trigger jump can be defined in ship def. Goes between more than 0 to  less than 1 ( 0.4 is 60% hull left). Default is 0.25 (vanilla).

Changes in the campaign are needed, but at least its working for single missions or mods.We may come back to this if  the campaign code gets worked on  :)
I'm having fun so far with the code, its the first time I mess with a games source code.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: rscaper1070 on June 19, 2012, 11:29:04 am
Awesome! That could come in handy. Nice work! :)
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: MatthTheGeek on June 22, 2012, 02:28:10 pm
Hey, you know how we could attract more starshatter guys back here ? Someone edit the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starshatter:_The_Gathering_Storm). There's a dead link to the old forum here that could use to be replaced by a link to here instead.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Cyberkada on June 09, 2014, 02:04:55 am
I am adding multiple empires in the source, so that a player can pick one of the factions during the campaigns.

Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Cyberkada on June 15, 2014, 08:58:37 pm
Is the source for magic 1.5 available? I want to kill mag support in starshatter and just use obj/mtl directly.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on July 22, 2014, 02:23:38 pm
Tad bit of a random question here - in the interest of future modding or developing a wiki, is there what amounts to a shatter.DAT file for pre-TGS Starshatter? I recall seeing a few sites in the past which were dedicated to the 4.x.x versions of the game, but those are pretty hard to find now. If someone can get a hold of that and throw that into the current download directory on FSmods, that might come in handy at some point.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Cyberkada on July 23, 2014, 07:16:11 am
I can try to locate and upload it. Is there anyone else working on the build? Or am I it for now?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on July 23, 2014, 02:17:25 pm
Unfortunately, it is probably just you for now. But then, someone must do it!

Actually, I was just recently probing into one of my older questions, which is how exactly sizes and scales work out in-game. SS certainly has an irregular scaling system, and I don't think it's ever been well explained. Perhaps we can discuss this over IRC? That said, check your mailbox.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Cyberkada on August 08, 2014, 11:12:46 pm
Fixed the mission objectives screen today.  Now ships show all parts (details) and weapons. 
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: hostas on April 26, 2015, 04:12:05 pm
I have got very similar (2-3 different lines) linker errors, like in this pastebin entry:
http://pastebin.com/0nvN2iYy (http://pastebin.com/0nvN2iYy)
Google got me there, so somebody had the same problem befor me. :)
Any help or solution?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: light_gemini on May 09, 2015, 04:41:42 pm
Dont know if you already found a solution for th elinker errors, but I had the same problem and found that uncheking all but stars  on the project build config did let me compile properly. If you actually found a better solution it would be nice to know  :)
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: hostas on May 12, 2015, 03:55:38 pm
Thank you, I have managed to solve it, (had to add some lib references manually).
For later use, here are the steps in my case:

- download and install proper VS, DX SDK, VC++Redist ("Getting the Starshatter source and compiling it" topic)
- get the source with SVN into work folder (I have a 17MB 7z of it too, just in case)
- open it with Starshatter.sln (since I'm using vs2010), then alt+enter on all projects in the solution and change Platform Toolset from "v110" to v100
- alt+enter on the Stars project and add references to the following libs (Linker->Input->Additional Dependencies, separated with ';'):
c:\program files (x86)\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.0a\Lib\User32.Lib
c:\program files (x86)\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.0a\Lib\Gdi32.Lib
c:\program files (x86)\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.0a\Lib\AdvAPI32.Lib
(somehow these got me stucked before)
- set the Stars project as the startup (right click) and build
- the result is a Starshatter_D.exe (I wonder what the D means) copied to the STARSHATTERPATH


Now I can start to mess with the code and try out some nifty things, and maybe do some debug thingy too (I have already corrected some bugs/typoes in the SS_Reborn mod, maybe I should upload it somewhere). I would like to see if I can implement simple elliptic orbits with incilnation (polar orbits) and non orbiting regions that are glued to the center of a small moon. Also, I would like to mess with the fuel system and try out a rocket physics based one. Currently thrust efficiency drops beyond a certain velocity limit (in that direction) and consumption is time/energy based. I would like to see a system in practice, where mass ratio plays a role and 67% fuel means that the ships final velocity is the thruster's gas exhaustion velocity.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: hostas on May 12, 2015, 05:41:48 pm
"I wonder what the D means"

Now i see, it must be about the Debug mode build, since I haven't changed that. The game with the resulted exe got slower too , maybe some optimizaztion is turned on only in release mode.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: hostas on May 16, 2015, 06:24:38 am
How can you debug Starshatter with Visual Studio? I have attached the *_D.exe to the debugger, but the game is running in full screen and I can't alt+tab back to the IDE properly. I can reach breakpoints and use the keyboard shortcuts like F5, but the screen is blocked by the stucked black window of the game.
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: hostas on May 26, 2015, 10:50:35 am
I have found the solution in the Starshatter.cpp sourcefile, game must be started with the -dbg parameter and it will force it into window mode.

In the meantime I have tryed out some tweaks here and there and now some of the possibilties are:
- elliptic orbits (a quick iterative solution of Kepler's equation for mean to eccentric anomaly inside each time step)**
- true inclinated orbits by absolute value or relative to axial tilt (it was defined not for orbits, but only for regions, by rotating the direction of the sun, counts in cases like Saturn with spectacular rings and many small moons)
- synchron rotation (Moon-Earth) with a phase offset
- phase offset to emulate same radius resonant orbits
- simple Lagrange point orbits
- zero radius orbit to place a small (~20km) moon into the origo (there is no collosion detection you can't hide behind it)***

A side effect of inclinated orbits are that quantum jumps have some random z component now, which might be fun, but I have to investigate this more.

Besides the celestial ones there are some other changes too, like the hud of the weaponview now writes out the name and status of the next and preveous subsystem targets. During the heat of the battle it's hard to keep cool and cycle to the corect subtarget and this enhanced feedback helps a bit. Right now I would like to change the fighter AI to aim different subsystem with each missile and see how it changes the ballance. With debug in hand, I'm going to to work a bit on the mutiplayer part too.

These are just 1st steps, (each line of code introduces new bugs, refactoring, etc.), but in the long run I would like to submit some of my changes back to the main version.

** It's not that much useful since most orbits have small eccentricity and realtively slow in terms of play time. A funy exception is around the zolon home planet, where they must have a neutron star in core.  ;)
***Maybe sometimes (when I touch the thruster part of the game) I will try out gravity and virtual frame forces too and see how the AI gets completly messed up.  :D
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: shepard1707 on August 03, 2015, 04:49:40 pm
Hello. Hope I'm posting this in the right spot.

Trying to get into this game, but the interface is feeling a bit . . . uncooperative. I'm particularly having difficulty mapping keys and buttons to my satisfaction. It feels as though a number of the keys are not actually available for remapping, such as the retro-thrusters, and others. I really would like to try and play this game out a bit more extensively, but until I can figure out how to get the control setup in a comfortable configuration, I can't really move forward.

Can anyone lend me a hand?
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: procdrone on August 03, 2015, 09:54:13 pm
Im on the other hand, cannot download the thing because freespacemod links are dead for me... :/
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: mattivanhanen on October 11, 2015, 12:34:31 pm
Heartwarming to notice that Hard Light took Starshatter under it's wing. I ported most of Freespace ships, weapons and stuff on top of Starshatter around 2006. I called it "Freespace Tactics" back then. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO12_7Jvby8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RNG855dydg
Title: Re: Starshatter Open discussion thread
Post by: Thaeris on November 01, 2015, 08:35:31 pm
It's good to see you around again, Matt. I was really looking forward to Tactics - I'm sorry it didn't quite come together. But then, we never can quite tell, eh?