[CnC Frostbite]

Great to see that you could use the prefabs.

I think the main concern here is that you should space out your base a bit more so that vehicles can maneuver easily...

[Base Building Prefab Kit]

13 hours ago, Handepsilon said:

I'd rather zip it into file and name the version there, as well as set up the directory so all the modders/mappers do is just extract it in SDK root directory. Also, sometimes my download software is uncooperative with alien file extension

Thanks, that's a good idea!

[Base Building Prefab Kit]

14 minutes ago, ThommyK0104 said:

@j0g32Missing some objects

Thanks for your feedback @ThommyK0104

Yes, these objects where older versions of the watchtower, which I tried to delete (force) - yet, without success, so I moved them into another package *hackz* Should work without them though...

Can you load the Watchtower_v3 ?

What is wrong with the Helipad?

Did you enable StaticDecals ingame?

[Base Building Prefab Kit]

Sorry for the wait, life is busy, and it took my way longer than anticipated to polish only the first iteration of the kit...

As my major motivation was to have an easy to use kit with grid-snap, I had to test that it actually works properly - and was thrown back by saving errors, cross references, misalignment with Matinee sequences, snapping offsets, etc.

But finally here it is:

 

How to install:

- copy the package into [- your RenegadeX SDK folder -]\UDKGame\Content\RenX\Environments and delete the date prefix, i.e. rename it to RX_BaseBuilding_PrefabKit.upk

- restart/load the editor, the package should show up under Environment

 

How to use and align Prefabs with 512-grid:

- Drag and drop a Prefab from the content browser into your map

- Select grid snap 256 (the pivot is in the middle of most prefabs) when snapping new Prefabs onto the grid

- Rightclick on the placed Prefab and select "Transform > Snap Origin to Grid" (make sure you select 256 grid for snapping)

- switch to 512-grid snap when moving Prefabs

 

Notes:

- the actual Prefabs do not contain the concrete bases as shown on the thumbnails, these are only for scale

- these are only prefabs, you can change individual objects to your liking

- some prefabs already contain ladder-volumes, which have to be altered when the prefab is rotated

=> Use  "View > Lock Prefabs from Selection" to access individual objects of a Prefab

- some Prefabs contain Matinee sequences (Watchtower and Gate), so UDK may display an error when deleting one of these Prefabs from your level.

- edit: the gates are in the ground and appear at the start of the level, to avoid blocking pathfinding.

- bunkers and shelters use a custom material instance (adapted to the wall texture)

 

For now, I will leave it as it is and try to use it for Hammerfest, finally...

 

Let me know what you think and if it works for you.

Happy Base Building, everyone

 

2016-12-08_RX_BaseBuilding_PrefabKit.upk

[Team fund for auto-donations]

I like your idea but it might be difficult to manage these funds; maybe i am not sure if I understood correctly:

Are you suggesteing that basically every player has a limit of say 5000. Any credits of plaeryer A beyond that could be "auto-donated"/withdrawn upon request by any player B withouth  player A's explicit approval... ?!

[Sparkling Snow on ground in Under]

Specular Map: on which parts of the texture (and how much) does the sun light reflect

Specular Power: how concentrated is the reflection - "smoothness vs. roughness of the surface"

But no warranty on that one... ^^

[Q-spotting]

How about Battlfield style "Commo-Rose" ?!

[Mining]

Imma firestorm ma base! 

[Vanilla Mining - RenX Improvements & Revisions]

I like your reasoning about solo infiltrators. Reducing the damage that a single hotty/techie can deal to a building, is a good idea - in orig. Renegade we didnt have permanent buding damage so i would fully support your point as it could well work in RenX 

 

While i am not sure about the actual redistribution of explosives, i think it is an interesting approach, and would add more variety and specialisations to different classes. Or at least timed C4 s a purchasble sidearm?

 

In C&C Tiberian Dawn the commando was the only unit to single-handedly blow up a stucture, but engineers could capture a building.

Maybe the latter could be reflected by giving repair tools the abilitiy to bring down ONLY an enemy building's armour. Just conversely as to how they only repair this armour. Hence Engineers would still be useful for building rushes troy-horse-style, i.e. hacking and shutting down the shield for any damage inflicted by team members to become permanent.

But that's another story ^^

 

B2t:

I believe the easiest way to  "teach" best mining practices is by showing the spots with decals and volumes, which also give HUD info when aimed at (with any weapon though).

Could also be map specific.

 

Mining radar - indifferent...

This would only make sense to me if mines cause team damage to infantry, vehicles and buildings.

But of course this would change a lot more, might be interesting how this plays out...

 

Minig club - def. No!

[Mining]

Well, I think one should always keep in mind how and why such discussions arised in the first place...

In particular, if the arguments are just spiraling in circles, and each of the suggestions has its own pros and cons.

 

And that's why I would suggest to tackle one problem at a time, preferably the initial one, which was the complexity of how to "properly" place mines, causing overmining etc.

So why dont we simply indicate the "common" mining areas?

Just highlight the mining spots with decals/volumes and add some dynamic HUD/UI information indicating e.g.

"2/3 mines. Place more proximity C4 to secure this area."

Or

"4/3 mines. Use repair tool to disarm and relocate excess proximity C4."

 

I guess mines have their own collision  channel, which would be useful for the area specific mine counter.

What do you think?!

 

Edit: i shall focus my attention to @Sire's thread. Cheers

[Mining]

35 minutes ago, Denuvian said:

But well, the only reason people are playing is for fun and for the most people it's no fun to stand in the base the whole time, which can be hours on a marathon game, waiting and looking out for somebody sneaking into the base at some time.

Yep, that's why we might want to make defense more fun...

By giving rewards or making it more attractive, e.g. designated degense spots with cover or gun emplacments.

Because apperently loosing a game due to "bad defense" is super frustrating as well...

Do you feel me now?!

[Mining]

20 minutes ago, Denuvian said:

when nobody is around.

Thanks, I understand the reasoning, But this exactly my point:

There is no active defense!!!

All the complaints stem from the laziness to defend a base!

And "remining duty" is not active, its re-active!

 

I personally would rather see the introduction of small defensive boni, e.g. for kills by guards/campers, or simply for patrolling, i.e. walking/driving around the base (even without killing anyone)...

 

Yes, point farming might be an issue...

But we already have veterancy to incentivise offense...

 

[Mining]

On a different note: since when are doors, rather than tunnel exits the only right places to mine?!

Take under, you can easily mine the inf. Bottlenecks: tunnel entrance and sifepath with 5-6 mines each.

Problem sneakers?

And a rush tbrough the front door is easy to tackle.

[Mining]

Guys, this discussion is going nowhere...

There was an earlier post by @Sire (?) summarising the pros/cons and purpose of mines nicely. Check that out.

 

We need a straightforward solution.

1) allow teammembers to disarm friendly mines. Inform the "placer" to avoid team hampering (on both ends)

2) place "suggested" (rather than designated) mining areas/volumes with individual mine counters, e.g. 2/3 or 4/3 mines.

 Think of a simple touch volume that only reacts to type "mine" and has some UI counter when you approach it, or aim at it, or a color scheme, e.g. red 0 mines, yellow "suboptimal" amount of mines (too few/many), green optimal

This should comprehensively educate new players how to mine, and prevent overmining.

Yet, mines can still be freely placed.

Mining volumes would have to be placed by the level designer, and could have a variable "optimal No of mines" that can be set for side entrances such as windows...

 

Bam.

Fixed.

 

[RTS mode?]

On Saturday, November 12, 2016 at 0:51 PM, Testman said:

Looks nice.

Reminds me of Nuclear Dawn.

Still does not look as fun as RenX to me (not enough vehicle combat and setting not sci-fi enough)

Yep, i agree, but its still early work in progress.

Just thought if they can do it (in UE4) - we may as well  one day...

I also believe that RenX would be way more awesome with such features. Just take some of the gameplay ideas in orig. Renegade backed up by the C&C universe, such as tiberium harvesting, and you have a great framework.

I was just browsing the web for some more theoretical input on FPS/RTS hybrid games. Found this thread on reddit - funnily started by the developers of the above game.

https://m.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/comments/4ky11e/thoughts_discussion_on_fpsrts_as_a_genre/

Some main takeaways: balance between commander and FPS players is crucial. For example the comm. gives strategically planned orders, which may not be executed by the fps players - therefore you need AI that the commander can control.

On the other hand if the comm. is too overpowered, the teams success might overrely on the performance of the commander.

Especially in public games you need some "checks and balances" - democracy?!

I still believe the Battlefield 2 commander-squad system was brilliant. Whoever wants to be commander, applies for the position and gets approved or rejected by team votes. If the team feels their commander is rubbish, someone else could apply for commander and the team votes again.

But squad leaders could operate on their own, giving orders/way points to their squads.

In a similar way allowing SL to place structures on their own, would reduce the reliance on a commander building up the base.

 

I am still struggling how to treat AI bots - purchasable vs. Player equivalents...

[[MAP] CNC-Snow]

5 minutes ago, Madkill40 said:

I want to know how to do that funky cool looking heightmap blending material thingymajigger.

Use the height blend inputs for each layer in the landscape material and feed in the blue channel of the normalmap 

[[Level] [Map] CNC-Tunnels]

Wow, still in love with the looks of the map!

Great job @Henk

 

And big shout out to @DarkSn4ke for thoroughly testing all the maps! Cheers man!

[Pick Up Games (PUGs)]

On Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 0:19 PM, KrypTheBear said:

I know that you know all the stuff I'm about to write, it's just important to assign these roles to players. The best way to do so is to go ahead either at the start of the PUG or between rounds to ask your team "Do we have any voluteers for role x? I need an amount of y people for that"

[...]

Seriously, how about Squads within each Team, which might help organising the battle?

I remember how in Project Realtiy (Battlefield 2 mod) squads were created prior to the match, where the names usually indicated the roles like transport, APC, infantry etc.

Looking at the reports of recent PUGs, I feel that RenX gameplay could benefit a lot from a hierarchical structure and organisation...

What do you think?

[Other Nod Vehicles]

I know - that's why I mentioned it

Just thought of integrating it into a map in terms of gameplay, e.g. gunship that is bombarding a GDI Base, or steal and escort a transport aircraft from the Nod airfield...

You name it

 

[Base Building Prefab Kit]

Hi guys,

Sorry for the wait - was busy with life, and I also experienced a lot of minor crashes such that my prefab kit was mostly not saved...

Yet, I finally figured out how to set up the prefabs properly for a modular grid use:

1) if you previously grouped all items which will become a prefab, select all and ungroup them - I think otherwise it might not save the PrePivot properly.

2) ensure the grid is set (512 in my case)

3) right-click on one of the objects, closest to the grid point and select "Pivot > Move here (snapped)", then "Pivot > "Save Pivot to PrePivot"

4) right-click and select "Create Prefab..."

The origin of this prefab, the  [P] sign, will now be the grid point, rather than the pivot of the item that was selected the last. This is important for rotating and aligning different prefabs, especially those, where a centre-object on the grid is missing, such as 2-element fences.

 

When loading prefabs into the level, the origin usually never aligns with the grid - instead one can right-click: "Transform > Snap Origin to Grid".

However, for the WatchTower, this "snapping to grid" caused the searchlight components (staticmesh/mover light, movable spotlight, lightcone) to be torn apart. They were hard attached to each other, but eventually to the searchlight-base, which is the only part that is rotating via Kismet - the rotation works fine otherwise.

 

Once I find a solution/workaround for this issue, I can eventually finalise the kit.

Although it may seem like a small thing, having an easy grid snap alignment was the main intended feature of a BaseBuilding PrefabKit.

cheers

[Communications Center Map not drawing]

On Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 10:35 PM, djlaptop said:

After thinking about it for a bit, I'm pretty sure this started when Windows 10 installed updates on Tuesday. Probably was a video update in there. I can roll back but it'll just force the update through again.

Dont know if this is related (found on 9gag):

[Other Nod Vehicles]

Asset creation is a lot of work, and without designated artworkers, and immediate purpose of those vehicles (especially as we have the TS equivalent s for some) I don't think it is worthwhile...

Rather introduce more buildings!

But using special vehicles/features in special maps would be cool nonetheless, e.g how about using the AC-130 as some kind of Nod gunship?

[cant download the game]

Have you tried searching for UDK.exe in the downloaded/extracted folder?

Alternatively you may want to upload a Screenshot of the downloaded/extracted folders and whats inside...

[I like the new mobile site, it is very good to use!]

Have to second this!

Recently I am only browsing the forums on my phone and I enjoy it!

Hmmm ... should get back to my PC and actually do stuff with/for RenX.

[Prevent snipers from close combat]

Good point with map design.

Although I would love to see slightly less arcade and more tactical gameplay by introducing more bullet spread when firing from the hip, higher accuracy when using sights/scopes, more recoil, and more damage per shot...

... this is probably  never gonna happen, unless there would be a classic and a realistic weapon behaviour mode...