💡 Gatherers

A continuation of Gatherers-Legacy, a StarCraft-inspired resource-gathering simulation.

This project is an active development branch where experimentation and iteration continue when time allows. The original repository contains early prototypes, foundational systems, and initial design decisions.

🔹 About the Project

Gatherers is a simulation inspired by resource collection mechanics found in real-time strategy games like StarCraft. It focuses on building a flexible, expandable system for workers, resources, and world interactions.

🔹 Motivation

This project exists primarily as a creative and technical sandbox. It’s used to:

• Experiment with performance improvements.
• Refine simulation logic.
• Prototype new gameplay or system ideas.
• Revisit and modernize earlier design work from the legacy version.
• Have fun and spend a few hours coding.

🔹 Status

Active but intermittent development. Features are added and refactored as time permits.

If you found this project useful, interesting, or worth keeping an eye on, consider giving it a ⭐️. It helps others discover the project and motivates me to keep building and sharing more.

🔹 In Action

🔹 Ideas & Upcoming Changes

• Optimize pathfinding...
  • Selectable pathfinding mode: raycast (original), bisection...
  • Memoize pathfinding points, or compute full path + memoize.
  • For main pathfinding points, curve the transitions such that the movement is not jagged.
• Move entity resource diagnostic rendering out of entity rendering logic.
• Selectable renderer: Direct3D.
• Engine:
  • Homebrew renderer (DIBSECTION)...
  • Networking...
  • Sound...
  • 3D spectator mode...
• Crossplatform support: Refactor IO, clock, etc...
• Mouse wheel zoom in or out.
• Asset consolidation and compression.
• Save/load sim...
  • Drop save file onto exe to quick load.
• Replace classic char buffer copying with modern safer alternatives.
• Double check and update const parameters.
• Use stack allocations instead of repetitive pointer dereferences for tight loops.
• Single vs multiple instances.
• Doxygen documentation.
• Don't allow workers to move inside an entity.
• Check include paths for Linux toolchain.
• Unit movement acceleration/deceleration + framerate independent unit movement.
• Decompose blur algorithm from SIMD to non-SIMD for better compatibility at the cost of performance.
• Fixed point arithmetic?
• CTRL + entity click to select all entities of the same type.
• New assets...

🔹 June 2025 Updates

• Tiled terrain + minimap.
• Engine pre/post-processing.
• Draw scaled down versions of entities in the minimap instead of coloured blocks w/optional transparency.
• Instant FPS meter alongside the long-term average.
• Pretty print signed numbers.
• Min & max client size.
• Blitter index as enum.
• Directories for the logger.
• Consolidate TTS.

🔹 May 2025 Updates

• Rough-in pathfinding optimizations.
• Rough-in renderer dirty zones.
• Memory pools for critical allocation paths (pathfinding).
• Refactor existing mallocs to use memory pools where applicable.
• Change constant #defines to types.
• Migrate volatile settings to file + hot reload.
• Restructure DOUBLE_BUFFER_T to RENDERER_T and allow it to operate on a renderer implementation strategy.
• Selectable renderer: wireframe, GDI single/double buffer, SDL, Direct2D.
• Modified the resource bar for large numbers: 999,999,999.
• Crop blit selective background on redraw.
• Improve log flow with trace, warning, and others + common writing functions.
• Maintenance timebase + daily bookending of log file.
• Linked list traversal helpers.
• Rough in some engine pre/post-processing.
• Experiment with frame buffer channel masking and blurs using SSE SIMD vectorization.
• Restructured menu items.
• Split large functions into smaller ones.
• Other architectural and miscellaneous changes + toolchain updates.

🔹 April 2025 Updates

• Updated pointer dereference style.
• Arrow keys now adjust view translation.
• Added uptime tracking.
• Combined engine logic into Win32 message loop.
• Cropped images for DC blit ops.
• Added build mode, date & time stamping.
• Toolchain updates.
• Began benchmarking capture system.
• Introduced a logging system.
• Added Visual Studio 2022 solution/project setup and formatting rules.
• Configured debug/release flags for MSVC.
• Menu structure refinements.
• Reviewed local function types.
• Images -> Assets (renamed + consolidated GDI brushes/pens).
• #include dependency graph organization.
• All functions to reference passed pointers & variables instead of global declarations/externs (where applicable).
• Fail fast on bad mallocs.
• Bump map size.
• Borderless windowed mode (escape toggleable) + other chord QoL keys.
• Consolidate MoveTo/LineTo's.
• Replace I/FPOINT structs with I/FDELTA structs where applicable.
• When building, if the entity extends past the client area, disallow it.
• Right-click -> build none.
• Comma print large positive numbers.
• Clean up sorting.
• Render + slight pathfinding optimizations.

🔹 March 2025 Updates

• Output current working directory.
• Prefixed diagnostics for clarity.
• New diagnostics: selected entities, selection box dimensions, selected workers.
• Improved double-buffer canvas stability on resize.
• Tweaked initial conditions for quicker building.
• Renamed and rearranged menu items.
• Added a diagnostics toggle-all option.
• Diagnostic colour updates.
• Assigned IDs to entities.
• Minimap:
  • Displays selection area.
  • Allows left-click translation of main view.
  • Highlights selected entities.
• Worker AI:
  • Scatters to nearest resources when multiple are selected.
• File structure reorganization.
• Added project files for:
  • Code::Blocks
  • Dev-C++
• Updated Windows/Linux toolchain support.
• Reviewed and updated typedefs, code, and comments.
• General code review and distance calculations.
• Note: Dev-C++ generates _private.h/.rc files by default — aligned these with main.rc where applicable.

Educational Use Notice: This project is provided for educational and learning purposes only. You are welcome to read, study, and experiment with this software and/or hardware. It is not intended for commercial use. This software and/or hardware is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. The author assumes no responsibility for any damages or issues resulting from its use.