Eternal X 1.2

[The Man]

Lol, I sure hope not.

I just finished the Win95 “Medicine” so I’ll probably fix the rain script either after I eat something or first thing when I wake up tomorrow.

[ravenshining]

yeah, sorry I didn't get to this like I said I would, and I've been getting distracted with looking into A1 itself. I had to put down three feral cats this week and feeling downright heartbroken over the ordeal.

on the plus side of my distraction, what do you think about incorporating my smarter monster lua into Eternal? might make things a lot more difficult on TC though, what with monsters getting less distracted by friendlies when berserk.

did I miss the conversation about turning embers into snow? I thought the embers were a cool tie-in to the splintered oak term.

[The Man]

No, the snow’s getting added to the planetside levels in chapter 4, which are supposed to be snowy. The epilogue is still going to use the embers script; the terminal text was indeed the reason we decided to implement it.

My condolences on the cats. We had a scare about our dog a few weeks ago, and although he’s recovered somewhat for the time being, I haven’t been myself recently.

[Pfhorrest]

I think that the smarter monster AI could make for a good addition if it holds up in testing.

[The Man]

The main potential issue I see with changing the monster AI at this late stage in development is that, depending on how frequently it changes monster behaviour, it could radically alter the difficulty of existing levels and require further rebalancing. I’m not opposed to it in principle, but there’s a possibility it could push back the release date a bit further. If berserk monsters in particular are a concern, possibly the script could stop changing their behaviour from the default when they go berserk.

One thing I definitely would like to see is a script that incites monsters to start running from falling Juggernauts. Given how obvious a warning their “falling” sound is, it’s always seemed ridiculous that monsters just ignore it.

[Pfhorrest]

Yeah Lia mentioned that her AI script might soon include an addition to make monsters run from dying exploding monsters, and that sounded like the coolest part of it to me.

I don't know that having snipers step off of their ledges just because they accidentally shot a friendly is really an improvement in behavior. I'd think ideally they should just stop firing if a friendly is in the way, though I don't know how you'd accomplish that exactly. But having enemies generally move forward so as not to shoot their friends in the back sounds like a great improvement, and if some snipers sometimes step off ledges as a consequences of that, that seems pretty acceptable.

I do think berserk monsters should continue to behave like they usually do, as otherwise that kinda defeats the point of them being berserk.

And yeah, if all of this delays release even further, it's really not that important. I have to say my heart sank a little bit when you (Aaron) said how long you think it's going to be until your last stuff is done. I let the New Year release slip because you and Lia both were pushing out so much stuff so fast and doing so much work on Eternal yourselves that I thought I shouldn't stop you just because an arbitrary date came, but I kinda expected that it would be like, another week or two before feature freeze, and now it's two or three weeks after that, and it's currently in a state where I couldn't even call it final right now anyway until Lia undoes the stuff we were talking about two weeks ago, and the whole thing just has me feeling kind of sad and helpless.

[The Man]

Yeah, sorry about that. I actually didn’t expect the schedule to slip this much, either. I should note that I’m giving a very pessimistic estimate here, because I’m trying to avoid falling afoul of Hofstadter’s Law*, even though Hofstadter’s Law itself says that’s impossible. I expect that most of the level changes I’m planning can probably be done in a few hours at most for each level; the main exceptions will probably be “The Incredible Hulk” and “Babylon X”. I’ve just found myself unduly drained lately, in large part because of the dog’s health scare. If things go well, I could possibly have all my planned level changes done by mid-March or even the end of this month, but I’ve just felt… drained for a lot of this year.

Another issue causing me to give a pessimistic estimate is that there are a few problems I just have absolutely no idea how to solve, and I’d like to get them fixed before we go into final release. Most notably, no one knows for sure what’s causing all the Windows issues. (I should go back into that thread while I’m thinking of it.) I also have no idea what the problem is with the HUD and network games.

It’s probably just a phase, though. I think I also burned myself out in December trying to make as many changes as possible before the end of the year. Hopefully I’m on the tail end of that.

*Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

[ravenshining]

I'm basically done as far as things I actually want to do to any files that don't end in .txt or .jpg :-)

I kinda hoped that at some point over the past two weeks you might change your mind about reverting my attempted optimisation, or that I'd have time this weekend to fix it. But between my water being off, my motorcycle breaking down, and the cat incident, I'm a bit off my groove.

[Pfhorrest]

I understand that, and I’m sorry you’v been having to deal with all of that, especially the cats. That sounds like a real downer.

[ravenshining]

Made some time to figure out the correct procedure do revert changes. The necessary commits have been reverted in a new pull request. As I explain there, there's still more to be done, as it may not merge into a playable scenario, but you can resume making commits to your repository without fear of creating parent conflicts with this process if you merge that pull.

I have a backup copy of the changes we want to keep (such as hunter cluts and geometry updates) that had to be reverted in order for the revert to work, that I will have to manually re-incorporate when I get time to do so.

[Pfhorrest]

Thanks Lia!

[ravenshining]

Okay, finally, PR up that ties in all the changes that got lost with the reverts, and makes the newer stuff work without the extended texture sets.

I also went ahead and eliminated the need for questionable shapes patches. Each scenery collection now has a unique sequence for precipitation:

Water: Ashes -- added to Eat S'pht and Die
Lava: Dark rain -- for 2nd to last of the Mohicans
Jjaro: Snow -- added to Babylon X and The Incredible Hulk
Human: Embers -- for the end
Pfhor: Bright rain -- for a Friend in Need

They don't replace anything, they're just added on to the end. So, instead of using a shapes patch, the precipitation MMLs that were already there now swap out a scenery item for the precipitation item. The existing precipitation luas have been updated to reference the proper scenery and collections.

Now, as for the conveyor belt. I scoured the map and it looks like the light green asphalt texture isn't used anywhere, so I set the conveyor belt to that texture, and set the level MML to replace it with an external file:

Code: Select all

<texture coll="18" bitmap="58" normal_image="Eternal-Data/Shapes/clear.png"/>

Just drop the attached, less than 1 KB file into Eternal-Data/Shapes/ and it should work.

Finally, since the Second to Last of the Mohicans MML does two things, I added comments so you know what's what.

EDIT Now with snow and ashes working!

EDIT Also pushed a minor update to Eat S'pht & Die, the lava room monsters now won't activate until you enter. Minor tweak to the disabled jugg clut, should look much better now.

And, Aaron you can cross off your list providing a fix for Babylon X co-op. Idk what you were planning, but I made a waterfall that will slowly flood the lower area once you are past all the ledges. I also shortened a couple of jumps ever so slightly (which even after shortening I still keep missing in single player), and spread out the drones so they teleport in over a wider area at a lower rate but to a higher max.

[Pfhorrest]

Thanks a bunch Lia!

[ravenshining]

Okay, so I tried to tackle the crushing sound and jjaro weapon immunity, to no avail.

For the crushing sound, this seems to work if I run it as a solo script, but it doesn't run from 1000.txt for some reason:

Code: Select all

function Triggers.monster_damaged(monster, aggressor_monster, damage_type, damage_amount, projectile)
  if damage_type == "claws" or damage_type == "hulk slap" then
    monster:play_sound("crushed")
  end
end

The weapon immunity code went from this:

Code: Select all

-- function Triggers.projectile_created(projectile)
--    projectile._original_owner = projectile.owner
-- end

function Triggers.player_damaged(victim, aggressor_player, aggressor_monster, damage_type, damage_amount, projectile)
--  if projectile and projectile.type == "shotgun bullet" and projectile._original_owner == victim.monster then
  if projectile and victim.weapons.current and not victim.weapons.desired then
    if projectile.type == ( "shotgun bullet" or "smg bullet" ) and victim.weapons.current == ( "shotgun" or "smg" or "ball" ) then
      victim.life = victim.life + damage_amount
    end
  end
end

via many iterations to this:

Code: Select all

function Triggers.player_damaged(victim, aggressor_player, aggressor_monster, damage_type, damage_amount, projectile)
  if victim.weapons.current then
    if damage_type == "claws" or damage_type == "hulk slap" then
      if victim.weapons.current == "shotgun" or victim.weapons.current == "smg" or victim.weapons.current == "ball" then
        victim.life = victim.life + damage_amount
      end
    end
  end
end

and at no point along the way did it work. I would point the WMC at a wall and die every time.

So, I'm going to have to leave that as it is for now, with you only being immune to your own shots.

Also, while looking at damage_kicks, I noticed that we could set jjaro weapons to always cause a hard death,if that's a thing we want.

[The Man]

Those changes sound good. I’ll probably still tweak the “Babylon X” outdoors a bit sometime later this month or next, but that at least seems like it’ll fix the co-op problem.

If we’ve got all the changes sorted out now, I think I’ll dive back in soon. I was loath to mess with anything without properly understanding what had been changed, lest it result in another Github clusterfuck; those seem to be pretty easy to cause. I want to finish the tweaks necessary for implementing RADIX’ Troopers in Chronicles, which may take a day or so, and then I’ll probably take a look at the last few weeks’ changes.

[raptor200221]

I recently finished re-texturing and redoing all the weapons on the entire original map pack. I also recently redesigned the Spooky map entirely. If you guys want, you can make changes to these, I have heard rumors about an ember effect. I recommend using that effect on some of the maps in this pack, such as "The Wrkncacnter". I would greatly appreciate it if you guys would check this out and make improvements. After this project, I am finished with Legends for a long time.

[Pfhorrest]

Thanks Raptor, I really appreciate the help!

I will trust Aaron and Lia to do what they need to do with these.

(FWIW, just to keep everyone up to date, I am still in some kind of waking sleep weird limbo state where I can barely even get my day job done and even eating is a chore, since I missed that night of sleep two weeks ago and went back into how I was in December. I was slowly getting better again but now I've missed a few more nights of sleep again this past weekend and I'm afraid that's just going to start the recovery right back over again. I don't know what's wrong with me but I just had some blood tests done to try to figure it out).

[ravenshining]

Hey, thanks Raptor!

I made my own netmap to go with them, and worked them into the merge. I also added precipitation, skulls, and hills as appropriate, and music where music was specified. Absurd though these maps may be, having netmaps is an awesome milestone. PR up!

• Aaron's map got fallout - and to do so, the fallout MML was teased away from the Mohicans MML, so they can just be copied and pasted from Aaron's map if we want it anywhere else. No music, but there is ambient sound.
• asdkzx123 needs music, possibly some minor retexturing
• Eddie Dingle got snow and "Hallucinate"
• Fenrick needs music, possibly some minor retexturing. No music, but there is ambient sound.
• Jteg got "Aliens Again"
• Adminn_1 needs complete retexturing. No music, but there is ambient sound.
• raptor200221 had fusion ammo fixed, needs music
• SlyfennecFox got ashes, needs music, needs some retexturing.
• Spooky got "Flowers in the Woods"
• Wrkncacnter got embers and "Freedom"
• Windbreakers was made Rebellion because the maps contains pistols, needs music
• Zuranthus could use music, and got embers but it spits out constant lua errors, might be worth checking into to ensure embers is robust.
• Liacrow got "Ilusion"

[raptor200221]

Hey, thanks Raptor!

I made my own netmap to go with them, and worked them into the merge. I also added precipitation, skulls, and hills as appropriate, and music where music was specified. Absurd though these maps may be, having netmaps is an awesome milestone. PR up!

• Aaron's map got fallout - and to do so, the fallout MML was teased away from the Mohicans MML, so they can just be copied and pasted from Aaron's map if we want it anywhere else. No music, but there is ambient sound.
• asdkzx123 needs music, possibly some minor retexturing
• Eddie Dingle got snow and "Hallucinate"
• Fenrick needs music, possibly some minor retexturing. No music, but there is ambient sound.
• Jteg got "Aliens Again"
• Adminn_1 needs complete retexturing. No music, but there is ambient sound.
• raptor200221 had fusion ammo fixed, needs music
• SlyfennecFox got ashes, needs music, needs some retexturing.
• Spooky got "Flowers in the Woods"
• Wrkncacnter got embers and "Freedom"
• Windbreakers was made Rebellion because the maps contains pistols, needs music
• Zuranthus could use music, and got embers but it spits out constant lua errors, might be worth checking into to ensure embers is robust.
• Liacrow got "Ilusion"

I would say that this pretty much sums up the changes that need to be made. That must have taken a while to write that list, but it is very accurate. All of the maps would have already had mml if anyone else working on the project actually knew how to add it.

[Pfhorrest]

PR merged, though I am wondering if perhaps it might be a good idea to have a separate Netmaps merge folder apart from the main merge folder? Also, with how much work it sounds like these net maps have to go, if we get to a point where the solo scenario is ready to release and we're waiting on net maps for clean up, maybe it might be a good idea to make the netmap pack a separate release from the main release.

[raptor200221]

PR merged, though I am wondering if perhaps it might be a good idea to have a separate Netmaps merge folder apart from the main merge folder? Also, with how much work it sounds like these net maps have to go, if we get to a point where the solo scenario is ready to release and we're waiting on net maps for clean up, maybe it might be a good idea to make the netmap pack a separate release from the main release.

Most likely a good idea. The netmaps don't have too much to go through, but it would be a good idea to release it seperately. If you release it seperately, it will cause less confusion over what is a co-op map, and what is a netmap.

[The Man]

I also vote for a separate release. If nothing else, the solo scenario is ambitious enough on its own – adding net maps to the release will by necessity delay development even further. I’m fine having an official release of net maps sometime after we’ve gone into feature freeze for the solo scenario, though, but I do want to make sure they’re well balanced and polished, and I expect that to take a fair amount of time.

If I download the current Github folder and replace the scripts/files in beta 9 as applicable, will I have an up-to-date release? Before I delve back into development, I want to make sure I’ve got current copies of everything.

[ravenshining]

I concur with having the netmaps in a separate file - after all, they aren't exactly in the same style as the solo campaign. I don't see why we shouldn't include them in the release though, just so people can be on the same page.

• separated the netmaps into a separate merge
• tracked down and fixed the lua error in embers that was causing Zaranthus to barf
• added loading screens with appropriate colour bars to the netmaps
• fixed some syntax and updated weapons.mml
• appended an E to netmap level folders, to distinguish them from non-Eternal legends, according to convention
• re-ordered netmaps with people who've actually contributed to Eternal first
• PR up

TODO:
• append E to actual netmap titles
• fix sprite assignment for oxygen cannister, currently shows up as a 1x can
• stuff I mentioned above
• add whatever MML should go with the netmaps, I have no idea what all the files in TEXT are about
• add the title fade-in effect to the netmaps - I'd love to know how that works

Aaron, if you download from my git, yes, however, there are also updates in Plugins, shapes, & physics

[The Man]

The main reason I propose releasing them separately is it’s likely to be a further delay to the final release. If people don’t think it’s likely to delay the release, I suppose there’s no issue including them, but I was hoping to make some net maps of my own and/or adapt some Chronicles net maps, and that ain’t gonna happen overnight. I might also want to make some changes to the existing maps depending on how they play in testing.

Anyway thanks; I’ll probably get back into the swing of things this weekend.

[ravenshining]

Terminal illustrating time!

Most importantly, since I've illustrated The Far Side of Nowhere, I had a look The Near Side of Everywhere. The last terminal is a bit too esoteric to be illustratable, but the first term is a different story. I re-used the Hathor Eye, and altered the colours of a few crops of Infinity chapter screens to come up with this:

Spoiler:

For S'pht'ia, I took the M2 tower illustration, brightened it up to make it look like a habitable place since this is before it was laid waste, applied the S'pht overlay, and used it in three appropriate places:

Spoiler:

Then, I took the S'pht writing from M2, Eternalified it, and put it alongside all the S'pht flavour terms that I wrote (apart from the one that has video footage of the player):

Spoiler:

And illustrated Yrro's terminal thusly:

Spoiler:

Finally, I re-used a couple picts for Mohicans and Third Rock:

Spoiler:

PR up- whoa and already merged

I also Eternalified the M∞ Pfhor writing term picts, in case they might be useful in relieving monotony on Pfhor terms:

Spoiler:

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But I guess, as far as I've seen, all the Pfhor terminals are single-screen affairs, usually broadcasting orders to kill the player, so I guess there's no need for those.