Rocks'n'Diamonds

A have a nasty problem. The border ! I have always to give it a in 0 frames removing indestructible CE. In the future there could be an option in the Editor-Info:

Visible border
Invincible border
Automatic (That, that was yet. That is just there, not to break older levels.)

Over the half of my levels are made with invincible borders... that´s much work and costs many CEs...

"Invincible border"? Do you mean "invisible"? In that case, why are you not just simply using invisible steel wall instead of CEs? (And if you use CEs, why do you need more than one?)

Because if you want to place more objects to the border, they have to be indestructible. And if they should not be, I have to make an extra CE that changes to that in 0 frames.

Imagine a level called desert. That level is full of sand and should NOT have a steel border. Cause that would look very weird. So I need a sand-looking, indestructible CE, that changes to normal sand. That´s only 1 level of over 50 I made.

And if you have a levelset with a template, and want to make the border invisible, you can´t place elements to the border, only the special CE.

*edit*

More CEs because they change to the elements on the border.

why not simply make an invisible steel-wall around the level? that's what I always do.

No, that is bad for many of my levels cause of the graphics. If you go to the border you can touch the invinsible steel wall.

so what's the difference to yours???

if you let the border-CEs change you still got an invisible steel wall around your cave. I see absolutely no difference between this and placing the steel-wall myself...

Cause you can touch the invinsible steel wall at the border ! But if you want to make destructible elements to the border, the border would be visible again. So you need an indestructible CE, that changes to that element in 0 frames. That element could be an enemy, exit, rocks, sand, even CEs !

Holger, would that take too much of your time ?

richard wrote:Cause you can touch the invinsible steel wall at the border ! But if you want to make destructible elements to the border, the border would be visible again. So you need an indestructible CE, that changes to that element in 0 frames. That element could be an enemy, exit, rocks, sand, even CEs !

Holger, would that take too much of your time ?

Believe it or not guys, but I now understand what Richard is talking about.
See this level: http://www.zomis.net/rnd/download.php?id=229

When you use CEs in the way richard (tries to) describe, you can place destructible elements on the border. So when you destroy them, you can actually touch the edge of the playfield. This is impossible when using an indestructible wall or normal steel wall. See what happens if you replace the 4 CEs in the example level above with an invisible steel wall. See the difference?
I thought it would be very buggy to access the edge like this, since there's no range-checks in the code (as far as I know), but apparently it isn't soo buggy at all, the only bug I see is that Holger continues to move towards the edge without actually moving...(I hope you can understand what this mean)

Believe it or not guys, but I now understand what Richard is talking about.
See this level: http://www.zomis.net/rnd/download.php?id=229

When you use CEs in the way richard (tries to) describe, you can place destructible elements on the border. So when you destroy them, you can actually touch the edge of the playfield. This is impossible when using an indestructible wall or normal steel wall. See what happens if you replace the 4 CEs in the example level above with an invisible steel wall. See the difference?
I thought it would be very buggy to access the edge like this, since there's no range-checks in the code (as far as I know), but apparently it isn't soo buggy at all, the only bug I see is that Holger continues to move towards the edge without actually moving...(I hope you can understand what this mean)

You see how much effort it can need to make a level like that, just with more elements at the border ? At the end I even wanted to make a level... the only one problem was, I was too lazy...

> Believe it or not guys, but I now understand what Richard is talking about.

Yes, so do I (now)! :-)

> When you use CEs in the way richard (tries to) describe, you can place destructible elements on
> the border. So when you destroy them, you can actually touch the edge of the playfield. This is
> impossible when using an indestructible wall or normal steel wall. See what happens if you
> replace the 4 CEs in the example level above with an invisible steel wall. See the difference?

Yep. This is something that was completely impossible in the pre-CE era, and I must admit that I did not think about that after the introduction of CEs.

> I thought it would be very buggy to access the edge like this, since there's no range-checks in
> the code (as far as I know),

Yes, this border thing was intended to prevent such bugs like you described (although in fact the R'n'D source code are roughly 50% range checks, I'm afraid ;-) , which makes it quite a bit slower than all the original EM and SP engines, which also forced indestructible borders around the level playfield to prevent a range-checking hell in the code [and sometimes don't succeed either, like the thing with the Supaplex wrap-around bug/trick, which also appread in some EMC engines]).

> but apparently it isn't soo buggy at all,

At least I hope so (and tried hard to catch them all, even if there's no border at the edge).

> the only bug I see is that Holger

Hey, that's not me -- I don't wear yellow clothes! ;-) ;-)

> continues to move towards the edge without actually moving...(I hope you can
> understand what this mean)

Yes, I know what you mean. This indeed could be a range checking problem...

Holger wrote:> the only bug I see is that Holger

Hey, that's not me -- I don't wear yellow clothes!

ROFL, really sure about that?
Sorry, just a typo

I recently looked at my levels, and saw that 41 of 43 levels of my levelset are with invinsible border, the 2 other levels are some kind of exception levels (Ausnahme-Levels).

So please this thing too in the next version please. :)

sorry, I'm against. It may be more useful for CE levels, but the classic style levels have to have a border.. that's classic!

And I hope there are not ONLY CE levels released in the future, because the classics can't be beaten! CE levels can be very very nice and enjoyable, but I stay rather playing classic levels (Emerald Mine style, Supaplex style etc)

Martin you dont understand it.

There should be a button, that makes the border invinsible if requested.

You are not affected by it if you want not to make it invinsible.

> sorry, I'm against. It may be more useful for CE levels, but the classic style levels have to have
> a border.. that's classic!

You're right, of course. But that's independent from Richa... erm ... Don Shadows idea. ;-)

> And I hope there are not ONLY CE levels released in the future, because the classics can't be
> beaten! CE levels can be very very nice and enjoyable, but I stay rather playing classic levels
> (Emerald Mine style, Supaplex style

I perfectly know what you mean! The classic levels always have the big advantage that you instantly know how each and every game element will behave. But CEs are a nice thing for completely new things, of course. :-)

> There should be a button, that makes the border invinsible if requested.
> You are not affected by it if you want not to make it invinsible.

That's true -- for the case that such a feature will be implemented, it won't affect any existing or classic levels.

BTW: It's "invisible", not "invinsible" -- http://dict.leo.org/ is your friend. ;-)