Echoes of the Imperium (4X Strategy Game)

[BlackBulletIV]

It's actually not possible to have a framebuffer that isn't po2 compatible. Love requires it.

Huh? No it doesn't. I use screen-sized (non-PO2) framebuffers in my personal code all the time. All this power-of-two and framebuffer shenanigans really depends on your video card and video drivers.

That's correct.

[Lap]

wtf? My graphics card can play Crysis 2 on high without issue, but apparently non po2 framebuffers are just too hard for it? I figured if that beast of a video card could play just about everything on the market that it must be a restriction with love.

I guess this really changes nothing though as there seems to be no reason not to continue using po2 framebuffers to support more cards.

[bartbes]

Well, of course most high-end GPUs focus on DirectX performance, not OpenGL performance.

[appleide]

It was a tough decision on whether or not to use framebuffers at first. I don't want to exclude all the older laptops that should by all means be able to play a 2D turn based game. After I saw the FPS boost I got there was no turning back. 40 FPS -> 250+ FPS. Now I have framebuffers all over the place and they are just way too handy not to have.

If anyone is still interested in helping out with code or drawing sprites/icons let me know. It's coming along nicely, but there is still plenty to do.

It's a 2009 Macbook Pro though. It can play starcraft 2 just fine. Blah oh well.

It could've had like a pcall and test if framebuffers were supported, if not then use the normal love drawing, but to change it now would be too much effort.

[Robin]

and I'll get 640.

Of course, 640 is not a power of two, so you'll get 512 when seeking the next PO2 from 500.

[Lap]

could've had like a pcall and test if framebuffers were supported, if not then use the normal love drawing, but to change it now would be too much effort.

It's doable, but it means a lot of extra code as I have stuck a FB almost everywhere I could. Whenever I throw out a more working release candidate I'll have to revaluate how man people would benefitfrom me going back and using love's draw function.

On an unrelated note I just got most of my basic editor done. I should be able to create new planets in minutes now.

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[Lap]

So most of the game is spent looking at a Civilization style board. There are cities/regions and they can continue a certain amount of buildings each (about 6 max). One question I have is how to represent the type and amount of buildings in icon form.

One option is to have each building actually shown in a small cluster. This can get kind of cluttered, but it does allow you to see much more information without using an infobox to look closer. This method also depends on mostly perfect information (no fog of war).

i4G9ax7.png (1.39 MiB) Viewed 996 times

Another option is to have a single icon represent all the buildings. In this method I would make some system that would judge how industrial a place was as well as how many buildings are there. The icon displayed could also be increased in size to represent a more developed area. This method is harder to see what is in a region.

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At this point in this project I have dozens of little decisions like these I need to make. I would love it if anyone was up for getting more involved by letting me run ideas by them.

[gestaltist]

Wow Lap.

This editor looks really good.

May I ask how you have achieved this terrain? Is this procedurally generated or are these images (for the whole mountain, for example).

[Lap]

They are procedurally generated, just not in Love. I used l3DT to make the terrain. It's just a scrolling image in Love.