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Things that could be improved


Berny

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We'd have to add bows to all places where arrows can be found in missions where the player starts without a bow / arrow!

 

Yes, with the current situation it would definitively break many maps. But in future, could it be possible to implement some sort of a map setting system - something like alwaysHasBowWithArrow "0/1" - that could be set by the mapper, and the game would then check that setting and either give the player a bow or not, depending on how the mapper sets it up (with the default being "1" if the setting is missing)?

Edited by Thieving Barbarian
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Yes that'd be possible, and it could make for a good gameplay opportunity. It wouldn't actually need a new spawnarg: mappers can achieve it right now if they want, although they'd have to use a script. They could place new arrow entities (using the existing models) which go into the main inventory, and a bow object somewhere that has a frob_action_script attached that converts those dummy arrows to "proper" arrows only when the "bow" item gets picked up (frobbed).

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

Okay, I will bump this thread with a very simple suggestion which you probably heard before:

 

Why not add an option to the Download Missions page below "Select for download>>" like "Select all missions"?

 

Also whatever happened to the project renaming series missions to be recognized? When I just updated one "Thiefs Den" mission was labeled TD3, the others were not! Also there was a double "Thiefs Den" mission which may or may not belong to the series and there were also two "The Gatehouse" missions, one of which was an update. Shouldn't older versions be removed? Also some of the newly labeled series had no special info about the name anymore, like the WC or VFAT missions. Didn't WC stand for a name or something?

 

P.S.: For whatever reason I had some connection problems downloading some of the new missions. The counter just froze and even after leaving the game via the main menu quit command, I couldn't restart it because it was still running in the background. If this was a seperate download executable, using quit should probably exit that one as well...

Edited by wesp5
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So is nobody interested in improving the mission downloader or am I missing something obvious here?

 

What kind of improvements are you suggesting?

 

PS: Are you the same wesp guy that created the Boiling Point Fanpatches :P ?

Edited by Cookie
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So is nobody interested in improving the mission downloader or am I missing something obvious here?

They're all fine suggestions but they compete for priority with everything else people are working on. I've posted somewhere recently too asking whether anyone can/will fix the names. grayman has already tracked the background process problem. But no, no-one's working on the downloader right now as far as I know.

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What kind of improvements are you suggesting?

 

PS: Are you the same wesp guy that created the Boiling Point Fanpatches :P ?

 

Yes, I'm that Wesp5 and also the one doing the Unofficial VTM Bloodlines Patch :)!

 

As for the improvements: 1. add an option to download all new or updated missions in one go. 2. have duplicated missions removed and 3. have all series labeled.

 

For the points 2. and 3., if there is a server text file similar to the local one, I could try and sort the names out. I understand that you have more pressing issues, just wanted to make sure that the front end is not getting forgotten ;)!

Edited by wesp5
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For the points 2. and 3., if there is a server text file similar to the local one, I could try and sort the names out. I understand that you have more pressing issues, just wanted to make sure that the front end is not getting forgotten ;)!

Thanks, sure that'd be welcome, but I don't know anything about the FM setup so don't know exactly what would need doing. PM Biker if you can help, he looks after the FM catalogue in addition to his gazillion works-in-progress so he'll know what's involved.

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The official mission list can be found here:

http://missions.thedarkmod.com/available_missions.xml

 

Right click on that file and save it to your disk.

Then compare the 'internalName' found there against the headings in your local 'tdmmission.info'.

 

Implementing 'Add all' and adding an visual indicator in the UI highlighting missions which have no corresponding info from the official mission list should not be all that difficult.

I am tempted to look into it myself and implement the required logic.

Someone with the MFC stuff at hand however would need to add the 'Add all' button into the UI code though, since I can not compile that part at all.

Edited by gnartsch
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Oh, I already upgraded to the MSVC 2013 community edition.

And I already managed compiled some portion of the code a few weeks ago, but had to correct the path to \win32\lib\Polarssl.lib before I could build the gamex86.dll.

Maybe the MFC part slipped my eye, but I am sure there were issues as well even after I had corrected the issue above.

Is there anything that needs to be configured?

Will have a look into once the reinstall of my system is complete and my new GPU arrived.

Right now I am virtually 'blind'.

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It should compile straight out of the box using MSVC2013 Community. If you are having problems with library references then make sure you update the project and solution files from svn too. That should fix it. You still need DirectX SDK installed IIRC.

The new dependencies are:

  • Install Microsoft's Multibyte MFC Library, because VS2013 has dropped support for multibyte character sets from MFC by default.
  • You need to have the Visual C++ 2010 compilers somewhere on your system. An expired trial copy of VS2010 will do.
  • You need Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1, if you don't already have it. You can check whether you have it installed in the normal Windows control panel > Programs dialog.

When you open the darkmod solution from the trunk, you'll see (Visual Studio 2010) against each project, and when you compile it, the 2010 compilers will be used.

NB If compiling the engine, you might have to update the output folder for the engine project to point to your darkmod/ folder. That was unset last time I checked it.

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Thanks for the links!

After installing the DirectX SDK (I had the MBCS stuff already) I had to add the includes and lib folders to the dependencies in the Engine project. Didn't find a setting for that.

MayaImport still fails (can't find MStat.h), but TheDarkMod.exe gets created. Seems like I do not need VS2010 either for that part.

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I've never tried to compile MayaImport I must admit.

 

Hopefully it says "Visual Studio 2010" next to your projects in Solution Explorer. If not, you might see some bugs with missing light on surfaces and flickering visportals and brushes not being solid when you mantle up them. Those are caused by floating-point precision changes in vs2013, which is why we're using the 2010 compilers with msvc2013 until we decide what to do about it. The bugs are fairly rare though, so it's fine to compile using 2013 compilers for development purposes.

 

You can switch to the 2010 compiler at any time by re-downloading the solution and project files from svn (and yes, adding your DX dependencies, sorry I forgot that bit). As long as you have the 2010 compilers somewhere on your system. Otherwise, like I said, the 2013 compilers are fine for working on the game. I went months using them without noticing the occasional floating-point bugs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

That's caused by the force of the movable getting snapped into the grabber. If there is something in the way then you get a big clang. It is annoying but don't know if it's fixable.

But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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You can usually control it. If you look slightly above the candle -- point your view at the top of its frob range -- then when you pick it up you'll pick it up silently. It'll lift off the surface to where you are looking.

 

The case mentioned by moonbo is tricky: where there's stuff in front or behind. I find it harder to judge how far away the grabbed candlestick will end up.

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He can...?

Not always, sadly.

Candlesticks are an example that one might learn to work with over time (but not always, when there are things around it, its quite hard).

The cause of this is the following I think:

The moment you take something in your hand, the engine grabs it from its place - and tries to move it to your standard holding distance and height.

That means, if you are near that standard distance and height, it works. If not, you can get clatter, things flying around, etc.

 

If thats the cause, it might be nice if what you grab could be grabbed exactly as you frob it, with you then working from there, but I am not sure if thats possible.

 

One annoying example i haven't been able to get right in any way is planks

(For example at the beginning of "Trapped").

When several are next to each other, when you pick one, the others make cluttering noises, or the one you take, and sometimes even fly across the room (I think that planks maybe have just not enough weight.

The stones in the "Trapped" mission are quite easy to move silently, but due to their weight they don't move fast

)

 

Overall in most cases its learnable, but not intuitive, since you have to be ion the right distance for the grab, and not only be careful after you "attach" to an object..

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  • 1 month later...

Playing a mission now which involved the undead, I was hiding behind some crates in an area until they cleared or thinned out. - Their noises are great, very suitable for their.... condition I was admiring that when I suddenly saw one come into the area I was hiding, and he looked around. I could have sworn he was making ( among others) sniffing sounds. I panic thought for a second " Can these things smell me?" I calmed down and knew they did not.

 

I was just toying with the idea if they could - would this be hard to implement? I think the fright level would go up a big notch if these things could find you through by "smell" These and guards seem to gravitate to you in hiding to some degree anyway, would be neat if the undead could hone in better and make sniffing sounds like an animal especially as they get closer to you...

 

just a thought...

 

 

Thanks for all the hard work!

Edited by Mr M
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Playing a mission now which involved the undead, I was hiding behind some crates in an area until they cleared or thinned out. - Their noises are great, very suitable for their.... condition I was admiring that when I suddenly saw one come into the area I was hiding, and he looked around. I could have sworn he was making ( among others) sniffing sounds. I panic thought for a second " Can these things smell me?" I calmed down and knew they did not.

 

I was just toying with the idea if they could - would this be hard to implement? I think the fright level would go up a big notch if these things could find you through by "smell" These and guards seem to gravitate to you in hiding to some degree anyway, would be neat if the undead could hone in better and make sniffing sounds like an animal especially as they get closer to you...

 

just a thought...

 

 

Thanks for all the hard work!

 

That would best be done using a script object -- a new entity def based on the existing undead AI but with a new script attached. Someone could make a prefab for mappers to use without needing to wait for a TDM release. The script would be quite straightforward. The harder part would be finding the best animations and sounds to use and deciding how mappers need to be able to tweak the behaviour (we wouldn't want them all homing in at full speed from anywhere in the map, for example, so various numbers probably need to be tweakable through spawnargs).

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