State of Profit

[counterp]

where are the heights stored? how big is all that data?

the map is dynamically generated based on what object is on the tile and the height of the tile right? how does the client get the height of the map? that's sent later (as separate parts?)

so the tiles are loaded all at the beginning and heights are sent later or what?

and is the problem you want solved the fact that 3200x3200 tiles (alone, no height or any other data) is 1mb?

[Riven]

I like the new farms. However, there are some issues I'm having:


1. I don't think it makes much sense to restrict building farms to that extreme. Building 1 farm will get you nowhere I haven't got my first research-point yet, and have no idea how fast my 25% of income, will yield some points, but it feels like it is nerfed.

2. How do warehouses work? I have 950+ food in a warehouse and the inhabitants of the village are starving.

3. I see 100+K towns, they are starving, yet continue to grow fast. I think starvation should have a bigger impact on city growth.

4. Maybe it is not even implemented yet, so I'll stop right here

[Mike]

where are the heights stored? how big is all that data?

The heights are originally stored in a mysql table and read in during the startup of the server. The heights are then stored as an int as part of the LandTile object. I'm not sure how big the data is as the table also contains owner and content but there are about 10 million squares at the moment and height is a number between 0 and 15.

the map is dynamically generated based on what object is on the tile and the height of the tile right? how does the client get the height of the map? that's sent later (as separate parts?)

The map is indeed dynamically generated on a schedule and stored as a png. The client gets the map from the png I posted before. The part that's sent at startup and later is the game world and it's sent as a gzipped string explaining everything necessary for the client to create each 16*16 container of land tiles.
The map and the game world are two different things

so the tiles are loaded all at the beginning and heights are sent later or what?

The tiles (including height and content and owner and special things like station information) is loaded when needed. When you scroll around in the game the tiles that are far away gets unloaded from the client and the ones that you scroll towards get loaded in. Doing it that way the world size is only limited by the server capacity (and at the moment, the size of the png map that gets downloaded).

and is the problem you want solved the fact that 3200x3200 tiles (alone, no height or any other data) is 1mb?

The problem I have at the moment is that the 3200x3200px map png is 1mb which takes a long time to download. I'd very much like to figure out how to limit the size of that download (I'm fine with downloading the data in another way than a png if that'd help). I'm starting to think though that Riven is right (isn't he always? ) and it needs to be a combination of streaming and mipmapping.

I like the new farms. However, there are some issues I'm having:

Hi Riven, thanks a lot for testing again, I was missing you

1. I don't think it makes much sense to restrict building farms to that extreme. Building 1 farm will get you nowhere I haven't got my first research-point yet, and have no idea how fast my 25% of income, will yield some points, but it feels like it is nerfed.

2. How do warehouses work? I have 950+ food in a warehouse and the inhabitants of the village are starving.

3. I see 100+K towns, they are starving, yet continue to grow fast. I think starvation should have a bigger impact on city growth.

4. Maybe it is not even implemented yet, so I'll stop right here

1. Farms give you a lot of income for a beginning account, which is why you only get one for free There will be ways to get more farms later, for example through research and bidding. 1 research points is 100.000, so if you make 30.000 per game day and you put it all into research it'll take you a few hours to get a point. In the beginning it's usually better to expand instead of researching though to my experience.

2. The "starving" text is updated once a day (game time) so it might be that it just didn't update yet. On the other hand there are some problems with how the city classifies starvation at the moment. The formula didn't work out quite as Lindy (the missis) had anticipated with her excel sheets

3. Yep, they grow too quickly, see above.

4. Lindy wrote a post on the SoP forum regarding the farms and how they're not really working like they should, you can find it here: http://stateofprofit.com/forum/index.php/ topic,62.15.html#msg236 (without the space between / and topic, riven broke all url's to other smf forums ). She'd love to discuss the formulas with you if you'd create an account on the forum

As a bonus information, I'm almost finished with a chat system so you can talk to the people currently online in the game

Kind regards,
Mike

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[counterp]

so let me get this straight - all you want is a way to get an image of the map to the client with it being smaller than 1 mb? (if so, a binary solution is probably better and then you parse it client side to construct the image)

if so, i have enough time tonight to write you something, but i have homework for now

do you have code to show how your map is generated server side (the grabbing of heights and also getting what buildings are on tiles and then how to determine each pixel color and finally export all of the data to an image?)

[Mike]

Yes! If it's possible that'd be awesome

Here's the code:

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public static void createMap() {         Log.info("Creating map");         final int size = Containers.landSize;         final Point2DInteger tempPoint = new Point2DInteger(0, 0);         // Create a buffered image on which to draw         final BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage(size, size, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);         //Get the direct access data for the image         final int[] rgb = ((DataBufferInt)img.getRaster().getDataBuffer()).getData();         LandTile landTile;         //Fill in the colors         for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {             for (int j = 0; j < size; j++) {                 tempPoint.setLocation(i - size / 2, j - size / 2);                 landTile = Containers.getLandTile(tempPoint);                 if (landTile.getHeight() < 5) {                     rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 0 << 16 | 0 << 8 | 200;                 } else {                     switch (landTile.getContent()) {                     case 5:                     case 6:                     case 7:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 130 << 16 | 130 << 8 | 130;                         break;                     case 8:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 170 << 16 | 170 << 8 | 170;                         break;                     case 9:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 255 << 16 | 160 << 8 | 120;                         break;                     case 10:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 255 << 16 | 255 << 8 | 170;                         break;                     case 11:                     case 12:                     case 13:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 120 << 16 | 120 << 8 | 0;                         break;                     case 14:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] = 240 << 16 | 0 << 8 | 220;                         break;                     default:                         rgb[(size - j - 1) * size + i] =                             (int)(99 * (landTile.getHeight() / 2f - 2f) / 12.5f + 41) << 16                                 | (int)(130 * (landTile.getHeight() / 2f - 2f) / 12.5f + 115) << 8                                 | (int)(99 * (landTile.getHeight() / 2f - 2f) / 12.5f + 41);                     }                 }             }         }         //Save as a temporary file         final File tempfile = new File(PropertyRetriever.getProperty("newImage") + ".tmp");         try {             if (!tempfile.exists()) {                 tempfile.createNewFile();             }             ImageIO.write(img, "png", tempfile);         } catch (final IOException e) {             Log.error("Writing imagefile", e);         }         //Remove the old file         final File file = new File(PropertyRetriever.getProperty("newImage"));         int i = 0;         if (file.exists()) {             while (!file.delete() && i < 600) {                 i++;                 try {                     Thread.sleep(100);                 } catch (final InterruptedException e) {                     Log.warning("Sleep", e);                 }             }             if (i == 600) {                 Log.error("Failed to remove old map image");                 tempfile.delete();                 return;             }         }         //Rename temp file         i = 0;         while (!tempfile.renameTo(new File(PropertyRetriever.getProperty("newImage"))) && i < 6000) {             i++;             try {                 Thread.sleep(10);             } catch (final InterruptedException e) {                 Log.warning("Sleep", e);             }         }         Log.info("Finished creating map");     }

Mike

[counterp]

Welp, I've only managed to bring the size down to a tiny bit under 75% (783,090 bytes) but also got heights included in the format so that should count for something.

It's messy but I'm tired and don't feel like working on it anymore for now. what it does is load your map "map.png" and then save it to my compressed format, with heights included. it then outputs an image "out.png" to show how the format can be used to make an image.

kinda slow, probably will optimize later. of course there won't be the same initial 'getting data delay', since you get your data directly from a database instead of parsing an image to see what colors represent what.

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import java.awt.image.BufferedImage; import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream; import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream; import java.io.File; import java.io.IOException; import java.util.zip.GZIPInputStream; import java.util.zip.GZIPOutputStream; import javax.imageio.ImageIO; public class MapCompressor {    public static final int WIDTH = 3200;    public static final int HEIGHT = 3200;    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {       new MapCompressor();    }    public int rel(int cur, int last) {       if (cur == last)          return 0;       return cur > last ? 1 : 2;    }    public static int HEIGHT_CAPACITY = 4;    public static int OBJECT_CAPACITY = 2;    public static int SCAN_CAPACITY = 2;    public MapCompressor() throws IOException {       tiles = new byte[1 + WIDTH * HEIGHT / OBJECT_CAPACITY];       tileHeights = new byte[1 + WIDTH * HEIGHT / HEIGHT_CAPACITY];       scanLine = new byte[WIDTH / SCAN_CAPACITY];       BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(new File("map.png"));       int[] pixels = new int[3200 * 3200];       image.getRGB(0, 0, 3200, 3200, pixels, 0, 3200);       for (int x = 0; x < WIDTH; x++) {          int rgb = pixels[x];          int g = (rgb >> 8) & 0xFF;          int b = rgb & 0xFF;          int h = 0;          if (b != 200) {             g -= 115;             g /= 5;             h = g;          }          scanLine[x / SCAN_CAPACITY] |= h << ((x % 2) << 2);       }       for (int x = 0; x < WIDTH; x++) {          int height = (scanLine[x / SCAN_CAPACITY] >> ((x % 2) << 2)) & 0xF;          for (int y = 0; y < HEIGHT; y++) {             int rgb = pixels[y * WIDTH + x];             int r = (rgb >> 16) & 0xFF;             int g = (rgb >> 8) & 0xFF;             int b = rgb & 0xFF;             if (r == 130 && g == 130 && b == 130) {                setObject(x, y, 1); // road             } else if (r == 190 && g == 190 && b == 190) {                setObject(x, y, 2); // house             } else if (r == 255 && g == 170 && b == 170) {                setObject(x, y, 3); // station             } else if (r == 255 && g == 255 && b == 170) {                setObject(x, y, 4); // farm             } else {                int h = 0;                if (b != 200) {                   g -= 115;                   g /= 5;                   h = g;                }                int rel = rel(h, height);                setHeight(x, y, rel);                if (rel == 2)                   rel = -1;                height += rel;             }          }       }       byte[] compressed = compress();       System.out.println("Compressed size: " + compressed.length);       File file = new File("out.png");       System.out.println("Outputting image to: " + file.getAbsolutePath());       writeImage(compressed, file);       System.out.println("Done.");    }    public void writeImage(byte[] data, File file) throws IOException {       GZIPInputStream in = new GZIPInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(data));       byte[] block = new byte[8192];       Buffer buffer = new Buffer();       int len;       while ((len = in.read(block)) != -1) {          buffer.put(block, 0, len);       }       in.close();       int w = buffer.getShort();       int h = buffer.getShort();       System.out.println(w + " " + h);       tiles = new byte[1 + w * h / OBJECT_CAPACITY]; // constant for client and server       tileHeights = new byte[1 + w * h / HEIGHT_CAPACITY]; // constant for client and server       scanLine = new byte[w / SCAN_CAPACITY];       for (int i = 0; i < scanLine.length; i++) {          scanLine[i] = (byte) buffer.get();       }       for (int i = 0; i < tiles.length; i++) {          tiles[i] = (byte) buffer.get();       }       for (int i = 0; i < tileHeights.length; i++) {          tileHeights[i] = (byte) buffer.get();       }       BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(WIDTH, HEIGHT, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);       for (int x = 0; x < WIDTH; x++) {          int height = (scanLine[x / SCAN_CAPACITY] >> ((x % 2) << 2)) & 0xF;          for (int y = 0; y < HEIGHT; y++) {             int obj = (int) getObject(x, y);             int color = 0;             int rel = (int) getHeight(x, y);             if (rel == 2)                rel = -1;             height += rel;             switch (obj) {             case 0:                if (height == 0) {                   color = 0x0000C8;                } else {                   color = (int)(99 * (height / 2f - 2f) / 12.5f + 41) << 16                                | (int)(130 * (height / 2f - 2f) / 12.5f + 115) << 8                                | (int)(99 * (height / 2f - 2f) / 12.5f + 41);                }                break;             case 1:                color = 0x828282;                break;             case 2:                color = 0xBEBEBE;                break;             case 3:                color = 0xFFAAAA;                break;             case 4:                color = 0xFFFFAA;                break;             }             image.setRGB(x, y, color);          }       }       ImageIO.write(image, "png", file);    }    private byte[] tiles;    private byte[] tileHeights;    private byte[] scanLine;    public int off(int x, int y, int capacity, int bitcount) {       return ((y * WIDTH + x) % capacity) * bitcount;    }    public int get(int x, int y, int size) {       return (y * WIDTH + x) / size;    }    public int getObject(int x, int y) {       return (tiles[get(x, y, OBJECT_CAPACITY)] >> off(x, y, OBJECT_CAPACITY, 3)) & 0x7;    }    public void setObject(int x, int y, int val) {       tiles[get(x, y, OBJECT_CAPACITY)] |= (val & 0x7) << off(x, y, OBJECT_CAPACITY, 3);    }    public void setHeight(int x, int y, int val) {       tileHeights[get(x, y, HEIGHT_CAPACITY)] |= (val & 0x3) << off(x, y, HEIGHT_CAPACITY, 2);    }    public int getHeight(int x, int y) {       return (tileHeights[get(x, y, HEIGHT_CAPACITY)] >> off(x, y, HEIGHT_CAPACITY, 2)) & 0x3;    }    public byte[] compress() throws IOException {       ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();       GZIPOutputStream comp = new GZIPOutputStream(out);       comp.write(WIDTH >> 8);       comp.write(WIDTH);       comp.write(HEIGHT >> 8);       comp.write(HEIGHT);       comp.write(scanLine);       comp.write(tiles);       comp.write(tileHeights);       comp.close();       return out.toByteArray();    } }

[Mike]

Welp, I've only managed to bring the size down to a tiny bit under 75% (783,090 bytes) but also got heights included in the format so that should count for something.

25% is still 25% I'll have a look on the server side so it doesn't cost a minute of cpu time to do seeing as it needs to be done every 20 or so minutes

of course there won't be the same initial 'getting data delay', since you get your data directly from a database instead of parsing an image to see what colors represent what.

True, I'll have a look at the performance and the code

Thanks a lot! Here you go with a medal :-D

In other news, the game now has a chat function (making my own input box in graphics 2D that listens to the lwjgl mouse and keyboard wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done ) and the missis reworked all the formulas around farms, hopefully they feel better now Riven

Mike

[Bonbon-Chan]

Loosing and loosing money  . All my buses and truck get money (more than 500) and I loose every thing with station maintenance  .

There is 2 strange buses :
- Bus 18 : when I click on the arrow to go to it... it go to a station without the bus 
- Bus 25 : I don't understand why it take this way... there is a way far more quicker.

[Mike]

Hi Bonbon,

By building stations in big cities you'll get a lot of passengers, you should try to keep your stations more or less empty before expanding as station maintenance is a significant part (the game has become a bit more unforgiving since last round )

Lindy saw that the roads in your part of the world wasn't really optimal so she built some more for you

She's looking into what needs to change to even out the new experience a bit more without making us all have 100.000.000 after two weeks

Regarding buses not showing their correct position, very possible, I have it on the bug list on the forum, mostly refreshing the page solves the issues though so I didn't make it higher priority than adding new things. The bug list is growing though so I'll soon have to halt new things and get rid of some bugs again.

Mike

[Mike]

All I see is a completely blank white screen but I can hear the jazzy-style music playing.

Safari 5.1
Mac OSX Lion

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Java Plug-in 1.6.0_26 Using JRE version 1.6.0_26-b03-383-11A511 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM User home directory = /Users/skiyookaSession: s9vq9v2glgj8cm4ck2p4qnk6v5 High quality: true OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M OpenGL Engine OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation OpenGL version: 2.1 NVIDIA-7.2.9 VBO extension: true

This is fixed thanks to the latest version of LWJGL, thank you for reporting it

Ok, when i saw your same, it make me want to try to do some building model 
There was a way to do it that I wanted to try (not too bad results, it can be better). My aim was to do several buidlings, one low poly mesh obj file by buidling, one 512x512 texture by buidling, coords between -50...+50. So a "quick" result :
.

I'm pretty sure that you will do a graphic update at some point (it is far form the first thing to do  ). But if you want, you can use my models has a starting point.

I used some of your textures and created some new ones (at 1/16th the size of yours due to kb's), this is what I've got so far, good enough until I get a graphics person The only thing I might add on my own is the ground around the buildings, it doesn't look very good with grass...

This is a city of about half a million inhabitants:




Yay, more than 10.000 views!

Mike

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Bonbon-Chan]

  Happy to know that it is usefull.

I didn't log in in a while I'm at -640k in money lol

[Riven]

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java.lang.NullPointerException    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.dR(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.loop(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.execute(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.b.run(Unknown Source)

[Mike]

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java.lang.NullPointerException    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.dR(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.loop(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.execute(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.b.run(Unknown Source)

Thanks, fixed it and will upload it tomorrow (shouldn't interrupt the gameplay significantly)

I didn't log in in a while I'm at -640k in money lol

That's the problem with changing balancing during the round when someone doesn't log in

[Riven]

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java.lang.NullPointerException    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.dR(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.loop(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.j.f.execute(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.b.run(Unknown Source) java.lang.NullPointerException    at com.stateofprofit.client.o.d.aq(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.o.d.ap(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.a.a.a(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.a.a.a(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.a.ae.ap(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.k.i.a(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.a.b.a(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.a.q.a(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.b.c.a(Unknown Source)    at com.stateofprofit.client.b.c.run(Unknown Source)

[Mike]

First one is the same as yesterday and will be part of the update tonight. The second one is fixed, thanks

While I'm writing anyway I'll put down what changed since my last update post (1 month ago) including the updates for tonight. The latest changes can always be found on the game forum.

New:
You can now paste in the chat using ctrl-v
The menu is now easily visible and accessible
There is a new button on the menu to close all open windows
You can now drag a big area to flatten using the land adjust tool, be aware that it can be quite expensive to remove a mountain
Cities grow in height, bigger cities get bigger houses and the more central the bigger houses
If you send a message to someone who is offline they will get it the next time they are online, even if the server restarts inbetween
There is a new chat command: /me, it needs to be followed by a text, for example "/me is hungry" (without quotes)
You can now send private messages using the chat! To send a message type /t or /tell or /w or /whisper and then the person's name and then the message, for example "/t Mike hello!" (without quotes). If you don't have anything written in the chat box you can click on a message someone wrote or their name on their station window to auto fill the chat box. You cannot send offline messages or close tabs yet and the offline message still needs work
On the vehicle list window there are now tabs to display all vehicles, only buses or only trucks
On the city list window there are now tabs to display all cities or only the ones where you have a reputation
The server admin can set a server message that will be visible in the chat window when logging in
Chat! You can now chat with people online, you can find chat under the menu or by clicking enter when the game is focused
A new farm research is available that will allow you to increase the number of fields on your farm
Farms now cost maintenance
Farm and truck research! Truck researches are capacity (max size) and speed. The following farm researches has been added:
Fertilize and irrigation (+20% food production)
Breeding (+4% added to city warehouse stock)
Plant protection (+4% income)
Crop rotation (+4% income and +4% added to city warehouse stock)

Modified:
Your own chat messages show up in white
Rankings now also count farms and research into networth and it is calculated once every hour in game time
Removed the option to play with a small window due to size restrictions with the new menu
If the chat window is in the bottom of the screen (default position) when switching to fullscreen the window stays in the bottom
Changed some colors around for the windows to make the game less green
When setting the destination of a vehicle, only the labels which you can select will be displayed (thanks for the great suggestion Wodido  )
When pulling a straight road to a city the houses don't follow it without making intersections
The increase in food income research got lowered from 5% to 4%
The increase in food filling research got increased from 5% to 6%
If you have a chat window open with someone that logs in/out it is also visible on that window and not only under "Global"
You can now close chat tabs
On the chat window there are now up to 5 tabs visible instead of 3
The active tab is now less bright to not stand out as much
When you change tab the text field will stay active so you can keep on typing
You can change tab by typing /global or /t [user] if you don't want to click on the tab
Typing a command that doesn't exist gives a response message
When typing to a person that is offline the text returned is improved
When the game doesn't have focus the cursor in the input box isn't blinking anymore
Vehicles now drive half as quick when going down hill and a quarter as quick (instead of half) when going up
The city list window stays open when on the map, clicking on a city centers the map on that city
Changed the text to add more fields to a farm to not cause any doubt on what it does
Changing destination when a vehicle is stopped starts it again
The time necessary to display, update and sort lists (cities, stations, vehicles and chat) is now more than 100 times quicker
All new players start with 5 research points. The existing users has received 5 extra points
Bus stations now has a base capacity of 150 more to help out for new players who doesn't spread out the buses evenly
There is a new formula for station maintenance that will increase the speed for new players who like expanding in the beginning
The chat window is now visible when viewing the map
The chat window is now open when you start the game
Changed the formulas for food prices, food eaten by the cities and how it influences growth
When zoomed in on the map you can see the names of the cities
With every server restart the vehicles going inbetween two stations now spread out evenly along the road instead of all starting at the start station. One vehicle will appear at the start station, one at the end station, half of the rest will be spread out on the way to the start station and the other half on the way to the end station
Farm land is now visible on the map instead of only the farm warehouse
City warehouses now show up on the map in purple
The texts in the window for warehouses and farms now correctly states warehouse or farm instead of station
Tweaked the bus income formula to give less income and cost less maintenance
Lowered the initial maintenance cost on farms to give new players a better income
Other people's stations and farms are visible on the map
Changed the position that the hand icon clicks with, it no longer clicks with the finger tips but the center of the hand (less clicking on the wrong place)
Increased the importance of food in regards to city growth
When building a farm the square where the warehouse will come is now highlighted
Changed the bus income/maintenance formula to scale better with research
Lowered the font size on texts in the browser part
Combined the statistic for buying/selling vehicles and infrastructure/trees
The farm researches that gave 4% bonuses now give 5%
Upgrades to food profit is now visible in the price on the city screen
Shortened the names of bus stations/farms to only contain the city name and direction
Increased the area of where a station is called "central" by one square in each direction
The name of the "other" station is now displayed in the vehicle list on the station window
On the research screen you can now see how far you are on researching your next point (updated when logged in and every 5%)
Lowered maintenance increase from vehicle upgrades with 25% to make upgrades more worth it
When building roads the map updates right away to display your road
Trucks are now yellow to be able to see the difference between trucks and buses without having to zoom in
Vehicles that cannot find a path can now be stopped and either sold or change the "other" station

Bugs:
Fixed a locking of the server that happened when two people crashed at the same time
Fixed a bug in the chat when backspace wouldn't remove the text and the client might crash
Fixed the houses shimmering when zoomed out and moving the viewport around
Fixed a bug where it wouldn't be possible to change a vehicle's destination
Fixed a bug where it wasn't possible to go to full screen
You can now move the chat window while on the map
When a research costs 0 money you can still upgrade it if you are negative on money
Both *s around /me chat messages came on one line, even when the message was over several lines
Open windows now get updated even if the mouse is outside the game area
Mac Lion got a white screen when starting the game
Fixed a bug where you couldn't remove your own road when you were negative in money
You can now scroll in the chat window when you're on the map
Fixed a bug where cities would grow quicker and quicker the longer the server had gone without a restart
If you had been in full screen and switch over to windowed mode some windows you had open could end up outside of what you could see
Fixed a bug where the chat window would scroll when busy reading through old messages
Fixed a bug where the chat window would jump to the top or bottom when getting a message at the same time as posting one
Fixed a bug that could make it impossible to get the email registration for the forum
Fixed a bug where extra farm fields doesn't make food
Fixed a bug where the chat window wouldn't display new messages after the chat reached 500 lines
Fixed a bug where the chat would jump to the top of the chat window when sending a message
Fixed a bug where vehicles would appear at the middle of the roads instead of at intersections
Fixed a bug where cities would remove player roads even if they don't have to
Fixed a bug where vehicles would not drive all the way into stations but get stuck half inside
Fixed a bug where vehicles would not be able to drive on because they're waiting for an invisible vehicle that's standing still
Fixed a bug where you could loose your invested research and the points used when you invested close before the server restarted
Fixed a bug where two stations could get the same name, the server now decides the station name so it might take a few seconds between station popping up and name appearing
Fixed a bug where you accidentally would send the vehicle to the wrong station by clicking on a station window when there is a station label underneath
You can zoom in/out even if the mouse is over a station or city label
Fixed a bug where the game time would run out of sync if the game was open for a long time
Fixed a bug where the money would be displayed twice on top of each other when getting money at the same time as paying
When logged in during a day-change the research update to station size showed twice as high
Fixed a bug where you sometimes couldn't adjust land anymore after it failed once
The server clock was running a bit slower than the client showed, the server clock is now correct
Vehicles that couldn't find a path showed up on the wrong station when logging out and logging in again
Fixed a bug where a city could build a house on its own road
Fixed a bug where a city would remove a player's unused road even though they have room to grow otherways
Server sometimes overruled the client when adjusting land, could also cause issues with auto leveling land when building roads/bridges/tunnels
Adjusting land height could sometimes cause "spikes" in the land


Mike

[ra4king]

O_O wow that's a lot of updates! I haven't played in a while but since it's the weekend and I have no homework (wooohoo!), I shall play again

[Bonbon-Chan]

At last, I manage to get a positif balance (I have sell everything except my farm).

I have put 2 stations in nearby town, I have put 9 buses between them.... and I loose money 
Even with a start over, I can't get money 

[Mike]

Hi Bonbon,

We changed some things yesterday and are currently testing them, it might be a bit annoying that we change things in the middle of the rounds but we quickly get lots of info by doing that.

There will be some more adjustments coming tonight to make sure it is easier to start up a new account later in the round, thanks for your input!

Mike

[Mike]

I've been pushing it off for really long because it looked so complicated but yesterday I started to read about shaders, and it didn't turn out as bad as i had thought! I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to add some nice effects to their game. For now I only added some waves on the water and multi texturing with nice borders.

The game will reset Friday evening CET so if you want to try the game out when all cities are small and it's difficult to loose money then please tune in somewhere after that. I will make a post when I've reset the game where I'll put the changes made since my last update post.

It's difficult to see the waves on the picture as they aren't really obvious (yet?) but the snow and sand is alot easier


Kind regards,
Mike

[ra4king]

I have noticed a couple visual glitches when I tried playing it again:

[Mike]

Humm... that brown line is the roof of a building and the other one looks like a a stretched out piece of land, I have no idea what the other thing is. I have no idea what could cause it though (I'm not applying any shaders to the buildings so that shouldn't be it). I'll go through the code around the buildings and have a look at what I changed but seeing as you're the first one to see it I don't think it's something obvious.

If you go to options and change it to low quality (turning off shaders), does it still produce the artifacts?
When was the last time you played?
What kind of gfx card do you have?

Mike

[ra4king]

I just took those screenshots right before I posted the message. I had a 3rd image but the print screen didn't work right.
And I have an Nvidia GTX 570

[Bonbon-Chan]

I still have difficulties with my two station 
So I have only two station, >20 buses between the two :
- I lose money
- I can't empty the two station (I don't want to imagine if I had put them in the biggest cities)
- One of my station has a majestic reputation and the other one ... hated 

There is may be something to do about reputation... well no one likes me so it is not important 

For the shader, can you give us the shaders to see why it goes all blue on Intel/Ati cards ? Or may be it is when you bind the texture, I had a problem like that.

ps : -61M$ nice screenshot Mike 

[Mike]

I just took those screenshots right before I posted the message. I had a 3rd image but the print screen didn't work right.
And I have an Nvidia GTX 570

I have a 560 and don't get that issue... what version of the drivers do you use? Let's see if I can reproduce it.

You missed one question Does it go away if you change it to low quality?

With last time you played I meant the time before the issue, if I know when it used to work I can have a look at what changed.

I still have difficulties with my two station 
So I have only two station, >20 buses between the two :
- I lose money
- I can't empty the two station (I don't want to imagine if I had put them in the biggest cities)
- One of my station has a majestic reputation and the other one ... hated 

Blame Riven He made your cities really big by delivering lots of food but no one placed bus station in there before you, so you get all the passengers. Having placed the stations in a bigger city with other players in it or in a smaller city without Riven's food would have made you make money. Thanks for testing it though as it definately is an issue. The game will reset on Friday so it'll be fixed then and once there are more players it shouldn't happen again.

For the shader, can you give us the shaders to see why it goes all blue on Intel/Ati cards ? Or may be it is when you bind the texture, I had a problem like that.

It should have be fixed as of yesterday evening, I had it confirmed from someone else that the issue went away, can you check it again?

ps : -61M$ nice screenshot Mike 

I built 600 or so farms to get more Networth than Riven, but I didn't transport anything from them so they just cost maintenance

Mike

[Riven]

ps : -61M$ nice screenshot Mike 

I built 600 or so farms to get more Networth than Riven, but I didn't transport anything from them so they just cost maintenance

Oh you and your frivolous spending.

Don't even bother, I have 400 farm licenses left and approaching a billion.

[ra4king]

I just took those screenshots right before I posted the message. I had a 3rd image but the print screen didn't work right.
And I have an Nvidia GTX 570

I have a 560 and don't get that issue... what version of the drivers do you use? Let's see if I can reproduce it.

You missed one question Does it go away if you change it to low quality?

With last time you played I meant the time before the issue, if I know when it used to work I can have a look at what changed.

I have the beta drivers (because of Battlefield 3).

I don't see the weird lines anymore but how do I switch to low quality?

Last time I played was a couple months ago so I don't think you would want to roll back to that far

EDIT: You have improved the game so much since I last saw it! I wish I had time to play it but I'm afraid I'll get sucked into it too much (my grades are already plummeting in school T____T)

[aeroc]

Fun game, I'm excited for the reset so I can place my farms properly next time. =)

[Bonbon-Chan]

There is no glitch with high resolution (Aka not blue anymore)... but there is no snow too (I check near Rossville).

1   2   3   4   5   6   7

High quality: true OpenGL renderer: Intel Eaglelake OpenGL vendor: Intel OpenGL version: 2.0.0 - Build 7.15.10.4977 VBO extension: true 2 - No errors. 3 - No errors.

[Mike]

Oh you and your frivolous spending.

Don't even bother, I have 400 farm licenses left and approaching a billion.

That's mean! I'll get you after the reset

I have the beta drivers (because of Battlefield 3).

I don't see the weird lines anymore but how do I switch to low quality?

Last time I played was a couple months ago so I don't think you would want to roll back to that far

EDIT: You have improved the game so much since I last saw it! I wish I had time to play it but I'm afraid I'll get sucked into it too much (my grades are already plummeting in school T____T)

If you don't see the lines then switching won't make a difference In the top menu (next to the economy overview and rankings) you can click on "Options" to change to low quality.

Fun game, I'm excited for the reset so I can place my farms properly next time. =)

I will come up with a way to rotate and replace the farms but that'll come somewhere after the reset. Thanks for the excitement

There is no glitch with high resolution (Aka not blue anymore)... but there is no snow too (I check near Rossville).

1   2   3   4   5   6   7

High quality: true OpenGL renderer: Intel Eaglelake OpenGL vendor: Intel OpenGL version: 2.0.0 - Build 7.15.10.4977 VBO extension: true 2 - No errors. 3 - No errors.

I blame the tutorial of LWJGL on shaders for that. it says that if a message is returned from the shader it should be treated as an error, apparently your intel driver returns a message even though there are no errors... I'll change the code around so I only output the message instead of breaking on it. Let me know how it looks like after the reset as a big update is coming with it. Thanks for testing!

Mike

[Mike]

Alpha version 1.3 is finished and live! The world is reset so everyone has the same potential to become the biggest company.

Today's update:
New:
The transition between grass and sand is now smooth
The transition between grass and snow is now smooth, with on lower parts a thin layer of snow and higher up a thick layer
Day/night cycle - The sun is going up between 06.00 and 07.00, it goes down between 21.00 and 22.00
Management research - When starting the company you can build a max of 10 buildings (farms or bus stations). Each level you research will allow you to build 10 more buildings up to a max of 100 buildings. The first upgrade is 1 point and the second one 2 points, seeing as you start with 5 points you can still expand aggressively if that's your style. It is not yet possible to see how many buildings you have built as I've no idea where to put it
Added a vehicle profit text to the station/farm/warehouse windows so you can see how much the vehicles using the station is making

Modified:
A city can not get more than 10 warehouses. In the future the warehouses can be upgraded to support bigger cities
Cities now needs to be have more people in them to get several of the bigger houses
Reputation takes longer to build up and is easier to loose
Lowered small station maintenance cost
Halved maintenance increase for upgrading vehicles
Halved maintenance increase per field when upgrading farms
Removed the penalty for having upgraded buses drive short distances
Lowered the city growth from food somewhat to balance out that you can have several farms
There is now a minimum price a city pays for food (it could go negative before in some extreme situations)
The max price a city pays for food (except for research) is now 9 instead of 10
The price when the city is well fed drops quicker
Farms are now 5*5 squares big instead of 5*4 to prepare for rotating the farm
The extra fields research now goes to lvl 16 instead of 11
Food filling research now increases filling with 10% instead of 8%

Bugs:
Fixed several bugs regarding shaders on ATI/Intel graphics cards
Fixed an issue where the shaders weren't applied on Intel cards
The cost for altering land did not always cost the same on the client and server
Fixed a bug where water wasn't displayed correctly on some graphics cards
Fixed a bug where city (ware)houses could be placed without a road
Sorting on cost in the station list gave the wrong order if you had some upgraded stations and some not upgraded

The other updates since last time I posted a list:
New:
Bigger city buildings now have a ground layer instead of grass
Roads in cities now have pavements (under creation, will still be tweaked to stand out less)
You can now buy additional farms in the farm window
Added a new research for displaying the reputation of everyone in a city (before starting to build in a city it is nice to make sure there aren't 5 people with godlike in it), the cost per market analysis is 1000
Added a new research for displaying the information about city growth (why isn't the city growing quicker, what should be improved), the cost per analysis is 2500, the analysis isn't working yet, the last part will be implemented with the next update
Growth analysis is now implemented, see from what your city is growing and compare it with the maximum possible
Two new researches, small and large marketing campaigns. The small campaign gives you a small amount of reputation with a max rating of good, the big campaign gives a big amount of reputation with a max rating of very good
You can now select text in the chat text input box by using home/end/left/right/up/down while holding down shift
You can now select text in the chat text input box clicking and dragging with the mouse or by clicking while holding down shift
Selected text can now be copied and cut using ctrl-c and ctrl-x
It's now possible to see on the farm list window how many fields each farm has
Ctrl+a now works in the chat input box to select all text
You can now select and copy text written in the chat window
You can now research bus main stations and once researched you can upgrade your stations. Upgraded stations have a higher max capacity, loads vehicles quicker, cost less maintenance in busy stations (but more in small stations, the break point is somewhere around 4.500 maintenance cost), and if you compete with several stations in one city then main stations count as two stations. It is not yet possible to see in the station list whether or not a station is a main station
On the rankings page there is now a new column displaying the hourly income of everyone. Net worth is still the main drive of the page but with profit you can now see who soon might start climbing the rankings
I learnt shaders today and added the first version of some features that were planned for 1.4 (if your graphics card supports shaders):
The water now has waves on it (still lacking a bit in the shadows)
There is now sand next to and under water instead of grass (there is not yet a nice transition)
There is now snow (ground and trees) on high areas of the map (there is not yet a nice transition)

Modified:
Made the pavement darker so it it's less obvious when zoomed out
Added some flowers and a bench at one of the turns (feedback appreciated, more of it or looking horrible and need to wait until we have an artist?)
When dragging an area to be flattened and starting on an uneven square, the game does a better job in guessing if you want to raise or lower the land
The mouse cursors when looking at/scrolling the map is now the same as the rest of the game
Rewrote all server code in regards to research, please keep an eye open for bugs
Lowered the cost of buying new farms with 100.000
To more accurately fix the bugs that generate stack traces (the output from the java console) the line that created the error is now placed with the error
Rewrote all research code on the client side, keep an eye open for bugs
City analyzes now appear under "Marketing/Analyzes" on the economy overview page
Truck size upgrades no longer increases the loading time as much
Food prices are lowered
Base farm maintenance cost increased
Farm maintenance cost from upgrades increased
Increased the cost for new fields/farms after upgrading
Increase food filling research increases the filling by 8% instead of 6%
Increase food income increases how much cities pay by 3% instead of 4%
Increase food production increases production by 10% instead of 20%
Each warehouse in a city increases the max goods waiting by 20.000 instead of 15.000
The growth analysis now shows normal growth instead of max growth
Higher reputation generates more passengers in the city
The passenger bonus from reputation is halved
The bus station maintenance cost has been altered somewhat to not reach insane amounts when serving a lot of passengers
Removing trees doesn't cost any money

Bugs:
Fixed a bug where the hidden labels still were clickable
Fixed a bug where warehouses could be placed in the wrong direction and without a road
Fixed a bug where a bridge over a city road would get a graphical bug
Fixed a bug where, when the server reverted your changes because the client did something it shouldn't, the trees were moving around and changing shape
Fixed a bug where, when leveling a lot of land at once, there could sometimes be artifacts in the land
Fixed a bug where other players vehicles, and your own vehicles leaving a city warehouse, didn't start inside the station and instead started at the first intersection
Fixed a bug that could cause the landscape to disappear
Fixed a bug where you couldn't click on the station to open the station window anymore
Fixed a bug when scrolling on the map and moving over a window (chat or city list) you instead started dragging the window
Fixed two bugs around building farms
When the server restarted in the middle of a day the transported passengers got reset, making the cities grow less and the growth analysis incorrect
The max growth from passengers on the growth analysis screen was 50% too high
To research the two analyzes did cost money even though it didn't say it would, they are now free like intended
Fixed a bug where a message being sent to the server at the same time as a message was sent to the player could lock the server
All city buildings are now visible on the map
Fixed a bug where it was possible to place a farm when negative in money but the server removed the farm fields