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I suggest you use the term "I", to make clear that it is something YOU want, and that you speak for yourself. But, as wesp5 mentioned, I don't really know what this is about, at all. And, I'm also wondering about all the newly registered people lately, who just arrived at this forum, and already want to revolutionize this mod. This is a thing I noticed 2 or 3 years ago, and which hasn't been present in the 15 years I play this mod and frequent these forums now. Really seems like a common thing these days, to not knock on the door, but kick it in, and stomp right in.

TDM has tons of textures from "free" texture resources that do not allow redistribution and cannot be incorporated into a commercial project. Someone would need to create a huge replacement pack of textures that do not break the look of existing missions and do not infringe on the copyrighted textures. Also, many artists who contributed to this project do not want 3rd party entities to use their work in commercial projects. They intended the models, textures, sounds, animations to be exclusively used for Darkmod content. You would either have to replace ALL assets or contact every contributor and ask them to re-license their assets. Many contributors are no longer active with the project and haven't visited the forums in years so it would be no easy feat. I cannot speak to Debian policy but I think that they treat installers that add non-free content the same as non-free content itself. One could argue that Steam is such an installer but I guess Debian would counter that there are a few fully Libre games on Steam. I think Debian, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint need to consider a repo that allows for games (etc) that include non-libre content but intentionally offer this content for free to the community with no stipulations other than "don't try to sell it as a product".

The gamepad implementation allows for a great degree of flexibility to personalize settings, aside from a few minor issues that I mentioned here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22337-gamepad-bindings/ I would say that playing TDM with a gamepad works very well, especially considering that it was implemented as experimental and hasn't been changed since then. If I could, I'd go back to 2021-you and congratulate you on buying that gamepad. I notice that your DarkmodPadbinds.cfg looks very different from mine...

Thanks! 1) Doing LONG_PRESS PAD_A (what I, for lack of knowledge, call "jump-mantle" or "_jumpmantle") differs from doing PRESS PAD_A ("_jump"). "_jumpmantle" differs from "_mantle", so they must be mapped to different button-calls. "_jumpmantle" differs from "_jump", so they must also be mapped to different button-calls. This appears to be the case, but it is not evident (or changeable) in DarkmodPadbinds.cfg. "_jumpmantle" seems to be hard coded to always connect to the same button as "_jump" but with a long press. It is as if bindPadButton PRESS PAD_A "_jump" is not actually just binding PRESS PAD_A to "_jump", but rather interpreted as "link PAD_A (regardless of button press time) to behave exactly like keyboard SPACE for short and long presses". I would have expected the default DarkmodPadbinds.cfg to explicitly read: bindPadButton PRESS PAD_A "_jump" bindPadButton LONG_PRESS PAD_A "_jumpmantle" bindPadButton PRESS PAD_B "_crouch" bindPadButton LONG_PRESS PAD_B "_mantle" ... but neither LONG_PRESS PAD_A or "_jumpmantle" is listed in the file. If there are actions "_jump" and "_mantle", I suppose there must also be an action "_jumpmantle" since it is possible for the player to do all those movements: * "_mantle" does the movements "crouch on the high surface, then stand up" * "_jumpmantle" idoes the movements "jump slightly forward, then land standing on the high surface" * "_jump" idoes the movements "jump up, then land exactly where you started" If the actions "_jump" and "_moveup" are not synonymous, then perhaps the action "_moveup" is what i call "_jumpmantle"? 2) Thanks for the link! It was useful in more than one way. I'll link to that page from https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Bindings_and_User_Settings#Gamepad_Default_Bindings if I can get an account on the wiki, which proved more difficult than i thought (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22327-how-can-i-create-an-account-on-the-tdm-wiki/). However, it does not answer my question how to find out the name ("<button>") used for a button on my gamepad. Basically, I would need to press the button on my gamepad and some program could tell me "That button is called 'PAD_A'". In my case, I have a gamepad "Logitech F310" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logitech_F310_Gamepad.jpg) which has a "Logitech button" (see image) that I want to use. I was hoping to find out the "button name" for that button and then edit DarkmodPadbinds.cfg to map it to a function. 3) ... but if that button has an "unusual name" that TDM does not recognize, then it may perhaps not work. E.g. if that button is called "PAD_LOGITECH" and TDM cannot recognize that name, then I cannot map anything to it via DarkmodPadbinds.cfg. Using QJoyPad I can map any keyboard key to it instead, as a workaround, but I cannot map MODIFIER to it (since MODIFIER cannot be set to a keyboard key). If current implementation is still called "experimental", then I must say it works very well; @cabalistic: kudos for that! I may not have continued playing TDM had it not worked with a gamepad.

It is possible that this is a setting that needs to be activated to work: https://mantisbt.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23221

I dom't use it, i found it here with the filter set to OpenSource. the TOS and PP isn't excluding for an OpenSource app, if they use ads mean that they also need to pay an server for this online service. OpenSource is not synonymous with free either, perhaps after the beta phase it is no longer free, so perhaps you can take advantage of the fact that it is still free to create a series of textures that can be used or search another one in Futuretools. AI generated textures and assets, by definition, don't have any copyright, so you can use them as you want. https://www.futuretools.io/?pricing-model=free|open-source&tags-n5zn=gaming

It's easy to imagine how #1 can be solved fairly: When the player or an enemy AI shoot an armed AI, the AI that was hit should be given a random destination near the attacker to run to. The further the player is from the target, the larger the radius around the player in which a random node may be picked; If you're far away the virtual sphere should be large, meaning AI may run to a room or passage near you but still in your general direction . This new behavior should be influenced by AI acuity and difficulty settings though I'm not sure which ones... also toggled by one, for those who prefer the old way and abusing clueless guards as they wonder what force of the universe must be hitting them. By the way, and I just realized this now: The problem doesn't only affect attacks, but also spotting the player before attacking. Think of the last time a guard standing outside spotted you on a balcony before you hid, enough to draw their swords and start searching but not attack you outright; The guard was alerted by something in a building, yet he draws his sword to search the area near him. If I'm standing outside and think I see a burglar in my house through the window, I'm going to go near my home if I plan to confront the possible intruder, not start looking around the road next to me and say "I know you're here somewhere" which would imply I have a serious problem Main reason I mention #2 is when I helped with transcribing the subtitles for the drunk voice, I noticed there are voice lines for AI returning with an ally. Two in fact: If the player is still there the AI has a voice line for telling the other person "that's the one let's get him", if the player hid there are lines such as "you were too slow now he got away". Those voices in particular are never played, or at least I don't remember ever hearing them in all those years: It occurred to me while I wrote this post that they're likely designed for a mechanic that was never implemented... or was but broke very long ago? Curious what its history is.

I am going to sort-of reveal that this is loosely like the nature of my upcoming mission. I noted it here when JackFarmer asked about things that are coming along in this post: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/profile/37993-jackfarmer/&status=3943&type=status It too is a builder church. The player is requested by a hopefully famous character in another mission to handle some business that is affecting the congregation. I am looking to invoke some info and history laid down in other missions as a hook story.

I created the page: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Lightgem In the source I placed the following text: <!-- Page text made by forum user Fiver: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22327-how-can-i-create-an-account-on-the-tdm-wiki/&do=findComment&comment=491145 --> Personally I think the page isn't really necessary because the info is already present under HUD.

DarkRadiant 3.8.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Support new frob-related material keywords Improvement: Mission selection list in Game setup is not alphabetically sorted Improvement: Better distinction between inherited and regular spawnargs Improvement: Silence sound shader button Improvement: Add Reload Definitions button to Model Chooser Fixed: Model Selector widgets are cut off and flicker constantly on Linux Fixed: DarkRadiant will not start without Dark Mod plugins Fixed: GenericEntityNode not calculating the direction correctly with "editor_rotatable" Fixed: RenderableArrow not drawing the tip correctly for arbitrary rotations Fixed: Light Inspector crashes on Linux Fixed: Models glitch out when filtering then showing them Fixed: Skin Editor: models not centered well in preview Fixed: "Copy Resource Path" includes top level folders Fixed: Skin Editor: internal test skins are shown if Material Editor was open previously Fixed: Changing Game/Project doesn't update loaded assets correctly Fixed: Model Chooser: initially hidden materials aren't revealed when enabling them Fixed: Choosing AI entity class 'atdm:townsfolk_commoner_update' causes crash Fixed: Sporadic assertion failure on shutdown due to LocalBitmapArtProvider destruction Fixed: Prefab Selector spams infinite error dialogs on Linux Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.8.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Keep on mapping!

For an as-yet unknown reason, this commit seems to break XML parsing on Linux: #6439: Use xmlReadFile instead of xmlParseFile which has been deprecated and removed. Privatise Document() constructor accepting an xmlDocPtr. As far as I can see, the commit is entirely correct. xmlParseFile is indeed deprecated, and the new usage of xmlReadFile matches what the libxml2 examples are suggesting. But the result is that although the xmlDoc* returned from the function is not NULL, nothing XML-related works, the entire registry system returns only empty values, and almost all of the tests are broken (because the main radiant core cannot be initialised without any registry values available). Changing back to xmlParseFile makes the problem go away but is an unsatisfactory solution because it specifically reintroduces a deprecated function call. I am not sure whether this is a bug in the specific version of libxml2 on my Ubuntu system, or something incorrect about how we are calling xmlReadFile (i.e. perhaps it requires an encoding or a particular non-default option to correctly process our XML files). Unfortunately like many of the core GNOME C libraries, the documentation is bare-bones and explains almost nothing (like what any of the parsing options actually mean), and I cannot see an obvious way to ask libxml2 to return meaningful errors, or to query exactly what might be wrong with a constructed xmlDoc* object. It makes me wonder if it would be better in the long term to ditch the reliance on libxml2 and instead use one of the light-weight C++ XML parsing libraries like RapidXml or pugixml instead. Not exactly a trivial change but might not be too cumbersome since the existing XML code is wrapped in our own xmlutil classes and not generally used directly by the rest of the codebase.

I think the issue was that I was using a zoned approach with non-zoned sounds. I switched to the *_z variations of them and the problem seems to be gone. Although, for some reason it seems I still need to have fidelay 0.1, which is probably a sign that there's still something wrong. @demagogueIt took me a while to notice the _z sounds are in a separate folder, though... I had no idea what you were talking about when you mentioned them. Now I do. @peter_spy it's hopefully fixed in the latest, which I just released a couple hours ago.

Do you realize that the original code is wrong? In fact, it has been wrong since revision 2, i.e. since the very beginning. Absolutely no reason to do anything special for one platform.

Mandrasola is a small sized map in which aspiring thief Thomas Porter steals some herbal products from a smuggler. The mission was created by me, Sotha and I wish to thank Bikerdude, BrokenArts and Ocn for playtesting and voice acting. Thanks goes naturally to everyone contributing and making TDM possible. This mission occurs chronologically before the Knighton's Manor, making it the first mission in the Thomas Porter series. Events in chronological order are: Mandrasola, The Knighton's Manor, The Beleaguered Fence, The Glenham Tower and The Transaction. The winter came early and suddenly this year. Weeks of strong blizzards and extremely harsh cold weather hit Bridgeport hard. With the seas completely frozen, a rare occurence indeed, most of the City harbor commerce has stopped completely. Vessels are stuck in the ice and no ship can leave or enter the City, resulting in the availability imported goods declining and their prices skyrocketing. One of these imported items is Mandrasola, a rare herbal product, which is imported overseas from the far southern continents. Mandrasola has its uses in alchemical cures and poisons, but mostly this substance is used for its narcotic qualities by commoners and even the nobility. The problem with Mandrasola is that excessive use is extremely addicting and the withdrawal effects are most grievious. Many are utterly incapable of stopping using Mandrasola and are transformed into quivering human ruins if they do no get their daily dose. And now this expensive and rare substance is running out from the whole City. Me and my fence, Lark Butternose, would love to grab this monopoly to ourselves: selling the last few doses in the City would probably be worth a fortune. According to Lark's sources, there remains only one smuggling lord who still has Mandrasola in stock. The problem is that this individual maintains an exclusive clandestine operation and only supplies a few nobles. Despite our best information gathering efforts we couldn't learn who the smuggler is and where he or she operates. Luckily we have an alternate plan. While searching for Mandrasola related information, we learned that a noblewoman called Lady Ludmilla is addicted to the substance and has paid high prices for small amounts of it. We also know that she has visited frequently someone in the Tanner's Ward waterfront, and since she goes to the area personally we believe she is visiting the smuggler. The plan is simple: I must monitor Ludmilla's most likely entryway to the Waterfront and then follow her to the smugglers hideout. I'd better be very careful around Ludmilla. She must not realise I'm following her or she probably won't lead me to her dealer. Hurting her is also out of the question. After she leads me to the smuggler's hideout, I can take my time to break in carefully and steal all the Mandrasola I can find. While I'm there it wouldn't be a bad idea to grab some loose valuables as well. I've now waited in the blistering cold for a few hours already. Looks like there are a few city watch patrols in the area to complicate matters... I think I heard a womans voice beyond the north gate. That must be lady Ludmilla, I haven't seen many ladies in these parts. I'd better get ready.. Links: Use the ingame downloader to get it. WARNING! Someone always fails to use spoiler tags. I do not recommend reading any further until you've played the mission.

That was fun! A very impressive, sprawling map with lots to do. Love it! I did get stuck with ...For whatever reason, my installation is one where you don't fit through the gap in the wall, and the peepholes don't work either. (Yes, it is Linux) I never did find But I did manage to figure out 3 of the 4 Good Deeds unaided.

Yes, I would like to find out what the issue is even if the ultimate decision is to use a different library in future. So far I have established that this line in Game.cpp is apparently working (no exception is thrown): // Import the game file into the registry GlobalRegistry().import(fullPath, "", Registry::treeStandard); but this (and any subsequent attempt to getKeyValue) then fails: // Get the engine path _enginePath = getKeyValue(enginePath); I can only think of two hypotheses: It's a timing issue or race condition: the import call is returning but something in libxml2 has not "finalised" the tree so it isn't ready to do XPath queries yet. I don't think there is any asynchronous or threaded code in the libxml2 API but who knows. There's something different about how XPath queries need to be formatted after merging. E.g. perhaps "//game" no longer works, and it has to have some other prefix. Further debugging is therefore needed. Edit: OK, there's definitely something weird going on with encodings. Adding a Registry::dump call into the Game constructor gives me output like this: output error : string is not in UTF-8 output error : string is not in UTF-8 eCrosshairs" ="mU" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="ToggleGrid" ="(&#xB3;R"/>< ="ToggleView" ="U" ���mU="SHIFT+CONTROL"/>< ="NextView" ="" ���mU="CONTROL"/>< ="ZoomIn" ="Delete"/>< ="ZoomOut" ="Insert"/>< ="CenterXYViews" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+SHIFT"/>< ="CenterXYView" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="ToggleCubicClip" ="" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="ToggleCamera" ="U" ���mU="SHIFT+CONTROL"/>< ="TogTexLock" ="" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="DragVertices" ="U"/>< ="DragEdges" =""/>< ="DragFaces" =""/>< ="ToggleSelectionFocus" ="" ���mU="CONTROL"/>< ="ThickenPatchDialog" ="" ���mU="CONTROL"/>< ="ToggleShowAllLightRadii" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+SHIFT+ALT"/>< ="ToggleClipper" ="mU"/>< ="MouseTranslate" =""/>< ="MouseRotate" =""/>< ="MouseDrag" =""/>< ="NewOrthoView" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SetGrid0.125" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid0.25" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid0.5" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid1" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid2" ="U" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid4" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid8" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid16" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid32" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid64" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid128" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="SetGrid256" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="ToggleTextureTool" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="ToggleMainControl_TextureTool" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT+SHIFT"/>< ="NormaliseTexture" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="TexToolGridUp" ="plus" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="TexToolGridDown" ="minus" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="TexToolMergeItems" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="GroupCycleBackward" ="ISO_Left_Tab" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="GroupCycleForward" ="" ���mU=""/>< ="RevertToWorldspawn" ="" ���mU="SHIFT"/>< ="SavePosition1" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition10" ="(&#xB3;R" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition2" ="U" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition3" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition4" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition5" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition6" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition7" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition8" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="SavePosition9" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+ALT"/>< ="LoadPosition1" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition10" ="(&#xB3;R" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition2" ="U" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition3" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition4" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition5" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition6" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition7" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition8" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="LoadPosition9" ="" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="ToggleOrthoBackgroundPanel" ="U" ���mU="Y&#x11D;mU"/>< ="ToggleRotationPivot" ="" ���mU="CONTROL"/>< ="ToggleAasVisualisationPanel" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+SHIFT"/>< ="GroupSelected" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+SHIFT"/>< ="UngroupSelected" ="" ���mU="CONTROL+SHIFT"/></mU><> Whereas with xmlParseFile there are no weird characters and the output just looks like properly formatted XML. I wonder if we have some nonstandard characters in our XML files for some reason.

In the first post of the other topic Geep proposed: Then Stgatilov's answer: But I think applying subtitles in different languages shouldn't be too hard I would think, but I don't know how the current translation system works. The engine should apply the correct subtitles based on the applied language setting, this doesn't need a whole new language system I think. Not sure who's going to write those subtitles though. I can only do Dutch and English and nobody needs Dutch I think. I suggest further discussion of this to take place in topic https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21741-subtitles-possibilities-beyond-211/

For some reason when I load the mission in 2.12, I get stuck right at the start. So immediately I have to use noclip. After that it plays fine. This does not happen in 2.11 . I wonder what the cause is.

Creating a new thread for this as it was being discussed in an old beta-testing thread starting here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/&do=findComment&comment=490751 I suppose the main questions are: when should this spawnarg be used, if at all? why was it introduced in the first place? Can we get it documented properly on the Wiki so misuse isn't propagated? @stgatilov @Dragofer

I agree, which is the reason why I made mission sorting in my patch like this, which is also how missions are sorted elsewhere in the web.

I've been asked to post about the increased mantle speed in 2.12 as some folks have been curious about the change. After a lengthy internal discussion along with testing and input by several mission authors, it was agreed internally to increase the mantle speed. But during 2.12 beta testing, we would like feedback on any bugs or issues that you find. The reason for the change was to address feedback from players that mantling was "painfully slow", "slow and clunky", "mantling sucks - it's just slow", and so on. Several mission authors supported making mantling faster, and so the dev team decided to tweak the mantle speed. There were multiple implementations with the final implementation being a compromise. Also, the dev team studied some parkour techniques to ensure that the mantle phases and timings were good enough. The changes include: The original mantle phases were kept as that is what longtime TDM players are used to, and only the duration of some phases were reduced. Changed the pull animation so that it has both acceleration and deceleration rather than just deceleration. Tweaked the swaying back and forth a bit to work better with the increased speed. When the player in forced into the crouch position at the end of a mantle, crouch near the end of the mantle rather than the beginning in order to remove the sudden "dip" of the player's view. A majority of dev team members were against adding a menu setting, so being able to toggle between the old and new mantle speeds will not happen. It is recommended that you try out different "Mantle Roll" values as some prefer "0.1" and others prefer "0.5". We hope you all enjoy this adjusted mantle speed, especially the overhead mantle, which is now more consistent with the other mantle types. Bug tracker: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6343

Does that work with reloadXData as well? I didn't test with core files. I tested with fm's subtitles. I tested with a subtitle I made (and is now included in fm) for WS5. At the start of the mission you walk for a bit and you get a monologue of some drunk guy containing multiple (sound+)srt files. Later I tested inline on Braeden Church. Btw. do you think these sound files might be used by other missions? Otherwise I would move them to the fm folder including the subtitles. //Note: These sounds are mostly specific to Saint Lucia mission. //But for some reason, they are located in core, so better define their subtitles here. subtitles tdm_stlucia { verbosity story inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_4.ogg" "It is not for me to question Brother Renald, but it does seem that there is naught but rats and beggars to guard against." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_3.ogg" "As you say. Though the Lord Builder is known to work in ways most mysterious." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder2/conversations/builder2_conv_3.ogg" "Indeed. It is not our place to question. Our obedience doth honor Him." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_1.ogg" "How much longer must we guard this accursed place?" inline "sound/voices/builders/builder2/conversations/builder2_conv_1.ogg" "The archbishop doth come two days hence." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder1/conversations/builder1_conv_2.ogg" "I should be ashamed to have His Eminence in such a place as this." inline "sound/voices/builders/builder2/conversations/builder2_conv_2.ogg" "It is hard to imagine a true miracle doth take place here." } Edit: I think it's simply possible to do a search in all fm's to see if these files are used outside of Saint Lucia.

There's a bug I've been noticing for a long time, but for some reason it didn't click with me to mention it till someone else just mentioned seeing the same thing and I realized I'm not the only one. The contents of some chests and small containers like drawers will sometimes not become frobable when you open that container: You may need to close the door and open it again, after which you can frob any scrolls / keys / etc inside. Most likely something is happening with target_setfrobable getting triggered at the wrong time. Even when they are frobable, tiny items in small containers will sometimes only highlight from a very specific position and angle: I've had cases where I needed to lean forward and look at a coin just right and it would only highlight when my crosshair was on that one pixel. I'm sorry I didn't think to note down a FM and viewpos where to test it; If you need I'll keep that mind for when I play the next one. This doesn't happen a lot any might be hard to catch, but often enough as to be noticeable... in most recent FM's it seems to occur at least once in some drawer or lockbox.

You can walk through every entity and spawnarg in the set up piece by piece and see if there's a logical problem buried in there. I don't recall how the fade-in works for the initial ambient anymore. It's been too long. But you can experiment to see if it's really borked. But what I came to say is that note there's a Sound Override setting where you can just set up an ambient transition yourself by some trigger if the location transitions aren't working properly for some reason. One thing you might try, if the initial ambient always borks the fade in no matter what you do, is to set a dummy initial sound by immediately triggering the Sound Override as soon as the map starts, like just a quarter second of silence, and then turn the Sound Override off a half second later to have the system immediately transition back into the initial location ambient, and then the fade in should work properly. It's a bit of a hack, but it could fix your problem. You might be able to think of other ways to deal with it along those kinds of lines.