Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

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Smooth Sailing
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

4xEmpire wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 2:31 pm
Smooth Sailing wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 6:08 am
4xEmpire wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:57 pm Awesome, looks like some real graft put into this! :)

Will check it out and update this post if I have any comments.

Did you just use vanilla love2d 11.3 btw?
Yes. We took 29 galloons of 100% pure graft and injected it directly into the project. Glad you noticed. (What the heck is 'graft'?)

Yeah, do tell do tell. It's immensely helpful whenever a player out there plays and posts feedback. I've got plans but also dev tunnel-vision, so there's a lot of things that we miss that is obvious to the new player. Also, there's some items in there, like the map editor, which are available but has zero documentation, so if you want to figure out how to use it, just ask. We'll add better documentation once the features are more mature.

Yeah, we're use vanilla 11.3, along with some heavily modified libraries. We also have a lot of little tools we made in Love2D to help us with our workflow.
I have played the game and here's my initial thoughts:

Things I liked:
  • Detailed graphics (even the wheels turning independently as the vehicle turns!)
  • Great soundtrack - it's fitting and professional
  • cool CnC rts vibes - variety of units and options
Possible constructive feedback:
  • Speed is the biggest issue for me. The units take rather a while to respond to commands and move slowly. I imagine this getting more of an issue as more units enter the game + ai / other players. (For ref, my pc is 8gb ram, 2.5ghz)
  • UI is not very clear. I was clicking on units to build but it didnt register my click so I thought nothing was happen. Then I look back and 5 of that unit has appeared :o:
  • the day-night cycle is pretty in some ways but too often it makes it hard to actually see what is happening.
summary:
It is clear you spent real time and effort on making faithful models of these cool war vehicles and buildings and that's great. You must have a true passion.
I recommend you to focus on speed and usability because right now the general feel is quite sluggish + hard to see what's going on sometimes. That may need to come at the cost of the graphics and other aesthetic features - it may mean some difficult cuts or optimisations - but anything that makes the game more responsive, playable and alive will be massively worth it. It would also be good to have a basic Ai, even if its not a very skillful one, just to get a sense of the gameplay.

Well done so far on your efforts.
Yeah, the graphics is my core focus, so I can put a lot of time into. In an older unreleased version, the resolution was x2 larger and we had animated spinning wheels and tracks as well. That turned out to be way too heavy so we down-rez'd and removed those animation frames, but the turning wheels still remain.

Soundtrack will be getting more tracks later in the year. It's important, probably more important than visuals and it compensates for not having sound FX in yet.

As for the the speed, this might be partially due to lag. Even on my work computer, when I zoom out all the way, the whole game slows down. Additionally, the game is designed to be slower than CnC. In future, when our damage and weaponry stuff is more in place. There will be a lot of units out there that are going to be one-shot-kill. This is compensated by having all the units be slower and having longer aim-times on larger guns and weapons, giving more agile units a chance to escape.

Honestly, before optimization, you actually need a semi-beefy computer to run this game comfortably. We'll be adding multi-thread functionality and adopting a dds image format to make things faster and lighter sometime down the line.

The Day / Night cycle is currently around 2 minutes, and is there for testing and showcasing. In future, our day / night cycle will be 20+ minutes. We'll be tweaking the settings a bit too. The current day / night barely allows the headlights on the vehicles to be on for more than a few seconds.

Our game design is not yet complete because we don't have the sight system in place yet. In future, the player starts out, and needs to start scouting, capturing key resources and keeping an eye on chokepoints at the beginning of the game. Currently everything is visible and its not needed. Also, our maps and assets are not ready for that yet. Simple enemy AI is also locked behind map maker features as well as not having a complete set of faction assets completed.

We do have a "Swarm AI" which is just a simple spawner that will spawn specific unit at a frequency and time according to an Excel spreadsheet as long as their main base is in tact. That is honestly a genuine challenge, although once you figure out that all you need is to outflank with an artillery unit, its pretty easy to defeat.

Multiplayer, with luck, is coming back next week. Multiplayer will be the crutch we use for the time being. AI is a slow and hard thing to do, but we'll try to start it in earnest once the core features of weaponry, air / naval units, and map making features are complete. We'll just be copying the AI logic from CnC Generals, which I am familiar with.

It's a long road but we'll get there.

Cheers and thanks for your input.
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4xEmpire
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by 4xEmpire »

That's awesome, you have a lot planned! Good luck for the continued development and keep us posted here :)
I'll give the swarm mode a try.

By the way, I was curious, how will you copy the AI logic from CnC generals? Is that game's ai open sourced?
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

4xEmpire wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:08 pm That's awesome, you have a lot planned! Good luck for the continued development and keep us posted here :)
I'll give the swarm mode a try.

By the way, I was curious, how will you copy the AI logic from CnC generals? Is that game's ai open sourced?
Ah, no. I'm just copying the logic and overall design, not the code itself. In fact, it's more inspired by CnC Generals than copying.

In brief, AI in CnC Generals depends heavily on points and zones marked out during the map making process. The AI will then move, expand, attack and react depending on what's in these zones, what tech level its at, and how much money its got. For attacks, it builds an attack group which are specific sets of units according to its current tech level and money, then attacks via one or several series of waypoints that lead to the enemy base.

We'll be using this type of logic at its core, but we will let the map editor generate more of these zones and points rather than placing them all by hand like in Generals.

Very far down the line though. We've going to rely on multiplayer-only for a while, along with the swarm mode.
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

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Hey all, every week around this time I will post a little weekly update. Here's what happened last week:

Weekly progress ::
+ Started updating buildings
+ Added two more turrets

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+ Finished the HIMARS assest creation video: https://youtu.be/MBC4oeUTwbI
+ Adding a lot of quality of life improvements
+ Multiplayer functionality revived
- Buggy as heck
+ Fixing a lot of bugs
+ Pathfinding zig-zag bug as has been fixed
- A G-RAM usage problem looms, especially in multiplayer. Because the player with the crappiest G-card will bring down the whole game.
- Thinking about reducing number of directions for vehicles from 32 to 16.
- A couple of large G-RAM related optimization plans are in the docket, ready to be executed for the next version after 0.03.
- We have a lot of optimization to do in future. RAM usage is also a problem, although not as immediate as G-RAM.
+ Going back to one post per week, because I'd rather be making progress.
+ Version 0.03 with multiplayer might release next week.

That's all for this week. Join us next week, might be launching 0.03 then.

Cheers, Commander Rad

Link Dump:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
Itch: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/commander_rad
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiNBYy ... ywcUGVwaxw
Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/commanderrad
Soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Gunroar:Cannon() »

Real cool!
The risk I took was calculated,
but man, am I bad at math.

-How to be saved and born again :huh:
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

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Version 0.03 has been released. Multiplayer support has been restored and lots of quality of life improvements have been implemented.

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You can play either on your local wifi network or with your friends online via Hamachi. There is a single map right now that can support up to 4 players, with a mix of whatever teams you like. Technically, there are no limits to the amount of players that can play on a single map, you can make a map with 20 player if you want / dare.

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There is a heightmap and tile map importer that makes it easy to create nice maps in a short period of time using advanced software like MS paint.

There is a functioning map editor with a small tile set, but very few objects other than the default faction's military assets. More will be added in the future.

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The content in 0.03 version is fairly bare bones, but we're working on a lot of new features, maps and assets that will be added in the near future.

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Here's some of the remaining building icons added recently. Currently, I'm not too pleased with the icons, yet I can't spend too much time on each one. I think I will be tweaking the lighting, camera positions, and zoom in on all icons to increase variation and readability. If they don't turn out to be satisfactory, I will be replacing them with clean renders on very simple backgrounds.

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System Requirements (for now):

RAM: 8G or more
VRAM: 4G or more
CPU: At least 1
Hard Drive: Yes

Our current game is somewhat unoptimized and requires ludicrous amounts of RAM and VRAM, of which, the second one is more scarce. Just make sure you close RAM-hogging programs (like Chrome) before starting a match, or the game will politely crash itself.

The upcoming 0.04 Optimization update will solve this problem. Hopefully, by then, the game will be able to run on less powerful computers.

More features, units, maps, factions, and just content in general to come in future. You can keep track of progress here or follow us on Twitter, which is our most active platform. Link dump below.

Cheers,
Commander Rad

Follow us: https://twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
Download: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/commander_rad
Video: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiNBYy ... ywcUGVwaxw
Support: https://ko-fi.com/commanderrad
Soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

Image
:: BnB ::

dev :: Commander Rad

tools :: Love2D, Maya, Spine, Photoshop,

web :: twitter.com/GamesBreakfast

progress ::

+ Optimization begins

+ preliminary png to dds conversion workflow completed

- now I just need to reoutput all assets and convert from png to dds

- its about an 80% reduction in VRAM usage for a 300% increase in filesize, not ideal but a sizable improvement

+ adjusting the layers of images, made some of them optional to save space on some assets

+ numerous png and dds conversion issues, like color artifacts, the alpha layer disappearing, and other bugs fixed or workarounds found

- still haven't pulled the trigger on reducing from 32 to 16 directions. need to see how the rest of optimization pans out before I make that call

- ideally, we'll use 16 directions only on smaller vehicles like sedans, small UGVs, and tuk-tuks

+ Version 0.031, which is a small optimization patch, will release some time this week. Filesize will increase considerably, but it will run much better.

+ Added a AH-1 Cobra and a patrol boat in preparations for testing new forms of unit movement

+ Version 0.03 released and is available here: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets

+ I do dev streams here regularly: https://twitch.tv/commander_rad

+ Here is the current music playlist for anyone that wants a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost

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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

Version 0.04 has been released. The purpose of this was very simple: optimization. In short, we spent 2 weeks making this number:

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into this number:

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Noice. By the way, that's the VRAM usage when all structures, vehicles, and infantry are built. A solid 70.8% decrease.

Additionally, due to entirely inexplicable and potentially incomprehensible reasons. We decided to up-rez everything by 50% and also decrease the number of directions on vehicles from 32 to 16.

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The result is that everything looks much crisper at negligible cost in file size because the frame count on the most numerous units, vehicles, were reduced by half.

We also reworked our whole rendering workflow, tweaked output settings, switched to using dds file format and made custom image slicing and pixel-checking tools to maximize sprite packing efficiency. Here's the old and new sprite sheets:

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The new sprite sheets are much more tightly packed, irregular, and the image height and width are powers of 2. They are also converted from png to dds image format before being put into the game.

The other stuff can't really be shown but the results are as follows:

Resolution: +50%
Frames: -50% (vehicles only)
Filesize: +446% (yeah...)
VRAM usage: -77% (noice)

Take note that that's the uncompressed file size, the file downloaded is actually slightly smaller than the previous version.

Anyhow, that's it for this version. There is, aside from slightly crisper graphics, no appreciable difference from the previous version. However, the workload, and the amount of files that needed to be processed, was tremendous.

Future updates will now gear more towards adding new features and expanding content, which, while much more noticeable, is much easier and more engaging work.

That's all.

Cheers,

Commander Rad

Follow us: https://twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
Download: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/commander_rad
Video: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiNBYy ... ywcUGVwaxw
Support: https://ko-fi.com/commanderrad
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/balancedbreakfast
Soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost
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Smooth Sailing
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by Smooth Sailing »

Image
:: BnB ::
dev :: Commander Rad
tools :: Love2D, Maya, Spine, Photoshop,
web :: twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
progress ::
+ Optimization complete
+ Beginning to flesh out movement-related features. Adding unit classes like VTOL / helicopters, amphibious units, and boats (see below)
+ Added AH-1 Cobra, a helipad and a patrol boat (see below)
+ Added the concept of tile cost back into the game. A tile has 4 cells and can have 4 different types of tile cost on a single tile.
+ Tile cost will only affect pathing for now, but in future I would like it to affect top-speed of entities crossing the tiles.
- Would like to add a movement system where a single-click yields path of least cost, and a double-click yields most direct path.
+ Added production timer for vehicles alongside the buildings
+ Infantry name ethnicities will now drawn from multiple different lists instead of just one.
- No more Yumiko Nyugan or Qiang Fujimori. East Asian will now draw from separate Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc, name lists, both male and female.
+ New infantry portraits are being worked on and will be more varied and in-depth in future. (see pic)
- Didn't start on the portraits for the ladies but will soon since the male portraits are nearly finalized.
+ Version 0.04 released and is available here: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
+ I do dev streams here regularly: https://twitch.tv/commander_rad
+ Here is the current music playlist for anyone that wants a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost
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Re: Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

Post by KayleMaster »

Man, this looks great! How did you pull off the shadows and the reflections ? Isn't this running with 2D sprites?
Some suggestions:
- The vehicles shadow make them look like they are floating in the air a little. The shadow directly below them needs to be stronger and wider (too much offset).
- It lags on zoomed out, as you said. Something like 20 FPS on full zoom out. I know 0.04 had effort spent on optimizing, but you might want to think about reinvesting some time in your rendering pipeline. The GPU is barely doing any work, sitting at 10-12% usage while the CPU core tanks. You have too much overhead with whatever you are doing with your rendering (unless it's the shadow/reflection algo, in which case I can't help you)
Just wanted to say that this isn't a Love2D limitation - it can be overcome programmatically. For reference, here's my result on the same hardware, with my love2d isometric game as well:
Image
Single threaded like yours - 300+ FPS on a 0.2 scale (5x zoomed out)
1 million+ tiles (they are 30x16 px)
Hardware: Ryzen 1600, GTX 1060
getStats():
canvases = 0,
canvasswitches = 0,
drawcalls = 193,
drawcallsbatched = 1,
fonts = 1,
images = 5,
shaderswitches = 2,
texturememory = 322 MB
If you need some tips optimizing your rendering, hit me up.
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