collaboration

[The GoldFish]

The best that I have been able to do is create a SafeArea objective with, say, 50 Darwinians, then put 50 Darwinians in the next level. However, if you save 160 Darwinians, you will still only have 50 in the next level.
[blah]
As to timing in a level, there is not an actual clock. However (and correct me if I am wrong, TGF), you could create an AISpawnPoint way out in the middle of nowhere that creates one unit every minute (or something) and create a SafeArea that activates when there are x units in it. Thus, after x minutes, the SafeArea would activate and the game could end. Or something.

Continue the theme - have a series of say, 5 safe areas, when they go online they activate a script that changes the next level's mission file so it has more and more units in. OK so if you blew up all your units after the safe area goes on you'll still have them all in the next level, but hey

And quite right, no timer. However, my experience has suggested that AISpawnpoints don't initially start counting up from 0, so you're better off making it say 10 seconds and counting 6 for every minute. Sucks if you want it to show the time though...

[mindule]

Xander: that would be an effective idea, but the player would get to see all the units spawning. We need some sort of idea to explain.

Oh, and I was thinking of powerlines, and I had an idea that works well with another mod I was planning. I don't want to say the idea quite yet, suffice to say that it kind revolves around the fact that, maybe, we can make evil darwinians look different than regular ones? I think I can find a way around it, but that'd be nice.

[nihilisthetics]

if you make the safe area a primary objective, you could have a kind of clock on the objective screen which tells you the count of units in the safe area.

[nihilisthetics]

#collaboration on undernet seems to be the unofficial meeting place for discussing the mod, so Im going to hang out there on and off for the next couple of days and see who turns up. Weve already discussed the very basic concepts of plot, levels and what will be possible on there, so why not drop in and add your tuppence worth too

[The GoldFish]

How about spawning team 0 Virii, they're invisible (at least until that 'bug' is fixed)

[mindule]

Heh, that would be fun... sort of a minefield. With moving mines.

[Dr4goN]

How about spawning team 0 Virii, they're invisible (at least until that 'bug' is fixed)

LOL! 0 Virii Team = IV(Invisible Virii - n/c)! Could you post a screenshot, please?

[xander]

Xander: that would be an effective idea, but the player would get to see all the units spawning. We need some sort of idea to explain.

I think that there are three ways that you could get around this:

1) "The evil virus is spreading... you must stop it before x number of virii are in y area." -- this may be cheesy and may not work for many mods, hence...

2) Put the AISpawnPoint on an island that is far, far away from the rest of the map. It will not be easily visible to the player, and it won't be accessable, so there is no fear that they will screw with the timer.

3) You could do as TGF recommends, and use invisible team 0 virii. However, this will probably be changed later. On the other hand, you could use some kind of unit that you are not using in the mod (i.e. tripods?), create a really small .shp for them (i.e. it can't be easily seen) and create a safe area for them. Just make sure that any unit that they might shoot at is out of range.

I can't really think of any other way to create a timer -- it seems that you must use some kind of unit to set off a SafeArea. Making that look sleek is the hard part ^_^

xander

[Tortanick]

If the box is darwinia why think outside it?

Anyway more random ideas:

Darwinians as a virus:
revenge against the virus
one corparation vs another, fake dr?
mankind sends them into an evil empire's computers. Aliens, russans? (when is darwinia set)

Darwinians in RL:
Hacked into milatary robobts, exploration, attending Dr's funeral

Darwinia vs Darwinia2000

next gen DGs are modaled on humans, become evil capitalists like us. They hear about week DGs and decide to get some slaves, WAR

[Tortanick]

Ok I know double posing is bad but this merrets a unique post:

How about one Giant level for the first part of the game, it consists of sevral level sised Islands/island chains and you have to get your DGs across. To act as a timebomb for each unique island, as an rough solution you can add spam all over the island with AI spawn points that will do the first spawn after the time limit is out.

Just ad a 10second clock and objectives that say pass the first island before, pass the second island before etc.

[nihilisthetics]

There are some pretty nice ideas in there. You should come along to #collaboration next time we meet. There are four of us who have been kicking some ideas about. It sounds like its going to be pretty good. We are working on concepts for the individual levels at the moment, and we could use some of those ideas.

Weve got big plans, but we need more people. If you have the following skills or know someone who has, then you could help

3dmax

vistapro ( or are a wizard with the inbuilt landscape editor )

photoshop

musical composition

... or have lots of free time to fill

You can play as big or small a part as you want

Show your interest by posting here. I will try to organise a proper brainstorming session once we get maybe half a dozen names in total

Hope to see your name on the list

N

PS if you can think of any way you can change any of the mod files after they have been loaded into memory, let us know.

Ill be on undernet #collaboration for the next hour or so if anybody is interested in coming along.

[mindule]

I don't see you on #collaboration, sorry. When will you be on?