Core GameKit! Pooling / Spawning / Combat

Sorry, I don't understand that language.

 

I have no ideas left to try. Do you have a small project you could filemail me so I can troubleshoot the problem? That or try to catch me on Skype tomorrow.

 

Okay, thanks. This is really baffling and frustrating. One minute it works, and the other it inexplicably fails.

 

I'm sure there's logical explanation for it not working. We'll figure it out.

 

Ooookay, I just decided to delete and re-import everything.
Now it works. The Dark Tonic Folder also shows up, now. Before it didn't. I think the import may have been a little screwed up, but I can't say for sure.

 

Ok, thanks for letting me know. The Dark Tonic folder needs to be there or you didn't have the newest folder. Instructions for the upgrade were to create that folder first and move things in, or delete all KW files. Did it not work that way?

 

Heads up for what I'm adding to the next version of Killer Waves. If you're familiar with Playmaker, you'll find the UI quite similar in how you can either enter an integer - or - hit the button on the right to switch from number entering to variable selection. Well I'm doing that with every integer field in Killer Waves. You'll be able to populate those properties with the current value of World Variable whenever they are accessed.

That means you can do things like:
1) Make a variable "enemyStrength" and assign your enemy's Killable Hit Points to that variable. Then you could increase that variable after every wave is completed (through the normal no-code-to-write Inspector UI) and bam! You now have instantly made it so enemies get tougher constantly.
2) Make the wave size of a spawner equal to a variable you continually manipulate.
3) Vary the weight of a prefab pool item based on a variable. Every time it refills could be different. Use this for enemy AI difficulty ramping.

Really the possibilities are endless. I do plan on adding other variable types (not just integer) just because of the way these are used now. The downside is that all values you have set in your existing projects that are integers will be lost now that I'm using "Killer Ints". So I'd advise making a list of important settings before upgrading when I release this.

It will probably be Killer Waves 3.0 and should come out most like in January. Stay tuned!

 

Also, Tony Li has announced that he is planning on adding Killer Waves support and integration into the Dialogue System plugin. That's an extremely powerful plugin, so this is great news! We will be talking about how to get our products to work together best. If you haven't checked out that plugin, I suggest you do!

 

Yeah, when I imported the new version, it wasn't with the Dark Tonic folder. I just got it from asset store window in Unity. I just did the whole thing again, and the Dark Tonic folder was included, this time.

 

You will have to fully explain this before you submit this. We use the Dialog system and RPG 2 kit. So far even though the RPG 2 has a built in quest editor the Dialog system and killer waves have caused no conflicts. So we would need to know how this update may effect us.

 

How do I customize the font for the score, while I'm using the World Variable listener with the GUI Text? I hope that makes sense,

 

I'm looking forward to adding integration! Killer Waves is a great framework, and I think the Dialogue System will mesh well with it. I plan to target the version that introduces Killer Ints.

 

Hi, i just purchased this assets and it has been amazing for me so far. I am currently still learning how to make a full game and this asset has helped me so much. I have a question though, the game i am making is quite similar to a top down 2d game where objects will fall from the top of the screen to the bottom.
The thing is i wanted to spawn some of the objects in a straight line meaning the objects will fall alligned, i still cant figure out how to do it. I would be glad if you can help me with this. Thanks

 

I just mean that all integer fields in Killer Waves will have their values put back to defaults. Your other plugins will not be affected. There will be a video accompanying the 3.0 release.

 

I have no idea if that's possible. You should avoid GUI Text at all costs when making mobile games (performance is TERRIBLE), and since I only make mobile games I only use GUI Text for simple demo scenes, not games we are going to release. We saw that a scene with nothing in it except a single GUI Text for frame rate display took us down to a maximum of 18 frames per second on an iPhone 3GS. Absolutely insane! I would suggest that you either buy NGUI or Daikon Forge to handle your fonts and GUI stuff. If not though, you may want to ask this question in the scripting forum? Sorry I can't be of more help. There's really nothing Killer Waves specific in that Listener script.

 

Do you have Playmaker? You could make a simple "move to" action. Or you without Playmaker you can make a script that moves an object on a single axis. You can look at the scripts on the Enemies in the example scene. I believe at least one of them in Example Scene 2 does what you want.

 

I've bought this and Master Audio, looking forward to using them in future projects.

Just wondering if you can recommended a package for enemy flight patterns for a space shooter type game?

 

I was going to make one, but it's been cancelled due to the amazing success of both plugins. I simple don't have time. I would use Playmaker or plain old Unity animations to do this. I don't think waypoints would work well for that. Playmaker is cool because you can make complex AI flowchart stuff if you want.

 

Hay take a look at this. Its made with playmaker.
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/20...t-amp-Customization-Kit?p=1404317#post1404317

Chears

 

Looks powerful.

 

Here's a preview of the "Killer Int" variable stuff coming in 3.0!

 

Hi, thanks for the advice i was able to spawn them on same axis, but the thing my game is kind of similar to a rhythm game where sometimes 2 spawn will fall aligned with each other on the x axis and sometimes only 1 will spawn and sometimes 3 will spawn . Do i just have to play with the timing of the spawning or are the better ways of doing that? Thanks

 

Yeah play with the timing and / or use multiple spawners.

 

How would I go about making it so that spawned objects inherit the transform values, in this case the rotation, of their spawners? Say you have an enemy ship that fires lasers from it's front. Using the triggered spawners, how would I make it so this remains the case even if the enemy ship turns around and changes it's rotation, in the process? Right now the incremental settings are in relation to the world, and not the local transforms. I hope that isn't too confusing.

 

It's not possible through the Listener since you don't have access to the Spawner from there and it's not passed (maybe should change that?) - you can edit the GetSpawnRotation method to do it in the Spawner classes. However I will add an option in the next version to do this with a checkbox.

 

I think that will be a great addition! Can't wait!

 

It's quite easy to add too, the best kind of additions

However I've in the middle of a HUGE update for Killer Waves 3.0, which adds lots of power with Playmaker - style variable usage in almost every field of every script in KW. It may be a couple weeks until I'm ready to submit. Here's hoping it doesn't take that long!

 

Also, I was thinking, it would be awesome to make the triggered spawners have the same functionality as level wave settings. Namely elimination wave types, along with the existing timed waves.

 

That's not feasible unfortunately. Triggered Spawners are "fire and forget due" to the number of different waves they have to support. Even the timed waves there are just "timed release". This is not likely to ever be a feature in this product. I did think about it before, but it's not good performance-wise or code maintenance wise.

 

I think I may have just thought of a way around that, using prefab pools and active mode settings of 'if world variable in/outside range' settings. I could hack up some sort of elimination system with that. I think, XD.

 

I'm not sure if that makes sense or not. I'm thinking not...if you get something to work, let me know how!

 

The Killer Waves $10 sale will be over Jan 1st, so if you haven't picked it up yet, now's a good time! Soon V3.0 will be coming out (coding is done) and the normal price will be raised.

 

Today I have been working on the pooling (think Pool Manager), and I've got the basics of that done. So yes, version 3.0 will have built-in pooling with no reason to have to buy Pool Manager. Although you still can use it if you prefer to. That product definitely has more options than the one built into KW for sure and is a great product. A great friendly coder makes it too!

We're calling our built-in one "Killer Pooling".

 

Okay, so I've made up a world variable that is upped when a given enemy spawns, and is decreased when it is destroyed. In the prefab pool, I've made it so the active mode is dependent on that said world variable. If it goes beyond a certain number, then that enemy is out of the prefab pool. So far it works! Oh and the performance issues I was having before were largely to do with the physics 2D settings. All layers were interacting with each other, so it was taxing the memory like hell! I fixed that, and now the game runs much better. I still have lagging issues, but that's for stuff that I've not balanced out yet. I hope that clarifies things. So glad to hear that pooling is coming in the next updates!

 

That sounds cool. Note that only when the pool is empty and refills will it evaluate those active item criteria, so for your intended usage it might not be completely reliable. But if it works, it works!

 

"Pool Boss" is 100% done! Coming in the 3.0 version of Killer Waves is built-in object pooling similar to Pool Manager. With a few improvements I always wanted myself. Hold tight for another ~2 weeks and we'll get this packaged up and submitted!

 

I seem to have missed this part of your post. We will have "Pool Boss" for pre-allocated prefab pooling in V3.0, coming soon!

 

Hi Killer Waves fans,

The Dialogue System for Unity now provides Killer Waves integration! You can control waves, spawn and despawn units, and modify world variables within conversations and cutscenes.

The current integration package supports Killer Waves v2.7.x. When Killer Waves v3.0 is released, I'll provide an updated package that supports the new world variable and pooling systems!

 

Tony's Dialogue System has integration with more plugins than any other plugin I've ever seen, and it's ridiculously thorough as a quest engine and dialogue creator. I would feel remiss not urging everyone to check it out!

Thanks for integrating Tony!

 

Thanks for the kind words! It was fun writing the Killer Waves integration and seeing enemies pop up after talking to the NPC.

 

Last chance to get Killer Waves for $10. I will be submitting a price bump tonight. And welcome to the 200+ new users!

Also, we will likely be changing the name of Killer Waves now that it's much much more than a "wave system" in V3.0. This is overdue. If you guys have any suggestions for a new name, post here or email support@darktonic.com with your ideas.

It won't be a new package, so existing users will still get free updates forever on the Asset Store after we change the name.

 

You deserve all the word of mouth we can muster!

 

It is a fantastic example. Both apps are far more powerful than just whats listed. My team is working hard to get a demo ready showing the RPG 2 kit and both of your apps. This next month when you both update we will set both your apps up in our engine. The configurable waves leaves it open for us to make encounters set at the players level.

But we will showcase our progress here when we get it set up.

 

Thank you, can't wait to see it!

 

Killer Waves will be more expensive when v3.0 rolls out in a week or so. Good time to pick it up before the price raise! v3.0 will have pooling and the ability to use World Variables on any int or float field in the plugin!

 

Those are definitely some awesome updates! I was wondering if you guys are gonna add the option for triggered spawners to inherit the transform, mainly rotation, of the game objects they're attached to? That would be amaaaaaazing!

 

Already added, so yes

There's actually a third option to specify a custom euler rotation as well.

 

Yyyiissss!!! Thanks so much!
Happy New Year, by the way!

 

No problem and thank you!

 

I just purchased Killer Waves and it looks really cool. After skimming the documentation and looking over the inspector settings, there doesn't appear to be a way to override the timed or elimination wave types. Basically, I want to use this tool to set up all my waves but I want to determine when each waves starts and ends in code.

I'm sure I can hack it together by going into the source but I was hoping there was a built-in method to do this since I'm sure I'm not the only person wanting this type of functionality.

Update: After looking through all of the documentation it looks like the Triggered Spawner is the only component that has a means of triggering from code via the Code-Triggered 1 and 2 events. However, it appears that if you use the Triggered Spawner you can no longer tie it in to the LevelWaveSettings object and use all the nice wave setup options. Is that correct?

If so, then I assume the best way to creates "waves" would be to have a unique Triggered Spawner set up for each wave?

Thanks!

Dennis