Proving Grounds Mod Needs Maps

Soul_Rider · October 2013

Hi All,

I am back working on the Proving Grounds Mod, and I need people to start making some maps. I have just made a mapping release in the Proving Grounds thread. If anyone is interested, or has any questions, please feel free to drop me a line.

I am hoping to get a playable release out soon, as the mapping release is not really suitable for playing as there are too many issues.

Here is the link below:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/116252/ns2-proving-grounds/p7

This link just jumps to the last page, as pretty much all previous data is out-dated..

Vetinari · October 2013

Are these mapping guidlines still up to date?

Soul_Rider wrote: »

Official Proving Grounds Mapping Guidelines
Entity Requirements:
Maps require 32 spawns in the ready room and the relevant NS2 join team entities.
PGGamerules
2 Tech Points (1 Marine Only & 1 Alien Only)
Location entities for each spawn room, other locations optional.

Map Design:
Maps can be level over level, should encourage regular combat opportunities, but need to respect the ranged vs melee gameplay. Vents are not needed, as this is meant to be death match, lives are not precious in death match. Not too many alternative routes, maybe 1 main route and 1 alternative route. Again we want lots of confrontation, if everyone is moving around by different routes, that's not going to happen.
Power nodes are not used in this mod at present.

I think it should be fairly easy to modify some combat maps to fit your needs.

Soul_Rider · October 2013

@F0rdPrefect

Err, no, those mapping guidelines are well out of date, but I can update them here for you now.

Proving Grounds Mapping Guidelines:

Entity Requirements
Upto 32 Ready Room Spawns
PGGamerules
Upto 16 Team Spawns per team
Location Entities
Join Team Entities

PG is a Total Conversion Mod, it does not use Aliens, Tech Points, RT's or any of that NS2 stuff. Currently using Marine models for both teams, the game is an old school TDM like UT/Quake3Team Arena.

Levels should encourage regular consistent combat. We will need maps ranging from 8 to 32 players, although smaller maps are probably better at this early stage. By firing this up and joining the map on a local server, you get a rough idea of the movement you need to incorporate, and remember, JumpPads will be added in the near future. Please also bear in mind all movement is very much subject to change.

Think old school Quake and UT maps, that will put you in the right mind.

WhiteDevil · October 2013

Does it have teleporters? since some of the most iconic Quake and UT maps has those. :P
Not to mention DM-Deck16 has teleporters and elevators aswell.

Vetinari · October 2013

I never played those old games, but I get the idea^^

Are there going to be jetpacks?
Maybe I can simplify/modify co_courtyard a bit. Should work.

ObliviousSight · October 2013

Hmm I can think of a map that might work well with this mod... What do you think @Evil_bOb1?

Evil_bOb1 · October 2013

Definitely, I could probably edit turtle's entities to give you something to work with SoulRider.

Soul_Rider · October 2013

Wow, thanks for all the responses everyone.

It will have Portals and working JumpPads soon enough. The game is taking shape nicely, although there is an awful long way to go to match the picture I have in my head of the final product.

There are no JP's, but with JumpPads, double jump, and lots of other high speed movements (including eventually rocket jump too), there is a distinct need for lots of verticality, but it needs to be accessible.

There are no minimaps, so level over level play is definitely a part of this.

Vetinari · October 2013

You basically want one or two big awesome rooms to fight in, right?

This could be fun to design.

Soul_Rider · October 2013

I thought I'd help by uploading a few screenshots of maps for those who don't know Quake or those old style shooters..

Just click on any of the images.

Vetinari · October 2013

I think I can work with that... waiting for jump pads now

[AwE]Sentinel · October 2013

Do we get crazy new weapons?

I finished an alpha version of a greyboxed map for pg. It became an outdoor map, kinda. The only problem seems to be the view distance, but if i put everything in one location entity, there might be a workaround if I remember correctly. Shouldn't be a big problem with the new performance boosts

Now ns2 just has to stop eating new geometry and spitting it out in complete chaos...

Flaterectomy · October 2013

@[AwE]Sentinel if you mean the bug displayed below, just open the map again in the editor and re-save it. That always works for me. You can also tell it's happened if overview.exe reports that there are invalid triangles in the map (before it crashes after rendering the minimap), that way you can fix it before going through the map loading process.

[AwE]Sentinel · October 2013

Yep, that is exactly what I meant. Thanks for the tip!

Soul_Rider · October 2013

Don't run overview.exe with my maps. I have no minimap or map entities, as you will see when you try and place them in the editor

Soul_Rider · October 2013

I have completed Jump Pad Triggers, but I have no model for them yet, so use something that looks quite obvious until we get custom models made.

The Jump pads are little irregular at the moment, but i have only done a basic trigger, it just pushes you vertically. Unfortunately, it doesn't push you to the same height each time just yet..

I have also got the basic gravity and jump height settings how I want. The game may be a little too fast at the moment though. I'll put out another mapping update soon, I just need to fix a weapons bug. This still won't be a properly playable release, but it will have a better idea of what the movement capabilities will be.

Dodge is implemeted too, you press shift to dodge, it will only work if you are holding either left or right, but you can also be pressing forward or back to change the angle of the dodge, but it will always dodge to one side or the other. You can even dodge in mid-air after double jumping..

Vetinari · October 2013

Soul_Rider wrote: »

I have completed Jump Pad Triggers, but I have no model for them yet, so use something that looks quite obvious until we get custom models made.

The Jump pads are little irregular at the moment, but i have only done a basic trigger, it just pushes you vertically. Unfortunately, it doesn't push you to the same height each time just yet..

I have also got the basic gravity and jump height settings how I want. The game may be a little too fast at the moment though. I'll put out another mapping update soon, I just need to fix a weapons bug. This still won't be a properly playable release, but it will have a better idea of what the movement capabilities will be.

Dodge is implemeted too, you press shift to dodge, it will only work if you are holding either left or right, but you can also be pressing forward or back to change the angle of the dodge, but it will always dodge to one side or the other. You can even dodge in mid-air after double jumping..

I've never worked with non-vanilla entities. How do I use them? (<- I'm a noob). Also, I have an idea for a map. I can't promise anything, though.

Soul_Rider · October 2013

You would use them exactly the same way as you use vanilla entities. Jump pad is a trigger, so you use it like a death trigger or join team. Don't worry, you will pick it up very quickly.

Vetinari · October 2013

Soul_Rider wrote: »

You would use them exactly the same way as you use vanilla entities. Jump pad is a trigger, so you use it like a death trigger or join team. Don't worry, you will pick it up very quickly.

Yes, but how do I gain access to them?

Soul_Rider · October 2013

They will be in the map editor when you set up the mod. If you download the zip from the mod thread linked above, then open launchpad and create a new mod called PG or something. Just put the contents of the zip file in the output folder, and when you run the editor from launchpad, you will have only the entities from my mod available to you.

Working Jump pads are not yet in that release though.

Vetinari · October 2013

Thanks, I will try.

Vetinari · October 2013

I sat down and messed around a bit with the editor.

Soul_Rider · October 2013

Nice start! I will release an update to the mapping release this weekend so you can play with jump pads etc, and get an idea of how high things need to be. Bear in mind that players can double jump, and the default jump height is higher than that of ns2.... 128 unit high doorways are not big enough...

As a design idea, don't go for doorways, but big open entrances and archways etc.

AurOn2 · October 2013

F0rdPrefect wrote: »

I sat down and messed around a bit with the editor.

Vetinari · October 2013

AuroN2 wrote: »

F0rdPrefect wrote: »

I sat down and messed around a bit with the editor.

The automatic grid had a double-edged snap-to function, but in the end I was victorious.

Soul_Rider · October 2013

New mapping release and video out:

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2161763/#Comment_2161763

[AwE]Sentinel · October 2013

I set up the launch pad, opened my pg_map and added 36 readyroom_joins, two different teamjoins, two different teamspawns, jumppads and the pg_gamerules. Couldnt find a pathing entity though.
Now if I try to load the map, I get some lua errors that keep on repeating in console:

[Server] Script Error #1329: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53
self = TeamJoin-3884 {name="", playerCount=0, scale=cdata, teamIsFull=false, teamNumber=1 }
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
[Server] Script Error #1330: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53
self = TeamJoin-1691 {name="", playerCount=0, scale=cdata, teamIsFull=false, teamNumber=2 }
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value

Have I forgotten an important entity? I didn't place the base_xxx entities as they seem to do nothing :P

Edit: Ok, opened your test map and adjusted my map to its entities. Reduced readyroomspawns to 32, added 16 teamjoins per team, added random and spectator join entities. But I still get the same error message o_O

Soul_Rider · October 2013

Can I have the rest of the log? The TeamJoin says it is trying to index a nil value, and yet all the values are populated. I need to see the rest of the log to try and work out what is going on there...

What team did you try and join? 1, 2 or Random?

[AwE]Sentinel · October 2013

I coudn't open the map and join a team. The console was spamming the same three things over and over again until I disconnected.

[...]
Connected to Steam servers
Connecting to server 127.0.0.1:27015
Client connecting (127.0.0.1)
VAC Enabled
Loading config://ServerConfig.json
Loading config://ServerAdmin.json
Loading config://BannedPlayers.json
Loading config://MapCycle.json
Loading config://ConsistencyConfig.json
Hashed 1 game_setup.xml files for consistency
Hashed 771 *.lua files for consistency
Hashed 41 *.fx files for consistency
Hashed 17 *.screenfx files for consistency
Hashed 131 *.surface_shader files for consistency
Hashed 3 *.fxh files for consistency
Hashed 3 *.render_setup files for consistency
Hashed 2 *.shader_template files for consistency
Loading 'maps/ns2_projektx.level'
Cooked mesh with 5775 faces, 3349 vertices
Cooked mesh with 16 faces, 12 vertices
Couldn't load height map maps/overviews/ns2_projektx.hmp
Building pathing mesh for level maps/ns2_projektx.level
Error: lua/Server.lua:390: attempt to index a nil value
[Server] Script Error #1: lua/Server.lua:390: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/Server.lua:390
highestPriority = 1
Finished loading 'maps/ns2_projektx.level'
Server sent connecting packet, 22978 bytes
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
[Server] Script Error #2: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53
self = TeamJoin-646 {name="", playerCount=0, scale=cdata, teamIsFull=false, teamNumber=3 }
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
[Server] Script Error #3: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53
self = TeamJoin-1677 {name="", playerCount=0, scale=cdata, teamIsFull=false, teamNumber=0 }
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
[Server] Script Error #4: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53
self = TeamJoin-1691 {name="", playerCount=0, scale=cdata, teamIsFull=false, teamNumber=2 }
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
[Server] Script Error #5: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
Call stack:
#1: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53
self = TeamJoin-3884 {name="", playerCount=0, scale=cdata, teamIsFull=false, teamNumber=1 }
Error: lua/TeamJoin.lua:53: attempt to index a nil value
[...]

Soul_Rider · October 2013

Please remove the spectator join from the map and see what happens. Also rename the map to pg_ instead of ns2_. Let me know if that doesn't fix it. Hit me up on steam:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/SoulRider/

[AwE]Sentinel · October 2013

The changes seem to have no effect.

Problems solved. Was my bad xD

Proving Grounds Mod Needs Maps

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