Not much new this week, just made some progress on the AI.  I finally got them to act closer to normal, so now they dont just flee to the opposite end of the screen all the time.

The Arilou acts kindof strange, moving in a snake-like pattern.  It is similar to the original game but not as fast.

I have improved the speed of the game, by limiting the AI function to run at only 24fps.  Turns  out it is quite processor heavy when there are lots of ships on screen.

Hmm, I was going to upload a preview build but since the new style rotations need to be fixed, I’m going to hold off on that until next week.

Not too much new to report this week. I spent most of my time fixing bugs, or reworking my old code. I did manage to get the Androsyn Blazer, and Melnorme primary weapon implemented.

Again, theres no new build this week because I just changed the way I render the battle area and it is not ready yet. Since I now know how to use rendertargets, I wanted to simplify my drawing routines. Before, my method of drawing was factoring in the scaling up of the sprites, the camera position, the camera scaling, the screen wrapping…. etc, on every object’s seperate drawing call.

But now I basically have a rendertarget the size of the play field and just draw the objects directly to it, either using their world position, or position relative to the camera. Then I scale that big image according to the camera scale and draw it to the screen, just once.

Unfortunately its not as speedy as the old way, but it is so much easier to manage if I need to modify anything. Its also handier since before, there was no way to viewing the whole playing field at once, but now you can! Consequently, if you dont have a decent graphics card, the game might not run at 60fps. And also the AI seems extra-dumb, so I need to debug and find out what I accidentally did to it. :p

Anyway, here is an image showing the whole battlefield. (its actually a composite of 2 frame grabs, showing around 24 ships total)

The past week I was thinking of updates I could do to make this version of UQM more updated. I can’t work on implementing ships too long before I get bored.

So I spent some time on new features:

• game now runs at 60 FPS
• bloom shader applied, adds a layer of space-yness
• Unlimited angles (works good!)
• .. and the Mmrnmhrm added

Uploaded a new video, in it you see multi-ship challenge mode, new style rotation (look at the player ship closely)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW9XnbjxE9s

Since youtube quality is so poor, I also uploaded the original .avi here: http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/uqmxnamelee.avi

No new build available this week, there are still some kinks to work out.

This week I was distracted by GTA but still managed to get a good amount of work done on the ships.

• Androsyn Bubbles
• Chenjesu Primary + AI
• Kohr-Ah Primary/Secondary + AI
• ZoqFotPik tongue attack (still wip)
• Arilou AI
• Druuge AI
• Mycon AI
• Orz AI (acts a little screwy)
• Shofixti AI (but keeps running away)
• Spathi AI
• Supox AI
• Thraddash AI (acts strange)
• Umgah AI
• Vux AI

That went alot quicker than I thought it would take. Perhaps I can get all the ships finished soon!

The base AI still needs bugfixing, Arilou manages to crash into the planet sometimes, and some of them just act strangely.. I’m hoping once I get the AI routine completely debugged, all those weird behaviors will magically stop.

There are cosmetic changes to the Challenge mode selection screen, and I added some challenges from the Star-Control forum thread.  Oh yeah, I also added the little impact blasts from projectiles (note to self: not finished).

New build: http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/UQM_XNA_Melee.rar

There has also been an update at ToysForBob.com with some Star Control related news. They are putting together a map of fans to show to Activision and want you to submit your photos! Check out the thread at the Star-Control forum to see some of the entries.