Tilting at Windmills

Okay, I now (hopefully) have the final form for the major components of the combat statistics done. This HAD to be done before I could go any further with actions.

I had to update my spreadsheet (Excel is VERY useful for design and tracking) to accommodate the changes to the player array structure, and also determine where I would need to make regression changes in the code. The program is large enough at this point that I don’t know quite everything that needs alteration, so I do text searches for labels to find the relevant bits. And I still miss a few.

New Statistic Screen

New Spell Screen

The ding this time came from the statistic screens. It turned out I had all of the coordinates in one place with one label, using offsets. So with all my offsets off, lots of stuff ended up in the wrong place. Whoops! Fortunately, I was able to correct these with a minimum of fuss. For now, there’s only one spellbook in the demo so it’s pretty easy to store just one set of spell data in memory for now. For the full game, I’ll put that data out to disk; there’s no need to burn 128 bytes of memory on it.

You also notice more data on the stat screen. I shortened the labels to make some room; obviously, the instruction manual will come in handy to explain what the values mean. The “M” columns indicate the failure chance of a miss with that given attack type. So Forestall here is pretty lousy with melee weapons (1/8 miss chance) but far better with spells. (1/12 miss chance).

The defense column shows the success chance of a defense against an attack that hits. They are parry, block (with shield or foci), dodge or resist. Not all are available in every situation, and a success costs the character 1 fatigue (or 2 fatigue for a dodge). Forestall, again, sucks at martial defenses, but is extremely good (1/4 success chance) at resisting hostile spells targeting him.

My original plan had been to have a limited number of defenses a character could take in a turn. But tracking these is a major hassle, requiring me to maintain and wipe data arrays each turn. And while some of the defenses can be improved with items, they’re mostly fixed. So you can’t really turn a wizard into a powerful fighter, even with the best gear. I’ll have to be careful to cap off the bonuses as well; it would not do to have divide by zero errors or negative numbers.

Now back to debugging move actions, and getting started on the “strike” code, which must determine hit/miss and damage, factoring in all spell effects.

Oh, bonus points if anyone can identify the source of the name of the “beginner’s” spellbook listed in the equipment of Forestall Grimm.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 9:55 pm and is filed under CRPG, Development, Screenshot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.