Vapourware Zodiac Legion - X-COM and dungeons

[Galdred]

We will start a small alpha testing phase "soon", so I prepared a boring form to fill in if you are interested. It will be handled through manual sending of Steam keys via email. The first phase will probably involve a small number of testers, because the game is still barebones (there is no carryover between missions at the moment, so no real geoscape functionalities), and I'd rather keep enough "fresh impressions" for later stages.

Here is the form if you are interested.

 

[Galdred]

sorry, there was a problem with the form (blocking access to step 2), but it is sorted now.

 

[vazha]

Submitted. Best of luck guys!

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

AoW 3's icons with mouseover text. It makes the book look more professional and wizard-ish. It shouldn't take long before the player knows what each spell can do so there's no need for a fixed info section.

ok, here is a prototype using AoW3 style (I didn't put the tech names yet):

You could definitely make that Heroes of Might and Magic style spell book bigger. You're basically using that screen real estate like you're in 4:3 when you've got 16:9. Of those two examples you gave of the spell books from other games, probably the best one both aesthetically and at giving you some information at a glance is Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

Game looks cool, liking what I saw in that trailer a lot.

 

[Falksi]

I already posted some fireball gifs, but this one has the range indicator in the beginning, and got my daughter very angry as she didn't approve fireballing my own guy for no reason.

That's a great little touch.

I'm not keen on damage to your own party members usually, as the way it's usually implemented just tends to be annoying.

But this looks like there's some genuine risk Vs reward element there which is a different story.

Any joy on implementing a none-hex, or even "reduced" hex mode?

 

[Galdred]

Our combat demo is out. You can try it out on Steam:



It is still very rough when it comes to pacing and balance. The AI was also in the middle of learning how to be more proactive, but I didn't have time to complete the changes, so it is still pretty clueless when it comes to opening doors.

You can find the manual here, or somewhere on the docs folder of the Zodiac Legion Steam folder.

That's a great little touch.

I'm not keen on damage to your own party members usually, as the way it's usually implemented just tends to be annoying.

But this looks like there's some genuine risk Vs reward element there which is a different story.

Any joy on implementing a none-hex, or even "reduced" hex mode?

I planned to add a setting toggle to disable the hex outlines, but I didn't have time to do it, but it will be possible for sure. That said, it might be difficult to play without the range and movement previews (but these are on the area borders, not the hexes themselves.

 

[Aemar]

Downloading!

 

[vazha]

Been playing this for 3 days now, for testing purposes, will share my final thoughts later in this thread, but first lasting impression: It's super raw. the 0.1 version tag doesn't lie.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Dungeon tileset failed to load in prison escape level.
I could see my own units, enemies, doors and props, but that's it.

Also combat log would be nice.

Spoiler

I keep writing this just about every tactical combat game demo that I try.

 

[Galdred]

Dungeon tileset failed to load in prison escape level.
I could see my own units, enemies, doors and props, but that's it.

Also combat log would be nice.

Spoiler

I keep writing this just about every tactical combat game demo that I try.

vazha Did you have the dungeon walls not loading before? It just happened to me too(the dungeon walls become invisible during enemy turn), but I don't think I had it before fixing the crashes. However, I am not 100% sure I didn't introduce it before.

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko In what folder does Steam install the demo?
IT looks like the tileset locations expect a folder named zodiaclegion (and not zodiaclegion_demo or something else).

Yes, I exported to the demo folder with tiled, but then, it changed the tile paths to the tilesets.
I am uploading a quick fix. Thanks!

 

[vazha]

Galdred It happened to me couple of times too. Also sometimes if you moved your cursor beyond the immediate surroundings on the screen, game would freeze. And I know it sounds weird but for some reason graphics in videos look far superior / polished than what is now in demo, especially when I zoom in a bit. Thank god it doesnt have bloom or any such nonsense though.

And another thing, what resolution should the game be ideally played in? Mine stretches all over the screen with half of the buttons barely visible, so far I ve been only using core attacks / movements.

It does have a lovely grimdarkey theme going for it, that's for sure. And I am willing to turn a blind eye to many a shortcoming as long as i get to control a huge hammer-wielding armored knight bashing the enemies skulls in.

 

[Galdred]

Galdred It happened to me couple of times too. Also sometimes if you moved your cursor beyond the immediate surrounding on the screen, game would freeze. And I know it sounds weird but for some reason graphics in videos look far superior / polished than what is now in demo, especially when I zoom in a bit. Thank god it doesnt have bloom or any such nonsense though.
And another thing, what resolution should the game be ideally played in? Mine stretches all over the screen with half of the buttons barely visible, so far I ve been only using core attacks / movements.
It does have a lovely grimdarkey theme going for it, that's for sure. And I am willing to turn a blind eye to many a shortcoming as long as i get to control a huge hammer-wielding armored knight bashing the enemies skulls in.

So, your game is fullscreen, but you don't have all of the buttons?
You can set the game resolution, but it is super user unfriendly at the moment:
You need to go to gamedata/cfg.lua,
pick one of the resolutions supported, and enter it as resolutionIdx:

Spoiler

  resolutionIdx = 17,

}

--[[

supportedResolutions = {
 1: 800,600
 2: 1024,768,
 3: 1152, 864,
 4: 1176,664,
 5: 1280,720,

 6: 1280,768,
 7: 1280,800,
 8: 1280,960,
 9: 1280,1024,
 10: 1360,768,

 11: 1440,900,
 12: 1600,900,
 13: 1600,1024,
 14: 1600,1200,
 15: 1680,1050,

 16: 1768,992,
 17: 1920,1080,
 18: 1920,1200,
 19: 1920,1440,
 20: 1920,2160,

 21: 2048,1536,
 22: 2560,1440,
 23: 2560,1600,
 24: 3840,2160,
  --]]

So if you want 1280-720, you need to replace resolutionIdx = 17 by resolutionIdx = 5

I will patch the menu so that it works from the settings menu, but I won't be able to check that the resolution is really supported by the monitor (I guess that's why they usually male it auto revert).

 

[Galdred]

vazha , don't despair, I will implement the menu tonight! The UI is already there :D
Is your resolution listed in the supported ones? I can add it otherwise.
It will probably only work after relaunching the game, though.

 

[Galdred]

Galdred It happened to me couple of times too. Also sometimes if you moved your cursor beyond the immediate surroundings on the screen, game would freeze. And I know it sounds weird but for some reason graphics in videos look far superior / polished than what is now in demo, especially when I zoom in a bit. Thank god it doesnt have bloom or any such nonsense though.

And another thing, what resolution should the game be ideally played in? Mine stretches all over the screen with half of the buttons barely visible, so far I ve been only using core attacks / movements.

It does have a lovely grimdarkey theme going for it, that's for sure. And I am willing to turn a blind eye to many a shortcoming as long as i get to control a huge hammer-wielding armored knight bashing the enemies skulls in.

I made the resolution part of the hardware settings menu work, so you can select your resolution in game, select close & apply, and restart the game.

As for the videos looking better, it is strange. The whole video was made using *2 zoom, but you should get the same effect by zooming in. Maybe it is the resolution? It is possible the lighting is a bit different too, but I am not sure there was much post processing from the video editor.

 

[Galdred]

I will host a Dev LP stream on the Steam page tomorrow evening (9PM CEST) for the end of Gamescom.
I am not a very entertaining streamer, but I'll do my best to answer your questions.

 

[Galdred]

The Zodiac Legion won 3-1 tonight
The loss was quite embarassing, though., with me advancing mage guy carelessely into archer range (but the guys outrange him)...

 

[Sacibengala]

Finally got the chance to test it today. On day one I entered the game, it got some time to load on ssd, but it was fine. Now I tried again with the latest patch, the game is now unplayable. The mouse is lagging like crazy. the game is fine, as I click somewhere, the character move as normal, so, it is not the game as a whole.
My notebook is ancient, by the way.

Time of this report: 8/27/2021, 18:58:07
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr_escrow.200102-1707)
Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: G53JW
BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/30/09 15:13:23 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6068MB RAM
Page File: 7970MB used, 850MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

 

[Galdred]

Finally got the chance to test it today. On day one I entered the game, it got some time to load on ssd, but it was fine. Now I tried again with the latest patch, the game is now unplayable. The mouse is lagging like crazy. the game is fine, as I click somewhere, the character move as normal, so, it is not the game as a whole.
My notebook is ancient, by the way.

Time of this report: 8/27/2021, 18:58:07
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr_escrow.200102-1707)
Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: G53JW
BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/30/09 15:13:23 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6068MB RAM
Page File: 7970MB used, 850MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Are you playing on the demo build, or the alpha test branch?

Btw, do you have a dedicated GPU on your laptop?
I had to force mine to use it (but under Windows 10) and not default to the Intel GPU.

Is your game.log (in the base Zodiac Legion folder) file a few KB large or a few MB large?
I may have accidentally re-enabled logging.

 

[Sacibengala]

Finally got the chance to test it today. On day one I entered the game, it got some time to load on ssd, but it was fine. Now I tried again with the latest patch, the game is now unplayable. The mouse is lagging like crazy. the game is fine, as I click somewhere, the character move as normal, so, it is not the game as a whole.
My notebook is ancient, by the way.

Time of this report: 8/27/2021, 18:58:07
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr_escrow.200102-1707)
Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: G53JW
BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/30/09 15:13:23 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6068MB RAM
Page File: 7970MB used, 850MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Are you playing on the demo build, or the alpha test branch?

Btw, do you have a dedicated GPU on your laptop?
I had to force mine to use it (but under Windows 10) and not default to the Intel GPU.

Is your game.log (in the base Zodiac Legion folder) file a few KB large or a few MB large?
I may have accidentally re-enabled logging.

I'm playing in the steam version without any branch. And yeap, I have a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M on my notebook. Actually, it is the only gpu available in it. And my log is 1kb.

 

[Galdred]

Finally got the chance to test it today. On day one I entered the game, it got some time to load on ssd, but it was fine. Now I tried again with the latest patch, the game is now unplayable. The mouse is lagging like crazy. the game is fine, as I click somewhere, the character move as normal, so, it is not the game as a whole.
My notebook is ancient, by the way.

Time of this report: 8/27/2021, 18:58:07
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr_escrow.200102-1707)
Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: G53JW
BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/30/09 15:13:23 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6068MB RAM
Page File: 7970MB used, 850MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Are you playing on the demo build, or the alpha test branch?

Btw, do you have a dedicated GPU on your laptop?
I had to force mine to use it (but under Windows 10) and not default to the Intel GPU.

Is your game.log (in the base Zodiac Legion folder) file a few KB large or a few MB large?
I may have accidentally re-enabled logging.

I'm playing in the steam version without any branch. And yeap, I have a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M on my notebook. Actually, it is the only gpu available in it. And my log is 1kb.

I made a demotest branch for the demo build, and an "unstable" branch for the base game. I tried to remove some of the steps when moving the cursor, but it looks like the better solution would be to not compute pathfinding on mouseover, but on click (and have 2 step moves: 1st to get path, 2nd to confirm).
But that would take some time (on the plus side, it would be less error prone).
I added a weird camera bug on start turn, so you will have to recenter on one character every turn (but in exchange, the camera now follows AI attacks most of the time).

Tell me whether it works better now.

 

[Sacibengala]

Finally got the chance to test it today. On day one I entered the game, it got some time to load on ssd, but it was fine. Now I tried again with the latest patch, the game is now unplayable. The mouse is lagging like crazy. the game is fine, as I click somewhere, the character move as normal, so, it is not the game as a whole.
My notebook is ancient, by the way.

Time of this report: 8/27/2021, 18:58:07
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr_escrow.200102-1707)
Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: G53JW
BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/30/09 15:13:23 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6068MB RAM
Page File: 7970MB used, 850MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Are you playing on the demo build, or the alpha test branch?

Btw, do you have a dedicated GPU on your laptop?
I had to force mine to use it (but under Windows 10) and not default to the Intel GPU.

Is your game.log (in the base Zodiac Legion folder) file a few KB large or a few MB large?
I may have accidentally re-enabled logging.

I'm playing in the steam version without any branch. And yeap, I have a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M on my notebook. Actually, it is the only gpu available in it. And my log is 1kb.

I made a demotest branch for the demo build, and an "unstable" branch for the base game. I tried to remove some of the steps when moving the cursor, but it looks like the better solution would be to not compute pathfinding on mouseover, but on click (and have 2 step moves: 1st to get path, 2nd to confirm).
But that would take some time (on the plus side, it would be less error prone).
I added a weird camera bug on start turn, so you will have to recenter on one character every turn (but in exchange, the camera now follows AI attacks most of the time).

Tell me whether it works better now.

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

 

[Galdred]

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

Ouch, the mouse starts lagging on the map screen, before the tactical map is even loaded? Or even before on the splash screen?

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

Ouch, the mouse starts lagging on the map screen, before the tactical map is even loaded? Or even before on the splash screen?

I may have been able to reproduce it:
Are you playing fullscreen?
Is the spashscreen image complete, or is it truncated?

If you use the command prompt to launch the game (cmd, then CD to : K:\DLers\Steam\steamapps\common\Zodiac Legion) to manually launch zodiac_legion.exe, do you get an (x,y) out of bound kind of message?

 

[Galdred]

I posted a workaround here:

Originally posted by Attyla:
Hello, how to change resolution in demo? It opens with 1920x1080 but my display res is 1440x900 so for now demo is unplayable to me.Yes, there is a button to do so, but it doesn't appear because it would be on the edge of the screen
Sorry about that. I am working on a fix right now.
You can manually set the resolution as follow:

go to SteamFolder/steamApps/common/Zodiac Legion Demo/gameData
open cfg.lua with a text editor
replace the line:
["resolutionIdx"] = 17,
with
["resolutionIdx"] = 11,

Here are the other usable resolutions:

1: 800,600
2: 1024,768,
3: 1152, 864,
4: 1176,664,
5: 1280,720,

6: 1280,768,
7: 1280,800,
8: 1280,960,
9: 1280,1024,
10: 1360,768,

11: 1440,900,
12: 1600,900,
13: 1600,1024,
14: 1600,1200,
15: 1680,1050,

16: 1768,992,
17: 1920,1080,
18: 1920,1200,
19: 1920,1440,
20: 1920,2160,

21: 2048,1536,
22: 2560,1440,
23: 2560,1600,
24: 3840,2160,

But the UI is probably a mess in a lot of them.

 

[Sacibengala]

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

Ouch, the mouse starts lagging on the map screen, before the tactical map is even loaded? Or even before on the splash screen?

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

Ouch, the mouse starts lagging on the map screen, before the tactical map is even loaded? Or even before on the splash screen?

I may have been able to reproduce it:
Are you playing fullscreen?
Is the spashscreen image complete, or is it truncated?

If you use the command prompt to launch the game (cmd, then CD to : K:\DLers\Steam\steamapps\common\Zodiac Legion) to manually launch zodiac_legion.exe, do you get an (x,y) out of bound kind of message?

Starts as the game enters and shows the start screen. And persists throughout. I’ll try what you posted now and come back to say the results.

 

[Galdred]

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

Ouch, the mouse starts lagging on the map screen, before the tactical map is even loaded? Or even before on the splash screen?

I tested and the problem persists. The mouse already lags in the opening screen. And when I ask to exit, the demo stop responding.

Ouch, the mouse starts lagging on the map screen, before the tactical map is even loaded? Or even before on the splash screen?

I may have been able to reproduce it:
Are you playing fullscreen?
Is the spashscreen image complete, or is it truncated?

If you use the command prompt to launch the game (cmd, then CD to : K:\DLers\Steam\steamapps\common\Zodiac Legion) to manually launch zodiac_legion.exe, do you get an (x,y) out of bound kind of message?

Starts as the game enters and shows the start screen. And persists throughout. I’ll try what you posted now and come back to say the results.

I have finished patching it out, but I introduced a few bugs on the tactical part, and made camera even wonker during opponent's turn, so I still need to remove these issues.