Search found 235 matches

by The Purple Panzer
Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:20 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Medals
Replies: 5
Views: 1774

Washington

I don't remember reading that Washington was on the Purple team, so the medal you posted probably doesn't make as much sense as it otherwise might. And they had limited computational power back then, using water valves and such, it must have been version .0001 or something of BZFlag, probably with s...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:33 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Medals
Replies: 5
Views: 1774

Medals

This would be an enhancement to personal profiles, perhaps available in the game or through the profiles associated with this bboard system. I thought of this while stuck in an airport lounge, and had some fun with it - I post it here as much for people to chuckle at as as a serious suggestion. It d...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:52 pm
Forum: Help: Tactics and Playstyles
Topic: Shot limits make BZFlag less fun
Replies: 49
Views: 28867

I think the best part of camping, one that can take some skill, is reading a map while playing to figure out where interesting defensive positions might be (people who just copy what they see aren't using too much skill). Of course the strong flags are best used from a position of advantage, and I a...
by The Purple Panzer
Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:49 pm
Forum: General Map Making Discussions
Topic: Version 2 mapmaking guide
Replies: 1
Views: 1384

Version 2 mapmaking guide

I thought it would be good to try to put together as comprehensive a guide as we can about how to use the new map elements. At trepan's suggestion, this is a Wiki page, at (after a move by Tim Riker): http://bzflag.org/wiki/MapMaking My idea is that this should be shared authorship, cooperatively wr...
by The Purple Panzer
Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:24 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Simple feature: server id
Replies: 6
Views: 2225

Almost...

The problem is I don't want to have to leave - if somebody else wants to know what I'm playing on right now, I'd like to be able to tell them.
by The Purple Panzer
Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:47 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Simple feature: server id
Replies: 6
Views: 2225

Simple feature: server id

There are times I'm playing when I want to tell others what server I'm on, or even just check myself (in case I want to come back, and have been playing a while without being particularly careful which server I went to). Perhaps there already is a way to tell what IP address and port, or whatever th...
by The Purple Panzer
Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:00 pm
Forum: Works In Progress
Topic: Help.
Replies: 3
Views: 3294

Help.

I'm looking for a collaborator - someone to help with some maps, and to take appropriate credit as a co-author. Or, more generally, I'd like people to feel free to modify any of my maps as they see fit. I've been going through my old maps, mainly to update them to the new standards. In a map like Mi...
by The Purple Panzer
Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:10 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Flag Ideas
Replies: 48
Views: 13528

Mine thought

I think the idea of mines is great, but I see the issue about visibility. One possibility: have them as small objects slightly up in the air, so that they show up only on radar when you're close. They could be fairly small, so that you'd really have to pay attention to the radar, which of course tak...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:45 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Historical question
Replies: 28
Views: 9752

formula

Just one random comment: sqrt( 1 - (velocity^2 / speed of light^2)) is the "Lorentz factor", and of course applies to things that go really fast. I have a very fast small sailboat (a Banshee), so that's what I named it (the formula is on the stern). It does seem to amuse people, but it's h...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:30 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Historical question
Replies: 28
Views: 9752

Lorentz contraction

To summarize it, to the 'stationary' observer, the moving person/tank gets smaller only in the direction of motion, becoming effectively two-dimensional at the speed of light. Clocks held by the moving person will appear to slow down, and would appear stopped at the speed of light. (And, even though...
by The Purple Panzer
Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:41 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Historical question
Replies: 28
Views: 9752

Somewhere I have the original binaries for the arcade game, and an emulator to run them on. You're right on the details, but I've pretty much forgotten the rest.
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:57 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Other targets
Replies: 3
Views: 1452

The point

Good point, what would be the point? In the original game, if you tried to go after a saucer, it would cause you to turn in such a way as to give the machine's tank a good shot - so you had to trade off points for vulnerability. In BZFlag, it might be used in a Capture the Flag variant, in which you...
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Jan 28, 2005 5:11 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Other targets
Replies: 3
Views: 1452

Other targets

I was thinking about the old Battlezone game, and there were targets other than tanks - originally saucers (which just gave you points, otherwise couldn't harm you) and missles (which could kill you). One game variant had helicopters - you could kill them when they came low enough to shoot at you. H...
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Jan 28, 2005 5:08 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Historical question
Replies: 28
Views: 9752

Old Battlezone

I did a port of that to Windows, while learning Windows programming, back a few years ago. I didn't quite finish it - there's no sound, for example, and its interaction with the Windows event loop is pretty poor. I can probably find that; at one point I posted the source code on the web. This gives ...
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Jan 28, 2005 12:50 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Historical question
Replies: 28
Views: 9752

Code found, probably will run again

My friend at Columbia (Albert) sent this today: Ok. I found the SGI CD with it. It is on IndiZone 3 dated DEC 1995. The game author is Chris Schoeneman. The IndiZone CDs were the software from a series of game writing contests for the SGI machine. I don't have the SGI running so no screen shot yet.....
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Jan 26, 2005 2:08 pm
Forum: General Map Making Discussions
Topic: 2.0 Maps
Replies: 96
Views: 23101

Meshes, bzedit, Mayans

It's funny, when I first heard that meshes were going to be in the game, the first idea that jumped into my head was to use geo data to build terrain, for areas I know or places of historical significance - maybe this will work to some extent, if I put in enough flat surfaces to enable play. If I ca...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:45 am
Forum: General Map Making Discussions
Topic: New map feature thoughts
Replies: 2
Views: 1347

New map feature thoughts

I'm starting to go through some of the maps I've created, fixing annoyances and generally updating them. In doing so I've been thinking about some of the possibilities in 2.0, and I'd love to hear what other people are thinking. I haven't yet had the time to master all of the new map elements, and i...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:19 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Wings
Replies: 42
Views: 15210

Wings, Useless

I think Wings is great, and I'd like to design some maps with distinct "aeries" to which players can fly. It will affect map design, I think in a way which will take much more advantage of the third dimension. And I like Useless. Sometimes I want to drive around and explore a map, and acci...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:12 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Flag Ideas
Replies: 48
Views: 13528

Simplicity?

When reading the Flaglist, I kept thinking that it could get extremely confusing (even now in 2.0 I see new flag abbreviations that take a few seconds to figure out). It'd be nice if we could get most of these new behaviors by combining partial flags, or otherwise factoring the abilities/liabilities...
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:41 am
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Engine sounds
Replies: 12
Views: 3872

What about tanks with ST? Consider hearing only own tank engine, or state wether ST tanks should make engine noise. Valoche A good point, and after my first glance at the code it looks like there are two different types of sound: local sounds, and world sounds. World sounds seem to be limited in nu...
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:21 am
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Engine sounds
Replies: 12
Views: 3872

Decided to touch-up your avatar for the holidays? Yeah, initially I figured that Erwin Rommel done in purple, sans regalia, would be silly enough, but he looked a bit too serious. It's still not quite right; I want something that indicates that I like to have fun seriously, not that I'm a serious p...
by The Purple Panzer
Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:14 am
Forum: General Map Making Discussions
Topic: contest maps
Replies: 6
Views: 2551

posting maps

It's fine by me if both of my entries are available to people.
by The Purple Panzer
Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:57 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Engine sounds
Replies: 12
Views: 3872

Can't find files

I couldn't find "sound.h" anywhere; I started with the "Browse CVS" link on BZFlag.org, and got to (for example): http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/bzflag/bzflag/src/bzflag/ and there is no file there named sound, with any extension. I wandered around a bit in the directory s...
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:05 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Historical question
Replies: 28
Views: 9752

Screen shots

That machine may still be around, and I doubt anyone would have done too much to it - I've sent a request to track it down. For all I know it might still run. (Odds are probably a bit low, but it's worth a try).
by The Purple Panzer
Wed Dec 22, 2004 9:45 pm
Forum: Enhancements
Topic: Engine sounds
Replies: 12
Views: 3872

Patches

Who's "Patches", and where is he welcome? :D

I'll think about it; I'll have to see what's used for the sounds now. I know
how to do audio reasonably well on a few platforms, but not in a platform-independent way, so it might be worthwhile to do it.