Eternal X 1.2

[President People]

President People, I'd love to have your physics changes incorporated into the individual map files to include with that release!

Incorporated Tacticus' new fusion sprites into the Shapes file (The plugin still needs the hi-res ones) and finally finished up the new Marine sprites tonight. I'll get to work on those physics soon!

[Pfhorrest]

Awesome, thanks!

On the topic of the one mostly-unattended piece of this year's project, the map revisions, it's occurred to me that at the pace I'm going, I may be done with textures some time around September. That will then leave me a few months left in the year, all of which I have set aside for Eternal stuff.

If I keep rolling at the same pace as I'm doing the textures, doing a level a night for a few nights each week, just reading the reviews for that level and doing whatever little things they suggest that don't require rebuilding the whole thing, then that might just be enough time for me to touch up the levels myself.

Unless someone else wants to volunteer for that still? No heavy map reconstruction required, just stuff like annoying slow platforms or starting with your head outside the world or needing a pattern buffer or a charger at a certain point or too many or too few monsters here or there. Whatever Ryoko and Crater Creator had to say about little specific stuff like that. Anyone?

[ravenshining]

I've been taking a look at the S'pht levels, specifically considering drastic changes to Mohicans. The terminal tells you to activate a beacon to call the S'pht'kr, but all you do is run around opening doors, and what's worse is the level is marked as extermination yet there are all these friendly s'pht hanging around. It took me forever, wandering around the level looking for nonexistent missed switches to realise I had to kill the friendlies to proceed.

That said, I would like to provide a rebuttal to Ryoko's reviews, and say that I loved the dream levels on the mountain, they are a beautiful piece of work.

[Pfhorrest]

Thank you

And yeah anything that anyone disagrees ought to be changed, doesn't have to be changed, and if I end up going through I will of course ignore any recommendations that I think will make things worse, and look more for things I just hadn't thought to make better before.

[President People]

Hey Pfhorrest, do you happen to have a list of which entities are or aren't friendly per-level or even per-chapter? The way ShapeFusion is set up, checking each monster in every level against the main physics file could take a long time.

A list of any kind would speed up the process significantly. Though, if one doesn't already exist, I may just have to suck it up and chip away at one on my own.

[Pfhorrest]

I don't have a definitive list written down anywhere, so the best I could do is try to reconstruct one from memory. Off the top of my head:

Chapter 1 - only Bobs are friendly (the standard configuration, I think?)
Chapter 2 level 1 - same
Chapter 2 level 2 through the end of the failure branch - Compilers and Cyborgs tolerate you, hostile to Pfhor
Chapter 2 success branch - Compilers and Cyborgs are hostile to you again, but still hostile to Pfhor
Chapter 3 levels 1 through 3 - S'pht'Mnr (minor, I think?) Defenders are hostile to you and S'pht'Kr defenders (though these might only be featured on these levels at all, so maybe nothing needs to be changed about them ever?)
Chapter 4 levels 1 through 3 - Hulks are hostile to all Pfhor as well as you
Chapter 4 levels 4 and on - Hulks tolerate you, still hostile to Pfhor
Chapter 5 - only Bobs are friendly again

[Pfhorrest]

Tonight's progress:

I'm unhappy with how the sewage looks in-game, but I can't really figure out why because I think it looks fine by itself:

Thoughts?

ETA: Realized I had forgotten to update the MML for the sewage:

I guess it's better? Still not really satisfied though.

ETA2: I think I fixed it?

Just resaved with DXTC and mipmaps off. Don't know why that makes a difference like this.

[ravenshining]

I've realised I was confused as to the purpose of Mohicans. The terminal says,

Please, continue, while we seek the final lights which will recall S'pht'Kr to our salvation.

Which on my first several runs I misinterpreted as meaning "Go, continue seeking the lights to bring the S'pht'Kr," but now I've realised it's saying "Continue distracting the Pfhor by shooting them, while I and my fellow S'pht seek the lights."

Now the extermination mission makes sense! So rather than the more involved overhaul I was considering, perhaps a slight adjustment may make the terminal more clear:

Please, continue your distraction, while we seek the final lights which will recall S'pht'Kr to our salvation.

or

Please, continue distracting the slavers, while we seek the final lights which will recall S'pht'Kr to our salvation.

Then all it needs is for me to put in some monster activation triggers and a few more Pfhor to ensure that none of the S'pht survive and to keep things interesting as you proceed through the door puzzle.

[Pfhorrest]

That all sounds good to me!

[treellama]

If you're using opac_scale and opac_shift then you can't use DXTC, since Aleph One has to modify the textures.

[Pfhorrest]

I'm not happy with that window texture but I'm too exhausted to figure out why right now. Maybe it just needs to be darker?

[President People]

Continuing the discussion about the S'pht clans from the Story Page here.

How many different S'pht'Kr would we need? If just one, a dedicated slot could be given by replacing the Assimilated Bob, who is only used on a single failure level (The Philosophy of Time Travel) as a recolored green Bob with no behavioral differences aside from Friend/Foe changes that don't come into play anyhow.

I'm unsure what the purpose of using the Assimilated slot for that level is. Some Bob-count trickery? I can't remember if they count towards the total by default.

[Pfhorrest]

There were plans years ago to have a whole variety of different Bobs based off the same model as the new player model that was going to accompany the new weapons that never materialized. The Bob placement and colors on the maps was updated in anticipation of those. I suspect that the assimilated Bobs on The Philosophy of Time Travel were to be the clean room Bobs (unarmed, white vacbobs).

In case anyone's curious, those Bobs were going to be (off the top of my head so this may not be accurate):

Green unarmed Bob
Silver unarmed Bob (Jjaro)
Black fusion Bob
White unarmed VacBob
Green fusion VacBob
Silver fusion VacBob (Jjaro)

Though that leaves two unused Bob slots in the physics when I thought that they had all been assigned. Maybe the MADDs are in Bob slots too? Now that I think about it, there should be some MADDs on the failure dream levels, are you sure that's not the assimilated Bob you're seeing, maybe messed up somehow?

Anyway, as for S'pht. I was thinking the easiest thing to do might just be to change the colors assigned to at least the Major Defender slot, maybe the Minor if you care too as well, and make the Minor no longer hostile to players. If you wanted to make them different on each level, that would be fine too, but that's all up to you guys.

[President People]

There were plans years ago to have a whole variety of different Bobs based off the same model as the new player model that was going to accompany the new weapons that never materialized. The Bob placement and colors on the maps was updated in anticipation of those. I suspect that the assimilated Bobs on The Philosophy of Time Travel were to be the clean room Bobs (unarmed, white vacbobs).

In case anyone's curious, those Bobs were going to be (off the top of my head so this may not be accurate):

Green unarmed Bob
Silver unarmed Bob (Jjaro)
Black fusion Bob
White unarmed VacBob
Green fusion VacBob
Silver fusion VacBob (Jjaro)

Ah, so that's why the blue Bobs only show up in the Jjaro chapter.

Though that leaves two unused Bob slots in the physics when I thought that they had all been assigned. Maybe the MADDs are in Bob slots too? Now that I think about it, there should be some MADDs on the failure dream levels, are you sure that's not the assimilated Bob you're seeing, maybe messed up somehow?

The MADDs use the Possessed Drone slot. While the gray Bob I described in my last post is what we see in the failure level, the one from the default Physics file behaved a bit differently. This Bob floats around firing harmless (to you, at least) WMC blasts at anything that moves, and is immune to all damage. What has Jjaro science done?!

EDIT: As for the rest of the Bobs, they do all appear throughout the scenario, just not typically all in one level.

Anyway, as for S'pht. I was thinking the easiest thing to do might just be to change the colors assigned to at least the Major Defender slot, maybe the Minor if you care too as well, and make the Minor no longer hostile to players. If you wanted to make them different on each level, that would be fine too, but that's all up to you guys.

Can do. I just need to know what new colors to make in the Shapes file. I should also note that the Major S'pht'Kr Bolt is completely unused, so a new color can be added to that as well if need be. Maybe to help differentiate friendly/hostile S'pht?

[Pfhorrest]

Ah, I think I know what that crazy Bob in the default physics is! That's Hathor! Or it was supposed to be. Originally, I wanted a modified silver Bob (basically just female and with sort of techno-medusa hair added on) wielding a WMC to be at the end of We Met Once In The Garden, and there would be some scripting to coordinate a battle with her that ends with her leaving as you lie in the slow rain of burning slivers of wood, staring at the low, dark clouds, craving your next meeting. That is the "[?operator]" that the [?watcher] references in some terminals near the end there; a cyborg Jjaro connected to the Sphere's network, into whom Hathor fled when "killed" (again) on Deep Into the Grotto.

If anyone can convince Tacticus (or someone) to help make that happen, that would be the fucking cherry on top of this finally-finishing-off-Eternal sundae.


As for Defender colors, I think the 'Mnr are warm grey / brown and the 'Kr are cool grey / slate right now, right? So maybe a military-esque green and some kind of dark low-saturation magenta might be good colors to round out the tetrad.

[ravenshining]

I think it'd be best not to worry about assigning dedicated slots. Once you have your physics done, I can modify as necessary for the S'pht levels. I could add a few CLUTs to the shapesfile myself tonight, if you'd like to send what you've got to me so far. Zipped the shapesfile is only about 14MB so it might even go through e-mail.

If you are open to changing the colour of the S'pht'Mnr, I noticed that the S'pht on the table in Questionable Surgical Procedures is wearing sky blue. I would then use the brown probably for the S'pht'Shr, since it's the best camoflage on Lh'owon and the S'pht'Shr are the ones competent enough to capture Pfhor.

S'pht'Lhar - yellow (I'll add some of these to S'pht'ia, since the war was between them and Mnr)
S'pht'Shr - brown or yellow-green (these guys I'll have firing out windows on S'pht Happens)
S'pht'Mnr - sky blue or brown (enemy s'pht on S'pht'ia)
S'pht'Yor - purple (these are the ones you talk to)
S'pht'Kr - dark blue

S'pht'Nma - do not include, or green
S'pht'Kah - do not include, or teal
S'pht'Vir - do not include, or white
S'pht'Yra - do not include, or purple
S'pht'Val - do not include, or black

S'pht'Hra - do not include, or orange (would be used in far past only)

EDIT: Here's what I cooked up yesterday. Mostly I was just trying to get the combat right on all difficulty levels, so that the S'pht usually manage to take down a jugg or two, but ultimately perish no matter how much you try and help. Once the Defenders and Fl'ick'ta are down, the "battle" between ticks and juggernauts will rage indefinitely. Make sure you select the physics if you test this out!

[President People]

Ah, I think I know what that crazy Bob in the default physics is! That's Hathor! Or it was supposed to be. Originally, I wanted a modified silver Bob (basically just female and with sort of techno-medusa hair added on) wielding a WMC to be at the end of We Met Once In The Garden, and there would be some scripting to coordinate a battle with her that ends with her leaving as you lie in the slow rain of burning slivers of wood, staring at the low, dark clouds, craving your next meeting. That is the "[?operator]" that the [?watcher] references in some terminals near the end there; a cyborg Jjaro connected to the Sphere's network, into whom Hathor fled when "killed" (again) on Deep Into the Grotto.

If anyone can convince Tacticus (or someone) to help make that happen, that would be the fucking cherry on top of this finally-finishing-off-Eternal sundae.

That sounds really cool and I'd love to see that make it in. Would Hathor be wielding an actual WMC, or just firing the projectiles as though casting a magical attack? I keep picturing the latter for some reason.

[Pfhorrest]

Thanks Lia, I'll check that out later tonight!

And I think your plans with the modified S'pht sound good. If you care to, you can also change the colors (and behaviors) of the unarmed S'pht wandering around those levels to match their appropriate clans, too.

The latest shapes file is either the one in 1.2a1 or whatever the latest thing President People has posted here, I'm not sure which, but either way you should have it already.

Would Hathor be wielding an actual WMC, or just firing the projectiles as though casting a magical attack?

Carrying an actual WMC.

[ravenshining]

Okay, I added the CLUTs and e-mailed the revised shapesfile to both of you. Then I had some fun making this image:

[Pfhorrest]

Just checked out the updated S'pht Happens, and the updated combat is great!

I notice that K'halin has been removed from the map though (the unarmed S'pht who speaks to you in the first terminal; that was him in the room, as seen in the terminal pic which is a screenshot of him in the room).

There's also an untextured wall on the way down the stairs from that first room now. I'm not sure how that happened.

And it seems like the Defenders on that level are the ones you have labelled as Kr above, though I understand you made the modified shapes after making the level. Still, I guess that needs an update. (Unless I just can't tell the different shades of orange apart? They look bright orange in game to me, not orange-brown).

I am thinking more about what colors to assign to what clan though, not that I want to ask you to redo the work. If we're going to actually use five of them, then I would like those five to be the five primary colors used throughout Eternal: grey, orange, green, azure, and magenta. Not necessarily pure chromas of those, but those hues, so e.g. the orange can be an orange brown, the azure can be pale sky blue, etc.

You make a case for Mnr being sky blue canonically, so let's stick with that.

I had originally imagined it was the 'Kr fighting the 'Mnr on S'pht'ia etc as I could swear that was the war canonically, but if sources say that it was 'Shr fighting 'Mnr, then maybe 'Shr should be the orange/brown color since it's opposite the 'Mnr sky blue. Which you already have them, so that's good.

Of the remaining colors, I think grey would most befit the 'Kr, even though we don't see them like that in M2/Infinity. It's been a thousand years by then, things could have changed.

Yor and Lhar would then be the magenta and green ones. Since you already have Yor as purple, I would make Lhar the green ones. And maybe a darker, more military green?

We don't have slots for all of the rest, but for chromatic balance I would speculate that the remaining six clans be the hues between the four we're using (so yellow-chartreuse 75, spring-cyan 165, blue-purple 255, and rose-red 345) plus black and white. One CLUT slot is stuck as black because of the Nightmares, and then we could use an opposite pair out of those other colors, like maybe the yellow-chartreuse and rose-red which are closest to the orange that defines the S'pht aesthetic. Not that we're planning on using them, I guess, but... if you just want to be complete like this?

ETA: Defenders are also featured in Chapter 2, a thousand years in the future, so that's something to keep in mind through all this too. They are nominally all S'pht'Kr (and all are Major monsters on the map because that's the slot I had assigned to S'pht'Kr). So maybe the two slots that are not the five we have in the past and the black for the nightmares should be the vibrant orange and blue that we see of the S'pht'Kr in M2/Infinity (instead of those two colors we're not planning on using I described above), and there should be some mix of both flavors in the Chapter 2 maps that feature them?

So:
Standard orange minor 'Kr
Standard blue major 'Kr
Grey 'Kr from the past
Sky-blue 'Mnr
Orange-brown 'Shr
Purple 'Yor
Green 'Lhar
Nightmare black

[Pfhorrest]

Only got one texture done tonight:

I will probably only have time for the other door tomorrow, and then no time until next week, and the chargers and switches seem to take disproportionately long, so hopefully this texture set will be done and alpha 2 will be ready by the end of next week.

[ravenshining]

Just checked out the updated S'pht Happens, and the updated combat is great!

Glad you like it!

I notice that K'halin has been removed from the map though (the unarmed S'pht who speaks to you in the first terminal; that was him in the room, as seen in the terminal pic which is a screenshot of him in the room).

There's also an untextured wall on the way down the stairs from that first room now. I'm not sure how that happened.

And it seems like the Defenders on that level are the ones you have labelled as Kr above, though I understand you made the modified shapes after making the level. Still, I guess that needs an update. (Unless I just can't tell the different shades of orange apart? They look bright orange in game to me, not orange-brown).

Hm, I didn't remove any monsters. There was one unarmed S'pht in a room on the way down, and two in the central room on the ground floor. Are you sure he didn't just wander off and get killed? A few iterations ago I had a bunch of doors to prevent S'pht from wandering off, I could put those back in.

The untextured wall is leftover from the doors I put in and then removed, don't worry it'll be restored. Just didn't have time for that at the moment I posted.

The ones in the windows are the old Mnr, brown with green bolts. It's entirely possible you see reds and oranges differently than I, there are three different possible normal configurations of the human red cone cell.

I am thinking more about what colors to assign to what clan though, not that I want to ask you to redo the work. If we're going to actually use five of them, then I would like those five to be the five primary colors used throughout Eternal: grey, orange, green, azure, and magenta. Not necessarily pure chromas of those, but those hues, so e.g. the orange can be an orange brown, the azure can be pale sky blue, etc.

You make a case for Mnr being sky blue canonically, so let's stick with that.

I had originally imagined it was the 'Kr fighting the 'Mnr on S'pht'ia etc as I could swear that was the war canonically, but if sources say that it was 'Shr fighting 'Mnr, then maybe 'Shr should be the orange/brown color since it's opposite the 'Mnr sky blue. Which you already have them, so that's good.

Of the remaining colors, I think grey would most befit the 'Kr, even though we don't see them like that in M2/Infinity. It's been a thousand years by then, things could have changed.

Yor and Lhar would then be the magenta and green ones. Since you already have Yor as purple, I would make Lhar the green ones. And maybe a darker, more military green?

We don't have slots for all of the rest, but for chromatic balance I would speculate that the remaining six clans be the hues between the four we're using (so yellow-chartreuse 75, spring-cyan 165, blue-purple 255, and rose-red 345) plus black and white. One CLUT slot is stuck as black because of the Nightmares, and then we could use an opposite pair out of those other colors, like maybe the yellow-chartreuse and rose-red which are closest to the orange that defines the S'pht aesthetic. Not that we're planning on using them, I guess, but... if you just want to be complete like this?

ETA: Defenders are also featured in Chapter 2, a thousand years in the future, so that's something to keep in mind through all this too. They are nominally all S'pht'Kr (and all are Major monsters on the map because that's the slot I had assigned to S'pht'Kr). So maybe the two slots that are not the five we have in the past and the black for the nightmares should be the vibrant orange and blue that we see of the S'pht'Kr in M2/Infinity (instead of those two colors we're not planning on using I described above), and there should be some mix of both flavors in the Chapter 2 maps that feature them?

So:
Standard orange minor 'Kr
Standard blue major 'Kr
Grey 'Kr from the past
Sky-blue 'Mnr
Orange-brown 'Shr
Purple 'Yor
Green 'Lhar
Nightmare black

I like the idea of using the Eternal scheme! I'll work on that tomorrow. To correct your history, The Mnr and Lhar fought each other, not the Shr. You aren't wrong in that the Mnr also attacked the Kr, but S'boath held the Kr back from retaliating.

So, Lhar should be orange or brown, not Shr. Lhar has a sort of royal status as the eldest clan, so I think the classic orange befits them better than the brown. To keep things easier to tell apart, I would like to do one red, but if you would rather do brown, it's your scenario!

Civil war:

Mnr - Sky blue - attacks Lhar and Kr
Hra - M2/∞ Blue - attacks Lhar
Lhar - Classic Orange or Dark Brown - attacks Mnr and Hra
Kr - Grey - Only fires if fired upon

Pfhor War:

Mnr - Sky blue
Lhar - Classic Orange or Dark Brown
Yor - Purple
Shr - Military green
Kah - Black
Yra - Dark Brown or M2/∞ Red

Future:

Minor - Classic Orange or M2/∞ Red
Major - M2/∞ Blue

[Pfhorrest]

Yeah maybe we do see oranges and reds differently, because to my eye the standard M2 colors of Defender are orange and blue, not red and blue.

Anyway, good point about my Lhar/Shr confusion.

I think since the M2 minor defenders are close enough to orange that I perceived them that way, we maybe shouldn't have the Lhar be orange, but orange-brown instead. A dark shade of hue angle 30. It is the iconic color of S'pht aesthetic (in Eternal at least), so it's still kind of fitting for the first clan to use it.

So of the S'pht we'll be seeing in game:

Civil war:
Mnr - sky blue
Lhar - orange brown

Pfhor war:
Mnr - sky blue
Lhar - orange brown
Yor - purple
Shr - military green
Kr - grey

Future:
Minor Kr - M2 orange/red
Major Kr - M2 blue

In my mind the other six clans not depicted will be the four quaternary colors I named before plus black and white, but since we're not actually depicting them that doesn't matter.

[Wrkncacnter]

Yeah maybe we do see oranges and reds differently, because to my eye the standard M2 colors of Defender are orange and blue, not red and blue.

This wouldn't be the first time we've determined you see colors differently than other people.

[Pfhorrest]

Though IIRC the earlier conversations about that were about how what look like well-defined colors to me all look like shades of grey to others, i.e. my color vision is more sensitive.

I'm curious but don't have time to check, what is the hue angle of the color of the standard M2/Infinity minor enforcers? I'm seeing something between 0 and 30, leaning toward 30, which is why I say orange (whereas closer to 0 I'd say red).