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Time Raiders


Cirevam
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Some animations will be different too, like an unused punching animation.

like in the intro video of Time Raiders? :D

 

 

Layers don't do anything because the recharge is for all fences since they all go off at once.

I think he wants to say that when you have several more layers the fences can recharge and still the RM haven't reached the base yet. So in the recharging time they do not manage to reach the HQ

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Layers or no layers, some monsters have CanBeHitByFence        FALSE

 

Some monsters are also extremely fast. Good luck.

Oh....

My raiders are now :E

This actually might be the first time ever that I've failed a mission, modded or unmodded.

Feel free to delay the moster pack....

 

Also, with the speed, if you can't hit them with fences, and your raiders are all going to miss, and your command ship is currently picking up spheres .... :rf:  :P

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  • 4 weeks later...

Oh look, new stuff.

 

First, the Landing Pad has finally been modeled. The animations are almost done too, though I hit a snag with transparency effects. LRR has a problem with dissolve effects (transparency changing over time) whenever I export new animations, but it's perfectly okay if they were there in the original files.

 

gallery_27_60_133691.png

 

 

I've also closed the Digtank for remodeling. The rough layout is there and the details will be filled in. You can help us out, though. Go ahead; click on the spoiler button:

 

gallery_27_60_8956.png

 

Please note that it will be vertically stretched later on in order to meet LEGO dimension specifications.

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By "you can help us out", are you asking for comments?

 

If so, it looks pretty good, but the pink part mystifies me.

 

I think the cockpit section would look good if raised so that the bottom of the green windscreen is taller than the drill. That type of cockpit always comes with a weird hinge thing attached - the hinge itself is unnecessary as you wouldn't see it, but a 1x4 brick in its place would make sense.

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Yes, comments and feedback are encouraged.

 

I'll see how it looks with the windshield raised up. I might like it better. I'll also have to whip together a RL prototype to see how tall it needs to be for a minifig to fit in. I have a seat that lets someone lean back a bit, but not like the ultra recliner that the previous model has.

 

And so you know, the pink parts are actually glowing red lights. Glow is stored as a separate channel (in this case, white), so Milkshape blends the red with white and it looks pink. The same thing happened to the crystal, except that one is green with white.

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Oh look, new stuff.

 

First, the Landing Pad has finally been modeled. The animations are almost done too, though I hit a snag with transparency effects. LRR has a problem with dissolve effects (transparency changing over time) whenever I export new animations, but it's perfectly okay if they were there in the original files.

 

-snip-

I see you have included the generator of my Large Teleport Pad model, right?

The teleportation props at the sides really look cool and powerful! I like it!

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A small comment on the Teleport Thingy:

Without any lights on the side thingies it looks like a pair of jaws. Especially with those blue little eyes studs.

If you had occasional lights going from one tube to the tube directly below it (if you know what I mean) that might look better. But I suppose you're saving that for the teleportation effect?

 

And yes, the Digtank looks good. It's just that on side view, the pipe doesn't quite reach the crystal.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you had occasional lights going from one tube to the tube directly below it (if you know what I mean) that might look better. But I suppose you're saving that for the teleportation effect?

 

Yes, it will have a sort of electricity effect running through the tubes when a vehicle is being teleported in.

 

Now check this out:

 

gallery_27_60_32483.png

 

The animations should not too long to complete especially since I've done most of them before. It will take just a bit of working to fit the new model.

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Considering that I don't know what you mean by "lights on the side thingies," I'm going to have to say no, for now. The blue studs have light effects that pulse a little bit so I don't know what else you want added. But it gives me an idea to tie the teleporters' design into the Geloden's "based off of mythological shark deity" thing. That won't happen for a long time or at all as I'm still redesigning parts of that ship to look more shark-like.

 

Without any lights on the side thingies it looks like a pair of jaws.

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I'm not entirely sure what I meant either by that... what I think it was would be the fact that the stuff on the outside (not the center blocks), they look individually by a pair of jaws.... oh well, just ignore my insanity. :P

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  • 8 months later...

I work on it when I'm bored. And there's no "you guys," it's just me since everyone else who started to help has either left RRU or fallen off the map altogether. I'd be more motivated if it were a team effort.

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it's just me since everyone else who started to help has either left RRU or fallen off the map altogether. I'd be more motivated if it were a team effort.

[dumbquestion]

Is there much I can do to help? I don't have Lightwave, and I can't draw (:P), but is there much else I could do?

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it's just me since everyone else who started to help has either left RRU or fallen off the map altogether. I'd be more motivated if it were a team effort.

[dumbquestion]

Is there much I can do to help? I don't have Lightwave, and I can't draw ( :P), but is there much else I could do?

No.
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  • 3 years later...

Some of you may have noticed a few screenshots of this mod I've posted on Discord recently, along with some short videos, and I'd like to say that my 2018 New Year's resolution is to get back into modding and make some real progress. I have been finalizing some things that were close to completion and putting the old files into "removed" folders that I will end up deleting for official releases. It makes everything cleaner and it's a good way to visualize progress. Here are some random screenshots from the latest build.

 

Spoiler

large.BEAMS.png.a507060ecae0e6d19d5f7bf9

large.IcePunk.png.56440055fc05f27effd879

large.LaserBoating.png.677f921606a90b9a8

large.SpookyPit.png.53e7138042daaa34d98f

 

ORANGE
TRANSPARENT
glow?

 

large.OrangeTransparentGlow.png.85050345

 

I will update the first post with a list of things that are considered "complete," which may not count final polish like sound effects.

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Glad to see all your recent progress on this, thought it was good as dead till some months ago before you started uploading pics.

 

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  • 2 months later...

I have completed the new briefing animation. In doing so, I found out that there's a memory limit for animated textures. It seems to be around 512 KB or 1 MB, but I didn't look into it further. The texture set in this animation is 28 128x128 8-bit bitmap images totaling 477 KB. The previous 256x256 versions took up 1.90 MB and only played half the images unless I replaced some of them with smaller versions. This doesn't explain how I got an 8 MB monstrosity on another animation, but I won't complain about that one.

 

large.NewBriefingSmaller.gif.16de5810ccc

 

The face looks less green in-game. I might release this for the public soon if any of you want to mess with it, but note that the default briefing images cover it. You will have to either change the image or move the animation (I can do that for you).

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large.TRSFS.png.1db5cb1e2f906501095a8df8

Download link has been added to the first post.


RRU has been quiet lately. I figured I should share what I've done with Time Raiders so far since it's been many years since the last official partial release. This is my current TR build in progress, as-is, no refunds. I took the last week to make it "presentable" for all of you. Some things are very obviously not finished, but much of the game's elements are playable as intended.

The most complete things are raiders and vehicles. There are five raider classes that have slightly different stats. Specialized raiders cannot be teleported in missions, but you might start with them in some levels. Time Raider: normal. Scout: slightly smaller and faster that is unhindered by rubble and holds fewer tools. Technician: larger radar range, otherwise normal. Bruiser: larger and slower than the others but fires lasers extremely quickly (animations very incomplete). Mech Elite: all around better stats and can walk through water. You can preview all of them in the debug area of "The First Minute" or at the start of "The Walk of Life".

Vehicle designs are almost all done. Some, like the Digtank, have finished designs but don't have updated animations yet. Others, like the Transport Buggy and Wave Master, are 100% complete. Most will at least have their basic functionality, whether that's carrying materials (Transport Buggy, Armored Transport Truck, Wave Rebel), drilling (Digtank, Wave Master, Unraveler), or zapping monsters (Assault Cruiser, Howitzer). Upgrades are available for some vehicles, but I'm still working out which ones will get which upgrades. The Assault Cruiser and Transport Buggy have one upgrade each if you want to try them.

There are two levels that are considered complete for the kind of gameplay I want. Try "The First Minute" and "Crossing the Rift." The former is basically Driller Night. The latter is a basic crystal collection mission that requires you to build a Docks. You can test the Wave Master's drilling ability here. There are some walls on the coast that can be mined with it. Please note that clearing rubble does not generate ore here and raiders cannot clear rubble without Bulldozers. This is intended for the rest of the game and I want to hear your feedback on this. You can also try "Familiar Faces," but I think it's a bit too easy. Getting 100% is more difficult.

There is a debug room to the west of the starting area in The First Minute that can be accessed by using debug key Num+. to break the walls. That room contains nearly every vehicle and building in the game along with each terrain type. There is a monster emerge and trigger to the south of the buildings and inactive monsters in a cavern to the southeast. You can find the Rockwhale there.


A note on Command Ships

The Tool Store for this game is a miniaturized spaceship that can move around. Some missions allow it to be mobile while others do not. You can tell if it's mobile for a mission if it moves off of its starting pad on its own. You may also run into other friendly command ships while playing. Jacred, one of the commanders stationed on the LDS Geloden, can be found and will help you by picking up materials and acting as a mobile teleport pad. These ships are the only vehicles that can move across lava. Also be careful when constructing buildings if your Command Ship is over water or lava. It will dump the barriers and materials into the liquid and render them unusable. You instantly fail any mission if the Command Ship is destroyed or teleported out.

Command ships are made mobile by making the building drive either the Hoverboard (for building ToolStation) or JacredBase (for building Geo-Dome) in a level's OL file.


A note on spawning vehicles

All vehicles have an OxygenRate parameter now. This means you need to build more Support Stations in order to teleport them in, and having too many vehicles will prevent you from bringing in more raiders. The game will not tell you if you do not have enough oxygen to spawn a vehicle. It will simply not spawn until you build more Support Stations. Those buildings are much cheaper now in order to balance things out, and they may be resized so you can fit more of them in the caverns. Oxygen itself is being renamed as well.


What you can do to help

Level design is my weakest area. Play around with the raiders and vehicles and see what works. I have changed many of the game's levels already, so you might make changes to those existing levels instead of creating new ones. I'm also not a great 2D artist, but I'm trying to get better with textures.

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  • 3 weeks later...

That intro... it's fantastic. I love it!

 

Couple of minor bugs with bugginess (You have built a Stablization Station! You can now teleport YOU CAN'T TELEPORT THIS) OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png but nothing gamecrashing. It is looking very nice indeed, and it's great that you still care for this old game!

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Double post, I know, but I figured the contents of this were significantly different enough to warrant another post also I'm a blatant attention seeker.

(but, I must say, I did not expect this post to be this long...!)

 

Firstly, it's great to see that Time Raiders is still continuing!

 

Really nice things:

- that intro cutscene :D

- I was skeptical as to the usefulness of the Distributor Tower, but after having played with it I'm won over - you will never lose your precious Unraveler to monsters again, not if it has 1000+ health from using that tower :smug:

- speaking of the Distributor Tower, it makes a lot of levels playable; because it takes over the Teleport Pad, on levels like Air Raiders and Lake of Fire you can get a free 80 ore off the bat by teleporting it up - enough to get your way to a Bulldozer and continue normally (though this is not intended OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png)

- Nice to have a graphical difference between "Solid Rock" and "Stuff that can be mined"

- The Ghost Slug warp in animation... that's fantastic and if I didn't want to kill them so much I'd stay and watch it OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.pngThey don't have a new warp out animation; as a temporary thingy, could you just run the 'warp in' in reverse?

- I like the change to Bats, turning them into those funny sphere-y stuff. The actual flock parameters look like they could do with a bit of work (or no flock at all!), but the model is really nice!

- I was not expecting the Training Levels to have become a 'On A Spaceship' type of biome. That looks really cool!

 

 

Couple of majorly annoying things:

- Lasers deal huge damage to Bulldozers, and out of all the vehicles in the game they're the worst at just sitting there and being shot at; I know this can be lowered, you just need to specify a custom damage over in WeaponTypes (1 usually does the trick!)

- No way to train raiders as Geologists at all, and there's also nothing that can scan the area ; Stablization Station for both? I did quite like in my modded LRR being able to spend 10 crystals and 50 ore for the reward of lighting up the entire map (then I could teleport it out if I was feeling cheap OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png)

- In Crossing the Rift, I was unable to use the Wave Master (I think that's the drilly one? I had both teleported down) to drill the wall by the shore. I wasn't sure why this was, as I was able to do it when I had played the level some time before.... Fortunately Debug Keys was enabled OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png

 

 

Minorly annoying things:

- Monsters feel too weak, with the exception of the Crystal Warrior, who feels too powerful OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png

- The Mining Laser can mine Dirt but nothing else

- Because the dependencies for buildings use PILOT, if you've only got other raiders on the level (eg Mechugs, which I really don't want to teleport out), which are crucially not Pilots, you won't be able to build anything. Consider removing the Pilot dependencies and tying everything to the Power Station? IIRC you can make buildings have a level of 7 before bad things happen.

- Boulders still deal uselessly low quantities of damage OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png

- Slugs don't scare, which is kind of surprising given they're ethereal blueish monsters OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png

- Whatever a "Geyser" is, it doesn't look like one OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.pngSeems to be a proto-Rockwhale? (Visible in the test area)

- Armored Transport Truck is much worse than a Small Transport Truck, mostly just because of the speed of STTs when upgraded (also dumping 6 ore into the Ore Refinery is a complete waste... not sure what you can do about this vehicle) The design is very nice!

- Rock Monsters make Boulders but then don't take them. They seem to be causing absurd things to happen when they do so. I'll look into this further eventually - might be just a level-specific PTL shenanigan.

- The dependencies for high-level buildings (particularly Distributor Tower) must include the Ore Refinery; more than 40 ore in a building has a habit of causing the game to crash. Given it's 80 ore, it is a tremendous improvement to cut it down to a mere 16 studs.

- "You can now teleport and construct" is totally borked, but has absolutely no influence on gameplay. I'm not even sure why they're showing up, if it tells me "You can now teleport [the Unraveler]" when you can't.

 

Suggestions for Quality of Life improvements:

- Camera zoom distances should be set to absurd maximums and minimums, simply to allow the player to do that if they can (lines 85-ish of the CFG)

- BuildingUpgradeCostOre and BuildingUpgradeCost Studs just feel nicer when set to 10 and 2, as opposed to 5 and 1; makes upgrading buildings a little more valuable. (Any higher causes the game to crash)

- ObjectTheNames should contain the Time Spheres required to teleport the unit down; this would be a useful way of knowing how expensive things are

 

 

 

 

Oh, and a note on the Electric Fence: it always is an instakill, but there are a couple of things you can do to actually make them at least somewhat balanced:

- CanBeHitByFence FALSE , as is the case for slugs

- Give the fence an OxygenCoef, forcing you to spam Stabilization Stations to have some defences

- Give the fence a HealthDecayRate; this means it'll only stay where it is for an amount of time, then teleport away, thus also breaking any long fence links you might have

- Get the dependencies to absurd levels (eg requires Pyrite Punisher on map, Distributor Tower, etc etc etc) such that they're only available lategame, by which time base defense is a bit of a joke (unless you have fun with scripting like I have been; see below)

- Arrange the dependencies so they can never be built, and put them in level-specific configurations; could be quite interesting to then have to try and power these fences!

- Set the dependencies to Jacred, such that you can only build them in certain levels when Jacred is around

 

 

 

On 6/30/2018 at 3:49 PM, Cirevam said:

What you can do to help


Level design is my weakest area. Play around with the raiders and vehicles and see what works. I have changed many of the game's levels already, so you might make changes to those existing levels instead of creating new ones.

 

oooooooh, that's basically the only part of LRR modding I can do half-competently OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png

 

What do you think of these?

Those are most of the Rock levels. I didn't follow your script up on the wiki (mostly because I didn't have it available for reasons I won't go into), so I coerced what I could remember and made my own:

 

Level01 is The First Minute, as always (That's a very nice level! It's fun to walk around first person in and watch the purply globy thingies, while you wait for your Time Raiders to grab the remaining spheres OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png)

 

Level02 is the discovery that you can't shovel Rubble and must use a Bulldozer to clear it. Collect 100 Protoss to complete. (One of the lower quality levels IMO; just needs a little expansion).

 

Level03 is ostensibly seeing how much of your existing tech works and requires you to build one of every (non-Command ship, of course!) building.

 

Level04 is Crossing the Rift; I liked that level quite a lot and didn't want to overwrite it. Ostensibly you've now found water and are wondering what to do with it.

 

Level05 is, as the terrible name states, an Introduction to Slugs; you (and the lot aboard the Geloden) are supposed to think 'what are these weak areas?' but any seasoned LRR player will instantly know that they're going to have slugs stuffed down their throats OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png Oh, and the slug script is quite unlike the standard one; each time you reveal a new cavern, a whole bunch of (once-off!) slugs spawn. None of this silly "there are 8 slugs on the map at all time, so killing them makes no difference."

 

Level06 is an introduction to monsters.

\/ the below serves to say "it's a bit of a mess really"

I didn't like the original one, because the EmergeTimeOut was 0 ; meaning that your raiders on Action Stations would run through the emerge trigger to blat a newly-emerged monster, spawning another one, run back through the emerge trigger to blat a third monster, run through it etc etc etc. I have no clue how collecting 30 crystals was actually possible OldTonguePNG_transparent.png.e4013114c97501de1099aa06ca5e6529.png

Oh, and due to the way the triggering works, if you speed the game up, because the tick of the NERPs doesn't care about game speed, the 'timers' essentially slow down, turning the level into quite a joke. Simultaneously, if LRR lags, the tick of the NERPs slows down, giving you more time between the invasions; much more time beyond what the value is set to! (This occurs because every time the NERPs ticks over I have TRUE ? AddR1 1. I'm using registers and not timers because timers seemed to activate immediately :S)

There was supposed to be a Path map, but it broke. 8S I have no clue what's going on; it causes that massive hole-in-the-ground that you see in the test area.

 

 

Level07 is the Sanctuary of Stone, which I'm currently very unhappy with; mostly because the Disappearing Raider bug invariably occurs. As I said, I think it's something to do with Rock Monsters (partly because the Rock Monsters themselves... also disappear...???) However, if you have one Digtank and two Small Transport Trucks, you can still rush your way to the 100 Time Spheres you need to complete it.

 

 

 

 

I can make absolutely no promises, but I will see what I can do with regards to the remainder of the levels.

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