<!--quoteo(post=1820906:date=Jan 2 2011, 09:14 PM:name=JimWest)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JimWest @ Jan 2 2011, 09:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1820906"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Has anybody started allready to make a Combat Mod?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes. The person who made this thread.
I ask you, why do you want to kill something that has yet to really live?
You're a baby killer, why do you kill babies? Are you that sick, twisted? You should be locked up for the crimes you wish to bring upon NS2.
Combat completely ruined NS1, to find a Vanilla NS1 game is damn near impossible these days, it's all Combat, and Combat is just GENERIC FPS, so I see no reason to play it over other FPS.
<!--quoteo(post=1821097:date=Jan 3 2011, 07:19 AM:name=Mkilbride)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mkilbride @ Jan 3 2011, 07:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1821097"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Combat completely ruined NS1, to find a Vanilla NS1 game is damn near impossible these days, it's all Combat, and Combat is just GENERIC FPS<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you're saying people like Combat more than vanilla NS1, and more people play Combat, therefore it "ruined" NS1 by making it more fun and popular?
<!--quoteo(post=1821097:date=Jan 3 2011, 08:19 AM:name=Mkilbride)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mkilbride @ Jan 3 2011, 08:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1821097"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do you want NS2 to die?
I ask you, why do you want to kill something that has yet to really live?
You're a baby killer, why do you kill babies? Are you that sick, twisted? You should be locked up for the crimes you wish to bring upon NS2.
Combat completely ruined NS1, to find a Vanilla NS1 game is damn near impossible these days, it's all Combat, and Combat is just GENERIC FPS, so I see no reason to play it over other FPS.
NS without RTS = generic FPS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This elephant's been in the room for quite a while, so I'm just going ahead and point it out: you're trying to MAKE people play a mode they don't like. It would seem a lot of players weren't having their share of the fun in classic-mode, and with the coming of combat they saw a chance to go out play something they find more enjoyable. Consequently the classic-mode declined in terms of player-base, which is unfortunate, but trying to blame another game-mode for that is silly. In the end you're better off as you're now playing with people that have chosen classic above combat and thus are more likely to put in more of an effort to properly play the game. Forcing players back into classic just to boost the player-base isn't fun for anyone.
Im splited...first i hate combat because the classic server were less and less...but on the otherside, combat was very fun too. But it was very short, i realy don't know, i love classic and have a hate/love with combat mode...
Just a quick update. Sorry for the hiatus on this - I haven't had much time to work on it since Xmas but I've got a two week sprint starting now. Current status is:
- Having trouble getting the UI working (this has sunk a few hours now) - Common UI for marines/aliens, just a different texture/colour set at the moment. Broken right now! - Players can get experience by shooting stuff. There are ranks, you go up a rank when you get enough xp. - Experience for nearby teammates is implemented - XP is showing on the scoreboard - An armoury spawns instead of the commander chair at marine start.
To do this sprint: - Fix UI bugs - Implement Upgrades on a player-by-player basis rather than by team. - Implement an upgrade menu - Chang the ident at top-left so you know you're playing combat mode not vanilla!
To do next sprint: - Performance tweaks (network mainly - this is where I'll need some help!) - Randomise spawn locations
I can't get anything with a background to draw properly. For now it's just a text interface, but the game mechanics are unaffected and seem to work ok.
Performance looks good at the moment (using bots to test) but I think I'll do some optimisations once the UI is in place. The main thing I'm worried about is the number of updates (you and the people around you currently get experience every time you damage an enemy player or structure - I think I may need to move this to a kills/assists model if it struggles).
I've just merged the 161 build code in (only one collision with my code, v. nice) so at the moment I'm thinking I'll be able to do some kind of 'pre-alpha version' checkin next week, in case anyone wants to look through the code. I'll also start a pivotal tracker for my own purposes and put the link here.
Oh btw I just realised that people could start making maps for this. At the moment it's all done with the regular NS2 entities so if it works in vanilla it should work here.
At the moment I am trying to test in a crappy box room map that has basic spawn entities and a power node. It doesn't work very well so I am also using rockdown (this works alright - at the moment I haven't needed any custom entities added)
<!--quoteo(post=1823748:date=Jan 12 2011, 06:19 PM:name=MCMLXXXIV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MCMLXXXIV @ Jan 12 2011, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1823748"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Performance looks good at the moment (using bots to test) but I think I'll do some optimisations once the UI is in place. The main thing I'm worried about is the number of updates (you and the people around you currently get experience every time you damage an enemy player or structure - I think I may need to move this to a kills/assists model if it struggles).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> So every bullet hit will send a packet to a bunch of ppl? That's a terrible idea. You need to switch over to an assist model. Do you have a public code repo set up anywhere?
Wouldn't it be better to record damage dealt by each player to an enemy player? Then apply experience based on the proportion of damage dealt by each player once the kill is made.
<!--quoteo(post=1824719:date=Jan 15 2011, 10:44 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jan 15 2011, 10:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1824719"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wouldn't it be better to record damage dealt by each player to an enemy player? Then apply experience based on the proportion of damage dealt by each player once the kill is made.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's what I mean by an assist model. If he pushes his code to a public repo, I'll look into adding this feature (among other contributions)
Yeah, other than the performance hit, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to gain experience based only on damage dealt, without actually necessarily killing. Mostly because that's just what I'm used to in every RPG and derivative, but also because it seems right logically.
I'd also like to have a look at the code, and possibly contribute.
Thanks for the feedback! I think you are right - we'll have to go with the kills/assists model for performance purposes.
I think the best way to do this is with a table of "damagers" on the server-side Player object. When any damage is taken, record who did it and then award experience accordingly when that player dies.
At the moment I am working on the GUI stuff so if anyone else wants to look at the exp model and/or balance that would be cool (the scoreboard does indicate exp rising and there is a crappy text-based gui at the moment).
In the NS1 combat mode, you got experience for kills, assists and also for each time you damage any buildings (power nodes/hives/armoury/ip), so I think this model can replicate that quite easily. Also in NS1 you got experience just for being nearby someone on your team who makes a kill.
I'll just tidy up my code tree then publish it on github with additional details.
I have committed the source code into a git tree at GitHub, so you should be able to fork, make additions etc and generally play around. I'm keeping the "origin" branch at the moment. Also I'm using the "ns2" branch to help me merge changes as the UWE team go from build to build. <a href="https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode" target="_blank">https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode</a>
Unfortunately, it seems that the change log got blown away when I did the merge into "origin", so you can see the detail of my changes from day to day here: <a href="https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode/commits/ahtest2" target="_blank">https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mo...commits/ahtest2</a>
Looking forward to this! I would offer to help but i'm afraid i would just slow you down so i'm only going to offer a generic small co style map for testing.
I should have a 90% complete level by weeks end. I'll push the level file to you when your ready.
I plan on contributing to this but I want to wait until the game is more in its final form towards the end of the beta. They are still redoing a lot of things in both the lua code and the engine.
Level looks very cool wolf. It'll be interesting to see how the level designs differ when there's no commanders on either team. Do you have the alien egg spawn points and hive/marine start tech points on there? I think they'll still be necessary for the game to work until I sort the randomisation out.
@Camron: Yes I agree - at the moment I am concentrating on things that won't clash with changes elsewhere in the game code - I'm only putting in hooks at the moment where I'm reasonably certain there won't be structural changes. Because we've got class-based inheritance, to be honest I think most of the Combat Mode logic can be added by extending the existing classes and adding new ones. We'll see how it goes (so far still hamstrung by GUI issues).
For now my hacks seem to work fine (merged with Build 162 with only one easy-to-resolve code collision). Guess I should start a new sprint this week.
Some good progress this week. I finally solved the UI problems. Some screens:
If anyone wants to test it, I've uploaded a version you can play with. See the start of the thread for details
Armory where the comm chair should go <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394565986/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/5394565986_bb3b69f164.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394565986/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-08-38-87</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
Look ma, no resource towers! <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566182/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/5394566182_e933f86e0c.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566182/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-09-38-64</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
Hitting the hive and testing the XP bar <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5393970095/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/5393970095_025f11fe2c.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5393970095/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-10-49-02</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
Alien HUD <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566790/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5178/5394566790_f031822794.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566790/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-12-07-07</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
A question, can marines upgrade anything from anywhere on the map (as opposed to just at their armoury)? If so, then the purpose to the Armoury (other than being the target) is only to supply health and ammunition? If not, then it's rather cumbersome, I think, and possibly unbalanced against the marine team.
This is based on the assumption that aliens can still buy things at will from wherever they are, and also that armouries supply health and ammunition.
Also, you may want to consider the relative sizes of the hive and the armoury, for balance. All marines, as a ranged class, can attack the hive simultaneously, and as an added bonus they have a very large target (not *really* an issue, as aim is not an issue). Aliens on the other hand are limited in how many players can hurt the armoury by the perimeter of the armoury, unless there is noclip between players; the target is also smaller, again that's not exactly an issue because aim is not an issue, but smaller size obviously means smaller perimeter.
Oh, I think I entirely missed out on this project existing :O!
looks promising, but would be good if you made welders ;). Otherwise aliens got quite a big advantage.
Also I would love to help with coding when I get time, noticed you got pivotal (should make it easy for anyone to pick up something they want to do in the sprint), but how about a bugreporting thing like getsatisfaction aswell? Also why git and not svn? And why not host on googlecode?
@Harimau: I think we're on the same page here. Marines would spawn with the weapon they last upgraded to. Like NS1, if you upgrade out in the field you will get the weapon straight away. Unlike NS1, the armory also allows players to switch weapon loadouts before they head out which I think is a big plus. Also, both aliens and marines will be able to unlock a regeneration ability (aliens = rapid regenerate, marines = med backpack) so that will help with the balance. Aliens don't regenerate very fast without it.
I think the map designs for Combat will be a little different to remove some of the imbalances that would otherwise arise. I haven't seen Wolf's one in action yet but I like his idea. Regarding the relative sizes of the hive and armory, don't forget that the hive will have some kind of regeneration. Most wins in NS1 combat were about area denial and spawn camping while a small number of people work on the hive/armory. I also have some ideas for some alternate game modes (e.g. hold the res node) but I've got to start with the basic Combat mode first.
@Feha: I've already started on a welder class with the flamethrower model. I am not sure how it'd be used yet. For now I think it's ok and relatively simple to just allow marines to 'weld' with the axe (with an ability to boost the swing speed or something), the equivalent being the gorge spray. I should probably add that my focus is going to be much more on the 'arcade' style of play, and lack of dependence on a commander role.
The pivotal tracker is public - I'll see if I can work out how to use it as a bug tracker. Flayra would probably bust a nut if people put Combat Mode issues onto Get Satisfaction (and I can't afford the licence!)
I chose git because its branching support appears to be much better than SVN, allowing me to track UWE's changes (because it takes into account that the two trees have a common root it can merge their changes in very well). Also, it allows other people to fork and contribute in their own branches and for me to merge without having to give them permission etc. I saw how useful that was with the old pre-alpha "NS2Lua" project!
SVN has so called .patch files, which is a good way to merge others code with yours. And if you give svn acess to people they can also commit like normal.
The branching support and root merging seems like a HUGE plus in this case though (not sure if svn has an equivalent, but I havent used any such thing I think).
Would love if you posted a link to git tutorial tho, cant be arsed to google ;).
In an attempt to fix the download issues, I've moved the download link to rapidshare. You can download it without registering for an account by clicking the "Slow Downoad". The file is tiny so it's easy to download it. You can get my current release here: <a href="http://rapidshare.com/#!download|970tg|445263696|NS2-Combat-Mode-Pre-Alpha.zip" target="_blank">Rapidshare download link</a>
You can also get my latest development version at any time by visiting github (you can extract and then rename the folder that's inside the zip file):
@Feha: I've been doing a bit more reading into SVN 1.5's branching functionality and it looks like it would work well too. My choice mainly boils down to wanting to try git out. There are some good guides on GitHub (that's how I got started with using it) but I agree, the learning curve is steep! I heartily recommend ToirtoiseGit, it's made the whole process much simpler for me.
Strange issues with my co level, seems when you join a team you take on that team entity but your still in rr..hmmmm. I'll delete all the entities and put them back in.
As for what i did test in another map of mine I damn near shat myself and even had to look at the players in server screen to make sure when breadman bot shot my skulking butt....lol.
Is the experience and/or progress bar not implemented in this release as i killed 5 bots with no experience gained. Now if i can get the bots to follow ground/air waypoints it would be awesome. Great work so far!!!!
Can't wait to actually run a test on a dedicated server with multiple clients!!!!
Interesting about the bots. I think that there are still xp numbers missing for some entities so that'll be fixed sometime soon. For interest, were you playing as a marine or a skulk? Generally, you get the same amount of XP as you would have received in plasma in vanilla NS2, but I'm going to rework the calculation method and balance numbers once the rest of the logic is in place and the tech tree is finished.
Did you get any errors in the console log when you saw that strange behaviour on your map? If you're really stuck I may be able to help diagnose the problem with the debugger. It may be something that I've changed has broken the logic? I can confirm that it works fine in both rockdown and tram. I've just put the "Random Team Locations" enhancement in and it's <strike>working quite well</strike> a little buggy at my end.
Comments
Yes. The person who made this thread.
I ask you, why do you want to kill something that has yet to really live?
You're a baby killer, why do you kill babies? Are you that sick, twisted? You should be locked up for the crimes you wish to bring upon NS2.
Combat completely ruined NS1, to find a Vanilla NS1 game is damn near impossible these days, it's all Combat, and Combat is just GENERIC FPS, so I see no reason to play it over other FPS.
NS without RTS = generic FPS.
So you're saying people like Combat more than vanilla NS1, and more people play Combat, therefore it "ruined" NS1 by making it more fun and popular?
I ask you, why do you want to kill something that has yet to really live?
You're a baby killer, why do you kill babies? Are you that sick, twisted? You should be locked up for the crimes you wish to bring upon NS2.
Combat completely ruined NS1, to find a Vanilla NS1 game is damn near impossible these days, it's all Combat, and Combat is just GENERIC FPS, so I see no reason to play it over other FPS.
NS without RTS = generic FPS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This elephant's been in the room for quite a while, so I'm just going ahead and point it out: you're trying to MAKE people play a mode they don't like. It would seem a lot of players weren't having their share of the fun in classic-mode, and with the coming of combat they saw a chance to go out play something they find more enjoyable. Consequently the classic-mode declined in terms of player-base, which is unfortunate, but trying to blame another game-mode for that is silly. In the end you're better off as you're now playing with people that have chosen classic above combat and thus are more likely to put in more of an effort to properly play the game. Forcing players back into classic just to boost the player-base isn't fun for anyone.
But it was very short, i realy don't know, i love classic and have a hate/love with combat mode...
Just a quick update. Sorry for the hiatus on this - I haven't had much time to work on it since Xmas but I've got a two week sprint starting now. Current status is:
- Having trouble getting the UI working (this has sunk a few hours now)
- Common UI for marines/aliens, just a different texture/colour set at the moment. Broken right now!
- Players can get experience by shooting stuff. There are ranks, you go up a rank when you get enough xp.
- Experience for nearby teammates is implemented
- XP is showing on the scoreboard
- An armoury spawns instead of the commander chair at marine start.
To do this sprint:
- Fix UI bugs
- Implement Upgrades on a player-by-player basis rather than by team.
- Implement an upgrade menu
- Chang the ident at top-left so you know you're playing combat mode not vanilla!
To do next sprint:
- Performance tweaks (network mainly - this is where I'll need some help!)
- Randomise spawn locations
I can't get anything with a background to draw properly. For now it's just a text interface, but the game mechanics are unaffected and seem to work ok.
Performance looks good at the moment (using bots to test) but I think I'll do some optimisations once the UI is in place. The main thing I'm worried about is the number of updates (you and the people around you currently get experience every time you damage an enemy player or structure - I think I may need to move this to a kills/assists model if it struggles).
I've just merged the 161 build code in (only one collision with my code, v. nice) so at the moment I'm thinking I'll be able to do some kind of 'pre-alpha version' checkin next week, in case anyone wants to look through the code. I'll also start a pivotal tracker for my own purposes and put the link here.
At the moment I am trying to test in a crappy box room map that has basic spawn entities and a power node. It doesn't work very well so I am also using rockdown (this works alright - at the moment I haven't needed any custom entities added)
I have a project i abandoned way back from early alpha that may work well with some tweaking....well.....at least as a starter testing level.
So every bullet hit will send a packet to a bunch of ppl? That's a terrible idea. You need to switch over to an assist model. Do you have a public code repo set up anywhere?
That's what I mean by an assist model. If he pushes his code to a public repo, I'll look into adding this feature (among other contributions)
I'd also like to have a look at the code, and possibly contribute.
I think the best way to do this is with a table of "damagers" on the server-side Player object. When any damage is taken, record who did it and then award experience accordingly when that player dies.
At the moment I am working on the GUI stuff so if anyone else wants to look at the exp model and/or balance that would be cool (the scoreboard does indicate exp rising and there is a crappy text-based gui at the moment).
In the NS1 combat mode, you got experience for kills, assists and also for each time you damage any buildings (power nodes/hives/armoury/ip), so I think this model can replicate that quite easily. Also in NS1 you got experience just for being nearby someone on your team who makes a kill.
I'll just tidy up my code tree then publish it on github with additional details.
I have committed the source code into a git tree at GitHub, so you should be able to fork, make additions etc and generally play around.
I'm keeping the "origin" branch at the moment. Also I'm using the "ns2" branch to help me merge changes as the UWE team go from build to build.
<a href="https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode" target="_blank">https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode</a>
Unfortunately, it seems that the change log got blown away when I did the merge into "origin", so you can see the detail of my changes from day to day here:
<a href="https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode/commits/ahtest2" target="_blank">https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mo...commits/ahtest2</a>
<a href="https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/211849#" target="_blank">https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/211849#</a>
I should have a 90% complete level by weeks end. I'll push the level file to you when your ready.
Edit: "add Image"
<img src="http://www.super-nova-team.com/ns2/co/co_mx.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
@Camron: Yes I agree - at the moment I am concentrating on things that won't clash with changes elsewhere in the game code - I'm only putting in hooks at the moment where I'm reasonably certain there won't be structural changes. Because we've got class-based inheritance, to be honest I think most of the Combat Mode logic can be added by extending the existing classes and adding new ones. We'll see how it goes (so far still hamstrung by GUI issues).
For now my hacks seem to work fine (merged with Build 162 with only one easy-to-resolve code collision). Guess I should start a new sprint this week.
If anyone wants to test it, I've uploaded a version you can play with. See the start of the thread for details
Armory where the comm chair should go
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394565986/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/5394565986_bb3b69f164.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394565986/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-08-38-87</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
Look ma, no resource towers!
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566182/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/5394566182_e933f86e0c.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566182/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-09-38-64</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
Hitting the hive and testing the XP bar
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5393970095/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/5393970095_025f11fe2c.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5393970095/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-10-49-02</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
Alien HUD
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566790/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5178/5394566790_f031822794.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58863706@N04/5394566790/" target="_blank">NS2 2011-01-28 01-12-07-07</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/58863706@N04/" target="_blank">MCMLXXXIV1</a>, on Flickr
If so, then the purpose to the Armoury (other than being the target) is only to supply health and ammunition?
If not, then it's rather cumbersome, I think, and possibly unbalanced against the marine team.
This is based on the assumption that aliens can still buy things at will from wherever they are, and also that armouries supply health and ammunition.
Also, you may want to consider the relative sizes of the hive and the armoury, for balance. All marines, as a ranged class, can attack the hive simultaneously, and as an added bonus they have a very large target (not *really* an issue, as aim is not an issue). Aliens on the other hand are limited in how many players can hurt the armoury by the perimeter of the armoury, unless there is noclip between players; the target is also smaller, again that's not exactly an issue because aim is not an issue, but smaller size obviously means smaller perimeter.
looks promising, but would be good if you made welders ;). Otherwise aliens got quite a big advantage.
Also I would love to help with coding when I get time, noticed you got pivotal (should make it easy for anyone to pick up something they want to do in the sprint), but how about a bugreporting thing like getsatisfaction aswell?
Also why git and not svn? And why not host on googlecode?
@Harimau: I think we're on the same page here. Marines would spawn with the weapon they last upgraded to. Like NS1, if you upgrade out in the field you will get the weapon straight away. Unlike NS1, the armory also allows players to switch weapon loadouts before they head out which I think is a big plus. Also, both aliens and marines will be able to unlock a regeneration ability (aliens = rapid regenerate, marines = med backpack) so that will help with the balance. Aliens don't regenerate very fast without it.
I think the map designs for Combat will be a little different to remove some of the imbalances that would otherwise arise. I haven't seen Wolf's one in action yet but I like his idea. Regarding the relative sizes of the hive and armory, don't forget that the hive will have some kind of regeneration. Most wins in NS1 combat were about area denial and spawn camping while a small number of people work on the hive/armory. I also have some ideas for some alternate game modes (e.g. hold the res node) but I've got to start with the basic Combat mode first.
@Feha: I've already started on a welder class with the flamethrower model. I am not sure how it'd be used yet. For now I think it's ok and relatively simple to just allow marines to 'weld' with the axe (with an ability to boost the swing speed or something), the equivalent being the gorge spray. I should probably add that my focus is going to be much more on the 'arcade' style of play, and lack of dependence on a commander role.
The pivotal tracker is public - I'll see if I can work out how to use it as a bug tracker. Flayra would probably bust a nut if people put Combat Mode issues onto Get Satisfaction (and I can't afford the licence!)
I chose git because its branching support appears to be much better than SVN, allowing me to track UWE's changes (because it takes into account that the two trees have a common root it can merge their changes in very well). Also, it allows other people to fork and contribute in their own branches and for me to merge without having to give them permission etc. I saw how useful that was with the old pre-alpha "NS2Lua" project!
I have updated the link at the start of the thread with a new version that should work ok. Can anyone test it out for me?
"Sorry, the page (or document) you have requested is not available."
EDIT: Seems to give me the https:// address. is this how google docs work?
The branching support and root merging seems like a HUGE plus in this case though (not sure if svn has an equivalent, but I havent used any such thing I think).
Would love if you posted a link to git tutorial tho, cant be arsed to google ;).
You can also get my latest development version at any time by visiting github (you can extract and then rename the folder that's inside the zip file):
<a href="https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode/zipball/origin" target="_blank">https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode/zipball/origin</a>
@Feha: I've been doing a bit more reading into SVN 1.5's branching functionality and it looks like it would work well too. My choice mainly boils down to wanting to try git out. There are some good guides on GitHub (that's how I got started with using it) but I agree, the learning curve is steep! I heartily recommend ToirtoiseGit, it's made the whole process much simpler for me.
As for what i did test in another map of mine I damn near shat myself and even had to look at the players in server screen to make sure when breadman bot shot my skulking butt....lol.
Is the experience and/or progress bar not implemented in this release as i killed 5 bots with no experience gained. Now if i can get the bots to follow ground/air waypoints it would be awesome. Great work so far!!!!
Can't wait to actually run a test on a dedicated server with multiple clients!!!!
Did you get any errors in the console log when you saw that strange behaviour on your map? If you're really stuck I may be able to help diagnose the problem with the debugger. It may be something that I've changed has broken the logic? I can confirm that it works fine in both rockdown and tram. I've just put the "Random Team Locations" enhancement in and it's <strike>working quite well</strike> a little buggy at my end.