Defining Awesome

Link-Dead running the QoS network emulator with 400ms ping and 50% packet loss!

We just played for the first time a Poland-Australia match in Link-Dead. Ping was 400ms but the netcode was flawless. I’m extremely happy.

If you can’t fix a problem try fixing another one. There is an 80% chance they are connected.

Something I did a while ago to make quick maps. Generating maps based on ‘room’ tiles in the Mappy editor:

The netcode is working. It’s different than Carmack’s but also ‘perfect’. I’m gonna be working on gameplay stuff now for the test release.

After a recent talk with a fellow coder Matt I understand fully how Carmack’s net code works. The problem is I know I can make it better.

My new physics code is fantastic. It’s a lot faster; no framerate drop. Check for yourself:

Take Lots of Breaks to Get More Done. Great tip. Just used it and fixed a big problem without effort.

I got angry at the physics code for being limited. So what I did is make Box2D work with tiles collision. This means that the game is not limited now to some memory issues. Infinite maps are reality now in the Link-Dead engine. I am not using them cause they are loaded into memory (for fast loading times). I can make them load from hard drive and that would allow for gigantic maps. But I’m not doing that cause there will be a slight loading hick-up; about 100ms. Doesn’t seem like much but in a multiplayer game that is a matter of life and death.
If you are following my blogs I wrote that Box2D was a bottleneck in the engine cause the loading times for the map were huge. Fortunately it was just my error, I fixed it and now its really fast.
I tested a map 15 screens by 15 screens large and it generates and loads in about 15 seconds. This is a really good score even before optimizations.

I’m really proud of myself for doing this. I want to thanks the lack of internet for pushing me to do this.

Penn & Teller Bullshit about videogame violence!