Fan Mission: Sam Wilson 1: Eastbound (2022-05-07)

[jonri]

Background

Eastbound is a FM created for the Christmas Connections contest.  Although it was not ready in time to meet the contest deadline, its original inspiration is still present.

This FM will be the first in a series following the Thieves' Guild member and protagonist Samuel Wilson in the events following a heist gone wrong. What will now be the second mission in the series was already nearing beta testing when the contest was announced (and it already featured a few "connections" of its own), so this presented an opportunity to fill in the backstory even more.

Credits

• The TDM core team for all the hard work they do creating all the features, assets, scripts, and tools that we can all use in our FMs
• YOH and others for the custom sounds
• Everything else within the FM was created by me or modified from either stock or CC0 assets
• Special thanks to nbohr1more for organizing the contest
• Special thanks to thebigh and Wellingtoncrab for their valuable feedback during alpha testing
• All the beta testers, whose efforts led to many fixes, playability improvements, and general polish: Acolytesix, Cambridge Spy, datiswous, nbohr1more, prjames, thebigh, Shadow, Wellingtoncrab, wesp5

Technical stuff

• This FM requires TDM 2.10 or newer as it makes use of some of the latest features.
• The mission will look its best if you have shadow maps enabled instead of stencil shadows (Settings / Video / Advanced, Shadows Implementation = Maps).
• The mission will sound its best if you have EFX enabled (Settings / Audio, OpenAL EFX = On).

Screenshots

[Bienie]

Congrats on releasing this mission! Will look forward to playing once I catch up!

[Wellingtoncrab]

This is a unique and fantastic mission - already looking forward to the next one!

[Marbrien]

I'm playing on Expert, and getting a mission fail in the tavern car, because the FM thinks I have killed someone when I haven't.  I've knocked out the bar maid and the guy with the sword nearest the bar, and extingusihed all the lights.  Then one of the seated male guests seems to "teleport" towards the bar untouched by me and that's when the mission fail message appears. 

I have now replayed this section, and think that previously I may have put the bar maid's unconscious body too near the stove in the kitchen room adjacent to the bar.  This time I didn't and was able to finish the mission.

I just replayed that car for a third time.  There seems to be an issue with one of the men sitting at the table with the gold dagger, namely the man who is facing the carriage wall.  He cannot be blackjacked without dying, and sometimes he just spontaneously dies and vanishes - at least for me he does!

Edited May 8 by Marbrien
Update

[JackFarmer]

Congratulations on the release!

 

[joebarnin]

Congrats! Looking forward to playing this.

[jonri]

3 hours ago, Marbrien said:

I'm playing on Expert, and getting a mission fail in the tavern car, because the FM thinks I have killed someone when I haven't.  I've knocked out the bar maid and the guy with the sword nearest the bar, and extingusihed all the lights.  Then one of the seated male guests seems to "teleport" towards the bar untouched by me and that's when the mission fail message appears. 

I have now replayed this section, and think that previously I may have put the bar maid's unconscious body too near the stove in the kitchen room adjacent to the bar.  This time I didn't and was able to finish the mission.

I just replayed that car for a third time.  There seems to be an issue with one of the men sitting at the table with the gold dagger, namely the man who is facing the carriage wall.  He cannot be blackjacked without dying, and sometimes he just spontaneously dies and vanishes - at least for me he does!

Thanks for the bug report - I've been trying to reproduce the problem and haven't been able to make it happen myself yet.  I did a lot of testing in that room to make sure nothing breaks even if everybody gets alerted at the same time.  There's nothing special about the particular AI in question, so my first guess would be the CPU load related to the number of AI in the room. 

Would you be able to answer these questions?

1. What model of CPU do you have?
2. In Settings / Video / Advanced, do you have Uncap FPS turned on or off?
3. What FPS do you have in that car? (set com_fps 1 in the console)

Oh, and proximity to the stove doesn't matter

Spoiler

 

Edited May 8 by jonri

[Marbrien]

My CPU is an Intel Core i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60 Ghz.  Uncap FPS was Off, I set it to On but the problem recurred.  I don't know how to open the console. 

The curious thing is that when it happens, that particular AI, still in the seated postion, shoots off down towards the bar before disappearing.  It's as if he has suddenly stopped moving relative to the rest of the train.

 

[Oktokolo]

Most spacious rooms, best ventilation and comfortable beds - had fun robbing this train and would definitely do it again.

[jonri]

50 minutes ago, Marbrien said:

My CPU is an Intel Core i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60 Ghz.  Uncap FPS was Off, I set it to On but the problem recurred.  I don't know how to open the console. 

The curious thing is that when it happens, that particular AI, still in the seated postion, shoots off down towards the bar before disappearing.  It's as if he has suddenly stopped moving relative to the rest of the train.

 

I still don't know the cause, but it gives me an idea of what I can try to prevent it.  If I PM'ed you a .pk4 file of the FM with a possible fix, would you be willing and able to copy it over the old file and try it out? 

[thebigh]

Congratulations on the release. This mission was a lot of fun to test.

[Marbrien]

2 hours ago, jonri said:

I still don't know the cause, but it gives me an idea of what I can try to prevent it.  If I PM'ed you a .pk4 file of the FM with a possible fix, would you be willing and able to copy it over the old file and try it out? 

Yes, certainly.

[datiswous]

16 hours ago, jonri said:

What FPS do you have in that car? (set com_fps 1 in the console)

It's actually com_showfps 1

15 hours ago, Marbrien said:

I don't know how to open the console.

Press Ctrl + Alt + ~

[datiswous]

Congratulations on your first fm. It's a very interesting mission. Would like to see more missions on moving platforms.

[kingsal]

Congrats on the release! This was excellent and felt like a proper train mission.

Spoiler

I especially loved all the narrow spaces and tight stealth. Each section of the train felt unique and fun to navigate. Very cool! Can't wait for the next mission.

 

[Heuli]

Congratulations on release! i love This mission

[Zerg Rush]

Congrats, a very nice little mission.. I finished it yesterday enjoying a lot in Hard mode.  

[joebarnin]

Nice mission! Good fun. I especially enjoyed

Spoiler

the sense of motion, with the clackity-clack of the train and the scenery going by.

Also, due to my own incompetence,

Spoiler

I didn't find the first two sets of water arrows near the beginning. So I had to traverse most of the train without using them. It was hard but doable, which made me realize that I sometimes use them as a crutch.

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

[Amadeus]

Congrats on the release! I've been looking forward to this, so I am excited to play this!

[Zerg Rush]

 

Finishing the mission and going back to the first wagon to exit, I had some fun time in the wagon with the horses. Instead of going out on the penultimate free kick, I tried to convince the horse on the last one to let me out of there.
I have never seen such a stubborn horse with such hilarious reactions to prevent my exit, even applying strokes with blackjack.
Leaving it as impossible at the end, leaving the planned place and passing in front of this animal, it almost kicked me off the train with a header.
Congratulations to @jonri on a good coverage of non admited exits on the map

 

Edited May 11 by Zerg Rush

[jonri]

16 minutes ago, Zerg Rush said:

I have never seen such a stubborn horse with such hilarious reactions to prevent my exit, even applying strokes with blackjack.
Leaving it as impossible at the end, leaving the planned place and passing in front of this animal, it almost kicked me off the train with a header.

@Zerg Rushlittle do you know, during beta testing that horse was briefly responsible for the death of every other AI in the map!

[NeonsStyle]

Congratulations on the release. Awesome to have a n ew mission to play.  

That was fun, thank you.  Veru nicely done. Loved the motion of the train,

thought it  a bit odd there was a castle on the train lol. NJ.

Edited May 11 by NeonsStyle

[Zerg Rush]

5 hours ago, jonri said:

@Zerg Rushlittle do you know, during beta testing that horse was briefly responsible for the death of every other AI in the map!

It already seemed to me that the horse behaved more intelligently than the other AIs. Don't change it, it can be a little extra challenge to get out of this box, Yihaaa

[Spyrano]

I love a good train heist. Had an excellent time with this, thanks! And congrats on your first mission!

[staterathesmol]

so i really dont understand the safe combo, ive tried every variation and even combing the numbers to make one number i just dont get it. im more dumb then the lord who keeps forgetting it, roman numeral puzzles are literally my bane of existence.