iCON

[Tripper]

I believe that a couple of threads have alluded to this before, and I wonder if this is the project that elDiablo is working on, but anyway ...

Having splashed out on a new iPod Touch last week, the sheer beauty of the thing made the think of a DEFCON port ... however the Touch (and the iPhone for that matter) more or less doesn't run 3rd party software, and in any case probably isn't up to the "client heavy" DEFCON code. So

But one of the reasons for buying the Touch was that it is possible to remotely access apps on your home PC - a nifty little progam called Signalstarts up a server on your home computer which talks to iTunes, and the Touch (or other mobile device) can access that via the web. So a web-based remote control that even works from the next room It looks neat, too ...

Aaaanyway, /me wonders if a future patch / addon to DEFCON could do a similar thing - basically send the game screen to a web server hosted on the game pc, and receive game commands from inputs to that server. Not that I'm well versed with these sorts of things, but the main rate-limiting step would probably be the additional ping time between the mobile device and the web server.

Playability-wise, zooming in or out would be very easy (yay multi-touch) but the small screen would make it difficult to issue long range orders. The game probalby wouldn't suffer without right-clicking - its only carriers and SRBM bombers that really need it, a double tap might suffice. You also wouldn't want the toolbar cluttering up the game screen, that could be accessed by a separate menu. A "go to most recent event" shortcut would also be helpful given the small size of the mobile device screen.

Nevertheless, I can't see that it would be very good for fast games - it seems ideal for Office Mode style games - so that orders can be issued at an unhurried rate and a game can last all day. Going hand in hand with this would be the inevitable drop in frame rate - but as long as zooming and scrolling was smooth (rendered via the browser on the mobile device) I don't think that jerky icon updates would matter too much.

Anyway, like I said, I have no idea if this is technically feasible, but it seems that it _might_ work ... any thoughts?

Cheers, Tripper

[Feud]

As far as an iPod Defcon, it's already been done.

[Pox]

It's a nice idea, but I can't see this happening really - rendering the graphics somewhere else and blitting them across the web may sound feasible, but I don't think it would be - and to get smooth zoom/scroll it would have to be rendering the ENTIRE GAME at MAX ZOOM LEVEL then sending it - nasty transfer time considering the ancient intarwabs service the iPhone runs on (AFAIK).

As far as an iPod Defcon, it's already been done.

Hahahaa, I remember that

[Tripper]

As far as an iPod Defcon, it's already been done.

Sure I saw that, but I'm lazy at putting in cross-links. Also, who wants to play a CPU

Anyways, Pox is probably right, but here are some more brainstormy fixes:

Only update the image periodically (30-60 sec after last activity, or on request) but "forward-date" commands from the mobile device so that a command to target a (moving) unit on the static image will end up as a command to target that unit's location at the time the command was actually sent (if that made any sense)

Also, perhaps use some kind of spherical distortion filter on the image so that the center (point of interest) is magnified but the rest of the world is at smaller scale - so scrolling left and right would also zoom out. That would save having to render the entire world at maximum resolution.

Also, use 3G or Wifi. I mean really!

Anyways, I see why IV commisioned a 3+ month project just to model the thing and see if it would be playable on a small screen mobile device ....

[Pox]

Also, use 3G or Wifi. I mean really!

Problem being that the iPhone doesn't run 3G, and most people would want to use a mobile game when they're OUT of the house.

(/me fumes at nation-wide free wifi... grr korea.)

[xander]

You do realize that neither the iPod nor the iPhone have the horsepower for a game like DEFCON, right?

xander

[Tripper]

Noo! You said it, so it must be True

But anyway, I was under the impression the iphone could handle flash, so:

send the game screen to a web server hosted on the game pc, and receive game commands from inputs to that server.

the horsepower would be done on the game pc. The mobile device would just be for i/o

[xander]

the horsepower would be done on the game pc. The mobile device would just be for i/o

But you still have to send something to the mobile device. What would that be? The biggest resource hog in DEFCON is the graphics system. Displaying all of the graphics requires quite a bit of video hardware. So, what would you show on the mobile's screen? Static images of the world map? How scalable are those images going to be? How long is it going to take to move them over the interwebs? How often will they update? Is it even feasible that such a system would be useful for controlling DEFCON, where a 30 second delay might mean the difference between getting fighters off the ground to take out enemy bombers, and losing three silos to a well planned attack? If the flash app is handling some or all of the rendering, how are you going to make that possible, within the limits of the iPhone or iPod?

I really don't think that the current incarnation of DEFCON would work on any mobile platform.

xander

[Tripper]

I'm starting to think you haven't read the thread

But you still have to send something to the mobile device. What would that be?

To be fair, I didn't spell that out before, I would guess a still image with embedded controls on units - just enough to recognise "This is a silo, next click will be a targeting command"

The biggest resource hog in DEFCON is the graphics system. Displaying all of the graphics requires quite a bit of video hardware. So, what would you show on the mobile's screen? Static images of the world map?

I think that's the most practical

How scalable are those images going to be?

I mentioned some kind of distortion filter so the area of most recent activity is enlarged but the rest zooms out to world scale

How long is it going to take to move them over the interwebs?

That's what I was most worried about. But the commands in DEFCON get through pretty quickly, don't they ... ?

How often will they update?

I suggested 30-60 sec previously, although even less often would be likely. I think you'd have to treat it as a long term strategy game rather than action / arcade

Is it even feasible that such a system would be useful for controlling DEFCON, where a 30 second delay might mean the difference between getting fighters off the ground to take out enemy bombers, and losing three silos to a well planned attack?

I would imagine that you might incorporate some AI tweaks to deal with the lessened ability to micro e.g. airbases automatically launching fighters at bombers in range. But I mentioned office mode earlier - in a proper office mode game, it's minimized a lot of the time so you wouldn't notice bomber raids at all! (Is this why nobody plays office mode ) I would also think that it would bea bit more difficult to tightly micro fleet and planes in this mod so bomber raids wouldn't be quite so dense. Obviously play style would have to be adjusted anyway

If the flash app is handling some or all of the rendering, how are you going to make that possible, within the limits of the iPhone or iPod?

well, it wouldn't, I think

I really don't think that the current incarnation of DEFCON would work on any mobile platform.

oh I tend to agree! part of the point this thread was wondering what changes would be needed to make it practical - and to ask elDiablo what he thinks

Cheers, Tripper

[alex.sayers]

I know this isn't quite what you're talking about, but bear with me.

I don't know if any of you guys have read any of the documentation for the iPhone SDK or had a chance to play around with it yet, but to me it looks like a perfect platform for a native port.

The SDK has a set of functions for handling SVGs, and in the Media layer too, which is hardware-accelerated. So I wouldn't have thought (with a little smart rendering) that the graphics wouldn't break an iPhone's back.

The SDK also handles gestures too, in the Cocoa touch API. This would make it very easy to implement an interface in which you pinch to zoom in and out, drag to move the viewport, and maybe some multi-touch commands for unit commands.

As for data rate, I wouldn't have thought it would be too much. If Introversion wrote a decent protocol (which I assume they did) then no superfluous data need be transferred. All that's needed is position data for a variety of things and a fast update speed. If the protocol works by giving an initial position for objects and a vector (so that the client can work out trajectories itself) then data need be transferred only when new commands are given.

I reckon that a client could be written for the iPhone which would be perfectly playable. Already there are installer.app programs written like a full GBA simulator. Apple showed off a full openGL game running on an iPhone at the SDK keynote. If DEFCON can't run on a iPhone now, then perhaps on the iPhone 2 (rumoured to incorporate Intel's Moorestown mobile architecture - as powerful as a Pentium 3). In fact, with the multitouch input the iPhone may well be the best platform for DEFCON ever.

EDIT: By the way, Safari on iPhone doesn't have Flash.

[Pox]

I know this isn't quite what you're talking about, but bear with me.

I don't know if any of you guys have read any of the documentation for the iPhone SDK or had a chance to play around with it yet, but to me it looks like a perfect platform for a native port.

The SDK has a set of functions for handling SVGs, and in the Media layer too, which is hardware-accelerated. So I wouldn't have thought (with a little smart rendering) that the graphics wouldn't break an iPhone's back.

The SDK also handles gestures too, in the Cocoa touch API. This would make it very easy to implement an interface in which you pinch to zoom in and out, drag to move the viewport, and maybe some multi-touch commands for unit commands.

As for data rate, I wouldn't have thought it would be too much. If Introversion wrote a decent protocol (which I assume they did) then no superfluous data need be transferred. All that's needed is position data for a variety of things and a fast update speed. If the protocol works by giving an initial position for objects and a vector (so that the client can work out trajectories itself) then data need be transferred only when new commands are given.

I reckon that a client could be written for the iPhone which would be perfectly playable. Already there are installer.app programs written like a full GBA simulator. Apple showed off a full openGL game running on an iPhone at the SDK keynote. If DEFCON can't run on a iPhone now, then perhaps on the iPhone 2 (rumoured to incorporate Intel's Moorestown mobile architecture - as powerful as a Pentium 3). In fact, with the multitouch input the iPhone may well be the best platform for DEFCON ever.

EDIT: By the way, Safari on iPhone doesn't have Flash.

Dirty gravedigger.

But in response: bandwidth would never be a problem if the entire simulation and rendering could run on the iPhone smoothly... the current DEFCON netcode is so slim it's almost non-existant. I don't know the exact spec of the iPhone, but I do find it a little hard to believe it could render DEFCON (especially as vectors) anywhere near smoothly - as far as I know, it has a dedicated IC for decoding video and audio, so the graphics power is next to nothing.

[alex.sayers]

You may be right.

Do you think it would be OK with resolution scaling. That way the world map could be rendered to varying degrees of accuracy depending on distance from the view window. I don't think it would be too bad if the coastlines resolved a bit when you zoomed out.

Anyway, I suppose the only way to know for sure if for one of us to write a basic iPhone version (obviously offline - presumably the protocol is proprietory?)

[Pox]

You may be right.

Do you think it would be OK with resolution scaling. That way the world map could be rendered to varying degrees of accuracy depending on distance from the view window. I don't think it would be too bad if the coastlines resolved a bit when you zoomed out.

Anyway, I suppose the only way to know for sure if for one of us to write a basic iPhone version (obviously offline - presumably the protocol is proprietory?)

The post-1.3 protocol is proprietary... 1.3 and earlier had nothing in the EULA, which allowed bert_the_turtle to write dedcon. The newer versions are technically proprietary, but are essentially the same, meaning that an old version with a new ident works, I believe... I think the main problem would be finding someone willing to write something of that scale as an experiment. Leave it to IV, I say - there has been some talk going around they were looking into portables, though I don't think there's any kind of official word yet.