Oktokolo

Well, doublecheck that you indeed have "beta210-02" by running the installer with "Get custom version" checked. Then paste "r_frobOutlinePreset 1", r_frobOutlinePreset 2" or "r_frobOutlinePreset 3" into the console and see whether it still errors out or actually changes your frob outline between "sharp max-bright white outer glow", "soft max-bright white outer glow + poly-counter-assist vertex glow", and "drop-shadow-style soft max-bright white outer glow". Sometimes when you open the console and paste or type something, it can ignore some of the characters. In that case just press return and repeat typing or pasting the command. P.S.: Don't forget, that you are voting on the outlines - not the still also visible brightening of the object itself.

TDM definitely aged waaay better than The Dark Project and The Metal Age or even Deadly Shadows - and will probably age better than Thief 2014 as it is still maintained very well (someone even works on VR compatibility), while the other games are basically forsaken by their creators and bound by heavy intelectual property chains preventing anyone else from adopting them... Really sad how creators tend to keep their works from improving by enchaining them with the darkest legal sorcery - licenses.

This really shows the age of the TDM engine and non-PBR materials. Looks like UE4 is a good engine for making thief-like games after all. But if you want to stop people with the most basic lockpicking knowledge from facepalming hard, you have to watch some videos of the Lockpicking Lawyer. You can't rotate the cylinder of a pin tumbler lock that much untill all the pins are set correctly.

If you don't see a difference, chances are, you got an error when trying to switcgh between them and actually only saw one of them all the time.

Obviously the correct implementation would be "Show full outlines for the parts that aren't occluded". Not sure if that is possible in this engine - but i definitely played games doing that. And if that whole outline thing proves to be too hard to fix - the alternative of just painting some moving semi-transparent texture over the whole highlighted object is the solution i have seen in most games and it always worked pretty good when done subtle (the opposite of what we are voting for here).

Now, some time later, in my opinion, the outline itself isn't actually that bad an idea. But the current presets are waaaaaaaaay too much and really inaccurate/sloppy. Especially the third doesn't seem to honor occlusion that much. And the first misses some edges, while the second highlights geometry nodes as if its mission would be to mock the low-poly geometry of stock TDM models. If it would be more reliable, more accurate, a lot less bright in dark scenes (which are the majority in this game) - then it would probably be okay. Maybe, just layering some almost transparent scrolling alternating darkening/brightening sinus over the object in the frob focus and ditching the outline alltogether would still be the better option. Movement always attracts attention and therefore that method could probably get the job done with a fraction of the paint... P.S.: Still voted "won't regret much" on all options, because i am pretty sure, that the accuracy issues can be reduced and that someone will find a way to tone it down to a level not hurting my eyes (which would also help making the inaccuracies less obvious)...

Looks good, but the whole scene seems to get naticably brightened too. Not sure, whether just playing on slightly less gamma would fix that.

So horses have the same weight as rats?

Maybe, there could be a fixed set of different highlight strategies, which can be selected by the material and then applied by the highlight shader - so transparent stuff would get the treatment that currently is defined as stage in that flask's material. Preset 3 (the really soft one) actually wouldn't look too bad if you could get rid of the artifacts. It still literally highlights TDM's low standard asset polygon count though...

As the outline is the problem, "just disable outline!" actually is the fix. The old highlighting has its flaws in bright environments - but it still almost always worked just fine. So the new highlighting but without the outline should work just fine as well.

Another one who didn't google whether the most creative name he came up with has already been taken. And with the overall hatred, Lennart Poettering's systemd got, he can't even profit from brand leeching.

Hmm, if we had SSR, could GI be faked by having multiple additive SSR passes?

Better use your browsers inspect function. But there indeed are paragraphs consisting of only a non-breaking space between the lines. I too wonder, why nbohr1more did the extra work leading to a longer and less readable post.

I always thought that button would delete the entire mission folder because that would make a lot of sense when you have a mission download function. Never clicked it though. There always where some 20+ GiB behemoths to delete when i needed space... Would still advocate for promoting that button to actually delete the whole mission folder instead of just removing it. Was pretty close to the correct implementation already.

Nah, marketing thinks the impact factor of moose arrows to be superior...

Well, a moose arrow should certainly work fine for distracting the most thickheaded or even drunk guards...

Most can't see the top secret ones which are for inner circle eyes only... And frobbing is a pretty important mechanic which is hard to get right and is perceived to work pretty good in current stable by most players. So it is hard to improve. If you want to know the real potential maximum count of frob highlight threads, just ship the depth-ignoring glow version to stable users. A mere two really isn't that much...

I am all-in pro Wayland as it finally does GUI separation, which indeed is essential for desktop security when applications are expected to contain security-relevant bugs... But that feature doesn't actually require TDM to be Wayland-aware to work. And Wayland support would increase the maintenance burden. Is the wrapper actually affecting performance significantly on low-end hardware which runs TDM just fine without Wayland? Is TDM more likely to crash when running on the X wrapper?

Even in the city, kicking in doors can be appropriate. In the slums of Bridgeport, only the gangers will react to you doing such things. So if you time it right, you can do whatever you want. Immersion can be improved by rarely used game mechanics too. Having the option obviously doesn't count as much as actually doing it - but it still counts. The only question is, whether there is someone who implements it and makes it easy to integrate in missions.

Arx Fatalis excells in game design and manages to get way more fun playtime out of the rather small map areas. It takes ages if you explore carefully, try all the mechanics and don't quest in the optimal order. There also often exist multiple solutions to problems you might "waste" time trying out. Arx Fatalis doesn't use modular building. And the level designers did an insane job in hand crafting the environment making every location look unique and interesting. They really succeeded in creating that feeling of a multilevel ventilation-shaft-encircling underground dungeons sprawl. But every level's mapped out area is probably smaller than the City in "The Painter's Wife" or some other TDM missions i forgot the names of. Compared with TDM, the settlements in Arx Fatalis are a joke when it comes to size and count of rooms. But they feel big and you can walk almost the entire map area (way less unopenable doors and other gamey borders. It can be speedrun without using glitches in 40 minutes. The immersive design and mechanics (including crafting and automap) in Arx Fatalis make it bigger than the maps of its eight layers. It is one of the old "open world" games where the world is rather small but packed with unique stuff and interactivity instead of huge and filled with repetition.

TDM has some quite massive missions. Some rival Arx Fatalis (the game with the most immersive crafting system) in size. And while i almost never need healing, i still tend to eat food in missions - just because i can do so and it somehow feels good to get some healthy apple with your loot.

Yep, rope arrows suffer from that problem as well. You generally have to design missions with player tools in mind. So obviously any new stuff would only be available after explicit inclusion in missions by their authors. The TDM devs wouldn't just add some gameplay alteration to existing maps.

OpenTTD is licensed under GPL v.2 and has not been commercially released. Psychonauts 2 is a full-price title released last week. They are just a normal game distribution site. They no longer call themselves "Good old Games" - it is just "GOG" now...

In real life, graphite bombs are a proven surgical tool. You can use them to short-circuit whole transformer stations, a single overland power line, or a power plant connection station. Just be sure to detonate a single one above the target, so the cloud of graphite-coated filaments gets optimally spread over all the conductors. Carbon-coated filament might sound a bit hightech. But small-scale, just spreading coal dust might work fine in a steampunk game... Water arrows for torches and coal arrows for electric lights, steel for humans and silver for monsters...

Nexus Mods is a great site for getting new mods for games which don't provide a mod distribution infrastructure themselves. But maps/levels are provided ingame and there are only very few mods for TDM. So what is it, a TDM user would look for on Nexus Mods? Players in general don't search for new games on mod distribution sites. They come there after they got a game they want to add some more flaver to using mods. Often they even wait until the second playthrough before even evaluating what the mod scene offers. But luckily, there are specialized game distribution sites - like Steam, GOG, Epicgames, and Itch.io. So if you seek more exposure, try getting TDM listed there first.