Solar Vengeance 5.1

This is the first entry in my new SCG Development Blog. I decided to finally switch to a standard blog to document my efforts in developing Silicon Commander Games. If you want to read the previous blog entries they can be found here ...

http://www.siliconcommandergames.com/SVBlog.htm

Today I released the beta version of Solar Vengeance 5.1. It includes some interesting new features that have never been seen in the SV line before:

DynamicEvents Programming Model

I re-organized how Dynamic Scenarios can be programmed for SV by creating an interface called IDynamicEvents. This interface contains a number of methods that you can call in a Scenario to cause dynamic behavior in the Scenario's ProcessImpulse method. The interface is exposed in the Scenario class via the DynamicEvents property.

This change is largely cosmetic from the previous "DS_Method" model of SV5, but I like the fact that the dynamic methods are now cleanly separated into their own interface.

UDOs - User-Defined Objects

Scenarios can now include UDOs that can represent anything you want in the game. You can assign a static or animated image to a UDO of any size, and you can control how they move via UDO related DynamicEvents methods. UDOs can also be "picked up" and carried by StarShips, making "capture the flag" style Scenarios easy to create.

SV5.1 includes a new Scenario, CollectTheScientists, that relies on UDOs. You have to find the Scientists that are scattered in the middle of a supernova remnant and bring them back to a safe zone next to your Capital.

PaintHooks

Scenarios can now render directly to the game map during the animation cycle. The PaintHook methods pass you the .NET Graphics object that represents the map, and you are free to render to it to your heart's content.

Transport Order Overhauled

After much demand, the Transport order can now pick up Resources from any number of friendly StarSystems or BattleStations, and deposit them to any friendly StarSystem or BattleStation.

Download SV5.1 beta now and help me put these new features through their paces!