State of the Game #193 : Game Settings UI

Welcome back to the first State of the Game since the great GPU debacle of 2015!

So it turns out, this was the true order of events for fixing my development PC.

1. Issues start to arise with PC losing power randomly.
2. Check all internal wiring to make sure everything is good.
3. PC shuts down, fails to restart. Windows recovery points are all corrupt.
4. Fresh install of windows, everything is good again.
5. Install GPU driver, back to failing to boot up.
6. RMA GPU and wait 1 week
7. New GPU works, but with artifacts all over the screen. Try integrated graphics.
8. Still random shutdowns, RMA Power Supply. Wait 1 week.
9. New power supply, still getting GPU artifacts [even in the bios!]. Integrated Graphics are fine as well as an old gtx 260. RMA new GPU, wait 1 week.
10. New, New GPU, new power supply, everything is back to working!

When I run into bugs, I don’t mess around!
So to cap it off,

3 GPUS – 4 counting the old tester

2 Power supplys

6 weeks of trouble shooting

5 hours on the phone with manufacturer

3 frustrated nights of disappointment

1 fixed PC

That time was not wasted though, as I made massive progress in my massive ‘spreadsheet of everything’ to determine all the parts that the game will need. In doing so, it was also made apparent to me that while I am very proud of the procedural part system that I created, M.A.V. will do much better with manually created part stats. In looking at the full line up of parts I will need to create, doing it manually is not only feasible, its the most likely path to get the narrow design characteristics that each part will need to make it feel unique.

And now that I have my GPU back and working, I have jumped right back into the UI redesign. Here you can see the layout of the custom game options menu.

The new server UI will be taking a lot of elements from this screen as well, but with a few added tabs for control once the match has started.

Also, my recent broadcast on Twitch has shown me that the server admins need an easy way to kick players out of a match and actually ban them from the server as well. I suppose it was just wishful thinking that this feature wouldn’t be needed.

That reminds me: Be sure to follow me on Twitch.tv. I will be doing development broadcasts on Wednesday nights and doing gameplay broadcasts on Fridays. Tonight I will be working on the UI or naming more parts, depending on the people that show up.

Until next week!

 

[Also, if you are going to troll me on twitch, at least be entertaining!]