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Ok I'm not gonna ramble on with all the details you guys already know. You can find the Mk.1 release thread here and the old project thread here, if you're so inclined.



Anyway I'm starting work on the new gameplay additions and bug fixes now. If not for SEN's annoying habit of downtime I'd use this thread for all my project information tracking. However, like before, we're still gonna use this thread for organizing testing and such.

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But first, here's the outline of Mk.2 goals I'm aiming for:

• Lag reduction
• Completed gameplay progression
• Overheat system replacing the old gas countdown system
• Bug-free balanced gameplay

I'd like to refresh the old tester list soon to while I'm at it. Some of you who were on it before (but not all!) were either frequent no shows or didn't help all that much, and I was too busy to keep track. While I wasn't too persistent with testing myself, unfortunately, I don't want another repeat like before where I end up finding all the bugs only after a release.

Therefore if you're interested in testing still, do like before and (re)post here (just to make sure). However I will expect you to be available this time, which includes (unfortunately) not having outstanding latency issues or super busy schedules. But I'll understand if you can't make all the test sessions. We all have lives too, after all.

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But don't worry about that for now. That all comes later. Since I'm determined to have this as a real, playable map no matter what, that means I've got work still left to do. Trust me this IS going to come together eventually. As I said what you see now is just the core stuff. When everything is all brought together it'll be just like watching that ugly girl you knew back in grade school hit puberty and turn into a sexy bombshell. I promise.

But she said she was 18! D:

She's jailbait my friend. Jailbait.

Tux maps in a nutshell.

EDIT- And I can't spell jailbait.

Lol, are we the only people on this friggen site at this time of night anymore?

Im bored outta my mind here, can't sleep, and I wanna work on my new secret project mappy (Theres over 30 im trying to make, but THIS one looks like it could work D:)

Looks good Tux, keep up the good work!

Marine> I must agree, no one is ever on at night, it can be very lonely.

AT least we have eachother

I'll test again.

Iv wvill tvest tvoo

Really man. You scare me.

Anyway, I'm still in.

Lag Reduction would be GREAT. Me, Kenoli, and two other guys were playing Mechnogears yesterday, and it lagged so bad, we could barely play. No one was lagging by the way.

If you don't get enough old testers, just PM me or tell me if you want me to test. I'd be glad to.

Excellent.

Yes my first priority is lag reduction. If I can't get rid of that there's not much point to continuing with the rest.

How should I go about doing it? I can assume having 4.5k+ triggers has got to be some part of it, but I think more specifically it could either be:

• The floor trap ramps (like DM suggested)
• Background triggers giving out orders, setting invincibilities, counting off timers, etc. (there's a specific set that does all of this)
• Spawners.
• Something else... ?

That's my checklist to go through. I'll be needing testing soon to check each of those for comparison. This is where I could use someone with known lag issues with the map to help in the testing.

If theres about 1400 units on the map, it'll lag on any computer without 256 RAM and Broadband. I just pick the guntraps, because thats the first thing you could do without

The problem is I'll need something to replace them somehow. But I can do that later. If it is indeed the traps then I'll actually be relieved. Anything else would mean ripping out core triggers. I'd rather just release the map as "fast computers only" than start doing that.

yeah in rush the begining intro with all the gun traps LAGS me like crazy, I think its the same here too.

Really? Odd.

Ok I'm up for a quick lag fix test. Who has lag and time?

ADDITION:
Ok it's definitely trigger lag. The traps being removed didn't do a thing. I confirmed that by testing in a trigger-free version.

Oh man. I'm in for it now.

you have a better computer than myn, my comp lags with a zillion things in sight, no tirggers. The more that is moving the more I lag.

Well I did a few tests actually and its the triggers that are primarily lagging.

Fortunately I've compiled a good list of things I can probably tweak to improve the lag. Gonna start doing that soon. I'll need some quick lag testing then.

I might be able to test Ill get on bnet if i can.

This gonna take me awhile, I think. Don't stick around on my account. I'm gonna have to overhaul a small portion of the triggers to get one of the lag fixes added.

About the lag testing, I have a very old P2 sitting in my room, which gets a fair share of lag. I can use that to help lag test...

Well that's assuming it doesn't lag both before and after the fixes with that weak of a computer. Won't do much good for comparison if the improvements (if any) wouldn't have much effect anyway.

The map size might be too big, maybe shrinking it one to 192x128 might help

Well ill be alot better tester now that i have a workin computer this time . Also another lag causing posibility is the constant ordering of the mobile mode. Ordering the units to ur pointer and to the armor. Also I have no idea how u got to 4.5k triggers I know triggers and for what u made i can imagine around maybe 1.5 max.

Trigger viewer 2 tells you how many triggers are in your map ;O

It would seem like that, but remember there's the behind the scenes stuff like mech drag, mech parts unselectables (for each mode), mech parts invinc settings (for each mode), range restrictions, deployment, recall, refund, purchases, failsafes, missile locking, missile firing, seeker bomb launching, messages and sounds, purchase triggers, help, dynamic spawners, deployment countoff system (the gas), parts deaths (adding to said gas), and of course the mech menu and mode switching.

Honestly when I started I thought of this like you would that it wouldn't take nearly this much work to accomplish. It's just when I decided I wanted it done professionally and completely (if not yet complete though) I ended up with the big mess you see now.




ADDITION:
Ok guys I need some advice. I'm about to start adding the overheat system soon (still working on that lag reduction, btw) but I'm still debating the exact mechanism for it. I intend it to replace the current deployment countoff system (the gas) so that you can have your mechs more quickly, but I need it to still act as a limit of sorts for players with their mechs.

The system I'd thought of was to simply limit the time you can keep modes active. For instance mobile mode might use only a little of your meter, offense mode might use up a lot, and intercept mode could be modified to actually recharge your meter (giving it some usefulness for a change). In fact with that system added I could allow players to be able to move their cockpits in offense mode (albeit slowly) with heavy drag, as there's no reason to strictly fix them in place like before.

How does this sound?



I'm also looking for a way to fix the drag system itself. Pointers are handy for moving around under drag, as I think it's quite graceless to have to r-click spam to get anywhere, but even the pointers system is a bit clumsy. I'll work on that later, though.