Destined
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Posts posted by Destined
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A simple skip mission button may not be enough. How would you determine loot gathered? And maybe you have optional objectives that are transferred into later missions (not sure if the currently existing campaigns have any of these, but I know that it is possible). You could randomise these or give them set values when skipping, of course, but if a player would like to play "his" version, he would still have to repeat the mission. This is why I said, it would be best, if the Mission Statistics would get stored and could be read out, even if a mission is added later on.
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9 hours ago, Darkpixel said:
If the bug was gamebreaking then it's a good thing they released the update, otherwise the mission would not work, I don't see how campaigns affects any of this.
The problem would be that, if this is not the first mission of the campaign, you would have to start the campaign from zero again. This becomes annoying after some time. Imagine you have a four mission campaign that is released over four years. You would have to play the first mission four times, the second three times and the third twice just if you want to finish it. If there are (crutial) bugfix updates to the campaign or an update to TDM, while you are playing it, these numbers would further increase and earlier missions are more likely to be affected in this case. So, after the third or fourth time the first mission might just get a bit boring.
In general, I agree to your sentiment: it would be nice to have a better campaign support. I could imagine something like in Dishonored, where you can choose Missions you already finished (or the next one, you have not finished, yet) from a screen. Mission stats (and variables that are transferred from mission to mission) could be printed in a dedicated txt-file and read out for each mission. That way you could replay missions that you liked without having to replay all and it might make it easier to add missions afterwards. However, this requires a new GUI for campaigns, which adds whole lot of work to this suggestion.
6 hours ago, Darkpixel said:I'm not too great at programming yet, I'm still learning, I'd likely make things worse. And I wouldn't consider it "very little improvement" if the issues with the system are bad enough that almost nobody is using it.
I also know this problem. I have no experience with programming whatsoever. On this board you are usually told to just pick a project and start with it. The rest will come eventually. Unfortunately, I would not know where to even start. I have no idea how to read the source code, so I would also have no idea how to change what or even where to start looking for a project like this.
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Not necessarily. You could adjust the available money according to your needs afterwards. Of course, this means that not all the loot you gathered is visible in the next mission, but if it is simply multiplied by a factor X (maybe even flexible according to difficulty), this still means that you would have the most options, if you collected 100% loot. The loot requrements would also still give a hint on how much money is available. That way, even without knowing the exact amount, the map author still has an estimate, which items can be afforded in the worst and best cases.
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Another problem in releasing campaigns is that the missions have to be released at the same time and for many (if not all) campaigns released step by step, it took several years until the missions were released, so it was preferable to have missions at the point that they were ready. I am not sure how difficult it would be to bundle the missions into a campaign afterwards, but in most cases the authors prefer to concentrate on new projects rather than working on old ones, if they are still active at all.
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Yeah, breakable lockpciks would be really annoying in a game like this. The TDS system was also quite nice. Personally, I prefer a system, where you can do something yourself, so it not only depends on choosing the right lockpick and holding down a button (i.e. the TDP and TMA style). The current bethesda ones are fine, but still not my favourite. Then again: it is you game, so you choose what you think is best
34 minutes ago, chakkman said:I absolutely hated the lockpicking in Oblivion TBH.
Almost became desperate sometimes when another lock pick broke because I couldn't hit the extremely narrow time window to pick. IMO, the Skyrim and Fallout system is much superior.
I understand the frustration people had with the system, but I liked that it quite realistically showed what happens, when picking a lock. And if you got some expereince with it, you could pick locks that were far above your current level (still used quicksave spamming a lot). I imagine that this system without breakable lockpicks and no time limit could be fun.
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I agree that it looks quite interesting, although it was a bit rushed in the video. It would be nice if you would allow your viewers some time to actually read stuff you pick up without them having to pause. Regarding voice acting, I did not find it too bad, but a bit strange that the internal voice is suddenly heard from one side at some point. The lockpicking system from (modern) Bethesda games is fine, although I personally prefer the ones from Oblivion or Splinter Cell (not sure which part), where you actually see what happens inside the lcok. But this is personal taste... Anyway, great job! I would absolutely play it, when there is something to play.
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Just scrolled through and there are almost no games that I actually played. Well, currently I wait until games are around 30€ before I buy them, so it is not really surprising. One exception from this rule was Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I found this to be an excellent game.
I am quite surprised how many people here have played Hades. I thought about buying it, but so far have not done so (I have Children of Morta as a rogue lite game, if I have this itch to scratch), but if it is this recommended here, I am really thinking about getting it. I have loved Transistor and Bastion, so if this is of similar quality (which I would expect from Supergiant Games), I get it soon.
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10 hours ago, chakkman said:
If none of the first world people would be so prone to disaster, panic and hysteria, then better coughs and sneezes wouldn't be made into catastophic pandemics.
Ok, I can accept opinions and if you don't like the #metoo or #blm movements, this is up to you, but calling a global pandemic, that has caused 1.3 million (reported) deaths in less than a year and appears to have severe long-lasting effects that cannot be foreseeable, yet, "better coughs and sneezes" is simply ignorant. And not forgetting hospitals and intensive care units reaching the limits of their capacities. Apparently, you yourself have been spared so far and I am glad for you that you have, but this disease is not a "first world problem" that people make up, because they have no other problems. It is a global problem that affects each and every country. Downplaying it like you did is almost as bad as protesting against the restrictions that may have already saved millions of lives and will futher do, if people adhere to them. But you are not far behind...
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The signs work slightly different. See this Wiki page.
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7 hours ago, Xolvix said:
I feel somewhat bad for living in Australia. COVID-19 is basically a non-entity now; hell in my state it's been almost 100 days since the last locally transmitted case (all our new cases are the result of people from overseas who go into quarantine immediately). We've had 4 deaths in our state since the beginning of the pandemic. In fact, in total Australia has had 907 deaths since the pandemic began. The US recently reported 1,562 deaths in a single day. The US is a lot bigger but still. Europe isn't having much fun either though, so I'm not trying to gang up on the US alone.
On the plus side there seems to be multiple effective vaccines in the manufacturing pipeline, so an end is coming. Hopefully we can get this shit sorted by mid next year and international travel becomes viable again.
Don't feel bad; just be glad instead. I am from Germany and we currently appear to have passed the worst of the second wave of the pandemic. It was far worse than the first, but still we at least had enough beds in intensive care that we were not completely overwhelmed. Also, fortunately, I live in a region that wasn't hit as hard as others. We never passed the 100 new infections per 100 000 people per day. However, it is sad to see that there are a lot of covidiots here. We used to make fun of the US and how stupid they behave, but during the second wave had several demonstrations against the regulations (which completely ignored, of course). Not sure what these people are thinking
I also hope that the vaccines will work without major side effects, but we will have to wait and see about that.
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Yes, as far as I understand, this should work.
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14 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:
Thanks, that clears up quite a bit. I now remember reading about those frame commands briefly a while ago. This sort of thing is why I love idTech4... people can point out it's a 15 year old engine all they want, it's still cutting edge tech to me
So simply giving the AI an animation with effects using a path_anim node should work, the effects happen automatically for existing ones? Like peeing animation has particles, dice playing animation has the dice roll sounds, etc?
I'm still assuming that to override the animation of a specific AI, I need to use a spawnarg on either the path (ideally) or the AI entity. Like if I want the AI to walk using a specific walking animation, can I give the path_corner a direction in that sense? Or like my previous example... if I want an AI to sit on the ground using the beggar animation, can I tell path_sit I want an override when the AI uses it?
Yes, usually the animations already have the required particles and sounds. Regarding AIs playing cards or dice, take a look at the AI prefabs. There are ones for playing cards as well as dice. In case of playing cards, the animations are defined on the playing cards and do not need to be definded on the path-entity. Just take a look at the spawnargs they have. There are several "replace_anim_*" spawnargs, that define which animations will replaced with which, when the prop is attached.
I am not sure which other walking animations you mean. There is the option to let an AI run towards a path_corner with the "run" spawnarg on corner the AI should run to. Apart from that, I am not sure, which other walk animations there are, or which you want to use. One option would be the said "replace_anim_*" spawnarg on props. You could create a dummy-prop without a model, replace any animation with the respective spawnarg, and def_attach it to the AI. Also not sure which animation you mean for the beggar. Do we have one, where he sits on the ground? I did not see it...
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10 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:
Something I couldn't find on the wiki still is how to have characters do some more complex animations; I already know how to find an animation in the "md5 animation viewer" then set it on a path. But for example: How do I override the default idle animation, or walking animation, or sitting animation... so when a character normally does those things they use a special override for each one? For instance: When they sit down, sit like a beggar instead of like on a chair. I've even seen some FM's make guards pee on trees (particle effects and all) but how is even that achieved? Also many FM's have characters armed with non-standard weapons, like spears or maces... where do I find those in a format that allows me to def_attach them on an AI so it also changes their fighting behavior?
And I'm assuming that if an animation doesn't show up in the md5 viewer, something like it doesn't exist? I was hoping for a few extra ones... such as praying (eg: for builders) or dancing (could have sure used that at the banquet in my FM).
Peeing is an animation that you can find in the md5 animation viewer. It is called "urinate". Adding particles to animations can be done via frame commands, if they are not already included (like it is the case for urinate). You can even call scripts and do other stuff at a certain frame of an animation with these commands.
For different weapons on AI, you can check out this Wiki page, although it is not complete. Apparently, it is sufficient to simply def_attach the weapon you want and the rest is automated like when you attach a torch.
Additional animations are rather difficult. Some only require specific channels of the AI, so it works that you first play that (e.g. sit) and then use an animation that only uses the upper body. However, praying would be rather difficult in this regard, because the animation you would most likely need is kneel_down, but the AI stands up during animation itself, so I assume that you cannot couple it to another animation.
And dancing is very difficult to animate, if you don't want it to look compeletely silly. I have only dabbled in very basic animations and have seen that even something like that is difficult to get to look realistic. Dancing has quite complex movements and as a consequence is way harder to get right in animations.-
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1 hour ago, MirceaKitsune said:
Had a longer discussion on Discord about the lights (thanks go to @peter_spy for offering quite a bit of help). In the end I figured out a way to obtain what I want... a little hacky if you're strict about the setup, but I looked into every method I'm planning to use and everything seems to be in order not something I'd expect to break in future TDM versions.
There was another list of things going through my mind, as I'm trying to take notes for multiple features I plan to use at various points. To count down another question off my list:
Is there a map setting that permits me to have lower gravity? Yes, I know this isn't scifi and I'm not trying to make space ships or anything (hmmm... should I though...): I'm thinking of using this for stuff like surreal realms or hellish worlds and that sort of thing. I'm okay with the setting being universal to that map (not area based) but will want it to affect everything including the player (who can jump higher and fall more slowly) as well as physical objects like if you pick up and throw a candle.
I think, what you want to achieve can be achieved with a force field. MAybe you could also change stuff in the player entity (see the limits wiki page), but I am not sure if these limits can explicitly defined or if they are set via other args
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Congratulations!
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12 hours ago, Tarhiel said:
Similarly, I would also welcome keychain as an optional purchasable object at the beginning of the mission for those of us, who does not want to scroll through many keys in their inventory and are afraid of dropping them in case they might need them.
Keychain would act as 1 object which you can use on the doors, and if you have the key to the right doors, they would open after the use - it has already been implemented the Thief COSAS fanmissions - it´s neat little thing.
All the keys should stack on the keyring and not take place in the inventory, if the player had purchased it, with the exception of special keys (ancient runes/non-typical shaped keys).
These two Quality of Life improvements I would welcome with the open arms
I like this idea and it is not that difficult to implement in new missions. You would have to remove the respective key, when it is taken by the player and have to change the value "used_by" on the door to the keychain. If I remember correctly, AIs do not have to have a key in order to open locked doors, so this would make no difference for them. Making it optional would take some more effort, but should also be doable with a bit of scripting.
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12 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:
I'd argue that if mappers want a light to be extinguishable they must use torches; Sometimes an electric light simply fits the theme better and makes more sense.
An EMP arrow turning off electric lights could also have a slightly different functionality: The light only goes down for a limited amount of time, unlike a torch which is extinguished forever unless an AI relights it. I think that would be a lot better and add some difference to the mix.
Needless to say that in any existing FM the default functionality would not change; For the EMP arrow to work, the mapper would have to add it in their FM once this were implemented, which means they want this functionality. Old maps will not allow electric lights to be extinguished unless edited to add such arrows.
7 hours ago, demagogue said:@Destined, others have said this, but I think your point works the opposite way. It's not the role of the core game to dictate what a mapper does (I mean within reason; it shouldn't help mappers make a completely different game). It's the role of the core game to give options to the mapper to make the map they want. Some may want to also make electric lights & robots disable-able and some may not. Even though I brought it up, I don't have a strong opinion about it though. It'd be a kind of gimmick arrow for special case FMs, not for normal use anyway.
I admit, I have been a bit narrow minded reagarding these arrows. And I agree: it will not have influence on any older missions and if mappers want to use them, they can do so. If I don't like them, I don't have to use them. Btw. there are also other flame based lamps, that are not torches, which could be used (e.g. oil lamps, candles), but I get the gist. And the timed turning off lights might actually be quite interesting.
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I hate to be the devil's advocate, but I think the EMP-arrow is unnecessary. It's purpose is to extinguish electical lights. However, electical lights are meant to be not-extinguishable. If the map designer would have wanted a light source to be extinguishable in a specific place, he/she would have put a flame-based light source there. It would only make designing maps more diffcult as map authors would have to consider the possibilty that any electrica light source could be extinguished. The way it is right now is quite clear: if there is a flame-based light source it can be extinguished, if it is electrical you will have to find another way around or time it correctly so guards don't see you. The only thing the EMP-arrow would achieve is to blurr this definition.
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10 hours ago, ddaazzaa said:
I’m creating my first FM for any game ever. I’ve got the bulk of the mission completed and have a handful of things to left to add and tweak. I have a few questions which might have simple solutions.
1. I’ve created a manor/mansion and it starts with all of the lights off. I have a circuit breaker that restores power and therefore most of the lights will turn on. I know this can be done by setting the lights “start_off” to 1 and connecting all of the lights to the switch. I have started to create a nested solution. Every light in a section of the manor is connected to a hidden switch, that switch is then linked to the main circuit breaker switch. This means only a handful of switches are linked to the main circuit breaker rather than every light in the whole manor.
With the lights setup this way, it means I can’t have any light switches around otherwise you could turn the lights on with having the main power switched on.
Is there a more efficient/better way of setting this up?
2. This also leads to another problem, I have an electric elevator that is operated by a button but I only want it to operate when the circuit breaker (power) is on.
You could achieve this by having each switch have no target at map start and have the circuit breaker target a trigger that then adds the lights as targets (apart from turning the lights on) via the Stim/Response system. If you have not worked with the Stim/Response system so far, just ask, then I can give you some pointers or check out the Wiki page, if you would rather infrom yourself. The disadvantage is, that you would have to set this up manually for each switch and the according light. Do you intend that the circuit breaker can be turned off again or the "turn on" permanent? The former case may be a bit more complicated.
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2 minutes ago, Geep said:
@STRUNK, thanks for trying that AI spawn; the game freeze does kinda rule that method out. Interesting idea to use setKey in addition to setName, and a script wrapper function. I'll play around with that approach when get the project to that point...other bigger (but familiar) alligators being wrestled currently.
@Destined, I wasn't so much concerned about the name the player sees, but what the trigger entities and scripts reference. To elaborate, suppose I have a path_waitfortrigger, which expects the AI to be triggered. If you have 2 versions of the AI, either of which might be going down this path, and you can't swap the names while preserving the trigger link, then you'll have to trigger both instances. And hope that the one in the blue room absorbs the trigger without consequence. That will be my fallback if the STRUNK approach doesn't pan out.
Ah, ok. I see the problem. One workaround would be to copy the whole setup for both AIs. I.e. copy all triggers, scripts, etc., so you have one version of the same setup for each AI. That way it does not matter which of the two AIs is currently active, but it would always activate everything for the currently active one. This would be rather tedious, but you could avoid any mixup between the two versions.
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2 minutes ago, STRUNK said:
Aha .. in the s/r editor it says to set the name of the model, not the path, but that way it works indeed. Although if the new model should be an entity like loot, and not a static model the remove/spawn trick would do the trick : )
About the stim I didn't know but that's good to know also.
This is correct. It depends on what you want to do. But in this case it sounded like something purely cosmetic.
The stim thing is something I also did wrong for some time, until it was explained to me. Good to know that I am not the only one that misinterpreted it
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2 hours ago, Geep said:
@Destined , your comment about changing a model relates to a upcoming issue for me. I've got an AI character that will have 2 different bodies, though only 1 will be seen by the player at any time (think: a change of clothes). I could imagine one approach, elegant if it worked, would be to instantiate both versions, but swap their names somehow.
If there's a renaming method that works on AI, then I imagine you'd use the usual pattern:
rename(AI_2 --> AI_setaside); rename(AI_1 --> AI_2); rename (AI_setaside --> AI_1)
to avoid having 2 objects with the same name momentarily.
So, is it possible to rename an AI character in mid-game? If so would that break things?
I'm guessing that scripts that reference the AI name would be just fine, but that triggers that target the AI may break
Anyone tried this in the past?
Not 100% sure, what your setup should be, but why does the AI need to have the same name? I don't think that there is a way for the player to get the name of an AI (although I am not sure if it is displayed, when the unconcious/dead body gets shouldered, but in that case, I believe you can define the name and it does not have to be unique). If the AI should be able to switch back and forth between both forms, I would go with a teleport method: create two separate AIs, the "original" in the map and the "switched" in a blackbox room somewhere else. When the body change should occur, just teleport the "switched" to the position of the "original" and the "original" into the blackbox. Vice versa, when the AI should change back.
2 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:Sounds good, I don't need to change it back. What's the simplest and shortest way to write a S/R effect that activates once an objective is completed?
The simplest way would be: create your entity. In the entity tab got to "Stim/Response...". There you go to the Response tab, choose Trigger as the response type, in the right window RMB and "Add New Effect", select Set Model with target: _SELF and Model: the model you want to have.
In order to have an objective trigger this, I would create a Trigger entity with the entity you want to chang as target and write this Trigger entity into the "Completion Target" field of the objective. I hope I did not forget anything.
55 minutes ago, STRUNK said:I tried the set model s/r and I kept getting black boxes so I tried "remove" and "spawn entity" and that works.
Select the entity tht must change upon a trigger from the objective and give it trigger as stim and trigger as response, then add effect remove, and select the object that you are setting the s/r on, and then add an other effect spawn entity. There you set the entity that it must become, and fill in the origin. For the origin just place th entity in the right place and copy the coördinates.
This is strange. The black box usually means that the model could not be found. Are you sure you put in the model path correctly?
The trigger stim is not necessary, because this means that the entity emits a trigger stim.
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In the S/R-system there is a response effect "Set Model", which should do what you want; at least for a one-time change. Just set the response type to trigger and give it this effect. If you want to switch back to the old model, it would get more complex.
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The first thing I can think of would be to define a "wait" (and "wait_max") spawnarg similar to a "path_wait" node. This ensures that the AI spends the proper time at the path_anim node.
Free games
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Oh, cool. "Unfortunately", I bought it some time ago (for like 10 €, if not less). I have not finished it, but it was fun. So, for free, I can only recommend it.