Battle City

Build a city. Hire a team. Orb the enemy.

You’ll Never Believe This…

Announcements

BattleCity 1.0 Announced

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So these days now that the BattleCity workload is over ReMoTe spends his days and the donation money golfing right?

Wrong!

I have actually been working harder and longer on BattleCity than ever before, spending WAYYYYY more time than I should be coding for the game.

This is a post announcing the near-future release of BattleCity 1.0, and what to expect. Also, the workboard has been updated to reflect all the major changes in upcoming 1.0.

As you may have experienced, there are several major problems with the 0.8.x series, ranging from excessive lag to sound driver god mode.

The socket code has been completely rewritten, partly because the threading caused problems, and also because it didn’t parse data correctly all the time, resulting in the imfamous TCP crash.

The server code has also now been made platform independent, which means it will run on Linux or any other operating system instead of just Windows, which will allow us to eventually move the server to be hosted on the more stable, secure, and better performing Linux or BSD based operating system.

SECTORS! Yes, sectors. Instead of having building and item data sent to the entire server, it is now only sent to the area and when you move into that area you will receive the data then. Also, data will be packed together a lot more tightly, to cut down on bandwidth usage.

The old account system relied on Windows .ini files, which was both slow and platform dependent. It now uses a quick little database implementation called SQLite, which is platform independent and about 1000x better than ini files ever could be. This will eventually add for detailed player statistics to be added.

New installer – In order to make the game more newbie friendly 1.0 will no longer require users to manually unpack files and will install the game for you.

Alright i’m tired of typing now so if you want to see ALL of the changes you can head over to the workboard!

-Love ReMoTe 😉

BattleCity 0.8.0

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It's time for another version increment! The major changes in 0.8.0 are:

Walkie Talkies work now. You must have one to be able to talk to your team from anywhere on the map

MiniMap (Click Map button or press 'm')

Shortcut keys:

'o' – Drops the Orb if you have it

'b' – Activates and drops a bomb

'h' – Uses a Health Pack (Med Kit, m was already taken =P)

'm' – Display Map
'p' – Displays your points

']' – Will refresh the screen if it turns all white (happens when a screen saver comes on)

NOTE: You MUST download testrelease.exe again, or it will just crash because it is missing files.

Full change log inside.

(DONE) – When you right click on buildings it tells you mayor, amount of buildings, etc.

(DONE) – Banning System
(DONE) – Sometimes there will be 2 mayors – Fix

(DONE) – When City is orbed people are getting overwhelmed with delete data. – Fix

(DONE) – Fix build button

(DONE) – Inventory needs to scroll up when you drop items, and select items you pick up – Fix

(DONE) – I'm not hiring checkbox needs to work

(DONE) – Options using a .ini file instead of a normal file

(DONE) – Attempting to quit when in a DFG gives you a god mode effect

(DONE) – New account passwords don't work – Fix

(DONE) – Orbing is requiring one more building than it should be – Fix

(DONE) – Make orbing message come after deaths so you can see it

(DONE) – Factories should start the timer and THEN produce the item

(DONE) – You can shoot and drop items in DFG – Fix

(DONE) – Key Shortcuts – 'o' to drop orb, 'b' to drop bomb, 'h' to use med kit

(DONE) – Walkie Talkies

(DONE) – Reload Surfaces key – "]"

(DONE) – Map

BattleCity Server

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Okay, I admit it looks like hosting BattleCity and Odyssey at the same time might be a tad too much for my 256kbps upstream connection to handle =P

I’ve had several people who have expressed having a location they could host the server, if you’re one of those people, read on.

Hosting requirements:

Hosting machine must be dedicated to only running BattleCity

Hosting machine must have remote administration installed – If interested contact me and i’ll give you the details

Connection needs to have a fast upstream. I will verify this with a speed test

Hosting machine needs to have a reasonable amount of RAM and CPU processing power

If you think you have access to a server that meets these requirements, contact me or Weebo in the game or make a post on the forums.

BattleCity 0.6.0

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BattleCity 0.6.0 released! The most notable features are the Manage the Team dialog, and the ability to move the map screen around by holding Tab and moving the arrow keys, and a ridiculous amount of bug fixes. Full change log inside.

Also, if you are getting a low FPS (Found by hitting the Comms button) I have posted some fixes with this article.

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0.7.0 Planned Features:

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New Features:
Note: Research for xxx has been completed.
Edit Account Screen
Map
When you right click on buildings it tells you mayor, amount of buildings, etc.

Fixes:
It is possible to overlap buildings because the server does not check – Fix
It is possible to overlap items because the server does not check – Fix

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0.6.0 Change Log:

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-(-(( DONE ))-)- Bullets and players can move negative and crash server – Fix
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Using invalid characters while trying to log in crashes server (*) – Fix
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Research needs to take the realistic amount of time
-(-(( DONE ))-)- You can hire unlimited commandos – Fix
-(-(( DONE ))-)- People are being flooded with data. Suggest a send start location to solve w/o crashes
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Fullscreen in the options menu
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Pressing “I” displays the info button information
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Rewrite accounts system – it’s not working right
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Add true Mutex’s to prevent access violations
-(-(( DONE ))-)- When research is destroyed items should not produce
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Bombs aren’t always hitting nearby items – Fix
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Scrolling the screen with tab
-(-(( DONE ))-)- Manage the Team dialog

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Low FPS fixes:

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First things to try:

Download the latest version of DirectX, 9.0c.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/

Update your video card drivers.

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Weebo says:

I just boosted my own FPS by turning on Direct Draw Acceleration. It was disabled on my computer. If you are suffering from low FPS, try making sure that it is enabled.

go to start, then run

type cmd

then type dxdiag

Go to the display tab.

If direct draw acceleration is disabled, enable it. 😉

If its enabled and you still get low fps… err… to be continued… 😉

Velius says:

Method that fixed my FPS: Go to your computers display properties and click the “Settings” tab. Change the color quality from 32 bit to 16 bit.