[WIP] Commando 3. Have received reports of inexplicable errors.

[VENGEANCE MX]

Now, I was getting some pretty crazy errors a few days ago, errors that programming has no words for. The kind of things that you would not attribute to script error, but to error in the Flash Player itself. Things like the stage shrinking, the stage becoming part of the cursor when you press a certain button, the main timeline changing frame mid-battle, base HP meters freezing, gold income stopping... all these things happened around the time I told the enemy to not be able to use Ion Cannons unless I'd toggled a certain variable. The bugs I was getting changed every time I exported the movie, even though I hadn't modified anything, until eventually they seemed to all be gone.

However, a friend told me about errors in the online version yesterday, even though it plays fine for me. He could just have an old version in his cache, but the buggy version was only on the server for about an hour, so I don't think that could've happened.

I want you FK'ers to test my game, see if there are any problems. Obviously it's not finished yet, but here are a few common things that people might report as errors which aren't really anything to worry about:

• Levels being the same in the campaign mode after you reach Russia. This isn't a bug, I just only coded levels up to that point, since it's more important to spend my time on other things right now.
• The last level being located in the corner of the map. This is because of undefined coordinates, in the final game you'll just get a cutscene or something instead.
• There's no icon for the sniper, and the enemy can't build them. My brother's working on an icon for it right now, and I'm about to work on the enemy sniper.
• The enemy can nuke you and send beams of light down on you in Free Play mode. You can, too - just click the 'Commands' button on the right.

Controls are generic RTS style 'Left Mouse does everything', with a few hotkeys as well to speed things up for more skilled players.

The errors supposedly occur when you reach the Russia level in the campaign mode. If you don't find any strange, freaky things happening by that point, post here to tell me it works for you.

Game URL: http://www.birchlabs.co.uk/Commando3.html

[yellowman]

Played until I got to Israel(then the conflict got to complex for me ). Didn´t find any of the bugs you mentioned...

I used player 8.5 and FF.

[Asclepeos]

campaign -> go all troops game=over
free play -> go all laser game=over

there is no advantage to moving.

[VENGEANCE MX]

Moving helps if you want your bullets to reach the enemy more quickly, or if you're trying to dodge an Ion Cannon beam, or if you're using Fire At Will to create a wall of bullets to kill enemies.

Which 'troop' are you referring to in the Campaign Mode, Asclepeos?

[LeechmasterB]

Great art work and gameplay just its a little bit too hard for me . As long as i survived no bugs occured.

[Xploder]

Nice game, I was making an RTS but didn't get as fahr as yours
I didn't notice any major bugs except when I pressed 'i' at the beginning of every campaign. Sometimes I got 3 infantry units and sometimes 2 shouldn't I have the same amount of cash at the beginnig?

its a little bit too hard for me .

Wow, really? The key is to use the Light Infantry units (God Infantry ) throughout the campaign exept when tanks come out then use bazooka infantry. And use the shortcut keys i, and b. With that stategy you can't loose no matter what. Actually I think it needs to be harder and rebalanced.

[atsfrr3000]

I had a lot of trouble in this one....in that I couldn't get past the first level

But I'll get there eventually

One thing I noticed is that my infantries dont fire unless fired upon, making it hard to move past the first level.

-Chris (tm)

[Xploder]

One thing I noticed is that my infantries dont fire unless fired upon, making it hard to move past the first level.

yeah to make them shoot you gotta select your units first, and then click on the enemy units.

[atsfrr3000]

Yeah, I just figured that out :P

-Chris (tm)

[atsfrr3000]

After figuring out how to get them to attack I whizzed right by every level with no bugs. I agree, make it a bit harder...even Free-Play on its hardest level was a breeze.

-Chris (tm)

[mr_malee]

clicking the mouse repeatedly when moving infantry plays to many sound clips, i'd put a stop sound command before another sound is triggered.

Cool game, a little hard though

[Gloo pot]

I tested it everything was fine till i beet england than the next level was of the flash stage? I wooped every ones ass in like 2 seconds way to easy

I loved it thought i recon it'll be one of the best game yet.

[Blips]

I remember having random errors with my racing game. The thing that caused it was nothing at all, it was very rare and what happened was every single movie clip went through each frame @ about 120 fps, the main timeline went through all its frames at the same time, things were randomly flashing and I got a static scratching noise, and this would loop for as long as I let it.

[RickDangerous]

Blips, I had exactly the same problem you described. When the user press CTRL+LEFT (during a second) this triggers a shortcut to Flash' rewind function. This result in the Flash player displaying everything in the previous frame, probably the preloader content.

You can fix this by disabling all Flash shortcuts:
fscommand('trapallkeys', true);

I also suggest you disable those functions from the context menu:
fscommand('showmenu', false);
Stage.showMenu = false;

VENGEANCE MX, I am not shure you have exactly the same problem, but it worth the try.

[astutelad]

I love the design you've come up with for this, very smooth and nice
I didn't encounter any bugs.

But I did notice a glaring lack of ...well, strategy, in this RTS. :P
There really is no real advantage to moving, because it's an open skirmish, everyone can hit everyone. So there's no way to exploit the environment, or to 'outsmart' the enemy.
There's doesn't seem to be much of a limit to funds, so everything is pretty much expendable, defining the victor as the one who still has money to spend on replacing his faceless cannon fodder.

I'm probably coming off as pretty harsh, but I think they're all valid criticisms of the gameplay design. It couldn't be hard to involve... any scenery whatsoever. Buildings, trees, rivers.. even just HILLS. Can't you picture the kind of depth this same kind of game would have, with something like.. a river lined with trees and a guarded fort, and you could use the trees for cover to get to the bridge to cross the river to plant explosives on the fort entrance to bust in and kill the small but until-recently-well-defended garrison? Or using urban alleyways to hide your soldiers from deadly tanks patrolling the streets? Stealth missions with a single high powered trooper? Like the title implies?
Once you established some degree of complexity or threat beyond soldiers dawdling around an open field the door would also be wide open to include several different expressions of the same kind of environment, variations on a theme, to make your way around a battle in a larger context using little exit 'zones' or whatever.
Those are just examples.. and I'm not even going to pretend it wouldn't be oodles of extra work.. but man.. that's the stuff strategy is made of. Lopsided odds, interesting goals, ingenuity and risk taking.

...

But it's your game, and it ..works well.

[LeechmasterB]

astutelad mentioned some good points and i think my current engine would support this kind of game and may be enhance it a lot for example. I just pictured your troops in my map engine...

[VENGEANCE MX]

Xploder, the number of units bought depends on how much gold you start off with in that level, and how long you hold down the key for. Astuteland, I think the main 'strategy' involved is the 'rock-paper-scissors' style of strengths and weaknesses used in the units. Sure, walking is kind of pointless, but there are soome small things it's useful for, which I mentioned at some other point in the topic. I was thinking of making the map scrollable, and making all the units have limited range. Would that make it better? I could add scenery, wouldn't be _too_ hard...

These are some serious gameplay overhauls you're suggesting, ones which I've already considered, but now I do think it would definitely be worth adding.

Never thought of trapping the keys, RickDangerous, but I did remove the menu.

Mr_malee, I'll fix it soon.

Gloo pot, I already said that it's not a bug to be concerned about - just undefined coordinates, I haven't made a level after that.

Difficulty concerns... hm. Well, the campaign mode (once it has more levels) will have a difficulty curve, until eventually you have to play more efficiently to win.

[astutelad]

I figured making it scrollable could be too much of a drag on performance, which is why I suggested game 'screens' about that size that you navigated between, a bit like an old RPG. Then, with your system in mind, where you're controlling a necessarily small force to keep performance up, the gameplay would be more like one of those games like Myth 2 or say, Call of Duty, whose main aim is really to place you in the larger context of a conflict.
Range wouldn't be an issue, and could still be essentially limitless, if you imposed limits to line of sight (scenery and screens)
But anywho. All of my suggestions would seem to be pushing the game in a more narrative direction (because the more detail you add the more questions pop up - Where are they fighting? What are the objectives? Why are they fighting again?), which might not have been your original intent in making a combat simulator, judging by Commando 1.
Plus, I just read you're 14/15 (happy birthday three days ago ) so I'm pretty darn impressed with what you have done thus far.

[Blips]

Blips, I had exactly the same problem you described. When the user press CTRL+LEFT (during a second) this triggers a shortcut to Flash' rewind function. This result in the Flash player displaying everything in the previous frame, probably the preloader content.

You can fix this by disabling all Flash shortcuts:
fscommand('trapallkeys', true);

I also suggest you disable those functions from the context menu:
fscommand('showmenu', false);
Stage.showMenu = false;

VENGEANCE MX, I am not shure you have exactly the same problem, but it worth the try.

Oh wow, thnx didnt relize it would be such an easy fix.

[VENGEANCE MX]

I've nearly finished adding scrolling, just need to think of a way to make it work in conjunction with the shakeScreen() function.