Tonight I made some minor texture fixes, and then ran through chapter 3 as much as I could given time limits.
I vid-started S'pht'ia on kindergarten and then played through until repeatedly dying early on in She Is The Dark One, then vid-started She Is The Dark One and kept dying early on in it again, so I think the combat on that (and Let Sleeping Gods, too) needs to be tuned down some, but I'll leave that to someone else.
Vid-started S'pht Happens and played through to Eat S'pht And Die, played through to Second to Last of the Mohicans, got lost and was running short on time so bailed out and vid-started Third Rock from Lh'owon. Repeatedly died early on there too and so quickly gave up on it, but pretty sure I confirmed that the landscape textures are correct now. Vid-started and played through Flight of Icarus with no problems.
Noticed numerous little texture issues throughout and fixed them. (Except for a whole freakin' bunch of those weirdly misaligned doors, which I'm starting to think are caused by a Vasara bug, because there's some textures adjacent to platforms in Icarus that refuse to stay aligned either). Changed the fog on Eat S'pht And Die to black instead of orange for the same reason it was changed on Second to Last of the Mohicans (orange looks weird with the night landscape). Distributed all the physics changes across all the levels.
All of that's up on git now.
And Eternal X 1.2 beta 3 is up now too.
Eternal X 1.2
Oct 4th '18, 06:21
They are a Vasara bug. Platforms have to have the same elevation they start the level in, or it doesn’t save them correctly.
I actually made a whole bunch of additional changes to “She Is the Dark One” tonight, not using whatever texture alignments you’d made, since I had no idea you’d be working on it further. I added about 80 polygons, so it’s probably worth just redoing whatever changes you’d made. But it’s not worth remaking beta 3 on that count, since this is pretty last-minute. I’m attaching my changes.
Additionally, if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, it’s worth changing the media fog script for that level from 10012 to 10014.
I think a large part of the reason those levels are difficult is because the new F’lickta are a lot stronger than the old ones. At least, it seems that way. I’m open to toning down “Dark One”.
I’ll also upload/encode vid films of “Dark One” and “Sleeping Gods” soon, but maybe not tonight; it is already 3am.
I actually made a whole bunch of additional changes to “She Is the Dark One” tonight, not using whatever texture alignments you’d made, since I had no idea you’d be working on it further. I added about 80 polygons, so it’s probably worth just redoing whatever changes you’d made. But it’s not worth remaking beta 3 on that count, since this is pretty last-minute. I’m attaching my changes.
Additionally, if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, it’s worth changing the media fog script for that level from 10012 to 10014.
I think a large part of the reason those levels are difficult is because the new F’lickta are a lot stronger than the old ones. At least, it seems that way. I’m open to toning down “Dark One”.
I’ll also upload/encode vid films of “Dark One” and “Sleeping Gods” soon, but maybe not tonight; it is already 3am.
- Attachments
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She Is The Dark One.sceA.zip- (89.34 KiB) Downloaded 10 times
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 4th '18, 06:58
Hm, with scratch-starting, you're stuck with only fists with which to deal with F'lickta, so maybe they ought to be thinned out or moved further from the start so you have a chance to find a recharge and/or pattern buffer before encountering them. Flick'ta being immune to fusion may be all well and good from a lore standpoint, but gameplay wise it's not fun for your only weapon to be useless.
A 1x health, conspicuously installed in the first hallway of She is the Dark One, would go a long way towards helping that level. The ticks I say are a bit OP - one lick from a tick does as much damage as two S'pht'Kr bolts or one run-punch, and they lick twice on normal! - but the neutral S'pht will help you with them. I had a fun moment of getting my ass saved from a tick by the green S'pht stuck in BoB's Big Date firing though the window.
I never really notice the combat on Sleeping Gods, it's so sparse. You're not running up to every S'pht you see and punching them, are you?
Randomly, "Raven's Geothermal Venture" is named after Hawai'i's geothermal power plant, Puna Geothermal Venture, which was miraculously spared in our recent volcanic eruption. I occasionally spend time patiently explaining how it works to people who confuse it with fracking.
A 1x health, conspicuously installed in the first hallway of She is the Dark One, would go a long way towards helping that level. The ticks I say are a bit OP - one lick from a tick does as much damage as two S'pht'Kr bolts or one run-punch, and they lick twice on normal! - but the neutral S'pht will help you with them. I had a fun moment of getting my ass saved from a tick by the green S'pht stuck in BoB's Big Date firing though the window.
I never really notice the combat on Sleeping Gods, it's so sparse. You're not running up to every S'pht you see and punching them, are you?
Randomly, "Raven's Geothermal Venture" is named after Hawai'i's geothermal power plant, Puna Geothermal Venture, which was miraculously spared in our recent volcanic eruption. I occasionally spend time patiently explaining how it works to people who confuse it with fracking.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 4th '18, 07:51
The changes I made to Dark One were super tiny, I think like one window near the starting area just used a texture I didn't like. (I don't like having two different colors of that hex grid texture side-by-side). Since I'm not going to repackage beta 3 for these last-minute changes, I'll hold off on rolling them in until some time later since there will probably be combat modifications to the level coming soon too.
When you vid-start ch3 levels you start off with one of every weapon except the Jjaro weapons, because of that MML script that gives you all the weapons you'd have gotten by that point in the game on every level, which I think was made specifically because the start of ch3 was so unfair with not being able to get any new weapons. Despite that, I still found it surprisingly difficult for Kindergarten, where I can usually just charge through everything with only half an ass of effort. I don't think it was entirely the F'lick'ta responsible for that, as Ticks and Defenders did plenty of damage too. If I'd had plenty of more ammo, a bunch of rifle mags or pellet packs or something, they'd be no trouble, but having to be so conservative on ammo made it surprisingly difficult.
Sleeping Gods was mostly difficult right after the first terminal. When I dropped down into that first section of corridor right outside of it, I found myself facing long lines of Defenders and F'lick'ta from both directions, right away. Possibly some kind of behavior control polys might make it less difficult, or spread the difficulty around at least.
When you vid-start ch3 levels you start off with one of every weapon except the Jjaro weapons, because of that MML script that gives you all the weapons you'd have gotten by that point in the game on every level, which I think was made specifically because the start of ch3 was so unfair with not being able to get any new weapons. Despite that, I still found it surprisingly difficult for Kindergarten, where I can usually just charge through everything with only half an ass of effort. I don't think it was entirely the F'lick'ta responsible for that, as Ticks and Defenders did plenty of damage too. If I'd had plenty of more ammo, a bunch of rifle mags or pellet packs or something, they'd be no trouble, but having to be so conservative on ammo made it surprisingly difficult.
Sleeping Gods was mostly difficult right after the first terminal. When I dropped down into that first section of corridor right outside of it, I found myself facing long lines of Defenders and F'lick'ta from both directions, right away. Possibly some kind of behavior control polys might make it less difficult, or spread the difficulty around at least.
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Pfhorrest - California
Oct 4th '18, 08:00
It might be worth changing the MML to Lua and then having it start you with seven of each form of ammo you can get by that point. However, I would probably suggest only doing that for the first three chapter three levels, because I suspect it would remove a lot of the challenge of vidding the rest of the game. (There are some chapter five levels that don’t have any Pfhor, either, but I already find those pretty easy right now, and they already give you a ton of ZPMs and fusion ammo.)
I don’t expect I’ll make any immediate combat changes to “Dark One”, but I might add the 1x recharger Lia suggested to the east of the start position, either after my film finishes encoding or tomorrow sometime.
I didn’t find “Sleeping Gods” too difficult when I vidded it an hour ago, but I used a fairly idiosyncratic strategy that involved me waiting quite some time before I dropped down into that corridor you mentioned. I wound up killing all enemies except one F’lickta, I think (who was just too far out of the way to bother). I think I got it on the first try; it actually seemed a lot easier than it did when I tried it a few months ago. I think fewer of the Defenders may be hostile to the player now.
I did have a bit of trouble vidding “She Is the Dark One”; it took me about four or five attempts. It’s supposed to be fairly challenging, and though I’d actually already added a couple other rechargers because it’s so much more combat-intensive than it used to be, I agree that it could still use one closer to the start position.
ETA: here's a film of the level
I don’t expect I’ll make any immediate combat changes to “Dark One”, but I might add the 1x recharger Lia suggested to the east of the start position, either after my film finishes encoding or tomorrow sometime.
I didn’t find “Sleeping Gods” too difficult when I vidded it an hour ago, but I used a fairly idiosyncratic strategy that involved me waiting quite some time before I dropped down into that corridor you mentioned. I wound up killing all enemies except one F’lickta, I think (who was just too far out of the way to bother). I think I got it on the first try; it actually seemed a lot easier than it did when I tried it a few months ago. I think fewer of the Defenders may be hostile to the player now.
I did have a bit of trouble vidding “She Is the Dark One”; it took me about four or five attempts. It’s supposed to be fairly challenging, and though I’d actually already added a couple other rechargers because it’s so much more combat-intensive than it used to be, I agree that it could still use one closer to the start position.
ETA: here's a film of the level
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 4th '18, 16:50
Dr Sumner has a question regarding chapter 3:
I don't recall that being the case last time I played that level either; is that correct?
Here’s my film of “Let Sleeping Gods Die”, BTW.
Just wanted to make sure of the Defender changes in Chapter 3. At least at the beginning. I notice that all the Defenders are ememies of the player on S’pht’ia. That’s supposed to be the behavior? If so, no problem. I just wanted to make sure before I get started.
I don't recall that being the case last time I played that level either; is that correct?
Here’s my film of “Let Sleeping Gods Die”, BTW.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Fool's Gold · Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 4th '18, 20:37
Pfhorrest wrote:I don't think it was entirely the F'lick'ta responsible for that, as Ticks and Defenders did plenty of damage too.
There are a LOT of ticks, but I still think cutting down their damage is better than cutting down their numbers. It only takes one sneaking up on you from behind to toast you, and since even their lick is silent they are very good at sneaking. They even take out Defenders handily if they come around a corner at them, which just seems wrong. Vermin shouldn't be licking to death hyperintelligent beings wearing powered armour and shields.
The Man wrote:I think fewer of the Defenders may be hostile to the player now.
The Man wrote:At least at the beginning. I notice that all the Defenders are ememies of the player on S’pht’ia. That’s supposed to be the behavior? If so, no problem. I just wanted to make sure before I get started.
I don't recall that being the case last time I played that level either; is that correct?
Pfhorrest wrote:That is the intended behavior now, yeah.
Is it? I thought only the blue and orange (Mnr and Lhar) were supposed to be hostile. I have it set up so the black, green, purple, and grey (the clans not engaged in the war, in the tank slots) are neutral, only attacking the player if they attack first, and the indigo (pacifistic S'pht'Kr, in the MADD slot) are friendly. Mnr and Lhar are the most numerous, so it is true that most of the defenders are hostile, but not all of them.
The Man wrote:Here’s my film of “Let Sleeping Gods Die”, BTW.
Nice film. My machine can't play with everything turned up, so it's cool to see how it looks that way. Those F'lick'ta sure are hyperactive. And I was worried for a second when it looked like you might have hit a black defender with a stray fusion bolt, but I guess it was hurt because it was diving into the lava, which makes the black defenders that much more badass.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 4th '18, 21:08
Oh yeah, I forgot about all of the non-hostile minor clans. I assumed John just meant Mnr and Lhar both being against you, instead of half of them with you and half against you.
I agree that making the tick attacks less damaging would be a good idea. Also having their hover height a little more inline with the natural view centering height would go a long way toward making it easier to just plow through them without much thought.
I agree that making the tick attacks less damaging would be a good idea. Also having their hover height a little more inline with the natural view centering height would go a long way toward making it easier to just plow through them without much thought.
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Pfhorrest - California
Oct 4th '18, 23:40
Pfhorrest wrote:My current shapes:
http://eternal.bungie.org/files/_curren ... hapes.shpA
Those plus the current physics templates on git should make the F'lick'ta function properly.
I just tried that shapes file, it appears to be even less complete than a 1.1 shapes file. I have yet to access an unlimited connection from which to download the entire beta.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 5th '18, 00:04
ravenshining wrote:Pfhorrest wrote:My current shapes:
http://eternal.bungie.org/files/_curren ... hapes.shpA
Those plus the current physics templates on git should make the F'lick'ta function properly.
I just tried that shapes file, it appears to be even less complete than a 1.1 shapes file. I have yet to access an unlimited connection from which to download the entire beta.
I see what happened. Apparently I used to use underscores and then switched to dashes, and didn't notice that after uploading the current file (with a dash) and grabbed the link to the old file (with an underscore).
Try http://eternal.bungie.org/files/_curren ... hapes.shpA instead
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Pfhorrest - California
Oct 5th '18, 02:18
Concurred on nerfing the Tick attacks. I’d say either reduce their attack strength or reduce their attack frequency. That would also enable me to add a bunch more of them on some levels without making them outright unfair.
Should I just copy physics to “S’pht’ia” on my HD from one of the other chapter three levels? I’d like to make a proper vid film of it as well now that it’s been redone, but I’ll obviously want to abstain until the physics are fixed.
Thanks. And yeah, the F’lickta are a lot harder than they used to be. I think I like it.
I’m with you on still not being sure whether they should still be immune to fusion. You do get one magazine/clip for each of the Pfhor weapons, but that’s pretty dicey when you’re scratch-starting. It does make sense given that the lava F’lickta are also immune to fusion, but it could be written off as a mutation they developed in the ensuing two millennia – after all, the other two variants aren’t immune to fusion.
Should I just copy physics to “S’pht’ia” on my HD from one of the other chapter three levels? I’d like to make a proper vid film of it as well now that it’s been redone, but I’ll obviously want to abstain until the physics are fixed.
Nice film. My machine can't play with everything turned up, so it's cool to see how it looks that way. Those F'lick'ta sure are hyperactive. And I was worried for a second when it looked like you might have hit a black defender with a stray fusion bolt, but I guess it was hurt because it was diving into the lava, which makes the black defenders that much more badass.
Thanks. And yeah, the F’lickta are a lot harder than they used to be. I think I like it.
I’m with you on still not being sure whether they should still be immune to fusion. You do get one magazine/clip for each of the Pfhor weapons, but that’s pretty dicey when you’re scratch-starting. It does make sense given that the lava F’lickta are also immune to fusion, but it could be written off as a mutation they developed in the ensuing two millennia – after all, the other two variants aren’t immune to fusion.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 5th '18, 02:46
I'm good with the new F'lickta being vulnerable to fusion. If anyone asks, not that anyone will, what the difference is between a fusion blast and hot lava that makes something immune to one vulnerable to the other, my answer is fusion blasts shoot some kind of charged plasma, not just a hot electrically neutral one, and it's that charge that both fries Pfhor circuitry and harms F'lickta, not the heat. Lava F'lickta at some point evolved immunity to electricity as well as heat.
I'm also wondering if maybe the new F'lickta would look better as more of a blackish grey than the whitish grey they are now?
I'm not sure what you're asking about physics, Aaron.
I'm also wondering if maybe the new F'lickta would look better as more of a blackish grey than the whitish grey they are now?
I'm not sure what you're asking about physics, Aaron.
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Pfhorrest - California
Oct 5th '18, 03:04
According to John, all the S’pht are hostile to the player on “S’pht’ia” not just the Mnr and Lhar. I assume the others are supposed to be neutral. (obligatory Futurama clips)
I could go either way with the F’lickta colour. FWIW, I have them pretty similar in colour to Eternal’s for Chronicles’ flashbacks, so I’m used to seeing them that way, but they’re devoid of colour in Chronicles to depict the incompleteness of the player’s memories, so different deal entirely. (There’s also an off-blue coloured variant, basically the same colour as minor Juggernauts.)
I could go either way with the F’lickta colour. FWIW, I have them pretty similar in colour to Eternal’s for Chronicles’ flashbacks, so I’m used to seeing them that way, but they’re devoid of colour in Chronicles to depict the incompleteness of the player’s memories, so different deal entirely. (There’s also an off-blue coloured variant, basically the same colour as minor Juggernauts.)
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Fool's Gold · Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 5th '18, 03:14
Selective pressure works. The S'pht cared for the F'lick'ta, and probably allowed them to disseminate wherever they pleased. Once the Pfhor took over, they started "sterilising" urban and millitary areas of these "bipeds," likely using energy weapons. No longer able to freely roam, they diverged into three separate races, one of which developed an immunity to energy weapons.
I tried to record a film on TC doing all the fun things, like jumping through the roof instead falling into the lava pit on S'pht'ia, using lava tubes wherever possible, lowering the lava on Sleeping Gods, and engaging in 3D-combat in the ridiculous tides of She is the Dark One, only to have A1 crash hard when I inserted the second chip. I never liked being railroaded into working against Hathor anyway.
The F'lick'ta CLUT does not play well with infravision, btw. I don't know if you ever use it, but I like to play with a script that gives me infravision-at-will rechargeable at shield stations, and this is what they wind up looking like:
It looks like no one has messed with my physics since they were merged in, so they should be neutral. If he or anything else accidentally hits one, they will fire back. If you or he wants to double-check, purple can be found near the terminal room with the lava pits, green on the first level of the tower before you teleport, grey in the mid levels (but there are also Mnr and Lhar there), indigo on the exit level, and black on the very top.
I tried to record a film on TC doing all the fun things, like jumping through the roof instead falling into the lava pit on S'pht'ia, using lava tubes wherever possible, lowering the lava on Sleeping Gods, and engaging in 3D-combat in the ridiculous tides of She is the Dark One, only to have A1 crash hard when I inserted the second chip. I never liked being railroaded into working against Hathor anyway.
The F'lick'ta CLUT does not play well with infravision, btw. I don't know if you ever use it, but I like to play with a script that gives me infravision-at-will rechargeable at shield stations, and this is what they wind up looking like:
The Man wrote:According to John, all the S’pht are hostile to the player on “S’pht’ia” not just the Mnr and Lhar. I assume the others are supposed to be neutral.
It looks like no one has messed with my physics since they were merged in, so they should be neutral. If he or anything else accidentally hits one, they will fire back. If you or he wants to double-check, purple can be found near the terminal room with the lava pits, green on the first level of the tower before you teleport, grey in the mid levels (but there are also Mnr and Lhar there), indigo on the exit level, and black on the very top.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 6th '18, 10:49
I went into the shapes file and fixed that little CLUT issue. Marathon doesn't like it when CLUT gradients don't line up with eachother, and the F'lick'ta CLUT was offset from the Hulk CLUTs by three colours.
Also added in the lava wall set. Both tasks were super easy thanks to ImageMagick, a Linux commandline tool that lets you batch process image files. PM'd you a download link.
Also added in the lava wall set. Both tasks were super easy thanks to ImageMagick, a Linux commandline tool that lets you batch process image files. PM'd you a download link.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 6th '18, 22:50
ravenshining wrote:Marathon doesn't like it when CLUT gradients don't line up with eachother, and the F'lick'ta CLUT was offset from the Hulk CLUTs by three colours.
It reaaally doesn't. I wasn't 100% sure of the problem, but thankfully your posts above have confirmed that for me. It was very difficult getting the gray F'lickta to look how I wanted.
What exactly did you change to fix them? Can you post a screenshot of the color tables?
Love Marathon, and also play Doom on modern source ports? You might like these skins!
Oct 7th '18, 00:35
I created a fourth colour table as an intermediary - I don't have a screenshot of that one as I deleted it when I was done - which coloured the F'lick'ta with colours from CLUT 0, but offset to match CLUT 3. Then I exported the collection into bitmaps, ran "convert ./*.bmp PNG32:.png" on them to discard the clut data, and copied the resulting F'licl'ta images back into collection in CLUT 0. Finally, I created a fifth colour table to get the colours right, and deleted the 3rd and fourth colour tables.
I realised just now that I kinda screwed it up slightly, somehow the exploding rocks came out brown and the F'lickta pale blue, which I didn't notice while testing last night.* I'll PM you both an updated version, which fixes that and now also has the Forerunner walls collection.
*I use xflux, a background utility that lowers the colour temperature of your monitor after sunset to cue your circadian rhythm into knowing it's night. If I forget to turn it off while image editing and I'm really tired it's easy to mistake things like a pale blue for a grey.
I realised just now that I kinda screwed it up slightly, somehow the exploding rocks came out brown and the F'lickta pale blue, which I didn't notice while testing last night.* I'll PM you both an updated version, which fixes that and now also has the Forerunner walls collection.
*I use xflux, a background utility that lowers the colour temperature of your monitor after sunset to cue your circadian rhythm into knowing it's night. If I forget to turn it off while image editing and I'm really tired it's easy to mistake things like a pale blue for a grey.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 7th '18, 01:04
I’m glad to see that’s been fixed. It was irking me far more than I can rationally justify that the CLUTs didn’t line up between the Drinniol and the F’lick’ta. Essentially each colour table was completely useless for either one or the other of them. Rationally, that shouldn’t bother me all that much, but I think it’s probably just a symptom of being on the obsessive-compulsive spectrum.
Regarding the “S’pht’ia” physics, John wrote:
I don’t recall all the Defenders in the “Eat It” segment being hostile before, but I haven’t tested the most recent revision, mostly because I’m not sure if the Github map is up to date. I agree with him that the second half of the level is way easier than the first, and it always has been. I also agree with his suggestion to rebalance it. The first half should perhaps be slightly easier, with more allied/neutral Defenders, while the second half should have more hostile Defenders.
Regarding the “S’pht’ia” physics, John wrote:
No. As it turns out, some of them are non-hostile. When you get into the part of the level based on “The Hard Stuff Rules”, those Defenders are non-hostile (or at least the ones I saw). But I must tell you, the level seems disjointed because of that. Everywhere those non-hostile ones appear (or at least as far as I got in the level…. I didn’t finish it yet.), they seem completely useless. They don’t do anything. They just wander around. They don’t even fight the enemies you are fighting (the Lava F’lickta for example). Perhaps they are supposed to act that way. The first part of the level based on “Eat It Vid Boi” is quite challenging because all the Defenders are hostile to the player (and thank you for not making their bolts the seeking kind…. I really hate those.) But then you go from this intense fighting to the second part of the level and all you see are the Lava F’lickta and the useless Defenders.
Now as I said, I have not finished the level. So maybe there is more action as I climb to the upper parts of the level.
I don’t recall all the Defenders in the “Eat It” segment being hostile before, but I haven’t tested the most recent revision, mostly because I’m not sure if the Github map is up to date. I agree with him that the second half of the level is way easier than the first, and it always has been. I also agree with his suggestion to rebalance it. The first half should perhaps be slightly easier, with more allied/neutral Defenders, while the second half should have more hostile Defenders.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 7th '18, 04:18
In 1.1 I believe there were no defenders on Hard Stuff, that portion of the level was largely devoid of activity whatsoever. A few months ago I added a few hostile ones on one level, and then recently I added the non-hostile ones on other levels. There's also combat visible outside the tower if you journey past the exit room up to the top.
Not all the Eat It defenders are hostile. In fact, the tower doors will be closed until you activate a switch (or terminal, forget how I implemented that) that you can't get to without passing three neutral purple defenders.
Anyway, I disagree with his assessment of neutral parties being useless, I find they add to the atmosphere of the level. And most of them make you watch where to shoot or else you'll be eating plasma bolts. So too must the warring S'pht, every time I play through the level some stray shots from the Lhar wind up hitting the green defenders in the base of the tower, who then go nuts on the Lhar with homing bolts. I suppose I could arrange for this sort of thing to happen more often, but it wouldn't make sense for noncombatants to be putting themselves in harm's way.
Another reason for their placement is continuity across the S'pht arc. You see all these neutral s'pht, and when you wake up from stasis things are different: two of the neutral clans are now missing (Kr and Hra), and the rest are now fighting alongside the Mnr and Lhar against the Pfhor. This is particularly striking for the Kah, who go from being bystanders to kicking Juggernaut ass.
If there were a few ticks floating around, the neutral defenders would attack those, if people insist on everyone fighting. I am strongly against the idea of S'pht attacking F'lick'ta that haven't gone berserk.
Not all the Eat It defenders are hostile. In fact, the tower doors will be closed until you activate a switch (or terminal, forget how I implemented that) that you can't get to without passing three neutral purple defenders.
Anyway, I disagree with his assessment of neutral parties being useless, I find they add to the atmosphere of the level. And most of them make you watch where to shoot or else you'll be eating plasma bolts. So too must the warring S'pht, every time I play through the level some stray shots from the Lhar wind up hitting the green defenders in the base of the tower, who then go nuts on the Lhar with homing bolts. I suppose I could arrange for this sort of thing to happen more often, but it wouldn't make sense for noncombatants to be putting themselves in harm's way.
Another reason for their placement is continuity across the S'pht arc. You see all these neutral s'pht, and when you wake up from stasis things are different: two of the neutral clans are now missing (Kr and Hra), and the rest are now fighting alongside the Mnr and Lhar against the Pfhor. This is particularly striking for the Kah, who go from being bystanders to kicking Juggernaut ass.
If there were a few ticks floating around, the neutral defenders would attack those, if people insist on everyone fighting. I am strongly against the idea of S'pht attacking F'lick'ta that haven't gone berserk.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 7th '18, 05:12
Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about them attacking F'lickta either. I think it's probably fine to make them neutral towards each other, so they attack only if attacked.
I also agree that having neutral parties isn't pointless, but there really wasn't much to do in the Hard Stuff part of the level last time I played. Might be different now; I haven't played it in a month or two.
I don't see any reason not to add some more Ticks if needed.
I also agree that having neutral parties isn't pointless, but there really wasn't much to do in the Hard Stuff part of the level last time I played. Might be different now; I haven't played it in a month or two.
I don't see any reason not to add some more Ticks if needed.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
Oct 7th '18, 07:04
I finally managed to capture a video, made possible by using the 128x128 8-bit versions of the new textures I added to the shapesfile. I actually didn't notice I was playing without the HD textures until four minutes in, while using a tiny elevator.
https://youtu.be/HWMFFICnkVo
There are a few fun things I showcased, like using weapon acrobatics to evade the lava pit so you can take out the S'pht from the opening, climb on the roof, and jump down a skylight; and using the lava tubes from Eat It that I restored to the level. At 6:03 I manage to draw neutral S'pht into the battle, and you can see their shots homing in on the S'pht'Lhar.
While making the video, I noticed a lot of S'pht on the upper levels are not activating. They should be checked for blind/deaf status and the geometry checked for activation triggers. In particular, there are a couple cases where S'pht should be firing out the window at enemies, but are just sitting there or wandering off once hit.
Perhaps the transparent texture in the windows could be removed? This is long before the Citadel was barricaded against the Pfhor, after all, perhaps the gratings were not part of the original construction. That might help allow the combat to happen properly.
One caution about adding in ticks, is it wouldn't make sense for them to be infesting the upper levels of the citadel. If we do, we should probably have them come in through windows.
https://youtu.be/HWMFFICnkVo
There are a few fun things I showcased, like using weapon acrobatics to evade the lava pit so you can take out the S'pht from the opening, climb on the roof, and jump down a skylight; and using the lava tubes from Eat It that I restored to the level. At 6:03 I manage to draw neutral S'pht into the battle, and you can see their shots homing in on the S'pht'Lhar.
While making the video, I noticed a lot of S'pht on the upper levels are not activating. They should be checked for blind/deaf status and the geometry checked for activation triggers. In particular, there are a couple cases where S'pht should be firing out the window at enemies, but are just sitting there or wandering off once hit.
Perhaps the transparent texture in the windows could be removed? This is long before the Citadel was barricaded against the Pfhor, after all, perhaps the gratings were not part of the original construction. That might help allow the combat to happen properly.
One caution about adding in ticks, is it wouldn't make sense for them to be infesting the upper levels of the citadel. If we do, we should probably have them come in through windows.
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ravenshining - Hawai'i
Oct 8th '18, 02:35
So there’s a discussion in the Discord about how people’s systems are running out of memory because Eternal’s textures are so huge. I’m not complaining about that - they’re utterly gorgeous - but I think it might be a good idea to make alternate plugins that have smaller versions of them. 512x512 and 256x256 versions for sure. Turning off bloom and bump mapping can help to some extent, and I know it’s possible to reduce texture resolution in the settings, but I think the game would probably be less likely to run out of memory if it didn’t have to read so many large files to begin with. Might be worth testing out.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Fool's Gold · Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Fool's Gold · Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
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The Man - Sarasota, FL
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