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

[Zerg Rush]

3 hours ago, staterathesmol said:

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. 

Spoiler

It's just the time on the clock, no more complications - hhmm

 

Edited May 15 by Zerg Rush

[High John]

Playing on Expert (ie 'no killing'), I found you're deemed to have failed the Objective if you kill one of the horses.

[Nort]

8 minutes ago, High John said:

Playing on Expert (ie 'no killing'), I found you're deemed to have failed the Objective if you kill one of the horses.

You don't think killing a horse (which I am assuming is a domestic one, which posed no threat to you) would make you a killer, or (as the objectives often formulates it) "a monster"? I mean sure, I have horse meat frying in the oven right as we speak, but when you killed that horse, did you do it becaue you were hungry? Was there a campfire nearby?

I'm not trying to be mean here. I'm just saying that wasn't that obvious?

 

Edited May 15 by Nort

[High John]

I did it to see whether Dark Mod put animals on the same level as people.

And that then raises the question of what would have happened if there were spiders in this mission . . .

[Nort]

10 minutes ago, High John said:

I did it to see whether Dark Mod put animals on the same level as people.

And that then raises the question of what would have happened if there were spiders in this mission . . .

True: While spiders are hostile towards you by nature, so are guards. ...but I think the "monster" line is drawn in a kind of racist way, where spiders (and likely rats - I haven't checked) are monsters, while horses are seen as noble "aryans". I wouldn't mind a mission where you were a spider lover and weren't allowed to kill any spiders either.

[Zerg Rush]

13 hours ago, Nort said:

True: While spiders are hostile towards you by nature, so are guards. ...but I think the "monster" line is drawn in a kind of racist way, where spiders (and likely rats - I haven't checked) are monsters, while horses are seen as noble "aryans". I wouldn't mind a mission where you were a spider lover and weren't allowed to kill any spiders either.

I've also thought sometimes, I know some games where the protagonist has some of these 'monsters' as a partner, helping with the task. Perhaps a mission can be developed around it.

Garrett helping a zombie or skeleton free his soul with the help of these? Something like this

Spiders aren't always hostile either, for example in Winter Harvest, the spider in the neighbor's attic wasn't aggressive at all, or the Fire element released in The Black Mage, the ghost in Mother Rose also isn't agressive, even helps against the guard. The friendly ghosts in The House of locked Secrets, etc.. This can perhaps be extended in a direct collaboration in some future mission.

Edited May 16 by Zerg Rush

[staterathesmol]

On 5/15/2022 at 12:19 AM, Zerg Rush said:

  Hide contents

It's just the time on the clock, no more complications - hhmm

 

 

Spoiler

u say that like that helps, it doesnt. i understand the x=10 and the iii=3 however its a 4 digit code. not a 3 digit one. listen, i understand how the puzzle works, and i am pretty sure i have tried every combination known to man with no luck. just give me the safe combo, please.

 

[Marbrien]

Safe combination, outright spoiler. I hope I'm remembering it right, and it's the same on all levels (I played on Expert).

Spoiler

A quarter past ten, aka 1015.

 

[jonri]

18 hours ago, Nort said:

True: While spiders are hostile towards you by nature, so are guards. ...but I think the "monster" line is drawn in a kind of racist way, where spiders (and likely rats - I haven't checked) are monsters, while horses are seen as noble "aryans". I wouldn't mind a mission where you were a spider lover and weren't allowed to kill any spiders either.

I think it comes down to the ability to tame a horse and its subsequent utility to humans. I remember a FM where a pagan had "spidey babies", it would be cool to see a mission where you played from that perspective.

Anyways, I just didn't put much thought into what "team" the horses were on in my FM. The stated reason for no killing is to give you a clean getaway, so we'll just pretend that a dead body of any sort leaves clear evidence of misdeeds, whereas stolen goods are harder to investigate

[JackFarmer]

I like the briefing with the writing sound and the word appearing in a book...and the

Spoiler

moving train effect

is fracking unbelievable! I don't feel like checking the map but I am really curious how you achieved that!

 

 

Edited May 19 by JackFarmer

[jonri]

42 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

I don't feel like checking the map but I am really curious how you achieved that!

Happy to oblige, here's a little description:

Spoiler

TLDR; the train holds still and the scenery all moves.

1. Most of the scenery was made in Blender in large chunks, there are about dozen unique models.  The origins were all set to one place to make importing into DR easy.
2. The assembled group of models (terrain, trees, tracks) was bound to one invisible control object.
3. The group and control object was replicated 6 times down the length of the train (forgot to mention, I also made sure that the models tiled).
4. Using a script function, each control object gets moved backwards every frame at a fixed velocity.  The bound scenery automatically comes along for the ride.
5. If a control object's y position gets past a certain point, it gets teleported to the front, like a conveyor belt.  If you fly around with noclip, you can see this happen.

A neat side effect of doing it this way is that if you jump off the train (or throw an ai overboard), I can just bind you to a control object and you become part of the scenery as well

I did most of this work and also the exterior audio before anything but the most basic blockout of a few train cars.  I figured that without the environment, it would be inexcusable to make a highly linear map where every room is the same size

 

 

[Anderson]

On 5/16/2022 at 4:00 PM, jonri said:

The stated reason for no killing is to give you a clean getaway, so we'll just pretend that a dead body of any sort leaves clear evidence of misdeeds, whereas stolen goods are harder to investigate

It can also be more professional for a thief not to engage in killing like an amateur.

[gokudo]

Good little mission. Had to grind for the loot but I got there! Looking forward to future instalments.

[maxrenn8]

In the section with the telescope, there are two locked metal doors but I cannot lockpick and no keys to open them. Any clues? 

[Amadeus]

At long last, we finally have a train mission! This was a blast to play, well done! This actually reminded me a lot of that one train level in the Splinter Cell series way back when

[jonri]

1 hour ago, maxrenn8 said:

In the section with the telescope, there are two locked metal doors but I cannot lockpick and no keys to open them. Any clues? 

Think outside the box!

More specifically:

Spoiler

There are some windows in that car that will open, with a connecting ledge between them on the outside of the car.

 

[maxrenn8]

Thanks for the clue.

[xlm]

What a charming mission, I really enjoyed it. Quite inventive, but reasonable, places with hidden loot, too.

Although I assume this is a personal thing and most people won't care, it was a bit weird that some AIs could hear you creeping around with all that noise going on (at least the first two, the others are in more insulated places so it doesn't matter.) I know that's how sound works in the darkmod, but maybe making their perception a bit lower for those? It's not a big deal, really.

Also, on top of one the wagons there's a place where you are in full light, despite there being no obvious source of light. I had doused the chanderlier below, in the guard room, and I think the light the roof guard has is not pointing where I am in the picture.

Edited June 10 by xlm
minor typos

[jonri]

11 hours ago, xlm said:

What a charming mission, I really enjoyed it. Quite inventive, but reasonable, places with hidden loot, too.

Although I assume this is a personal thing and most people won't care, it was a bit weird that some AIs could hear you creeping around with all that noise going on (at least the first two, the others are in more insulated places so it doesn't matter.) I know that's how sound works in the darkmod, but maybe making their perception a bit lower for those? It's not a big deal, really.

Also, on top of one the wagons there's a place where you are in full light, despite there being no obvious source of light. I had doused the chanderlier below, in the guard room, and I think the light the roof guard has is not pointing where I am in the picture.

Glad you enjoyed it!  I did dial down the audio perception a fair amount - but what I noticed is that the AI will still make remarks about noises just as frequently, but they just won't get alerted as easily.  I didn't look too much farther into it beyond that.

That light is indeed from the lantern by the roof guard, it should have a subtle volumetric effect that helps you see its range if you have shadow maps enabled instead of stencil shadows.  I remember the shadows themselves having some weirdness using that particular light too, which probably doesn't help things either.

[Cambridge Spy]

Finally, here's a video playthrough of Eastbound:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNQjeb07ZU4

[TheUnbeholden]

This had the toughest of all trying to get the loot goal despite getting the right keycode for the hidden safe. One of the better of the short missions for difficulty, aesthetics, sound e.t.c.

[Thiefette]

Well that was fun!  Loved the different train cars.

Spoiler

Although the tavern car was tricky to get through - everyone kept hearing me even when I tried a moss arrow.  Oh well, didn't get anyone too excited  I have to ask if the gear in the inventors/generator car was for anything? I didn't find anywhere to put it so just left it in the car.

 

Thanks for all your hard work, I look forward to more missions from you.

[Frost_Salamander]

I was looking forward to playing this since I realised it was a train mission. Just finished it - great stuff.  Such a refreshing change from what I've been working on 

Got to about 2600 and change before I had to pull out the old tdm_show_loot (I'm a terrible loot hunter).  I missed an obvious one in a drawer, but not sure I would have got some of the others as they were very close to AI.  Made for the exit after that with a stealth score of 17.

I liked how in some situations I pretty much had to use my tools (or if I didn't it made it a hell of a lot easier).

I also got busted by the spotlight on top of the train.  I have shadow maps enabled but didn't notice a volumetric effect - not sure why.

Anyways - nice job and looking forward to whatever you cook up next! 

[vozka]

Very enjoyable, thanks for this mission. 

I'm just watching the Snowpiercer series (which is pretty good by the way), so this fits right in thematically. Great idea, and it seems to me that a train mission is like the opposite of sewer missions - everybody hates those and they're almost always bad, whereas when a game dares to do a train mission, it's almost always good. 

I would have liked if it was longer simply because I was having fun. Can't have it all though and compact missions are also nice.

Getting enough loot was just fine for medium difficulty, but I honestly have no idea where the rest of it could have been hidden, so good job on that too.

[Melchior]

Literally a Train-Job. 10/10 for Concept and Execution, unsurprisingly the map is a little linear, being a set of TRAIN cars after all .