A new year, a new release

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Topic Development / Developer's Corner / A new year, a new release

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By Newton

Date 2012-12-30 19:13 Edited 2012-12-31 16:36

For our next release, we need a direction, a a clear goal to work towards in order to be able to soon release another version. And of course, it is wiser if those of us who are currently active in the team do work together on and finish one feature. This is motivating and we will more easily (quickly) reach a version that qualifies as the next openclonk version.

Almost a month ago, ck, Maikel and me compiled this list of projects (or concepts for projects) that are going on in the OC project currently. Sorry, for starters, that it took me this long to write it all down. I deliberately split this list into features and personal projects of developers. Features are projects that qualify as a goal we work towards as a team. Personal projects may be added into the next release if they are mature but need some attention by the whole team mainly to review and assure the stability of the feature. This sidetracks (burdens) the team that is working on the main feature for the next release, so apart from the usual careful testing and reviewing by the owner of the branch I request that these side-projects should only be merged into master one at a time per release.

Features
+ Finish Clonkonaut's Settlement Design Document:
  - Wheat/cotton production tree, big mushrooms
  - graphics for a few buildings (inventors lab, loom,...)

+ Add vegetation, athmosphere, wildlife according to Zapper's advance:
  - Trees, plants, grass,...
  - Sounds, deko,...
  - Wipfs, birds, zaps, etc...

+ Performance optimizations:
  - Ropes (ck's implementation)
  - (Tree-)rendering
  - (graphics system)
  
+ Better update system (get it working)
  - automatic updates for nightly/weekly builds

+ League

+ Add content: scenarios, settlement scenarios  

Personal projects
+ Landscape shader (PeterW)
+ Music (ala)
+ floating point (JCaesar)
+ new player controls? (boni/Zapper)
+ 30fps? (Guenther)
+ new effect system (Guenther)
+ physics enchancements (Guenther)

Now, which should be the new features for our next release, which should be our goal is of course to be decided by those who will be active in the next time. I suggest that we will have a meeting in IRC about that and discuss on what we would like to work for the next release. Then we will find something on which we all gladly can work on. As for my part, I like almost all of the above possibilities, for me it's most important that we do this together. Let's estimate the work on the next release on 6 months just to give a rough time frame.
If you think we forgot to note down a direction for our next release, please comment here.

How does the 1. January 2013 19:00 sound for a meeting?

By Zapper

Date 2012-12-30 19:22

>+ new player controls? (boni)

I am currently working on that. The plan is to make gamepads work again, too - at least after the general control stuff is finished.

By Clonk-Karl [de]

Date 2012-12-31 06:05

The meeting time should wolrk for me.

By Maikel Date 2012-12-31 09:50

I might be able to make the meeting, in any case due to my limited time I will only work on small features and bugfixes for the content and work on some new scenarios maybe, I still have a few lying around unfinished.

By Günther [de]

Date 2012-12-31 15:43

> How does the 1. January 2013 19:00 sound for a meeting?

Good.

My other pet projects are:
- Effect callbacks stored in the effects instead of the FxEffectName* naming convention
- More plausible collision effects (like rocks changing their speed when hitting Clonks, maybe rocks hitting each other, etc...)

And my proposal for a team effort would be automatic updates for nightly or weekly builds. I think that's the only way we'll ever get that feature working again.

By Newton

Date 2012-12-31 11:47

I forgot to say: The said meeting shall also be the kickoff meeting to assemble a new core team for the work on the next release. We all know that the activity of each one varies in this community so we will want to see with whom we can work together and count on to launch the next release. This is also a good point where new people could jump on board.

By Newton

Date 2013-01-01 20:48

Protocol

Whats up currently?

JCaesar continues his work on the floating point branch in March. Guenther is reviewing JCaesar's work.

Sven2 added the Skylands scenario and reviewed a scenario-contribution (gold seek) by Pyrit.

Zapper works on the control stuff. Matthi is reviewing it and giving some input:
+ one-hand-control
+ gamepad control, splitscreen
+ other enhancements

Who is available and would like to work on what?

Maikel - improving settlement, both objects and scenarios, later league
Sven2 - creating content, challenges and means to overcome those
Guenther - update system, marketing
Zapper - control stuff, later/secondary flora&fauna, particle system optimizations
Newton - nature, could help with update system
Dragonclonk - would help with textures/models
ck - rope sytem
Isilkor - ?
PeterW - N/A, lights branch
Clonkonaut - N/A
JCaesar - N/A, floating point branch

So what now?
Based on what the active people would like to work on, this is the outcome of the meeting. Personal projects are not included in this summary as the team has little impact on these:

The focus on the content side will be mainly on improving and creating new content for settlement challenges. Maikel and Sven2 will be mainly working on this. Less priority have the flora & fauna and athmoshpere improvements and can be done along the way, mainly advocated by Zapper and Newton.
Finishing the design document has least priority at the moment and content can be added if anything turns up graphics-wise.
On the engine side, a team-effort is to improve the update system, advocated by Guenther. The other are performance optimizations (engine rope system, drawing code)

By Sven2

Date 2013-01-01 20:59

I know I'm not the only one who has played through the settlement missions by now, and a release certainly also needs new content.

Generally, I would like more scenarios to be more mission-like, like e.g. crash landing, where you have
a) an intro
b) a unique, specific task and
c) possibly some cheery words at the end

This needs not be excessive, but even a short message at the start of the scenario can help. It just feels more polished that way. Ideally, we'd have a mission folder with scenarios of increasing difficulty, which might even form a connected storyline somehow.

Basic dialogue features should be made more accessible so creating a short (ideally: skippable) intro for your scenario becomes a bit easier for the developer. Enemy AI and dialog system needs to be in the core (Objects.ocd).

Things we already have but haven't got a good scenario for yet:
* Lava/acid/waterlakes to get stuff from. Like in pearl diving.
* Meteorites (should make them available in Objects.ocd)
* Lava/Acidrain
* Wind: Just publish Skylands

More obstacles to create challenges:
Classic Clonk stuff:
* Volcanos
* Earthquakes
* Monsters/Firemonsters/Snakes - didn't Zapper have some enemies in his version of gold mine?
Other ideas:
* Pyrit's darkness rule is cool. I would like to see Gold Seek in the original missions.
* Retrieve something from a cave where poisonous gas leaks
* Retrieve items that cast flames/lightning/run away/etc. Like the parts in Seven Keys and Sunshine.
* Catching bird/fish/zaps could be fun
* Transportation of large objects. Something like lift tower/steam engine would be cool, but require a working rope system

For more adventure-like exploration scenarios:
* AI enemies (Basic S2AI exists already, as well as the one from tutorials)
* NPCs. Need a simple to use dialogue system (Can take it from Crash Landing)
* Keys, switches and gates (We already have switches and gates. But need some extra functionality like controlling multiple gates)

Also, I think we're still missing some more options for the player so not everything is solved with loam and pumps. For example:
* Closable towers
* Maybe an airlock?
* Large-scale construction elements. Think stuff like e.g. the scaffolds from Skylands, but a bit more polished and usable
* Using Pumps to gain energy. This was an idea at the OCM but unfortunately, got overshadowed by issues with the power system

By Dragonclonk [de]

Date 2013-01-02 10:55

I've been thinking about our gold seek game yesterday. What about making sulphur slightly toxic because of its fumes? So it could be possible to embed sometimes rare ores in it. And sulphur is found in volcanic areas. Pyrit suggested to use a new material like radium, but I am a bit against it because there's already an existing one which also may need a little challenge.

By Kvothe1990 [de]

Date 2013-01-02 11:22

"What about making sulphur slightly toxic because of its fumes?"

Yes! Would be a great feature, especially because there is very little interaction with the surroundings and the dangers are artificial most of the time.
Given the mass of shrooms there are on the surface, you could easily make it more than slightly toxic.

By Dragonclonk [de]

Date 2013-01-02 11:37

>Given the mass of shrooms there are on the surface, you could easily make it more than slightly toxic.

But the toxicity should not depend of the mass of mushrooms in a scenario. You could define an #appendto to increase the toxicity for special scenarios.

By Gurkenglas [de]

Date 2013-01-10 11:46

Why not? Make mushrooms or, more importantly, moss, pollute the landscape somewhat as they grow to make the scenario harder. That way, we wouldnt even have to slow down the current rate of growth, and people can maybe choose to modify their playing in a way that they dont have to worry about the (Poisonous air? Mossworms crawling through the earth? Mushrooms emitting radiation that makes sulphur instable?)!

By Pyrit Date 2013-01-10 19:08

I don't think it's a good idea if the game changes the rules from scanerio to scenario.

By Gurkenglas [de]

Date 2013-01-11 12:31

Just the mossworms for every scenario that uses moss?

By Sven2

Date 2013-01-02 14:10

It might be fitting for sulphur, but I'm not sure how to balance that in scenarios. You need sulphur for dynamite mostly, so this increases the strength of the pickaxe compared to flints even further. Also, how do you suggest the player should handle this problem?

* Dig out only small pieces at a time to avoid massive fumes? That would just be annoying and provide no extra challenge
* Blast sulphur with flints? You probably dig sulphur because you didn't have explosives in the first place
* A gas mask? Then you'd need a tools workshop first, which is usually a building you get after the chemical lab. Besides, once you have the tools workshop, you can just build a pickaxe and skip explosives altogether
* Just take the damage? It sucks when you're almost dead, need sulphur and have no way to avoid the toxicity
* Fumes go upwards and you only dig from below? Then you'd just mine the lower part of the vein and couldn't reach the rest
* Proper wind calculation and dig out sulphur only from caves where the wind blows away the fumes? Well, we don't have that kind of physics simulation :P
* Have the fumes dissipate fast if you dig sulphur overground. So overground sulphur can be mined without problem but underground sulphur needs special tools? Might work but puts quite a burden on the scenario designer. Might also not be very intuitive to the player.

It's a change we might try out, but we should consider how the player can handle the challenge.

By Dragonclonk [de]

Date 2013-01-02 14:33

You're right. Additional I can imagine having two statuses when a nearby volcano is active: The sulphur produces toxic smoke and is dangerous to mine, when the volcano is silent the player can mine suplhur easily (note cooldown for toxicity). If there is no volcano in the map there's no danger to mine the sulphur.

I hereby license the file s.png under the CC-BY license

Attachment: s.png (21k)

By Zapper

Date 2013-01-02 15:40

I would rather make sulphur dangerous in a different way - toxicity sounds either too boring or too annoying.

Locally I have for example plants lying around that only grow on sulphur - and did you hear about the sulphur snakes??? - You get what I am getting at ;)

By Pyrit Date 2013-01-02 16:49

What about a dirty sulphur that needs refining in the chemlab/foundry to become pure sulphur. And pure sulphur that can only be mined with intoxications?
The toxicity could be just a little yellow cloud, that moves around in your mine near the sulphur and you have to avoid.