Posted by Data in Cortex Command - January 24th, 2012

Sounded like you guys actually enjoyed the first video, so I decided to make it a three-part series.. let’s see if I can finish the Techs system in the next one!

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25 Responses to “More programming fun-times with Data”

  1. okay - # January 24th, 2012 at 9:38 pm

    Right now i should be programming but I’m watching you instead.

    Whoa.

  2. pwnmonkey - # January 24th, 2012 at 9:43 pm

    You should definitively do more of these, extremely inspiring.

  3. Mooseral - # January 24th, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    Very good to see, would be worthwhile even just for the commentated gameplay segments. The coding part is also interesting in it’s own regard, as non-tutorial process videos of this kind seem to be relatively few and far between. I can see how it might be somewhat less interesting to a non-coder though, haha.

  4. eiszfuchs - # January 25th, 2012 at 12:26 am

    This video isn’t available in Germany, because it COULD contain some music that Google/YouTube hasn’t got the rights for to broadcast it.
    It now officially sucks to read devlogs in Germany.

  5. Data - # January 25th, 2012 at 12:59 am

    Okay, i re-uploaded and replaced this video with a music-less version… try again!

  6. Cybernetic - # January 25th, 2012 at 1:16 am

    Where can I find the music you stream at the start at the video,it will enhancen my coding im shure of it.
    Now i know what kept you going those 10 years lol. Good Job 😉

  7. flying sheep - # January 25th, 2012 at 2:02 am

    @data: i have the same music-in-germany problem. try something from http://www.jamendo.com or http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free

    both distribute royalty-free music that can be used all over the world. copyright law sucks.

  8. Data - # January 25th, 2012 at 6:38 am

    i just made a third video without music at all since it’s causing licensing trouble with youtube for some.. all the previous tunes were streamed from digitally imported

  9. TheSlider - # January 25th, 2012 at 6:41 am

    Great video, i enjoyed watching it to the end.
    I have a few questions and suggestions though.

    First, I was expecting to have random techs as soon as you get into that menu instead of having the random text set by default leading into unfavourable surprises tech you would rather exclude. An actual random bouton would have been preferable think.

    I’m not sure to understand the choice for the population code. Why not opt for other solutions such as putting all techs in a sub-folder or using a specific global ini file to manage where all the techs are instead of checking for the ‘ Tech’ word in every ini in every rte folder ?
    If people are going to end up having hundreds of mods, won’t your method be slow or bug friendly ? Maybe the loading at the begining of the game creates all the necessary variables making it faster than it seems …

  10. Pumone - # January 25th, 2012 at 7:42 am

    You are simply a genius. You are making the game I always dreamed of. I’m with you Data!

  11. Mangostaniko - # January 25th, 2012 at 9:53 am

    I really appreciate the idea of open development… (reminds me of the wolfire blog). What you could do is to just note down where in the video there is a gameplay sequence so non-coders can find those more quickly.

  12. Sly-UX1XN - # January 25th, 2012 at 10:18 am

    What highscool subjects do you need for game design/makeing
    and do you need good GCSE’s????

  13. MrC121989 - # January 25th, 2012 at 10:20 am

    Keep ’em coming, it’s like watching a baby grow.

  14. billybob - # January 25th, 2012 at 11:09 am

    if like you have a mod in b27 will the campain select the mod carecters as a technology

  15. AtomicAcorn - # January 25th, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    Ah DI FM, you have good taste Data.

  16. Airburst - # January 25th, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    @SLY-UX1XN

    I don’t know about CGSE’s, but you’ll want to take Computer Science, Calculus, and Physics in high school if possible.

  17. Data - # January 25th, 2012 at 3:58 pm

    TheSlider: the whole point of not having a global ini that lists things is that you’d have to edit it each time you add or remove a mod.. the game automatically detects the new mod.rte and reads within it whether it is supposed to be a tech option, or if it just contains some other misc scenes or whatever.

  18. Heat Blade - # January 25th, 2012 at 6:06 pm

    Great job, im interested in buying Cortex command, but not until AI are supported in the campain. looking forward to the future! keep the the good work.

  19. Asklar - # January 26th, 2012 at 1:55 am

    Another great video. Wow, it really seems like you are progressing quick, or at least it looks like you are eager to progress.

    Hah, B27 is going to be awesome, I’m gonna love that build.

  20. Awwkaw - # January 26th, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    I like how you are doing everything for the modders XD

  21. TheSlider - # January 27th, 2012 at 9:16 pm

    @DATA Yes, that’s what i understood from the video. It indeed allows automatically generated lists from within the mods folder. I just couldn’t help but wonder why you chose this method over others that might have been faster or safer. I understand the part where it makes it easier to mod but for example doesn’t it impact performance a lot more ?

    Well, it might only be a question of miliseconds after all… X )

  22. Data - # January 28th, 2012 at 7:00 am

    slider: this happens *once* when the menu is first init’d. Generally, doing any optimization at all in GUIs is wasted effort (let alone premature optimization)

  23. Ryan Badour - # January 29th, 2012 at 12:37 am

    There are a few people talking about the performance hit of checking all the modules but that isn’t the worst issue.

    Correct me if I’m wrong (I saw only up until he successfully populated the menu with the tech names) but this method seems very prone to producing false positives for the techs. If all your doing is string searching for ” Tech” what’s to prevent someone from messing up the game by making a module called “Bob’s Technology”? As far I see that will appear in the menu as “Bob’snology” and that may not even be a Tech to be placed in that menu…

  24. Data - # January 29th, 2012 at 9:21 am

    It’s not a perfect solution, but we’re not building space shuttle-grade code here.. if we agonized over making every single detail bomb-proof like that, it would take another decade to finish this game. I bet the first modder to actually run into the problem you describe would figure out to name their mod slightly differently. That said, the stuff in the videos was the first pass of the implementation; i’ve already gone back over it and made bug fixes, refactored, and improved my original stab at it. I might even check for ” Tech” only at the end of the string, if that makes you happy 🙂

  25. Ryan Badour - # January 29th, 2012 at 11:46 pm

    I appreciate it, but it’s not about me right? It’s about your customers.

    Isn’t there some way to organize these modules into a folder or have them referenced in a special file somewhere? Sorry, my advice is pretty limited since I know very little about Cortex Command’s modding tools.

    Keep up the good work though glad to see your at least attentive of our concerns.