Map idea, does it already exist?

[Puzzlemaker]

Hiya everyone. I was thinking about a map idea I had. I actually already made the map... sorta. However, I managed to crash darwinia and make it not start up again while doing so. It took me awhile to fix.

So I am a little scared of mapping right now, and I was wondering if there were any maps where you fight Lots of ants and red darwinians with spawn points at the same time. Like, maybe you are on top of a mountain and have to defend against them for a certain amount of time, or something? And you have 1 spawn point?

[xander]

There is nothing of that sort that I know of, though it sounds like a good idea. I suggest that you continue working on it, and if you have problems, post them to the boards and let us see if we can help.

xander

[Puzzlemaker]

As I said before, I blew up my game...

Something about non-global incubators?

I had to go into the .txt and mess around with the numbers. Then when I started up the game the config was all messed up and it was in window mode at 800X600.

Anyway, ya, I might continue working on it, after I read up on a few tutorials so I dont do something like that again...

[jaysc]

hey, i making a mod about red darwinia fighting maps (with a little viruses). I only just started making it. i'll send it too you if you want.

Also, i''m looking for anyone who can make good maps. I'm not that good so if you want me to add your map to my mod ,then say.

[Puzzlemaker]

I need help; I dont know how spawn points work, ect. I keep on crashing the game. Augh. I looked at TheNextGame tutorials, and they didn't help much; I cant figure out how to get the spawn points to spawn guys!

Any suggestions?

I hooked them up with spawn links, but I dont want that big spawn link regulator thingy, whatever its called, in the map. In temple I noticed they made it spawn without that building...

[xander]

You can hide the SpawnPointMaster by making it non-global (which is what was done in Temple). For a spawn system to work, you need a SpawnPointMaster that is linked (either directly, or through SpawnLinks) to SpawnPoints.

If your SpawnPointMaster is global:
- it will be visible
- it will come online when the enemy army is eliminated (brought down to 9 or fewer units; think Biosphere's main objective)
- souls will instantly float away

If your SpawnPointMaster is not global:
- it will be invisible
- it will not (to my knowledge) ever come online (however, this may be an effect of the ILB bug, and may have been fixed; I haven't played with it, so this might be wrong)
- souls will stay for a while, making it possible for an engineer to collect them

If you want a global SpawnPointMaster, but you don't want it on the map, you can hide it through trickery. The trick would be to replace the shape file for the SpawnPointMaster with a shape file that is basically empty (i.e. no positions, no verticies, no triangles or strips). You could then link that building however you see fit, and get the effects of a global SpawnPointMaster without seeing it.

xander

[Puzzlemaker]

Thanks! I got it to work! Woo!

Now all I have to do is get the AI waypoint things to work...

I want the AI to attack the hill, not walk around to all the spawn points around it! Augh. Ill figure it out eventually.

Thanks again for the help.

Edit: And the game is crashing randomly for me now... I disabled a couple of reaserch things in the game.txt for the mod, and it went boom boom. Dang.

[xander]

Now all I have to do is get the AI waypoint things to work...

AI behavior is a bit unpredictable when it comes to the waypoints. TGF has done a great deal of work to figure out how they work, so he is currently the authority. You need to use them, but they don't exactly work as advertised. At any rate, make sure that you see the red lines connecting them in the editor. When a certain number of DGs are around one waypoint, they will fission off and one group will go to another, so long as it is in range (red lines connect it).

xander

[martin]

if you want an example of TGFs amazing AI target work then try the construction level on TheBigModPt2 - Civil War, that has some mean AITargetting </pimp bigmod>

[The GoldFish]

TGF has done a great deal of work to figure out how they work, so he is currently the authority.

I have? Most of what I did for Civil War/Construction was just, put a load of AI targets everywhere and see how it worked, played around with it from there, then hoped it'd work that way every time (it did)

[Lowell]

I am having trouble with AI Targets with two maps. It works great with three of my maps in my Mod http://www.crimsonsun.cc/The_Particles_Within_0.2.rar

For some reason if you place an AI Unit on the Nucleus map with just one AITarget it will crash. I have looked at everything. I just finished placing everything on my Gluons map (first of the next group of maps) Last night I tried to place the AI Unit and flags, it crashed. If I leave the AI Unit with it set for team one with no flags or change it from red to anouther color it's fine, place one flag set for red team one and it will crash. It was so bad on the Nucleus map that I decided Not to put the AI Unit or AI Targets on that Nucleus map. Crash the editor too hard and ALL of your buildings and instant units can vanish from "both" files. It happened to me.

There is only One AI Unit on each map. I have also found that the more AI Targets I add the more it slows the maps, so like on Electrons (where they work well...) I wanted more AI Targets all around the large island, but lowered it to just a couple which helped the frame rate as I was testing.

I did see a pattern. If you place buildings then delete some them add more, later delete a couple etc., new buildings take on "old" building numbers and if an AI Target takes on an "old" number that is where I see my trouble. I even tried to "renumber" them in say in a 200 series but it didn't like that at all.

It's okay with the new Gluons map though, I am rebuilding it anyway. I will most likely place my AI Units and Flags First from now on, maybe that will fix my dellema with the building numbers and AI.

Anyone is welcome to look at my Nucleus files and see why it may be that I can't use AI Units with AI Targets on that map. "I was pulling my ponytail out trying to figure out what the *%$#@ was going on.

The Gluons level has the spawnpoints, spawnpointmaster AND the spiritprocessor and a bunch of spiritrecievers on it, I really don't feel like connecting all that again but oh well...

[Puzzlemaker]

I figured it out; sorta. I dont know what your talking about with the red lines though. That might be a bit of a problem.

Anyway, the AI points have to be able to "See" each other or they dont work. So if you want people at the bottom of a hill to attack the top of a hill, you have to put the AI points within sight range of each other. This still doesn't mean that they will actually go to that waypoint, they might just wonder through the waypoints at teh diffrent spawn areas.

I'll fool around with it, and see if I can get it so the only waypoints the waypoints at the bottom of the hill can "See" are the ones at the top of the hill.

I wish it worked through linking, and not this range stuff. Oh well.

[xander]

I figured it out; sorta. I dont know what your talking about with the red lines though. That might be a bit of a problem.

Try putting two AITargets very close to eachother. A red line should connect them.

xander

[The GoldFish]

That's probably because xander is thinking pre 1.3 - for mac, 1.3 was skipped and a 1.4 beta has only recently become available (ie, he's not an idiot).

Since 1.3, the red lines are all gone now; Basically, the red lines would connect from AI targets to all the targets it could see within it's big ass sphere - for some reason that's gone now.

Either way, what you'll probably find is that, as soon as all the other points around the hill have red darwinians at them, vast quanitities will charge the hill - points with 0 red darwinians have the highest priority for where the AI sends them. Points which have at least 1 red darwinian usually won't get re-inforced. If all the AI targets have red darwinians, then lots will build up at one point, usually towards the centre of the AI target network (the 'hit squads' in civil war/construction) - we're talking possibly hundreds of Darwinians here - or in fact possibly an infinate amount if the point they gather at is outside a spawn population lock that covers spawn poinst which feed it.

[xander]

That's probably because xander is thinking pre 1.3 - for mac, 1.3 was skipped and a 1.4 beta has only recently become available (ie, he's not an idiot).

Ack! You are correct. I hadn't noticed that. Ignore everything that I have said about red lines, they are not there anymore.

xander