I was wondering if anyone could please help me with my little project here. This is a Tank War game that I have been writing. This is my first real full game project. That is to say that this is the first project I have actually tried to get all the errors removed and the game itself working properly.

However, I'm still left with two errors that defy my attempts to get rid of them. The first is a lag issue that start less than a minute after the program runs and the second is a problem with the homing algorithm of my missile.

I was wondering if someone could please look at the code and see if they can find a solution to one of these problem. The lagging is the one that worries me that most as I've had no success so far at even establishing which part of my code causes it, only that the game runs smoothly for about 30 - 60 seconds and then it starts lagging.

All the files needed to run the program is included above. The bitmap files should all be put in a folder called 'Graphics', the wave files all in a folder called 'Sound' and the FMP file should be put in a folder called 'Maps'. Other than that the files just need to be included in the project and it should compile smoothly.

I would like to thank everyone in advance for any help they may give and say that I would appreciate any help that anyone can offer.

P.S. I would also like other advice, if not too much trouble, if anyone sees something that I have done badly, as in bad coding method, or if there is something that can be done more easily and/or efficiently in another way. Along with this comments on my variable and function names, if they help identify the purposes of different variables and function and my indentation, if it is too much, not enough etc. Other than that comments on the amount of in code comments that I should be putting in code like this would also be appreciated.

General lowdown of the game. It's two players on the same screen. One player plays with WASD and the other plays with the arrow keys. The player with WASD uses E to fire and Q to change weapon type, while the player with the arrow keys uses Space to fire and Enter to change weapon type.

Edit - Got rid of all the useless attachments, didn't realize they stayed there. The one currently on is the latest version. In it I've fixed the missile homing problem, was just using the wrong variable somewhere in there. Some advice on how to improve the code would still be appreciated. I will try to implement what you have suggested this weekend Edgar, if I get time between all the other work I have to do.

If you put all the files in their appropriate directories in a TankWar folder that has all the source files and compress everything into a zip file for one single download then I might be tempted to look it over.

Just having looked at your main.cpp. You're calling the destructory PlayerOne->~Tank();, PlayerTwo->~Tank(); and PlayingField->~Map(); manually, while they were created with "normal" operator new, and never deleted.

This may cause some serious problems. While it may not have such an effect in those particular cases (as it happens only once a game), it could if you do that with every dynamically created object.

You should only call the destructor manually in very selected cases (which is very, very, very rare). Once you create an object with new, use delete to rid of it.

... there's your answer right there. Calling destructors doesn't free any allocated memory. That's what delete is for.

For your homing algorithm you might want to keep a pointer to a tank object in your projectile class that is the current target of the missile. When one is fired , store the projectile's initial direction of movement and when it is updated find the angle from it's current position to the tank's current position and allow it to turn towards it by a set maximum angular amount. If you adjust it right it should make it so that a tank will be able to get out of the way if it moves at a right angle to it's path. If you want a dumb projectile , set the target pointer to NULL and base your projectile's turning AI off of whether there is a target.

You may only have 8 directions of movement for your tanks but that doesn't mean the projectiles have to stick to those directions , especially for a homing projectile. Wouldn't it look kind of strange to see a projectile traveling right all of a sudden start traveling up to the right?
Algorithm example :
1 - Find direction to target from projectile using atan2.
2 - Find difference in direction between current projectile direction and target direction.
3 - Allow missile to turn at most the minimum value between the missile's allowed angular turn rate and the difference in missile heading / target bearing.
4 - Update position based on current velocity and direction of travel.

For your work on collision detection , are all the tanks 32X32 sprites? I would suggest doing a simple rectangular bounding box collision detection when you go to update the tanks movement. Check for a collision where the tank would be after it is updated but before you update its position. If the resulting movement would cause a collision then prevent it from moving that direction in the first place.

Audric: I could see that working if the projectile didn't need to rotate its sprite to point along the axis of movement.