Takes Two To Tango With A Brief Debrief

Having mostly been a single player player ... stops, rereads that, nah we're good ... the concept of networking multiple clients wasn't something that I had particularly much experience with. This was most obvious when reviewing my C++ code and seeing that I had literally packed/unpacked everything of my custom aeronautVehicle class regardless of whether it required it or not. On further inspection only rigidBody attitude and whether it should be emitting vapour or not really needed to passed around every frame the engine updated. This could probably explain the jitteriness of Ai and other client aircraft movements.

Debugging ... (don't @ me!)

After quite a bit of faffing around I not only managed to get 4 player Co-Op mode working but had it so that other remote human clients could arrive after the mission had started, and replace the allied AI who had already spawned in their place. The Ai would smoothly disengage, move away and fade out before being deleted, hopefully out of view of other players.

Any later joining client would have to pick the remaining available flights/callsigns that human players were permitted at the briefing screen. Initially I had listed each and every callsign individually, but once I had the whole system up and running, I decided it would be better to simply list available wings and the number of taken and free roles within them. This would cut down on the possibility of scrolling through vast numbers of disabled buttons.

Co-Op Mode! Player 1 and 2 look at each other during a flypast.

The briefing screen also acted as a rather rudimentary lobby. Players could arrive and choose their flight roles, aircraft and paint job, and then wait for the server to fill. Once two or more players had arrived and selected their aircraft and were ready to sortie, a countdown timer would start and automatically trigger the mission so they weren't waiting around for ever. A lone player, waiting on the server on their own could start the mission with Ai wingmen, and future arriving players could drop in and drop out as replacement, as explained above.

One of the things which had proven to be an issue with the networking was briefing. Sending huge amounts of text over a client connection seems like rather a bad thing and I have been desperate not to abuse seven shades out of the commandToClient. This is the reason that I haven't got a large and indepth mission briefing description working yet. I am considering creating it as a seperate GUI file and sending that directly to the player in the same way mission download should work. I do however have a quick description of mission objectives created, pulling them directly out of the mission file.

Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics

 The post mission debriefing screen lists all the statistics that pertain to the player. All allied aircraft are listed as well as their victories, recorded as kills and assists, and their final state which descibes their damage. Added to this is the individual client's performance which ... when I iron out the bugs ... will list the types of kills and assists they scored as well as how accurate they were with their weapons. Right now ... it's a tad buggy ...

More Lies And Bugs Than Statistics ...

Here's a video of the old way I selected playable flights with the multiple buttons at the beginning, and shows how the briefing screen works for aircraft and paint scheme choice.

And so that was the month that was. August, it was wet and cold and not much of an end to summer. The summer fan is dismantled and stored for next year, and the Autumn duvet is already on the bed for maximum comfy.

Selection Screen: Aircraft and Insignia

 What's a plane game without a pre-mission briefing and selection screen? Lacking that's what. So here it is.

Choose Your Fighter! Literally in this case ...

Here is where you get to choose stuff for the forthcoming mission. The overview screen is where the menu is, as well as a reminder of the mission objectives and the important specifications of the currently chosen aircraft, which boils down to maximum level speed, stall speed, and at what speed the ailerons completely lock-up and you wish you weren't in a 90 degree vertical dive whilst holding down the turbo button.

The aircraft selection screen details all pertinent statistics of the aircraft, displayed as a percentage bar based on the min-max of all other aircraft; 

(range max - range min) * (value - min value) / (max value - min value) + range min = percentage

All except, that is, for Lock Start which is based on percentage of Max Speed, and Lock End which is based on Max Speed * 2.

The Fastest Paint Job Changes In The West

The Insignia screen is where the player can choose their aircraft skin. I was going to call it Paint Job but insignia seemed more fitting. In fact I had a good trawl through the thesaurus for flag, badge and logo before deciding on insignia.

Any skin which can be carried over to other aircraft will be added to newly selected aircraft back in the Aircraft Selection Screen, or default to Dazzle Camo if not.

I am splitting aircraft up into distinct roles (fighter, interceptor, striker/bomber) which have differing effects for lock-up, turbo (WEP; War Emergency Power), stall turns, etc, and am naming these after cavalry units.

So, still to do for the pre-mission screen;

• Create a Briefing overview where the player can select which aircraft they want to conduct the mission as. Different wings of aircraft will have different roles as mentioned above. Really hate escorting strike aircraft to attack a target? No problem, fly the strike aircraft and have the Ai do the escort mission. This style of play also lends itself rather well to online multiplayer co-op mode.
• Create a Payload Selection screen that allows aircraft that have external hardpoints to fit bombs and rockets. Also need to create a system for the use of bombs and rockets, as we only have primary and secondary guns coded at the moment.
• Integrate all of the player choices into the actual mission when it starts.

And here is the whole thing as it currently stands in video. There are three aircraft and about ten skins each.

And that was the month that was. It started with me in shorts getting sunburnt and has ended with me soaked to the skin and wearing a jumper. Classic British summer.