MWDA, javascript, and weather system updates.

With my surplus of 'thinking time' for javascript coding, I find myself making progress inexorably towards a real, functional item.
So this isn't available yet but it will be soon.  I'm currently working on making this thing safely output to a page and I'll post it up on my blog eventually.

For your reference: MWDA is Mechwarrior: Dark Age.  It's a wargame using mini figures on the clix system.  It ran it's course a few years back and has since become something of a collector's item.  I collect many, myself.  That said, there's virtually no one to play with or against locally.  My sons aren't old enough yet.  So I have been humbly trying to migrate this to a program I can use and run to eventually build up to a full fledged game (similar to megamek in principle).  Then, eventually, I'll rip out the guts and rebuild it with my own game that I have been working on.

That said it's a great exercise in building something from nothing in javascript.  The current iteration builds it's own objects, a data table, a huge volume of information which only covers about 60% of the objects in the original Dark Age game.  There were many expansions of course, all of which will have to be added later.  The current version can do combat between two infantry units in direct contact.  It has no game board to speak of, no ranges, no graphics.  It's just the guts of a combat system and a very simplistic database.  

Once I have it mapping everything to a webpage properly I'll post it up on this site along with some updates from time to time.  I may obfuscate my code first, not sure.

We'll see.

 For now, that's what's up.  Once I sit down and hammer out my weather system (hopefully tomorrow) to make it consumable for the general public at large, then I will put it up for sale after final testing.  Price will range between 10 and 20 dollars.  Probably 15 with a sale price of 10-12.

Final checklist items needed for the weather system:

• inclusion of my lightning scripting to provide realistic weather effects during a rainstorm.
• ambient sound of various weather effects.
• better methodology for deploying weather and time of day.
• a general 'time of day' global variable based on loop counter/time.  Shouldn't be hard to do.  This will give a means to pull a time of day for secondary scripts (to allow shopkeepers to close up at 9pm, for instance).
• better weather randomization.  Right now it's simply selecting based off a probability matrix.  This isn't really a great way to do things.  I'd rather it be for a percentage of the day vs just randomly selecting based on a time of day state change.  

I've also been thinking about just calling it early, wrapping it up, and saving other changes for a 'version two'.  Feature creep is a real bitch and sometimes it's better to just cut it off at the knees and save the rest for another time.  Some of this stuff is really easy.  Other stuff is more complex theoretical work (like how best to initiate/ramp up weather).

Anyways that's the status.  Take care and see you around.

Weather system update info

So wow, Lee gave us a great big gift basket of stuff. (SEE: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-20170228-released)

I'm going to implement a few extra controls based on the new Lua commands and then prepare this thing for launch.

My biggest issue right now that I am not satisfied with is I don't have a good way to deal with the weather systems.  I've monkeyed with the shaders, created a custom decal, etc, and just can't get it the way I want.

Unfortunately this is becoming a time sink and will need revisited in a future version.
Currently what I have supports:

Random weather if selected via variable
Random Time of day if selected via variable
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A set time of day (you walk into a zone and it sets it to that time of day, single use)
A set weather (you walk into a zone and weather is enabled)
All weather turning off indoors via trigger zone
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A progressive day/night cycle based on both step interval speed and delay between cycles.  Totally within the control specified by the user.  This is the on you see shown in the video.  You can add random or set weather to it as well via trigger zones or variables.

What needs added before release:
1) one final tuning run on the blue zone which I have a good fix on making how I want
2) new lua implementation of sun surface/lens flare (disabling for night specifically).
3) modified versions of algosteps decals need a last tune.  I don't like his originals that much because the decals are too thick or not transparent enough.  If anyone wants to step up and provide nicer looking visual elements for those Rain/Snow/Dust boxes I'm sure I can provide you a free of charge copy of my final product.
4) a final test run, really comprehensively.  I'm sure bugfixes will inevitably be necessary after users get their mitts on it but overall it should be a good clean setup.

Current cost for this package will be 15$ and I'm not sure I'll be doing it via the store since there are some complex elements which need to be done manually (like you pretty much need the updated sky shader if you want a good result from here:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216862#msg2564866). 

Thanks for the support and interest.  Please keep an eye out as this will likely be released in the next week or so.