NO. I can not.

In other news

When I try to run the combat engine in Vista the GUI gets to combat and stops with this


Before that I note that each change to a new menu in the GUI cause the whole window
to minimize. You have to max it up to go on.

The warping effect when retreat. Multiattackvector ship detachment like with the Prometheus and the Galaxy class (saucer separation). Cloaking effects, leaking nacelles.

Specular and gloss value set for texture in studio max and then exported, do they have any effect in demo?

I'll check it when i get the chance.

Regards Wolfe

Is anyone currently able to run the demo in windows Vista?

If so please say

Regards Wolfe

At different points up to combat it fails with errors as I noted above. Some times it gets all the way to show the ships in the combat window but they never get to move. There may be some more error files than I managed to post.

Nick may be able to help with animating some of the special effects like leaking plasma or warp in stretching out a ship. That is above my pay grade.

Finally managed to get it running back in my XP build. For those who can't get it to work in XP, make sure you have msvcr71.dll in your windows\system32 folder.

Regards Wolfe

If anyone needs the above file that Wolfe mentioned, you can download it from Here. You will need Winzip or a similar program to unzip it. If the link doesn't work, just do a google for the file; several websites will let you download if for free. My link above is to one of those sites.

Seems how premature that statement was , well now that i have finally managed to get the source code part working in XP again i can finally / hopefully begin some more work on it this weekend.

I'll try and keep you updated, internet access finally to come in about a week or so.

Regards Wolfe

Chief engineer commander Wolfe, I want our weapons systems installed and I want it done yesterday. I've already replicated the stickytape that you engineer types manage to fix everything with. You now have your orders. Make it so.

It is good to see you are finding time to work on the project.

Did you see we are rebuilding the fleet of models in the Fleetyard?
http://star-trek-games.com/index.php?op ... elect&id=7

Not all the models or their .png images are what I want but it is still just version one.

I'm managing the file repository, so if you have any problems with uploading files or creating folders, let me know Wolfe. I'll make any changes you need. Kenneth already lets me know whenever he needs something changed. Joomla isn't very user-friendly and seems to only really let admins make changes to folders.

Thanks, with internet access coming and a much larger hardrive i will look to get as many of the new ships added asap. Sadly i have to redo all the texture 'Lighting' issues again but hopefully it won't be to much of a hassle.

Just added vocal sounds system, though I'am currently short on sounds , though you can hear kate command "Begin manuever delta" when you press the aggressive command button for a ship .

Anyway next weekend i can finally move on to the pulse weapon firing system, which no doubt will be incredably hard

Regards Wolfe

You should check out Strings combat demo, he didn't even do Phasers, he went straight to pulses. If you haven't got a copy of it, I can send you one. You'll have to figure how to decompile it or whatever it is that you programmer types do to programs to get the code though.

Two differant systems i'am afraid, his is tied to a first person view and you control the ship directly therefore taking out one of the problems pulse cannons have compared with beam weapons, i.e facing the ship it is attacking. You also need to take into account that the ship needs to be manuevered to be able to set up an attack 'run', take into account that its target may be moving at a high velocity and compensate for that.

Along with other annoying things like line of sight, making sure you aren't drastically effected by collision detection, how to set the pattern of attack on a ship or group of ships with cannons so that when you tell them to attack a target they don't spin around fly off somewhere in order to set up an attack run only for them to fly straight into a cardassian battle group .

So far i've come up with a two tiered pulse cannon system, being either 'static' or 'dynamic'. Where a static pulse system would act more akin to what the borg have where they just fire off pulse of green energy not careing about manuevering an attack run or any fixed angles, just line of site.
While the dynamic pulse system is more akin to the defiant and bird of prey ships in which they are fixed or mounted pulse systems and need the ship to be manuevered to face the target, have sufficient distance and time to fire off several pulses in an attacking strafe and then move away from the target.

As you can see no easy task, though if you look at the battle stations demo it can be done, though it would be nice to see how he did it .

Regards Wolfe

Whilst the Defiant's main weapons are Pulses, they aren't the only weapons she had; she had at least three Phaser arrays/banks/emitters and a forward Quantum torpedo launcher. The best way to do the Pulses is to give them really small firing arcs. The ship will be able to fire if an enemy is within this arc, but won't if the enemy isn't. Starfleet Command 2 handled firing arcs really well, although it had 2D firing arcs because battles were done on a 2D playing field. You would need two sets of coordinates if you're planning on a 3D firing arc system.

hm, how are hardpoints handled? As I understand they are somehow flagged into the 3D model itself and later on read by the engine. I haven't found a tutorial here explaining how that works in detail. Could someone shed a light into this whole thing for someone on our forums who wants to learn modelling? I assume you need to somehow create a mark into the mesh with the modelling software or is it xml based? I'm sure it'll be interesting for anyone else interested in participating in model creation as well.

A few of the models we have came with hard points. I do not know how to make them but will figure it out if the 3D engine calls for it. Clearly it will be easier and faster if we do not or plan to add it later.

I would have to check if Irrlicht supports hardpoints within the mesh for 3DS files, though i doubt it.

For now all hard points (Hitpoints, Cannon Positions, Projectile positions etc) are all xml based and simply represent a point in vector space relative to the centre of the model in question.

Time consuming but also easily accessible for others should they wish to add there own ships.

Regards Wolfe

I can't remember where I saw it, but I *think* I remember Mike saying once that he might be willing to consider adding some sort of graphical interface into the editor to help people physically place hardpoints onto models. I have no idea whether i'm remembering it right though, whether he was actually being serious about it, or whether this is even possible. We'll have to mention it to him when he returns. I know for a fact though that he is planning to revamp the ship editing section of the editor. I sent him a list of feature requests a few months ago regarding the ship editor.

I doubt it lol, and i would persuade him not to.

The best GUI way would be to simply allow a person to point and click on a model mesh to get the relative 3D coordinates for any given point. Currently i have to look at the mdoel in MilkShape and work it out there though it isn't to bad.

Regards Wolfe

Well I hope i can make some of you famous lol

Here is a small clip of a battle showing the recent addition of pulse weapons and vocal commands, plus some other fixes.

It seems the quality was butchered by YouTube a bit though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w8QfXkG7D8

Regards Wolfe

cool vid. Though the "shields down to 80%" and the "destroyed" repeats itself just maybe a little tiny tidbit too often hehe

yeah youtube butchers any vid to 320x228 I believe. But there is an option for higher quality view (at least videos offer a small link right below the video to view in higher quality).

I found a way to increase quality (aside from the link that increases quality on youtube player): Write this without the dots (important is the &ap=... part at the end for high quality) [flash=480,360]http://www.youtube.com/v/_w8QfXkG7D8&ap=%2526fmt%3D18[./flash]

I forgot: The moon in the background is a bit strangely scaled with regards to the sun. Maybe switching around textures would amend the misproportion?

It would also be nice if the sun didn't look so "light-less", i.e. more rays coming from the sun so that it looks like in real-life when we try to stare at or close to the sun. Depending on the camera angle when facing the sun directly and staring right into it, it should blend the whole screen. Would be a cool effect I think. Of course it could also annoy if you really hurt someone's eyes with that .

It is spooky to hear my voice and my daughter in Star Trek combat.



Do not forget you are going to vice the Dominion at some point.
You are the voice of the big D.

Great work on the engine. It has been a busy four days with
almost no work on models. I hope to get back to it even with
the holidays.

Was a there ever an update for the combat demo that worked on Vista?

Not yet Stegrex but I will eventually get around to it.

Regards Wolfe

Thanks Wolfe, no worries. I like to see that you solving real problems with the engine like the shields rather than dealing with vista. You seem to be making a lot of progress, looking really good .

Next update is here. I will also be including the source code for those wo might be bored to read it or incase i die over the holidays.

Sorry it is a megaupload link MOEs favorite, but when i can i will look to upload it to the site.

Link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KG2977W9

Update includes

- Pulse Weapon Fire System
- Implementation of Vocal Sounds
- Shield Effects
- Some Minor Tweeks and Fixes, though i still haven't gone over the 'avoid' command yet

Err i haven't quite had enough time to bug test this update, so there may be a terrible memory leak somewhere .

Enjoy.

Regards Wolfe