RJFerret

@jbert, the final spoiler in the original post at the start of the thread has your answer...

It's almost auto looting if you pick pockets before knocking out guards. You don't need to see the item, just be close. AIs can jump on things if the map designer makes it that way. (You'll be surprised in my missions if you don't expect guards to follow you some places.) So it's already part of the mod, just some choose to implement it that way and others don't. Similarly the visibility of stuff can be more apparent or less, I wish the stuff on belts wasn't so obvious/looking the same as you quickly learn to spot pockets to pick. (You can also use the scope, if the map gave it to you, to check out guard's belts. Remember also belts aren't the only place things can be carried, my WIP mission will require not just picking the obvious "pockets".)

35? Ugh, yeah... Fortunately all those I've done I've just targeted from a door with a set frob response, so little to set up in DR (and I haven't needed to remove frob ability once given). In this case, a trigger turning frob on by the switch, but off would be annoying to place, presumably at each exit. (While reducing frob distance works too, I might totally miss a switch if I had to put my nose to it for it to be frobable.) To ease the assembly, would the visibility stim help? Sadly no, "Event overflow. Possible infinite loop in script." :-( Ah, apparently that's due to a bug with lights. OK, targeting an object and changing it's frob doesn't seem to work well with the visual stim, as it fires even if the trigger object isn't visible and doesn't respond to limiting it's range. :-( Which brings me back to the same trigger recommendation again, which is a pain, but easier than setting up a bunch of stims/responses anyway.

The times I've had such issues I've turned off the frob, only to turn it on when it should be accessible to the player. That may or may not be practical depending how many you have in the space.

My first mission was significantly based on patches, and I was moving lots of vertices, but no crashes I'm afraid. I moved them both by clicking on them and dragging, and also using the translate arrows. Sorry I don't have a useful suggestion, beyond reinstalling DR perhaps?

Cool, and thank you! I did put a lot of time in making sure going both ways was reasonable, but having done it so many times obviously gave me practice at doing it, sorry your experience wasn't as smooth Gnartsch. That's one way of doing the spider queen in, there's at least one other method to achieve the same result too. I'm pleased my efforts on the AIs worked well for you, thanks for sharing that. :-) (The horses I can't take credit for, I just included them, but I had fun toying with them too!) My WIP includes horses too, although likely more involving.

As already mentioned, there's another way to go. Also, you don't need to fight him, can just distract or use other tools to get by. Perhaps your FPS experience has colored your choice of options? There was a separate thread which ended with the conclusion that fighting is too easy. Upon learning how to fight easily, my first stop was that guard, and he went down without so much trouble.

Oh! Duh. Another option would be to plaster the wall's interior. That would negate rope arrows, and the need for more heavy handed treatments.

LOL. Now that's a great way to turn the lazy designer's invisible wall into something less lame, props to them. (Admittedly can be time constrained designers too, sometimes someone else dictates the apparent laziness.) So with that in mind, I suggest a ledge along the wall, fulcrum at the top, counter weight log hung high on the outside. If someone gets on the ledge, it functions as a catapult, flinging them off into the skybox. It's totally plausible as a trap for folks outside scaling their way over/in. PS: May all your walls be visible.

I wouldn't disbelieve metal reinforcement. Wood tends to degrade quickly, only lasting a few years. Cap it with metal flashing to disperse water, and you create a great home for insects...I mean you shelter the pores of the wood from weather. So bands of metal, like metal strapping perhaps? In lieu of just a wood stockade, overhanging shrubbery or vegetation? Since awnings everywhere might not look believable, nor overhanging plants everywhere, alternate the two? (You typically wouldn't put up an awning where blowing tree limbs might tear into it anyway.) Design a cliff wall rising on one side so you only need stockade for limited parts? If a cliff, then a wall of rock/boulders instead? PS: Grayman, psst, your shader was not found. ;p

Then perhaps create a fresh one just with the lines Stump provided above?

Yeah, if it's just a fluke for me, it's a moot point. It is one of those things others might not even really notice.

Windows 7, SP 1, 64 bit (and 64 bit DR). About shows GTK+ version 2.24.8 gtkmm 2.24.2

Sorry, just saw this reply after posting my previous, which might make it clearer? I just checked the console, left the AI panel with a brush selected, nothing new on console, selected an AI, returned to AI panel to see it inactive, returned to console, zilch.

OK, my theory is where you are when the first deselect happens establishes the behavior. I keep re-writing this post, as it's layered complexity doesn't permit a simple breakdown. I was thinking there are three resulting behaviors, but that's not quite right. There are three effects, but only two are related, however all three probably stem from the same issue. First, the AI tab will always be highlighted when you go to it, if you have deselected in any tab other than the AI tab (worldspawn, AI, nothing, multiple items). (See repro below.) This is negated once you deselect with the AI tab active. Now what occurs depends on the state of the AI tab when you leave it: If you select an AI, so you leave the AI tab active, it functions as expected, assuming an expected state based upon what you have selected when you return to it. If you leave it inactive/ghosted/grayed out, when you return to it, it will remain that way until the user deselects and selects an AI. To repro the always active condition: Repeat steps 1-8 from previous post. 9. With nothing selected, click the tab for the AI panel, observe it's active! 10. Switch back to the Entity panel. 11. Select AI. 12. Click AI tab, observe it's active. 13. Switch to Entity panel. 14. Deselect, then select worldspawn. 15. Switch to AI tab, observe panel is active! 16. Switch to Entity tab. 17. Deselect and do not select anything. 18. Switch to AI tab, observe panel is active! Note, that even if you have worldspawn or another entity (non-AI) selected and the AI panel active, clicking the panel does not add those spawnargs to worldspawn. The skin/head/etc. buttons do not bring up their respective choosers UI elements. This is even true if the associate item has the skin spawnarg (such as a banner model). So apparently the UI ghosting is independent of the underlying functionality control. PS: To correct one item of my previous post, you do not need to quit/reload DR to clear any of these conditions. The work-around to regain expected functionality, go to the AI tab, deselect, select an AI, leave the AI tab.

Oh? Curious. Let's see. I quit DR. Got it to work as you just describe. Reloaded my WIP map, for the first time for me it also worked as you describe. Then I selected a worldspawn brush, switched to the AI panel, ghosted (as it should be). I went back to Entity panel, selected an AI in my map, returned to the AI panel and it remained grayed until I deselected/re-highlighted the AI. I chose New Map from file menu, again drew out and used Make Room, inserted entity AI, switched to the AI panel and this time it was all grayed out! So perhaps the issue is having gone to the AI panel with something other than an AI selected first? Let me poke more (I'm documenting this right as I've done it so I don't forget details an hour from now). Weird. This time I brought up DR, loaded my WIP, selected a path node, and the AI tab came up all highlighted!? Other non-worldspawn brought up the same and this is new, switching to it now with a worldspawn brush active also has it highlighted. Ah, OK, this is what I get for testing while eating, before the meal has digested. ;-) The key might be whatever you have selected when leaving the AI tab? Oy, and now I've run through it and not been able to get it to happen and then got it to happen but not how I was anticipating. Let's start with these steps: 1. Load DR 2. Draw out brush. 3. Make Room. 4. Deselect. 5. Right menu insert entity -> AI (any) 6. Deselect. 7. Move around view to get AI in camera window. 8. Hit N to open Entity panel (note nothing selected). Now we'll have variance. (I used "!" to mark unexpected results.) 9. Select worldspawn brush (behind AI). 10. Click AI tab, observe fields active (not ghosted/grayed)! 11. Deselect and re-select worldspawn (while staying on AI tab), observe panel goes grey upon deselect and remains so. 12. With worldspawn still highlighted, switch to Entity panel. 13. Deselect worldspawn, select AI. 14. Switch to AI tab, observe fields inactive/ghosted! Now I'm having trouble recreating the new circumstance of the AI panel being active on everything, but wanted to report this part before trying to figure out what caused the other. It also seems once the "remains inactive" behavior is triggered, it remains behaving that way until reload. While the other behaviors might not.

After a few hours, mostly of adjusting paths (sorry, I'd designed the room before downloading), I did a lot of hiding in DR, I use keyboard shortcuts for hide, unhide all, and just show selected, which all worked flawlessly. I moved some entities as selected groups. No troubles there either. I didn't actually use it for it's intended purpose, but did notice a minor issue with the new AI panel. If you have an AI selected while viewing a different tab such as "Entity", then click on the AI tab, everything is ghosted out/unusable. You must deselect and reselect the AI for the panel to not be grayed out. (Since deselecting is kind of a pain in DR, this is somewhat annoying.) To put it another way, the sequence, go to AI panel, then select AI will work. However if you have an AI already selected and go to the new panel, it will be unusable without an additional non-apparent action. (I'm presuming the check verifying the entity selected is in fact an AI happens only when you are already on that panel and selecting something fresh.)

Thanks for links. Do you mean "does not"? My understanding is those lines are put into newly saved 1.8.1 files, causing the ramifications noted in red in the OP. To properly load a new 1.8.1 version into the old version, you'd have to remove those lines. (Not having done it, just what I read.) If everything is working fine in the new version and you don't need to load back into the previous, then there'd be no need to do so.

Ditto 404.

Thanks for the kind words all! :-) @Oldjim: Sadly, I'm from the States. *hangs head ;p And actually, one of those "minor points" is meant to be that way. :-) Sorry you fell off, but as soon as I bump into an invisible wall my immersion shatters, I feel one should be able to fall/jump off if it appears you can! @Moonbo: Aw, thank you, and now I'm self conscious about the sense of place in my work in progress, whereas this one started with that foundation. I'm not sure my next currently evokes it as much, but this is a great reminder and motivation to make efforts in that direction before I get lost in the minutiae. :-) I know how you feel about needing spoilers, it seems most missions I have to do the same. I read a lot of comments on other missions of how people end up discovering things (and watched several gameplay videos of TDM missions). So I tried to make it discoverable via multiple methods (physical hint, physical exploration, object frob highlight, visual design, and readable--the latter increased per testers). I did choose to err on the harder side in the mission, hence my providing spoilers in the release post, that way it's challenging for all, and those of us who don't find it for whatever reason have an available resource, while others don't have it too easy/given away in the game. I'm not sure I hit the right balance here, as testers are likely more experienced players, so my judging their ability to find it or not might have been out of whack. I am glad I didn't restrict the stronger hints just to the easy/short level though.

Release thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15727-fan-mission-window-of-opportunity-by-rjferret-20140101/

We didn't make the holidays (such a busy time of year) so here's a New Year's gift, an unusual little mission. Window of Opportunity Recover an item for a regretful trader out in a wilderness setting, and discover more! Available within the in-game mission downloader or: Download: http://www.thedarkmo...ndetails/?id=79 Alternative: https://drive.google...WTMzQXZtMVFBSG8 Some unorthodox gameplay on regular/ghost difficulties. (Arachnophobes might prefer short mode...) Please expect to need your lantern in regular and ghost modes! Short ("easy") mode is a smaller map, so if you are looking for areas others reference below, or 100% of the loot, you'll need to play on another mode. I wanted to create my first mission before I became influenced by too many others' ideas, and limited myself to what has been done before. As such, this mission is not set in a city/town, and has some features that are likely to be provocative. There's a section some really like, which others don't, either way I kept it short to not last too long. That being said, I hope you do find it fun! :-) Special thanks to those who provided valuable testing and feedback: Goldwell, Kyyrma, plotzzz, 161803398874989, PPoe & Bikerdude (who also contributed a sound). (Please remember spoiler tags to not expose things meant to be discovered by playing.) Like so: [spoiler]secrets[/spoiler] If you are having trouble finding the main objective, here's what to pay attention to in the mission for hints: There is a spot it's possible to get stuck on the ground in the corner by the cliff/rockfall where there's a rope laying on the ground, please take care if you poke around there!

Perhaps I DO wear high heels? ;p I'm a sexy thief. (Oh wait, it's not "tick-click".) Yeah, I figured the volume difference was to clearly convey surface material differences that aren't lit well enough to discriminate visually.

There's a difference in motivation. And a significant difference in ramifications. Apples and oranges. The former broadens the audience, provides more exposure, the cost is incidental to the gift. The latter changes what is currently a labor of love, a hobby, a joy to work on, into a job, a task to be completed because of compensation, it brings monetary politics into it, and turns it into a burden. You see this time and again, projects excel until donations are accepted, then the entire tone changes and shortly thereafter it ends. Some express their appreciation by providing their own labor in whatever fashion they may, for many, talents lie in other places and monetary tokens put in other places may be beneficial. Think of memorial services where donations in the name of the deceased are requested in lieu of direct gifts. Conflating the two unrelated things just confuses matters.

Glad you got it sorted and good to know, I've been shying away from the "_z"s ever since seeing that first post having some issue with them. (Yes, underground ambiance is hard, since naturally there's no sound at all in tunnels, just water drips in living caves. I opted for subtle, slow tones.)