help me with my time deltas (please)

Well.... crap....

~Sol

i'm making a 2d vertically scrolling shooter. A modern style one with a gajillion bullets.

the collision box on the player is extremely tiny, and the gaps between the bullets can be easily in single pixel figures.

I'd rather the game slow down gracefully than become jerky, this is what these games do in the arcade.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji88FmxemAs

All I want it to do is play at 60fps max if the PC can handle it, and slow down after that.

OH MY SWEET HOLY F%#K, bullets... everywhere... thousands...

How in the world anyone can enjoy that? Its simply Avoiding => Waiting => Shootin, repeat untill boss is dead.

hmm, well, I guess that's like some who likes britney spears listening to some death metal and asking how anyone can listen to that, it's preference.

OH MY SWEET HOLY F%#K, bullets... everywhere... thousands...

How in the world anyone can enjoy that? Its simply Avoiding => Waiting => Shootin, repeat untill boss is dead.

It's what's known as a "Bullet Hell" shooter. They're pretty common, especially in the Japanese shmup scene.

Part of the allure is making pretty patterns of bullets with math. Some of them are quite intricate.

Personally, I can't stand them But then again, I'm not a big fan of shmups in general. But there's a whole lotta people out there who make and play these so they've got their own little hardcore niche.

if you make a game in construct that has that much bullets onscreen I will be amazed. I dont doubt construct's abilities, i'm sure it would just be a diabolical torture S&M thing to make it.

if you make a game in construct that has that much bullets onscreen I will be amazed. I dont doubt construct's abilities, i'm sure it would just be a diabolical torture S&M thing to make it.

sorry, I can't hear too well with my leather gimp mask on.. what was that again?

looking at another freeware game,(blue wish resurrection) it seems like the game artificially induces slowdown intentionally , yet keeps the framerate at 60 (it displays the framerate), i'm not sure how I could replicate that or if its necessary, I guess i'm on my own here for now....

Time scaling using TIMEDELTA!!!!!! will let you slow down the game without affecting the frame rate,

anything that is moved with timedelta is affected by time scaling

how do you use it?

simply, on event - timescale = variable/number

time scale can be found under the system object

My super speed example in the your creations forum is a good demonstration of manipulating time scaling, although i made a smooth transition between normal and slow timescale, that and i added an extra bit of code to make it so the player is 'unaffected' by time scaling, in actuality he just speeds up the same amount that the game slows down

Another reason to use timedelta: anything using timedelta can also use timescaling as arcticus said. For example, a pause system can be a very difficult thing to program traditionally. With timescaling, just set the timescale to 0. The game universe stops - your events and framerate carry on as normal...

You could easily link the amount of bullets proportinally to the timescale value as well... for example anything over 100 bullets and you start slowing time by 0.01 for each extra bullet... you just have to make sure that you don't have too many bullets otherwise it will stop time completely lol. Perhaps a limit of minimum timescale would be the way to go if you choose to do something like this.

~Sol

You could easily link the amount of bullets proportinally to the timescale value as well... for example anything over 100 bullets and you start slowing time by 0.01 for each extra bullet... you just have to make sure that you don't have too many bullets otherwise it will stop time completely lol. Perhaps a limit of minimum timescale would be the way to go if you choose to do something like this.

~Sol

Set timescale to TimeScale * 0.99^NumberOfObjects[/code:2e3p509v]

(0.99 can be any number below 1, depending on how quickly you want the frame rate to drop) This expression gets closer and closer to zero but never reaches it, so it's kind of natural limit. ("asymptote")

> You could easily link the amount of bullets proportinally to the timescale value as well... for example anything over 100 bullets and you start slowing time by 0.01 for each extra bullet... you just have to make sure that you don't have too many bullets otherwise it will stop time completely lol. Perhaps a limit of minimum timescale would be the way to go if you choose to do something like this.

>

> ~Sol

>

Set timescale to TimeScale * 0.99^NumberOfObjects[/code:1bu1pxw0]

(0.99 can be any number below 1, depending on how quickly you want the frame rate to drop) This expression gets closer and closer to zero but never reaches it, so it's kind of natural limit. ("asymptote")

Nice

I'm not that great at math, so I would have made an event like...

+Timescale is less than 0.1

+Always

-Set timescale to 0.1

...or something along those lines. I wish I was as good at math as you guys... I get screwed over on even simple things because I have more of a creative mind than an analytical one.

~Sol

Ouch, I don't deserve compliments, I made a mistake XD.

Its either

Every time the number of objects is changed:

Set timescale to 0.99^NumberOfObjects

or

Every time an object is added:

Set timescale to TimeScale * 0.99

The first would perform little bit slower, but it would automatically rise the timescale back towards 1, when objects are destroyed. The second is faster but needs a separate event to rise the timescale back... :D

AND... 0.999 or 0.9995 seems better than 0.99, the scale drops too fast with 0.99... with 0.9999 the timescale is 0.5 with about 7000 objects.

AND... btw, lowering the time scale doesn't remove the fact that it still needs to produce the fps the v-syncing needs...

Surely you don't want to fake slowing down the more objects you have? That's one of the reasons to use TimeDelta in the first place... I'm sure the original question was about slow-motion effects or something!

hmm, well, I guess that's like some who likes britney spears listening to some death metal and asking how anyone can listen to that, it's preference.

http://www.discover-net.net/~dmkeil/coco/images/pacman.gif

This is Pacman

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/567edca701.gif

And this is Pacman: Extreme!

See the difference?