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[laiocfar]

if you place your troopers near cover, they can dodge incoming fire pretty well but when in open they start to move without sense and without firing back.

I thought of demolishing a slum building once. The one resting on massive pillards with the elevator in the centre of the map and a stairwell on the side. However, I burned one or two of those pillars away with devestators and 'boxes' (the heavy marsec explosives) with no effect. I suppose I would have had to tear it down from the top, floor by floor but I couldn't be bothered after that rather long 'burn the foundations'-operation...


Anway, these days I'm facing the old dosbox problem once again, its too slow to cope with say 18 troopers, lots of fire and a UFO or house. I have tried VDMsound and it appears to be working okay. I didn't get very far with my tests, though, seein that the mouse moves veeeeeeeery slowly. Too slow for real time games, anyway. Is there a way around that, too?


And here's another question: How do I recover my three (fortunately empty) APCs? They were engaging a UFO and driving around on the highway with two roads stacked on top (superhuman city, ring road) of each other. That road must've taken a hit or something, one way or another they fell onto the lower level of the highway which, for some reason, doesn't seem to have any ramps connecting it to the rest of the streets. So right now the APCs are going round in merry circles. (If X-com agents were anything like women they'd be really really mad, they were waiting for hours to be picked up by those APCs until I finally got fed up and brought the lot back home via Hawk and Valkyrie. Should have done that in the first place, really, since it was those planes who dropped the troopers off in the first place, but hey... )

Oh yeah, I heard some rumours about a road map with indistructible roads, something among those lines? A lot earlier on in this threat there was even an abandonia link where - in theory - one could download it.. however, that link doens't work, if you could drop me a hint where I can find that roadmap I'd be grateful

[The Fifth Horseman]

As for your speed problem... use Dynamic Core, increase the cycles, set frameskip to 1. Should help.

Thanks! I'll give the frameskip a shot, in my limited undestanding it shouldn't mess the graphics (...? well, you may laugh ) up too much and if that be the case its good
For the record, I have Dosbox running at memsize 64 or 63 MB (for another game, i.e Strike Commander), tampered a little with the resolution (no visible effect) and run dosbox at 18,000 - 20,000 cycles at all times. Experience shows that this is somewhere near my computer's limits (mp3 player and other programs may stutter occasionaly) but does not start slowing the dosgame itself just then.
I just attempted a 'dynamic core', the result was a discouraging bunch of error adresses etc., i.e. it doesn't work for me. I reset the core to normal, is there any 'better' setting?
Also I checked the dosbox page, I still use 0.63 since it works, I decided NOT to upgrade right now since X-com Apoc is not specifically listed for DosBox, at least not in the 0.65 version and among the comments of 0.65-users trying to play the game there are mostly problems listed. Right decision?


Thanks again!

[The Fifth Horseman]

Thanks! I'll give the frameskip a shot, in my limited undestanding it shouldn't mess the graphics (...? well, you may laugh smile.gif ) up too much and if that be the case its good smile.gif[/b]

Well, it will display every other frame at Frameskip 1 - gives a minor speed boost, but the graphics aint as smooth as they used to be.

For the record, I have Dosbox running at memsize 64 or 63 MB (for another game, i.e Strike Commander), (...)[/b]

Are you sure Strike Commander needs 64 MB RAM? Most DOS games run under eight, the most demanding I know of was Fallout with 16 meg requirement.

(...) and run dosbox at 18,000 - 20,000 cycles at all times. Experience shows that this is somewhere near my computer's limits (mp3 player and other programs may stutter occasionaly) but does not start slowing the dosgame itself just then.
I just attempted a 'dynamic core', the result was a discouraging bunch of error adresses etc., i.e. it doesn't work for me. I reset the core to normal, is there any 'better' setting?
Also I checked the dosbox page, I still use 0.63 since it works, I decided NOT to upgrade right now since X-com Apoc is not specifically listed for DosBox, at least not in the 0.65 version and among the comments of 0.65-users trying to play the game there are mostly problems listed. Right decision?[/b]

Dynamic Core approximately doubles the maximum cycle count your machine can handle (exact value differs from system to system and game to game).
While it caused frequent crashing in 0.63 of DosBox, it has been heavily improved in 0.65 and does hardly ever crash anymore.
Remember that you can have multiple copies of DosBox installed on your system without any conflicts between them - so give it a try.

Gee, I could have thought of that. Dosbox .65 it is, thanks

For the RAM: Let me quote one of the programmers from the strike commander 'magazine' (more than just a handbook ) : "We weren't even sure if there'd be any computer which could cope with the demands of the game" (It's not the exact quotation but it gets the meaning across . It's a bit like what Bill Gates supposedly said once, that noone would ever need more than 500KB RAM )

When we first tried SC it lagged stupendously. Once we found the RAM setting we just boosted it to maximum taking no chances. It seemed to work so we just went on play the game, no questions asked


The frameskip is indeed.. odd. In some respect, the game is a lot faster but it reaches its limit very quickly. An airborne missle (Sirian) plus a Sirian trooper being gutted by the combined fire of 13 troopers (draw your own conclusions, I tend to bunch my troopers up too much :wallbash: ) and there we go... or rather don't, quite the opposite. Well, 0.65 coming up, thanks again


P.S.: Dynamic core does indeed work in .65 And at 40,000 cycles the game runs soooo much smoother, even without the frameskip Thanks very much!

[laiocfar]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_Lt. Razak_* @ Oct 25 2006, 01:06 PM) [snapback]263551[/snapback]</div>

And here's another question: How do I recover my three (fortunately empty) APCs? They were engaging a UFO and driving around on the highway with two roads stacked on top (superhuman city, ring road) of each other. That road must've taken a hit or something, one way or another they fell onto the lower level of the highway which, for some reason, doesn't seem to have any ramps connecting it to the rest of the streets. So right now the APCs are going round in merry circles. (If X-com agents were anything like women they'd be really really mad, they were waiting for hours to be picked up by those APCs until I finally got fed up and brought the lot back home via Hawk and Valkyrie. Should have done that in the first place, really, since it was those planes who dropped the troopers off in the first place, but hey... )

Oh yeah, I heard some rumours about a road map with indistructible roads, something among those lines? A lot earlier on in this threat there was even an abandonia link where - in theory - one could download it.. however, that link doens't work, if you could drop me a hint where I can find that roadmap I'd be grateful
[/b]

hahaha, you have to wait until the repairs go on. This go faster if are out of city view, it never happened to me so it cant tell if you can arrange a "pick up" by some air units. I see Megapol´s patrols be on the highway making circles by months. So next time arrange a sort of old and good skyranger to move your troops. Also, its easiest to reach ufos

[The Fifth Horseman]

Why are you using ground vehicles in the first place?

Well, my APCs recovered themselves after a while. I don't know how it works but stuck or semi-stuck vehicles seem to reappear at the base if they've been out for a long time. I'd still be interested in that legendary indistructable road map

I use APCs, those trusty pieces of hardware, as it makes it somewhat easier to oversee troop deployment. I use 24 soldiers now split into alpha and beta (Standard assault squads of 6) and charlie (Specialists and heavy duty equipment, the likes of psionics and rocket launchers, also some hand-to-hand fighters which are eagerly awaiting the development of pers shields, plasma swords, teleporters and disruptor armour but currently equipped with stunners and heavy explosives in case they won't make it out of a hand to hand engagement )
Each squad has its own apc so I always know where which squad is and where it's going just by checking what the apc is doing. This is especially useful since beta is just a replacement squad for alpha. My troops spend most of their time in sickbay in a near-death state so it helps to have a backup squad ready. Charlie, unfortunately, just has to cope. Poor sods..

I can't afford to use airborne transports yet, though. The APCs save me having to reassign troopers every time I need to intercept enemy craft. While the battle is still raging the APCs go to the alien beam sites (so I don't forget where they are ) and if UFOs need recovery I have to reequip my hawk anyway when it returns to my base (with passenger modules it can just about carry 18 people plus cargo and bio modules) and then pick up the soldiers in one of the buildings.
My fat years are over, I'm nearly broke, half the city hates me due to stray shots or a peculiar incident AFTER a dog fight when a building collapsed nearly burying my Hawk and ripping down a few billion dollars worth of highways and tubes etc. And Transtellar wants a mere 105k $ just to be 'unfriendly' again*... well, I've got the five ^^

*It didn't help that I had to do a clearance job there killing more guards than aliens....

[laiocfar]

never used APC, i will see how they do.