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Would anyone be interested in an #EvolutionRTS hangout?Maybe a bit of a session on what you thi...

Wed, 09 May 2012 04:21:21 EDT

Would anyone be interested in an #EvolutionRTS hangout?

Maybe a bit of a session on what you think about the game and what you would like to see changed/improved? Maybe some of you linux guys could discuss ideas on how to make it easier to install/play on linux?

Evolution RTS v3.4 released! GUI Improvements, new balance, new range indicators, new unit buildp...

Mon, 07 May 2012 19:37:30 EDT

Evolution RTS v3.4 released! GUI Improvements, new balance, new range indicators, new unit buildpictures, new map (Glacier Pass)!

You might wonder what happened for v3.0 - v3.3 .. Heh, funny story about that. SVN had some conflicting issues that I had to resolve before I could release. Unfortunately it took several tries before I finally fixed it. Moreover I discovered a little "gotcha" the other day.

Well, discovered is the wrong word. Remembered would be a bit more accurate. There is a data file that holds all GUI information. This data file is updated every time you run the game. I used to delete this file upon every game start, but a while back I change it so that there was no need (or so I thought).

Then I changed the GUI defaults again. Unfortunately because the old data file is still around you wouldn't see any change. I have since changed this behavior and submitted the change to Desura, so you should see the new GUI changes in a day or so.

I discussed the new balance changes some time ago, but I feel that some rehashing would be beneficial:

Evolution RTS has been completely rebalanced using a new formula that makes much more sense. The units still do the same job as before, but now it has been balanced according to the way it was already set up. The end result is that the game is a lot more clear cut and easy to understand.

Lets just do a really quick rundown:
*Piercing Damage: * Now does a lot less damage to more lightly armored units. This is based on a semi-realistic principle and an armor piercing round would punch a hole but not necessarily do any real damage. Thus it is scaled as such. The deviation is of course economy structures, but that is based upon the idea that an armor piercing round going through delicate equipment would cause no end of damage.

*Light Damage: * Now light damage is actually predictable. It does 1:1 vs light armor and degrades vs heavier armor. As you can see from the chart, it is also rubbish vs buildings.

*Medium Damage: * Also much more predictable. Puts the hammer down on light armor, does 1:1 vs medium armor, and half damage vs heavy armor. Not much good for destroying buildings.

*Note: * Light and Medium damage suck vs buildings, but obviously if you level enough firepower at something it will fall eventually.

*Explosive Damage: * Explosive damage only takes a 50% deduction when impacting light armor. Based upon the theory that an HE round might penetrate light armor enough to do some damage. Predictably degrades vs heavier armor. From looking at it's damage vs buildings, and simply the word 'explosive' denotes that explosive damage will be good vs buildings.

This is MUCH easier to understand and to explain.

Relevant wiki article (Notice the new damage chart): http://www.wiki.evolutionrts.info/doku.php?id=evolution_rts:armor

Spreadsheet for this chart is here: http://goo.gl/Oll7U
Then moving further, there is the addition of the custom rings widget:

Thanks to CarRepairer, Regret, and Niobium, I have a new widget that allows me to display ranges of things. So the ORB's repair graphic will be replaced with a simple green ring. This is good because no more massive lag when you select 5 or 10 of them. Additionally, things such as buildrange and Energy Core collection range are defined, and a TON of other stuff.

Enjoy!

Calling all would be vocal actors!!! Or maybe just people who like to talk into microphones... In...

Tue, 01 May 2012 06:49:25 EDT

Calling all would be vocal actors!!! Or maybe just people who like to talk into microphones... In any case, many people wanted to be considered for the "Voice Acting" in the Evolution RTS missions.

Now is your chance! This first mission is one of the tutorial missions. There is quite a lot of narration to do. Only requirements are that you speak clearly and enunciate and you must have a decent microphone. A cheap boom mic is fine, but generally mics built into laptops and that sort of thing introduce too much background noise.

If you are using windows, make sure to go into the recording settings and under the advanced tab, set the default quality to studio quality.

Good programs to use for recording would be Goldwave and +Audacity . I would prefer the format of the recorded files be ogg, but mp3 or even flac is fine as well.

The text is here: http://pastebin.com/iywRyLvu

You may get it to me in any way you like, either by posting a link in the comments, or posting them to our forums, here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/evolution-rts/DUEpReCQEtk

Thanks! I can't wait to hear you all!

Putting the final touches on a new map called "Glacier Pass". It's actually a map I...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:21:18 EDT

Putting the final touches on a new map called "Glacier Pass". It's actually a map I made a loooooong time ago, and of all the maps I've made it was always one of my favorites. The problem was, anytime I tried to make a texture for it, it always came out looking crappy.

The new texture is reminiscent of the old texture, but with the new texture you shoudl practically be able to feel the snow crunch beneath your feet. The map's metal layout is actually set up for a 3v3, but 1v1's should be pretty interesting. I have yet to beat the survival AI on this map, try as I might.

It will be in the Evolution RTS 3.0 release :-)

P.S. Spoiler alert... Not so sneak peak at the nicer gui (I didn't go to the trouble of showing what all the "extra space" is for. If you've played it in it's current form you already know what goes there).

Spent a really long time fixing up the menus today. Should be a lot easier for newbies to navigat...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:44:05 EDT

Spent a really long time fixing up the menus today. Should be a lot easier for newbies to navigate now.

Evolution RTS has been completely rebalanced using a new formula that makes much more sense. The ...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:55:01 EDT

Evolution RTS has been completely rebalanced using a new formula that makes much more sense. The units still do the same job as before, but now it has been balanced according to the way it was already set up. The end result is that the game is a lot more clear cut and easy to understand.

Lets just do a really quick rundown:
Piercing Damage : now does a lot less damage to more lightly armored units. This is based on a semi-realistic principle and an armor piercing round would punch a hole but not necessarily do any real damage. Thus it is scaled as such. The deviation is of course economy structures, but that is based upon the idea that an armor piercing round going through delicate equipment would cause no end of damage.

Light Damage : Now light damage is actually predictable. It does 1:1 vs light armor and degrades vs heavier armor. As you can see from the chart, it is also rubbish vs buildings.

Medium Damage : Also much more predictable. Puts the hammer down on light armor, does 1:1 vs medium armor, and half damage vs heavy armor. Not much good for destroying buildings.

Note : Light and Medium damage suck vs buildings, but obviously if you level enough firepower at something it will fall eventually.

Explosive Damage : Explosive damage only takes a 50% deduction when impacting light armor. Based upon the theory that an HE round might penetrate light armor enough to do some damage. Predictably degrades vs heavier armor. From looking at it's damage vs buildings, and simply the word 'explosive' denotes that explosive damage will be good vs buildings.

In my opinion this is MUCH easier to understand and to explain.

Relevant wiki article (Notice the new damage chart): http://www.wiki.evolutionrts.info/doku.php?id=evolution_rts:armor

Spreadsheet for this chart is here: http://goo.gl/Oll7U

#EvolutionRTS

Evolution RTS Singleplayer missions are a go!Exciting news! No, the mission editor did not receiv...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:20:29 EDT

Evolution RTS Singleplayer missions are a go!

Exciting news! No, the mission editor did not receive the updated I needed, but last night I was lying in bed thinking about it, and I thought "What if I could trick the engine and the mission editor?"

I did not think it would work. There are a lot of checks that happen and many obstacles to overcome, not the least of which is unitsync itself.

Let me quickly show you the process that I have to overcome here so you may fully appreciate the difficulty...

Map -> Unitsync -> Playable
Map -> Custom Unitsync in Mission Editor that does not recognize lua -> Mission Builder
Map - > Yet another custom implementation of Unitsync -> Plasmaserver -> Downloadable via the lobby (if you don't already have it)

As you can see, one screwup can fork over the entire process. My process of tricking the various unitsyncs is pretty simple. Make unitsync think that the map is older (depreciated) so that custom unitsync implementations will load it correctly, while newer and up to date implementations will read the lua correctly and see the empty shell files from the (depreciated) old mapping method and ignore them.

I can't believe it worked, but it did, so I have spent the vast majority of the day updating all of the #EvolutionRTS maps to v10, and I have added a new #EvolutionRTS version of Eye of Horus that is ssmfed and prettyified.

I don't know the exact date of the first mission release. Give me a week or so. Hopefully I can do it mid-week, but I have a lot to finish before I start working on the missions again. That said, once the missions start flowing I am aiming for 1 per week for a total of 20 - 25. Maybe more if I can make the story last that long and still be interesting.

Those of you who were interested in doing voice acting, I will be posting a snippet of some mission text. Sort of a tryout, but I maintain, as long as you can be understood and the audio is good quality, I'm thinking that there will be no issues.

Buckle up, this is going to be a fun week. Me, armed with a +Charlie Parra del Riego playlist am charging full speed ahead! (P.S. +Charlie Parra del Riego , you are the god of metal. I Bow before you.)

Evolution v2.9 is out. This is a minor release (and it's actually been out for a little while...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:21:35 EDT

Evolution v2.9 is out. This is a minor release (and it's actually been out for a little while) so no fanfare or anything.

v3.0 will be pretty awesome. Thanks to CarRepairer I have a new widget that allows me to display ranges of things. So the ORB's repair graphic will be replaced with a simple green ring. This is good because no more massive lag when you select 5 or 10 of them. Additionally, things such as buildrange and Energy Core collection range are defined, and a TON of other stuff.

Quantum of +Zero-K is finally back up and running and will be fixing the mission editor, so the single player campaign will be up and running hopefully in a week or so. I plan to release the campaign on a weekly mission cycle, and if I can pull it off, I'm going to be using voice acting and a few really neat things.

Now, I leave you with a strange picture of an Overseer recycling 500 energy cores... The purple ring denotes the range in which energy cores will be recycled. The orange ring shows it's maximum build range.

In the process of dumping the connection from the evo site to the facebook fan page and instead c...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:12:23 EDT

In the process of dumping the connection from the evo site to the facebook fan page and instead connecting the facebook fan page wall to development updates here on G+. God facebook sucks. Assuming that this works, it will allow me to relieve stress from my overworked webserver.

Hey there Evo fans! So, apparently the internet has gone berserk with google chrome themes. I was...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:29:00 EDT

Hey there Evo fans! So, apparently the internet has gone berserk with google chrome themes. I was having a look at them and decided that I would be doing a disservice if I didn't do some Evo related ones!

So here they are in blue and brown flavors! :-)

Blue: https://www.mychrometheme.com/t/9oprb7yuw62chdetkb0cof1q7
Brown: https://www.mychrometheme.com/t/b0k6i049y70zi3l94ue5dwg1m

Hope you guys like em! =D