[Mark]

Trooper Dan, on 24 March 2017 - 09:52 PM, said:

Yeah, I have had a hard time getting that right. I pumped up the volume on the sound sample. Not good enough. Then I made the game stopallsounds when the voice starts -- not good enough because other sounds just start playing right after. Then I made the music stop for the duration of the voice and start again when it ends. Still not good enough because it only addresses the musical interference, not the sounds. The good news is that the emperor only has 5 lines and they will cycle, so eventually you will get to hear what he is saying. Maybe.

Did you ever solve that voice issue? Now that the game is released I was able to load the voice lines into my editor and was able to go beyond just raising the volume. I was able to remove the bassy orchestral music leaving just the voice which I then adjusted EQ, compression, limiting, and gain to allow it to break through a lot better than the original. Then, I wasn't sure if the music in the backround of the voice was wanted or not so I overlayed the isolated and boosted voice over the original track for the best of both worlds. I went to the extreme of making it a breakthrough sound because you said the game is very busy when it plays. If my version is a little too harsh and stands out too much, it can be toned down.

I didn't play the game yet so the voice is untested.

[Danukem]

Thanks for the effort, but I don't think I will need that. In the released version, sounds and music stop for the duration of the emperor's lines, so you can hear him clearly (this is good for dramatic effect, too). I'm sorry you went to that trouble, but I didn't know you were working on it. Also -- you could have been a beta tester!

[Mark]

I don't play maps much so I would not have been a good tester.

Actually, I didn't work on it until I was able to download the game yesterday. No trouble at all doing these tests. It was all of maybe 10-12 minutes of my time and I have lots of it since retiring.

[Forge]

Forgot to ask - Is force push supposed to work on Sith?

[Danukem]

Forge, on 05 April 2017 - 12:55 PM, said:

Forgot to ask - Is force push supposed to work on Sith?

I honestly don't recall at the moment. I'm ok with it either way, as long as force choke doesn't work. By the way, there is a small patch out at Mod DB.

[Forge]

Seen the patch. Thanks.

Force push affect sith, but not choking. Has since you implemented that effect in the game, but I didn't think about it until I looked at the PDF & noticed that push was meant for non-biological enemies.
I suppose it fits though, since the sith can push a player that fires a weapon too close to them.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 05 April 2017 - 01:34 PM, said:

Seen the patch. Thanks.

Force push affect sith, but not choking. Has since you implemented that effect in the game, but I didn't think about it until I looked at the PDF & noticed that push was meant for non-biological enemies.
I suppose it fits though, since the sith can push a player that fires a weapon too close to them.

Right, and you can also force push an enemy that you are choking, if you press fire during the choke.

[Gambini]

I have noticed a Droideka shooting through a thick wall.

[Danukem]

Gambini, on 05 April 2017 - 09:59 PM, said:

I have noticed a Droideka shooting through a thick wall.

Yeah, I know why that happens, and it can be fixed. But it's rare enough and not serious enough that I will wait for a future update. The bugs fixed between 200 and 201 were both easy to fix (once I realized them) and fairly serious.

Here's the story behind all the shooting through walls issues (this is long and boring but I feel like writing about it). Since time began, there was a bug in EDuke32 which made it possible for enemies to hit themselves with non-hitscan projectiles before the projectile would even get a chance to move. This was more likely to happen with certain sizes of enemies and from certain angles, so it was seldom noticed for many ages (I seem to remember people saying this happens in WT with one of the bosses, so it may go all the way back to DOS Duke). But it was a serious issue in Duke Forces. I tried many things in an attempt to work around it, but ultimately I ended up actually moving the position of the enemy when firing, then instantly moving the enemy back to its start position. The result would be that the projectile would start in front of the enemy instead of right on the enemy. This meant that the enemy would never shoot itself, but if it was close enough to a barrier, the projectile could jump right through it.

I asked TerminX to fix the self-hitting bug, and at first I thought he had, but actually his fix didn't set the right clipping bit and I didn't feel like asking him about it again. I finally asked Hendricks266, who discovered what had happened and set the correct clipping bit. After that I removed my workaround, but not from all the enemies.

The droideka, and a few other enemies, still have a need for projectile repositioning. This can be done in a way that does not move the projectile forward, but I would have to fiddle with it to get it right.

[Forge]

Bank Roll E3L2 appears to be missing two or three tie fighters. There's only 2, and iirc there's supposed to be 4 or 5.

The two tie fighters at the beginning of Hotel Hell E3L8 have a messed up path & keep getting stuck in the hole in the wall where the player starts.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 06 April 2017 - 04:41 PM, said:

The two tie fighters at the beginning of Hotel Hell E3L8 have a messed up path & keep getting stuck in the hole in the wall where the player starts.

*sigh*

I guess I'll have to go back to including the modified version of the map with my own locators again

Although come to think of it I could do it as a code only update -- I literally just change the picnum of the locator sprites and then it works. In either case, I'll do a ninja update to the file at some point.

[Forge]

If its any consolation, I played & finished Episode 2 with no issues.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 06 April 2017 - 08:37 PM, said:

If its any consolation, I played & finished Episode 2 with no issues.

I'm just kicking myself because I already had that map included, then I got cocky and removed it because I assumed the fix for E1L2 also applied to E3L3.

[Forge]

the tie fighters in E3L11 Freeway are also not behaving correctly / following a proper path / getting stuck.

The boss fight in Stadium is pretty fun. - especially when you kill all the troops at one end of the stadium and get another sith spawned.
What I like about it is the use of the objects / inventory items- this map takes good advantage of using the jetpack, portable barrier, bacta tank (if necessary before grabbing the atomics), & remote drone + it's also a good light sabre level.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 07 April 2017 - 03:17 PM, said:

the tie fighters in E3L11 Freeway are also not behaving correctly / following a proper path / getting stuck.

The boss fight in Stadium is pretty fun. - especially when you kill all the troops at one end of the stadium and get another sith spawned.
What I like about it is the use of the objects / inventory items- this map takes good advantage of using the jetpack, portable barrier, bacta tank (if necessary before grabbing the atomics), & remote drone + it's also a good light sabre level.

There's a problem I have been unable to diagnose or fix relating to TIE fighters using the hardcoded locators sprites for navigation. The first map loaded always works fine, whether it is loaded as a user map or not. But any following maps in the same game will exhibit a problem whereby the TIE fighters have completely messed up paths. Any map where I have substituted my own version of the locator sprites works fine. So instead of continuing to try and diagnose this stubborn problem, I'm going to systematically replace all locators with my own via code in levels that have RECON (tie fighters). I should have done that from the beginning, but I kept thinking that I could get the regular locators to work right.

[Forge]

A small observation - I don't think there's any way to acquire a bryar pistol after Duke rides the lighting in the electric chair in Episode 1, E1L3 Death Row
Limited to the dl-44 for the rest of the episode.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 07 April 2017 - 09:12 PM, said:

A small observation - I don't think there's any way to acquire a bryar pistol after Duke rides the lighting in the electric chair in Episode 1, E1L3 Death Row
Limited to the dl-44 for the rest of the episode.

It can't be found in the maps, but it can drop.

Imperial officers and red guards each have a chance to drop a bryar when they die. They have a slightly higher chance of dropping energy shields, but the bryar should drop every now and then.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 06 April 2017 - 04:41 PM, said:

Bank Roll E3L2 appears to be missing two or three tie fighters. There's only 2, and iirc there's supposed to be 4 or 5.

The two tie fighters at the beginning of Hotel Hell E3L8 have a messed up path & keep getting stuck in the hole in the wall where the player starts.

Today I decided to fix this, as well as the reported problem with Freeway.

I could not replicate the problem -- are you sure this happened when using 201? I have tried it multiple times, even going through the levels in order (not loading them as user maps), and the paths are followed as correctly as can be expected in every level. In freeway, the TIE fighters do clip into the ground for part of the path, but that is due to them being larger than pigcop recons.

Here is testing method I use. Open the console and type "setvar endlevel 10" -- this forces the map to end in 10 tics and skip the bonus screen. On the next maps do it again (you can press up arrow on the keyboard to cycle through recent console commands). In this way you can start any episode and go through all the maps, including secret levels, as quickly as you want, checking them as you go.

[Forge]

Trooper Dan, on 08 April 2017 - 12:21 PM, said:

are you sure this happened when using 201?

Yes.
I will play episode 3 again, going though it normally, and if I encounter the issue again, I will send you the save file.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 08 April 2017 - 01:19 PM, said:

Yes.
I will play episode 3 again, going though it normally, and if I encounter the issue again, I will send you the save file.

Cool. If you are going to do that, let's be 100% sure that we are using exactly the same code, just in case something relevant got changed:

http://s000.tinyuplo...362693239716172

[Forge]

That is not the same game con in the 201 patch I have.

new cons:
game.con - 568,827 kb dated 4/8/2017
user.con - 65,618 kb dated 4/5/2017

old 201 patch cons I'm using:
game.con - 567.927 kb dated 4/5/2017
user.con - 65,618 kb dated 4/5/2017

[Danukem]

Forge, on 08 April 2017 - 02:32 PM, said:

That is not the same game con in the 201 patch I have.

new cons:
game.con - 568,827 kb dated 4/8/2017
user.con - 65,618 kb dated 4/5/2017

old 201 patch cons I'm using:
game.con - 567.927 kb dated 4/5/2017
user.con - 65,618 kb dated 4/5/2017

I know, but I'm pretty sure that the differences are not relevant to the issue. I have tinkered around with a few things, but I haven't done anything that should affect the TIE fighters since 201. Anyway, use the new one just in case.

[Danukem]

After trying it out and talking with Loke about it, I believe that his map Baptized in Moondust is a winner, and will replace the moonbase map in the Darth Nukem episode. I have played though it, and made a few minor adjustments to the enemy replacement code to go along with it.

However, I don't want to be hasty and make it official yet -- I'm a little concerned about performance and want to make sure there are no bugs that I neglected. So I am providing this link to a provisional 2.02 version:

https://www.dropbox....ces202.rar?dl=0

If anyone wants to test, you may want to use the endlevel cheat I described above to skip through most of the episode. What should happen at the end of Loke's map is a boss battle with a giant droideka, then the level should end and go to the final map with the sith battle and emperor ending.

[Forge]

Played episode 3 through to freeway.
The tie fighters were located in the parts of the map they were supposed to be in (e.g. in the front street instead of the back alley where the player starts in hotel hell) - and they were behaving properly & following the corrects paths.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 08 April 2017 - 10:29 PM, said:

Played episode 3 through to freeway.
The tie fighters were located in the parts of the map they were supposed to be in (e.g. in the front street instead of the back alley where the player starts in hotel hell) - and they were behaving properly & following the corrects paths.

Thanks for all your hard work checking on that. At this point, even if the problem did pop up again once in a while, I'm not sure what I would do about it.

The next task is to make sure that Loke's Baptism is working well as a replacement for Iggy's moon base.

[Forge]

Played the Baptism map.
Meh.

It looks and functions just fine & the ambiance / atmosphere / environment fit.
I'm just not a fan of the game play aspect of it until the droideka fight at the end.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 09 April 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

Played the Baptism map.
Meh.

It looks and functions just fine & the ambiance / atmosphere / environment fit.
I'm just not a fan of the game play aspect of it until the droideka fight at the end.

I think the gameplay is a bit bland due to the largeness of the areas (big rooms, wide corridors). Is this what you mean? I communicated with Loke yesterday and he is okay with making some gameplay adjustments (within reason).

A few suggestions (just brainstorming):

• Add some z-axis to the gameplay by putting some "sniper" enemies on high perches
  
• Add some DTS1 (the melee robots) because I don't recall there being any
  
• Add a few airport-style conveyer belts to the center strips on some of the long corridors, to make it quicker to get around (using existing sectors only if possible)
  
• Add a few blast-shield walls to large open areas, so the player can use them for cover

I did not open the level in mapster when writing that, so I may be completely wrong about what can be done easily...

[Forge]

Trooper Dan, on 09 April 2017 - 03:05 PM, said:

I think the gameplay is a bit bland due to the largeness of the areas (big rooms, wide corridors). Is this what you mean? I communicated with Loke yesterday and he is okay with making some gameplay adjustments (within reason).

Combine that with a lot backtracking through the same big long empty corridors and rooms- with little or no action.
-so I'm for some blast shields and walls in those large long corridors along with some strategically placed spawns for the return trip back to the hub

Several of the side areas aren't even worth exploring (e.g. there a couple bathrooms full of enemies, a secret in a ventilation shaft system, & a barracks room, but little or no reward for entering those places)

The health & supply placement can be sketchy at times because of the far reaching layout. It would be better to spread it out along the corridors & side rooms instead of lumping it all by the doors.

Not a fan of timed doors that have to be reached before they close - especially when the player has to fight off a small group of spawned enemies - it's an extra annoyance to ride up and down a lift additional times, and especially after having to walk back and forth down long empty corridors.

All that being said, I'd still rather deal with this map than the map this one replaced.

there were 2 DTS1s - they were in side niches that opened up right after grabbing the key behind the force shields, but this map could always use more.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 09 April 2017 - 03:27 PM, said:

Not a fan of timed doors that have to be reached before they close - especially when the player has to fight off a small group of spawned enemies - it's an extra annoyance to ride up and down a lift additional times, and especially after having to walk back and forth down long empty corridors.

Good point and I agree. In fact I got stuck for a few minutes the first time it happened, because by the time I went down the elevator and was ready to proceed, the door was shut and I didn't realize that I had activated a timed door up above (my mistake for not paying attention when pressing the button, but still...)

Would you be willing to try your hand at some gameplay adjustments yourself? I won't be able to do anything with it today.

[Forge]

I haven't used mapster for a couple years. I could try, but it'll probably take me a day or two to remember how to do stuff. -and the map has to be compatible with my 2015 version because I don't know all the new color schemes and features, nor do I care to try to figure them out.