HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 03:57:38 edt
From: Sheeran_F@ndg.ceo.dg.com
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu, avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au
Subject: Reply to: Mapping bug in 1.3f


CEO comments:
From: Sheeran F:NDG
Date: ## 09/28/92 16:57 ##
My favorite bug in 1.3a was that you could hit walls in a lightcycle
at just a certain angle and escape through the wall into the 
outside. If you drove too far something that wasn't expecting 
coordinates bigger than a certain address popped, but it was alot of 
fun. Well, not that much fun, but cute.
 
Is this the same as the new core dump? (gee, why didn't you just post
that core:)  I don't remember if situation above cored or not, and
I doubt anyone cares 8)
 
DGXx !< %*%`%m%s!&%G!<%?!&%<%M%i%k !< :k6L8)9TED;T;}ED2165

From: avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au:dg-smtp
Date: ## 09/28/92 03:17 ##
See document for message.


Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: stripes@pix.com (Josh Osborne)
Subject: Re: Reply to: Re: Reply to: Re: 3-d stuff
Organization: Pix Technologies -- The company with no adult supervision
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 08:07:24 GMT

In article <9209241009.AA00036@rtp41.rtp.dg.com> Sheeran_F@ndg.ceo.dg.com writes:
>
>CEO comments:
>From: Sheeran F:NDG
>Date: ## 09/24/92 18:09 ##
>My personal feelin is that xtank is intrinsically a 2d game, and
>as such it might as well be displayed from above like it is now.

Well, yes, there is no elevation involved in aiming your guns or anyting
3D centric about the game.

[...]
>game. There is also the problem of (of course) graphics - forgetting
>speed, etc., try describing wire frames for 10different vehicles with
>up to 4 turrets that are a)differentiatable (not looking the same) and
>b)not look like shit.  battlezone had just 3 or 4, with non-moving
>turrets.  It would help to use hidden lines, though.  Why doesn't
>some bright little pumpkin out there do a feasablity study on tank
>shapes?

There are at least a few 3D tank designs that look good, but I can't
get them for us.  I'm sure some 3D artest out there can draw a few.

Yes you will need hidden line removal, and polygon fill is nice (shading
flat or otherwise would be good too...).  There will be a graphicly nice
3D tank game in the arcades soon, go look at it (the game play is weak if
you are use to xtank, but as strong as other arcade games).

>  [...] Maybe its no problem. Maybe its `insurmountable'.  NOW,
>if you make the game 3d with ramps, etc., you much added difficulties
>in terms of aiming, visibility, etc - how the hell do you drive 

You would need to do at least some of this to make the 3D version more
fun (if you didn't it would just look better - to some people).

>something like that?  A modern tank crew has  I think 3 or 4.  Now
>quadruple the turrets and make it nuclear powered...  Id still pay
>$50 bux to see it finished, I just saying that I don't see the 
>solutions.  IE, how to control a) driving direction, b)turret 
>direction, c) looking direction without a data glove.   -Frank

You have a 3 button mouse, right?  Press the 1, 2, or 3 to adjust
driving direction, turret direction, or looking direction then drag the
mouse to the desired angle (hit space bar to fire).  No, not easy to
control, but the again mabie I can make money of you all by selling
data gloves :-)
-- 
           stripes@pix.com              "Security for Unix is like
      Josh_Osborne@Real_World,The          Multitasking for MS-DOS"
      "The dyslexic porgramer"                  - Kevin Lockwood
We all agree on the necessity of compromise.  We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise.       - Larry Wall
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: fullmer@rice.edu (Robert Fullmer)
Subject: Re: Reply to: Re: Reply to: Re: 3-d stuff
Organization: The Bavarian Illuminati
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 06:36:26 GMT
Return-Receipt-To: fullmer@rice.edu

In article <mumble> Sheeran_F@ndg.ceo.dg.com writes:

>  CEO comments:
>  From: Sheeran F:NDG

>  My personal feelin is that xtank is intrinsically a 2d game, and
>  as such it might as well be displayed from above like it is now.
>  Generals have been workin for 2-3 millenia just to get that birds
>  eye view, cause its, well, better.  Doing a tanks' eye view
>  takes the screen from being up-down-left-right to basically left-right
>  granted things get bigger and smaller, but thats still a two dimension
>  game. [Other anti-3D motivations deleted].

I've noticed a lot of combat bias on this newsgroup. I think this is
fostered, in part, by the admitted bias in that direction of the present
group of xtank developers.

Combat's a cool game, but I prefer ultimate. More to the point, I
thought racing in 3D was actually a lot of fun (3D worked a little back
at MIT when in was still in Terry's hands).

It's a bit myopic to think of xtank only as combat.

Rob Fullmer
Ultimate junkie
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: zagar@chester.cms.udel.edu (Randy Zagar)
Subject: Re: Porcelain armour invulnerable ?
Reply-To: zagar@chester.cms.udel.edu
Organization: Marine Studies, University of Delaware
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 04:04:59 GMT


Okay, I found the error and have hacked a quick-fix (I think).

The problem is in the file "hit.c".  The routine damage_vehicle() has
a hard-coded dimension of seven for the hits_off[] array.  Since there
are now 12 different types of armour, this is a problem.

My quick-fix is the following diff:

==============

709,711c709
<     /* should be MAX_ARMORS */
< 
<     static int hits_off[12] = {0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 0, 1, 1, 3, -15};
---
>     static int hits_off[7] = {0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3};

==============

I'll let you know how it works.....


---
 _____________________________________________________________________________
/                                                                             \
| Randy Zagar                            Get your priorities straight.        |
| Internet: zagar@Chester.CMS.UDel.Edu   No one on their death bed ever said  |
| Bell-net: 302/831-1139                 "Gee, if I'd only spent more time    |
|                                        at the office..."                    |
\_____________________________________________________________________________/

Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: nabil@ogicse.ogi.edu (Aaron Nabil)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Very bad logic in radar.c
Date: 3 Oct 92 18:54:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.43604
Organization: Explosive Space Modulators - R - Us

sinster@scintilla.capitola.ca.us (Darren Senn) writes:
 >This appears on lines 685 and 686 of radar.c:
 >	else if (v->special[(SpecialType) NEW_RADAR].status != SP_nonexistent
 >	       || v->special[(SpecialType) NEW_RADAR].status != SP_broken) {
 >Unless something truly strange is going on, this should always be true.

Yeah, it should be &&, not ||.  Oops.
-- 
Aaron
nabil@cse.ogi.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: mdycus@me57.lbl.gov (Mike Dycus)
Subject: Xtank (what else?) (fwd)
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 12:44:27 PDT
Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.30]



 Hi!
 I am using an HP730 to compile Xtank. It gets to thread.c and dies with a long line
of errors. Do you see anything wrong here?

 ThanX.

cc: "thread.c", line 128: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 128: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment
operator.
cc: "thread.c", line 129: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 129: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment
operator.
cc: "thread.c", line 132: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 132: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment
operator.
cc: "thread.c", line 133: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 135: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 137: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 137: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 137: error 1554: Indirection must be through a pointer.
cc: "thread.c", line 137: error 1533: Illegal function call.
cc: "thread.c", line 137: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 137: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment
operator.
cc: "thread.c", line 139: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 142: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 208: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 208: error 1528: Subscript expression must combine pointer
and integer.
cc: "thread.c", line 208: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment
operator.
cc: "thread.c", line 260: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 260: error 1563: Expression in if must be scalar.
cc: "thread.c", line 268: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 270: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 270: error 1549: Modifiable lvalue required for assignment
operator.
cc: "thread.c", line 275: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
cc: "thread.c", line 278: error 1529: Cannot select field of non-structure.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.

<prompt>

--

:           mdycus@me62.lbl.gov
From: zoller@sunl.cr.usgs.gov (Greg Zoller)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Imake Difficulty
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:47:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: sunl.9210052047.AA00827
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu

As requested, I am reporting difficulty installing xtank.  We're running
a Sun (sorry... don't know precise model or OS version).  It's a rather
vanilla setup...nothing fancy.  Following the steps in README, I run into
trouble when I try to "make Makefiles".  I get the following message:

making Makefiles in ./Src...
rm -f Src/Makefile.bak
+ mv Src/Makefile Src/Makefile.bak 
cd Src; imake -DUseInstalled -I/usr/local/lib/X11/config  -DTOPDIR=../. -DCURDIR=./Src; \
make  Makefiles
4: Can't find include file Imake.tmpl
imake: Exit code 2.  Stop.
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `subdirMakefiles'
Current working directory /edc/devsys/zoller/contrib/xtank
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `Makefiles'

Please send mail if this can be easily corrected.  Thought you'd like to
know.
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: stripes@pix.com (Josh Osborne)
Subject: Re: Problem: xtank1.3f crashes when new players added
Organization: Pix Technologies -- The company with no adult supervision
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 08:15:48 GMT

In article <1992Sep22.150522.16317@qualcomm.com> bwoodall@bilbo.qualcomm.com (Bill Woodall) writes:
[...]
>	Wow!, let's see on my SPARCII 64M/~400M it takes ~16 minutes to
>	compile 1.3f, that is 8576 minutes or 142.9 hours or 5.96 days! WOW !

Seems a bit long, I remember when a 48M SS2 could do the compile in 5min,
then again that box (a) had TMPFS, and (b) xtank was _in_ /tmp.

All we have (asside from the 386's and 486's) is a 4/110 w/ 16M RAM.  It
takes over twice as long for a full compile, however we seldom do full 
compiles.  A link takes 4 min 'tho, so assuming we never changed a .h, or
>1 .c file at a time, and it takes 1 min to compile the .c files it only
took us 1.98 days of compile time...   the other few months were spend in
gdb and ups looking for bugs...   :-)
-- 
           stripes@pix.com              "Security for Unix is like
      Josh_Osborne@Real_World,The          Multitasking for MS-DOS"
      "The dyslexic porgramer"                  - Kevin Lockwood
We all agree on the necessity of compromise.  We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise.       - Larry Wall
From: sinster@scintilla.capitola.ca.us (Darren Senn)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Reply to: Re: Reply to: Re: 3-d stuff
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:00:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: scintill.9209291600.AA02025
To: Robert Fullmer <fullmer@rice.edu>
Cc: xtank@eng.umd.edu
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

** Robert Fullmer said:
> Combat's a cool game, but I prefer ultimate. More to the point, I
> thought racing in 3D was actually a lot of fun (3D worked a little back
> at MIT when in was still in Terry's hands).
> 
> It's a bit myopic to think of xtank only as combat.

I'm a RACE junkie myself.  That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the combat
aspects.  In fact, a great deal of the enjoyment I get from RACE comes
from blowing away the #2 guy.  Also, ramming people into walls is a great
way to reduce your turn radius (especially when the shocker walls are
turned up).  Even when playing ultimate, I love dropping some oil behind me
and then making a tight turn.

I like the _concept_ of 3D views, but a rather extreme problem has to be
solved first: field of view.  Most flight simulators around nowadays are
3D, but they have a horrible field of view.  Usually this is imposed by
the shape of the viewable screen (width/height = 3/2).  They try to solve
the problem by letting you turn your head with cryptic keystrokes, but
there are almost always still blind spots.  A program could use a narrow
horizontal band to get the wide angle view, but then your view resolution
suffers.  I wouldn't want to play race with less than a 120 degree view
angle.

-- 
Darren Senn                                    Telephone:       (408) 479-1521
Internet: sinster@scintilla.capitola.ca.us         Snail:    1785 Halterman #1
The route to a more fulfilling life: Lemmings             Santa Cruz, Ca 95062
From: scottd@cs.hw.ac.uk (Scott Dunn)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Big programs? - neural networks
Date: 3 Oct 92 12:28:45 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computing & Electrical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

Hi,

I have just got xtank and and it would appear with the ability to
roll your own robots it could be an excellent framework for my
dissertation.

I was intending designing a neural network to steer a simulated car
around a race track.  If I can change this to a neural net steering
a tank it would save me a lot of work on a graphical front end.
Plus the added benefit of having an excuse to play xtank :)

However, I noticed the stack is limited to 25K per program.  This
is almost certainly going to be too small.  Are there any workarounds
in use.  I had thought about creating a socket interface with an
independant program which received data from a skeleton "program"
performed the NN calculations and sent back a response.
The robot would effectively be a data capture device, sending data
and receiving instructions.
This would also allow me to distribute the processing.

Does this seem feasible, or is it a case of "back to the drawing board"

Also, could someone give me a bit of detail on time-constraints.
Can I slow xtank down, to give my neural net a chance to work.?

Finally, does anyone have any line of site functions I could have?

Any help, advice etc, much appreciated,

Scott.
From: avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au (Darren Reed)
Subject: Bug in HARM code..
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 29 Sep 92 06:35:33 GMT


Yeah, me again :)

Umm...there is a bug in 1.3f when HARM's get fired off
by the disks as ammo (this probably isnt meant to happen
but it makes things more interesting >:-)

The bug, as I see it, is the HARM has no owner and when
its in flight, it cant work out who is friendly and who
isn't.

The patch below is a quick hack to stop it core dumping
but maybe a more complicated and better solution could
be used.

darren.

*** update.c.orig       Tue Sep 29 16:30:09 1992
--- update.c    Tue Sep 29 16:30:14 1992
***************
*** 782,788 ****
        * retro-fitted with IFF encoders...
        */
  
!       if ( (b->owner->team == live_vehicles[i]->team && b->owner->team != NEUTRAL)
               || live_vehicles[i]->have_IFF_key[b->owner->number]                     )
  
            continue;
--- 782,789 ----
        * retro-fitted with IFF encoders...
        */
  
!       if (b->owner &&
!           (b->owner->team == live_vehicles[i]->team && b->owner->team != NEUTRAL)
               || live_vehicles[i]->have_IFF_key[b->owner->number]                     )
  
            continue;
From: jeppe@iesd.auc.dk (Jeppe Sommer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Problem with right boxes.
Date: 28 Sep 92 10:29:18 GMT
	<Bv89tx.AIs@pix.com>
Organization: Mathematics and Computer Science, Aalborg University

>>>>> On 27 Sep 92 08:20:21 GMT, stripes@pix.com (Josh Osborne) said:
> In article <Bv38p5.3ID@encore.com> epeterso@encore.com (Eric Peterson) writes:
> [...]
>>Also, I've noticed that the armor bars are not scaled properly on the
>>console.  They seem to be displaying the absolute armor value rather
>>than the percentage.  Is this a known problem or have I not configured
>>something correctly?

> Um, I forgot to put that in when I did the newconsole stuff.  How many
> people would be upset if I just removed the item from the flags menu and
> left it as is?
> -- 

I would :-(

But feel free to leave out absolute display :-)

--

       Jeppe Sommer         |     Aalborg University   
                            |      Fredrik Bajersvej 7   
  email: jeppe@iesd.auc.dk  |       DK-9220 Aalborg {\O}st
____________________________|________Denmark______________
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au (Darren Reed)
Subject: Mapping bug in 1.3f
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 28 Sep 92 06:26:44 GMT

I just managed to xtank 1.3f to core dump on a Sun IPC.
For some reason, 1.3{e,f} get the map 'off centre' and when this happens,
you can drive the xtank of the radar map and off into who knows where.
(Your tank blip disappear and the surroundings become featureless).
Oh, its had sevral patches applied to it but this behaviour has been
observed since it was first compiled.

Is this a bug or due to some mistake on my part when compiling it ?
Or a problem with mazes generated by versions < 1.3e ?

dbx xtank.sun4 core
Reading symbolic information...
Read 37773 symbols
program terminated by signal SEGV (no mapping at the fault address)
(dbx) where
draw_symbol(s = 0x1e35f8), line 340 in "mapper.c"
special_mapper(v = 0x139fc8, record = 0x1dfda0 "", action = 10), line 222 in "mapper.c"
do_special(v = 0x139fc8, special_num = MAPPER, action = 10), line 283 in "actions.c"
display_map(status = 2), line 773 in "display.c"
display_terminal(status = 2, lastterm = 1), line 129 in "display.c"
animate(), line 216 in "animate.c"
play_game(), line 300 in "setup.c"
interface_play(), line 1568 in "interface.c"
sub_interface_play(choice = 0), line 779 in "interface.c"
main_interface(), line 1117 in "interface.c"
`main`main(argc = 1, argv = 0xf7fff8fc), line 336 in "main.c"
(dbx) dump
s = 0x1e35f8
pic = 0x22ea2bac
tmp_y = -134220624
tmp_x = 0

I'll keep the core if someone wants more info (or would like it emailed
to them >:-)

darren
From: bwoodall@qualcomm.com (Bill Woodall)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Big programs? - neural networks
Date: 5 Oct 92 15:24:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: qualcomm.1992Oct5.152450.19300
Reply-To: bwoodall@qualcomm.com
Organization: Qualcomm Mechanical Dept - CAD

In article 16732@cs.hw.ac.uk, scottd@cs.hw.ac.uk (Scott Dunn) writes:
[..]
>
>However, I noticed the stack is limited to 25K per program.  This
>is almost certainly going to be too small.  Are there any workarounds

	Currently, the stack size is set to 0x8000 (32768), but you can
	set the size to your liking by using the option (-DSTACK_SIZE=)
	in the Makefile.

>in use.  I had thought about creating a socket interface with an
>independant program which received data from a skeleton "program"
>performed the NN calculations and sent back a response.
>The robot would effectively be a data capture device, sending data
>and receiving instructions.
>This would also allow me to distribute the processing.

	Sounds Cool!

>
>Does this seem feasible, or is it a case of "back to the drawing board"

	Possible,
>
>Also, could someone give me a bit of detail on time-constraints.
>Can I slow xtank down, to give my neural net a chance to work.?

	I believe the info you looking for is in /Src/Include/xtank.h as
	MAX_GAME_SPEED (set to 30 currently).
>
>Finally, does anyone have any line of site functions I could have?

	?? what do you mean ?? targeting, path finding, ??


...........Bill,

(:  how about X-Tank with joystick controls :)
============================================================
	Man's capacity to learn is not fixed in any ordinary
sense.  It is not fixed in terms of the responses it will
produce;  it is not fixed in terms of absolute level of
knowledge it will achive. - 
============================================================
From: mouser@cs.umd.edu (David Eccleston)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: No Game Ballance
Date: 26 Sep 92 15:44:25 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742


>> The no game ballance feature doesn't work... alas.
>> NUKE and EXP_NUKE are undefined in actions.c
>>
>> -Chris

I had posted about this before, the fix is to go into:
   xtank/Src/Include/weapon-defs.h
and change the line:
   #ifdef TAC_NUKES
to:
   #ifdef NO_GAME_BALANCE
From: okes@essex.ac.uk (Oke S)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: FAQ?
Date: 29 Sep 92 15:53:30 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, UK.
In-reply-to: scottd@cs.hw.ac.uk's message of 29 Sep 92 14:34:16 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.143416.27379@cs.hw.ac.uk> scottd@cs.hw.ac.uk (Scott Dunn) writes:
| Is there a FAQ and where can I get it?
| Failing that, where can I get xtank?

You can get the latest version from ftp.eng.umd.edu,
in the directory /pub/xtank; the file is xtank1.3f.tar.Z.

--
This signature is copyright 12/6/1992 Simon Oke. All rights reserved. If you
like it and keep a copy for your own use, you owe me $20. Please pass it on
to your friends with all documentation.              Email okes@essex.ac.uk.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
80% of statistics are wrong.
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: stripes@eng.umd.edu (Josh Osborne)
Subject: Re: This is what the instructions told me to do
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 17:09:32 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, Merriversity of Uniland, College Purgatory

In article <BvD24u.752@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> alhy@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu writes:
[...]
>Well, here's a list of some of the problems I had compiling on the
>RS6000 before I finally threw up my hands.  Has anybody gotten xtank
>compiled on an rs6k (with threads)?  I have nowhere near the expertise

It once did (with threads, and I think dynaload).  So since it doesn't
you may want to try to fix the minor incompatabilites we have introduced.
We don't have an RS/6000 (and it may be one of the few boxes we might not
take if someone gave it to us...   ...but if you have one to offer, offer
away, you never know :-), so we can't help.  If anyone does get it to work
send patches and we will try to make sure the next release has them...
[...]
-- 
           stripes@eng.umd.edu          "Security for Unix is like
      Josh_Osborne@Real_World,The          Multitasking for MS-DOS"
      "The dyslexic porgramer"                  - Kevin Lockwood
            "NFS only behaves properly..."                  - jik@athena
                "...when the computer is not drawing power." - rbj@uunet
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer