Knuckle Cracker

Particle Fleet => Pre-release chatter => Topic started by: jaworeq on September 15, 2016, 04:39:35 PM

Title: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: jaworeq on September 15, 2016, 04:39:35 PM
So I let my wife do a map and boy, was she complaining about editor. Here's what I remembered
1. Editing emitter properties - comboboxes (dropdown menus) work randomly. Most of the time they won't expand the list. If list is expanded and you don't click any item on list (but you still click in editor, e.g. textfield), it will deselect emitter.
2. Editing ship pickup - won't let you save the ship you edit to use for later.
3. Editing ship (outside of pickup) - saving. When editor allows to save, if you have unapplied changes, ship will be saved without them.
4. After she *coughs* accidentally unpaused, we couldn't find a quick way to reset the level to state before unpausing, so she had to load the previously saved state and had to redo stuff.
5. Not sure if it's map editor thing, or something more general, but for some reason energy sources act like a very strong particle magnet. To a point, where emitter control can't push them, because they get pulled back.

Oh, she said she won't accept solution "don't let wife anywhere near map editor".
And I recommend map #20 everyone! http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=21324
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: planetfall on September 15, 2016, 04:46:46 PM
Particles by default target energy mines. To disable this for an emitter, change "% that target" to 0.
To reset the game, you can click all the "Clear X" things, just be sure to avoid clear plasma and fields. There is a bug that cleared particles look like they're still there until you unpause or save+reload, but the particles are definitely gone.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Fireball14 on September 15, 2016, 09:02:16 PM
Another bug, if you use "Totem" to finish your game, there is "Need to pick up all item to finish" message. Map type set to "DESTROY". Only thing left on map was two gem factories with 8 gems in each one.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 15, 2016, 09:11:58 PM
Were there any produced gems at either gem factory?
Not sure if it is in the beta 15 build you have, but there is a general map setting to turn off the requirement to collect things for map victory.  It default to on, but many custom maps will want to turn it off.

In any case, I'll take a look.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Fireball14 on September 15, 2016, 09:21:34 PM
Quote from: virgilw on September 15, 2016, 09:11:58 PM
Were there any produced gems at either gem factory?
Not sure if it is in the beta 15 build you have, but there is a general map setting to turn off the requirement to collect things for map victory.  It default to on, but many custom maps will want to turn it off.

In any case, I'll take a look.

Yeah it was on. And no there wasn't any gems already produced.
Sorry about false report.

This thing really should be off.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 15, 2016, 09:37:38 PM
If there were no gems at the factories, still sounds like a bug that the game didn't end.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Ninja on September 15, 2016, 09:40:21 PM
Wow, jaworeq, apparently you're much more useful for catching bugs than I am. :P
I'm just sitting here enjoying the game.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Fireball14 on September 15, 2016, 11:42:16 PM
Could not find update map future, so how do i delete already uploaded map?
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: jaworeq on September 16, 2016, 01:50:40 AM
Quote from: Ninja on September 15, 2016, 09:40:21 PM
Wow, jaworeq, apparently you're much more useful for catching bugs than I am. :P
I'm just sitting here enjoying the game.

Hey, I'm enjoying the game, too! If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't spend so much time on and wouldn't have caught any bug ;)
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: TheWife on September 16, 2016, 05:51:06 AM
*rolls her eyes* I just had to redo a lot of a map I was putting together.. for some reason the game unpaused itself when I was typing in title and description, because it said I can't just finish it without title.. even though I typed one at creation - why isn't it shared, btw?.. and since I didn't make any change to the MAP itself, I thought I can just "finalize" it. Nope. It saved it with the particles and stuff in progress. So I had to switch off some general options, delete all enemy emitters, energy sources and whatnot, just to spawn HQ and a few ships to get rid of the enemy ships and cube thingies ("emergent"?). I couldn't find an option to clear them otherwise. *gets back to re-applying stuff*
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 16, 2016, 07:52:00 AM
It's the most non-intuitive thing in the world, but what the mouse pointer is over affects how keys are interpreted.  So, if you move the mouse pointer is over the game area (over space for instance) and not over the right hand edit menu when you are typing, your key presses will be seen by the game.

So, make a map and then decide to set a title.  Open up the edit menu and click on the title box, then move the mouse back over the game area.  If your title is "Persephone", the game will unpause as soon as you type "P".  On the other hand, if the mouse pointer says over the right hand edit menu, the game won't see that "p" keypress.

In the edit menu there are "clear" buttons to get rid of particles and other things.  The clear button will delete all particles, but they aren't removed visually until the game is unpaused (that's a work item I have to fix). But if you clear particles, save, reload, they will be gone.  Finalizing a map resets the time and state of everything.  So if you unpause a game and stuff happens you don't want, just click the clear buttons, then finalize the game.  Immediately reload the game and you should be back to square one.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 16, 2016, 07:58:09 AM
Quote from: Fireball14 on September 15, 2016, 11:42:16 PM
Could not find update map future, so how do i delete already uploaded map?

It's like CW3... there is no map update or anything other than manual removal. 
That said, you can post the map as a new map then send me a PM and I can remove the old map (which I'm happy to do during this prerelease period, and am more reluctant and slow to do as the game matures and stabilizes).
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: TheWife on September 16, 2016, 08:05:37 AM
Quote from: virgilw on September 16, 2016, 07:52:00 AM
Finalizing a map resets the time and state of everything.
Err.. nope? I "finalized" a map I was making and when I loaded it to play, it was in the middle of gameplay, with lots of stuff on the screen. That's why I had to go back to editor and delete emergent thingies and enemy ships with my own... *is confused*
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 16, 2016, 10:41:34 AM
Yeah, finalizing won't delete anything.  You have to use the remove buttons for that (or mouse over and press the delete key on the keyboard).  Finalizing is supposed to reset  the internal state of things (timers and such on spawners) along with setting the game elapsed time back to 0.

Looking at it I see I don't have a clear button for emergent... so getting rid of them is either not possible or a pain (not sure if pressing delete with the mouse over them will nuke them or not).  So I'll add a clear button for blue and red emergent.

I might also add a master clear/reset button that does the same thing as pressing some of the existing clear buttons.  Basically, clear particles, mire, decay, emergent.  Something that would make the process of resetting simpler.


Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: jaworeq on September 16, 2016, 11:31:14 AM
One more thing we just stumbled upon. With custom ships - and their custom names, you never really know what you're building.
Proposed solution would be some kind of preview...I was thinking before the mission, but if you get 20 custom names, you'll never remember them. So maybe when placing a ship to build have it greyed out under mouse?
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: planetfall on September 16, 2016, 12:24:16 PM
Quote from: jaworeq on September 16, 2016, 11:31:14 AM
One more thing we just stumbled upon. With custom ships - and their custom names, you never really know what you're building.
Proposed solution would be some kind of preview...I was thinking before the mission, but if you get 20 custom names, you'll never remember them. So maybe when placing a ship to build have it greyed out under mouse?
A mouse over preview is planned for post-release.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Killer007lite on September 16, 2016, 03:01:43 PM
I think i have found a pretty weird bug with the emitters:

I was making a map in the editor and i was changing a few settings with one of the emitters, when i tested the emitter to see what would happen, some particle worked but some - not quite, screenshot attached with settings (I can't show what it does, test the emitter settings though and you should get it)

UPDATE -  I loaded a new map and copied the emitter into it, and, well, take a look at it after some runtime
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 16, 2016, 03:40:56 PM
It's because of the bond stiffness setting.  Normally you want to stick in the range of 0.001 to 1.  Values higher than 1 produce 'effects'.  You can get away with a value up to 2 before particles start teleporting all over the place (at least in my experience).

I decided not to clip the value but let people play with it if they wanted.  For all I know something exotic happens are some special value and in some special geometric configuration.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Sorrontis on September 16, 2016, 04:04:12 PM
wait a second virgil. Usually you're all technical and stuff.  ;D I assumed you had some kind of model  like atomic bonding or something to work from.  :P
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: TheWife on September 16, 2016, 05:41:03 PM
I was just trying to make a fun map that requires me to have some emitters on land. The particles should just go off it, so I've been using an option called "Particles over mired land". However, saving the map either unchecks this box or swaps it with "Allow struc creation". In every case it ends up inactive.  :'(
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: Karsten75 on September 16, 2016, 05:55:38 PM
Quote from: TheWife on September 16, 2016, 05:41:03 PM
I was just trying to make a fun map that requires me to have some emitters on land. The particles should just go off it, so I've been using an option called "Particles over mired land". However, saving the map either unchecks this box or swaps it with "Allow struc creation". In every case it ends up inactive.  :'(

Best thing you can do is to upload a copy of the saved map here. Virgil can then look at that and see if he can replicate the issue. THat will be very helpful and much appreciated.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: TheWife on September 16, 2016, 06:05:43 PM
Ok, I hope that's it.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: knucracker on September 16, 2016, 06:54:17 PM
Yeah, it was cross wired in the UI.  Simple error and fix.  Fortunately, it actually worked right after I hooked up the UI properly.  You can do a neat thing with putting emitters on land.  They will mire the land until it is totally mired, then the particles will all start flying out.
Title: Re: Map editor issues after 3 hours of fiddling with it
Post by: TheWife on September 16, 2016, 06:56:37 PM
Whee, that'll be lovely when it goes live, then. :) Thank you! ^^