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Cave Raiders (Rebuild of Rock Raiders)


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New stuff so consistent I'm double posting.

newsupdate.png

So whats been happening as of late, is that I've actually got addicted to working on this project so much that it's affected my school studies. That's ok because my school studies are game dev related anyway and its early days yet... (hoping that doesn't back fire too hard)

 

*Explained further down

What I've done:

  • Cave Raiders - Renamed the game from what ever the confusing thing I was calling it before.
  • Cave Mining - Cave walls update the exact way you expect it to from RR while you mine.
  • Tool Store Interface - Players can walk up to it and use the 'use' button to access the menu where they can pick and choose items to hold in their inventory.
  • Teleport Pad - Players can purchase vehicles from an interface and it detracts it from the Global resources*
  • Building Structures - Players can open a build interface and select which building that would like to build and place it in real time*
  • Player Inventory - Players can choose which tools they want to take out with them and swap them back at the Tool Store. Crystals and Ores are held in separate slots from your tools allowing you to continue using tools.*
  • Player XP - XP will be used to purchase upgrades to your character such as more Inventory space, this is the same idea as the "Upgrade Rock Raider" from RR.

What I've got to do:

  • Power Paths - I can do a very basic version for now for functionality but I want to recreate the tiles that update and link up.
  • "Power" - Power so players can't access if power is offline, This will take some redesign from RR, I may only include linking buildings to the power station and power is limitless.
  • Rock Monsters - Big bad rock dudes with attitude. I have a rough idea how I will accomplish this, I haven't done enough AI yet.
  • Slugs - I always forget these guys are even a thing, I will consider how to implement them.
  • Mission Objectives - Collect 5 Crystals, win. Simple objectives such as collection shouldn't be a problem, more complicated solutions may prove difficult.
  • Update Visuals - Still plenty of buildings and vehicles that haven't been updated yet, I haven't yet modeled several vehicles and structures as well.
  • Implement more Vehicles - Loader Dozer doesn't know how to shovel, several vehicles will need some serious balancing to successfully integrate to the gameplay.

 

What I'm not including

  • A landslide - has not occurred, not only because of the pure evil that is landslides(Landslide.wav), when you're playing in First Person and you suddenly die from something you had no way of preparing for, really sucks and adds nothing to gameplay.
  • Cave Height - It over complicates and increases the workload. Adds nothing to gameplay.
  • New Textures - As you have or haven't seen in my screenshots, I'm reusing RR textures. This is for 2 reasons, 1. I want to retain the RR feel as much as possible and retexturing all the cave pieces and icons will be very time consuming, not saying I'm not, just not now. 2. As far as Legal goes, RR hasn't been in the limelight for a very long time and I don't think Lego really cares about a small project.**

 

What I'm aiming for:

  • More Combat - While the original RR game isn't about 'combat', I want to expand upon combat for a more interesting dynamic for the players to consider while mining. e.g. Rock Monsters are like mini boss battles than just 'stealin yo crystals'.
  • Single Player - I realized in the past couple of weeks that people more often than not will be playing alone in this game, realistically the audience for it isn't very big for large scale servers.*
  • Custom Map Support - At a surface level, I've already got this; Its just not user friendly. I believe custom content for this game will keep its longevity going and people entertained.*
  • RTS Mode - Now, this is something I'd do absolutely last. I would like to have a RTS mode that more or less recreates the entirety of RR but with actual players and bots alike. HOWEVER, this is a huge undertaking and I'll likely not get anywhere near doing it for a very long time.

So that's what I've done as of late, I've probably missed a bunch of things I wanted to get into some specifics.

 

* -

Cave Raiders is a game based around cooperative play and it recreates certain aspects from RR. With that said there needs to be a lot of changes for this game to work as a First Person.

Global Resources - Like RR, players collect and deposit resources, these resources are then added globally for everyone to use. In the future I likely will put feature in to only allow the hosts or certain players to use said resources but for now anyone can use them. This brings me to...

 

Players building structures. So again, any players can use the global resources to construct structures such as the Power Station or power paths. I'm interested to see how this pans out in multiplayer.

 

Big feature of Cave Raiders is the player progression (Limited to per session), When the player starts off you can only hold 2 tools at one time, by returning resources back to the Tool Store you gain XP which then can be spent on more inventory slots or vehicle training. I'm also considering a player upgrade that increases your characters speed. In RR the raiders would carry individual crystal or ore back and couldn't do anything else while doing this. In Cave Raiders picking up a resource now gets placed into an inventory slot specific to that resource, so you can carry 1 crystal and 1 ore piece and still mine/shovel/shot. This change is necessary as early on I noticed how repetitive and annoying carrying resources was, mainly due to the fact you have to do it all yourself one by one.

 

Multiplayer, the biggest issue with this area was realizing that the user base would be low, likely an average at best of 1 player per day online. Hopefully organized Coop groups will emerge. With this in mind I decided to label missions/levels with ideal players. e.g. Lost Raider (4). On top of this I also plan to focus on low player levels than anything large scale. 1-4 Players is my current target, this doesn't necessarily mean you can play with more people on them or even less, just means for the game to flow at a nicer rate you'd choose your group size level.

 

Custom Level Support, biggest issue with this at the moment is the lack of a map editor, I've developed a simplistic solution for the cave layout which involves:

55555

52gg5

52gg5

55555

5 = Solid wall, 2 = loose rock, g = ground. Simple yeah!

Biggest problem is this doesn't include Buildings or resource allocation (aka this wall piece has 2 additional crystals in it), with that said I haven't personally done and UI coding before, I'm still early days in C++. If you're interested in helping me create this system get in contact with me. The output code needed is several txt files with simple syntax, can show examples etc.

 

That aside, Custom levels will be a thing. My current systems are very straight forward and with a proper Map Editor creating a new level should be a pinch.

Here's a list of a few features that will exist or already do through other means.

  • Cave Tile Placement
  • Pre-built structures placement
  • Cave tile resource allocation
  • Level lighting and fog control
  • Monster Placement
  • Level Objectives
  • Choosing between the Rock, Ice and Lava themes.

 

** -

Additional help would be great, as stated before I'm reusing the RR textures and icons. If you have any texturing experience (Photoshop or others) and wouldn't mind redoing some artwork for me that would be a great help. Recreation of the Cave textures (Rock, Ice and Lava) and icons in a nice high resolution would do wonders. As for 3D stuff I haven't quite got a need but doesn't hurt to see what you've got.

Send me a message over RRU if you're interested.

 

So any ideas or suggestions post them!
Screenshot time!

 

Moo6edO.jpg
Ym0Zh3L.jpgAvdhq7v.jpg

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This is looking so brilliant! The screenshots are beautiful and you've come so far with it. I can only think of one criticism... The ore looks a little too orange. :P

 

I might be able to help with making a map editor. A while back I start developing one for another LRR project on this forum, which you can view here (it has limited functionality but the basic idea is there). If they're okay with it, I could adapt it for this project too, or just make a new one from scratch. Although given that the other project hasn't had any progress in a while, and the tool was a bit of a headache to make, I'd probably want to wait until Cave Raiders has progressed significantly before doing that. ;)

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This is looking so brilliant! The screenshots are beautiful and you've come so far with it. I can only think of one criticism... The ore looks a little too orange. :P

 

I might be able to help with making a map editor. A while back I start developing one for another LRR project on this forum, which you can view here (it has limited functionality but the basic idea is there). If they're okay with it, I could adapt it for this project too, or just make a new one from scratch. Although given that the other project hasn't had any progress in a while, and the tool was a bit of a headache to make, I'd probably want to wait until Cave Raiders has progressed significantly before doing that. ;)

An editor like that would be perfect, it would need a layer type function for buildings/spawns etc but would fit the job nicely.

 

Here's the first screenshot of the Player HUD, I'm quite happy with it at the moment, I may make some small changes depending on what I need to add but overall I think it works.

 

amBQTvO.jpg

 

The stars upgrade image represents XP, XP is gained through dropping off resources. The Cyan crystal and ore icons on the top right represent if you're carrying one of each or not. The ore and crystal underneath next to the XP counter is the Global resources. The health cross empties when you take damage. Chat on top left, I will likely remove the current notifications displayed, also rejigger the colours. And those with a keen eye will noticed the new building on the right, it is off a Rock Raiders set which I've purposed for being the interface for constructing buildings.

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This has possibly got to be the most insignificant question on this topic, but "What format are the models in this game? (e.g. .3ds, .obj, .ply, etc)".

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This has possibly got to be the most insignificant question on this topic, but "What format are the models in this game? (e.g. .3ds, .obj, .ply, etc)".

Collada or DTS, aka .dae .dts. DAE gets converted into DTS. Why ask?

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I had an idea for a possible concept, but I needed the models to show you.

 

I checked and the 3D application I use does support the Import of  .dae models.

After this is posted I'll send a PM to you (Packer) asking about the models for the concept/I'll tell you the concept itself.

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  • 2 weeks later...

newsupdate.png

Another day, another update. I can see a release in the near future, I've currently had a check list that I've been slowly going through and pushing other tasks to a future release as they will require a somewhat hefty amount of coding to do. I mostly want people to find bugs and any issue I may miss with this release, with that said it will be the most feature complete release yet however not a complete game.

 

When will it be released? Well as usual I can't throw out an exact date but I will say within a month assuming nothing takes up all my time.

 

What has been added since last news update:

  • XP and Upgrades - You can now upgrade 3 abilities at the Support Station. Vehicle Training /  Increase Inventory Space / Speed Upgrade and a heal button (Aka Sandwich)
  • Themes - Levels can now be set to Ice or Rock! Will add lava later, this feature is also mod compatible for custom themes without overwriting the originals (More on modding later)
  • Paying for Buildings and Vehicles - Vehicles use the global resources to be purchased at the desired building and being constructed buildings require players to drop off individual resources.
  • Objectives - Collect X Ore/Crystals and you get the win screen!
  • Win and Loose Screens - When the mission ends you get a win or loose screen, bit buggy at the moment but it will in the future displayed individual player stats and mission stats.
  • Multiplayer fixes - Several issues, including UI not updating on clients. (Side note I do mutliplayer testing myself so its difficult to find all the bugs, hence the near release).

 

 

I've created/recreated the Cave Raiders logo. Quite happy with the result, while not completely 1:1 with the RR logo it has its own personality.

q07RROM.png

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newsupdate.png

 

Progress is good, I've got 2 more school days and then I'm off for less than 2 weeks. If all goes well I'll have something released about mid way through my holiday.

 

Against my better judgement I've updated the engine I'm using to the latest development build which has fixed several issues but caused some really bizarre bugs. So I've been back pedaling a bit and fixing problems.

 

In terms of the release, I've said before that the game will no doubt be buggy so I'd like to go into brief details of what is possible and not. The game runs smoothly for the most part, the occasional delayed spawning of the cave pieces but only after loading them in for the first time. Ground vehicles are working as intended in terms of driveability and collision, originally they were falling out of the caves (They don't have a function other than transport for now). Current tools such as the jack hammer and shovel are in and working, while the rest are shown in the menu they cannot be equipped. Buildings may have power in the first release, entirely depends if I can get the path system to work as intended. You can also place buildings but the visual indicators aren't great as the only square that gets checked is the one you're on.

 

Now into the gritty stuff, Multiplayer is in but only sorta works. Mostly down to sending the clients relevant information and adding additional updates to the ones I have done. There is a inventory bug at this current moment where it will just stop working for no known reason, I'm trying to track this down before release. So if you want to play with a friend or group, just be aware that they won't be able to operate menus or see stats on things... some times (Alpha's in a nutshell). I'll try to get some sort of bug report page working, I really need people's input for this game to be bug free as possible.

 

So one of the key structures to Cave Raiders is the possible map sizes, I've capped it off at 48x48, in the image below it shows the scale of how big it can be. If you look closely at the bottom left you can see an orange spec in the rubble which is a player. With slight adjustments the scale can be made bigger however, 48x48 was chosen as it affects loading and frame rate on the player. Also (from memory) that was the limit in RR, if it was any bigger the travel time is immense not to mention mining times to even make it from one side to the other. This map size would only be used on an extreme map or some kind of sandbox level to begin with.

 

 

The max map size (48 x 48):

ZGhTaxX.jpg

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That's incredible news, am I right in saying that you're the closest anyone has come to remaking LEGO Rock Raiders?

 

Great job, I wish you the best of luck in finishing this and ironing out the bugs.

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That's incredible news, am I right in saying that you're the closest anyone has come to remaking LEGO Rock Raiders?

 

I think this is in a close tie with RU (tmo/Sharky). Can't speak on ORR-D (I'd imagine that one is further along than ORR-C, but then again only the devs really know).

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Small Update:

So I've been working on the power system for about 2 days and kind of got it working. I'll give it another day but if I can't get it 100% I'll be releasing it as is as it currently doesn't do anything anyway. While the original RR required players to have a Power Path to place a building next to, I've opt to allow buildings and paths to be placed at any location. This was not only easier to code but just a quality of life change to the original (Side note, "Building Pads" act the same as a power path, so the pass power through and buildings can touch directly).
 

Few things about this image below. It shows off Power Paths lighting up! Which was quite satisfying to see after 2 days of work. You'll also notice the building Power Paths really pop out, I tested out a way to enhance the visuals on it but it requires a bit of texture manipulation so I may skip on applying it on the other tiles for now. Also Power Paths themselves, I've had them working for a short while now, they tile correctly when next to other paths. Last but not least, Ice theme being shown off here, I briefly mentioned it in a earlier post. Its a simple line that can be altered in the mission file to what ever themes that are setup (Currently "Base" aka Rock and "Ice).

 

76apJMO.jpg

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Fluffy Cupcake

It looks sooooo pretty. :3

While I have read you aren't planning on doing the glow on the power paths right away, I do hope you do it sooner than later.

 

(Currently "Base" aka Rock and "Ice).

Why not just make it go by "rock"?

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(Currently "Base" aka Rock and "Ice).

Why not just make it go by "rock"?

Just the way the engine works really, "Base" acts more like a Default to stop people breaking it.

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If this comes along well enough, I feel like I'd be obligated to remake my mod for this, to take advantage of the much better visuals.   :P  One thing I'd look at is shading effects on the walls and terrain, like glowing lava and bumpmapping, environment mapping, etc, for the rock and the ice.  ^_^

 

EDIT: nevermind, it's more of a first-person experience than what I was going for.

 

Keep up the good work!

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IWA13zg.png

Alpha 0.3

Features:

Updated engine, build-able structures, new tools, dynamic cave system, player progression, objectives, new levels and more.

Download:

Cave Raiders v0.3 (Official)

Cave Raiders v0.3 (Mediafire)

Controls:

WASD - movement

Run into Vehicle - Enter Vehicle

Ctrl+f - Exit Vehicle

1 - Slot 1

2 - Slot 2

3 - Slot 3

4 - Slot 4

5 - Unmount Tool/Weapon

F - Interact with Buildings

Left Click - Use Tool / Place Building

R - Rotate Building

B - Build Menu

Tab - Change camera view

V - Rotate camera in third person view

Z - Zoom!

 

Version Notes:

This is a complete rebuild from v0.2, everything was redone or changed so much its not the same. With that said there are many bugs in v0.3, if you encounter a bug please post in this thread how you achieved the bug and how I can recreate it again. If bugs go unreported they may never get fixed. Multiplayer works, but only just. Many things do not update on clients on the server, such as the global resources.

 

Troubleshooting:

If you're getting DLL errors when trying to launch the game, go to your Cave Raiders folder and open the installs folder, run dxwebsetup.exe and install it. This will install the Direct X files used to run Cave Raiders that were missing on your system.

If you're not hearing anything during gameplay, press Ctrl+O and go to the audio tab, try changing the Audio device to another on the list. If you problem persists got the installs folder within the Cave Raiders folder, run and install oalinst.exe (OpenAL Audio Driver), this will give you an additional option in your audio devices after you've install it, select it and it should give you sound. If the problem continues please post in this thread.

 

Hosting:

If you're hosting you may need to port forward if no one can find your server.

28000 to 28008  TCP and UDP  (The number of players you're letting into your server, 8 by default)

Or if you know the host get their IP and press ~ in the main menu and type:

connect("123.456.789:28000", "password", "name");

Replace name with your name, make password "" if there is no password and change the numbers to the hosts IP.

 

Report Bugs!:

As said before, if you encounter a bug, please report it and how I can replicate the bug!

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Okay, so there is a "bug" in the game (or, maybe, thats the way it was meant to be coded) and its that Energy Crystals are dug up from Rubble and don't appear when the Wall goes.

 

...

 

If that doesn't count as a bug then heres a proper(?) one; When you type in a Player name in order to join a server you can't use Caps Lock to make capital letters, instead you have to use Left Shift and then press the letter you want to become Capital.

 

There is also a bug where (if I understand this correctly) sometimes if a player jumps and runs towards Ore or possibly also an Energy Crystal they'll pick up a ghost Ore or Energy Crystal.

 

 

I'd like to make a function suggestion; How about when the player is holding an Energy Crystal and Ore and they take it back to the Tool Store how about instead of them pressing 'F' to open the Building's Window and then clicking on a button to drop the resources, how about instead when a player comes around with Ore and Energy Crystals so when they press 'F' on the Tool Store then the building automatically takes the Ore and ECs off the player?

 

I do wish to ask one or two questions;

First off, do you plan to add a Crosshair? It makes it hard to target Ore and Energy Crystals you need to pickup before the little Minifig hand appears on-screen.

 

Second, has there ever been an official RRU Cave Raiders Server? There really ought to be.

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I would install it, if only whatever the hell keeps changing the download window to a survey and rip-off get iPhone6 for one euro window would stop! > :(

Gross, I've added an "Official" link that's off of my own website.

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Fluffy Cupcake
First off, do you plan to add a Crosshair?

What, do you use crosshairs back at home planet too? Get serious raider, we have a lot of work to do. What do you think this is, a game!?.... oh wait.


 

May I suggest you change the default name "Player" to "Raider"?

 

Also, you

forgot to mention the z key in the control

 


Any clearer instructions on how to take down a wall? I walked up to a lose/dirt wall with a drill equipped [in slot 1], and I couldn't figure out how to drill the blimey wall down. I tied that 1 button and left click as well, but it didn't turn out so well, nothing seem to happen. I thought there was a problem with my drill so I tossed it away, almost hitting Joe in the face over there. The chief wasn't impressed, and called me back to go read the instructions again, but I honestly don't think it did much use.
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Gah, neither Chrome or Internet Explorer will let me download the ZIP files. I get "network errors" but I'm pretty sure it's just not trusting the file for some reason.

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1. Okay, so there is a "bug" in the game (or, maybe, thats the way it was meant to be coded) and its that Energy Crystals are dug up from Rubble and don't appear when the Wall goes.

 

...

 

2. If that doesn't count as a bug then heres a proper(?) one; When you type in a Player name in order to join a server you can't use Caps Lock to make capital letters, instead you have to use Left Shift and then press the letter you want to become Capital.

 

3. There is also a bug where (if I understand this correctly) sometimes if a player jumps and runs towards Ore or possibly also an Energy Crystal they'll pick up a ghost Ore or Energy Crystal.

 

 

4. I'd like to make a function suggestion; How about when the player is holding an Energy Crystal and Ore and they take it back to the Tool Store how about instead of them pressing 'F' to open the Building's Window and then clicking on a button to drop the resources, how about instead when a player comes around with Ore and Energy Crystals so when they press 'F' on the Tool Store then the building automatically takes the Ore and ECs off the player?

 

5. I do wish to ask one or two questions;

First off, do you plan to add a Crosshair? It makes it hard to target Ore and Energy Crystals you need to pickup before the little Minifig hand appears on-screen.

 

Second, has there ever been an official RRU Cave Raiders Server? There really ought to be.

1.Energy Crystals and Bonus Ore are dug up after the 3rd time shoveling the rubble, this is an intended feature that's different from the original. I may change this in the future.

2. My Caps lock key is disabled on my computer so I have no way of testing this but I think this was intentional design by the people who coded the engine, I have no use for capslock and if you're using it what are you doing in pascal.

3. I can't replicate this? Are you sure there isn't just ore inside of ore that you've picked up and thought it was a "Ghost" version? The spawning is meant to be random but I've noticed them going inside each other on occasion.

4. I noticed early on when retrieving resources was implemented that it wasn't a very efficient system for fast drop off. What I can say about it now is the mouse position is remembered when you open the menu again (and you haven't opened any others). But I'll put an auto drop off when the menu is opened in there next update.

5a. Crosshairs are actually implemented, I turned them off to stop the console from spamming as it was integrated with another system that I had removed, I've fixed that now. So you'll be seeing that next update.

5b. There is not an official server, I don't have the money or resources to host said server. As much as I would like too.

 

 

1. May I suggest you change the default name "Player" to "Raider"?

 

2. Also, you

forgot to mention the z key in the control

 


3. Any clearer instructions on how to take down a wall? I walked up to a lose/dirt wall with a drill equipped [in slot 1], and I couldn't figure out how to drill the blimey wall down. I tied that 1 button and left click as well, but it didn't turn out so well, nothing seem to happen. I thought there was a problem with my drill so I tossed it away, almost hitting Joe in the face over there. The chief wasn't impressed, and called me back to go read the instructions again, but I honestly don't think it did much use.

 

1. That's a neat idea, I'll do that.

2. Yeah... I missed a few keybinds, they really don't serve much of a purpose.

3. There is not a lot of visual feedback going on, I did manage to get a basic cranky sound when you try to mine something outside your tools tier but that's about it. In short, you use your jack hammer and hold left click really close to the wall you want to mine until it disappears.

 

 

Gah, neither Chrome or Internet Explorer will let me download the ZIP files. I get "network errors" but I'm pretty sure it's just not trusting the file for some reason.

I'm not entirely sure on this, sounds like something on your end. There isn't anything wrong with the ZIP or the links as far as I'm aware.

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Another bug; When you hop onto a Hover Scout (or possibly any small vehicle available currently) you can't get off. This bug becomes worse because when you attempt to bring up the Menu in order to read the controls tab in options because the Menu is replaced with a "Do you wish to leave the server?" message.

And besides, theres no key to disembark the vehicle, I tried all the keys on my keyboard and, after forcibly being made to quit my server, checked the controls tab of the options where there is no evidence the key exists.

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Another bug; When you hop onto a Hover Scout (or possibly any small vehicle available currently) you can't get off. This bug becomes worse because when you attempt to bring up the Menu in order to read the controls tab in options because the Menu is replaced with a "Do you wish to leave the server?" message.

And besides, theres no key to disembark the vehicle, I tried all the keys on my keyboard and, after forcibly being made to quit my server, checked the controls tab of the options where there is no evidence the key exists.

Ctrl+F, I did put it in the download page but I hadn't added it to the options menu yet.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey Guys, no game update unfortunately but a bit of a news update in general.

So in terms of game development, next to nothing since release, mainly to do with work/Education time consumption. After I had released I was overflowed with school work then I acutally had work for a month, now I'm playing a bit of catchup in class. After Lego Worlds came out I actually kind of lost interest in working on this project, while its not Rock Raiders it does feel like once modding gets added to it or even just more finished, people will want to play that over a buggy small project like Cave Raiders. This comes from me looking at the currently downloads of Cave Raiders mostly, seeing as they're quite low and because of the niche that is this site.

So if you guys care for the direction and progression of this project, I want to know what you guys want to see in it before I completely leave for 4 years again; randomly. Don't hold back on telling me any aspect as your say will have merit on what I do next on Cave Raiders.

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