Finally throwing out Halathon

[thedoctor45]

I've decided to share the complete list of netmaps I'm planning to include with the Halathon Demo release later this year. If anyone here has any suggestions or requests please let me know and I'll consider them as long as they're realistic.

Code: Select all

Map Name:            Size:                Halo Original:     Theme:

Furthest             M   3-6 Players      Longest            Forerunner Interior
Warlock              S   2-4 Players      Wizard             UNSC Interior
Chiron TL-52         M   3-6 Players      Chiron TL-34       UNSC Interior
Salvation            M   3-6 Players      Damnation          Covenant Interior
Chillin              S   2-4 Players      Chillout           Covenant Interior
Hang 'Em Low         L   3-8 Players      Hang 'Em High      Forerunner Interior
Hypothermia          XL  4-10 Players     Sidewinder         Halo Exterior Winter
Fissure              L   3-8 Players      Danger Canyon      Halo Exterior
Vertigo              S   2-4 Players      -                  Halo Exterior (Floating Islands)


[thedoctor45]

Here´s a screenshot of a reworked version of Hang 'Em Low:

[Nobody1707]

I don't suppose it would be possible to add Blood Gulch, would it?

[thedoctor45]

It would probably be possible - but framerate would be bad and it wouldn't look very good - I mean it's essentially just a large empty open area with 2 bases in the middle... I'll put it on the list and see how things work out tho.

[goran]

Crater Creator is currently working on a more elegant lua based solution

Please hurry to figure how a bridge can be simulated with lua. Nothing is more important!

[Crater Creator]

Bridge simulation has come a long way. It's easiest to break things down by case:

• Players: We have it working where players can step on, step off, and move on bridges as if they were regular polygons.
• Projectiles: I think I finally got this working tonight... at first it looked like Triggers.projectile_created() wasn't actually implemented in a released build. Anyway, players can fire projectiles from, and across bridges. A player on a bridge will take damage from projectiles he and other monsters create. A monster not on a bridge will take damage from a projectile that originated on a bridge, or crossed one during its trajectory.
• Portability: I've generalized my script so it will work with any level that's set up the right way - no more values hard coded for a specific level.
• Multiplayer: More testing is required to know if players on bridges will move normally as seen on another player's machine.
• Sound: The player doesn't hear non-environmental sounds while he's on a bridge. This does handicap players on bridges, I admit, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
• Effects: While a projectile is passing over a bridge, its contrail disappears. If a projectile hits a bridge, the impact effect is not visible. This seems to indicate effects are always 'attached' to their projectile: move a projectile in script, and its effects move with it. Ultimately it's a nonessential, cosmetic shortfall.
• Items: Players currently can't pick up items on bridges. We've decided to design around this.
• Aliens: Monsters don't know where the player is while he's on a bridge. I have no plans to fix this for Halathon.

[thedoctor45]

That's great news all along. We can do some playtesting later to track down/even out any remaining issues. Also I don't think there will be a lot - if any bridges in the singleplayer part of Halathon so the last point on your list will not really be a problem, which leaves us only with 2 - namely Sounds and Effects.

[herecomethej2000]

Can't you place items on the polyglon underneath at any height? How is it a problem? You would think, as far as alephone is concerned, its just a bunch of items floating in midair.

[thedoctor45]

The problem is that while walking on a bridge, the player is not actually on that polygon where the item is placed but instead on the proxy polygon of an identical map which is located above the regular one.

However it is possible to work around this by placeing the items on small pillars located underneath the bridges which are not using the bridge script but are instead just regular polygons, so the items can be picked up when the player steps onto those pillar parts. The workaround has limits but we figured that those won't affect gameplay in any siginificant way.

[herecomethej2000]

Ah, sounds really neat!

[thedoctor45]

Time for another small update - here are some screenshots of the map I'm currently working on - it's still early WIP but I think it's coming along nicely.

I'll have to simplify the level geometry though since framerate does currently not deliver playable results...

[herecomethej2000]

looks great!, Yeah those invisible polygon edges are killer. My one ok map, for capture the flag, suffered from that issue quite a lot. I wonder if you can do some of the bridges and balcony hackery to alleviate that a bit. The part where you are actually on separate maps? Probably not but worth a thought. You could also work with the level geometry so you don't see the other end of the map from the end. Some sort of wall or bend in between.

[Crater Creator]

What could help framerate is designating a few of those trees as giant tree trunks, as in floor-to-ceiling, negative-space pillars.

[thedoctor45]

Quick Update - we got a new map and some crosshairs. Can you guess which one it is?

Thanks go to Hopper and Crater Creator for their assistance.

[philtron]

Quick Update - we got a new map and some crosshairs. Can you guess which one it is?

Hamster Hallways!?!?!

More seriously, great work, as usual.

[Neonstar]

When released, are the 'solo' maps and netmaps going to be the same package?

Also since the last post was a while ago, how's progress?

[Crater Creator]

It's thedoctor45's call. But since that's how the map is now, I don't see why they wouldn't be together.

[thedoctor45]

Just in case anyone's wondering how this project is coming along... I've been mostly occupied with other things during the last few months but I'm still planning to have some sort of a playable demo ready by the end of this year and if I can't implement all the planned features/content until then, I'll just polish everything I got so far and release it as-is since there's really no point in procrastinating this any longer. My current minimum in regards to new features for the Demo include 2 new SP enemies, 8-9 netmaps and a few short singleplayer maps on board a UNSC ship.

[herecomethej2000]

Just so you know doc, I for one am still reading this and would absolutely love whatever it is you will put out. It looks like you have done a lot of really impressive work.

[Switch]

Please do! And let's have a multiplayer night for it! This is really cool.

[thedoctor45]

Just wanted to let you guys know that I've resumed work on Halathon just recently and I'm aiming for a release this summer. There's a few more maps to finish, another enemy to add and a few script releated issues to sort out but that's basically it so stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks/months.

[General-RADIX]

Nice! Here's hoping it all goes well.

[Grenth]

This is being worked on again? Well count me in whenever something gets released! I remember following along with the amazing progress on this thing years ago, and it's incredible to see the progress that's been getting done on this Marathon TC.

[thedoctor45]

Good to see some people are still interested in this project and I can promise you guys that regardless if it gets finished or not I'll definitely release something this year - even if it's just a multiplayer test build, I've come too far to just let it rot on my harddrive indefinitely.

[herecomethej2000]

Absolutely Doc, I'm with switch, looking forward to having a multiplayer night of it