Fan Mission: The Lieutenant 3: Foreign Affairs by Frost_Salamander

[Frost_Salamander]

With as little fanfare as possible, I'd like to announce the release of the third installment of The Lieutenant series: Foreign Affairs.

Huge thanks for my beta testers: @Bergante @Cambridge Spy @chakkman @Mat99 @Shadow @wesp5

For a full list of credits, please see the readme.txt that ships with the mission, or go here.

More screenshots can be viewed here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBr44M

Latest version: 4.0

Download link #1: https://github.com/FrostSalamander/lt3/releases/download/4.0/faffairs.pk4

Download link #2: https://drive.proton.me/urls/FTE3WRST48#yvnLUZBtBpDD

@nbohr1more here's the 800x600 versions of the screenshots: https://drive.proton.me/urls/MFGZ3WXCAW#WXXAnYkPgGZX

Stuff to be aware of:

• TDM 2.12 required
• The only difference in difficulty settings is the (optional) loot goal
• If you see a tile material, chances are it's a custom version changed to sound like stone. I did this in order to preserve the aesthetic of the setting without making it maddening to play.
• Some vines are climbable, some aren't.  Just try them and see.
• The FM makes use of latches on doors, a new feature created by @Wellingtoncrab and myself.  Read more here: https://github.com/thedarkmodcommunity/test-latch/wiki

Known Issues

• (UPDATE: This has been fixed in version 2.0). A minority of players are having an issue with things being unfrobable, particularly the jewelry cabinets in Jerry's Jewels and also another lever in a secret place.  Try exiting/re-entering the area to see if that fixes anything, as the frobability is triggered by entering and leaving the room/area.

Secrets

Here's a list of the secret locations.  Obvious spoilers:

Spoiler

The secrets take the form of small gold bottles of (highly illegal) wine.  They can be found:

• on the ship behind some barrels after coming up the stairs
• under the sleeping thug's table at the cafe
• in Spencer's desk
• Mr Grenville in the top floor of the restaurant has one on his table
• by the pool in the Dudley's flat
• in a crawlspace to the office in the restaurant
• in the crate in the winemaking room of the soap factory
• under the table in the vault with the guard
• in a window near the ministry
• in the junk room below Grenville's kitchen and the market 

 

 

[nbohr1more]

Congrats on the release! I will upload tonight unless someone does it before me.

[chakkman]

Grats on the release. It's a nice one.  

[JackFarmer]

Congratulations on the Release!

[Bergante]

congrates & thanks   
looks like you need a break !?

 I was near to give you a "Haha-Smilie" or a "Confused-Smilie"
Why do you offer the secrets right with the release ?
(next time perhaps by EDIT - some month later ? ) 

[Frost_Salamander]

Just now, Bergante said:

congrates & thanks   
looks like you need a break !?

 I was near to give you a "Haha-Smilie" or a "Confused-Smilie"
Why do you offer the secrets right with the release ?
(next time perhaps by EDIT - some month later ? ) 

Basically someone always asks. We're all grownups here and it's in spoiler tags so...

[nbohr1more]

The mission has been added to the mission database and wiki.

[datiswous]

Wow that was quick! Congrats!

[chakkman]

11 hours ago, Bergante said:

Why do you offer the secrets right with the release ?

Because it's super useful not having to browse through the whole thread, and probably not even finding what you're looking for, because people put it in spoiler tags, which are excluded from the search.

You don't have to click on the spoiler tag in the original post.

[irg]

anyone else having low performance in some indoor areas? i can understand some when starting outside but in a fairly confined space like the lower ship decks or administration building i'm not sure what would be tanking things to a noticeable effect

[chakkman]

Didn't notice anything in that regard when beta testing.

Which OS are you using, and what are your computer's specs?

[Frost_Salamander]

11 minutes ago, irg said:

anyone else having low performance in some indoor areas? i can understand some when starting outside but in a fairly confined space like the lower ship decks or administration building i'm not sure what would be tanking things to a noticeable effect

Maybe it's the volumetric lights? There are some in the ship. Can't remember if they are in the admin building, but apart from that they are used sparingly so hopefully you'll be ok.

[irg]

i'm on Win10 with an i5-8400 and RTX 2070 so it's starting to get up there in age especially for CPU but i just dont know that i've had so many dips indoors in particular before. i switched to stencil shadows already and have still been getting drops

[nbohr1more]

25 minutes ago, irg said:

i'm on Win10 with an i5-8400 and RTX 2070 so it's starting to get up there in age especially for CPU but i just dont know that i've had so many dips indoors in particular before. i switched to stencil shadows already and have still been getting drops

You're on TDM 2.12 correct?

Please post your current Darkmod.cfg

Also, the performance wiki has been updated recently:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance_Tweaks

[irg]

Darkmod.cfg

yea i'm on 2.12. i remembered to turn off soft shadows too and it seemed to help in some smaller areas thus far. not sure if it's just the scale of things as i venture into the next outdoor area

[nbohr1more]

1 hour ago, irg said:

Darkmod.cfg 14.51 kB · 1 download

yea i'm on 2.12. i remembered to turn off soft shadows too and it seemed to help in some smaller areas thus far. not sure if it's just the scale of things as i venture into the next outdoor area

To begin, this is a large mission and EFX reverb is gonna take it's toll ( lots of reverb bounces to calculate ).

Try playing with EFX off.

 

Other than that ( or if you absolutely need the reverb ) try these changes:

 

Set FPS to "Uncapped" in the advanced video settings ( some drivers don't like Doom 3 style FPS management )

Set MaxFPS to 60 (or whatever your Refresh is )

Set Color to 32-bit on the Advanced Video menu.

 

Config changes:

tdm_lg_interleave 3

tdm_lg_interleave_min 31

[irg]

well silly me, just needed to raise max fps. not dropping below 80 now even with more stuff turned on. i gotta make a note for that whenever resetting after an engine update.

[datiswous]

6 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

Set Color to 32-bit on the Advanced Video menu.

This should be more of a last resort. It makes a pretty big graphical difference I found.

[chakkman]

10 hours ago, irg said:

well silly me, just needed to raise max fps. not dropping below 80 now even with more stuff turned on. i gotta make a note for that whenever resetting after an engine update.

I dislike that reset after updating. But, I guess it has to be, if options and variables are added.

[Marbrien]

I've got into Jerry's Jewels, but the two display cabinets are unfrobbable and unbreakable, and I can't find a switch in the shop which might open them.  Have I missed something?  Or is this a bug?  Or a joke (a jewelry shop with nothing to steal)?

[Frost_Salamander]

2 minutes ago, Marbrien said:

I've got into Jerry's Jewels, but the two display cabinets are unfrobbable and unbreakable, and I can't find a switch in the shop which might open them.  Have I missed something?  Or is this a bug?  Or a joke (a jewelry shop with nothing to steal)?

Spoiler

The lids should be frobable, and pickable.  If they aren't it's a bug, which I haven't seen before now.

 

[Plaugemouse]

Spoiler

Lever in mage house is also unfrobbable. Same bug perhaps?

 

[Marbrien]

I have the 64 bit version of TDM, and ran the installer before downloading the FM to ensure I was up-to-date.  I played on Expert, and managed to meet the loot objective without getting my hands on the jewels in the shop.  I did not encounter any other problems except an occasional and temporary framerate stuttering. 

I've just transferred one of my savegames to another laptop with an up-to-date version of TDM, and with this FM installed, and the problem with the jewelry cases is still there. 

It's a great mission otherwise!

Edited May 22 by Marbrien

[datiswous]

20 hours ago, chakkman said:

I dislike that reset after updating. But, I guess it has to be, if options and variables are added.

The installer should automatically reset the settings it changes and leave the rest intact. I think that should be doable.

[nbohr1more]

22 hours ago, chakkman said:

I dislike that reset after updating. But, I guess it has to be, if options and variables are added.

You get the option to "Restore old Config" after upgrade but we advise against it since sometimes it reverts new default settings for performance features that have been improved and tested enough to made default.

I think the next TDM release will have FPS mode to uncapped as default since it is critical to Linux players but also fixes a few audio sync bugs and even improves things for Windows players apparently. On balance, uncapped mode is more fixed and maintained than the old id software capped mode. ( Quite a strange thing considering all the bugs we used to have with uncapped mode. )