Rather than an outline how about a single arrow (not unlike the pathfinding arrows for threat, marine pathway etc) that points in the direction of it's other exit?
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited May 2013
@mushookees : Just a second opinion from my experience playtesting :
It would take ~1-2 weeks to *properly* implement the hub idea, system of colors, new models (for hub), occlusions, hooking up in game code, extra art assets like new commander icons, outlines and all. And then it would need at a minimum another 2 weeks of thorough play testing / squashing bugs - for a total of 3-4 weeks.
Whereas the outlines alone would take minutes, to a couple of hours, and could be tested in one session.
This would be my honest estimate, just as a second opinion B-)
@mushookees : Just a second opinion from my experience playtesting :
It would take ~1-2 weeks to *properly* implement the hub idea, system of colors, new models (for hub), occlusions, hooking up in game code, extra art assets like new commander icons, outlines and all. And then it would need at a minimum another 2 weeks of thorough play testing / squashing bugs - for a total of 3-4 weeks.
Whereas the outlines alone would take minutes, to a couple of hours, and could be tested in one session.
This would be my honest estimate, just as a second opinion B-)
I know, i'm raining on parades..
The art assets are all there for gorge tunnels, its just a matter or making a room size gorge tunnel and most of the game code is already there for gorge tunnels, a minimal amount of code would need to be added/changed. I cant imagine too many bugs showing up seeing how minor the changes would be. However they would probably iterate on the idea and explore different room shapes,balance etc. and thats where most of the dev time and playtesting would be spent on. Still, as a function of actual UWE dev time, it wont take that long, i think your estimate is off.
Btw i tried to push for the gorge tunnel idea in the beta, and people were raining on my parade back then too
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited May 2013
@mushookees Bugs always show up in more frequency than you'd expect and always take longer than you think to fix.. hence why i tend to just overestimate now.
If they really jammed on it, i'm sure it could be done in 2-3 days... but i still wouldn't let it get out the door without a minimum of a week and a half of testing .. you never know when a @wiry is waiting around the corner. 8-}
From a programming perspective it would probably be best to have a hardcoded limit in the number of entrances. Personally I doubt you'd need more then 6 total, maybe 8. That way you can model a hubroom as a rough hexagon or octagon. Players would enter the room from an orifice in the middle, that is not 2 way. From the middle, you would then have all the potential exits around you. Distance from the center to the exit(s) should be similar to the current tunnels.
Edit: just thought that having a limit on entrances/exits might lead to trolls using them up on you. While requiring a Gorge to place a tunnel point, it might be necessary to give the alien comm the ability to destroy them as well. Then you could have a troll comm, but that already has ways of being dealt with.
The exits would be similar to the current ones, only being available depending on number of tunnel exits currently dropped.
To tell what exit you want quickly as an alien, use a pheromones! Or in other words, colored haze/halos that would appear around an active exit. That same exit would be the same color on the minimap so you can quickly tell where to go. These identifying markers would NOT be visible to invading marine forces. While they can traverse the hub, they would be doing so blind, unless there are only two exits, in that case that's no different then the current implementation.
I'm on mobile atm, I'll try to mspaint my idea later.
MSPAINT Skills activate!
If the middle entrance isn't 2-way, then it makes no visual sense. You have to find another entrance to take you back to the same tunnel you just came from...
Is this requiring the regular building of 2 entrances per gorge, or the commander dropping the hub, so only one entrance per gorge?
Comments
It would take ~1-2 weeks to *properly* implement the hub idea, system of colors, new models (for hub), occlusions, hooking up in game code, extra art assets like new commander icons, outlines and all. And then it would need at a minimum another 2 weeks of thorough play testing / squashing bugs - for a total of 3-4 weeks.
Whereas the outlines alone would take minutes, to a couple of hours, and could be tested in one session.
This would be my honest estimate, just as a second opinion B-)
I know, i'm raining on parades..
The art assets are all there for gorge tunnels, its just a matter or making a room size gorge tunnel and most of the game code is already there for gorge tunnels, a minimal amount of code would need to be added/changed. I cant imagine too many bugs showing up seeing how minor the changes would be. However they would probably iterate on the idea and explore different room shapes,balance etc. and thats where most of the dev time and playtesting would be spent on. Still, as a function of actual UWE dev time, it wont take that long, i think your estimate is off.
Btw i tried to push for the gorge tunnel idea in the beta, and people were raining on my parade back then too
If they really jammed on it, i'm sure it could be done in 2-3 days... but i still wouldn't let it get out the door without a minimum of a week and a half of testing .. you never know when a @wiry is waiting around the corner. 8-}
Is this requiring the regular building of 2 entrances per gorge, or the commander dropping the hub, so only one entrance per gorge?