[Campaign 4] Release & Development topic

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

I still recommend putting Cam 4 in /global and copying/modding a shortcut to load it with .. to each their own however.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Another update (I'm getting a LOT done tonight, for once!):

Weapon Paths implementation is FINISHED! /party

All that's left it to fine-tune it through playtesting. LOTS of playtesting. Expect Release-20 this week sometime. There *will* be a Release-21, dedicated solely to the M4 area. There are way too many changes with 20's innards that need a proper shakedown.

There's still time to get those ideas submitted for M4 -- mission- AND map-wise!

*wipes brow*

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

And after a marathon 16-hour "shift", Release-20 is out! Same old, same old -- report any issues in the thread! This one is special like Release-19 was -- a lot of boot-polish for this one.

Enjoy!

[Lord Apocalypse]

Wow, cam 4 is almost larger than the warzone installer goth Maybe I can finally get around to testing it before the weekend

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

It's the music and audio clips. Gotta optimize them. Plus everything in base and mp (.pie files, audio, etc) needs to be in cam 4 for override purposes. I intend to do custom audio for everything.

I won't be doing any more work on cam 4 today. Had an eye doctor appointment and I look like I've been to a Grateful Dead concert. Sunlight is as bright as a nuclear bomb, and I can't seem to focus my eyes on anything. Good thing I know the hotkeys to zoom text in my browser, but I still can't read it well. Heh.

Anyway I hope you guys enjoy the new release -- lots of worthy changes in this one and I'm very proud of myself for buckling down and getting it to this point.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

On the first post of the thread here, I've made the music available for everyone's enjoyment. The latest track, MDF, is something a little different from the rest of the Campaign 4 Soundtrack -- Progressive Rock with a slight dash of Industrial. It's fresh from the oven too .. barely an hour old. And yes, I can play both the guitar and bass guitar parts IRL.

Enjoy!

[Rman Virgil]

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In replaying the opening sequence for the upteenth time (up to base occupation) I would extend a thought already touched upon.

The opening is not only about the value of unit preservation but also force concentration. It's a beautiful opening in the lead up to Turtle Paradise.

But at some point (perhaps you've already done it and I've yet to reach it), presenting the player with the dilemma of having to split force concentration into 2 and deploy to geographic locals considerably separated from each other, to engage simultaneously on what is essentially 2 fronts, is to raise the game play to a level usually encountered only in team MP. Possibly making one of those fronts a feint is something mentioned earlier as unheard of in A.I.-driven play.

=========>

Having switched to v.20, I am slowly working through Turtle Paradise focused on research and all the new stuff. The respite from conflict affords the opportunity to learn as well. I'm not sure yet if some occasional enemy air attack after the first 15 mins. of turtle bliss would add to the experience or detract from its essential goal.

* 2 things to note so far - Transports and Artillery upon completed research are not available to be built.

More later on GPMs when I get to the main trigger event.

===========>

Have enjoyed your music while playing and it all felt like a good fit. Creating an atmosphere of mystery, spurring anticipation for the unknown ahead and etching events when they did unfold.
But now listening to them outside of playing, I can hear and appreciate your nuances of composition that I didn't catch when gaming. I especially feel your base lines perfectly suited to WZ. Your other instrument lines work well too.

Guitar lines and WZ have been something I've puzzled over. I've found inspiration in the music of Norwegian experimental master guitarist Terje Rypdal. YouTube has bunch of his work going back to the beginning of his career in 1975 and up to a year ago. To my ear, his guitar style comes closest to fitting WZ.
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[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Thanks for the insight, Rman. Any and all observations are extremely helpful in making the cam better and better.

I'll take the questions in turn:

- I plan to have the player split up their forces during the new mission with the Coalition. The player will need to defend both the new area and Delta Base, and that will lead us into the M4 expansion. Part of the build up to Nexus Prime. One of these fronts will NOT be the correct one to defend, and I'm even toying with the idea of making the AI choose which area to focus the attack on and which to pull a fast one on for diversion purposes. This will take shape in Release-21.

- Likewise I'm also playing with the idea of the Red Alphas launching attacks upon Delta Base before the M3 expansion southward. I still have to add the Nexus Patrols to that stage as well.

- Artillery should be working. Looks like I need to go over the code again, it's possible that I missed changing the early arty's structures to Hardcrete-based instead of the Plascrete.

- Transporter is likewise (aka should be) an easy fix. Thanks for reporting it -- I noticed it didn't enable also but with everything else I was testing I simply forgot to check it out afterwards.

I'm glad you like the music. I'm always interested in new influences and artists -- will def. check out your suggestion.

[Rman Virgil]

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No progress reports on game play because I'm somewhat fixated on pinpointing the breakage of all key-mapping, which has now happened on 2 play throughs during base occupation & all during Vtol grouping and patrol.

Still have more variants to run to see if I can duplicate the breakage and isolate a common sequence.

At this point I've only followed this course running CAM 4. I guess I would need to check out the stock game alone as well.

Figuring this out is important to me because I use, and depend on, key mapping a lot.
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[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Keymapping breakage? o.O That's a new one. Never even heard of how that could get messed up. That's something that only exists in the user's Warzone 2100 config directory (in 'Documents' ).

Weird.

[Rman Virgil]

Keymapping breakage? o.O That's a new one. Never even heard of how that could get messed up. That's something that only exists in the user's Warzone 2100 config directory (in 'Documents' ).

Weird.

Well the ones you make, like unit groupings, also exist in the save game state. Upon reloading a save game, all key mappings, inc the ones I created before saving, work. While playing through the save game I change the key mapping of one group from 4 to 7.... put on patrol again.... then ALL key mapping breaks. That's one instance, but I'm stilling testing.
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[Rman Virgil]

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Couldn't break the key mapping on this last play thru so I just kept going into the Southern Event. All units could advance into the zone but fog of war was only partly dispersed.

One thing was clear - if I just sat in the base with 6 wells running, I could research whatever, design whatever and amass an army of ground and air units, undisturbed. When I ventured North, I triggered an event and 12 min timer. Toward the end of that period, I sent Jenks and crew South and encountered what I described with the fog of war not fully dispersing.

Along the way I observed Vtols stalling instead of landing - even when repeatedly commanded to land. Most adverse was during attack runs, stalling over enemy fire. But this has nothing to do with CAM 4.

Speaking of Vtols - my factory was pumping out Vengence Pulse Lasers what seemed to me unusually fast.

Think I'll wait till v.21 when you have in place enemy incursions during the Base occupation phase. There needs to be some opposition to the "Turtle Paradise" experience..... right now it's just too easy.
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[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Planned for v21.

Tonight I'm pursuing another potentially more useful endeavor -- the port to 3.2 (Master). Buildbot is fixed up (thanks Vexxed!) so I felt the need to abuse the fresh build. I'm neck-deep into .ini files getting Contingency (v0.79) + USM + MiniScavs ported over. It's worth it just for the advances in the JS API and the other goodies that have been added recently.

I foresee that work taking all weekend, possibly longer (tuesday). Will update status as I'm able.

[Anillaco_]

Hi again,

I'm happy to say that using test build #4 from this topic the game runs smoothly, so I was able to play without the huge slowdown

As Rman Virgil mentioned above, once you get control of the cyan base, no one will bother you (unless you go around the part where the lake is - your old platoon, now controlled by Nexus, remains there and will fire upon you), so you're free to capture almost all oil in the map, build several structures and research stuff. I took advantage of this to research a bunch of upgrades, then recycled the Hero-level Super Engineer (why does a construction droid have experience anyway?) to make a Heavy Command Turret Python Tracks, to whom I assigned all the tanks you get with the base. This would probably have let me steamroll over everything, but when I got to the green beacon, nothing happened? I tried walking all around the map and even bringing the trucks in in case that was required, to no avail.

Another thing: right at the start of the game, if you order the first tank that descends from the transport to fire upon it (Alt+Click), it is logically enough destroyed, but the other units appear from nowhere, and gameplay continues until the first mission timer expires. Warzone then crashes. Of course, destroying the transport you're meant to defend is pretty stupid to begin with

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Yep -- that's considered "Going off-mission" and I make no guarantees about stability or gameplay after that. Of course, breakage shouldn't be occurring elsewhere.

Receiving a "Hero-Level Super Engineer" should NOT happen. I suggest you reinstall using stock 3.1 (including deleting all of the stuff in Your Documents/Warzone 2100 (etc etc) and reinstall from scratch. Something is amiss and that seemed to fix it for Rman.