Custom Map #2877: VPAC Incursion. By: Vertu

[AutoPost]

This topic is for discussion of map #2877: VPAC Incursion


Author: Vertu
Size: 256x160

[Vertu]

FINALLY!!
IT IS DONE!!
The hidden bugs and problems in this map fought to the death in hardcore gorilla warfare. In fact one bug even won against me and I made a Last Resort fix to it. You will notice the "Destroy Rift Lab" text would change into "Map Maker Gave Up" if you encounter the bug that won the war.

6, damn days of fixing issue after issue. I hope you all enjoy the map and prove my statement wrong that "it wasn't worth the effort".

[Brila]

Great map but (as always):

What is the point with that little half island with the 3 big and 3 small turrets and the shield? I mean, i destroyed the riftlab and then watch the creeper slowly take that. Then spend another minute or two watch them die, covered in creeper. The heck. O.o
The font colour is horrible to read, i refuse to read that. Please don´t dark fonts with dark background.

[Vertu]

Dark fonts with dark background? I always use fully saturated colors, causing them to appear bright with a dark background. I know better than to put dark colors with a dark background or bright with white. It's possibly just how your system deals with color.

[Malignantmind]

So uh... Am I supposed to have control of the VGPSFs that spawn later in the map? Because I have control of them and can just turn them off so they don't bother me.

Edit: And I can use them to hijack control of the one that originally starts on the map as well, sending it to a corner out of the way (but can't turn it off). Not that it matters much, it seems to have stopped reloading at some point in the map.

[Vertu]

So uh... Am I supposed to have control of the VGPSFs that spawn later in the map? Because I have control of them and can just turn them off so they don't bother me.

Edit: And I can use them to hijack control of the one that originally starts on the map as well, sending it to a corner out of the way (but can't turn it off). Not that it matters much, it seems to have stopped reloading at some point in the map.

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*
No.
So add that to the list of bugs that won the war. I will be sure to look into it (if I remember, been having some issues lately) but I don't think I will be making a fixed version. This map was too much of a pain to make.

If I was able to (which I am not due to.. lets not talk about that in video games), I would totally be creating the finalized save and before testing it myself like I always do, make a save export for certain people to then play test the map because when you have 3 difficulty settings (technically a 4th is there) I don't think anyone wants to play a map 3 times in a row for who knows how many times over by finding bugs one at a time and playing after each patch. It also helps because I keep developing speed run tactics after play testing enough times and the learning part of the difficulty becomes unaccountable.
I always knew the pains of being a game dev before I did anything like this, but now I know, it's a very quantifiable pain.

[ha11oga11o]

Thank you for map. It was fun. I played it some time and save. When i reloaded plains were sitting on one spot shooting till ammo run out. Then were sitting at same spot till i ended map. I was taking all easy choices if that matters.

Cheers!

[Vertu]

Thank you for map. It was fun. I played it some time and save. When i reloaded plains were sitting on one spot shooting till ammo run out. Then were sitting at same spot till i ended map. I was taking all easy choices if that matters.

Cheers!

Now this is where some kind of video evidence would be handy due to the complexity of those units, it can be many reasons which made them act like that.. Including the same reason they were selectable as mentioned previously.
Or they could be doing weird fighter things out of protest of defending the base.

[Malignantmind]

Now that you mention it, I did save and exit the game before coming back to finish the level and that's about when the starter plane stopped doing anything and might be connected to the other ones letting me select them. It's way  to late for me to start another run tonight, but I'll try to hop on tomorrow and see if I can recreate it

[ha11oga11o]

Thank you for map. It was fun. I played it some time and save. When i reloaded plains were sitting on one spot shooting till ammo run out. Then were sitting at same spot till i ended map. I was taking all easy choices if that matters.

Cheers!

Now this is where some kind of video evidence would be handy due to the complexity of those units, it can be many reasons which made them act like that.. Including the same reason they were selectable as mentioned previously.
Or they could be doing weird fighter things out of protest of defending the base.

Sorry Vertu,

i had 12FPS at best. If start record my PC wil simply pop up like popcorn :)

[Vertu]

Thank you for map. It was fun. I played it some time and save. When i reloaded plains were sitting on one spot shooting till ammo run out. Then were sitting at same spot till i ended map. I was taking all easy choices if that matters.

Cheers!

Now this is where some kind of video evidence would be handy due to the complexity of those units, it can be many reasons which made them act like that.. Including the same reason they were selectable as mentioned previously.
Or they could be doing weird fighter things out of protest of defending the base.

Sorry Vertu,

i had 12FPS at best. If start record my PC wil simply pop up like popcorn :)

No worries!
I have been looking into optimizing the custom units more and more. The VAUs are over 8,000 lines in the CPack and this is due to how information is communicated in their scripts. I do plan on fixing this but they are even then still heavily optimized. There was also a found performance leak in the Blasters, they updated their LOS twice a second at all times, I have since removed that in their PAC version and fixed it in their player version.

What I don't get however is the hypothetical performance taxing from the veteran units. I got strange results as my computer once dreaded the map at one point, then not at another after changing nothing and due to the low quantity of units I doubt it's from the custom units themselves.

However if you play this on a laptop then that is an exception as laptops are potatoes compared to a computer tower.
Also if you find certain "things" to cause more lag than others, do tell. I like insights. However, please exclude the missile vomiter. I am also aware of the stutter that happens when placing the Forge. That is good-old mesh complexity which I might do something about. (Probably not since it's just caused on placing it, nothing else).

Now that you mention it, I did save and exit the game before coming back to finish the level and that's about when the starter plane stopped doing anything and might be connected to the other ones letting me select them. It's way  to late for me to start another run tonight, but I'll try to hop on tomorrow and see if I can recreate it

The current leading theory is with how I started to "wirelessly" set the VAU's PAC_MODE, they are no longer in PAC_MODE on gameload.. Wait..
The new leading theory is that my Roll Play CPack script disabled the VAU's PAC_MODE thinking the mission just loaded for the first time. Things get a little funcky when :Gameload is called more than once while being used as a "post-load" instance.
I am still however interested in the odd behavior depicted and a visual display of this odd behavior will clarify how they are acting. They could simply have PAC_MODE disabled and their AI-takeover set to off for what ever reason, acting like a non-PAC_MODE VAU. Their AI could of gotten confused. Their AI could have garbage information that is "jammed" in it's logic. Ect.

Again, I am still not going to make a fixed version. Excuse: The Fighters were already not a fan of assisting sooo if they stop assisting we can call it lore accurate.

[ha11oga11o]

Thank you for map. It was fun. I played it some time and save. When i reloaded plains were sitting on one spot shooting till ammo run out. Then were sitting at same spot till i ended map. I was taking all easy choices if that matters.

Cheers!

Now this is where some kind of video evidence would be handy due to the complexity of those units, it can be many reasons which made them act like that.. Including the same reason they were selectable as mentioned previously.
Or they could be doing weird fighter things out of protest of defending the base.

Sorry Vertu,

i had 12FPS at best. If start record my PC wil simply pop up like popcorn :)

No worries!
I have been looking into optimizing the custom units more and more. The VAUs are over 8,000 lines in the CPack and this is due to how information is communicated in their scripts. I do plan on fixing this but they are even then still heavily optimized. There was also a found performance leak in the Blasters, they updated their LOS twice a second at all times, I have since removed that in their PAC version and fixed it in their player version.

What I don't get however is the hypothetical performance taxing from the veteran units. I got strange results as my computer once dreaded the map at one point, then not at another after changing nothing and due to the low quantity of units I doubt it's from the custom units themselves.

However if you play this on a laptop then that is an exception as laptops are potatoes compared to a computer tower.
Also if you find certain "things" to cause more lag than others, do tell. I like insights. However, please exclude the missile vomiter. I am also aware of the stutter that happens when placing the Forge. That is good-old mesh complexity which I might do something about. (Probably not since it's just caused on placing it, nothing else).

Now that you mention it, I did save and exit the game before coming back to finish the level and that's about when the starter plane stopped doing anything and might be connected to the other ones letting me select them. It's way  to late for me to start another run tonight, but I'll try to hop on tomorrow and see if I can recreate it

The current leading theory is with how I started to "wirelessly" set the VAU's PAC_MODE, they are no longer in PAC_MODE on gameload.. Wait..
The new leading theory is that my Roll Play CPack script disabled the VAU's PAC_MODE thinking the mission just loaded for the first time. Things get a little funcky when :Gameload is called more than once while being used as a "post-load" instance.
I am still however interested in the odd behavior depicted and a visual display of this odd behavior will clarify how they are acting. They could simply have PAC_MODE disabled and their AI-takeover set to off for what ever reason, acting like a non-PAC_MODE VAU. Their AI could of gotten confused. Their AI could have garbage information that is "jammed" in it's logic. Ect.

Again, I am still not going to make a fixed version. Excuse: The Fighters were already not a fan of assisting sooo if they stop assisting we can call it lore accurate.

if can help im playing this on i3 6100, 8 GB RAM, 512 ssd and rx580.

And still have 12 FPS. Probably CPU is bit weakish.

[Vertu]

Computer specs are meaningless to me at the moment. The only thing that can be obtained about that is if you meet the required specs on the steam page of CW4.

[Malignantmind]

Worked fine for me the second time through without leaving the game.

Couple things about when the bug happened:

1) The new fighters all spawned in as selectable (and showed as green on the map, rather than red. Dunno if that means anything).
2) The new fighters all spawned in with Armed set to Off. So they were just immediately non-hostile.
3) The original fighter was never selectable, but once the new fighters spawned in, it could be kind of selected if doubleclicking a nearby new fighter. Couldn't change any settings on the original, but you could move it around.


Don't expect you to make a fixed version of this map, but could be useful in the creation of your next one. I've been really enjoying your newer maps as the balance has been really smoothed out (also the tutorial map you made was useful in learning how some of the units actually work). So keep up the good work. Bugs happen and are probably unavoidable in this game. I just wish the base game itself was better optimized because man do PAC maps get laggy.

[Vertu]

Worked fine for me the second time through without leaving the game.

Couple things about when the bug happened:

1) The new fighters all spawned in as selectable (and showed as green on the map, rather than red. Dunno if that means anything).
2) The new fighters all spawned in with Armed set to Off. So they were just immediately non-hostile.
3) The original fighter was never selectable, but once the new fighters spawned in, it could be kind of selected if doubleclicking a nearby new fighter. Couldn't change any settings on the original, but you could move it around.


Don't expect you to make a fixed version of this map, but could be useful in the creation of your next one. I've been really enjoying your newer maps as the balance has been really smoothed out (also the tutorial map you made was useful in learning how some of the units actually work). So keep up the good work. Bugs happen and are probably unavoidable in this game. I just wish the base game itself was better optimized because man do PAC maps get laggy.

Theoretically they should always spawned disarmed and then arm themselves. If they spawned and never were set to armed then that should of been something I encountered right away.
Also it was red because it had a red outline. Just a detail.