Author Topic: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian  (Read 70146 times)

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Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
UPDATE:

Acts 1,2,3 are finished. Only 10 missions to go. But these are very complicated. Challeging to make.

As of now, I have finished the pilotable Chimera corvette and finished the HUD turret command script, the one used in the Karuna mission in BPC. I improved it, I can now turn it on and off at will in-game! So we can pilot more than one type of cap ship in a single mission and have the corresponding HUD in place. Incidentally, the missions when you pilot the Avenger corvette or Boreas cruiser in Reboot  were also updated (especially when there is a cutscene in the mission).

This is just one of the many things I made. I will post a full report later today.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2019, 06:38:56 pm by herkie423 »

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
UPDATE:


I am now in designing the last Act missions, Act 4. And if completed, I will still be halfway to finishing the Mod because I have to make Journal System and the images for it, create the Command Briefing static images (one for each), briefing icons, weapon icons, more background images, some music editing, re-edit and modify a Terran Knossos portal from the old Blue Planet (not the BPC version), search for a suitable model for the Portal Control Station and modify it, of course (I might use the Starbase from Star Trek), more modular table adjustments, debugging, gameplay adjustments, and final Beta testings.

There are also some observations I made when using FRED 3.7.2. This might not be true with the latest SCP versions but I'll just mention it all the same. Here are four of them:

First observation and it was CT27 who discovered it for me, I found out that SCP did not factor in the energy-to-engines transfer for afterburners. I made a new fighter with a normal maximum speed of 60 and afterburner of 80. If the player devote all energy to engines, it goes up to 90 (max oclk speed) and pushing afterburners will reduce it to 80. All this time I thought this will change as well. So I have to manually adjust it. One lesson learned and learning will not stop here.

Second. When I design some missions involving the hostiles reacting to your wingmate commands, there is one crucial SEXP that is impossible to set in an Event using the FRED editor - the "Query order" and this happens to be very important. No matter what I do, the option is just greyed out. But I solved it by editing the mission file directly using Notepad and viola! All the "Query order" SEXP arguments are available when editing again in FRED. I hope this is not the case in later SCP versions.

Third. When making skyboxes using sphere models, I have to use textures with huge dimensions around 8192x4096 pixels to render the game background beautifully. This image file will easily have a size of around 60mb (PNG format, DDS files will be larger). Now, the game did not start the mission, the computer hanged. Maybe because I have an average PC. Nevertheless, it's an issue for me so I stick to texture maximum size of 2048x2048 resolution and forgo the usage of Sphere models for skyboxes and use the "tried-and-tested" cube model instead.

And Finally. There is also one bother in how FRED implement the Event Log feature. It automatically assigns or check the log option boxes especially the "True" and "False" boxes and how it sometimes rechecks those options again even after you uncheck them and save the mission. One instance, if you don't notice, the editor checks the options in ALL the events. This would be useful in debugging the mission but I found out that the game updates the event log by the milliseconds (except if you also checked the "First Triggered" option). If you're not careful, this will prick you. Imagine each event line in the mission design with their "true" and/or "false" states written in the log over and over again every millisecond. Then imagine if you have a 15-minute mission and just a 100 mission "Events" in the design. The event.log text file will have 90 million event log records written in it (one event will be written 900,000 times). And what is worse is that EACH recorded event will have a number of text lines that will depend on the kind of event; the basic "When-true-do nothing" event, counting with the "time stamp" line, will have 4. So, 90 million times 4 is 360 million lines in a text file, 3.6 million lines for one event, which will be difficult, if not, impossible for the computer to open - the text file will have a size of around 500 to 700 megabytes. And not considering if you can read all of them; it's a full library! AND here is the worst of it --- While playing the game, your hard drive will be constantly writing! At some point, the game crashed when playing one of my missions and it had 300 mission events, the log options for all events checked. Because of this, I make sure all event log options are unchecked before saving and making sure it stays that way when I re-open the mission file then check the size of the "Event.log" text file in the mod's data folder just in case. The game also ran smoothly when releasing this processing burden from my poor computer. I also noticed some of our popular mods have this "problem" and so I have to edit their mission files.

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Good to hear you're making progress :)

Have you thought about providing high res and low res versions of the skyboxes?
« Last Edit: September 16, 2019, 03:55:36 am by herkie423 »

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Good to hear you're making progress :)

Have you thought about providing high res and low res versions of the skyboxes?

No. I just stick to 2048x2048 same as the Reboot.

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Ah OK, one way or another I really like your skyboxes - often when I post a pic with them in background people ask me where I got them from. :)

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
My image hosting site had shutdown. All pics that i posted are gone. I will have to switch to another site and re-upload my pictures then edit my posts. But not in this phone I'm using, got to do it in a computer.

 

Offline 5thAce

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Hope to hear from you soon Herkie!

I'm still here... Having difficulty with my internet.

Hope the internet difficulties have lessened, I always look forward to updates on this campaign. Is each act something like 10 missions or so? Reboot was pretty long, and given how complicated this one sounds I doubt there would be as many missions this time around.

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Hope to hear from you soon Herkie!

I'm still here... Having difficulty with my internet.

Hope the internet difficulties have lessened, I always look forward to updates on this campaign. Is each act something like 10 missions or so? Reboot was pretty long, and given how complicated this one sounds I doubt there would be as many missions this time around.


The Aftermath:  Reboot had 68 missions IIRC.  The Aftermath II:  The Blue Guardian should have around half that...about 30.

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
So you're going for 100 missions in total?

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Hope to hear from you soon Herkie!

I'm still here... Having difficulty with my internet.

Hope the internet difficulties have lessened, I always look forward to updates on this campaign. Is each act something like 10 missions or so? Reboot was pretty long, and given how complicated this one sounds I doubt there would be as many missions this time around.

I no longer want to make long campaigns. 30 is my number, in this case, 35 (plus the cutscenes). And the present lenght already satisfied CT27's story plot and mine.

Act 1 - 6 missions
Act 2 - 12 missions
Act 3 - 6 missions
Act 4 - 12 misssions

Total    36 missions

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Well 30+ missions is still kinda long~ :D

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Well 30+ missions is still kinda long~ :D

 ;7 :lol: :lol:

 

Offline 5thAce

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
It has been a long time, hope everything is going ok with this one. Looking really forward to it!

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
We had the plot written out and it's up to Herkie now to make the campaign (basically the story was finished and Herkie would work on making the missions).  Last I heard he was working on Act 4.  (I was the main plot writer for Acts 1-3; Herkie wrote most of the plot for Act 4 and is doing all the technical work on the campaign).


Unfortunately I haven't heard from Herkie either here or on Facebook since September.  I too hope he's okay.

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Argh, that's bad. :(

 

Offline herkie423

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
UPDATE:

I AM BACK!!! WHEW!!!

I have been through hell and I made it back. I missed you people!

So, an update....I AM DONE! FINISHED THE MOD! I will be sending this to CT27 first for his final opinion and I will be ironing out the small wrinkles and then... I will release this sequel.

Take note that I have also made some changes in the Reboot as well. So The Aftermath: Reboot will also have an update. And please do download the Reboot update because The Blue Guardian will be dependent on it. The sequel, The Blue Guardian (TBG) will not work properly unless the Reboot is updated. Anyway, the Reboot update will be included in the TBG release download. The entire mod has 37 missions (including cutscenes) devided into 5 acts.

Aaaarrrg! Plunge into the chaoooosss!  #%%&*%... !@#^%$*....*)$^+**.... .... ....

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Offline 5thAce

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
YESSSSSS!!!!  :D :D :D

 
Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Glad to hear you're fine! :)

 

Offline CT27

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Like others here, I'm glad to see you back.

I'll get to trying out TBG when you send it.



 

Offline theperfectdrugsk

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Re: [WIP] The Aftermath II: The Blue Guardian
Aww hells yeah. Gonna self-quarantine with this when its released whether I need to or not  :D