The Energon Pub

You got a perfect test rat with me

EDIT:lookin good so far great job on it

Add AI drones. I was Wheeljack, and the only Decepticon activity was something I'd done as Thundercracker a while before. And why can the Decepticons scan for Decepticon activity? Shouldn't they scan for energy sources...or something? Fuel runs out a bit fast, but that's not really a problem.
Still, an awesome game.

Count me in. I've always wanted to try a good G1 game.

Thyunda wrote:Add AI drones. I was Wheeljack, and the only Decepticon activity was something I'd done as Thundercracker a while before. And why can the Decepticons scan for Decepticon activity? Shouldn't they scan for energy sources...or something? Fuel runs out a bit fast, but that's not really a problem.
Still, an awesome game.

Thanks Thyunda. These are all good suggestions. I have just tweaked the fuel values--now all characters have 50% more fuel capacity than they did before. I think resource management (like fuel) adds to the game, but it shouldn't be a pain in the butt.

Right now the Decepticon computer is pretty much a copy of Teletraan I. What I am planning on is a screen that shows recently scouted energy sources, with images, locations, energy remaining, etc. It will give the scout/spy characters something to do.. Laserbeak was always taking photos with that camera in his head.

I have some ideas on how to implement the AI drones. I'm thinking human jets/tanks on the Autobot side and Robotic drones on the Decepticon side. I was considering having AI control the actual transformers themselves, but then it would get confusing figuring out who was an actual player or not.

Again, thanks for your input!

I'm gonna send out some more pms to the recent posters with the url.

-Skyspy

I'll help test. Send me a PM.

Skyspy wrote:

Thyunda wrote:Add AI drones. I was Wheeljack, and the only Decepticon activity was something I'd done as Thundercracker a while before. And why can the Decepticons scan for Decepticon activity? Shouldn't they scan for energy sources...or something? Fuel runs out a bit fast, but that's not really a problem.
Still, an awesome game.

Thanks Thyunda. These are all good suggestions. I have just tweaked the fuel values--now all characters have 50% more fuel capacity than they did before. I think resource management (like fuel) adds to the game, but it shouldn't be a pain in the butt.

Right now the Decepticon computer is pretty much a copy of Teletraan I. What I am planning on is a screen that shows recently scouted energy sources, with images, locations, energy remaining, etc. It will give the scout/spy characters something to do.. Laserbeak was always taking photos with that camera in his head.

I have some ideas on how to implement the AI drones. I'm thinking human jets/tanks on the Autobot side and Robotic drones on the Decepticon side. I was considering having AI control the actual transformers themselves, but then it would get confusing figuring out who was an actual player or not.

Again, thanks for your input!

I'm gonna send out some more pms to the recent posters with the url.

-Skyspy

You wouldn't be interested in adding Shockwave to the character list? I know he didn't appear on Earth (except in one, tiny part of an episode) but he is such a cool character.

i think you should make it like most mmo rpgs. like you see your character and the other people and you can see the field and the desert and stuff like that.

jazz reborn wrote:i think you should make it like most mmo rpgs. like you see your character and the other people and you can see the field and the desert and stuff like that.

I may not be SkySpy, but I do know that that sort of thing can get expensive and difficult to do.

Thyunda wrote:

jazz reborn wrote:i think you should make it like most mmo rpgs. like you see your character and the other people and you can see the field and the desert and stuff like that.

I may not be SkySpy, but I do know that that sort of thing can get expensive and difficult to do.

oh. but i still like it.

jazz reborn wrote:

Thyunda wrote:

jazz reborn wrote:i think you should make it like most mmo rpgs. like you see your character and the other people and you can see the field and the desert and stuff like that.

I may not be SkySpy, but I do know that that sort of thing can get expensive and difficult to do.

oh. but i still like it.

Would be cool, wouldn't it?

I'll give it a try.

I could spend all day on that game! It's so awesome! Map's a bit small though....

Ok Thyunda, Shockwave is now in the game.

Regarding the size of the map--I'm thinking about adding some more energy sources to plunder/defend. It's pretty straightforward to make it bigger. Maybe the long range scanners on the computers need to be modified to show more locations.

I've also considered adding a Cybertron map that can be reached via space bridge, etc. That would give players more places to go.. Since we're now testing Shockwave out as a character, I guess I should build his home at some point.

Happy hunting,

Skyspy

p.s. a transformers mmo would be sweet--one step at a time I guess!

Skyspy wrote:Ok Thyunda, Shockwave is now in the game.

Regarding the size of the map--I'm thinking about adding some more energy sources to plunder/defend. It's pretty straightforward to make it bigger. Maybe the long range scanners on the computers need to be modified to show more locations.

I've also considered adding a Cybertron map that can be reached via space bridge, etc. That would give players more places to go.. Since we're now testing Shockwave out as a character, I guess I should build his home at some point.

Happy hunting,

Skyspy

p.s. a transformers mmo would be sweet--one step at a time I guess!

I'm playing as Shockwave now. He's cool
Have you made it so you automatically put your energon cubes into storage? 'Cause I didn't even have to press anything, and they went into Megatron's big energy box.
This has to be the greatest online Transformers game EVER! It somehow manages to leave me breathless after a battle, and not many games can do that. Bluestreak FTW! Killed Megatron, Frenzy, Buzzsaw and Soundwave!

EDIT: Also, you only seem to have Season 1 characters. How come? I mean, Red Alert could have the Scanners ability, right?

Thyunda wrote:I'm playing as Shockwave now. He's cool
Have you made it so you automatically put your energon cubes into storage? 'Cause I didn't even have to press anything, and they went into Megatron's big energy box.
This has to be the greatest online Transformers game EVER! It somehow manages to leave me breathless after a battle, and not many games can do that. Bluestreak FTW! Killed Megatron, Frenzy, Buzzsaw and Soundwave!

EDIT: Also, you only seem to have Season 1 characters. How come? I mean, Red Alert could have the Scanners ability, right?

Regarding the energon drop--it isn't automatic, but perhaps it should be for the sake of convenience. I think what happened there was a glitch.

I started out with just the season 1 characters to make the early stages of the project manageable. Adding new characters requires hunting down/retouching decent screencaps for robot/alt mode avatars and entering a bunch of data. I'm also trying to keep the teams semi balanced, but that's tough to gauge with a small testing population.

We're off to a good start though--two new additions today--Shockwave and Skyfire. Now to code up a way of letting Skyfire transport his friends..

-Skyspy

Skyspy wrote:

Thyunda wrote:I'm playing as Shockwave now. He's cool
Have you made it so you automatically put your energon cubes into storage? 'Cause I didn't even have to press anything, and they went into Megatron's big energy box.
This has to be the greatest online Transformers game EVER! It somehow manages to leave me breathless after a battle, and not many games can do that. Bluestreak FTW! Killed Megatron, Frenzy, Buzzsaw and Soundwave!

EDIT: Also, you only seem to have Season 1 characters. How come? I mean, Red Alert could have the Scanners ability, right?

Regarding the energon drop--it isn't automatic, but perhaps it should be for the sake of convenience. I think what happened there was a glitch.

I started out with just the season 1 characters to make the early stages of the project manageable. Adding new characters requires hunting down/touching jpegs for their robot/alt mode avatars and entering a bunch of data. I'm also trying to keep the teams semi balanced, but that's tough to gauge with a small testing population.

Two new additions today--Shockwave and Skyfire. Now to code up a way of letting Skyfire transport his friends..

-Skyspy

If it's images you need, it's images I can get you. You don't have to do all of it alone. You can have some help getting the images, can't you? Plus, I don't think there's one for Ravage's cassette form. It's been a while since I played as Ravage, and you may have added one then. I love that game! It's so awesome! Great work, SkySpy! And as for the rest of you testers, start playing more! I spent a while as lonely little Buzzsaw bringing back one Energon cube at a time.

A few thoughts of my own:

The game as is can be....twitchy. Like if your browser takes too long to load, you die. I can't really think of a way around that, given the nature of the system, but I just wanted to make that clear.

This could be helped if all the controls were on the top of the screen, rather than the bottom. I find myself having to scroll down to click my direction, which eats up time. The terrain picture, while a nice aesthetic touch, is taking up too much room. If it was downsized then the controls and scanner could be brought up and gameplay would be smoother.

The game is most fun when there are several people on both sides. It makes it more fun to have both opponents and someone to talk to. Thus it would be nice to know who's playing. Having the numbers playing things that you on login on all the time would, I think, be reassuring to people.

Starscream's null ray is, I think, a bit overpowered. 10 seconds is a long time in this game. I think it needs a balancing factor, like a sizable energy cost, as well as a reduction in duration. Even 6 or 7 seconds can mean all the difference in this game.

Finally, shouldn't the highways be helping the Autobots more? I would think they would count as high altitude does for the Seekers, at least for paster Bots like the Cars.

Overall I think you've got a good game here, but one that really needs a good number of players at once to really get going. A few tweaks to the layout and controls, and we could have something great on our hands.

Thyunda, if you'd like to help by scouting up some images, that would be most appreciated! There are no rules that say I have to go this solo.. I sure as heck can't playtest this thing myself.

Fuzzymus--thanks for your thoughts, I think they're right on target. Let me address them individually:

FuzzymusPrime wrote:A few thoughts of my own:

The game as is can be....twitchy. Like if your browser takes too long to load, you die. I can't really think of a way around that, given the nature of the system, but I just wanted to make that clear.

Agreed. There are a couple of ways this could be handled. One would be only letting people take so many actions per period of time.. forcing them to wait a bit if they are loading pages too quickly. This would equalize/make combat less twitchy, but traveling around would be a pain.

Another solution, which I am implementing for now, is making all of the transformers a little less 'squishy'. Hit points are tied to endurance, (End) and before everyone had End*10 hit points. Now everyone has End*15 hit points. This should ease up on the twitch factor a bit.. Combat should be at a pace that allows people to at least think about tactics, etc, rather than just awarding the fastest clicking.

FuzzymusPrime wrote:
This could be helped if all the controls were on the top of the screen, rather than the bottom. I find myself having to scroll down to click my direction, which eats up time. The terrain picture, while a nice aesthetic touch, is taking up too much room. If it was downsized then the controls and scanner could be brought up and gameplay would be smoother.

A revamp of the control/display layout is definitely in order. Scrolling down is way annoying, and I find myself having to do that too often. As a stopgap until a new layout of the controls can be done, I have shrunk down the terrain picture as you recommended.

FuzzymusPrime wrote:
The game is most fun when there are several people on both sides. It makes it more fun to have both opponents and someone to talk to. Thus it would be nice to know who's playing. Having the numbers playing things that you on login on all the time would, I think, be reassuring to people.

I just added the count of players on both sides that you see on entry this morning. (this is part of the new (unfinished) 'drone' routine) I think what you are suggesting is keeping this tally up all the time, which I think is a good idea. It would be reassuring.. I should get this up soon.

FuzzymusPrime wrote:
Starscream's null ray is, I think, a bit overpowered. 10 seconds is a long time in this game. I think it needs a balancing factor, like a sizable energy cost, as well as a reduction in duration. Even 6 or 7 seconds can mean all the difference in this game.

Absolutely. It is way overpowered--I can attest to this first hand, because I got wrecked by someone who was playing Starscream a bunch today. The null ray was set for 12 seconds, which was basically an eternity in the game (given the 'twitch' factor). The increased hit points should help a bit, but I have also toned the null ray down to about 4 seconds of effectiveness vs. 12. (Ironhide's liquid nitrogen is down to 3 seconds from 10) Special weapons are supposed to be tied to the 'power' meter, but that has not happened yet. When that gets coded in, Starscream will only be able to fire it a few times before requiring a recharge back at base. Many of the other special weapons don't do anything yet, which further unbalances the game for those who have their weapons coded already..

FuzzymusPrime wrote:
Finally, shouldn't the highways be helping the Autobots more? I would think they would count as high altitude does for the Seekers, at least for paster Bots like the Cars.

From the start, I wanted a neat connection between the Autobots and the roads. I've been thinking that the highway would be a good way for Autobots to lose pursuers while in vehicle mode. As it stands, Autobots get a fuel reduction when rolling, but not much else. As you may have noticed, it is hard to flee a character with a greater speed value than you have.. they end up 'autofollowing' you when they attack. I think having the highway as a 'getaway' route for Autobots would be nice. It makes a lot of sense--blending in, etc.

FuzzymusPrime wrote:
Overall I think you've got a good game here, but one that really needs a good number of players at once to really get going. A few tweaks to the layout and controls, and we could have something great on our hands.

Thanks Fuzzymus. I'm hoping that the addition of some computer controlled decepticon drones and human military units will make the game a bit more interesting when the game population is low. The fun factor of the game is totally dependent on the number of players, which is not a bad thing, so long as there are plenty of players... Getting those player numbers up will require making the game more fun when just a few are in.

From the other threads that I have read on this board, I know you've spent some time thinking about how to build a transformers game, and I appreciate your input here. I'll keep you posted on the fixes as they come online.

-Skyspy

Skyspy,

Can you out me on your list, would love to try out game.

email: pjbella2@hotmail.com

Would you like the images posted here or sent in a pm?

And whoever it was playing as Starscream last night, brilliant roleplaying! But Soundwave is not a walking computer....and Buzzsaw is not incompetent!

Thyunda wrote: And whoever it was playing as Starscream last night, brilliant roleplaying! But Soundwave is not a walking computer....and Buzzsaw is not incompetent!

Of course not, but do you think Starscream is going to admit he got lost along the way to the Ark?

FuzzymusPrime wrote:

Thyunda wrote: And whoever it was playing as Starscream last night, brilliant roleplaying! But Soundwave is not a walking computer....and Buzzsaw is not incompetent!

Of course not, but do you think Starscream is going to admit he got lost along the way to the Ark?

So that's where he went! I thought he got depressed.
"Get back to work finding Energon."
"What do you think I've been doing this past solar cycle?!"
"Complaining."

That conversation was amusing. Can't believe Brawn got us both. I missed the 'blast' button several times. That's how Brawn got me. Not because I'm a walking computer.

Wheeljack(radio): Laserbeak was here again
You says: Cawww!

Little bit of a glitch there. Huffer and Wheeljack were fighting against Laserbeak, and Laserbeak spoke. It came up as 'You' though

Bungle: I sent you an email with the url--thanks for your interest!

Thyunda: PM would be fine for images--or I can give you my email/ftp info which would probably be easier for you.

Good catch on the 'Say' communication glitch. I have seen that one intermittently in the past--will try to fix it this afternoon.

EDIT: Found the bug and I *think* it's fixed

Have fun!

-Skyspy

Skyspy wrote:Bungle: I sent you an email with the url--thanks for your interest!

Thyunda: PM would be fine for images--or I can give you my email/ftp info which would probably be easier for you.

Good catch on the 'Say' communication glitch. I have seen that one intermittently in the past--will try to fix it this afternoon.

Have fun!

-Skyspy

I've only got TF:TM on DVD, meaning so far I've only got Season 3 characters. Basically I've got Thrust and Red Alert's robot modes. Blitzwing's tank mode (not sure if you want triple changers) Hot Rod robot and vehicle modes and Kup's robot and vehicle modes. God forbid you'd actually use Hot Rod....