Away 0: Stolen Heart by Geep & _Atti_ (2021/11/12)

[tapewolf]

12 hours ago, MrMunkeepants said:

It seems strange to me, having been everywhere else and read all I could, that there is no indication of the 

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house portion required for the first half of the code.

Unless I missed something?

There is a note stating that he often complains about it being on the top row. 
 

Spoiler

It took me a while to realise that you need to combine an address and passcode into a larger number, but after a bit of experimenting I was able to work out which pair of numbers was which.

Since the box is claimed to be at the top it was a matter of brute-forcing 50-59 and then 90-99 with the passcode as the last two digits until I found something.

When I realised the number was symmetrical I kicked myself for not trying that first.

 

[fraten]

I, too, had massive problems with the deposit box and ended up using the brute force method, which took quite some time and was not very satisfying.

Spoiler

I still don't understand what I was supposed to be doing and why you have to grab the key "blind". I feel a simple cash box with the key in it would have been an easier solution.

I'm not complaining though, this is a wonderful mission. 

[Geep]

@datiswous

I located all the positions shown in your screenshots except for the following (where all filenames start with "away0_2021-11-14_") -

22.27.23 ???
23.23.52 Got stuck here
23.31.50 Badly aligned textures?

Could you either describe where they are or give coordinates (e.g., from g_showviewpos 1)? Thanks.

[Geep]

All -

The deposit box puzzle is, by design, pretty challenging. I've glad many of you figured it out, and helped each other. @tapewolf's explanation is on point. As noted, the earlier solution posted as "Outright Spoiler" is not quite right.

[Geep]

@datiswous
 

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Why do you record them as video instead of just doing the cutscenes in-game? I wonder why you would do that extra step.

Reasons include -
- gives the mapper more freedom to intermix closeups & distance shots
- can use video editing transitions,
- you can do shots that work from exactly one location. For instance, NSFW Emily removing her bodice is done with fakery, which I believe would be impossible to do convincingly with in-game cutscenes.
- AI when pathing doesn't always do the same thing... sometimes it's wonderful, sometimes it stinks. This way you keep the good stuff
- time can be sped up/slowed down a bit as needed
- You can use multiple sets (i.e., instances of where the scene occurs), each with its own triggering/pathing for a given scene, rather than layering them spaghetti-like in a single set. There were about a dozen of Emily's bedroom used for away0.

For the benefit of future mappers, I'll write about pluses and minuses of all this in the wiki at some point.

[Geep]

@fraten

I'm glad datiswous helped you out. Yes, the problem you & he discovered with the alternate path to Hornsby is unfortunate, and I've logged it. The triggering and scripting in that area is a bit complex (e.g., because you might have to revisit Hornsby a second time), so probably an eventual fix will take some thought and fiddling.

[Geep]

@pwl

Thanks, glad you made it through. Since "away0" is a prequel, there is already a follow-on mission "Away 1: Air Pocket". No Away 2 planned yet.

[Geep]

@pbruno37

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed crawling through the ducts, & @MrMunkeepants helped you out.

[Geep]

@michael_a

Yup, frobbing through the wood... that's cheating. I thought I had prevented gamers from doing that, but if not, will add it to the bug list. Of course, if you're using noclip, can't stop that.

[Geep]

@tapewolf
 

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I enjoyed that, burgling a casino made a fun change, though I do wonder if it could have done with a larger gambling hall because in the end there were only about 3 clients.

This was a big existing map I had to build out and populate, so the AI density can be a bit low in any given area. There's not many available TDM AI animations that are casino-appropriate either... I used them all up throughout that floor. Storywise, my excuse is that it's the wee hours... who knows, maybe a Monday?

As you noted, the look of the deposit boxes is subtle, possibly too subtle. I didn't want to make them look like the duct vents & hatches used elsewhere, so went with cabinet drawers. I added a lantern specifically to make their dim drawer texture more obvious.

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If you do a video cutscene like this in future it might be worth getting an external HDMI recorder - the sort you'd use for games consoles - so the PC only has to worry about the game and not the video capture as well.

Agree with that; also can hope for a new PC when the GPU drought ends.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Geep
Add last HDMI recorder comment

[datiswous]

5 hours ago, Geep said:

I located all the positions shown in your screenshots except for the following (where all filenames start with "away0_2021-11-14_") -

22.27.23 ???
23.23.52 Got stuck here
23.31.50 Badly aligned textures?

Could you either describe where they are or give coordinates (e.g., from g_showviewpos 1)? Thanks.

23.31.50 :

-175.12 1625.08 546.25 : 29.37 -39.49 0

23.23.52 :

967.64 507.25 330.78 : 66.22 175.01 0

22.27.23 :

-2953.68 438.25 41.3 : 11.77 -177.73 0

 

[esme]

On 11/20/2021 at 9:25 PM, Geep said:

All -

The deposit box puzzle is, by design, pretty challenging. I've glad many of you figured it out, and helped each other. @tapewolf's explanation is on point. As noted, the earlier solution posted as "Outright Spoiler" is not quite right.

mea culpa, I typed almost the right number for the outright spoiler, sorry guys

[Geep]

@datiswous, about the figure in the box office/giftshop you found "creepy"...

You clearly haven't spent enough time in women's clothing stores.  I suggest image-Googling "headless mannequins with hands" to see her tribe.

[vozka]

A nice mission! Exploring took me longer than expected, especially finding those safe deposit boxes, even though I have to admit the clues were there the whole time. I enjoyed the overall theme  - Four Flags seems to be way more fun than Six Flags. And just today, what's the chance, I was thinking that it would be nice to have occasional more modern music in TDM missions, just as a throwback to a couple tracks from the original games, so I was very pleasantly surprised.

What I disliked was mostly already said: some parts of the building seemed a bit too empty of people and because the NPCs also seemed to be super attentive, the contrast between how careful I had to be on the ground floor and in the rest of the building seemed a bit strange.

And the first cutscene was just way too silly for me. I don't think this method worked well together with the stuttering fps, low visual quality of the models and artifacts of the engine like the lady's shadow seemingly being bald. It reminded me of this cinematic masterpiece where somebody remade the whole of Titanic in The Sims 2. The playable scene after that was hilarious though.

[gokudo]

Man, had way more depth than expected and is a quantum leap from Mission 1. Glad to finally have some missions to break the drought!

[drakhat]

Hi there everybody. I'm new here and looking for some help. What I'm supposed to do to accomplish the goal: Clean all of Bleda's loot?

I've already looted the

Spoiler

place with the drunk guard accesible via duct and I've also got the women's lockup key.

The only thing which is preventing me to progress further is that Bleda's loot objective.

 

[esme]

13 hours ago, drakhat said:

Hi there everybody. I'm new here and looking for some help. What I'm supposed to do to accomplish the goal: Clean all of Bleda's loot?

I've already looted the

  Hide contents

place with the drunk guard accesible via duct and I've also got the women's lockup key.

The only thing which is preventing me to progress further is that Bleda's loot objective.

 

Have a look around

Spoiler

the main entrance

Spoiler

Up high

 

[joebarnin]

Nice mission!

Spoiler

Good flow; I like the new objectives that show up (Emily, etc) - they tell a good story. Nice building design at Four Flags - it took a while to figure out but eventually it made sense. The deposit box thing was the only frustration. And I like the way the ending segues into your first mission.

Good work - looking forward to the next one!

Edited December 9, 2021 by joebarnin

[NeonsStyle]

Congratulations on the release? I'll be playing this as soon as I finish Eaton.

[NeonsStyle]

Ran into a game breaking bug. Hornsby offered a purse, lockpick and a map, but I could only pick up the lockpick. There's

no way to pick up the rest. So stuck now. 

[drakhat]

On 12/8/2021 at 10:34 AM, esme said:

Have a look around

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the main entrance

  Hide contents

Up high

 

Thank you very much Esmee! That helped a lot. I already visited

Spoiler

that place several times exploring Bleda's mansion, but somehow I oversaw that entrance. It was very well hidden I must say.

 

[Geep]

Downloads of this FM after Dec 16 2021 will use a new mechanism, provided by @stgatilov, to show a custom background behind the main menu. The customization will be shown under TDM 2.10, no longer under TDM 2.09.

[roygato]

I already beta tested this at the time, but it was fun to see the improvements. Certainly a lot of the jank is gone, so kudos for that. A fun mission, with some novel ideas. I don't seem to remember others that tease an objective, and then make you either hard commit or leave it.

That said, I'm not sure if it's because I'm running a 2.10 beta build, due to testing the new frob outlines, but I had a serious bug. When the fence offers you the lockpick, the map and the gold pouch, I couldn't for the life of me frob anything but the lockpick. So I just left the rest, and went though the entire mission. Which worked up until after the final cutscene finishes, since I'm now stuck in limbo, as the "do business with the fence" objective never completed. I skimmed through the comments, and it doesn't seem like anyone else has had it happen to them, and it worked fine back in beta testing, so could be a 2.10 quirk. Or just a rare occurrence.

A pretty ambitious mission in a lot of ways, definitely points for the effort and making due with what seems to be less than ideal equipment.

Edited December 20, 2021 by roygato

[High John]

Ignore - sorted!

Edited December 28, 2021 by High John

[datiswous]

When I update this mission from version 1 to 2, after download (with in-game downloader) the mission still shows version 1 in the mission selection screen