Lavalanche

[alan]

After a long time and setting a Windows 7 on a second partition to play LRR without crashes again, I decided to make one more level. I know I'm not active here anymore, those times are over. But still I want to share the level with you guys as all the information flowing into modding comes from here.

 

NPL scripting is really annoying. I spent nearly 10 hours trying to make a special NPL scripting to work with no success. This almost made the plans of this map fail but luckily I managed to get a workaround, so it is definitely playable how I want it to be.

 

So, here goes

 

Lavalanche

 

 

Back Story:

After the very cold layer in which Frozen Frenzy is located we reach the first real magma chamber. The crystals seem to love the heat for growing. A lot of resources are waiting in the chamber to be harvested. It is a risk to enter an active magma chamber, but we have to take the chance.

 

Map Objective:

Collect 170 energy crystals. Collect 150 energy crystals.

 

Difficulty:

Medium

 

Installation Instructions:

This level is supposed to be located under Frozen Frenzy right between Level 10 (dunno the english name of it) and Water Lot Of Fun. You need to win this level after Frozen Frenzy to unlock Water Lot Of Fun and Level 10. It comes with a custom map icon like all of my maps.

When using DATA method, place the folder "Lavalanche" into Data\Levels\GameLevels\ as indicated by the folder structure in the zip file.

After that, open Lego.cfg located in the Data folder of your LRR installation. Scroll down to the levels section, beginning with Levels { ... .

Copy lines 5-103 of the zip file Lego.cfg into LRR's Lego.cfg between two levels. 

After that, search for "Frenzy" or "Level09 {" in LRR's Lego.cfg to get to Level09's (Frozen Frenzy) section: Change the level links as shown in the Lego.cfg of the zip file.

[If you don't have an english installation, you will need to search for "Level09 {" as the level's name differs.]

 

 

DOWNLOAD

Edited August 17, 2018 by alan
Map improved due to reviews

[Cyrem]

I haven't played the map yet, but I wanted to say thanks for popping in to post this, there hasn't been a new custom map (aside from overhaul packs) posted for a whole 3 years, which is quite suprising in itself.

 

Thanks alan!

[aidenpons]

.Well done @alan on a challenging map!

 

Things done very well:

- Feels like an LRR map exploring caverns as opposed to square boxes

- The "plot" of the map; it's much more than your usual strip-mine. Executed very well!

- Built RR HQ not one not two but three times over, which feels like how LRR should be, a shame the game engine hates this (see below)

- Non-modded level whereby I've needed to use lasers! But it's also not a grindfest through Hard Rock

- Expertly placed Recharge Seam

- No random landslides is always a plus, because it means Recharge Seams will never avalanche

- RRU logo

 

Things done not so well:

- Random crystals on the map Why?

- Plot is perhaps predictable, leading to every cavern being Neuroticism Simulator 101; having Geologists and being able to scan through Solid Rock gives you a good indication of what's going on

- Would be really nice to have enough ore to build a power path in the Safe Spots as my Rock Raiders don't always carry shovels when I put them in Small Diggers

- Priorities aren't arranged nicely to start off with

- Starting map is overly large.... there's little reason to make it so huge, but the ambience of vast caverns is appeciated!

 

 

Unfortunately, I have not managed to complete the map...

 

 

My raiders just refuse to pick up the last couple of crystals I need Totally and utterly refuse. Despite your fantastic level design the game just does not like this type of level and causes .... well, this. I just don't know how I can get around this. I also don't know how you as the map creator can get around this either...

 

I didn't manage to entirely stripmine the whole cavern before disaster struck, and I lost a lot of Small Transport Trucks (not to mention my precious Chrome Crusher! ) in the ensuing panic. There just aren't enough crystals / too high a victory count to account for playing suboptimally.... I was running vanilla though, so you can't blame me for losing a modded 20-crystal Chrome Crusher.

 

It was during this that I discovered that Electric Fences will stay put on lava They just... don't.... go away. Maybe they need to be specified; CROSSLAVA FALSE.

 

 

It is a fantastic level that is well-designed and enough to make me panic - it is a shame that the game engine hates this kind of thing.

 

 

EDIT: If I teleported up absolutely everything on the other side of this little pond, I had enough crystals - and by sheer luck my raiders decided that they would pick those crystals up. Victory! Unfortunately I clicked too fast and missed the lovely mission from Chief saying I'd succeeded, so I fished it up out of ObjectiveText FYI, the crystal-stolen failure will never trigger; the only way to do so is in the NPL, and even then I think that'll come up with the generic failure message.

 

Well done on a fantastic level ruined only by the savagery of the game engine!

[alan]

2 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Would be really nice to have enough ore to build a power path in the Safe Spots as my Rock Raiders don't always carry shovels when I put them in Small Diggers

Spoiler alert on the level:
 

Spoiler

I actually did place some ore on top of the rubble in the first few loose rock walls at the entrance of the recharge seam level. Only the last island doesn't have extra ore because I thought it was close enough to your base to get a shovel if needed.

 

2 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Priorities aren't arranged nicely to start off with

Sorry for that, those are my alwaysdefaultpriorities I use in all missions 

 

2 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Starting map is overly large.... there's little reason to make it so huge, but the ambience of vast caverns is appeciated!

I wanted it to look like a 

Spoiler

not filled yet

magma chamber. And this is about how the level looked like in my head.

 

2 hours ago, aidenpons said:

My raiders just refuse to pick up the last couple of crystals I need Totally and utterly refuse. Despite your fantastic level design the game just does not like this type of level and causes .... well, this. I just don't know how I can get around this. I also don't know how you as the map creator can get around this either...

Spoiler alert:

Spoiler

You either need to remove all other Rock Raiders, so that the only one in the level is the guy on the island, or you need to build a tool store on the last island and deactivate the teleport pad and kill the tool store in the recharge cave.

 

2 hours ago, aidenpons said:

I didn't manage to entirely stripmine the whole cavern before disaster struck, and I lost a lot of Small Transport Trucks (not to mention my precious Chrome Crusher! ) in the ensuing panic. There just aren't enough crystals / too high a victory count to account for playing suboptimally.... I was running vanilla though, so you can't blame me for losing a modded 20-crystal Chrome Crusher.

Spoiler alert:

Spoiler

I have edited the map a few times. There is a total amount of exactly 200 crystals in the level. I wanted the player to collect nearly all of the crystals in the water caverns in the south so I raised the crystal count. I also thought that you might have realized the lava waiting behind the wall that triggers the "flooding". I intentionally made this part of the map the longest way to go so you might go there last and drill everything else before that.

 

 

2 hours ago, aidenpons said:

FYI, the crystal-stolen failure will never trigger; the only way to do so is in the NPL, and even then I think that'll come up with the generic failure message.

Yea, I never heard this kind of failure either. But as the map creator spits this message type out I also wanted to fill it with letters.

 

 

Thank you for playing and already reviewing it, aidenpons 

[ShadowDraikana]

I admit I read the script source first before playing the map.  That in and of itself got me excited since I knew this was going to be a rather heated map (pardon my terrible pun)

 

First thing that jumped out was the map's sheer size.  I was initially expecting lava to come bursting forth from every other wall but it was not to be.  

The crystals scattered all over the place really did not make much sense to me, other than making you suspicious of those squares being triggers for the wall collapses or a monster onslaught.

 

At first, I played things pretty safely and only drilled walls I knew wouldn't potentially open up a lava filled chamber.  I built a Geological Center almost immediately and trained all my Raiders as Geologists for obvious reasons.  Then I started to slowly work my way around, carefully strip-mining things as I went.  

 

By the time I wound up opening the chamber I pretty much had lined up everybody where they needed to be.  Only lost all of my vehicles because of the AI, but I had salvaged enough crystals to finish presumably.

 

Unfortunately, the game decided to abruptly force close when I was drilling some of the final caves; dunno what that was all about.

 

----------------------

Now for the review:

What surprised me the most is that the game did not flip out about the RRU you hid in the map (nice easter egg by the way), nor did it seem to have the typical problems it has on large maps.  

 

I was also surprised that the map was largely compatible with my mod for the most part, so that was a bonus.

 

When in comes to the actual map itself, I think you did a fantastic job.  It felt like a real cave, and actually had a story behind it.

It did feel a bit overly large, but that might be me.  The cavern layout kept me on my toes and wary of opening new chambers, that is for sure.

 

Had a blast playing through the level; definitely worth taking the time to try out (to those who read this).

 

Extra points for making it easy to implement, and for making your own level bmps once again.  

Little details like this are fantastic to see.  Excellent job on a very well designed (and nicely scripted) map @alan!

[alan]

Thank you guys for your reviews, I'm glad you like the map.

I have played my own map again and thanks to your reviews I have reduced the crystal objective from 170 down to 150. The total amount of crystals in the cave is reduced by 5 crystals so you have to collect 15 crystals less after that edit. That should make it easier to finish the level when you (Spoiler alert)

Spoiler

use many crystals for vehicles and HQ in the first cave that will be flooded by lava, making the crystals inaccessible.

 

Download and first post have been updated. 

[aidenpons]

On 8/14/2018 at 2:35 AM, alan said:

NPL scripting is really annoying. I spent nearly 10 hours trying to make a special NPL scripting to work with no success. This almost made the plans of this map fail but luckily I managed to get a workaround, so it is definitely playable how I want it to be.

I'm mildly curious: what was your original plan, and perhaps I can help with some of it?

[alan]

On 5/28/2019 at 7:07 AM, aidenpons said:

I'm mildly curious: what was your original plan, and perhaps I can help with some of it?

Caution, Spoiler Alert on the mission's progress:

Spoiler

I tried to pause the game by turning the game speed to 0%. Then you should click on the message arrow on the message panel (with a text being displayed there) like in the training missions to let the game continue in 100% speed.

 

The pausing of the game speed worked perfectly, but I didn't manage to get it back to 100% and also the message arrow didn't work.

 

[aidenpons]

 

 

11 hours ago, alan said:

Caution, Spoiler Alert on the mission's progress:

  Hide contents

I tried to pause the game by turning the game speed to 0%. Then you should click on the message arrow on the message panel (with a text being displayed there) like in the training missions to let the game continue in 100% speed.

 

The pausing of the game speed worked perfectly, but I didn't manage to get it back to 100% and also the message arrow didn't work.

 

 

Spoilers!

 

Spoiler

 

Christchurch has exactly that functionality. In particular:

SetMessage NUM 0

means "send message 1 and send the arrow." Curiously then the function for "has arrow been clicked yet?" is this:

GetMessageTimer > 0 ? Stop

which then if you put stuff below (eg SetGameSpeed 100 0 , which should set the game speed to 100%) should work just fine.

 

This does need to be lumped inside sections which activate one at a time (as I see your original script does via using GetR3 and WallCollapseOne, WallCollapseTwo, DeleteMsg, and Finish Level, so I think you know what I'm talking about).

 

You do look like you're using a DDI script but I find that it's much more intelligible than you write it from scratch   DDI's programming is absolutely atrocious. SetMessage GetR4 0 ? Well, it looks like GetR4 is 0 literally all the time so I don't know what's going on there You could have just said SetMessage 0 0 (or SetMessage 0 1, if you wanted the arrow).

 

Here's a tidied up script which should accomplish what you want to do. I have not tested this but it's of a format that should work.

Spoiler

 

 

; R3 is conveniently set to 0 at level start which makes our job a lot easier


GetR3 = 0 ? :WaitForBlockDestroy
GetR3 = 1 ? :BlockHasBeenDestroyedSendLavaAndMessage
GetR3 = 2 ? :SendMessageAwayWhenClicked
GetR3 = 3 ? :WaitForLevelFinish



Next:
TRUE ? AddR3 1
TRUE ? SetTimer1 0


Stop



; Special Function Stuff Called By R3


WaitForBlockDestroy:
GetTutorialBlockIsGround 1 = 0 ? Stop
TRUE ? :Next


BlockHasBeenDestroyedSendLavaAndMessage:
TRUE ? SetTutorialBlockIsGround 2
; knock down tuto block 2, as you know
TRUE ? SetMessagePermit 0
; that's allow messages
TRUE ? SetMessage 1 0
; SetMessage MESSAGENUM DOYOUNOTWANTANARROW
; so message 1 and yes I do want an arrow
TRUE ? SetGameSpeed 0 0
; 0% game speed
TRUE ? :Next


SendMessageAwayWhenClicked:
GetMessageTimer > 0 ? Stop
; This is the magical line that says "Wait until arrow has been clicked"
; Possibly involves SetMessageTimerValues but I really wouldn't have a clue
; but it DOES work

; anyway, when the arrow has been clicked
TRUE ? SetMessagePermit 0
; block messages
TRUE ? SetGameSpeed 100 0
; set game speed to 100%

; in your code you had
; GetUnitAtBlock 3 = 0 ? Stop
; not sure what that is doing, or indeed if you need it



WaitForLevelFinish:
GetCrystalsCurrentlyStored < 149 ? Stop
; should be less than 149, not less than 150, else you need 151 crystals to win :p
TRUE ? SetLevelCompleted

 

 

 

 

You may need to edit the structure of your message file: take a look at any vanilla message file and you'll see it has a sound path as well as numbering. You might get away with not doing this though, given it worked when I played the level.

 

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by aidenpons
got some of my numbers the wrong way round

[alan]

Spoiler Alert

Spoiler

I have tried out many many combinations I have found in different NPL scripts of the original levels due to lack of documentation about the functions.

None of them has worked.

 

That is also why I chose to write in the same gibberish as DDI as I had no idea whether it may have had an impact or not.

 

 

 

11 hours ago, aidenpons said:

TRUE ? SetMessagePermit 0

; that's allow messages

TRUE ? SetMessage 1 0

; SetMessage MESSAGENUM DOYOUNOTWANTANARROW

;so message 1 and yes I do want an arrow

TRUE ? SetGameSpeed 0 0

; 0% game speed

TRUE ? :Next

 

SendMessageAwayWhenClicked:

GetMessageTimer > 0 ? Stop

I have had something like that coded but it didnt work. It set the speed to 0 but the arrow was ineffective all the time. No idea.

 

 

11 hours ago, aidenpons said:

; in your code you had

; GetUnitAtBlock 3 = 0 ? Stop

; not sure what that is doing, or indeed if you need it

That's how I killed the message block as I didn't manage it in another way. I have put a tutorial block in a spot where you absolutely had to pass when you wanted to get into the safe area. As soon as you cross that tutorial block with any unit, the message is deleted. It is still surprising as the condition is asked at the end of that block but it does work anyway... 

When I think about it (think, not test), it might also disappear not because of the condition but because I set a message '2' that doesn't exist, so it is blank.

 

 

11 hours ago, aidenpons said:

GetCrystalsCurrentlyStored < 149 ? Stop

; should be less than 149, not less than 150, else you need 151 crystals to win

I disagree with that based on this logic:

Given you have 148 crystals and the script gets to this line -> 148 < 149 ---> TRUE ---> Stop

Given you have 149 crystals and the script gets to this line -> 149 < 149 ---> FALSE ---> next line with level finish (1 crystal too early)

Given you have 150 crystals and the script gets to this line -> 150 < 149 ---> FALSE ---> next line with level finish

 

[baraklava]

So when I reached the first "event", my game kind of froze? I can still interact with everything but the game ticks for progressing Raiders, Vehicles, Lava etc just stopped with cave-ins hanging in midair. Is this supposed to happen and can I bypass it somehow?

 

Edit: Nevermind, the event set the speed to zero! Didn't know that was possible, but nice scripting

[aidenpons]

On 6/3/2019 at 5:35 AM, alan said:

Spoiler Alert

  Reveal hidden contents

I have tried out many many combinations I have found in different NPL scripts of the original levels due to lack of documentation about the functions.

None of them has worked.

 

That is also why I chose to write in the same gibberish as DDI as I had no idea whether it may have had an impact or not.

 

 

 

I have had something like that coded but it didnt work. It set the speed to 0 but the arrow was ineffective all the time. No idea.

 

 

That's how I killed the message block as I didn't manage it in another way. I have put a tutorial block in a spot where you absolutely had to pass when you wanted to get into the safe area. As soon as you cross that tutorial block with any unit, the message is deleted. It is still surprising as the condition is asked at the end of that block but it does work anyway... 

When I think about it (think, not test), it might also disappear not because of the condition but because I set a message '2' that doesn't exist, so it is blank.

 

 

I disagree with that based on this logic:

Given you have 148 crystals and the script gets to this line -> 148 < 149 ---> TRUE ---> Stop

Given you have 149 crystals and the script gets to this line -> 149 < 149 ---> FALSE ---> next line with level finish (1 crystal too early)

Given you have 150 crystals and the script gets to this line -> 150 < 149 ---> FALSE ---> next line with level finish

 

Spoiler

Hmm. I think this might be because you didn't actually specify a sound file for the message, thus GetMessageTimer would always do something silly. Maybe if you direct it to some random sound file (I usually like to just drag the message file and file location from a tutorial and plonk it in the directory, then change the text.

 

Dunno. I got this to work fine, but it's LRR, it never properly behaves itself The way it's set up as it is now is quite fine.

 

Also yes, good call on the crystal count.