xander wrote:ShepFan wrote:Hmmm. See a few quotes down, where you say, "....You should have used the Dishes." I couldn't activate the dish on this plateau without finding the control tower, so I couldn't send the squaddies though the Dishes to this far plateau.
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Ummmm... really? Yeah, I did play the original without sending squaddies through dishes. I always found a way to reprogram a control tower wherever I was trying to go. I've been through the original game four times now. Hunh. Why would one send a squad through a dish, when you can create a squad around the control tower at the destination? Are you pulling my leg?
You do realise that you don't have to reprogram both radar dishes to make a connection, right? If you want to send units from dish A to dish B, then you only have to reprogram and aim dish A. There are a lot of mods that take advantage of this, either by not including a control tower on the receiving end, or by putting a lot of enemies around the control tower on the receiving end, making it quite difficult for engineers to reprogram it. And trust me, there are reasons you might want to send squads through dishes -- like when there are no control towers on the opposite end to create squaddies near.
Wow, I had no idea you could send anything through a 1-way Dish connection. Yeah, I can see that sending a squad through one would be a very useful thing!
xander wrote:ShepFan wrote:Maybe it's a Mac/Windows thing? After that crash I emailed you about, I had to start from the beginning, even though I was in the third level. After that, I specifically tested by starting MP1138, finishing the level, quitting, and re-running. When I came back, only MP1138 was visible inside the sphere, and I had to play it again. A screen shot of that will be easy to provide, but you'll have to take my word for it!Is there a specific screen shot that will be especially helpful?
No, it is not a Mac/Windows thing. I have played EW through several times, using several versions of Darwinia, and several versions of EW. I have never not seen that message. Have you completed all of the objectives for the level? You might want to check that you have completed all of the mission objectives, by bringing up the task manager (either [OPTION] or [TAB], depending upon the interface that you are using), and hitting the [right] or [down] (again, depending upon interface system -- icon based vs gesture based). If you see an imcomplete objective, click on it to get an explanation. My guess is that you have not yet grabbed the research cube in the valley.
I did get the research cube (first thing), and I did check the Objectives screen to be sure I'd achieved them all. I'll play it again today and see. I'm starting to think I was just preoccupied and missed it, since I'm the only one bringing this up. The only thing I didn't do that everyone else has is use the Dish to teleport over to the far plateau. I've only scanned the script files, but I don't see where it's even possible to make that a condition of triggering the ending script.
xander wrote:trickfred wrote:ShepFan wrote:Backdoor level: While traversing the narrow land and cliffs to the secondary control tower (forgot the name, sorry) a squaddie walked off cliff! It was funny, he kept travelling away as he fell. Probably by design, I've just never seen it happen! I should have checked to see if he died from the fall, but I didn't.
If by 'by design', you mean that the land was narrow, then yes, I meant for people to have to be careful there.ShepFan wrote:"By design" meant that I thought you did something special so a squaddie would plunge off the cliff like that. I've never seen it before, the outlying squaddie always seems to get stuck on the edges of dangerous things like cliffs and water [Ed. note: so that the squad stays together!]. So, it was surprise to see one of them depart from the group and arc gracefully off the cliff, falling into the canyon below. Usually squaddies are logically linked together as a unit, so losing one off a cliff was a surprise.
No, this is just the way that squaddies behave sometimes, if you are not careful. Also, what graphics settings are you using? If you have the landscape quality turned down a lot, the paths across the mesas will be narrower, and harder to navigate. Try turning your quality up a bit.
I'm using the highest settings for everything. I think it was just me making a mistake as I simultaneously guided 3 squads across the narrow, jaggy path to the Control Tower.
xander wrote:trickfred wrote:ShepFan wrote:Dr S's exclamations ("Zounds!" "Great Caesar's Ghost!" "Good Gravy!") seem a bit out of character... How about "What's this?" "I don't believe this!" "What the..." and "This is impossible!" I know this is nitpicky, but it did feel different than the original.
You're welcome to your opinion, but don't hold your breath for those lines to change. As I said above, you're welcome to like my design style or not, but my mods do differ from the original levels. And my interpretation of Sepulveda's character may certainly be different than yours.ShepFan wrote:That's cool. Like I said, it's free feedback, to do with what you will. As a geek and a software engineer and a guy who's fascinated genetic programming, I do see Dr. S. differently than you do. I think I identify with him a bit. I only mention my impressions in case you didn't intend him to be so awkward in his speaking. Since you see him as a recluse, and socially ungainly, and it was by conscious design, it makes sense to me now, and I take back my reservations about it.
It's funny. We all have our own impressions of Dr. S. I don't see him as incompetant, as trickfred does. I picked up on the anti-social aspects of his personality, both from the game, and from the "extras." I see Dr. S as very reclusive. I used that to create Insurrection, for which Icepick balled me out, because he saw Dr. S as something else entirely. I think that seeing other people's impressions of him is quite neat, but that's just me.
[soapbox]
I've worked with very bright people who don't suffer fools gladly, which is how Dr S initially appears ("Who the hell are you?"). Still, he clearly cares about his creation and the DGs, and he got me as a player to care, too. He has observed hundreds of generations of DGs, and even in the early game he reverently and respectfully talks of Darwinian culture, such as the sacred customs at the Receiver. His experience as the game unfolds opens his eyes to his every-day-for-the-last-ten-years obsession with his project, how precious and fleeting are the things we connect with, and how Darwinia has grown on its own to something bigger than he can handle by himself. IMHO, he has grown by the end of the game, for those reasons, and realizing that a complete stranger would do something as selfless as (paying
for the privilege of) helping him save his life's work. And he shows appropriate warmth and gratitude to the player, as well as empathy and insight into the profound impact that, say, the battle at the Biosphere had on the Darwinians. He's got a heart and can express himself articulately. His passion (if you will) affected me enough that I felt compelled to always save as many souls as I could, even after I'd finished the objectives in each level, and knowing that it made no difference to the outcome of the game. It just made me feel better.
In addition to having a gruff exterior and a caring side, I see Dr. S as a genius, as I would anyone who could create sentient, self-aware, artificial digital life. That his DGs go beyond his imagination, and try to build stuff of their own design when they think he's not looking, or can feel grief over the loss of an island in a server crash, or attempt to communicate with God... Well, in my book, that makes him smarter than he thinks he is, and my hunch is he already has a pretty high opinion of himself!
[/soapbox]
Anyway, that's my own take on the guy. I wish I had the motivation and self-discipline to write my own mod(s), but I know it's a lot of work. I'm really glad you, trickfred, and others have given us your mods to enjoy.
Thanks,
ShepFan
