STiFU

Distinguishing loot from junk can sometimes be tricky. I just tried to remedy this situation by allowing a different froboutline color for inventory items. I've set up an extremely subtle grey-blueish outline for junk, but a rather strong yellow outline for inv / loot. I think it works quite well...

Actually, after being flashed, the ai should be blackjackable from any direction, just like sleeping AI, so if you aim at the head, you should be good. I agree that we ought to revise the blackjacking rules. They are awfully complex. The blackjack helper is a way to counter these complex rules: It raises when you aim at a position from an angle that would get the AI KO'd, although sometimes this did not result in a KO for me, too, sooo. Maybe we can tackle this topic for 2.15. However, don't expect it to become as easy as in the originals, as that was crazy overpowered.

Just so everybody knows that this issue is resolved and does not need further investigation/reporting: There was an issue that items attached the BinaryFrobMovers (like the Pendulum in DISPLACEMENT or drawers) could not be picked up. Instead, they would trigger door handling, at least on long-frob. The problem here is that for attachments like door handles, we need to get the bind-master, i.e., the door, to execute the door handling. For loot on drawers, this leads to the described misbehaviour. The solution was to move some things around so that inventory items get processed earlier than doors. Fixed at revision 11135.

It exists because it always bothered me that we have this super cool drag-and-drop for body limbs (in Thief-control-style), but that it is not consistently applied to all entities. Refactoring the frob-handling code was also long overdue, as it accumulated a lot of technical debt over time, with crazy state-leakage and what not. So, I hit two birds with one stone: A clean frobhandling routine and two new frob control styles in TDM and TDM-inverted, the latter being my own personal holy grail and I am certain there will also be other players who like it. Edit: By the way, in TDM-inverted and Thief control style, unshoulder body is consistent.

The reason why I decreased it is not the door control, but the hold-type grabber. If there is a big delay and the player rotates the view, the object will attach very late. In the long-term, I would like to address this by slowly moving the grabber object to the center of the screen, but for now, that is the situation we are in. If a door remained closed on pseudo-long-frob, that can only mean that you used tdm_door_control 1, which is experimental and definitely not finished. With both other modes, the door should open at least slightly. The 1s hold-time you are citing is wildly exaggerated. If at all, you can only be talking about controller inputs, but even there a long-press is usually significantly shorter than 1s. And we are not talking about a controller here, but a mouse. According to this post on stack-overflow, which also cites a paper that I sadly cannot access, the average mouseclick lasts 85 ms with an upper bound of 135 ms. This is well within the default value of 200 ms. If you actually have problems with the current delay, just increase it. If many players show up with issues in this regard, I will gladly increase the delay back to 300 ms again. The door mechanic does still have a few quirks. That's what the beta is for. One of them was fixed, see above, another one was found in Welli's and Amadeus' FM and I will fix it tonight. To be frank, if you fail to aim at something as huge as a door, the error lies not in the programming. Just kidding! I just adopted the existing control scheme for unshouldering bodies. You suggestion might be something we could consider for 2.15.

This is a different issue than what @Wellingtoncrabreferenced. It is already fixed and will hopefully come to next beta, see frob changes beta thread.

Found a reference to #3431 in the relevant code section. So, it seems that - at least to some degree - there was some intention behind the current behavior. Sadly, no further details on why the animation was not extended. Did that simply not occur to grayman?

Maybe that should become a core-feature. If what you're saying is accurate, that shopping generally affects the loot totals, it should probably always be on the stats page.

It is spawnarg "blind_time" (default=8s) ± a random value on the range of spawnarg "blind_time_fuzziness" (default=4s), but mate, how about you just playtest this rather than theorizing about it? The whole point of this thread is to find a decent value for the duration based on player experience:

Ok, got it. I guess we should evaluate how many missions there are that use a mission.cfg and whether they set any archived cvars. We would need to patch those missions then, but what should the engine do, when it encounters a mission.cfg because somebody has an old mission lying around? Would that FM be kind of broken then, according to the author's intent?

I get it, but still, would be nice for the player to see what percentage of loot they found. @joebarnin, if you are curious, use the command tdm_show_loot at the end to check what loot is still missing. Maybe look on the ground before executing the command so you don't spoil hiding places to yourself.

Haha, that's a nice bug. When checking for mantling options, we are checking the player collision model only at the target location, so that explains this bug. It won't be easy to fix so this will not get into the currently running 2.14 beta anymore. I have added created a bugtracker entry for this. Thanks for the report.

Damn, @Amadeus, you didn't end up implementing my suggestion after all?

Could we not simply automatically replace any occurence of "set" in mission.cfg with "setm" and we are done?

Confirmed and fixed, at revision: 11133. Thanks for the report. But that's exactly the point of TDM-inverted-style: You grab nothing with short-frob. Grabbing is only long frob and short-frob is only ever a use-type interaction. In TDM-style, it is the other way around: grabbing is always short-frob and using is always long-frob. On Thief-style, however, we have kind of a weird mixture, with bodies being grabbed on long-frob and all other entities being grabbed on short-frob.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, @Taffingtaffer. I think that is a good suggestion and that it could be done, but it would again be quite a design change. I am not sure I want to open this can of worms in beta. Does the current behavior seriously impact your gameplay or is this just a nice to have? Maybe this could be postponed to 2.15 or a future dev build? @stgatilov do you concur? I don't understand what you are suggesting here. Could you elaborate? Certainly, yes. I've had the idea, too, and I would furthermore like to explore if the force-open and force-close could be used to KO AI. However, again, 2.14 is pretty much feature-locked. These latest additions were an exception. These suggestions will have to wait for the next dev-build after 2.14 release.

As long as the guard was not alerted, he will be blackjackable for the full duration. Being flashed currently does not raise the alert level, as far as I am aware. That is exactly the situation where the change should be active. Flash an alerted guard, and he should be blackjackable for 1,5s afterwards. Was that not the case? Please note that we are not going to fix all flash bomb issues in 2.14 beta like that lacking looping of the flashed-animation. Let's focus on the change at hand in this thread, please.

The animation should be looped until they are not blinded anymore. This is currently not the case apparently (#6636), but since it should ultimately loop, we should not tie this duration to the animation.

What's your tdm_frob_control_style? What you describe sounds pretty weird. Maybe related to the immobilization induced by the grabber? Please try different FMs and the Training Mission as well.

@stgatilov noted that some of my changes were hidden too well, because they are only introduced as cvars. One of those is tdm_frob_item_selects_item. When you pick up an item, it normally gets automatically selected in your inventory (bottom-right screen corner). With this new cvar switch activated, picked-up items will not be auto-selected anymore. A similar option for weapons already existed. While the latter makes an actual difference in the gameplay (equipping a weapon changes your light gem), the prior is purely cosmetic and intended for those who like to immerse themselves as much as possible by disabling HUD elements. I figured the audience for such a feature is probably rather small, so I left it as a cvar for now.

@Everyone, I have created two additional beta threads specifically for gameplay changes / additions, so we can discuss feedback and report issues in a structured manner there.

This is now included in 2.14 beta. When attached to ladders, you can now toggle the crouch-intent state again. If you attach crouched, you can stand up once, but not get back to crouched state. As I said, that was an intentional design decision from way back, but we might revisit this for 2.15.

As was suggested in this discussion, non-elite AI can now be KO'd from any direction for a brief duration after being flashed. That duration is subject to balancing, which is one of the goals of this thread. The reasoning here is that we did want to make the flashbomb and flashmine a little more useful, but not overpowered in the way that you could clear out entire rooms with a single one. The default value for this duration is currently 1500 ms, i.e., 1.5 s. You can change it via the cvar tdm_ai_ko_susceptibility_after_flash_duration in the unit of milliseconds. If you set the duration to "infinity", non-elite AI can be KOed for the full duration of the flash. Bugtracker: #6636. 2.14 Beta Please post issues and feedback related to KO after flash here. Please also try out some different values for the duration (tdm_ai_ko_susceptibility_after_flash_duration) and give feedback if the current default is suitable or if and why it should be changed. Pinging some players that previously showed interest in this feature: @chumbucket91, @chakkman, @Epifire, @nbohr1more, @snatcher

This thread is intended for discussing and reporting things about the new frob changes during beta. Most of the description below was already given in a previous thread. Bugtracker: #6658, #6668. New Frob Control Styles I have completely refactored the frob-handling code. Now, it is easy to setup different frob control styles. There are currently 3 (and a half), which you can try in 2.14 beta. Under "Settings > Gameplay > General > Hold Frob/Interact" (cvar tdm_frob_control_style), you can change the frob control style. This setting replaced the previous hold frob delay setting (tdm_holdfrob_delay), because I think that nobody would touch that value unless they want to disable the holdfrob mechanic, which can now be achieved by the new setting as well. The currently available control styles are: Disabled: No hold-frob mechanic, i.e., pre v2.12 control style TDM: Short frob is the same as pre v2.12, but long frob is a shortcut for "grab and then use" (use-type interactions) Thief (v2.12): Same as TDM, but behaviour for bodies is swapped. Body limbs are interacted with via "drag and drop". TDM-inverted: Short frob for use-type interactions, hold frob to "drag and drop" objects (when you release the mouse button, you will release the object) I always loved the drag and drop interaction with body limbs created by Daft Mugi and I wanted to see it consistently extended to all objects, which motivated the refactor. I am very happy with the result and I hope you players enjoy it as much as I do. The Thief control style will still remain the default settings, however, as I didn't want to open that can of worms. Hold-Frob Mechanic for Doors There was previously no hold-frob mechanic for doors, except for experimental manual door control feature. I have added two additional new control modes for hold-frob on doors, which you can activate through the cvar tdm_door_control. The modes are: 0: Disabled 1: Manual door fine control (experimental, existing feature) 2: Hold frob to slowly move doors. They are opened and closed alternatingly, just like regular frobbing a door, but interrupting a moving door is skipped. 3: Hold frob to slowly open doors. Additionally, I added in the ability to quickly force close a door by holding frob and pressing attack. It felt like mode 3 ("Slow Open") gave the most benefits and most direct controls to the player and pairs well with the force-close mechanic. So, I just set "Slow Open" as the default and I did not add it to the settings menu, but you are of course encouraged to try the other modes as well. The idea behind this addition is that the player can now slowly sneak and peak through a door, but then can also quickly shut the door again if the player deems the situation unsafe. This adds more skill expression and creates further immersion. 2.14 Beta Please use this thread to report any issues with frobbing (always state tdm_frob_control_style and tdm_door_control configuration), the new door control modes (please test them rigorously) and to give feedback on any of the above changes. Pinging players that previously showed interest in this: @wesp5, @snatcher, @Baal, @Skaruts, @Wellingtoncrab, @Amadeus

Congrats on the release. Incredible achievement! Enjoy people, this one is a banger!!