RJFerret

*nods While literally true, it would be more one dimensional game-play and not fit the overall theme of being a thief, if we skipped other opportunities that come our way, would it not? ;-) Rest assured I wasn't considering your issues flippantly, but offering condolences point by point would appear argumentative, defensive, or sarcastic, instead of sincerely compassionate.

Thanks for the constructive feedback, it is appreciated! (Also my condolences at the non-standard loot stuff, it's my personal thing, as I get bored with generic loot. I'm right with you though on difficulty finding stuff, or figuring out things on many a mission.)

If you don't find it (and it turns from fun to frustrating), let me know and I'll give ya' more specific pointers!

Yes, you are correct (in part, see below, as it can be hidden in various different places--it's random).

Thanks so much! And separately, I'd missed this detail previously Spring... There's a part I don't recall anyone mention finding, where a hidden objective pops up to be completed (as compared to a hidden objective that shows up from having already completed it), which shows the map in a manner you have previously expressed as something you personally don't enjoy, that was all. :-) It's more out of the way than I anticipated apparently.

Thank you all for very considerate and gracious answers on a sensitive topic. Perhaps naïve (I was called worse in PM), I was honestly expecting, "...authors.txt is out of date, look here instead..."--or perhaps "hoping" would be a better choice of word than "expecting".

Actually I don't understand the confusion, I did make a concerted effort to point out my question wasn't about a specific mission, but did need to provide context of why this leads me to wonder about other assets. That said, I recognize that people often answer what they assume to be the discussion, rather than what is actually being asked. Sorry Grayman to have caused that implication, vice-versa, I was coming from the innocent place.

Only half of responses touch on the question. I'm not asking about a specific image, that discussion already took place and folks declared their opinions, there's no point in re-hashing it. But on TDM assets, since I have no way of knowing who contributed what assets to TDM, there's no individual to PM, as apparently there's no record keeping. Emailing everyone in authors.txt would be time intensive, superfluous and potentially accusatory. I intentionally waited to avoid the red-herring of the other discussion. Which is more worrisome, is there reason to avoid the topic regarding other assets? Which was the case for a sound Bikerdude kindly provided me for my very first FM.

So I don't want to rain on the parade of any specific mission, since the authors are already aware of the issue, expressed their views elsewhere and made their choice. However I saw a stolen image used as a texture--worse, it had been modified to remove attribution, apparently in flagrant violation of the source's attribution-required license. I stopped playing and checked the text files included, and although there was a list of TDM members acknowledged, as well as other textures "thanked", no credits for others' work or that image. In a previous forum thread discussing a bit of this issue (made more complicated by additional issues), it seemed said image was to be included with TDM assets in the future. That last part is obviously the scary part. My question becomes, is there a way to determine which included assets might have been stolen from their creators, or are in violation of their license versus those legally/ethically included? I do know two sound files are listed in the authors.txt included with TDM 2.02, some shaders and three fonts. However it seems there's a dearth of information of which assets might have been legitimately created/obtained versus those that are breaking a license or stolen. Projects I've previously been involved with kept a strict record of source with license, which I'm failing to find here except for those two sounds. I dread having put this question forth, afraid of the answer...

Is it perhaps time to unpin this topic?

Which reminds me, some missions can't be started normally with sound difficulty set to "Hardcore". These missions have AI and hard surfaces right at the player start, such that the player is attacked/killed right off the bat. Here are a couple work-arounds to avoid the problem... One, switch to another AI Hearing Difficulty instead of "Hardcore", restart the mission, put your difficulty setting back to "Hardcore". Two, use the "notarget" command prior to clicking to start the mission, then immediately use it again to undo it.

You are welcome, and I just double-checked, this line goes in your "darkmod.txt" file with your map, if you have used these new capabilities and your map would be broken without their availability: With that the map would be prevented from running in TDM versions 1.01 (when the version check was added) through 2.01.

Yes, a lot more sense thanks, and considering I'd googled for some other examples/info/"how to" unsuccessfully, I'm very appreciative. I agree it's complete, but would up the "probably" to assuredly, and I believe there would be multiple different manners in which that could be tediously designed.

Yeah, I've never been that impressed with Turing machines I've heard about (one in Legos and in Minecraft made the "news" for example), as using a highly advanced multiprocessor computer, in an artificially limited fashion, to emulate a simplistic computing system with a fraction of the ability of the CPU of the environment seems pointless to me. I suppose people would be offended if I refer to them as Turing masturbations instead though. But this mental exercise was not for naught. One thing I've kind of wanted with trigger systems I've set up in previous missions was a "variable" for storing/recalling info, and I now recognize that exists in several different forms. We'll see if I remember that some months in the future if I wish for such ability again, heh. [quote name='buck28' timestamp='1404842156' post='349687'] QUESTION: This may have been covered, but can this new version be used with a map in progress with the current version? Or should the map be finished with the current version, before updating to the new version?? [/quote] If you use this feature in your map, it will need to be run on TDM 2.02 (which you can specify in one of your map's text files). If the map is run in an older version of TDM, the triggering would not occur.

As others have explained, the answer comes down to "cost". However, there's a fallacy here. There's a cost to you, the inconvenience of turning the device on and having it already partially depleted and laggy. What is the cost to you of charging it before that inconvenience would occur? Isn't it zero since you'd have to charge it anyway? I SO hate to ask this because it might be taken as "not nice", but..."Why are simple solutions to problems so frequently overlooked?" ;-) So, you have several choices... One: If you have an Android, Firefox or open source Java phone, hire someone to make it work like you describe, or alternatively, have it do the scan at a lower priority or when the phone isn't actively being used by you, or not at all if you never use the search (like me with Windows, it's just turned off). That should only cost a few hundred or thousand dollars once. (If you have a closed source phone, replace it for an additional tens of dollars.) Two: Hire a physical personal assistant to regularly look at your phone to see if it needs charging, and plug it in for you. That should only cost tens of thousands of dollars annually. (No, I am not available to provide this service, sorry.) Three: Stop ignoring your low battery indications. $14.95 once. Four: Simply plug your phone in when you go to sleep. $14.95 once. You might wonder why options three and four aren't "Free!", the answer is they weren't apparent to you, such that you consulted here. My consulting rate for this type of thing is $60/hour, but since you are a "lost soul" and member of the TDM community, I've prorated this invoice and am billing you just a quarter hour instead of the customary one hour minimum. Please remit payment via Paypal to my username at yahoo, then enjoy never having to suffer lag while your phone indexes, plus enjoy 5% greater battery life! PS: If paying by credit card, please include the 4% processing fee, for a total of $15.55.

Maybe? Although I know people create Turing machines in various computers, I have no idea what they are actually supposed to do. The Wikipedia entry on Turing machine has a lot of words/info, but very little explanation. The simple.wikipedia.org entry designed for children isn't much better, but is shorter, heh. It does define three aspects though: 1. Certain set of states, which we obviously have. 2. Infinite storage and read/write device. We can obviously provide output (hit button x times to spin number dial), but how about input/read? 3. Transition function. I have no idea what this is supposed to be. Movement of the tape/between rooms perhaps? So much for the Wikipedia for children. I can tell you this, since we have switches, logic gates exist, and we have conditionals. It's the infinite reading that I'm not seeing. Oh, wait a minute, unlit lights. When an AI enters a room, it will turn on unlit lights, which may also target something else (switches/branching). So they could read/respond to that state. So I suppose you'd have one AI be the "tape deliverer", providing/encoding the symbols, and another responding to them in fixed ways to produce output. Does that qualify? (However I don't see the infinite part, as you'd need as many rooms as the tape is long, to be able to go to back and forth on the tape.)

Trigger_count is pretty straightforward: http://wiki.thedarkm...s#trigger_count

For the switch: have the next path node target an "atdm:target_changetarget" entity (in targets/). That would remove the used path node from the switching path node, but add the alternative route. Same thing on the alternate. For the random sequence: it would work like this, a branching path node with several random possibilities also targets a trigger_count set to the number of path targets. Each resulting route would target a changetarget entity removing itself from the branching path node. The trigger_count would fire once all branches have happened, targeting a trigger_relay to have changetargets add all the options back to the branching node. Note the trigger_count needs to have "repeat" set to "1" (default is off/0). Does that makes sense, or did I describe it all convoluted?

A new feature for mappers I'm excited about, which the changelog buries, certain path nodes now trigger their targets.

Grayman worked hard adding a great feature for those of us making maps which I'd like to draw your attention to, several path nodes now will trigger their targets, so you can more easily start conversations, have AI comment on their environment, cause a sound to happen, synchronize other AI to move in concert, or activate whatever you can imagine upon reaching/doing these path nodes... This should allow for greater environmental interactivity and dynamics. For example, we often exploit the random targets of path nodes to have AI go different ways or offer different behaviors, to be less predictable to the player, however sometimes they'll repeat the same thing, wasting that work. In recent discussion in another thread, we realized a couple things, a path node could be made to switch, alternating between different destinations, or that random list of destinations could eliminate used routes, to add more variety. (Then when the final one is used, replenish the list.) This also makes randomizing things like loot placement or objective item goals in maps even easier (sans scripting), as you no longer need trigger_once entities, just have an AI target as many path_corners as you want, and have those trigger whatever results should occur from that random outcome, easy-peasy. What other creative implementations come to mind?

OMG, this is one of my few annoyances with missions, bookshelves have distinctive repeating patterns to the human eye/brain, so some easy modularity and being able to create variety will be WONDERFUL! Did I mention, WONDERFUL!?!!

It doesn't. In other words, the LOD is based on player distance with accommodation for the spyglass, you can use it to test/verify models are changing, as the image seen will be correct for the player distance, and the "magnification" will let you see what's otherwise to far away to verify.

Insightful stuff, and I'd always wondered why some systems handled tris better than others, I always figured it was cpu/gpu without considering the bus as much.

Rock on dude, your continuing improvement efforts are outstanding.

Yups, been there, done that. *points to my maps with their completely open spaces and resulting high drawcalls. As you know, when I was contributing to the map was a while ago, so light tweaks since then I'm obviously ignorant of. As I said before, pretty much every light is overlapping it's neighbor, and I found yesterday's drop in drawcalls with lights removed fascinating. Obviously sight lines didn't change, and although I've been avoiding "looking" too deeply at the map to not spoil my initial play of it, I'm blown away and impressed by the design personally...all the ways sights lines are broken up nicely. I wish my brain could conceive of such convoluted, twisty passages like that. In terms of your comment about artistry, more importantly with the overlapping lights is game-play in my opinion, reducing all the radii would mean larger pools of darkness, altering the chosen feel/sensations/difficulty. But this is distracting from the main topic. I find it enlightening that so far all the maps this year have featured drawcalls predominantly <1000, with peaks 1500+/-. Even this supposedly higher drawcall example map is capable of that too, depending on lighting choices. Ah! Which gives me a potential script idea for performance...