Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 5:04 pm Post subject:
What's next for Ares
About a year ago, I was working on the Ares release that would become 0.9, and you all know how that went. That's the reason there was only one release this year, and not three yet.
So, what`s next? Literally... Finally, Ares 1.0, or just Ares 0.10? Right now, I've settled with 0.A as codename, which is hexadecimal-ish for 0.10.
If the community is supportive, there will be at least one more release I'll work on. This depends on a few things I'll explain up front, so there will be no nasty surprises later on.
This time, I'll release more features only if the last bunch of features has been confirmed. That is: I'll not run too much faster than the community. I'll fix buggy features, and mark confirmed features as "safe". If at some point this procedure takes too long and I lose interest, I'll at least create a public build that contains all the safe features up to that point. Also, if the set of features is big enough, I'll release a new version. Preferrably before the end of the year.
The next binary will contain a lot of internal changes again. I'm using Visual Studio 2015 now, which is a new toy to play with, and compiling Ares with it came with a few small changes. It should still work on Windows XP and up (which requires to compile Ares with some undocumented compiler argument, and finding that solution was an adventure on its own).
Here's the list of changes for now. You can report here in this thread, because I did not set up LaunchPad yet. As you can see, this is just some small things as a test to see how many modders are still interested, and the fun items with more impact are yet to come.
The initial loading screen will not show longer than necessary
Building center cells calculation for inhibitors fixed
Firestorm almost reworked completely (should also be performance gain)
Fixed a crash when an EVA voice was not defined correctly (no testing required)
Loaded trucks will again give crates (#1489302)
Chronosphere did not snap to cell coords any more (#1469906)
Academies do not affect preplaced objects any more (#1476194)
Fixed Play Sound At Waypoint map action (I found it only used the first few waypoints)
Warn if a weapon has no valid projectile set (same as with warheads)
Optimizations
These are features that were touched in some form, but should still work as documented. The optimizations are most likely not observable, so the testing should focus on whether everything works as always.
The way Ares attaches its new data or the game objects has been changed
Super Weapon targeting for the AI optimized heavily
Radar Jammers reworked (capturing jammed radars should be tested, though low priority)
Removed the need to allocate temporary buffers on several occasions
Sometimes, creating crash dumps took a very long time. Now it should be mere seconds.
Questions
Does anybody have a side that can build more than 10 types of power plants?
PoweredBy
PoweredBy should now better support EMP and slaves (seen from the vehicle side). Also, powering down will abort attacks with a Temporal weapon (same change as for EMP last time). Not really important. Just see that everything still works as you expect it, if you use this logic.
Firestorm changes
The Firestorm should now behave more like in Tiberian Sun. I changed how it is activated, which might fix the activation issues that have been present for years. There's more to come, but because almost nobody is using Firestorm, I'm not expecting you to test this, really. If you use it, please focus on this one.
Sonar
Sonar has been reworked to affect all units, not just the currently cloaked ones (this is about firing, not targeting!). This means that a surfaced sub hit by sonar will not be able to submerge again, while previously it wasn't affected because it was surfaced. Also, if another sonar strikes, the sub can't submerge again until both effects have subsided, while previously the second sonar would have no effect.
Exit the game without confirmation
In uimd.ini:
[UISettings]QuickExit= (boolean, defaults to no)
Whether the game shall exit immediately when clicking the exit button. Otherwise a message box is shown and the player can still abort closing the game.
Disk Laser animations
Disk Lasers now support an animation (#940930) and also respect the Bright setting. For backwards compatibility, you'll have to enable this behavior globally.
[AudioVisual]DiskLaserAnimEnabled= (boolean, defaults to no)
Whether Disk Lasers should display an animation from the AnimList tag.
Where's the download? For unorganizational reasons, the new binary is available under the old name Rough Sea now.
Just use the Syringe from Ares 0.9, and everything should be set. Does it feel faster or slower? I suspect it's about the same, but one can never know.
That's it for today. The next binary will come once a fair share of things have been confirmed working or broken. Please also look for other issues, things that suddenly stopped working. But please no new feature requests.
Any questions or remarks? _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 5:27 pm Post subject:
Re: What's next for Ares
AlexB wrote:
The initial loading screen will not show longer than necessary
Seems to work. Although at least on my end and probably for many others with decent computers, this means it won't get shown at all.
AlexB wrote:
Loaded trucks will again give crates (#1489302)
They do give them again now, as long as all other conditions (random crates & TruckCrate) are satisfied.
AlexB wrote:
Warn if a weapon has no valid projectile set (same as with warheads)
The warning is given as expected, even on weapons that do not technically require projectile, namely Prism Forwarding support beams.
AlexB wrote:
Exit the game without confirmation
AlexB wrote:
Disk Laser animations
Both work as intended.
These was able to quickly test and confirm. I hope to look into some of the other changes tomorrow.
EDIT: DiskLaser also now supports Bright as intended. _________________ Last edited by Starkku on Tue Oct 13, 2015 9:19 am; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Any kind of mod that uses fake 'Generals' for a side instead of countries could use 10 power plants, 2 per general, 5 generals, per faction.
For the Rough Sea download, I get a "Webpage Unavailable" in chrome and dumb old Microsoft Edge. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
I found a bug/error. I use Prism Forwarding and when one of my Prism Towers got hit by EMP weapon, all connected to that Tower lost their active animation.
Picture included.
On the good side of the planet:
Game exits without confirmation - check!
Game loads faster - check!
Before you ask why is asked this strange 10-powerplants question: the number should be absurdly high for 99% of the modders. Power plant selection uses a fixed sized array now, and if your number of power plants is less than or equal to 10, it will run faster, because no memory has to be allocated. For the remaining 1 percent: It's dynamic. You can still have 20 or more power plant types, but then it will need to allocate, as before.
QuickExit and Disk Laser anims should be considered confirmed (though the latter could need some testing with the Bright=yes setting).
4StarGeneral: works for me, in Firefox.
PillBox20: I'm on it. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Not working in Firefox either; But I see everyone else seems to have it, so maybe it's just my connection. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 6:05 am Post subject:
> Game loads noticeably faster
however, I noticed that mousewheel no longer scrolled through available build options on the sidebar... _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) Last edited by EVA-251 on Mon Oct 12, 2015 6:09 am; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Avast is giving me virus warnings & blocking the file (technically Ares is a virus tho, but a good one ). I had to disable it in order to download the file, maybe 4Star is having a similar problem.
Quote:
Does anybody have a side that can build more than 10 types of power plants?
D-day's unholy alliance game mode lets you build 11 power plants. They are all listed under BuildPower but each side only has one listed in AI.PowerPlants. Is there any thing I need to change in order to test the new selection array? _________________
You're right Mig, Avast was blocking it without so much as even a popup about it. Thanks, I never even thought of it, Avast never blocked it before.
I believe if I read it right, having 11 power plants just makes the engine read the old, slower way; Allocating memory per power plant, so if you take out 1 power plant from the array, the game should run (noticeably?) faster. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Recompiling Syringe also triggered my Avira, so I guess it has to do with the move to VS 2015. Microsoft changed a lot to the runtime files and how binaries are built, but I don't know whether it's that. I guess it is. Syringe and Ares are definitely not more malicious as they have been for years.
@EVA-251: Mouse scrolling works for me, and there was no change regarding mouse input or the sidebar. I don't know why that could be.
@Mig Eater: It's about the AI.PowerPlants tag only, and one is ok. It's also just a minor optimization: It will run faster if below, and not slower if above. So, there would be no penalty that wasn't there before. Also, it is confirmed working if everything just works as it did before. That's enough testing.
@Zero Fanker: That is why I don't like to talk about the features I work on... Please don't reveal things before I mention them.
Public testing just started. This is not the final version, and I'll include more features once the current bunch is tested. There's always the chance to put something new in.
@all: Just to make it clear:
I know that bounty has been requested by so many, for years. Recently I looked into it, and it was a messy piece of code, because it contains three logics as far as I could see. I didn't work on it. No bounty yet.
I had some experimental shields last year (the personal variant, if you remember the discussion about them), but there are no working shields, and there won't be 0.A. Haven't worked on them this year either.
On the other hand, troop crawlers are among the things I coded already. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:01 pm Post subject:
You are right, Alex.
I rebooted YR and the problem solved itself. First time I ever really encountered this bug in any of the old CNCs however, so I felt the need to report it. But it seems it was nothing. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
Just writing down issues and slightly troubling changes I've noticed thus far.
- Prism Tower visual error for the active anim, said to be caused by Firestorm section anims?
- audio.bag being hardcoded makes any hex'edited filenames for that particular file obsolete (MO makes use of that), however if IMA ADPCM wave format works in mixes this won't be an issue at all
- Firestorm "blast" animations' palette is now hardcoded, they could use custom pals before 0.A
- there is a noticeable delay now when you're ingame and you want to open the pause menu; there is no delay for the diplomacy screen
Boot-up starts up real fast alright so nice job there...
Ingame performance seems majorly improved in terms of FPS.
Hard coding audio.bag thing is majorly bad for my project as whole purpose was to keep it separated from main game one to avoid accidental replace...
Similarly hard coding the pal of firestorm anim is a bit limiting.
Firestorm by itself seems to run far more fluently now and less lag atleast to me but What I can tell
the DamageToFirestormDamageCoefficient= system is still not included(?) like original TS has it, it translate damage taken as amount to reduce from the active charge allowing overload the wall with damage taken faster.
DefaultFirestormExplosionSystem=FirestormSparkSys ;Is never still used unlike TS where it creates spark particles on the location of where unit exploded (aerial fly into wall or activated on land unit occupying the wall tile). This isn't major biggie tho.
DiskLaser is working fine from what I can tell
I'm not seeing any delay with the Pause menu Speeder reports(?), mine comes up near instant I hit esc...
Prism and other Special anims will be fixed in the next build, but the custom palette issue will remain as now these anims are part of the building. The alternative is managing the anims in Ares itself and then checking all invalidated anim pointers for each and every building for everyone. It's a tradeoff, and performance wins this one for me. Maybe I could make one anim, either the active one or the idle one special, using an unused field in the game, but not both.
Hacking the exe to change filenames is not supported by Ares, so this is nothing I'm aiming for. Collisions can happen so many times, with essentially each file, and the bag file will just result in no sounds playing. If it's a shp with a different length, it could desynch the game quite easily. I'm not sure about performance if all wave files are loose files. Bag could be way more efficient, because it does not need to open a mix file each time a sound is played. Maybe I can make it use the extension from the game (that is referencing the string there, whatever it is). It's easy to do, though needlessly complex for something like this.
I don't know about the delay. I clicked the options button, and it showed up immediately in skirmish. There was no change in that area, and I'm not sure what would cause that.
DamageToFirestormDamageCoefficient will come soon, but I didn't finish DefaultFirestormExplosionSystem yet. It's one of two things missing, as far as I can tell. The other is aircraft in air might not yet correctly crash when flying through an active FS wall sections.
edit: typo. _________________ Last edited by AlexB on Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:27 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
It's not about desynching the game with files from the outside, it's about making it possible to keep RA2, YR and MO in one directory with no issues. The manual still says 'don't install other mods in the directory'.
If you made the filename hardcode as the preparation for allowing IMA ADPCM files to be put into mixes then it's good but in case that doesn't happen the hardcode shouldn't stay, just saying.
Still, an extension to the sound bag system or IMAs in MIX sounds much better than having to resupply an entire audio package from RA2/YR with a mod, which is currently what needs to be done in Ares mods unless you want to use largely oversized PCM format. When XCC Mod Launcher was used the new sounds were "injected" into bag but as we all know noone uses XCC and Ares as it's impossible. _________________ mentalomega.com QUICK_EDIT
You know, that's a nightmare for me to support exes where I can't even see what's happening because some value has been changed from the original one? Like three days ago, where I wasted hours finding an issue that finally was neither in Ares nor in the game? Turned out to be an edited exe, and what I saw and what I could reason about made no sense and it disagreed with the results I got, because it wasn't what actually happened.
I don't want to spend time to support things that have no influence on the game, just because someone could have altered it. It's a waste of my time to think of every case. It prevents me from moving forward in big steps on issues that actually do matter. Not to speak of that it's not even supported by Ares, so you technically are on your own if you encounter a crash.
Technically, it's not absolutely necessary to hardcode it; it was easier for me to not puzzle things together, but to replace a bit of code with a new version. In the Ares code, I rather like to see ".bag", and not the cryptic reinterpret_cast<const char*>(0x815E78), which then needs comments to explain what it is and why it's there. And one can't search for it in the source code.
Custom anims are now "hardcoded by accident" because the FS now works more like in TS while it previously wasn't (they were "customizable by accident"). Adding back custom palette support for FS anims would come at a price for everyone, constantly, even if no Firestorm is active, even if no Firestorm Wall currently exists, even if the mod does not even have a Firestorm SW. In other words: the performance gain is only possible if such edge cases are eliminated.
I do know about the bag and index feature of the XCC Mod Launcher (also the diffs it made for INI files and what other fancy tricks it does to make the mod package smaller). I'm not convinced that this is a good way to go. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Frankly I think seek time is reduced when using the bag, which may have been even westwood reason for using the system instead of seek play the individual wavs everytime something happens (which is continually) regards combat sounds.
I do think it could use a string or some other method to point to 'additional' idx & bag
XCC Mod launcher approach to idx/bag was terrible as activating any mod would override existing folder bag without asking not to mention several issues in general with the launcher.
Firestorm issue regards anim is fine if it means performance, I can work with it fine so fair point, just felt it needed pointing out that it changed from original ARES set-up. Last edited by ApolloTD on Tue Oct 13, 2015 6:22 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Getting a bit more risky: I released a few more features that might have some more impact, as promised. Also some more boring ones. And some fixes. Fun for everyone. Especially people downloading the mods, because some changes allow for huge reductions in file sizes.
Fixes
Hijacker no longer loses veterancy when stealing a vehicle (#1416255)
Fixed the SHP compression 1 issue with too big shapes (that strange stripes)
Teleporters and Absorbers will no longer block cells forever (#896173 and #1433804)
Multiple EMP Super Weapons interfering with each other (#1428208)
Ares.csf is always loaded now, for all language versions of YR
You can make your csf files language neutral by using a language number of -1
Loose audio improvements
Instead of requiring certain hard-coded audio properties, Ares now accepts arbitrary loose audio files the game supports. Effectively, this removes the restriction of requiring 22050 Hz 16bit mono PCM files.
Bagged audio improvements
Ares now reads audio, audio01 to audio09** bag* and index* files in this order, and merges them into a single index (not bag; it is very fast). This allows to append as many bag files as needed, then merge them into an audio index the game can use. Files in bags added later can override files in bags that were added earlier.
Firestorm
Better support for IgnoresFirestorm=yes, and more importantly for invisible projectiles. At least IsLaser=yes still draws the laser effect from source to requested target, no matter whether there is anything in between. This is a visual bug.
Made Firestorm anims customizable
[AudioVisual]FirestormActiveAnim= (animation, defaults to GAFSDF_A)
The optional animation played once when the Firestorm wall is activated.
[AudioVisual]FirestormIdleAnim= (animation, defaults to FSIDLE)
The optional animation played randomly on Firestorm Wall sections when active.
[AudioVisual]FirestormGroundAnim= (AnimationType, defaults to FSGRND)
The animation to display when an active Firestorm Wall destroys an object on the ground.
[AudioVisual]FirestormAirAnim= (AnimationType, defaults to FSAIR)
The animation to display when an active Firestorm Wall destroys an object in the air.
Added optional Firestorm warhead
[CombatDamage]FirestormWarhead= (Warhead, defaults to C4Warhead)
The warhead used by active Firestorm Walls to destroy objects. Cannot be none.
Restored DamageToFirestormDamageCoefficient
[General]DamageToFirestormDamageCoefficient= (double - multiplier, defaults to 0.0)
The multiplier for the damage dealt to active Firestorm Walls to convert hitpoints to frames to subtract from the Firestorm Defense Super Weapon's change time. Higher values reduce remaining active time faster.
Tiberian Sun defaulted to 0.1, but Ares didn't have this and just nullified all damage. This is what a value of 0.0 still does.
Assaulter Level for infantry and structures
[TechnoType]Assaulter.Level= (int, defaults to 0)
Defines the levels compared when an Assaulter=yes infantry is to assault a building. Infantry can only assault buildings with levels less than or equal to their own level.
Buildings with Assaulter.Level < 0 are not assaultable.
Footnotes
* This is why there was a hardcoded "bag" in Ares in the first place. If this isn't hardcoded in Ares, then you could break this feature by editing the exe. Also, because you can have more than one bag now, and the latter override the earlier ones, is there still a point to change that extension?
For now, the extension has been changed to the one in the exe. This should make testing easier, but I'm still not sure whether to keep this or not. It can't be documented, or it would legitimize exe hacking.
** This was planned to be 99, but i guess 9 would be better, so the game doesn't have to check 100 files that most likely don't exist. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
For now can confirm that multiple audio.idx/bag files seem to work fine, any previous restrictions on loose audio files have been lifted properly and that large SHP files no longer display erroneously even if compressed. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
I haven't encountered any issues regarding the power plants so I guess I can confirm that it's working ok.
Quote:
Fixed the SHP compression 1 issue with too big shapes (that strange stripes)
Can confirm, I have had that issue with quite a lot of my building
I'm unable to get IMA ADPCM wav files to work inside a mix file, sounds are distorted like they were before. Audio01.bag/idx isn't working for me either :/ the same files renamed to Audio.bag/idx do work tho.
I'm using Ares v09.15.286.681 on a WinXP machine, with VS 2015 installed. _________________
Ares 15.286.681:
CLEG confirmed to still always block a cell where he exits while there is a waypoint in place. Could not reproduce him occupying a cell when jumping into a unit, but then it's never been consistant.
Edit: Seems like Barracks is now the only one affected by this bug; I could not get Bio Reactor or Battlefortress/IFV to trigger this bug. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2015 1:58 pm Post subject:
Can confirm Assaulter.Level works. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
Hey Alex, I haven't done much on PPM or my mod these days. I love the fact you keep going on despite the lack of support you once had.
Did PurifierBonus.Override= for custom Purifiers levels ever get coded, or was that something that died way back in 0.6? I talked "more then a year ago" in Ares IRC chat with someone, You Alex, or Graion or perhaps someone else, not sure, said they would see if it was easy to code or not and I never got back to asking them... Didn't see it in ares manual, why I'm asking. Kind of out of the loop. If it's not coded, oh well, just wandering if it ever was. Perhaps it was a difficult thing to code or something.
Anyways I'll download this patch and see if I notice and changes in speed, etc and report back. Thanks for keeping up the good fight, and I'm sorry I really haven't been around. "Not that I was ever that great or reliable tester though. I'm even busier in real life then back when Ares started which doesn't help.." _________________ Grab my Map Logic Expansion Pack 5.2 here!
Adds random weather patterns into maps.
More disabled navalyards.
Preplaced Neutral buildings.
Additional new features.
Tried Rough Sea Binary. Loading screen was faster for sure, hardly saw it. Speed in game I couldn't tell, but perhaps it was faster, I'd need to re-check with fps showing and more controlled conditions. _________________ Grab my Map Logic Expansion Pack 5.2 here!
Adds random weather patterns into maps.
More disabled navalyards.
Preplaced Neutral buildings.
Additional new features.
DamageToFirestormDamageCoefficient, I can't seem to make this work... the charge reduces at normal rate despite the values I have put in while it is being fired at by AI forces and absurd values I even tested should reduce the charge very instant an army is firing at the wall. QUICK_EDIT
Light.Enabled etc. on MultiMissile type superweapons seem to have been broken from version 0.9, I am unable to get the lighting changes except the original effect attached to Warhead with ID 'NUKE'. Lightning Storm and Psychic Dominator lightning seem unaffected, they still work fine.
On a side note, is there a list of unconfirmed things available? _________________ Last edited by Starkku on Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:07 am; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
I'll look into teleporters and the remaining issues when I get the time. The list of features is available at LaunchPad.
@Augusto: No, not yet. Weapon effects are manually applied atm. I planned to change this to integrate them with the others, but that might not be possible without breaking compatibility. That is: If you for example had an EMP with a range, it would then affect object slightly more away than before. Or the opposite.
@EricAnimeFreak: I remember some discussion about Ore Purifiers, but I don't remember when that was. I haven't worked on that.
@ApolloTD: I actually haven't tested this code, but it should work like in TS. That is, you need one FS SW. If there are more, the first one is used.
@Mig Eater: I haven't actually tested with all formats. I'm not sure what's not working yet. There are conflicting reports.
@Starkku: It was 0.9 that broke lighting?
@temp: I planned for other features to be completed first, sorry. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
All versions are WAY special Temp, because they exist at all.
Thanks for the update Alex, I think ore purifier modifiers never got past discussion then, or it was forgotten, either-way keep up the good work at your own pleasure. _________________ Grab my Map Logic Expansion Pack 5.2 here!
Adds random weather patterns into maps.
More disabled navalyards.
Preplaced Neutral buildings.
Additional new features.
Bonus bags is a heavensend and works. Will do more testing this weekend, especially with the updated Firestorm features. _________________ mentalomega.com QUICK_EDIT
@Starkku: I'll look into it. There have been a few changes to the code.
@Mig Eater: That sounds more like you actually aren't using the new binaries... it's definitely suspicious that both features don't work. And I'm using QuickExit myself to get out of the game faster.
@Speeder: Would be nice, especially the FS anims could need some testing. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Agh... Yer it was Avast blocking it without telling me. So I added Ares to the exclusion list & got all the files copied correctly, then it suddenly decides to block Yuri.exe! Avast seems intent on stopping me from testing Ares >.> _________________ Last edited by Mig Eater on Mon Oct 26, 2015 2:04 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Mig, add the entire /RA2/ folder to the exclusion list, works for me and is perfectly safe as long as you don't download everything straight into it (why would you?). That's how I got around Avast. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Mig Eater, are you running the Origin versions of the game?
I'm using the first version, bought on day of release
Well I can report that quick exit is now working but I'm still unable to get the audio1.bag/idx to work. I tried several bit rates in both PCM & IMA ADPCM before tho & cant remember which one is currently in the bag, I need to go back & retry them all. _________________
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What's next for Ares
). I had to disable it in order to download the file, maybe 4Star is having a similar problem.
Please don't reveal things before I mention them.
