DescentBB

good to hear, what exactly is the name for the new player ship you'll be piloting? I kinda need to know for the briefing file I'm making. Thanks.

The file name is Hunchback. Up to you whether you want to use it.

Boss robot spawns will be something else to watch out for. Just caught level 15 spawning Smelters. Fixing that now.

yes, just add the mules to the HXM file and it should be fine.

Crashes when the Kalki fires at the moment. Not sure whether it's the joint setup or the weapon types. They blow up fine so long as you stay out of their range.

so if you don't get them to fire, they are okay to destroy? But once they fire upon you, it crashes? That's odd. Well I hope you can fix it.
As for the Mantid mentioned in your email, if the model touch-up doesn't fix things, I can easily remove all instances of robot making Mantids in the levels.

That's right. They display fine and even blow up fine, so the fact that this happens under such specific circumstances leads me to believe it's an easily fixable problem.

Mantid could probably use some going over anyway so I'd prefer to make alterations to it. Some bosses are going to spawn it whether we like it or not so optimization is the best way forward.

RFB always spawns diamond claws, yeah.

Easily fixable indeed.

The problem was the primary weapon - switching it to the robot version, instead of the player version, solved it.

Mantid works now. Hope I don't have to do too many more of these.

are we having a new cockpit view? if so, are we also replacing the cockpit bar (pressing f3 once) also?

That's a good idea actually.

Was planning to finish the ship yesterday but more pressing issues with the Crysis dev team had my attention. I'll look into it this week.

preliminary testing with the new robots started last night on my end. The levels are immensely harder with the new robots compared to the standard D2 robots. So some adjusting is in order. Will continue throughout the week.

up to level 19. Noticed some things. The very same levels with normal robots run fine when there are 5+ robots on screen at once. But once you plug in the new robots created, anything above 3 robots on screen + firefighting and missiles, it slows to a nice chug. Level 15 boss arena was a very pleasant experience because of this...NOT.
I suspect its D2-XL and its high requirements that causes this to chug, but I know normal Descent 2 doesn't have lag issues when running the new robots. Not sure about Rebirth however. So system requirements?
Normal Legacy D2: Any old computer really.
D2-XL: Top of the line computer released literally this past week.

I was running ... probably Rebirth. Can't remember at the moment. I didn't ever check the framerate, but it would have been running at the cap the whole time.

XL will actually run slower than Crysis if you turn the settings all the way up so I'd suggest leaving some features such as per-pixel lighting off until they're optimised.

Take out per-pixel lighting and lightmaps, and turn the smoke down and the coronas down or off... should make it run faster.

yep, pretty much take everything out that makes D2-XL worth using. LOL It does run smoother now though.

Here is a boatload of images for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy the pics. The set should be ready for testing real soon. And should be released soon thereafter. Be ready Descenters!

















Enjoy the shots!

Want ... play ... now!

Excuse me while i go and find my jaw..... i think it's by my feeet somwhere

The third from bottom on the left has a haunting, beautiful surreality to it. Excellent work!

OMG! That is wicked!

heh, thanks for the comments, this will definitely be a interesting mission. And I've yet to show the real interesting structures. Regardless, we're having an issue with two midi songs that will not loop properly. Sirius says it has probably something to do with the drum track not being in the right position. IF anyone is willing to take a look at them and fix them (if they can) so that they loop properly in Descent 2, you'll definitely be credited and appreciated. Thanks.

I got some better information about what works/what doesn't for speeding stuff up if you're interested in further tweaking.
viewtopic.php?p=223970

I remember there's a performance slider somewhere that automatically configures some of that. I haven't tried using it though.

The player ship. This is an old brute pre-dating the Pyro GX by a few years.

That ship is absolutely awesooomee!!

looks like a mini-van with guns. .. er Space Balls guns.

That ship is indeed awesome. However I'm going to have to reiterate for those who might have missed it, we are needing a bit of outside help:
\"we're having an issue with two midi songs that will not loop properly. Sirius says it has probably something to do with the drum track not being in the right position. IF anyone is willing to take a look at them and fix them (if they can) so that they loop properly in Descent 2, you'll definitely be credited and appreciated. Thanks. \"

Which ones would they be? I saw two .hmps that DTX2 said went well over 20 minutes.

um game 25 and game 26.
Games 01-06 are fine.

Well, i can check the MIDI files, and i suppose i can fix them

So if you want, send them to my mail.

EDIT: I've fixed (and tested) the MIDI files already. I've sent them to your mail already

Thanks Pumo, they work great. However, I hear Darkhorse and Sirius are having trouble getting the new Pyro to work, but I'm sure they will figure it out. Not that I know what the problems are, heh. Good luck!
As for the overall mission, I've already difficulty adjusted it for the new robots on the Hotshot difficulty level. (I consider that difficulty level a honest evaluation of difficulty on any Descent mission) And the robot adjustments should have been made already by Sirius on that preliminary testing so it should be almost ready for testing within a week or two.
We'll also need a hosting site/link so we can get testers to download the beta.

The cockpit may take me a little while to do but work has started on that. Unfortunately you can't just move too much around so I have to be careful with component placement.

Some of the interface elements are going to be adjusted in Photoshop as well. Cockpit itself will be a rendered 3D model.

Sirius has been looking at implementing the ship. So far he hasn't asked me to make any changes to the model itself.

As long as it can be played in any version of descent2, i look forward to playing this when you are done

BUBBALOU wrote:As long as it can be played in any version of descent2,

That is the plan. Although a few cloaks/invul placements won't make sense in normal D2 since they take into account the D2-XL feature of inventory. But beyond that, all item placements should make sense minus a few oddballs here and there.

Ship's done, I just have to rebuild the HXMs. Only model I'm thinking might need a change is the Terapinner because of too many polygons.

might have to, he sometimes comes out invisible from robot makers.

The front cockpit scene is nearly done. Of course there's still the status bar and rear view to go.

Completed the front view, just have to build the palettes and low-res versions.

Rear view is going to be quicker because there are only two bitmaps and no gauges. Status bar is a whole different story but I'll be sticking to the same theme.