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Interaction with objects


snatcher

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5 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Making changes to such setups without missing some special case already present or possible in the future is nearly impossible. That's the issue with non-uniform building styles.

I think the case of both the chest box and lid being frobable is achievable only in a limited number of ways (froblock + mover_door entities) that mappers almost always use prefabs for. The issue seems to be that mappers sometimes also use such combinations for other applications than chests, i.e. maybe a gate openable via a lockbox somewhere, so in these cases the froblock must always remain frobable and must be recognised and excluded from the script. Wesp5 would know these cases best since he's reported some of them.

A possible way of making the distinction, even if not 100% sensitive for detecting all desired cases, would be to check whether the froblock entity uses one of the core models for chest bodies (or, for Merry's chest prefabs, contains "merry" in its name).

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9 hours ago, jonri said:

I really wanted to have the whole chest simultaneously frobable (frob_peer'd) when closed but only the lid frobable when open.

I think spawnarg frob_peer is only about highlighting and not about frobbing (strange enough). Maybe it doesn't matter in this case.

Edited by datiswous
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2 hours ago, Dragofer said:

Wesp5 would know these cases best since he's reported some of them.

When I tested dragofers script in my patch I actually only met one case in which it broke a mission, but of course I didn't replay all the hundreds I had played before and one broken mission was enough for me to remove the feature again. It was indeed a case in which the base of the container was rather far away from the top with was kind of a cabinet, but the current solution Obsttorte is thinking about, like only make the base unfrobable once the container is open, should work fine. Also I think the idea of keeping to press the frob key to get multiple loot sounds promising and of course a short fly-to-player-animation should be default if added to the core game. I dislike the idea of automatically getting all container content, because I also like to see what valuables I find :)!

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@datiswous: You think wrong. Frobbing is applied to all entites, although normally passed onto the bind master. Otherwise a door would behave differently when frobbing the door versus frobbing the handle.

@wesp5@Dragofer: The best approach might be to simple provide the setup for mappers to use as mission specific. If the feedback is positive and mission authors like it the may be going to use it and "upgrade" their old missions with it. Depending on the amount of agreement this setup gets this could then be done with all left out missions either as than we may agree on it not to be mission-breaking.

The multi frob  (or may I even call it mo-mo-mo-monster frob :D ) is something I'll look into. Let's see if I can get it to work in a relieable way.

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2 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

@datiswous: You think wrong. Frobbing is applied to all entites, although normally passed onto the bind master. Otherwise a door would behave differently when frobbing the door versus frobbing the handle.

While making a small light switch with a big housing I actually found frobbing to, by default, only apply to the entity that's in the focus of the frob. If that entity has a frob_master it'll count as if you had frobbed the frob_master instead; frob_peer just makes them highlight together, but has no functional consequences.

Door handles are a special case handled directly by the code (CFrobDoorHandle), probably so that the mapper doesn't need to setup frob_whatever on all the entities involved.

2 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

@wesp5@Dragofer: The best approach might be to simple provide the setup for mappers to use as mission specific. If the feedback is positive and mission authors like it the may be going to use it and "upgrade" their old missions with it. Depending on the amount of agreement this setup gets this could then be done with all left out missions either as than we may agree on it not to be mission-breaking.

I believe Springheel already did the first step by making the chest bodies of all prefab chests in the core assets unfrobable, so that one can only operate the lid. I've been mapping like this for a while already.

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21 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Did you ever file a bugtracker for this?

17 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Added bugtracker entry #5976 and added the respective script functions to the code:

17 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Added with revision 9935

Well, you certainly work fast 😀  I was going to make sure everything worked as I hoped before dropping a patch into the bug tracker myself. 

I built the latest svn with your changes, plugged the new functions into my chest script, and it looks pretty good! 

https://streamable.com/18pngh

The one thing I noticed is that calling addFrobPeer seems to highlight the peer even if it should be out of range, so we might need to come up with a better workaround than unconditionally calling peer->SetFrobbed(true); in that function.
 

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8 hours ago, Dragofer said:

While making a small light switch with a big housing I actually found frobbing to, by default, only apply to the entity that's in the focus of the frob. If that entity has a frob_master it'll count as if you had frobbed the frob_master instead; frob_peer just makes them highlight together, but has no functional consequences.

That's actually what I've meant. The passing of the frob to a frob_master, if present, causes it to look like as if only one entity is capable of reacting to the frob. But that is not exactly how it works.

8 hours ago, Dragofer said:

I believe Springheel already did the first step by making the chest bodies of all prefab chests in the core assets unfrobable, so that one can only operate the lid. I've been mapping like this for a while already.

Well, the prefab containers I tested had frobable chests. Maybe it was planned, though.

3 hours ago, jonri said:

The one thing I noticed is that calling addFrobPeer seems to highlight the peer even if it should be out of range, so we might need to come up with a better workaround than unconditionally calling peer->SetFrobbed(true); in that function.

Damnit. I'll tried updating the frob status first, but that didn't gave me the desired results. I haven't thought of that case, though. Will have to fix that. Thanks for the hint.

EDIT: fixed (or so I hope 😬)

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I agree that frob helper should be made default.

And the people who are against it should enable it and play for some time, then think again: does it really annoy them or make frobbing things too simple?

Also, I don't think frob helper helps you detect hidden loot. It only triggers if you look exactly at a frobable item for a few seconds. If you are looking at a part occluded by something non-frobable, it won't trigger. If you are looking at a part occluded by another frobable item, it will trigger, but it won't help you understand that there is loot hidden underneath.

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My memory may be failing me, but I thought there was a key you could press so that frob helper turned on while it was pressed. It may have been that somebody gave instructions to bind a key to do that job through the console.

But anyway I really liked that system. It would stay off, but when I needed it, I could press that button and have it when I needed and wanted it. (And IIRC this is what I've done, but it was already a few years ago now(?), so I don't remember all that well. I did try it with it always on for a while, reflected on it, and still didn't like it, XD  or didn't like it popping up when I wasn't asking for it. But I liked being able to easily turn it on & off. But this is just me; I don't presume to speak for a whole demographic or anything.)

And like I said before, the team can do whatever it feels is best as long as I or anyone can still set that up, or set it up however they like.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Is "Helper" perceived as a cheat of some kind? How about renaming the Frob Helper to "Frob Assistant"? For me the Helper is nothing but: Hey, I noticed you are looking at an object you can interact with, here is the center of the screen in case you need it.

Also, can the Helper be made available on frobable (unconscious/dead) bodies? You know, to assist in setting up the perfect crime scene...

TDM Modpack 4.0

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10 hours ago, Dragofer said:

I believe Springheel already did the first step by making the chest bodies of all prefab chests in the core assets unfrobable, so that one can only operate the lid. I've been mapping like this for a while already.

I never noticed this myself, but as Obsttorte is working on the multi-frob right now, do you think you could modify your original base-frob-turns-to-top-frob script to be base-and-top-frob-turns-to-top-frob-only?

Edited by wesp5
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1 hour ago, snatcher said:

Is "Helper" perceived as a cheat of some kind?

Who cares?! It's a single player title. The questions are imho

  1. Does an addition mess with the fundamental gameplay concept behind TDM or our expectation on stealth titles in general?
  2. Does an addition change the gameplay of already existing missions in a way, that it may go against the intentions of the authors of said mission?

Both are a bit subjective to be honest, but have always been discussed when it comes to adding something that affects gameplay to the core mod. What mission authors do in their fms or what you do to modify the game to your likings is none of our business. (And we couldn't hinder you anyways ;) )

To be honest I don't really understand why we are discussing the frob helper here, as this is an already implemented feature (and therefore has already been agreed upon). The rejection has gone to the thief style container looting, which nobody has requested to add to the mod anyways.

In regards to alterations to the frob behaviour of containers that doesn't change the ways players can interact with them, so in our case making only the lid frobable once the container got opened, there is basically only one question that arose in this thread:

Is getting an item out of a container something that is intented to be challenging? And noone can honestly answer this question with yes (unless you expect our thief to be very, very drunk).

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Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

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My wiki articles: Obstipedia

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Sorry, English isn't my native language. I am trying to say that different words or names can change the perception of a thing, although we are still talking about the exact same thing.

I don't care if the helper is default or not. I am set. I just shared a personal observation: this exists, it is well programmed, and I would have liked to know about it from the get-go. Perhaps others would as well.

Cheers!

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4 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Is getting an item out of a container something that is intented to be challenging? And noone can honestly answer this question with yes (unless you expect our thief to be very, very drunk).

I completely agree! If it wasn't for the weird base-frobbing behaviour, half of the time you wouldn't even need the lean forward key, so if this can be solved by a simple script dragofer-style, I'm all for it!

Edited by wesp5
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On 6/15/2022 at 11:27 AM, Xolvix said:

That said, a nice feature I saw in Prey 2017 is how if you hold down the use key, it will automatically continue the picking up action so you can sweep across a table for example and pick up the loot like a vacuum cleaner rather than pressing F on each individual piece of loot. Wish I could do that in TDM when picking up coin stacks from a container.

That's obviously a proof of concept that

  1. needs some fine tuning
  2. has to be tested in real missions for possible issues

before it can even be considered whether or not to add it to the mod. But I guess that is what you have meant.

 

While we are talking about frobbing there is something else that came to my mind. Interacting with doors when running away from the guards (yes, not all of us ghost) is extremely clumsy sometimes. I like to propose that the door behaviour differs if the player is running when frobbing a door in a manner that

  • when opening the door it gets opened faster, but propagates a suspicious sound upon doing so
  • when closing the door, the closing is in addition delayed. This would mimic that player closes the door behind himself. Note that player interaction via frob is limited to what the player has in front of himself, whereas irl you can easely slam a door close behind you.

This would make the approach of running away, including the usage of tools like the flashbomb, much more useful as compared to just quickloading, which is, in all honesty, currently the best strategy under almost all circumstances.

 

I thing there is a gain for gameplay here, and the changes should be minor. But I would like to get some feedback, just in case I have overseen an important aspect.

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FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

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My wiki articles: Obstipedia

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Totally awesome!!

1 hour ago, Obsttorte said:

Interacting with doors

I was thinking an automatic step/move back when opening a door could bu usefull, so that the door is not blocked by you, when you open it. I guess one could say that you have to frob the door earlier (skill), but I never manage.

Edited by datiswous
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49 minutes ago, Obsttorte said:

While we are talking about frobbing there is something else that came to my mind. Interacting with doors when running away from the guards (yes, not all of us ghost) is extremely clumsy sometimes. I like to propose that the door behaviour differs if the player is running when frobbing a door in a manner that

  • when opening the door it gets opened faster, but propagates a suspicious sound upon doing so
  • when closing the door, the closing is in addition delayed. This would mimic that player closes the door behind himself. Note that player interaction via frob is limited to what the player has in front of himself, whereas irl you can easely slam a door close behind you.

This would make the approach of running away, including the usage of tools like the flashbomb, much more useful as compared to just quickloading, which is, in all honesty, currently the best strategy under almost all circumstances.

I thing there is a gain for gameplay here, and the changes should be minor. But I would like to get some feedback, just in case I have overseen an important aspect.

This is an exciting idea full of possibilities and I am glad it was brought up by an active dev. Can it have its own topic? I find it weird so many related - but different - things get discussed in a single thread. It makes the different board sections dull and searches ineffective.

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52 minutes ago, Obsttorte said:

That's obviously a proof of concept that

  1. needs some fine tuning
  2. has to be tested in real missions for possible issues

before it can even be considered whether or not to add it to the mod. But I guess that is what you have meant.

Huh, I wasn't expecting anyone to actually do jack shit about my suggestion, much less make a prototype. :)

I don't know how your test was set up, but in Prey there's a delay between when the use key is held down to when it starts the auto-grabbing. So you need to hold it for maybe a second (probably a bit less) before it'll do it. I will say your example would look even more awesome if it was coupled with the script that animates the loot flying to the player.

Maximum points for playing a vacuum cleaner sound when the auto-grabbing is engaged. :)

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A word of warning, Agent Denton. This was a simulated experience; real LAMs will not be so forgiving.

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2 hours ago, snatcher said:

This is an exciting idea full of possibilities and I am glad it was brought up by an active dev. Can it have its own topic? I find it weird so many related - but different - things get discussed in a single thread. It makes the different board sections dull and searches ineffective.

Funny, as I was considering opening a new topic but then thought that I don't want to clutter the forum with different threads that all relate to the same aspect of the game. But I am not opposed, though not able to do so myself.

2 hours ago, Xolvix said:

I don't know how your test was set up, but in Prey there's a delay between when the use key is held down to when it starts the auto-grabbing. So you need to hold it for maybe a second (probably a bit less) before it'll do it.

Yeah. I though that there should be an interval between the different pickups anyway, as like this it really is like playing a vacuum cleaner. Would make a nice mod, though. Vacuum Cleaner: The Suck Project. :D

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Something else that I got reminded of recently - on rare occasions, I'm able to grab loot that's behind something else. Like for example a hidden alcove that's covered by a painting, there's been at least two missions where I've frobbed a painting blind because I knew a hidden area was in the room and I was looking for a switch, but then I was able to actually obtain the loot from the alcove, before finding the switch that would have moved the painting. Also just recently, I accidentally frobbed a lootable painting in the wrong room and somehow sucked the painting right through the wall between rooms. Like I said it's pretty rare, but I'm just curious how this is possible.

A word of warning, Agent Denton. This was a simulated experience; real LAMs will not be so forgiving.

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My issue with auto looting chests and drawers and such, is that you don't always know what you got.
In some games, there's an on screen history of items you picked up, or you can open the console like in Quake 1 and see the history.

What if I'm looking for a key in a chest and loot it, how would the player know they got a key as well as loot?

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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