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Oktokolo

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Posts posted by Oktokolo

  1. 2 hours ago, wesp5 said:

    A lot of good ideas! Most of all I like the ideas with the moss arrow, which I rarely use and which would have a new meaning, and picking it, if that is even possible on a moving object. I think a normal arrow to the right spot would look too much like a lucky shot, also it should be armored all over. And how would we even make the animation of binding it's legs with a rope?

    Picking would be possible if either the pick distance is a bit more generous or the bot could not detect when someone bumps into it from behind (the bot's job description does not imply the need for tactile sensors, so maybe it has none). The bot is moving rather slow, so keeping up with wasd while using the mouse to pick it schould be quite doable.

    Yes, the leg binding will certainly not happen. That was a bit too unrestricted a brain storm ;)

    the moss arrow is my favorite too. Could also work with vine arrows, wich are probably the least used player tool (did not see any speed potions for a while, so i just assume it not being in the game anymore).

  2. 27 minutes ago, Jehauri said:
      Reveal hidden contents

    Thanks, I was finally able to find it. The flickering firelight does a good job of hiding it, and even when I saw the edge of it I had a devil of a time getting it to actually activate- it didn't seem reachable for the first five tries, then, without anything apparently changing, it suddenly was. Feels good to see the last hidden part of the level though!

    Tried the keyhole again, still crashy, unfortunately. I'm using 2.07... as far as I know, there isn't a 2.08? I don't see any mention on the Dark Mod page, and the updater doesn't update to it either. 

    2.08 is currently beta. If you are brave enough, you can follow directions in the Beta Testing 2.08 thread to install it. Update regularly and keep in mind that this time the tdm_mirrors.txt has to be updated manually to get each new patch level.
    The beta seems to be quite playable (no crashes for me, but there are bugs - it is a beta after all).

  3. 9 hours ago, vozka said:

    What about the spiders? is that intentional behavior? In the situation on the screenshot below the arrow just goes straight through the spider and breaks on the concrete floor.

    Spiders seem to almost always have some quirks to them. Sometimes you can't hit them. In other missions they don't collide with some geometry making them walk sunk into the floor (and also harder to hit). Their ragdolls most of the time go nuts if trying to drag them...
    Spiders have always been pretty buggy.

    By the way: Open the debug console and enter noclip followed by the return key to activate the fly mode wich is perfect for getting yourself unstuck. Repeat for disabling the fly mode.
    Never reload for sticky geometry again.

    • Like 3
  4. It does not have to be water arrows (they are the most-used consumable already anyway).

    • Maybe, a normal arrow to the right spot could immobilize or disable it without sounding the alarm.
    • Or a moss arrow could jam the mechanics and hearing cone. The bot would be a static light then.
    • Or it could be disarmable by lockpicking like mines (switching it off, like the maintenance crew would).
    • Or maybe one could sneak up from behind and bind its legs consuming a rope arrow.

    There surely are more ways that feel somewhat stealthy and do not involve the blackjack or water arrows.

  5. When i first saw one, i soaked that lantern bot from all sides using water arrows. I somehow associated its energy source with water arrows and expected it to be extinguishable...

    Not sure, whether waterarrows or the blackjack actually should disable bots. But there should be some way to take them out silently.

  6. 3 hours ago, Nicholas said:

    how these settings affect launchers if they're not about gameplay, but about fps and multiple processor cores?

    The game engine seems to calculate forces every frame. If you have higher FPS, it calculates forces more often. idTech 4 (the game engine, TDM is based on) was designed for 60 FPS max. There are still physics bugs when you go higher.

  7. Installed the beta and played parts of the training mission:

    Gamma and brightness settings don't affect the main menu and books when used. I can lighten and darken the game but menu and active/in-use readables always look the same.

    I found some missing geometry faces (full faces, not just single tris) in the first part of the climbing area on some horizontal beams of the construction site.

    training_mission_2020-04-02_21.53.52.jpg

    • Like 2
  8. On 3/29/2020 at 5:49 PM, HMart said:

    Btw the problem with Sotha script is that when the player gets low the light doesn't follow the character, so it will stay higher than the player in that case:

    Isn't it possible to actually bind the light source to the eye or head of the player's body - like it is done for a purse that is bound to the belt of an AI?

  9. 1 hour ago, Filizitas said:

    Because it sets up a theater for the readable.

    In TDM, it is the responsibility of mission authors to set up the theater for readables. And most of the time that is pretty well done. It can't get more immersive than reading things in the game world as if you would actually be there and hold it in your own hands.

    Also, if your eyes are sharp enough, you can actually even read some of the readables without even frobbing them. For the common sheet of paper notes, the actual text is rendered right on that sheet in the game world. That is impossible to beat immersion-wise.

  10. 7 hours ago, chakkman said:

    I think they will become affordable in the near future. Another problem is the system requirements though. You need a powerful PC to project to 2 HD or more screens.

    Also, the early headsets suffered from some childhood diseases, like bad resolution, bad acuity, bad tracking.

    The powerful PC thing is why i expect the mainstreaming of VR to come from the console side. Powerful PCs aren't something, the mainstream wants to need to have just to be able to enjoy some VR dating sim or game.

    The casual gamer seems to be fine with paying a premium for games but the hardware has to be cheap to the point of being crappy because of its cheapness. We also will see ingame advertising in "freemium" and non-"freemium" VR, because that is just, how the advertising market cancer works.

    6 hours ago, woah said:

    The problem I see is that even if they literally gave the best VR systems on the market away for free very few people would use them much past the honeymoon phase for the reasons I noted above, i.e. "free isn't cheap enough".  The hardware still has a ton of issues and addressing them is going to take a lot of costly investment and time.

    I think it is more about game support and low entry barrier than anything else. People even play shooters on their phone because theat is the hardware they got. And the ones who get a console will probably use the VR headset if it came with one and the games support it.

    6 hours ago, woah said:

    A few years ago Gabe Newell said something like "you make something good first, and only then worry about major cost reduction" and I think that makes a lot of sense.  When they see that VR users only play for short periods because the headset makes them uncomfortable, that they do not play frequently because they are too physically exhausted at the end of the day, that long term there are retention issues, etc etc, that must tell them that the quality of the experience isn't there yet.

    Current headsets are surely bearable for an hour or two - wich would already be enough for the mainstream.
    The seated experience is must though. If it can't be played while sitting on the couch, they just won't play it.

    Another thought about that honeymoon phase:
    If it already is a month for a gamer, i would expect it to last way longer for the casuals. They spend way less time per month with games. So they probably have way more time to tell all their friends about the awesomeness of VR until the excitement wears off. ;)

  11. On 12/23/2019 at 5:15 PM, Springheel said:

    I've created a walking flame-bearer skeleton as a security device for crypts or mage towers.

    I would totally expect it to throw a fireball at me and then fall to pieces and die - if it ever sees me...

  12. 1 hour ago, OrbWeaver said:

    I would bet that the vast majority of users never actually need to do this, because most people's machines are single-user and don't need to run the game from multiple accounts.

    This, and:

    If multiple users of one computer want to play TDM independently, they might not want to share their saves and list of played missions.
    TDM lacks the "feature" of splitting static data (the game, standard missions) and user data (config, user-downloaded missions, saves, the mission-completion list) into a sytem-wide and a user-specific folder.
    So installation into a system-wide location would be a bad idea in this case.

  13. Indirect player detection through AI seeing the player's shadow or the player obstructing a direct or indirect (lit surface) light source has been discussed before.

    Such features where generally seen as too frustrating for the average player. There are probably only a few who would like the added realism even if it would come without visualization for the player.
    In general, in-world visualizations (apart from the frob highlight) seems to be a taboo in the TDM community (looks like it instantly converts TDM to a modern Deus Ex cover shooter).
    So hinting players about the possibility of AI seeing their shadow or that they cover a light source is a hard problem - if you want to have the slightest chance of the feature making it into the base mod.
    And even if solved, it would probably still be a feature only enabled by  a minority of the TDM player base - wich itself is a minority of the stealth game player base already...

    And as usual: Developer time is scarce. No member of the group that would like to have more indirect detection (wich includes me) has the skill and/or time to do it.

  14. I am not that much into ghosting and jump scares. But i was able to enjoy this mission.

    I too had to noclip into the daughter's bedroom from the library because the door did not open while becoming unfrobable.

    Don't like non-blackjackable AI - but the two skeletons where pretty predictable and the redeye seemed to be scripted to actually avoid me (the exception being when i exited from the mother's bedroom, because there it had to pass me to get to the main staircase, allowing me to go downstairs unhindered).

    Tried to use the trapdoor in the garden shed. Searched for a hidden mechanism there too. It really looked like i would be supposed to use it to enter the building.

    The lawn is perfectly flat.

    The voice acting was nice to hear - would have been perfect with a bit less echo (wich made it sound a bit tinny).

    I really liked the use of traps in the attic. They where believable, avoidable and one even was disarmable. Spotting and avoiding them made me feel like a real sneak. The traps are the mission's highlight.

    • Like 1
  15. On 11/5/2019 at 5:36 PM, stgatilov said:

    It sounds like a good idea, but TDM has several interconnected services with a lot of data worth saving. You can put repository somewhere, but what about mantis bugtracker, invision forums, and mediawiki?

    The regular Backups of their content should be made available to the public too.

    In general, making the project's source and associated data available to the public drastically increases the chance of the project outliving its current maintainers.
    It enables non-maintainers to become maintainers in the majority of possible evente that could make the project becoming unmaintained.

  16. This post seems to imply, that backup mission servers exist. The game just does not use them.

    Servers going down is a common cause for community projects to die. Making the infrastructure easily forkable is one of the steps, that drastically increase the chance of survival.
    This time the one (and only?) hardcoded server might come back up. But please also make mission download locations configurable by text file like already done for the updater.

    • Like 3
  17. Don't care about killing noises as half the missions forbid killing - and blackjacking is faster and less noisy anyway.

    But what about making the act of blackjacking emit some unavoidable noise too?
    Got the impression, that only the body touching the ground emits noise - wich you can avoid on any flooring by grabbing the body in flight. I remember blackjacking AI literally right next to their comrades without them reacting at all while i heared the satisfying clonk on the victims head quite clearly.

    The material-dependent noise of the blackjack hitting the head of an AI should be AI-hearable.

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