Fan Mission: Volta III - Gemcutter [15th Anniversary Contest]

[Melchior]

On 11/10/2024 at 5:35 AM, chakkman said:

The problem I always saw with any kind of campaign is the lack of uniformity.

Let's say that someone say that this is THE TDM campaign. I beg to differ...

Why I put a big IN MY HUMBLE OPINION; preface . TDM being a (mainly) a game engine for playing FMs - cannot ever really have an official campaign. This is fine, many gaming-systems work like this; such as classics like AD&D for example. There COULD be a "In-the-box" included campaign - even a short 3 mission mini-campaign (trying for an 'ideal' or best-examples of what TDM is trying to be...). The FM author may diverge from the 'standard' as artistic intent requires.

 

The other 'problem' around split FMs, is...Having played the original Voltas - years ago I've forgotten exactly what happened in the previous 2...now to replay so the storyline makes sense again (if it ever did?). A campaign keeps the "progression" fresh - and mabey allows for mission to mission interaction. (Theoretical, but I think TDM can do it)

[thebigh]

1 hour ago, Melchior said:

A campaign keeps the "progression" fresh - and mabey allows for mission to mission interaction. (Theoretical, but I think TDM can do it)

Yep. TDM has the ability to save variables that persist from one mission in a campaign to the next.

[Dead Rat]

A pleasingly surreal mission, thanks Kingsal.

But one thing disappointed me about the Orchid interior:

Spoiler

In the galley there are no cooking facilities of any kind, so the hapless ducks hanging in the cool room will have to be served raw, along with the sushi. There isn't even any way to boil a kettle, despite the teacups and coffee pots found throughout the ship. Kitchens are often inadequate in DM missions but this one is more so than most.

 

[kingsal]

Im going to combine all the volta missions into a campaign with some persistent stuff. I have 3 more missions planned so it’s going to be a while before it is done. 
 

As I said in the OP, some story elements in the earlier missions are inconsistent. That will be fixed as I work on the whole package. 

[Sotha]

I played this masterpiece tonight.

Amazing quadruple-A quality mission. Perfect balance in gameplay, outstanding visuals, expertly crafted story and pacing, interesting location, excellent opportunities to use tools, tools were given, AI patrolling was interesting and challenging.

Spoiler

In the beginning when I first entered the ship I was thinking that "no way! This is going to be very hard: bright lights, lots of guards patrolling." Then I looked again and started seeing the ingeniousness: everything is wood, there are walkable protrusions here and there. Rope arrow ballet!

I completed it with some fall damage and stealth score of around 4. Kept me on my toes from start to finish.

Wow, just wow! Hats off! Please keep making more!

[Lifthrasil]

On 11/9/2024 at 9:57 PM, Melchior said:

What a wonderful, fun and visually striking map!

It has a BUNCH of 1st's for TDM:

  Reveal hidden contents

Working water closets...for instance.

And a neat mechanical parlour target shooting game with working score system and prizes!

 

I hope there are 7 more Voltas' in the works. IMHO: it IS the TDM campaign.

How do you do that? I'm not fast enough to get all of them. Is there a trick? Or am I just too slow and need to practice more?

[chakkman]

It's definitely possible. I'm not the quickest either, and, I did it in the 2nd attempt. Just keep on practicing (I think).

[Lifthrasil]

Oh, and I can confirm an earlier bug report:

If I save in the room of the

Spoiler

Archery skill test

the game crashes, when I try to continue the game. It works fine if I quicksave and quickload while in the game. But after I have quit the game yesterday, and restarted it today, the savegames aren't loadable anymore. Trying to load them leads to the game freezing.

 

[Lifthrasil]

OK. I'm stumped. I've been sneaking around the

Spoiler

Gambling Hall, up the stairs and down the stairs and listened to the conversation of the players.

But the main objective doesn't trigger. I already thought there might be a list of players somewhere to find out who is present, but no luck there either.

So, how do I complete the main objective? Is there something to do that I failed to notice?

[chakkman]

If I recall correctly, the objective is triggered by the conversation indeed.

 @kingsal will know for sure.

Edited January 18, 2025 by chakkman

[kingsal]

@LifthrasilHm, that sounds like something weird might have happened if it didn't complete the objective. 
 

Spoiler

It should complete after you eavesdrop on the card players at the very top of the gambling hall (about 3 flights of stairs up the tower). You have to wait until the very end of the conversation and you cannot alert them.  

There is a chance you accidently alerted them and the mission didn't fail. Try it again from another save and see if it works. If not , could you send me you save file? Its probably a bug or a corrupt save. 

 

[Lifthrasil]

OK. Reloading an earlier save worked. Probably I somehow scared them or triggered the conversation early without listening to it or something.

 

Sorry. I tried uploading a save but it fails because the save file is bigger than the allowed file size. 

[Lifthrasil]

But now I finished the mission. Thank you for writing it! It is very good, as I expected after the first two Volta missions!

Thank you for your good work!

[Thiefette]

Finished this up today and for the most part, enjoyed it. The shadows were in all the right spots so was able to sneak around pretty easily 

Spoiler

and found everything.  Credit goes to one elusive snail. Turned out he was hiding in plain sight, in a room I had been in to deposit (hide) bodies at least 5 times where they couldn't be found (since the door doesn't work). Had to get a hint from here though for general area.

After getting on the ship in disguise I was a bit shocked when I walked into the Orchid and was attacked, so not quite sure what the purpose of it was so I just stayed hidden after reloading. I rode the Orrery across to the tavern and went room to room from there. 
Everything was fine until I got in to Gordiff's suite, then I started getting this awful stutter (as others had mentioned) that stuck with me through the rest of the mission. I too found that saving and reloading paused it for a while so that's what I did to the end. 
Have to mention the mini archery game was fun and the reward was just what I needed in the end. 

Thanks for all your hard work as well as congratulations on your win. I look forward to more missions from you.

[kingsal]

6 hours ago, Thiefette said:

Thanks for all your hard work as well as congratulations on your win. I look forward to more missions from you.

Thanks for playing, would you be able to send me your save file via PM where the stuttering occurs? I'm trying to diagnose this problem. 

@LifthrasilThanks! Glad you liked the mission. If you're able to use mediafire / google drive/ dropbox, ect you can send me the save file via private message. 

[Thiefette]

11 hours ago, kingsal said:

Thanks for playing, would you be able to send me your save file via PM where the stuttering occurs? I'm trying to diagnose this problem. 

@LifthrasilThanks! Glad you liked the mission. If you're able to use mediafire / google drive/ dropbox, ect you can send me the save file via private message. 

I sent you a pm. I have gone back in and saved where I first encountered the problem but keep in mind, it was fine until I got there and continued through the rest of the mission. Its also fine for a short time upon loading the save but after a few minutes of play, the stutter shows up. I'm sorry I don't have those other media things.

[TheUnbeholden]

On death, and I died a lot the this mission, seems to crash the game for me occasionally. Aside from that problem, this was a top notch mission from the very best of the pile next to William Steele and Iris.

[vozka]

Just finished. What an excellent mission.

Even the intro video was one of the best I've seen. If I had to nitpick, I'd say there's too much echo on the dialogue, but I'm only saying that because I feel this is a bit of a trend among TDM creators in general (usually in missions, not in intro videos).

Beautiful graphics style and lighting, interesting areas that are fun to traverse. Sometimes I had a bit of an issue with the AI being mildly weird, but that's just something that happens in TDM.

Spoiler

The drunk sleeping guy in the galley had a tendency to hear me if I made too much noise, wake up, run around completely silently, since he was probably too drunk to even incoherently mumble, but obviously sober enough to perfecly run and search for me, and then he lied back down on the ground next to the bottle and kept sleeping.

The difficulty was relatively mild - when purchasing the copy of the master key, that is. I didn't try ghosting it, just no kills and one or two knockouts, without significant issues. The loot limits were set up relatively benevolently as well, ended up with 1580 without having to backtrack anywhere, 6 out of 8 secrets. Took just short of 2 hours. Therefore I agree that it would work pretty well in a campaign.

[datiswous]

15 hours ago, vozka said:

I'd say there's too much echo on the dialogue, but I'm only saying that because I feel this is a bit of a trend among TDM creators in general (usually in missions, not in intro videos).

Maybe you mean efx referb? There's a referb slider in the audio settings. Maybe it helps.

[gokudo]

Not really a mansion or enclosed space mission connoisseur but this is one of these exceptional FM's that transcends everything. Awesome showcase for 2.13's lighting awesomeness.

[kingsal]

On 4/6/2025 at 1:34 PM, vozka said:

 

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The drunk sleeping guy in the galley had a tendency to hear me if I made too much noise, wake up, run around completely silently, since he was probably too drunk to even incoherently mumble, but obviously sober enough to perfecly run and search for me, and then he lied back down on the ground next to the bottle and kept sleeping.

Haha, that was unintended, but maybe it works. He should at least mumble when searching  
I agree with you on the echo in the intro, I just couldn't get it quite right. Your feedback helps though, thanks.

@datiswousThe settings slider won't effect the reverb in the intro video since its baked into the audio track. 

@gokudoThanks for playing, the tight spaces in the boat were a real challenge to build so Im glad to hear it works. 
 

[Darkness_Falls]

I'm having micro-stutter framerate issues on this mission. Once per second or so, stutter. They started in the areas leading up to the

Spoiler

Gambling Hall

, and have persisted ever since. Once every second or so, the framerate stutters.

I gave up on the mission for a long time as a result because it became frustrating to play. Only way to fix is to save frequently and re-load the last saved game... whereby I can only go another minute or two before it starts stuttering again. If you don't re-load, the stutters just progressively get more and more severe.

I've tested everything I can think of. Lowered all graphics settings to very low or off, including anti-aliasing, textures, LODs, shadows, soft shadows, parallax mapping, V-Sync, FPS cap, ambient occlusion, bloom, max FPS, field of view, and so on. Also tried going from Borderless to Fullscreen, and messing with some of the audio settings, as well.

Other thoughts are appreciated. This map is the first and only time I've seen this issue. Feels like maybe a memory leak of some sort, but I don't know.

I tried to leverage the following thread, but I don't see "autexec.cfg" existing in the darkmod directory anymore:

 

Edited July 13, 2025 by Darkness_Falls

[chakkman]

25 minutes ago, Darkness_Falls said:

I'm having micro-stutter framerate issues on this mission. Once per second or so, stutter. They started in the areas leading up to the

  Reveal hidden contents

Gambling Hall

, and have persisted ever since. Once every second or so, the framerate stutters.

I gave up on the mission for a long time as a result because it became frustrating to play. Only way to fix is to save frequently and re-load the last saved game... 

I had the same issue when I played.

Quote

The mission felt very polished, I haven't come across any places where I got stuck, or noticed any other issues. I got a bad lag on the Orchid though, and, the longer I played, the more severe the lags got. Not so much bad framerate, rather stuttering. Every time I quickloaded, the stuttering was gone, but then started again, the longer I played. 

 

Edited July 13, 2025 by chakkman

[Darkness_Falls]

Yep, exactly. I decided to just plow through today after posting that and finish the mission. But it really was painful for the last hour or so of gameplay with the stuttering and frequent re-loads.

Really nice mission overall. I love the Volta series

 

 

[kingsal]

4 hours ago, Darkness_Falls said:

Yep, exactly. I decided to just plow through today after posting that and finish the mission. But it really was painful for the last hour or so of gameplay with the stuttering and frequent re-loads.

Really nice mission overall. I love the Volta series

 

 

Unfortunately, Im not sure what is causing this but thanks for sticking with it. 

Ive seen this before when AI get stuck in a loop somewhere and cause serious frame dropping. I suspect the fish AI  might be doing this, but I'll take a look and hopefully fix this!

Edited July 14, 2025 by kingsal