[M-dev]some requests for coders with free time

[<qu...@sn...>]

now that I've broken the ice with that huge question about aleph's
direction, I might as well ask some of the questions that brought me to
this list in the first place...


I've been working on a scenario for some number of years now ("hoth"-
it's still technically vaporware), and now that aleph's out I can
finally do some of the things I wanted to do from the start.
however, there are still some basic engine/PM limitations that are
bugging me, so I was wondering if anyone with some code knowhow and free
time could help.


1) being able to edit damage types is great, but one thing I've always
wanted [needed] to be able to edit is the ammount of push they exert,
and in what directions. for example: explosions push a lot both
vertically and horizontally, but a teleporter bump only pushes
horizontally. I'm trying to create heavy slugs and shotgun blasts
that push creatures around in addition to hurting them, and I don't want
to have to give up 'explosion' or 'teleporter' to do it (those being the
only current damage types with any push).

2) projectiles have a maximum safe speed of 1024 anvil units before they
start acting flakey. assuming that a WU = 6 feet, this comes out to 180
feet-per-second, which is slower than a spring-fired bb gun pellet (most
guns are above 1k fps). is there a way this limit could be raised to
20480 anvil units? I'm trying to make a sniper rifle, but I can't deal
with having to wait several seconds for a shot to get to it's target.

3) regardless of what's been typed into the PM, the engine doesn't seem
to want to create more than 10 projectiles in a burst. could this also
be raised?

4) I'd like to be able to make chapter screens scroll in other
directions (like bottom-to-top), and have them use file formats with
better compression (like PNG).

5) I'd also like to be able to modify the file paths that the app uses
to find it's data files. I want the OS9 version of my scenario to have
an app and a data folder, with all the maps and shapes and stuff being
stuffed therin... and have this organizational scheme follow through to
any other platforms.



minor stuff-

5) would it be possible to implement psuedo-animated landscapes? ie: the
landscape is a slideshow, using a series of pictures in a folder.
basically, I'd like to be able to have a slowly rotating planet in the
background of one of my levels. I'm willing to accept possible
limitations like having all the pictures use the same clut, and no
crossfading between pictures.

a) would it be possible to be able to shut off the shaking effect that
charged weapons use? I know that a "multifunction" weapon's 2nd trigger
doesn't shake, but I'd like it to apply to all weapon classes... like a
"no shake" flag in the MML somewhere.

b) would it be possible to make it so that creatures with a weakness
flag set don't always use a hard death for that damage type? again, a
global "no hard death for weakness flags" in the MML or whatever.




anyway, that's about it. I dunno if these are things anyone else would
like to see implemented, but they'd certianly help me. (especially #s 1
and 2)

and TIA to anyone willing to start working on this.

-- 
Quartz
--
"It's been a strange day... 
 it wasn't even a '2+2=5' kind of day,
 more like '2+2= ...fish'."
--
http://www.sneakertech.com
--