Tuchola Forest Alpha Testing, feedback thread for alpha testers Options

[ScrapyardBob]

(Since there are some non-MOB folks testing the map, I'm going to start an alpha testing thread here in the open forum.)

The map is not ready for public testing yet (in case some are wondering) and is on a password protected test server in Chicago. It's still undergoing extensive internal testing and changes. All MOB members are welcome to test (see the MOB Regs forum for server info) and I have also sent server information to a few friends from past clans or people who are excellent at map design.

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State of the map (v067):

- CNQ is implemented with 13 capture points and 2 bonus objectives (one at each end). The bonus objectives do not work yet. There are 10 spawn points per objective for each team (240 total TDM spawn points for CNQ). Right now the server is running in debug mode which means 8 sec capture times and no need for multiple players in order to test CNQ.

- TDM/BEL need a few more TDM spawn points (ones not used in CNQ) to spread players across the map into areas that aren't used during CNQ.

- HQ will probably be added to the map tonight along with an HQ server-side mod to change some things that are annoying about stock HQ (such as the long 45sec wave time).

- BAS might get implemented this coming weekend.

- About half of the vehicles are usable. I still need to finish (or obtain) collmap files for the rest of the vehicles.

- Some models are not solid. Again, there are collmap files that I need to create (or obtain) in order to keep players from walking through them.

- The bases are not solid... not sure why, but I'll probably address that later this week.

- AFAIK, there are no broken spawn points. Please post feedback if you find one that results in the player being stuck in terrain / models / walls or one where the player falls to the bottom skybox.

- There are still holes in the terrain. Please only report holes on the east side of the river for the time being. The german side (west half) is still a work-in-progress.

- TDM gamestate is 22500 bytes with a single player.

- The russian side of the map is about 90% done with gross features. There are two bunkers that still need to be detailed (creating the interior) in the russian spawn. Also, the 2nd floor of the barn and the russian spawn house need work. The russian tunnel also needs to be finished.

- The german side of the map is about 60% done with gross features. Numerous things still need to be fixed.

- I'm always on the lookout for reports of rocks / terrain where vehicles can get stuck on non-obvious things. (Mostly where the tank gets stuck in the terrain at an odd angle.) Please give loc info or e-mail me screenshots to scrapyardbob@mobclan.com, make sure that screenshots are taken from an angle that makes it apparent where you are on the map.

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More notes as I think of them.


- There are sections of the road which are textured in an "odd" texture. These sections of road are broken meshwork that needs to be ripped out and replaced. They have hidden potholes that cause vehicles to go screwy and can allow players to fall through. (I feel like PennDoT in the spring, patching potholes everywhere.)

If you find a section of road that is screwy, but is *not* textured with the marker texture, please report it. That means you've found a road section that I don't know is broken or have forgotten to fix.

- CNQ vehicle placement is pretty final on the Russian side of the map. The german vehicles still need to be moved into their final locations.

- I'm not too worried about obviously broken detail (like a line of fences that have not been connected). What I am interested in hearing about are the little things that may be overlooked. (Such as an alpha blend that doesn't look right from a certain angle or a model that looks funny or small gaps in buildings.) Usually, when I find something that I know I want to fix later, I break it in a big way so that it's glaringly obvious that it's broken.

[ScrapyardBob]

Current CNQ locations (v067 and later)

#1 RUSSIAN HQ
#2 RUSSIAN AMMO DUMP
#3 SOUTHEAST RUSSIAN BASE
#4 HILL 17 RADIO SHACK
#5 SOUTHEAST BRIDGE
#6 SOUTH FOREST BUNKER
#7 SOUTH FOREST BRIDGE
#8 FARM RADIO SHACK
#9 HILL 75 BUNKER
#10 NORTH V2 LAUNCH SITE
#11 NORTHWEST GERMAN BASE
#12 WEST V2 LAUNCH SITE
#13 GERMAN AMMO DUMP

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Note: You may need to bump up your hunkmegs setting in order to play Tuchola Forest.

[ScrapyardBob]

Current Vehicle Balance (Max of 48 entities for each gametype):

18 tanks (6 less for CNQ/CTF/HQ)
7 paks
5 mortars
12 jeeps (2 spawn, 2 at edge bases, 2 forward), 6 more for CNQ/CTF/HQ
6 trucks/HTs (3 trucks, 3 HTs - 1 in spawn, 2 forward)

German Tanks (BAS:9, BEL/TDM:9, CNQ:6, CTF:6, HQ:6)
- German tanks are in the spawn unless noted

(2) JAGD
- BEL/TDM/HQ moves one of these forward
- CNQ/CTF/HQ eliminates one of these tanks from the spawn area

(1) StugIII
- BEL/TDM moves this forward
- CNQ/CTF/HQ eliminates this tank from the spawn area

(3) PzIV
- BEL/TDM/HQ moves two of these forward to the flanks
- CNQ/CTF/HQ eliminates one of these tanks from the spawn area

(3) PzIII
- one at each german base

(6) Horches (jeeps), (9) in CNQ/CTF/HQ
- two in spawn, CNQ/CTF/HQ adds a 3rd
- one forward at West Farm Bunker
- one on north flank at the North Road Bunker
- one at G1
- one at G3
- CNQ/CTF/HQ adds one near the North Farm Bunker
- CNQ/CTF/HQ adds one near the South Bridge

(3) Halftracks
- One near G3
- One near G1
- One near G2

Russian Tanks (BAS:9, BEL/TDM:9, CNQ:6, CTF:6, HQ:6)
- Russian tanks are in the spawn, unless noted

(2) KV1s
- BEL/TDM/HQ moves one of these forward to the north side of the R2 Mortar Bunker
- CNQ/CTF/HQ eliminates one of these tanks from the spawn area

(1) Su152
- stock Russian heavy tank, could be swapped for another KV1
- BEL/TDM moves this tank forward to the NE Farm Bunker
- CNQ/CTF/HQ eliminates this tank

(2) T34_76s
- BEL/TDM/HQ moves one tank forward to the Russian's south flank
- CNQ/CTF/HQ eliminates one of these tanks from the spawn area

(1) Stock T34
- BEL/TDM/HQ moves this tank forward to the Russian's north flank

(3) BT7s
- one at each Russian base

(3) Gazaa trucks (ice cream trucks)
- one in spawn (middle), pointed at R2
- one at R3
- one at R2

(6) Jeeps (9 in CNQ/CTF/HQ)
- 2 in spawn (north and south end), CNQ/CTF/HQ adds another in middle of spawn
- one at R1
- one at Southeast Bridge
- one at South Forest Bunker
- one at Northeast Farm Bunker
- CTF/CNQ/HQ adds one at the South Radio Shack
- CTF/CNQ/HQ adds one near the North Bridge

[Cpt.Canuck]

Lookin' forward to seeing some reviews... !

[Mr.Scruff]

wow bob u got some serious skill. and its all organized im really impressed,

is this going to be on UO or COD2?

[ScrapyardBob]

CoD:UO using the After-Hourz vehicle pack. Basically, if you've played the Barbarossa and/or Smolensk maps you'll have the client-side files required to play Tuchola Forest 1945.

As for organization... it's easy to lose track of how many vehicles I have of the various types unless I'm very careful. I only have 64 total script_vehicle slots (mortars, paks, jeeps, trucks, halftracks and tanks) and I can only have ~48 active in a particular gametype. More then ~50 active vehicles and the CoD:UO server will start crashing during tank battles due to a "max vehicles" error.

I'm hoping that I don't have to trim back to 45 active vehicles...

(We broke my test server multiple times last week... oops! I think we've caught all the serious game-crashing errors. One bug was in the stock CoD:UO code. There's a deep down bug in CoD:UO TDM which can occur and cause the server to crash under certain circumstances.)


PS: If I count correctly, Barbarossa/BAS runs with 8 paks, 1 mortar, 3 HTs, 2 trucks, 7 russian tanks, 8 german tanks, 4 russian jeeps, and 4 german jeeps. That's only 37 vehicles. Smolensk runs BAS with 45 vehicles. But CNQ on Smolensk is 55 vehicles. When we got the max vehicle error, it was with a 54 vehicle setup on Tuchola Forest, so I'm really hopeful that 48 is low enough.

[ScrapyardBob]

A second copy of v067 is up on the server now. Changes:

- fixed some collision maps

- the Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks are now useable

- fixed the tank scrape at the west edge of the farm area

[Cpt.Canuck]

PS: If I count correctly, Barbarossa/BAS runs with 8 paks, 1 mortar, 3 HTs, 2 trucks, 7 russian tanks, 8 german tanks, 4 russian jeeps, and 4 german jeeps. That's only 37 vehicles. Smolensk runs BAS with 45 vehicles. But CNQ on Smolensk is 55 vehicles. When we got the max vehicle error, it was with a 54 vehicle setup on Tuchola Forest, so I'm really hopeful that 48 is low enough.

Russians have 6 jeeps (1 each by R1 and R2, plus the 4 surrounding R3/spawns). Germs have 5 jeeps (probably forgot the 1 by G2?). Noob.

A second copy of v067 is up on the server now. Changes:

- fixed some collision maps

- the Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks are now useable

- fixed the tank scrape at the west edge of the farm area

Oh, is this still pass only Bob?

[ScrapyardBob]

So Barb/BAS is 40 vehicles. Thanks! My memory ain't what it used to be.

Alpha testing is password protected and invite-only. There are too many map glitches, non-solid models, etc and I don't feel like babysitting the server 24/7 to monitor for folks taking advantage of it. Plus, the map changes daily (or twice daily) resulting in a constant stream of updates.

Beta testing in another 2-4 weeks will be public. At that point all of the map glitches and models will be fixed and changes should be getting down to small detail cleanup work.

[Silver]

MAP IS AWESOME!!!

[ScrapyardBob]

(grins at Silver) My number one Tuchola Forest fan!

Upcoming changes in v068

- Added a few dozen rocks in areas that didn't have rocks before. Cross your fingers and sacrifice a chicken and hope that these rocks don't cause the dreaded "winding vertices" error.

- Turning off CNQ debug. Capture times will now be 30 seconds instead of 8 seconds. I may even bump those capture times to 60 seconds (they go a lot faster if there are multiple players doing the capture). With the 8 second capture time on a 2v2 match, the defenders could not get in front of the advance in time. By the time they'd figure out where Silver and I were, we'd be 3 zones away capturing positions on the other side of the map. There were some very good battles even with 2v2. The big issue was not enough places to hide for infantry on the german side of the map.

- Spawn distance from vehicles or the next objective is an issue in CNQ. There's a trade-off between spawning the player closer to the next CNQ objective versus spawning them back closer to where the tanks are.

- Added a rock wall around the North V2 launch site area. Added in the trucks and barrels. Moved the hedgehogs around and moved the dragon's teeth around. Other than possible issues with trees being in the wrong spot, this area is basically done.

- One lag complaint is when entering the farm area for the first time. Due to the use of models in this area that aren't found elsewhere on the map, players will experience a brief lag while they load models and textures. I'm not sure how to fix this.

- The test server was a big laggy at times tonight. Not sure why and I didn't investigate.

[ScrapyardBob]

- Added some trees to the German spawn area. This is a mixed blessing for the Germans.

[ScrapyardBob]

Mmm, gotta love compile errors. I'm trying to figure out just how many "fake" trees I can add to my treelines to dress them up. (These are simple 8-pointed trees constructed out of 2x3 terrain mesh.) So I did a mass replication of around 1600 (13106 brushes) and ran smack into the MAX_MAP_DRAW_INDEXES error. I was at 7100 brushes prior to the mass replication.

Guess that's too many... there's quite a few things I can do to simplify that.

(later) Not bad, if I keep that number below 10678 brushes (approx 1300 fake trees) I can get a clean compile. But since I still have a lot of detail work to do, I need to keep that below 5000-8000 brushes to leave room for the other detail. Now I have an upper-end number to work with and I can use a simpler tree model / method.

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FYI for Silver. Looks like I don't have a clean VCLOG which is probably why we're seeing the hitches as we enter into new areas of the map.


Notes for v067 (Wed evening) - This was never posted.

- Added HQ mode, server will now rotate between CNQ/BEL/HQ. Game lengths are all pretty short (<30 minutes). Only CNQ is longer due to being multi-round. The server is testing modifications to the HQ gametype (allowing additional CVars to control respawn wave time, max hold time, etc). Respawn waves are 20 seconds instead of the default 45 seconds, allowing for a more fluid HQ game.

- Compass range is broken in HQ, I'll have to fix that in the server-side mod. It's sticking at 1024u when it needs to be 3000-5000u.

- Points per rank on the test server is set to 5, so you will get arty pretty quick (at 20 points instead of 40 points).

- Added more terrain on the german side. At least you can now get to all 3 bases without needing wings.

- Fixed a lot of odds and ends such as messed up spawn points, broken textures.

- Started adding "fake" trees in the treelines to spice them up. The best example is in the southeast corner of the map, near the southeast bridge's pak45 gun. Here's to hoping that they don't cause a compile error.

[ScrapyardBob]

...

Found the bug in HQ.GSC (and TDM.GSC) that was causing the compass values not to set properly. In both TDM.GSC and HQ.GSC, the SpawnPlayer() function does not properly set the client-side CVar for the compass range (cg_hudCompassMaxRange).

Kinda sad that I'm still finding errors in the 1.51 CoD:UO code, eh?


v068 is turning into an internal-only testing version. It won't make it to the server. (This is the version that I'm playing around with mass duplication of fake trees.)

Instead, I'll probably release v069 around lunchtime after it finishes compiling.

[ScrapyardBob]

More changes coming in v069 (or later)

- The general idea behind anti-tank weapon spawns is that spawnpoints in the main team spawn areas will be on 10 second timers while weapon spots in forward battle areas will only be on 30 second timers. Ammo spawns in the bases will be on 15 sec timers. The faster respawn in the home territory allows spawning players to load up without excessive wait. The slower respawn in forward territory keeps infantry from holing up in a bunker with infinite ammo.

- That design guideline also applies to satchel spawns. Ten seconds on the two spawns in each home area and thirty seconds for forward locations.

- Adding two flamethrower spawns to the middle of the map. I know the young pyros get excited by all the lovely flames. I may add two more flamethrowers elsewhere.

- Experimenting with smoke grenade spawns and binoc spawns. Not even sure if they can be handed out via ammo spawns.