Confuzzling Error... is it just too complex?

Hi, i am a long-time MMF2 user, and this is my third day using construct... i have started making a space sim/rts game, and i wanted to use strings and attributes assigned to a single object, aswell as colour filters and such, to create different ships... however, there are two issues i can assertain:

1. When the particle effect i have used for an explosion spawns, it crashes the game instantly

2. When all ships are destroyed, and then new ones are made, after a few milliseconds of being fine, the game crashes.

-I have added functionality to wipe all the ships off the map, by pressing the "end" key.

-Setting up the events in slightly different ways makes the explosions work sometimes.

-The problem (no 2.) i have been able to discover, is NOT part of the shooting process, rather it seems to be a identification issue.

-My main theory is that the problem lies with the "assign attribute" command, i had some troubles with it earlier in the programming, but got around them. (it is essential i am able to use families, although if someone is willing to tell me i can do that bit differently, please do.)

Any and All help and observations are greatly appreciated! thanks for your time. i have provided a link below to the mediafire page with the file on it. you have to sit through 1 pop-up, but thats better than rapidshare

.cap file: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e2a13e5273e4bcc4ab1eab3e9fa335ca36bc3fb3abba9076

Thanks!

-Uzalu

After a cursory glance I'm not entirely sure what's causing the crash, but I will say that you have a lot of unnecessarily complicated events here. Things like splitting up what could be one event into several smaller ones, unnecessary "For each" conditions where they don't need to be, coupled with Trigger Once's that aren't doing anything special, and some .count comparisons that are equally useless. It's kind of hard to follow your code enough to track down the root of the problem because it's all over the place. I mean no offense by this, mind you... I understand that you're new to this and all so I wouldn't really expect you to be an expert or anything yet.

I think perhaps you you might just be bringing old habits over from MMF? Construct works a bit differently. You don't need to go overkill on trying to select instances. You could streamline this down a whole lot, probably into one for each loop and a couple of aim, shoot, and collision events. I'd recommend taking some tutorials if you haven't already, and just experimenting with Construct for a while until you get the hang of it, before jumping into making a full on game. I will say though it's not bad overall for your three day anniversary .

Also, using Ball behavior on your ships probably isn't the best choice. Try Bullet, or Custom Movement.

thanks a lot for the help, and yes i know it seems incredibly unnecessary, in a program capacity; however, when i used more simplified events, it worked FAR less well than it does now.

I am new to this program but it's very similar to MMF2, just with much tidier interface, a lot of new features and better graphical support. i must admit i hadn't tried other movements, and i will go do that tomorrow.

see this is the problem with doing something complicated with something familiar but new... you kinda overstretch yourself. i thought i had the basics down, but maybe a bit more experimentation is the right way to go.

doubtless there will be more updates on said game. no real need to post anything else on this thread, as i think i have all the help i need, but feel free to anyway!

Thanks very much to deadeye! you have my respect!

-Uzalu

p.s. the count comparisons you mentioned were not just random, they are there because i wanted to give each unit an independent shooting time, and with mmf2, this was the best way to do it.

You probably would be better off just experimenting and doing little tests instead of jumping right in trying to make a game. As simple as construct can appear, there's still a lot that needs to be picked up, for even the basic types of games.

Uzalu, I put together a simple test cap that might give you some ideas on how to do the picking and other stuff. Obviously the movement isn't refined at all but it might help out a bit.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/spacebattle.cap

v0.99.83

I didn't bother commenting it so if you have any questions feel free to ask. Also this isn't necessarily the "right" way to do it, just one method, but it works pretty well as a simple example.

Thanks very much deadeye, ima take a look at that as soon as i can, its really good of you to take the time to do that. However, i have since done as suggested and have been developing the game. the engine now works fine, because i realised it was too complicated to use one object for everything, even though i would have way preffered to do it that way.

i used one object for each team, so far i am just adding ship classes, i have made rockets, bombs, some explosions, beam cannons and such. i'll upload it today and edit this post in case you wanna see it.

thanks everyone for all the help, but dont open that cap i uploaded, its outdated and i have got past the problems.

Thanks!

-Uzalu

Very cool example deadeye