The_Particles_Within

[Lowell]

sure, sorry about that.

>I did make corrections to the mission on the second map Neutrons. The Refinery isn't suposed to be running until the green Darwinians get there.
>Adjusted mission primary objectives on Neutrons level.
>Spam on Nucleus and Neutrons made Global and Dynamic.
>Neutrons control tower #77 linked to radar dish #76
>removed unused control tower from Nucleus. "connected but not needed."

[xander]

(This is pre-1.0, so you may have fixed some of these already)

1) Remove the "NotInLocation" from line 45 of game.txt. That will cause Darwinia to crash. It should be part of the event, not the action.
2) Remove the MakeAvailable lines. MakeAvailable doesn't work (it causes Darwinia to crash). It doesn't matter, anyway, as the locations are made available when you capture the trunkports.
3) Go through strings_default.txt and s/particals/particles/g

xander

[Lowell]

Thanks for seeing that, sure enough NotInLocation is an Event not an Action...I don't know why I keep wanting to put an A in that stupid word...dang it

>5:30pm eastern time posted changes;

>removal of NotInLocation in game text
>removal of MakeAvailable lines in game text
>checked spelling in strings text

Edit...Please check the first and last page for new versions and download links.

[xander]

Edit// you had mentioned "pre 1.0" should I use A,B,C etc. for now?

Honestly, you can number your versions any way that you want. The trick is, every time you make a change, you should change the number in some way, so that you can figure out what might be causing the problem.

xander

[Lowell]

I wasn't sure about the research placement. I like to shoot a good distance, you need to get to level 2 or better. These maps being as they are big and full, you need two squads in some areas. I have read some say the game is too "easy" or "short," my maps even for me take an hour or two.

Please let me know if they are too big. The tutorial says that the game had the largest map at 46000. I don't remember seeing one that large, I will have to go back in and look at their maps. I believe the largest one I have is around 43000.

[Lowell]

Latest update...

>Updated all lists of primary objectives
>edited/modified strings default text
>edited ending transport islands on Electrons
>Nucleus cell size changed to ( 18 ) from 44052 down to 19974 now-34 FPS
>Neutrons cell size changed to ( 18 ) from 36716 down to 16724 now-34 FPS
>Protons unchanged size 17204 now-48 FPS
>Electrons cell size changed to ( 18 ) from 45830 down to 20826 now-37 FPS
>re-balanced some instant units
>updated readme

I will start these updates with 0.2 seeing as Hitm4n used 0.1 last time.

This first set of maps should be complete except for input from others...
In the next set, two maps have been made, two more underconstruction.

[Lowell]

Two new maps are near completion, Gluons and Quarks. They will set-off the next level in The_Particles_Within

New buildings for Darwinia The_Particles_Within, they will be converted as quick as I can find someone to run the perl script for me. I just don't have the time right now to play with installing perl right now. Too bad they will loose their textures, but they will still look cool.





I'm not much for perl yet so I will ask Helpmann to help me convert them if he has time. If anyone else would like to help convert them let me know, and I will give you the link to get the obj files. With the next two maps done, Gluons and Quarks, that should put me in line for posting the next level of four more maps next week.

I have also developed the storyline much farther as well.

"Later I will offer these and others for all to use."

[Lowell]

well I have gotten Zero responces for converting images to shp format. I guess I could try loading Perl and run the script conversion myself. However I am on the Beta test team for the new version of LightWave, it starts on the 14th of this month. Not sure if I can get them converted before then.

[Puzzlemaker]

Those look awsome, by the way.

[Lowell]

Cool thanks;
as soon as I can get then converted I can use them in the next set of maps. Right now The_Particles_Within looks like 18 maps. I will also post these buildings for everyone to use. Hopefully I can finish writing the strings default story line tonight then I can post the other two maps for this first set of 6; Nucleus, Neutrons, Protons, Electrons, Gluons and Quarks. Positrons and Angstrom have their landscape’s build; I just need to finish the mission. Gluons is a just a tad hard, as will most of these others. Nucleus actually plays pretty fast; it's just a giant map. I also am finishing the script where after the big battle on Gluons a large workforce will be needed. The " 400 saved " Darwinians on Protons must be moved through the gate on through Electrons. Quarks is stuffed with everyone’s favorite character in the game, along with some surprise helpers for the squads.

[thefrogger]

I have several comments about the levels so far. I tend to not pull many punches when it comes to feedback, because I believe it affects the accuracy of the opinions I'm trying to portray. Some of these opinions will be fairly harsh, so I'll offer an initial warning and apology, and hope you don't take the comments too hard. Rest assured, I appreciate the time that anyone takes to create mods for the enjoyment of others, and I wouldn't go to such efforts to critique the work if I didn't respect the value thereof.

General:
These are the first levels I've played where I noticed a sustained reduced frame rate to the point where it impacted enjoyment and operation of the game. They're much slower than any other level I've seen, and as such will severely restrict the number of users who have a powerful enough machine to fully enjoy the mod. It's more than just seeing a frame rate that isn't smooth. It renders the gesture recognition near-useless, and even has problems reading quick keystrokes.

None of the levels have a compelling focus on what I should be doing, and why. I liked the particle theme and some of the background info and story, but the levels themselves do not reinforce those ideas with representative gameplay. There will be more specific comments in the following level breakdowns.

Nucleus:
More so than the other levels, this one really fits the description in the last paragraph. It's a very busy level that seems to have everything including the kitchen sink, and no real reason why any of it should be there. Most of the elements in the level don't have direct connections to either the story details or gameplay objectives that the user will face when playing it. It's as if the designer just grabbed a bunch of everything and scattered it around, without a clear focus on how the level was going to actually be played.

If I can suggest one piece of advice to stand out from everything else here, it would be to not add any elements to a level without having a clear reason to do so. You should have an idea how you want the level to play before you start designing, and then only add the items needed to create and enhance those goals.

For example, Nucleus can be completed without any combat whatsoever. I spawned engineers to investigate all the research objects and towers, and before I even got started I saw "Objectives Complete". Grabbing the one tower by the factory seems to satisfy "secure and activate core". That objective needs some work.

The thing is, even if I had to clear out the enemies in that area, the other 90% of the level I wouldn't even have to touch. There's no purpose or objective to capturing the energy collectors, or the spawn points, or anything else. (Other than scavenging research points).

I think it's a mistake to give the player virtually every program in the first level. Building up to greater abilities is a great deal of the fun and challenge.

What's a Controller program? I've seen the reference in game.txt, but I didn't think it actually *did* anything. IMO, if it doesn't do anything, it shouldn't be in the mod. It's not like it's an ultra cool hidden discovery. I'll withdraw the objection if it has a purpose, but otherwise it's just a potential source of confusion (and an ultimate disappointment) to those who haven't heard of it before, and not a big surprise to those who have.

Lastly, there shouldn't be spawn points and required DG control buildings without armed DGs. Granted, squads can clear out such establishments, but it's rather tedious to do so--especially with low-level lasers and grenades.

Neutrons:
Again, the level completed way before I had conquered or even explored much of the level. There's a lot of stuff in here that the user just doesn't need to do. If you're going to have large expansive levels, there should be reasons why users need to progress though that space.

Electrons:
I have mixed feelings about providing level 4 research cubes. One problem, is the potential waste of a *ton* of research points. I realize Introversion sabotoged much of the reward that collecting research offered, but there's still an attachment to those precious points, and an annoyance when they're wasted. Another problem, is that I don't get the feeling that the cubes were *needed*. It would be one thing if some part of the level virtually required a level 4 armor (or some other stat), and you provided such a research cube just to make sure a user who hadn't researched that item wouldn't get hopelessly stuck. But I just don't see the need here. There are no extreme challenges that warrant such a gift. I also got the feeling from your comments here that additional levels are planned, and thus ramping up to maximum stats too early is essentially the same problem as giving the user all the programs too early. It removes the potential and motivation for growth later on.

PLEASE don't penalize the users with 4.0 DGs. At least, not without warning. I've never seen them blow up more of the enemy than they do of themselves. In this particular case, one can't arm DGs at all without also accepting the suicidal grenades. Very nasty.

Related to both of the above, you might want to identify specific research items in the mission objectives. If a cube was listed as "Collect 4.0 Laser Research" instead of just a generic research cube, at least I'd know I didn't have to be expending research points on that item during the level.

The objectives for Gluons and Protons gates are messed up. IIRC, the Protons tower was already controlled at the beginning of the level, but the gate isn't active and never completes. Capturing the Gluons gate completes the Protons gate objective, and the Gluons objective is the one that remains unable to complete. (And I can't reach the Protons map at all). BTW, there should have been a Nucleus gate since that's where we came from.

I found a couple of positioning bugs that prevent engineers from reaching the objective. In this shot, the engineer can't reprogram the tower because it's too close to the mountain.


In this one, he can't get the research cube. I was able to fiddle with the engineer's position on this one and obtain the research, but it should still be made more accessible.


One really neat thing did happen while I was playing Electrons though. I like the place where there are six spawn points next to each other. At the time, I had recently deployed a battle cannon in that general area to take out the soul destroyers, and only had about 8 or 10 DGs left. Since there weren't any other sources of DGs close by, I decided to take on the spawn points with that little army, using a squad to clear the way. I had to get at least one point fairly clear and hold it that way in order to get a foothold. I do this all the time with single spawn points, but the multiple setup provided a nice challenge.

It occurs to me that a useful addition to some mod might be an exception to the "don't have spawn points and unarmed DGs" rule. In this case, I had high level lasers and grenades, and so it wasn't so frustrating trying to clear the area. As long as the user is sufficiently armed, and the enemy DGs not too spread out, the need to completely clean a spawn point before unarmed DGs can capture it is a worthy challenge. A similar condition can be achieved with vastly outnumbered DGs and multiple spawn points, like I described above. I can envision a level starting this way. You've got a squad and a limited number of DG's to establish a beachhead on an enemy controlled spawning farm.

Edit: The only change was the image hosting location.

[xander]

The controller weapon does still work, and I tried desperately to come up with a reason to put it in Insurrection, just because I think it is so damn cool. However, I found that, in the end, cool as it is, it isn't all that useful.

What it does: controller is a squad weapon, which means that you must have a squad selected in order to run it. When you run the controller program, it takes up a task slot (unlike other weapons). The weapon is lobbed like a grenade, but it does no damage, much like the marker flares for airstrikes (the flares themselves do no damage). Instead, any friendly DG near the flares start pulsing blue, and will follow the squad like an officer.

As I said, it is a neat weapon, but when you have level 4 officers, it isn't that useful, as it takes up a task slot.

xander

[thefrogger]

The controller weapon does still work...

D'oh! I tried all kinds of things, but didn't think of it being a squad weapon.

Sorry Lowell for the premature rant. I guess it caused some of that frustration I mentioned when I couldn't get it to work. (The mod could use some explanation of what it does when you obtain it).

Protons:
I edited game.txt so I could check out Protons, and for the most part I liked this level. Nice to have a good frame rate back.

The objective for the Electrons trunkport is labeled as "Nucleus", but otherwise it completed correctly. Darwinia did crash shortly after "Objectives Completed". I'm not sure if I did something wrong in manually enabling Protons, or perhaps one of the crash errors xander already posted.

The objective for getting DGs to the safe area should include a camera pan to the specific area. Both in the level intro, as well as clicking on the objective. I felt I had to guess where on the island to send the DGs.

About the only problem I found with the level design, is that it doesn't make sense to have any spawn points on a level with a rescue objective number. Obviously, you can send a steady stream of DGs to the safe area and reach any rescue objective you want. I also found it odd that the rescue objective was described as being difficult. A whole swarm of DGs charged me on the second island, and by the time they were harvested the objective was almost complete. (It did complete before reaching the largest island).

Not sure if you'll care about such things, but the spams are pretty easy to destroy with a battle cannon placed on the mountain by the two triffids, bypassing most of the intended defenses. I voluntarily chose not to do this in order to have more fun and see the level more like it was intended, but you might want to look into protecting against loopholes like this. (Might be hard unless you reconsider whether the player should be given level 4 cannons).

[Lowell]

Great review thanks, the best yet...

Well, my play workstation has an Intel 975 express chipset mb, Intel 955 extreme dual core cpu and dual core ram, 512mb pci graphics, believe it or not I can run 4 independent threads...I can pump this baby up in server mode and get right at 1000fps in Half-Life2, with my Comcast 8.5 broadband connection..."installing mani now, I turn it up on and off at times testing maps, it's in the server list when up...Lowell's Fun House"

Nucleus is too busy; I'm not against busting it up. To get the yard building to work it needs power, and it needs the track links. The yard is the "core" on Nucleus. With the atom theme in the game it sort of needs to start from the core and work outward. I could remake Nucleus as the "core" keeps the power but say put the generator on another map. Remove the Blue Print Relay stuff for another map. I guess it needs the track Links from the mine. You're right though, it was a throw in the sink kind of thing. It's my first map made. With Earth 2150 and some others the giant maps are cool. I think I understand the limitations of others better though.

Is it that the "size" of the landscape or the "amount" of stuff on the board causing the lag trouble? Although if I bust them up they don't have to be so large anyway...I'll just spread them out more. In the tutorial from Ice Pick it says that the biggest maps in the game were 46000 triangles. I had reduced the cell count on electrons did it play okay? I would hate to bust up electrons, although the second island can be scratched that may speed things up. I see the control tower and that can be fixed, I think I was reducing the cell count and I must have overlooked him. The mine is large but not any larger than the one in the game? The game has five mines as well. Not as much other stuff though.

I see your point about using the green Darwinians as army men. But the green guys aren't even close to being used as army men. I thought one of the main missions in the game was to kill off the entire virus and save the Darwinians. If you left virus or reds behind in levels they would take over from your rear? What general would do that? When I played the game I chased every red down and every virii...used the squads for the main killing, only used the greens for backup and with armor I have had twelve greens at the cannon, two reds run up and scare all the greens away and turn the cannon on them. In Protons I was adding script triggers around spawn point areas where they would be part of the mission. "Take over army base" or something.

I guess I was playing the game different, using the squads and trying to "save" the green guys. I hadn’t sent the greens in as a group horde. I know it’s a numbers thing, but the game said to save them. It is cool, though. And I don't mind busting up a couple maps if that helps speed the game play. The mines are hard though...all you can say is building online, you can connect a controller to one but I don't see what that would do. Oh... I never played the points stuff. I took my research from the maps. You need level 3 to 4 to really use the greens for anything. Also with level 4 you get increased range. The same with the controller, I know many may not have used it, but it too will increase your range. In Gluons, I was giving out level 5 squads and engineers, even though I think they turned off bridges.


So you would rather play for points than gather the research cubes? I gave so much out at first map Nucleus because you need a better shooting range for larger maps, if I bust them up I could change the research.

More storyline has been added, changed etc.
The main idea is from demo2. While we were fighting the reds and taking back the spawn points around the rocket, the reds were inside the ship. Sabotaging everything. Well we all fought them off; the greens took off on their journey. Little did they know there were a small band of reds hidden away inside the rocket. The ship ran into trouble halfway to their goal of the big server star they were aiming for. A close system was used as a base where repairs and new parts / fuel is obtained. The reds slipped away in the night unseen. It takes them several months to build the mines and such. Just as they got everything set in comes the red army and floods through. In steps the player...

I like the mission ideas though. But I always thought one of the main goals was to kill off all the reds and all virii before moving to a new map. If you haven't secured the area you haven't done your job? It's hard to think of a script trigger that would go off when all the reds are dead. I was adding script triggers to the spawn points as building online when the greens take over, which is close to the same thing.

What is a good frame rate for your machine? The quarks map is close to 60 and Gluons is 45. The maps can be made quick enough... I can remake the first two, was protons or electrons too slow?

Thanks again … I am looking for input.

[thefrogger]

Well, my play workstation has an Intel 975 express...

I'm running an AMD64 3500+ and an ATI X800XL PCI-E, and play at 1680x1050. Even that is above what a lot of people will have. (If you've never looked at the summary of users' systems on Steam, you should do so. It's pretty scary how low the bell curve is).

One of the reasons computer software has gotten much sloppier and slower over the years, is that programmers often have really fast machines and never even realize how slow their stuff runs in the real world. Anyway, the point is that you have to be really careful when you have a hot system.

To get the yard building to work it needs power, and it needs the track links.

The thing is, there are already reds manning those things, so they're working from the outset. That's why the user never needs to touch them to achieve victory.

The yard is the "core" on Nucleus. With the atom theme in the game it sort of needs to start from the core and work outward.

It didn't make sense to me that the atom "core" would be manufacturing armor. Especially since one of the research cubes already gave me the ability to call them up at will. In the original game, the latter only happens after completing yard, and the theory is that the armor is still being made in the construction yard and transported via trunkports. Normally, I'd overlook nitpicky things like this if there was a good reason for the contradiction. But in this case the yard itself seems out of place. Seems like you'd want a reactor kind of thing. Something that generates power as the first step.

Is it that the "size" of the landscape or the "amount" of stuff on the board causing the lag trouble?

I really don't know. Anyone else have the answer? You could do some experiments too.

I had reduced the cell count on electrons did it play okay?

No. Only Protons played okay IMO.

I see your point about using the green Darwinians as army men.... I guess I was playing the game different, using the squads and trying to "save" the green guys.

For the record, I *never* send green DGs as a group against a lot of reds. I don't like to lose guys, so I always soften up the enemy positions with squads first. I essentially try to lose no one, and I find that way more fun as well.

But there's a big difference between that and what you have to do for unarmed DGs. For the former, you only need to destroy most of the reds, whereas for the latter you need to destroy all of the reds. If the reds are scattered, and/or if the squad weapons are not highly advanced (both cases are true in Nucleus), this takes a lot of extra time in a tedious sort of way. This is what I objected to. It's nice to just let the greens finish off the last few reds while the squad moves to the next objective.

So you would rather play for points than gather the research cubes?

Most definitely. The points are part of the core game play as long as you have towers to capture. It's a good element of the game play as well because users get to choose what they want to spend the points on. Another positive element is that it creates a steady progression of increasing capabilities. I had 4.0 of everything I need by Protons, meaning I wouldn't get any advancement throughout the rest of the future game levels.

That's not to say some well placed research cubes wouldn't be a welcome addition. I just think there shouldn't be so many of them, and there should be more of a purpose. In addition to what I mentioned last time about ensuring a user has the proper tools for a difficult section, another nice usage of a research cube would be as a "reward" for clearing a really difficult section. Stick *ONE* of those level 4.0 cubes in a well guarded spot. When the user obtains the cube, he'll think he earned it! As the mod is now, they're just scattered around for the taking.

BTW, there are multiple users on this board that consider DGs above 3.0, or engineers above 2.0 to be a hinderence. As such, I suggest you avoid automatically promoting either research above that level. (Users can still spend points on them if they wish).

I like the mission ideas though. But I always thought one of the main goals was to kill off all the reds and all virii before moving to a new map. If you haven't secured the area you haven't done your job? It's hard to think of a script trigger that would go off when all the reds are dead.

People like to have a reason for doing something. To a point, I'll complete sections "because they're there", but most of the original game and the best mods have a purpose for doing so. I haven't written a mod so I don't know the finer details of things like "safe areas" and such, which can be used to trigger off the existence or elimination of units.

There are also things like needing to take over buildings, or energy/soul collectors, etc. Those objectives only work (I think) if they're not already occupied. In any case, it's just a matter of creating some kind of objective at various strategic points on the map such that users need to progress through it, and are rewarded for doing so.

What is a good frame rate for your machine?

I don't think I've seen anything below 30 in other mods, and most levels are probably 60+.

Weird, I just started a new game and couldn't find any views of Nucleus below 45 FPS. (Most of the time, it's 55+). I know it was much slower than that when I played it, and that was on a pretty clean system boot whereas the test just now I left my browser and other programs still open. I wonder if there was just something funky with my system when I was playing earlier? I'll get back to you if additional testing reveals any different results.

In any case, I'd try to make your levels comparitively similar to the frame rates seen on the original game's levels. Figure that Introversion tweaked the performance for an expected user base, plus that will also be the baseline that users have experience with, and would sort of expect from any mods.