Test Levels

[ShadowDraikana]

Not sure if anyone ever managed to get these working, but the test levels are in fact functional maps.  The Ice Level is the only one present in the cfg by default, and it can be made to load correctly with a small amount of editing.  Basically the map lacked the properties for the menu bmp/position and the level links.  In addition to this, the map is missing a NERPs file, meaning it would be wise to comment out/remove that line from the config for the test level.  Otherwise you can just make a NERPs script to fill in the blank.

 

Below are vids I've uploaded showing off what each one looks like. 

 

 

 

 

(If you are wondering why these last two are 640x480 and not the first one, it's because I figured out what was going on with the resolution shenanigans I was having.)

Edited February 19, 2019 by Slimy Slug
Updated post with links

[aidenpons]

Wait, is that the LRR music actually working? I've actually never heard this before

 

I don't recall anything particularly interesting about the levels themselves. They contain the line InitialCrystals and InitialOre, which come in handy; though using NPL scripting you can accomplish much the same thing. It might be interesting to write up a small script for these levels (collect X crystals, some slugs) and add them into the game.

[ShadowDraikana]

If you notice in the video, slugs actually show up without a NPL present.  This is due to the fact the map uses the Slug property.  As it turns out, the game has a default script that generates slugs every 60 seconds and caps at 4 so any slugs that spawn afterwards will exit immediately.  This works when adding monsters in this way, I should also add.  

 

The map is also a good example of how the game treats ground/hidden cavern.  Open this up in the map creator and you'll see what I mean.  The game seems to treat any squares not designated in the surf map as dirt (it could very well be trying to use the disabled soil here but that's another topic entirely), and the dugg map from there specifies whether there is a wall, ground, hidden cavern (which is ground effectively), slug hole, or hidden slug hole.

 

Other than that, the fog RGB values are different from what the Ice biome normally uses, and there are several properties present that go unused in the main game levels.  Cyrem sent me some stuff about these properties before that I probably should go dig up .

 

Another interesting detail is that the levels use the PTL file to generate crystals upon destruction of a wall, instead of using a cror map.

[aidenpons]

  On 2/14/2019 at 10:36 PM, Slimy Slug said:

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I clearly didn't pay enough attention to the levels I never did test them....

 

At the end, was that you pressing Ctrl+S to win, or was something else playing up there?

 

  Quote

If you notice in the video, slugs actually show up without a NPL present.  This is due to the fact the map uses the Slug property.  As it turns out, the game has a default script that generates slugs every 60 seconds and caps at 4 so any slugs that spawn afterwards will exit immediately.  This works when adding monsters in this way, I should also add.  

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uh.... run that past me again? monsters emerging from slug holes? :S Or what? I know you can make slugs emerge from walls (EmergeCreature Slug)

 

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Another interesting detail is that the levels use the PTL file to generate crystals upon destruction of a wall, instead of using a cror map.

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PTL shenanigans, one day we'll understand them... Does this mean we can have both crystals and ore from the same wall?

[ShadowDraikana]

  On 2/15/2019 at 3:09 AM, aidenpons said:

At the end, was that you pressing Ctrl+S to win, or was something else playing up there?

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Yep, I just debugged out of the map since I figured I'd shown enough of the map for one vid.

 

  On 2/15/2019 at 3:09 AM, aidenpons said:

uh.... run that past me again? monsters emerging from slug holes? :S Or what? I know you can make slugs emerge from walls (EmergeCreature Slug)

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Yes.  The Slug property is used to specify what creature will emerge from holes and use the internal slug script.  Keep in mind that NPLs operate independently of this, so if you have a Slug creature of IceMonster specified, it will spawn Ice Monsters per the internal 'script' while the NPL will spit slugs out when the conditions are met.  The NERPs command GenerateSlug is hardcoded to spawn Slimy Slugs specifically.

 

  On 2/15/2019 at 3:09 AM, aidenpons said:

PTL shenanigans, one day we'll understand them... Does this mean we can have both crystals and ore from the same wall?

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Not as far as I can tell.  I might do some poking around with these at some point to be sure.  Especially that PickRandomFloor thing .

[aidenpons]

  Quote

Yes.  The Slug property is used to specify what creature will emerge from holes and use the internal slug script.  Keep in mind that NPLs operate independently of this, so if you have a Slug creature of IceMonster specified, it will spawn Ice Monsters per the internal 'script' while the NPL will spit slugs out when the conditions are met.  The NERPs command GenerateSlug is hardcoded to spawn Slimy Slugs specifically.

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That's an amazing discovery! I can't believe I never actually bothered to test that!

Is there any way we can edit the time between slugs or max slugs? Probably not.... but is there anything in the .exe?

 

@Cirevam, I spot fun exploitable things for Time Raiders Crystal Warriors or Rockwhales emerging from slug holes?

[ShadowDraikana]

One detail about the 'script': slugs will never show up this way until one powered building exists, excluding the Power Station and Tool Store. 

 

There are two other slug properties that serve unknown purposes currently.  I figured they were tied to some sort of timeout for the emerges but modifying the values produced very conflicting results.

 

Properties in question are SlugTime and InitialSlugTime.  The names imply they are, well, timing related but again my tests were wildly inconclusive.  More research is definitely needed.

[aidenpons]

  On 2/15/2019 at 9:03 PM, Slimy Slug said:

Properties in question are SlugTime and InitialSlugTime.  The names imply they are, well, timing related but again my tests were wildly inconclusive.  More research is definitely needed.

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Oh, there are these properties? Let me see if I can get them to do anything Which I know you've done, but I'd like to try too!

[ShadowDraikana]

Oh be my guest.  Anything anyone can figure out with these at this point would be massively helpful.  I poked Cyrem about these before but never heard anything back on this specifically.  

 

If these do in fact control the timeout, that would be massive.

[aidenpons]

Keep in mind that while level files can be modified with LRR running, anything in the cfg cannot, and to reflect CFG changes you need to restart the game.

 

SlugTime very clearly is the timeout between slugs in seconds. No, not milliseconds, like the NPL scripter, not 40-units-a-second like everything else in LRR, seconds.

 

I'll report back on InitialSlugTime soon. Is there anything like SlugNumber?

[ShadowDraikana]

Not that I'm aware of. 

 

Interesting, some of my tests showed that the unit was in pure seconds, but it didn't consistently happen enough for me to definitively say that.  Please do keep on this; I might try working on it again later.

[aidenpons]

Using an InitialSlugTime of 15 I very quickly got an Idleness-Syndrome looking glitch where all my LRRs dissappeared except a couple on Action Stations, which stood idly. Upon restarting  LRR and using fewer LRRs to blast them, I get... well... a lot more than 4 slugs.

 

In the time it's taken me to upkload that screenshot to RRU another fifty slugs or so have started slurping that Mining Laser. They keep coming!

 

Maybe it has something to do with the # of buildings powered? There's a lot in my test map, as you can see. Or crystal count. 202 would probably do it.

 

But I also got more than 4 slugs: roughly 30 and counting. I'll leave this running a bit

[ShadowDraikana]

I think it's safe to say that need to do some more digging on this .  Very curious to know why so many slugs showed up for you, unless the number of slugs is dependent on number of buildings/crystals.  Which would all be internally handled by the exe of course.  Fascinating.

[aidenpons]

If anyone else wants to look into this, creating a NERPs that looks like this:

GetSlugsOnLevel > GetOreCurrentlyStored ? AddStoredOre 1

allows you to put the game on 3x speed, do something else, (don't forget to set LoseFocusAndPause to FALSE in the cfg) and check your slug count by just looking at your ore count.

 

I should make a timelapse of this one Mining Laser

[aidenpons]

Well, at seven hundred and eighty nine slugs, they show no sign of stopping...

That's with 16 buildings and 40 crystals in the bank. Also a ton of vehicles.

 

.... they are, however, lagging the game to about 6 FPS... it will probably crash soon.

 

A slimy slug is invading your base!

EDIT: Oops, the game crashed without me noticing XD I last saw that my ore counter was at 1200, indicating one thousand and two hundred slugs. Also about 2 FPS.

[Cirevam]

  On 2/15/2019 at 8:54 PM, aidenpons said:

Crystal Warriors or Rockwhales emerging from slug holes?

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I already knew about this and played with it a bit. There are a few things to consider which makes this iffy.

 

1) The game does not distinguish between walls and holes when playing the Emerge animation, so monsters will spawn in mid-air and will break out of rocks that are also floating in the air.

2) The monster animations have a special null which moves the monster forward when the animation completes. This means that monsters do not actually spawn on the hole; they end up just into the next tile. Slimy Slugs don't do this.

3) Slugs (or whatever is defined as a slug) spawn with a random heading which cannot be controlled as far as I know.

4) Objects that spawn into walls crash the game. Spawning ON walls is not the same thing. I think the object is actually going under the wall and out of bounds.

5) Placing a hole next to a wall and spawning a regular monster from it has a (25 * X)% chance of crashing the game, where X is the number of adjacent walls, because the monster has a chance to spawn into a wall. I have already tested this.

 

Basically, you have to create new emerge animations for anything that's meant to spawn from a hole, because anything that is designed to spawn from a wall is forcibly moved out of the wall so it doesn't crash your game when it spawns. This requires you to add a new monster type specifically for spawning from holes since you can't tell the game to select a certain animation, or you have to keep your holes away from walls. You need to designate wall-type and hole-type monsters unless you limit your maps like this. It's not a huge problem, but it's annoying because you have to duplicate a monster type and files just to handle a single animation difference.

[ShadowDraikana]

Updated first post with the other two test levels.  Not much in the way of anything remarkable but there they are nonetheless.

 

@aidenpons Meanwhile my HQ is officially Slugville:

 

 

Not quite the total you had but these guys showed up in a hurry lol.  FPS was about 4 at the time and when I tried quitting the game crashed.  Go figure lmao.

[aidenpons]

While accidentally breaking LRR because I can't copy things over correctly, I found that if you delete the .cfg entry for Level01 under Levels { the game will create its own level using that ice biome picture, put up in the top left of the LevelPicker. Perhaps because mentions to Levels01 were still scattered around the .cfg; sound entries, LevelLinks, and that Level01 is unlocked on the front end. Clicking that level of course crashes the game.

[ShadowDraikana]

Yeah if you have broken level links that will happen.  I should have stated in the topic post (will probably edit now) that if you don't specify the MenuBMP property, the game will grab the ice biome picture set and use that.  This is set through the menu section property DefaultLevelBMPS, which is pointing to the ice level biome pics in the front end interface directory.  

 

Additional behavior with the MenuBMP property is interesting:  if you specify this in a level's section, and any of the three BMP paths are wrong, the game will crash on startup.  So no, it does not grab those default images if it can't find an image while the MenuBMP property is used (probably because MenuBMP overrides DefaultLevelBMPS or something to that effect).