Programming, computers, etc. [Serious]

[Anonymously Famous]

So it's maybe an int? Cool.

Haskell has a Maybe type.

[Shai'tan]

Nice. This semester we started programming in C, anyone have any tips for me?

[atomtengeralattjaro]

i have yet to delve into the wonders of segfaults and pointer errors. i'd like to, one day.

[ThingerDudes]

No you don't. It's terrible and stupid. Although I guess you learn to appreciate stuff about modern programming languages and you get a lower level control of stuff it's stupid and terrible nonetheless.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

but.. it's blazingly fast, no?

[ThingerDudes]

Well...I got really frustrated with it doing some simple school labs (things like making linked lists or binary search trees basic stuff like that) so I can only imagine what would happen if I had to do something more complicated. I suppose it does have its uses but I haven't really had to deal with it.

Oh and the OS course (which was in C) made me hate everything low level forever.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

I see. Well I guess even the people who have to use c/c++ (for game engines and stuff) use a lot of handy libraries for all the basic stuff.

[Anonymously Famous]

I remember liking C/++. It did get hard to keep track of all the pointers, though...

Yes, it can be faster, but you don't really need it for much more than some libraries that are time/performance sensitive. Then you can glue those libraries together with a scripting language, like Python.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

I'm making a new game!

it's sort of a space sumo right now. There are two space probes, they use rockets to propel themselves around, and there are some random asteroids. The player who first leaves the play area loses. It takes some getting used to. Right now it's local multiplayer (player 1 using WASD vs. player 2 using arrow keys), but i think online multiplayer will be added soon-ish (i already have a working netcode).
Simple newtonian physics, so far no spinning (sadly), so the bodies all act as points now. Spinning would complicate gameplay, but it's also hard to code, and i'm not exactly a physics professor.

A glorious screenshot:



If you want to play it:

You need to have Java installed. You may already have it, but for security reasons, it's always good to have the latest one.
Here you can check if you have the latest: http://www.java.com/en/download/install ... =jre&try=1

If you have the latest Java, but you don't regularly use web applets (or don't even know what those are), then it's best if you disable the Java plugin in your browser (so that malicious applets won't affect you). (In Firefox: Plugins -> Java platform -> change Always activate to Never activate. In IE: options gear icon thing -> Manage Add-ons, right click anything with Java in its name and select Disable. In other browsers.. figure it out.)

You can download this zip, extract it, and run the JAR file. (any OS)

On Windows, if it doesn't work, try the start.bat file. If that doesn't work either, you may not have Java (or you need to navigate into where Java is installed and start Java from there with a command like: java -jar "somefolder\Spaaaaaaaace a1.jar" depending on where you've extracted the game.)

[Shai'tan]

Awesome! Couldn't get it to work on Ubuntu for some reason, but I'll try on Windows later.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

I just tried it on an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS virtual machine, it worked fine. All I had to do is right click the Jar file, select Properties, Open With, and select the "OpenJDK Java 7 Runtime" from the list, and make it default. After that, it started on double click. (The "allow executing file as program" option was already ticked in under the Permissions tab, it was greyed out, but that can be set via something like "sudo chmod 777 filename" if I remember correctly.)

If you don't have OpenJDK Java 7 Runtime under the open with tab, go into the ubuntu software center, search for it and install.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

Double poast because yeah!

New version! I know nobody has played it yet but oh well.

Download here.
I've named it Soyuz for now.

changelog:

Alpha 2

• Added fuel limitation, thrusters only work while you have fuel.
• Fuel now contributes to mass, using up fuel reduces mass (thus increasing acceleration)
• When you have very little fuel, the thrust force is reduced (due to reduced pressure)

Alpha 3

• Fullscreen mode, enabling different resolutions and aspect ratios (Hopefully doesn't look awful on your resolution..) (Ingame quit key: ESC)
• Main menu with options
• Options to set the number and size of asteroids
• Option to set the starting fuel amount
• Options to set the force of the thrusters (bigger force means more acceleration, but faster fuel consumption too)
• Option to turn fullscreen mode on or off (this doesn't work properly, messes up mouse location if you switch back to fullscreen, for some reason)

[ThingerDudes]

The fullscreen mode does not seem to work?
Also the screen extends into my taskbar at the bottom. Would be nice if it was resizable
I don't see the other options you've mentioned.

pls fix thx

[atomtengeralattjaro]

will do
soonish
i hope
can you post a screenshot? whats your resolution?

(edit: oh, the rest of the options are under the Local game menu, you can set those things before starting a game.)

Edit:

Link
Fixed some bugs, but I can't do much about the fullscreen thing, java has a method for it, I call it, if it doesn't work, end of story
The thing starts in windowed mode now, and if you try to turn fullscreen on and it can't, the window title will say "fullscreen mode not supported". If it doesn't happen, and you're still not in fullscreen, then I have no idea what happened.

[ThingerDudes]

Resizing the window seems to work now, but the starting size could be smaller

fullscreen mode is still kinda weird

Everything else seems to work ok

[atomtengeralattjaro]

Cool.
unfortunately i don't have a non-5:4 monitor to test it on..

it all needs work tho..
there is no rocket equation implemented, don't suppose i'll ever go as deep as crypticsea's rocket builder, but the escape velocity thingy is a little too simplified now. There is a constant escape velocity, that'll start to decrease when the fuel is under 10%, and it will cause the thrust to lessen with it. I have no idea how to do this better without going into gas laws and ugly equations..

Anyway, i'm thinking about adding shooting, but i don't want it to be the same old "shoot me and decrease my HP to 0" thing, more like some kind of damage system (damaging the nozzle could alter its angle and/or its force, damaging the core could cause a fuel leak or the entire thing to fall apart)..
The problem is that if I do something like this, hitting asteroids would need to damage you too, and that would take away the fun of bouncing them back and forth.

In either case, I want to make online multiplayer happen

[Shai'tan]

I installed Oracle Java 7 Runtime and got it running, unfortunately it ends up like this.



Doesn't seem like there's anything I can do to fix it either.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

have you tried resizing it?
what's your resolution?
sorry, i'll try to figure out something, i have no idea why is this happening.

[Shai'tan]

have you tried resizing it?
what's your resolution?
sorry, i'll try to figure out something, i have no idea why is this happening.

Yeah, didn't work. 1920x1080. No problem

[Anonymously Famous]

I'll have to try it when I'm on my home computer.