Hi, guys,

I don't have the kind of money to buy Starcraft 2, but I wanted to know about the continuing story.  So I read the Wikipedia article of the game to find the storyline.  I have some questions:

1. What happens to Arcturus Mengsk after the message revealing his actions on Tarsonis was sent?  Does he still rule the dominion?  Is he overthrown?  Do people start respecting Jim Raynor afterwards?
2. When Zeratul says that Kerrigan is the key to saving the universe, does the game reveal whether he means Kerrigan in her "Queen of Blades" form or her human form?
3. I can only assume that Kerrigan is happy to be restored, but is that really the case?

Hey, guys,

S.A.D. will always be built on the concept of using one unit to fit your strategy, as this will be easy on the calculator processor.  However, I've been thinking that the strategy of the game will be more flexible, more entertaining and less frustrating if a player can be allowed to use more than one of the same time of unit at the same time.  This will NOT be processor-guzzling.  The group of similar ships will appear as a single sprite with a number, telling how many ships you are controlling.

Here's the deal.  Units will be cheaper and less powerful, and buildings will have higher HP.  A player who wants to build a type of unit can select how many of that type of unit he wants (depending on his strategy), and over time add more units to the group as he needs or wants to.  

For example, a player wants to use Reclaudas to take on a Splitron, so the player decides to build 10 Reclaudas.  A player cannot use Balkstones, Camozas or Scouters, only Reclaudas in the group, as the game focuses on using a single type of unit.  Then the player can use those Reclaudas to attack the Splitron, and win the battle.  The enemy player, in return, builds 2 Splitrons.  Noticing that he cannot win the battle, he quickly retreats to his Operation Center and adds 3 more Splitrons, allowing him to win.  The first player with the Reclaudas is losing money, but needs to defeat the Splitrons.  So he purchases a whole bunch of Argos, meaning he currently does not have any Reclaudas.

This will keep players from being annoyed at, for example, having to use an Argo 6 times in a row to defeat a Splitron.  In addition, players will not have as much money to waste.

What do you think?  Incidentally, if most people like the idea, all units of a type will cost the same per unit no matter how many are purchased.  For example, if you buy 1 Raptor for 50 crystals, you can buy 2 Raptors for 100 crystals.  Ptaloid units will not have a non-linear cost for many units purchased.  In addition, defense buildings will be allowed to appear right next to each other, and ACCs will have their rules changed as well.

If the first option is selected, be aware it won't appear in screenshots for a while  

I wrote this piece for a composition class.  Somehow it sounds like celebrating New Year's Day while reflecting on the old year, but I can't think of a decent name.

This is a piece I wrote last year for percussion.

This is a discussion/development area for the Ptaloid race (but since priority goes to S.A.D. iteslf, you won't find, say, one update every two days or so).  You'll find out in the manual and story-setting information that the humans and Ptaloids are complete allies around the time of S.A.D.

The Ptaloids are big on cloaking technology.  Of course, this means they have the Balkstone (which was their invention), but a few of their buildings and many of their units can cloak as well.

Ptaloid ships and buildings heal themselves over time.  In addition, all buildings can increase their HP for a price, and culmulitivly.  The strategy here is that you can upgrade buildings in strategic areas, but you lose money if you do it incorrectly when your opponent chooses to attack something else.

Most Ptaloid ships have relatively light armor and weak weapons.  There are about 3 that are able to stand by themselves against other ships, but most require "swarming" in an unofficial sense of the word.  The Ptaloids are the only race where one can add many of the same unit--and only the same unit--together in a group.  These units are joined together, combining weapons and armor.  This means that you're really fighting "one" unit rather than a bunch. All in all, the player can make his group of ships as powerful/expensive or as weak/cheap as he wants.  Balkstones and 2 other units are not capable of this.

Ptaloid buildings must be placed next to each other.  If a ptaloid building is left by itself, with the exception of defense and "Operation" Centers, it will not operate.  Power generators are also required to be next to a least one of these "chained" buildings.

I have included the code below for an interrupt routine I wrote, as well as the code for setting it up.  The interrupt routine executes only once, and then Context_Sensitive_Get_Key, which uses ports, occurs indefinitely without a single timer interrupt.  I would appreciate help on how to get this to work.  However, I'm currently experimenting, so please do not offer suggestions about my code below besides getting the interrupt routine working--I'm afraid I will be annoyed at any suggestions that do not involve getting the interrupts working.  

Oh, and DrawMapFull has nothing to do with it.  


Start:
di

;Timing in the game, including "forcing" FPS depending
;on what speed we want, is done via interrupts.
;This is to achieve a consistant speed.
;So we need to load interrupt information.

ld hl, Play_One_SAD_Frame
ld de, $9A9A
ld bc, End_SAD_Frame - Play_One_SAD_Frame
ldir

ld a, $99
ld i, a



    LD     HL, $9900
    LD     DE, $9901
    LD     BC, 256
ld A, $9a
    LD     ($9900), A
    LDIR

;This is where the game is loaded.  Thus this code is run only once.

xor a ;Start with 0 buildings.
ld (BuildingCount), a


;The game requires user RAM.

ld hl,21000
ld de,$9d95
bcall(_InsertMem)

;Savescreen is used for saving data involving maps.  Thus, we need to disable
;the APD so that the data will not be corrupted.


RES apdAble,(IY+apdFlags)

;Structure_Locations holds the locations of all buildings that could possibly exit,
;up to 200.  Four bytes for each building: TileX, TileY, 6 bits for the building's
;ID, and 10 bits for the buildings HP.

Structure_Locations .equ $9D95 + 17500

;The Map Data, containing the tiles in tilemap form.  Maps can be no bigger than
;3600 bytes, but a 3600 byte map requires 900 bytes for fog-of-war and collision
;information.  Therefore, 4500 bytes is needed in this area.

MapData .equ $9D95 + 5000

;Tile Data.  Requires 8000 bytes.

TileData .equ $9D95 + 9500


;To optimize the drawing of structures

Store_Structure_Sprite_Addresses:

; B_CALL _Load_Sprite_Data
B_CALL _Load_Map_Data
B_CALL _Load_Tile_Data







ld hl,2
ld (delta),hl
ld (DeltaPreserve), hl
ld a,1
ld (Num_Layers),a
xor a
ld h,a
ld a,(mapdata)
ld l,a
ld (mapheight),hl
ld a,(mapdata+1)
ld l,a
ld (Mapwidth),hl
ld hl,0
ld (MapY),hl
ld (MapX),hl
ld hl,TileData
ld (Tileptr),hl
ld hl,MapData+2
ld (MAPptr),hl
ld hl,Mapbuf1
ld (MapbufPtr),hl
ld hl,premap
ld (PreMapPTR),hl


IM 2


ei

call DrawMapFull





Loop:


call Context_Sensitive_Get_Key



jr Loop





Play_One_SAD_Frame:


;For those ASM experts out there, it sure looks like I'm making this
;interrupt routine too long with all the subroutines that are running.
;However, by including an interrupt counter and running certain subs only
;when it reaches a maximum, I can achieve a consistent frame rate and
;ensure that the interrupt routine doesn't call itself in the middle of itself.

EX AF, AF'
EXX


ld a, (Interrupt_Counter)

;cp Twenty_Frames_Per_Second
;jr z, SAD_Frame
inc a
ld (Interrupt_Counter), a
ld h, 0
ld l, a
B_CALL _DispHL



Exit_Interrupt_Routine:

EX AF, AF'
EXX
RET

SAD_Frame:

EX AF, AF'
EXX

xor a
ld (Interrupt_Counter), a


call DrawMapFull ;Only if the map doesn't need to be fully drawn.


ld a,(MapY)
and tile_width*8-1
ld h,a
ld e,PMAPWIDTH*Tile_width
call HxE

ld de,mapbuf1
add hl,de



ld de, plotsscreen
ld bc, 768
ldir

BIT MenuMode, (IY + flag)
call nz, Draw_Menu

BIT Cursor_Mode, (IY + flag)
call nz, Draw_Select_Cursor

call Continue_Building_Construction

ld hl, plotsscreen
call safecopy

RET


End_SAD_Frame:


EDIT: It just seems that the interrupt only runs once, even before Context_Sensitive_Get_Key starts.  I tried placing a whole bunch of "HALT" routines immediately following the "ei", and the debugger says the calculator just stays there, as if interrupts have been disabled.

Unexplored fog of war means that you can't see any terrain the beginning of the game until you first scan the area.  Then when the fog covers the area again, you can see some territory, showing what you already explored.

Explored fog of war means that you can see territory from the start of the game, even though you must explore to find buildings controlled by players.

I'd like to have explored fog of war to save memory and make the game easier to program, but I didn't know if that would stir up complaints.  This will be a "majority rule," but is there anyone here who would be upset if the fog of war was always "explored?"

DJ has a lot of interesting points as to why he allowed public announcements of projects.  For those of you who agree with him and want to announce and keep them in a single topic, here it is.