WW2: World in Flames [REVISED]

[WOWWARS]

^rolf i actually enjoyed them.

 

[clockwork2]

aHAhaH!!!he MMOed D-day.
also maybe AI?i get bored playing by myself..

 

[HOooDy]

Yeah .. Im Bored Whole Day I got Three Friends .. But They are Always Busy .. We need AI DUDE .

 

[clockwork2]

here here!!!

 

[Levdragon]

If you've only got three friends, get more The process of making AI Is very long and filled with annoyancse and bugs and very time confusing. I'd rather Fingol add more features to WiF and fix current issues then devote that time to making AI That will probably suck anyway and be easy to beat. If you are looking for WiF I suggest if your on U.S. East stopping by Clans UFN or xAGx (I'm xAGx) as I know those in UFN like this game and xAGx host it.

 

[clockwork2]

yea well, here*tosses him nade*pull it and throw it at your opinion of sucky AI..

 

[Carter_117]

Think about it this way... The map is already getting close to the 8MB limit and an A.I. would add way to much for one and not leave any room for any new features which could improve the game, make it expansive etc. etc.

xAGx host it.

Power you like never host WiF xD

 

[clockwork2]

i see...

 

[Fingolfin]

Not sure if AI would add that much to space, since it is only text. But still, creating an AI for a strategy game is one of the hardest things you can do in programming, especially when you have to use transports, defend huge areas of land, use airplanes, build bunkers at strategic plances, know when to ally and unally and so on - it is an overwhelming task.

As far as development goes, i can now tell that the V2 rocket displays proper animations and effects, takes thre seconds to fire, deals proper damage (two damage zones - one high in the center, and one low in the periferal areas), displays a really cool missile soaring through the air, the ramp turns towards the target destination, and is destroyed properly after launch. Only thing remaining right now is a sound effect, balance to cost, range and damage, and another effect that displays smoke thrusting out from the rear when it is preparing to launch.

As soon as i am done with this i will release v1.2, and i will arrange a date when we can all play together. I am also going to upload the ModDB posts as promised.

 

[Deolrin]

You cannot create water transports without manually coding because the game cannot distinguish between shallow water and deep water. Or so I've been told. So, it is simply impossible; Unless there are no sea transports in WiF. (Didn't play yet, will do so when I have time and people to play with.)

 

[Adaethus]

Wow, this thread has been out for like 1.5 years and I haven't noticed it until now.
Anyways, yay @ being able to play as Finland.
/support

 

[RiotZ]

Nice !







................. Meanwhile On Omaha Beach .... Server Hack !

I lol'd.

First one reminded me so much of Company of Heroes, I'm definitely saving that.

"Tru_m4n has joined the game" "I got nukes!" lol...

 

[Final-Burn]

UBER LULZ Good luck with this Project.

 

[clockwork2]

I lol'd.

First one reminded me so much of Company of Heroes, I'm definitely saving that.

"Tru_m4n has joined the game" "I got nukes!" lol...

lol,afterwards i think germen guy said
HOLY **** HOLY **** HOLY ****
LOLed SOOO HARD!!!

 

[Fingolfin]

You cannot create water transports without manually coding because the game cannot distinguish between shallow water and deep water. Or so I've been told. So, it is simply impossible; Unless there are no sea transports in WiF. (Didn't play yet, will do so when I have time and people to play with.)

The game can indeed distinguish between shallow and deep water. You just test a point for both naval and ground pathing.

 

[RiotZ]

The game can indeed distinguish between shallow and deep water. You just test a point for both naval and ground pathing.

Interesting, how?

Also speaking of Harry Truman and nukes, when will they be making an arrival?

 

[WOWWARS]

or le epic generals?

 

[Fingolfin]

Ladies and gentlemen, i have some awesome news!

WiF version 1.2 is now ready for release, and will be uploaded to the website sometime during this weekend!

New features will include:

*V2 missile ADDED(!)
*New Ju88 Heavy Bomber for axis
*Nerfed GB in North Africa
*New awesome icons for Mass Command, Foreign Business and Camera Options
*Added new game mode menu to set alliance mode at the start. Will add more such menus later.

For more detailed list, check this link!

 

[HOooDy]

YeaH .. AWsome ..

 

[WOWWARS]

The test went very well to inform you no real bugs but eh dg still eh strong and makes red scared. but axis is very fun now never tested nukes since i got to san fran in 1941 and berlin was falling so both sides gave up.

 

[CrimsonDeath]

Hi guys im looking forward to playing the new version!
I just had one question. will you be adding the option to play only in Europe?

 

[Fingolfin]

I have investigated the problem of airfields claiming that you have reached your maximum airplane capacity when you actually haven't, and it would appear, that it is related to the bug that causes planes to freeze.

At first i thought that the freezing airplane bug was related to airplane structs being deleted also when flying dummies were killed (the code only checks if the dying unit is flying). It would prove to be wrong though, since it is the units unique ID that is the key to the struct, and the ID of a dummy unit logically cannot be the same as that of an airplane (otherwise it wouldn't be very unique, would it). Also, if freezing airplanes are indeed the reason behind the airplane limit bug, then that would require that the plane structs are infact not being deleted, only lost from reference somehow.

My current theory is that, at hot moments, the indexer simply cannot keep up with the ammount of units on the map, and that perhaps all the units combined with the ones decaying would somewhere pass 8121, which is the max array limit. However, this does not explain planes freezing in single player early games, or why planes have an increased tendency of freezing the moment they are launched.

In other news, i can tell that the price of V2 has been increased quite a bit, and i could possibly consider increasing build time by 10 seconds or so. i realized it was a bit overpowerd as i, playing as germany, was able to build quite a few of them in berlin, seriously damaging all US attempts of taking the city, despite being almost broke. xD

Sorry for the delay on v1.2, it will be up as soon as possible.

 

[HOooDy]

the indexer simply cannot keep up with the ammount of units on the map,

how bad !

 

[CrimsonDeath]

Is this projekt dead? It is two weeks since the last post.

 

[Deolrin]

The map is already released, why don't you try it out and give them some feedback?

(I've been planning to do so for a while, but never got the chance to get a group to play on Garena with me.)

 

[Fingolfin]

No, things are just going slow.

I have done a couple of updates though, that i posted in the official changelog:

*Normalized fog to be consistent on all zoom levels, i.e., you can now see stuff on the farthest zoom.

*Further strengthened the italian positions in North Africa

*Added unique ship classes for all factions, like Kirov-class cruiser instead of Northampton for USSR, Dido class cruiser and King George V-class battleaship for UK, Scarnhorst-class battleship for Germany, Vittorio Veneto-class battleship and Trento-class cruiser for Italy. Theese ships still use the same models as before, but now have unique names and stats.

Here are the names and characteristics of the different new ships:

DESTROYERS:

Fubuki-class (Japan)
The best destroyer in the game, both fast, well armoured and hard-hitting. Slightly longer build time than other ships of it's class.

Zerstörer-class (Germany)
Mediocre destroyer, slightly higher health and cost but otherwise at the average.

Fletcher-class (US)
The current destroyer that is considered to be the average.

Folgore-class (Italy)
Weaker than other ships in most regards, but also slightly cheaper and faster.

CRUISERS:

Dido-class (UK)
Among the weakest in terms of damage, but has a good bulk and average speed.

Kirov-class (USSR)
The weakest cruiser in all regards, but also cheap and relatively fast to produce. Overall not cost efficient though.

Trento-class (Italy)
A fast cruiser specialized in chasing down destroyers. Has excellent speed and damage, but weak hull.

Tone-class (japan)
Very strong hull, mediocre cannons and poor speed. Generally above average of it's class.

Northampton-class (US)
The current allied cruiser. Extra strong against air, and also faster than japanese equivalents.

Deutschland-class (Germany)
Without doubt the most heavily armed cruiser in the game. Boosts excellent damage and armor at the cost of very low speed.

BATTLESHIPS:

Scharnhorst class (Germany)
A very fast and versatile battleship, with smaller but more fast-hitting guns. Very good for patroling the atlantic and chasing down trade ships, but will have a hard time against royal navy battleships. It is also less effective at shore bombardment.

Iowa-class (US)
The current standard allied ship. Very fast for a battleship good in shore bombardment, and also fast to produce. Weaker than japanese equivalents, however.

King George V-class (UK)
Lightly armed, but otherwise strong and resiliant.

Kongō-class (Japan)
Very strong battleship with powerful arnament, although very slow and somewhat expensive.

Vittorio Veneto-class (Italy)
Mediocre battleships that is placed somewhere between King George and Kongō in the terms of damage. High speed, but otherwise low health.

 

[WOWWARS]

nice

 

[eubz]

Awesome map.

 

[CrimsonDeath]

No, things are just going slow.

I have done a couple of updates though, that i posted in the official changelog:

*Normalized fog to be consistent on all zoom levels, i.e., you can now see stuff on the farthest zoom.

*Further strengthened the italian positions in North Africa

*Added unique ship classes for all factions, like Kirov-class cruiser instead of Northampton for USSR, Dido class cruiser and King George V-class battleaship for UK, Scarnhorst-class battleship for Germany, Vittorio Veneto-class battleship and Trento-class cruiser for Italy. Theese ships still use the same models as before, but now have unique names and stats.

Here are the names and characteristics of the different new ships:

DESTROYERS:

Fubuki-class (Japan)
The best destroyer in the game, both fast, well armoured and hard-hitting. Slightly longer build time than other ships of it's class.

Zerstörer-class (Germany)
Mediocre destroyer, slightly higher health and cost but otherwise at the average.

Fletcher-class (US)
The current destroyer that is considered to be the average.

Folgore-class (Italy)
Weaker than other ships in most regards, but also slightly cheaper and faster.

CRUISERS:

Dido-class (UK)
Among the weakest in terms of damage, but has a good bulk and average speed.

Kirov-class (USSR)
The weakest cruiser in all regards, but also cheap and relatively fast to produce. Overall not cost efficient though.

Trento-class (Italy)
A fast cruiser specialized in chasing down destroyers. Has excellent speed and damage, but weak hull.

Tone-class (japan)
Very strong hull, mediocre cannons and poor speed. Generally above average of it's class.

Northampton-class (US)
The current allied cruiser. Extra strong against air, and also faster than japanese equivalents.

Deutschland-class (Germany)
Without doubt the most heavily armed cruiser in the game. Boosts excellent damage and armor at the cost of very low speed.

BATTLESHIPS:

Scharnhorst class (Germany)
A very fast and versatile battleship, with smaller but more fast-hitting guns. Very good for patroling the atlantic and chasing down trade ships, but will have a hard time against royal navy battleships. It is also less effective at shore bombardment.

Iowa-class (US)
The current standard allied ship. Very fast for a battleship good in shore bombardment, and also fast to produce. Weaker than japanese equivalents, however.

King George V-class (UK)
Lightly armed, but otherwise strong and resiliant.

Kongō-class (Japan)
Very strong battleship with powerful arnament, although very slow and somewhat expensive.

Vittorio Veneto-class (Italy)
Mediocre battleships that is placed somewhere between King George and Kongō in the terms of damage. High speed, but otherwise low health.

Sounds awesome Fin!

when will the update be out? I would love to test it with some friends.

 

[Fingolfin]

I am trying to decide wether to wait until i get the merchant system to work, or if i should release it right away.
I also think i might have another solution for the freezing airplane bug that i might try to implement (using hashtables to attach the struct data instead of the indexer), which in worst case would at least solve a few questions as of what is going wrong.

Anyhow, if i don't release it tonight, it will have to be next week, because i am going away tomorrow afternoon and will be gone until wednesday. The 20th i am starting a new job, and from then i will be pretty busy too, so expect it to come either later tonight or between the 16th and the 20th.

 

[WOWWARS]

release it!

 

[Yonglimon]

I think it is better to give Germany the Bismarck for their battleship Seems more high class and the name is cooler haha!

 

[Fingolfin]

Well, i was going to (even wanted to model it), but i was more fond of the role that the Scharnhorst played (fast convoy raider) and the fact that it was very active in service, than the very limited range of operations that the Bismarck performed (getting sunk). Even its sister ship, the Tirpitz, was of very little use to the german navy and was ultimately degraded to the role of immobile sea fortress.

EDIT: by the way, and this is IMPORTANT!

We will be hosting a WiF game at this saturday to pretest the new 1.2 version, read more about it here!

Anyone is free to participate, and chances are we will be hosting it both on b-net and garena (i am assuming that the BAR guys will like to test it with or without us).

 

[Fingolfin]

Alright guys, i am gonna have some dinner now but then we will be off playin!

New fixes since yesterday are that i FINALLY solved the freezing ariplane bug, and also another bug that occurs when you order a plane to land at a full airport. Also, there are some V2 balancing and extra terrain features.

Hop on "clan BAR" chat channel and get ready, we will start playing in 20 minutes or so!

 

[Yonglimon]

MY ju88's are behaving like dive bombers lol

 

[Fingolfin]

What do you mean by that? Do they fire bombs in a phoenix-fire-like fashion?

 

[Yonglimon]

Yes I think u forgot to remove the attack from it

 

[Fingolfin]

Unlikely, it was copied from the Betty Bomber, which didn't have that ability in the first place.. But i will chec that out.

 

[Yonglimon]

I retested the map again in single player and I think it was a glitch, the bomber is behaving normally now OO

 

[Deolrin]

I'm in chat right now, and Zombie is raising some issues. Apparently, the Jagdpanther is not a heavy tank, it's a tank destroyer, and the Tiger I is a heavy tank. Or something. He's too lazy to actually come here and write it, and he doesn't really go into much detail. (My knowledge of WW2 is limited to "pew pew bad nazis kill good jews, good russians and americans kill bad nazis, pew pew")

 

[Fingolfin]

Frankly, i believe we changed that in the actual map, but not in the thread page.
We know very well that the jagdpanther was a tank destroyer, although i originally wanted to maintain the logical hierarchy of light-med-heavy since it would make more sense for the players. Anyhow, it has been changed in the map.

 

[Fingolfin]

New unit: the Mortar Team!

The mortar team was a unit i had planned for long to implement due to concerns about the way infantry suffers in certain combat situations. It will replace the flamethrower for USA and Britain. Contrary to what some would believe, the mortar team will not be a siege unit, infact, it does explosive damage and is another part of the infantry combat line that is intended to give supporting fire of a kind that lies between the infantry and the AT-gun. Firstly, it does light splash damage to infantry units which makes it decent as an anti-infantry unit. Second, despite having just barely higher damage than normal infantry, the explosive damage type allows it to deal acceptable damage to light armoured targets, such as AT-guns and light tanks. And finally, it has a range that just barely surpasses that of bunkers, which can allow it to slowly wittle theese down when in larger number to a cheaper cost than that of artillery. Another advantage it has above other artillery is that it can be loaded into transports for quick transportation.

Here are the cons though:

• It does neither of the above roles effective enough to be used on it's own.
• It has only barely more hit points and damage than infantry, and slower attack speed, and hence is best used to hold bridges, harass bunkers, or behind your infantry line as fire support.
• It's minimum attack range is shorter than the maximum range of infantry.
• It is not cost-effective to use in larger numbers.

One of the main supportive features that the mortar team delivers though, is the ability to fire smoke rounds. It is a ground-target, long cooldown ability that gives all friendly units within the target area a chance to dodge enemy attacks, and can be very useful when facing units that outgun or outrange your infantry, such as light tanks or bunkers.

Finally, i want to clearify what i meant earlier about "infantry combat line" - apart from obviously your battle line, there are two main lines of production that you can follow in WiF, the oil line and the cash line. Oil is a very trasured and elusive resource in WiF that you often have to prioritize between your airforce, navy, ground armor and research. You will often find yourself in situations where you run out of oil, and for this, there is a complementary line of units that can fulfill the same roles. The two lines look something like this:

Oil: Light tanks (anti-infantry), Medium tanks (all round), Tank Destroyers (anti-tank), Artillery (anti-structure)

Currency: Infantry (anti-infantry, all round), AT-guns (anti-tank), Flamethrowers/Mortars (anti-structure).

Now for some pictures!!

Images

 

[RiotZ]

Superb texturing as usual. :L

If you keep moving at this pace, we might just mistake you for a professional.

 

[Fingolfin]

Actually, i didn't do any texturing for this model, lol.. it's just the american soldier texture, and as for the mortar tube itself, it is for the stuka bomb.

However, polycount is much more efficient. This model is only 54kb in size, despite being two models, while the standard soldier is close to 117 polies :S
Portrait on the face would look terrible though, lol.

 

[RiotZ]

Actually, i didn't do any texturing for this model, lol.. it's just the american soldier texture, and as for the mortar tube itself, it is for the stuka bomb.

However, polycount is much more efficient. This model is only 54kb in size, despite being two models, while the standard soldier is close to 117 polies :S
Portrait on the face would look terrible though, lol.

Lol... A good use of textures already made then. xD

 

[CrimsonDeath]

New unit: the Mortar Team!

The mortar team was a unit i had planned for long to implement due to concerns about the way infantry suffers in certain combat situations. It will replace the flamethrower for USA and Britain. Contrary to what some would believe, the mortar team will not be a siege unit, infact, it does explosive damage and is another part of the infantry combat line that is intended to give supporting fire of a kind that lies between the infantry and the AT-gun. Firstly, it does light splash damage to infantry units which makes it decent as an anti-infantry unit. Second, despite having just barely higher damage than normal infantry, the explosive damage type allows it to deal acceptable damage to light armoured targets, such as AT-guns and light tanks. And finally, it has a range that just barely surpasses that of bunkers, which can allow it to slowly wittle theese down when in larger number to a cheaper cost than that of artillery. Another advantage it has above other artillery is that it can be loaded into transports for quick transportation.

Here are the cons though:

• It does neither of the above roles effective enough to be used on it's own.
• It has only barely more hit points and damage than infantry, and slower attack speed, and hence is best used to hold bridges, harass bunkers, or behind your infantry line as fire support.
• It's minimum attack range is shorter than the maximum range of infantry.
• It is not cost-effective to use in larger numbers.

One of the main supportive features that the mortar team delivers though, is the ability to fire smoke rounds. It is a ground-target, long cooldown ability that gives all friendly units within the target area a chance to dodge enemy attacks, and can be very useful when facing units that outgun or outrange your infantry, such as light tanks or bunkers.

Finally, i want to clearify what i meant earlier about "infantry combat line" - apart from obviously your battle line, there are two main lines of production that you can follow in WiF, the oil line and the cash line. Oil is a very trasured and elusive resource in WiF that you often have to prioritize between your airforce, navy, ground armor and research. You will often find yourself in situations where you run out of oil, and for this, there is a complementary line of units that can fulfill the same roles. The two lines look something like this:

Oil: Light tanks (anti-infantry), Medium tanks (all round), Tank Destroyers (anti-tank), Artillery (anti-structure)

Currency: Infantry (anti-infantry, all round), AT-guns (anti-tank), Flamethrowers/Mortars (anti-structure).

Now for some pictures!!

Images

Looks awesome!!! keep up the good work!

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Mortar team... I always loved that in those war games, nice work

 

[clockwork2]

hrrmmm, will the others get these? or will the americans alone??

 

[Fingolfin]

Only nations that use the allied soldier model. So yes, only UK and america.

I got some more news coming up later tonight.

 

[clockwork2]

sounds good, however i think some race special infantry would be nice, like british royal guards or sommat.