85 replies to this topic

[Popek]

-BETA UPDATE-

Using the Dawncity tiles and .lua as a jumping point, Bambuz and I have put together so far 65 individual tiles with their own unique structures. We are finally at a point where we would like to include the community in the development and completion of this package. I have uploaded a .rar file which includes the folder 'Terrain-burbs' just place this in your /extensions directory and it should work without issues in versions 1071 and 1079.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE All download links posted in this thread will be edited to remain up to date

Some features of this set include

Several buildings with 5 floors (so six levels including rooftop), but nothing more than that. Most buildings ranging between 2 and 3 floors.

Unique road generation script. For the most part functional with a few issues.

RED BRICK WALLS are at this point very difficult to destroy, set to 100 armour if I remember correctly. So a combat knife can cut through it, but don't be surprised if it takes you an entire turns worth of tries before it happens.

We would like input on everything possible. If there are structures with problems, or you don't like them for some reason, please let me know. All insults, blasphems, and critisisms will be accepted with good grace, but hopefully aren't necessary
we've put a lot of time into this for the very simple reason that we love the game, and want to contribute in the best way we know how.

Also a BIG thankyou to both Nachtwolf for the tile graphics he created, and another BIG thankyou to Hobbes for helping us solve several problems and answering our questions.

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by Popek, 11 August 2007 - 04:17 PM.

[Blood Angel]

The big 'burban house is pretty kewl.

[Exo2000]

These are some most awesome maps, and I look forward to playing on them. For street-based cover, I would suggest;

Fallen Lampposts
Blasted-over Cars or Vehicles
Police Barricades (complete with dead body tiles? :>)
etc.

[bamb]

Can you guys help me how to add LUA maps to a terrain. Not the .map binary old maps, but the new ones the javascript map maker saves.
EDIT:moved to a new thread.

Edited by bamb, 27 April 2007 - 05:15 PM.

[Exo2000]

I suggest you start a new thread instead of asking here, to be honest.

[Popek]

few more before I head out for the night. I have more, but all that road action might get a little repetitive to look at. These give a clear idea of what I'm doing though.

4.gif]

Roads with some associated pieces.  Hopefully can manage the road peices down the middle of the 1x2's. I know it will be awkward, but one benefit I can see is the ability to have a road down the excact center of the map. Dividing the battlefield.  I'm want to make a large assortment of smaller houses to run along the vertical road tiles. This is the suburbs after all.

[Popek]

A building with apartments. Yes, a large box shape. Hah, not really to avoidable here.

Did some tinkering, with the aid of Bambuz we have moved up far enough to test some of these pieces.
?We're both very new to this stuff so it's a bit of a learning experience as we go.
Ran into a few snags so far involving inconsistencies with the master .LUA and the master image file. Most notably doors being visible on wrong side of where they actually are. This happens with a few other tiles as well, hopefully can just suss out which they are and adjust the lua as needed.

Also getting a similar graphic issue on the ladders Hobbes had. Only on some ladders though. Strange. This related to them being
?floor tiles and the order of how they are viewed?
It seems their proximity to a northern wall is what affects them.

Attached Thumbnails

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[Hobbes]

Also getting a similar graphic issue on the ladders Hobbes had. Only on some ladders though. Strange. This related to them being
?floor tiles and the order of how they are viewed?
It seems their proximity to a northern wall is what affects them.

To fix that problem you need to add tile #63 "fire stair image" as a North Wall tile to all the firestairs you use.

[Popek]

Also getting a similar graphic issue on the ladders Hobbes had. Only on some ladders though. Strange. This related to them being
?floor tiles and the order of how they are viewed?
It seems their proximity to a northern wall is what affects them.

To fix that problem you need to add tile #63 "fire stair image" as a North Wall tile to all the firestairs you use.

So it's unwise to jut the ladder/firestairs against a regular northern wall then. Good to know.

Having some other issues regarding some doors and walls showing up backwards in the editor (which I know you don't use) ie. a Left Wall/Door will show up in the Right list, and in most cases vice versa. Once we take it in game, the doors appear visually in the right place according to how I applied them in the editor, but gameplaywise they are reversed.

We're thinking the best way to amend this is to adjust the main .Lua once we've completed most of our work.   

Meanwhile... We took the 'Burbs' for a little spin this afternoon/early morning (mismatching timezones) And its a blast.

[Hobbes]

So it's unwise to jut the ladder/firestairs against a regular northern wall then. Good to know.

If you mean placing the fire stair tile on a cell where there's already a north (right) wall, yes. With the ladder (an object) you won't have that problem

Having some other issues regarding some doors and walls showing up backwards in the editor (which I know you don't use) ie. a Left Wall/Door will show up in the Right list, and in most cases vice versa. Once we take it in game, the doors appear visually in the right place according to how I applied them in the editor, but gameplaywise they are reversed.

We're thinking the best way to amend this is to adjust the main .Lua once we've completed most of our work.   

Thanks for the notice. I've fixed it on the dawncity.lua and attached it. Please let me know if there's anymore similar problems.

Edited by Hobbes, 02 May 2007 - 10:44 AM.

[bamb]

Having some other issues regarding some doors and walls showing up backwards in the editor (which I know you don't use) ie. a Left Wall/Door will show up in the Right list, and in most cases vice versa. Once we take it in game, the doors appear visually in the right place according to how I applied them in the editor, but gameplaywise they are reversed.

We're thinking the best way to amend this is to adjust the main .Lua once we've completed most of our work.   

Thanks for the notice. I've fixed it on the dawncity.lua and attached it. Please let me know if there's anymore similar problems.

I tried copy-pasting the 102M tiles LUA to our file but no effect, the warehouse grey metal doors are still physically in the wrong place. You can see and walk thru them but can't shoot. (And you can't see/walk thru the door open position, since the invisible door is now there.)
Strange.
Same with those square hotel windows, one can walk thru them but there's a block 90 degrees in the wrong place.
For some reason the LUA tile section in 102M is much shorter than the 102? How is that possible?
102:
7290 lines, 236 tiles
102M:
7250 lines, 236 tiles

Attached Thumbnails

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[Hobbes]

I tried copy-pasting the 102M tiles LUA to our file but no effect, the warehouse grey metal doors are still physically in the wrong place. You can see and walk thru them but can't shoot. (And you can't see/walk thru the door open position, since the invisible door is now there.)
Strange.
Same with those square hotel windows, one can walk thru them but there's a block 90 degrees in the wrong place.

I can't see any of the errors with the hotel square windows or the doors while running Dawn City with 102m.

I've looked at the code and there were unnecessary settings present on the blue doors (if those are what you call the warehouse grey metal doors) but it wasn't possible to walk through them. I've play tested all doors of the tileset and none seems to have that problem. I've also run the tileset through Nachtwolf's map editor and found that all Left/Right walls are correctly designed as such.

For some reason the LUA tile section in 102M is much shorter than the 102? How is that possible?

Unnecessary code removed

Here's the version I've just finished:

Attached Files

•  dawncitybeta102m2.zip   15.31K   130 downloads

Edited by Hobbes, 02 May 2007 - 11:05 AM.

[bamb]

I tried copy-pasting the 102M tiles LUA to our file but no effect, the warehouse grey metal doors are still physically in the wrong place. You can see and walk thru them but can't shoot. (And you can't see/walk thru the door open position, since the invisible door is now there.)
Strange.
Same with those square hotel windows, one can walk thru them but there's a block 90 degrees in the wrong place.

I can't see any of the errors with the hotel square windows or the doors while running Dawn City with 102m.

I've looked at the code and there were unnecessary settings present on the blue doors (if those are what you call the warehouse grey metal doors) but it wasn't possible to walk through them. I've play tested all doors of the tileset and none seems to have that problem. I've also run the tileset through Nachtwolf's map editor and found that all Left/Right walls are correctly designed as such.

For some reason the LUA tile section in 102M is much shorter than the 102? How is that possible?

Unnecessary code removed

Here's the version I've just finished:

Indeed the LUA code looks fine and the images too. I noticed most of the bugged stuff is on the same vertical column in the png file. Hotelwindow1 is fine, but 2 is bugged. Really weird. It might be some bug when reading the LUA files as compared to MAP files?

84 is ok, 85 and 86 are bugged (the big hotel windows)

[84] = {
			EditorName = "hotelwindow1w",
			IsometricImage = png_image("$(extension)/dawnmasterimagelist/32x40-084.png"),
			Shape = [[
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
			]],
			MinimapImage = [[
				FFFFCC,CCCCFF,CCCCFF,FFFFCC,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
			]],
			Tile_Type = 1,
			Armour = 25,
			Die_MCD = 98,
			Block_Fire = 1,
			Block_Smoke = 1,
			HE_Block = 15,
			Light_Block = 4,
		},
		[85] = {
			EditorName = "hotelwallwindow2n",
			IsometricImage = png_image("$(extension)/dawnmasterimagelist/32x40-085.png"),
			Shape = [[
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
				0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,0000,FFFF,
FFF,
			]],
			MinimapImage = [[
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FFFFCC,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,CCCCFF,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,CCCCFF,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FFFFCC,
			]],
			Tile_Type = 2,
			Armour = 25,
			Die_MCD = 97,
		},
		[86] = {
			EditorName = "hotelwallwindow2w",
			IsometricImage = png_image("$(extension)/dawnmasterimagelist/32x40-086.png"),
			Shape = [[
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
				C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,C000,
000,
			]],
			MinimapImage = [[
				FFFFCC,CCCCFF,CCCCFF,FFFFCC,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
				FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
			]],
			Tile_Type = 1,
			Armour = 25,
			Die_MCD = 98,
		},

Here is a picture of some of the walls/doors that are reversed compared to their graphics (both in the javascript editor and in the game):

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by bamb, 02 May 2007 - 01:57 PM.

[bamb]

Here's a pic of how they are misplaced in the editor:
It's really weird that the small window is ok and the big not. My next experiment would be to copy-paste the small window's LUA code over to the big window and then watch what happens.

Attached Thumbnails

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[Hobbes]

I doubt that copy pasting the code from 84 to 86 will change everything. From the 2nd picture it's obvious that there's something clearly wrong with the tileset code: both Left/Right versions of the same tile appear on the list (I'm assuming the Left tab is the chosen one).

Can you post the terrain files here for me to have a look?

Btw, you don't need to have destroyed tileset assigned to the map files. Just add it to the tileset list on the .lua battlescape generation file and the game will use it to fill ground that has been completely destroyed

Edited by Hobbes, 02 May 2007 - 02:34 PM.

[bamb]

Check your priv, it has the newest version of burbs (shows up as CCCCP in the terrains list).

-

There's something funky in the dawn city LUA file though,
for example
EditorName = "Brick wall window W",
has
MinimapImage = [[
CCCC77,997799,997799,CCCC77,
FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
and
Tile_Type = 1,

EDIT:
I don't know where it originates from, but I always thought that up left in the isometric view, which is the same as up in the minimap, was north and up right in the isometric view, right in the minimap was east.
But it turns out the directions are named completely weirdly, that up in minimap is west and to the right in the minimap is north?
Where did that start? Could it be some source of mismatch?

Edited by bamb, 02 May 2007 - 04:03 PM.

[Hobbes]

There's something funky in the dawn city LUA file though,
for example
EditorName = "Brick wall window W",
has
MinimapImage = [[
CCCC77,997799,997799,CCCC77,
FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,FF00FF,
and
Tile_Type = 1,

EDIT:
I don't know where it originates from, but I always thought that up left in the isometric view, which is the same as up in the minimap, was north and up right in the isometric view, right in the minimap was east.
But it turns out the directions are named completely weirdly, that up in minimap is west and to the right in the minimap is north?
Where did that start? Could it be some source of mismatch?

You got it wrong: West is Left, and North is Right. The West/North designations come from Map View, don't ask me why it was decided to name them that way but that's how it is. They make sense on the minimap if you think that their names don't designate their position but to where they point (West walls have an horizontal orientation, North walls a vertical one).
Nachtwolf decided to call them Left/Right on his map editor: it makes more sense visually but there's no not much sense considering the minimap view.

[bamb]

I didn't "get it wrong", maybe I wrote briefly.

Mapview's "WEST" is UP and LEFT (45 degrees counterclockwise from vertical) in the battlescape and mapview's "NORTH" is UP and RIGHT in the battlescape, which could be one possible interpretation by itself. BUT on the game minimap the map is rotated 45 degrees so that same wall that is on the UP LEFT corner of the tile in the battlescape is on the UP direction in the minimap. Hence it doesn't make sense to call it west, because the minimap would say it's actually NORTH.

The only logical way that takes both battlescape and minimap into account would be to put UP to NORTH in the minimap and the rest accordingly. So the mapview "WEST" wall would be NORTH and the mapview "NORTH" wall would be EAST (which currently does not exist). Only that way is it possible to have a sensible minimap where north points up. And in battlescape up left would be NORTH and up right would be EAST. In regular DM team 1 would start in the WEST and team 2 starts in the EAST, ie LEFT and RIGHT on the minimap. (According to current mapview practice, team 1 starts in the south and team 2 in the north.)

So the current practice is nonsensical. But I guess we have to stick to it.

[bamb]

Ok, Hobbes the magnificient solved our problem, it was the map .lua (burbs01.lua for ex) files having the door wall tiles assigned to wrong positions, ie a left (in nachtwolf's editor term, west in mapview's) door was marked to a right (north) position. Changing these in the map corrected the problem immediately.
Ie
{180,0,102,0} ----> {180,102,0,0}
Since 102 is a west door (left in nachtwolfmapeditorese), not a north door. (right in nwme)
It seems there's a bug when reading the tileset into the map editor. Some efforts will be tried.

And HUGE thanks to Hobbes, he has helped us a lot!

Edited by bamb, 02 May 2007 - 05:22 PM.

[bamb]

Ok, Hobbes the magnificient solved our problem, it was the map .lua (burbs01.lua for ex) files having the door wall tiles assigned to wrong positions, ie a left (in nachtwolf's editor term, west in mapview's) door was marked to a right (north) position. Changing these in the map corrected the problem immediately.
Ie
{180,0,102,0} ----> {180,102,0,0}
Since 102 is a west door (left in nachtwolfmapeditorese), not a north door. (right in nwme)
It seems there's a bug when reading the tileset into the map editor. Some efforts will be tried.

And HUGE thanks to Hobbes, he has helped us a lot!

Ah, I suspected the prob was loading the destroyed tileset together with the dawn tileset.. when just dawn is loaded, the doors are placed correctly! And it seems to fix the broken maps too. YAY

[Hobbes]

It's not non sensical, it is a matter of UFO Defense and UFO2000 being 2 different games:

UFO2000 shows the minimap from a different perspective than the one used on the original UFO Defense's minimap, and for a reason.

On the tactical_003 and 004 images there's a picture taken from the original UFO minimap image of the map with the bush fence, if you compare it with the CULTA13 map image, you'll see that Map View shows it correctly: North walls are Up, West Walls are Left on the minimap.

But if you look at the snapshot_7, taken from UFO2000, the minimap image has been rotated 90 degrees clockwise, so North Walls are Right, West Walls are Up. And if you look at snapshot_8, it has been changed to reflect how the minimap in UFO2000 would be if it used the UFO Defense perspective. Which makes more sense to use on UFO2000? The one on snapshot_7, because it corresponds to how both players place their units before game starts.

Unfortunately, this means that the original North/West designations used by Map View and other X-COM file editors hardly make any sense when designing terrains for UFO2000. Like you correctly mentioned, North walls are on the East of the UFO2000 minimap, while West walls are on the North.

But like I said, the West/North names can make some sense if you consider not their position, but the direction to there they are pointing, at least that's how I rationalize it. Check snapshot_9 to see what I mean.

PS - Sorry if I was a little brusque in saying that you were 'wrong'

PPS - from left to right, 1st image is snapshot_7, then snapshot_8, CULTA13, tactical_004, tactical_003 and finally snapshot_9

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Edited by Hobbes, 02 May 2007 - 05:43 PM.

[Popek]

It's not non sensical, it is a matter of UFO Defense and UFO2000 being 2 different games:

UFO2000 shows the minimap from a different perspective than the one used on the original UFO Defense's minimap, and for a reason.

On the tactical_003 and 004 images there's a picture taken from the original UFO minimap image of the map with the bush fence, if you compare it with the CULTA13 map image, you'll see that Map View shows it correctly: North walls are Up, West Walls are Left on the minimap.

But if you look at the snapshot_7, taken from UFO2000, the minimap image has been rotated 90 degrees clockwise, so North Walls are Right, West Walls are Up. And if you look at snapshot_8, it has been changed to reflect how the minimap in UFO2000 would be if it used the UFO Defense perspective. Which makes more sense to use on UFO2000? The one on snapshot_7, because it corresponds to how both players place their units before game starts.

Unfortunately, this means that the original North/West designations used by Map View and other X-COM file editors hardly make any sense when designing terrains for UFO2000. Like you correctly mentioned, North walls are on the East of the UFO2000 minimap, while West walls are on the North.

But like I said, the West/North names can make some sense if you consider not their position, but the direction to there they are pointing, at least that's how I rationalize it. Check snapshot_9 to see what I mean.

PS - Sorry if I was a little brusque in saying that you were 'wrong'

PPS - from left to right, 1st image is snapshot_7, then snapshot_8, CULTA13, tactical_004, tactical_003 and finally snapshot_9

that 2nd image is a mindf*ck after being used to it the other way for so long.

yes big thank you for the help so far. We've made considerable progress today alone. Seems i need to dig in and change most of my doors and misbehaving walls. But then it'll be dandy.

[bamb]

Ah, you're correct of course. I thought the minimap in x-com was oriented the same way as it was in ufo2000. But this explains the difference. If you wanna go straight to the right in the minimap, in x-com you move a little right and a little down in the battlescape isometric view, in ufo2000 a little right and a little up.

[bamb]

pope, 1x1 vertical roads (left and right pieces that are combined randomly by the battlescape maker script). That way the vertical roads won't be so monotonous

[Popek]

pope, 1x1 vertical roads (left and right pieces that are combined randomly by the battlescape maker script). That way the vertical roads won't be so monotonous

will do!

so yeah, when should we put this doggy into a beta phase?

should i polish off the last few pieces we've got for now and let folks try it out with 50 pieces and partially functional code for the roads? that reminds me, i've got some ladders to fix.

Edited by Popek, 15 May 2007 - 08:39 PM.

[bamb]

pope, 1x1 vertical roads (left and right pieces that are combined randomly by the battlescape maker script). That way the vertical roads won't be so monotonous

will do!

so yeah, when should we put this doggy into a beta phase?

should i polish off the last few pieces we've got for now and let folks try it out with 50 pieces and partially functional code for the roads? that reminds me, i've got some ladders to fix.

Maybe in a few days when we can play a game not finding bugs? (I have to fix the 5x5 road bug still). An 1x1 horizontal road would help with that as it's sure not to have some crazy looking half building at the right edge of the map.

[Popek]

pope, 1x1 vertical roads (left and right pieces that are combined randomly by the battlescape maker script). That way the vertical roads won't be so monotonous

will do!

so yeah, when should we put this doggy into a beta phase?

should i polish off the last few pieces we've got for now and let folks try it out with 50 pieces and partially functional code for the roads? that reminds me, i've got some ladders to fix.

Maybe in a few days when we can play a game not finding bugs? (I have to fix the 5x5 road bug still). An 1x1 horizontal road would help with that as it's sure not to have some crazy looking half building at the right edge of the map.

its ok to keep the current 2x1's we have for vertical road tho' right? (40-47 i think and a couple lower numbers)

[bamb]

its ok to keep the current 2x1's we have for vertical road tho' right? (40-47 i think and a couple lower numbers)

Yeah they're fine.

[bamb]

Ok, I think we should go beta now as the dev pace isn't so furious anymore.
Popek, I have my LUA you know where, v11.
There are now some kinds of roads 94% of the time, but it's fine as they are often short.

There's still some work with this terrain, but it's playable already.

We should coordinate the explosive barrel and wooden warehouse wall tile addition/change issues with Nachtwolf/Hobbes.

I think this terrain should be included in the next ufo2000 release, as it's free.

Known Bugs about battlescape generation:
-5x5 maps have roads ending too short
-sometimes a roadside building is missing a fourway junction (I have searched this in vain for a looong time)

Known Features about some maps
-some sidewalk connections are not good looking / connected
-need to add more maps to prevent repetition
-some road curves are rough placeholders

Coders are free to look at the code, I've commented a lot and modularized too!
You can get the code when pope does a public beta release.

Here are some pics:

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by bamb, 16 June 2007 - 08:04 AM.

[Popek]

First post modified to include Burbs beta information/release. It's incredibly playable for all types of scenarios.

My personal recommendation for a good time is 10,000 point games in a 6x6 size. But that's just me

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

Edited by Popek, 16 June 2007 - 05:30 PM.

[Popek]

bump for much love


anyone have a chance to take a look yet?
we're looking forward to some feedback and critisisms from the community.

[hurz]

I hotseated it a bit - no problems so far. Its diversity and the towers/ladders are quite fun!
Will continue testing...

[Popek]

Put some more work into the set over the weekend and created 5 more unique tiles, including another large 20x20 mansion with pool and a 20x20 apartment complex with open interior courtyard.

Other adjustments were made to fix some aesthetic issues found involving sidewalks and ladders. Move some furniture around in areas I found to be too cramped, and fixed a one way staircase that I must of made whilst really tired

Bambuz, haven't caught you online for a little while now. I've added the new tiles to the main .lua but am wondering if we could somehow implement a way for it to reduce the chance of generating repeating tiles to improve a chance of a more diverse battlescape. Lemme know what you think.

[nachtwolf]

I've added the new tiles to the main .lua but am wondering if we could somehow implement a way for it to reduce the chance of generating repeating tiles to improve a chance of a more diverse battlescape. Lemme know what you think.

You got everything you need. Do that with the mapgenerator LUA.
Keep the numbers in memory (an array for example) and run a check every tile to see if this one has been chosen already.
LUA does it's garbage collection so don't worry about leaks. Broken code will not work, but it won't break anything.

Try something like (pseudo-code):

make an array of 36 zeros

run the generator function

When you have a number (#AA for instance)
  if #AA is not in array
  assign tile #AA
  put #AA in array at this position
  increment position
Else
  return to the loop.

With this function : make sure you got at least 36 1x1 tiles. (worst case)

Edited by nachtwolf, 03 July 2007 - 09:34 PM.

[bamb]

Put some more work into the set over the weekend and created 5 more unique tiles, including another large 20x20 mansion with pool and a 20x20 apartment complex with open interior courtyard.

Other adjustments were made to fix some aesthetic issues found involving sidewalks and ladders. Move some furniture around in areas I found to be too cramped, and fixed a one way staircase that I must of made whilst really tired

Bambuz, haven't caught you online for a little while now. I've added the new tiles to the main .lua but am wondering if we could somehow implement a way for it to reduce the chance of generating repeating tiles to improve a chance of a more diverse battlescape. Lemme know what you think.

Hi, I haven't been online from home since the apartment company mucked up the net connection switch. They sent me some messages today, so it might (probably not) start working in short order. So I'm not writing this from home.

It's relatively easy to prevent the repetition with the buildings, just have a list (placed_buildings) of buildings you did put in and have it rerun the random number generator if the building already is in the placed_buildings list. For example. I'll have a look at it some day. That will still yield some duplicates but I think it's better that there is some variety, otherwise the map would always has a certain assortment of the buildings.

Very nice that you did some new sectors/maps/buildings. If you add large sectors, you have to add them to the get_dx and get_dy functions so their sizes are correctly given to the placement functions. You can probably use the search function in notepad with a number of a sector of similar size. (Ie search for 24 if you made a building that's the same size as building 24.)

[Popek]

Put some more work into the set over the weekend and created 5 more unique tiles, including another large 20x20 mansion with pool and a 20x20 apartment complex with open interior courtyard.

Other adjustments were made to fix some aesthetic issues found involving sidewalks and ladders. Move some furniture around in areas I found to be too cramped, and fixed a one way staircase that I must of made whilst really tired

Bambuz, haven't caught you online for a little while now. I've added the new tiles to the main .lua but am wondering if we could somehow implement a way for it to reduce the chance of generating repeating tiles to improve a chance of a more diverse battlescape. Lemme know what you think.

Hi, I haven't been online from home since the apartment company mucked up the net connection switch. They sent me some messages today, so it might (probably not) start working in short order. So I'm not writing this from home.

It's relatively easy to prevent the repetition with the buildings, just have a list (placed_buildings) of buildings you did put in and have it rerun the random number generator if the building already is in the placed_buildings list. For example. I'll have a look at it some day. That will still yield some duplicates but I think it's better that there is some variety, otherwise the map would always has a certain assortment of the buildings.

Very nice that you did some new sectors/maps/buildings. If you add large sectors, you have to add them to the get_dx and get_dy functions so their sizes are correctly given to the placement functions. You can probably use the search function in notepad with a number of a sector of similar size. (Ie search for 24 if you made a building that's the same size as building 24.)

yeah for the large sectors I did just that no problem.

it's definitely shaping up really nicely.


I want to kill your sectoids again

[Hobbes]

Popek and bamb,

I've just realized 2 issues regarding the dawn tileset on Burbs:

1) Your modified dawn tileset is loading first than dawn city, thus it skips loading dawn city's dawn and destroyed tilesets (it already has on the memory tilesets with those 2 names). Thus Dawn City uses your mod dawn tileset.
2) This happens because the folders on /extensions are loaded alphabetically, thus the Burb tiles load first than Dawn. This also prevents you to use dawn city's dawn tileset (which would avoid a lot of code repetition), because Burbs would load first and since it wouldn't find the dawn tileset already on memory it would fail to initialize.

And there's 2 ways to solve it:

1) The dawn tileset on Burbs must be renamed (dawnburbs or something) for the tilesets on both terrains to load properly.

2) Instead of running 2 versions of the dawn tileset, we all work together on a single version of dawn, to be used by both terrains which would consume less game resources. Tiles specific to each terrain could be then added later on their separate tilesets. There isn't much room to add new tiles to dawn

What do you say?

[bamb]

I think it would make sense from the players pov too, that the tiles were exactly the same regardless of in which map/battlescape they appear.
If a certain barrel were ordinary in dawn city but explosive in burbs - that would be very very stupid and bad game design!

So unified tiles, yeah.

Specific tiles, I think the tile limit is gone, you just have to use a new png.

The problem comes with updates - old tiles should not be changed anymore.

Pope and I were thinking that the wood panel walls in the warehouses should have lower damage values. 60 or so instead of the 80 they have now.

Burbs is going to be renamed a bit otherwise too, now the name in the lua is CCCCP to stand out (was like that during early testing and it stuck). Dawnburbs can't work since it's earlier in the alphabet than dawncity. Dawnsub for suburbs?

[Hobbes]

I think it would make sense from the players pov too, that the tiles were exactly the same regardless of in which map/battlescape they appear.
If a certain barrel were ordinary in dawn city but explosive in burbs - that would be very very stupid and bad game design!

I completely agree.

Specific tiles, I think the tile limit is gone, you just have to use a new png.

Well the 255 tile limit is gone but for the time being i'm still restricted to that limit (the empty tiles on dawn are reserved for office furniture) because I'm still using Map View for the bulk of map creating since it's faster than Nachtwolf's map editor.

The problem comes with updates - old tiles should not be changed anymore.

That would be nice but at the same time it is impossible to achieve at this point because of debugging, map design, tileset organization, etc. The current tiles are close to being finished but there is still too much work. One thing that I am seriously considering is to renumber all the wreck tiles to values greater than 255, which would free 50+ tiles in the 255 limit and help the design process. This change would also postpone the need to convert the .map files to .lua until all map design is done.

Pope and I were thinking that the wood panel walls in the warehouses should have lower damage values. 60 or so instead of the 80 they have now.

The overall values on walls have been decreased a while ago. The wood panels now have an armor of 45

Burbs is going to be renamed a bit otherwise too, now the name in the lua is CCCCP to stand out (was like that during early testing and it stuck). Dawnburbs can't work since it's earlier in the alphabet than dawncity. Dawnsub for suburbs?

Or DawnSuburbs.

[Popek]

The overall values on walls have been decreased a while ago. The wood panels now have an armor of 45

one major change we did to the burbs set values is the red brick is set to 90 armour. we chose it because it's a high value that most weapons won't destroy, some have a low chance of destroying, and only a select few (HE packs, Overcharged plasma blasts, Heavy/Sniper Plasma, Chainsaw, Plasma Sword, etc...) can really break it with dependability. Also with directional damage from explosions being added a possibility we wanted some stuff to be dependable cover for when we are blessed with that game change.

[Hobbes]

The overall values on walls have been decreased a while ago. The wood panels now have an armor of 45

one major change we did to the burbs set values is the red brick is set to 90 armour. we chose it because it's a high value that most weapons won't destroy, some have a low chance of destroying, and only a select few (HE packs, Overcharged plasma blasts, Heavy/Sniper Plasma, Chainsaw, Plasma Sword, etc...) can really break it with dependability. Also with directional damage from explosions being added a possibility we wanted some stuff to be dependable cover for when we are blessed with that game change.

I can set those to 90 but be aware that HE block (or directional damage) also comes with another feature, on the original XCOM that is, which is reduced weapon power when used against terrain. On the original game the weapons blast could vary between 0-200% against units while against terrain it was only 50%-150%.

Any more suggestions (tiles, armor values, etc.) to the dawn tileset?

[Popek]

that was the only major change, and yes we considered the variances. We've been playing with this value for a while on burbs and it seems to be pretty good. Combat Knifes in the ufo2k set CAN cut it, but very rarely... so you might get lucky and break through in 1 or 2 chops, or waste your entire turn trying.

Once directional explosions are in, some of the tiny 6x8 brick buildings can make great emergency shelters from explosion spam...


otherwise, no current suggestions.
we've made some orange striped barrels to be used for explosive ones, but so far haven't added them to anything.

[bamb]

Pope has done some updatin so that burbs will use dawn city tiles and not duplicates anymore. So there will be only one tileset (dawn) which both dawn city and dawn suburbs (the new name of burbs very possibly) use.
So a lot of the current tile changes will come with new releases of dawn city then and the next release will probably require dawn city too. Maybe they can be packaged to the same place or something like that.

[Popek]

we'll provide that soon enough
i gotta fix a few tiles that aren't good

[Hobbes]

Pope has done some updatin so that burbs will use dawn city tiles and not duplicates anymore. So there will be only one tileset (dawn) which both dawn city and dawn suburbs (the new name of burbs very possibly) use.
So a lot of the current tile changes will come with new releases of dawn city then and the next release will probably require dawn city too. Maybe they can be packaged to the same place or something like that.

Sorry to take so long to reply but yes. We could package the whole thing together to make things easier.

we'll provide that soon enough
i gotta fix a few tiles that aren't good

I gotta a major update due that has a lot of changes (office cubicle walls and a new floor for them) that I haven't uploaded yet. Anything you want to change on dawn city?

[Popek]

other than 90 armour brick walls. I can't think of anything right now...

[bamb]

I think the house that has the twice breaking walls is very annoying, when you first knife just a hole appears and then you can't knife anymore as the punches go through the hole, making it an impenetrable obstacle! Damn.

[Popek]

I think the house that has the twice breaking walls is very annoying, when you first knife just a hole appears and then you can't knife anymore as the punches go through the hole, making it an impenetrable obstacle! Damn.

psst. you can 'hold shift' when you slice the knife and cut the wall. Yeah it's not very clear, but kinda gives you the option to either cut an enemy unit/obstacle on the other side, OR finish cutting your way through.

also good for cutting the low hedges, and low fencing.

[Hobbes]

I think the house that has the twice breaking walls is very annoying, when you first knife just a hole appears and then you can't knife anymore as the punches go through the hole, making it an impenetrable obstacle! Damn.

I am thinking of replacing ALL walls with that system:

1) The wall tile has a very weak armor (10-20). Even a conventional pistol is able to punch holes, allowing for some vision.
2) The walls with holes have the current armor levels. To be able to move or fire without restrictions (turning them into wrecks) across you'll have to hit them again.

What do you think of that idea? It will make terrain harder to destroy but it will look more realistic.

Edited by Hobbes, 22 August 2007 - 05:12 PM.

[Sporb]

that basically what Rust farm does now. Problem is that explosions only ever destroy the 1st wall meaning that no matter how powerfull a blast is, it wont destroy a wall properly.