NS2: Proving Grounds

=Mr.P=

Soul_Rider wrote: »

@=Mr.P= Did you make all the custom textures yourself? I love the textures, but we will need some non quake custom textures in the future, once I have a Concept Artist, your skills could come in handy

yes i did the texturs bast on the orginal just made new version like the old one´s so i don`t get trouble with copyrights and add som normal map etc

i am no pro in texture making however the scc grup have some talent people in this

Soul_Rider

OK... Proving Grounds is almost ready for v1.8.0 to be released. For those wondering why the numbering is so high, I reached v1.7.0 of Proving Grounds way back in Oct 2012, a week before NS2 was released. After a long break I am back, so the numbering will continue on from there....

I am going to release over steam, once this has been confirmed as working now. I am on the final release candidate, and I hope everything goes ok.

I will post a log of everything about the game that I can when I release the next version. I really hope to get this out tomorrow if I can get it tested

Soul_Rider

Proving Grounds is now published on the Steam workshop. Currently there are no servers, but if anyone wants to set one up, that would be great. It should work with Shine Admin too.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=189616380

Backstory:

It began with the 1st war.

The threat appeared out of nowhere that fateful halloween evening.  What ensued was a war that ravaged for many years.  Eventually the war petered out, although there were still battles continuing around the universe in sporadic occurences.  

The TSF, underfunded and sent in to do the worst jobs the private Corporate armies refused to touch, continued the lonely fight.

It was several hundred years before the 2nd Great War, but in the prelude, the time known as the Beta Wars, the TSF knew they needed to adapt.

Funding was tight, in the time from the first war to the Beta Wars, the TSF had only manage to invent one new weapon, the flamethrower.  An invention itself already thousands of years old.  They had made minor technological advances in other places, the siege cannons were now mobile, but the progress made over the time period showed their lack of funding.

Sometime around the 196th battle of the Beta Wars, the TSA realised they were being over-run by the aliens when they spawned into the battle zone.

The TSF needed to look at the spawn times of their Marines, but it wasn't as simple as just increasing the frequency they spawned at.  Energy costs increase exponentially when you reduce the transfer time, and energy costs money, which the TSF didn't have.

So to make sure they didn't spawn in at a rate that wasted energy they designed a spawn simulator.  After over 10k+ simulations, they finally announced they had the times needed.

Of course, being underfunded means you can't always hire the best scientists, and engineers, so after implementation in the field, they found themselves over-running the aliens, spending far too much money on energy.

The science team argued it was lack of knowledge on the alien capabilities that created the problem, and so the Proving Grounds were born.

TSF scientists and engineers worked to develop an accurate simulation for testing, so the marines could be the most effective and efficient in the field.  Of course it didn't work.  The project had been created and set-up, everything was in place, but the results were useless when applied to the battlefield. 

So on February 18th the Proving Grounds program was officially ceased, with all operatives to remain in place, while the TSF decided what should be done.

On the day the Proving Grounds ceased to be, the scientists and engineers had to find something to do with their time.  So they started playing with the robots.  They began broadcasting live matches between the alien and marine droids, fighting it out against the other team in a deathmatch way.

The scientists and engineers, being scientists and engineers, began to fiddle with the droids.  They began to take the design away from realism and towards extremism.

Today, we welcome you to this broadcast, we hope you can download the relevant files to connect to the service.

Our teams have just finished fitting remote control devices to the droids, and now offer a new interactive system.  Rather than watching the droids controlled by the teams on site, you the viewer can now control the action from your chair.

The teams here at the Proving Grounds are doing this for their own entertainment as much as yours.  While the future of this place is being decided, the scientists and engineers will continue to offer this entertainment, and work on changing the experience of the droids into something with more big bangs for your enjoyment.  Please note as funding has ceased, all current development is done using what is available.

This stretches to all materials used for the droids and buildings for the battles. 
If anyone has materials that can be used for droids, or decorating battle grounds, please contact the proving grounds team, as they'd love to hear from you.

Have fun in the Proving Grounds.

No release would be complete without a bug video from testing:

Soul_Rider

Very pleasing to hear my mod won't be destroyed by the update..

Once I have patched for next build, when it arrives, you will see a small update to the players and some colored icons etc:



As well as some updates to pg_dm6. (Thanks =Mr.P=)

Soul_Rider

Server Online - Mr.P Server |Proving Grounds| OldAssGamers
IP - 62.65.106.53:27050

Hopefully we will survive the NS2 update, if it comes out today. If not, I'll be updating as soon as possible to get it working again..

Soul_Rider

PG made it through the updated unscathed

Now onwards and updwards. Updates will be coming over the next few days. Lots of ideas, but I start a new job on Monday, so my time is going to be limited. I aim to get as much done as I can this weekend

I am looking to run a playtest of the mod for anyone who is interested. I will post details of a date and time this weekend. It will be good to see how it plays and how many more bugs we have to iron out, there are quite a few I know of already..

Soul_Rider

Hey all,

Here is a quick sneak peek of one of the new features in the next update:

Soul_Rider

I am having trouble hunting down a bug in my marine hud. I am useless with GUI's, so I would like some advice on where to look..

The problem is the player health bar only updates when health is lost, never when health is gained. This shows up in 2 ways. When you die and respawn, the hud shows you as having 0 health, although you have full health. As soon as you take damage, the damage is taken off your full health score, and updates the health bar with the correct amount of health.

Similarly, when you pick up health, the health is added in the code, but the hud fails to update. When you next take damage, the hud corrects itself.

Where should I be looking? I've looked through GUIMarineStatus and GUIMarineHud, but can't see the issue. Any help is greatly appreciated, as I wan't to get this release out.

This video demonstrates the issue well:

=Mr.P=

my god rocket jump is back

xDragon

Add this line to GUIMarineHud:Update()

GUIAnimatedScript.Update(self, deltaTime)

There is animations for the health increasing, but they never play because that line got removed.

Soul_Rider

New Proving Grounds (Alpha) Release -1.9.0

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=189616380

Added Rocket Jump
Added Grenade Jump (1/3 Rocket Jump Power)
Added Health Drops on kill (Thanks @Sewlek)
Fixed Hud not updating (Thanks @xDragon)
Added CatPackBoost for Kills with an axe (Not tested thoroughly, so may not be working correctly)

In these alpha's, features are still getting added. Balancing and alternative gameplay implementations of these features will be brought in during Beta. If you notice any bugs, please let me know in the thread here.

Happy Fraggin'

Soul_Rider

Hmm, I am having a number of difficulties with the workshop. For some reason, files which I no longer edited, thus removed from the mod, were still be used by the Steam version, causing it to not work properly. I tried to delete the content that steam holds, but I ended up just deleting the mod

I have made sure the code is working on my machine as a test, but I need to upload back to the same modID in steam, but this is no longer working.

Can anyone offer me any advice? I'd like to get the mod back online at the same ID as subscribers to the mod are going to get game errors otherwise..

Vetinari

Soul_Rider wrote: »

Hmm, I am having a number of difficulties with the workshop. For some reason, files which I no longer edited, thus removed from the mod, were still be used by the Steam version, causing it to not work properly. I tried to delete the content that steam holds, but I ended up just deleting the mod

I have made sure the code is working on my machine as a test, but I need to upload back to the same modID in steam, but this is no longer working.

Can anyone offer me any advice? I'd like to get the mod back online at the same ID as subscribers to the mod are going to get game errors otherwise..

If you deleted the mod, there is no possibility of regaining the mod ID afaik.

Soul_Rider

I have decided to pull the mod for now. I am getting a bit frustrated with workshop, and making a mistake in workshop, then ruins other people's gameplay experience because of mod errors.

I am also unhappy with the game, as it does not yet in any way showcase what I am trying to create. I feel that having it out in the open at this early stage is more likely to put people off the mod. Also, as things are very much changing, I'd hate to have people complaining of nerfs to things when I start coding them in properly. I don't need that kind of potential negativity around the mod yet.

As a result, I am going to look for some people to help me test the mod, but I will not have it out for general release until I am happier with the way it is playing.

Code is breaking for no apparent reason, despite working since the ns2 update. I can only put that down to steam workshop. My local files have no issue, but when running the downloaded mod, I do, complaints of missing files.

I have also got to say the lack of ability to customise the mod with custom models is really frustrating. NS2 has next to no active modellers because of the complexity in creating a model that works with the spark engine. I really appreciate @BeigeAlert working on the issue, but really, this support should come from UWE. Everything about modding this game is relatively straight forward, models however are a royal pain in the backside. The sooner it is easier for the community to make models for ns2, the sooner the modding scene will really kick off.

I will keep the thread updated while I continue to work on the project, but don't expect any further releases for a while.

Vetinari

If you need somebody for playtesting, hit me up on steam. As you probably read in the dropbox file, I currently don't have time for any much more.

[AwE]Sentinel

This might help you:

forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/130097/porting-mods-over-to-the-new-launchpad

Soul_Rider

Unfortunately this will not help. I deleted the mod on steam, so the modID is no longer valid.

Flaterectomy

I've been fiddling around with a Proving Grounds map, so I hope PG returns soon.

VonDoom

*raises hand* Im happy to help testing the mod and contribute with some custom models like columns, archways, chandeliers.

I only know how to make static props though, no advanced animated stuff! It takes some fiddling to get models working properly, but Im glad to hear that @BeigeAlert is looking at it. (løl Futurama)

Soul_Rider

The mod is still being worked on, and I hope to have a few more features added soon. I have power back properly now, so I can get back to working on it more seriously. I will keep the testing off workshop for now, as I want to wait until I am happier with the mod before fighting with the workshop again..

I'll be using the Mod Beans dropbox for testing code uploads, so if anyone wants to help test or make things for the mod, i'll add them to the dropbox account so they can get copies of the files for testing purposes.

MetaMind

I would love to participtae in the next mod testing session, plz let me know...

Soul_Rider

I have decided I want to write the mod from scratch. Seeing @sewlek's work on Factions has made me realise that for total piece of mind, I really need to write the game code from scratch, rather than modding NS2 source files.

This is for multiple reasons, and I'll list some of them here:

1 - It gives me a greater knowledge of the code, both the NS2 game code and that of my mod. I will be virtually copying a lot of the code so it will help me understand more game code.

2 - It enables me to build a game that is designed from the ground up to work how I want it to. Having the freedom to create all hierarchies and classes specifically for the mod, should result in better performance and less time spent bug hunting in bits of superflous code.

3 - It gives me the opportunity to move onto being a programmer rather than a modder. I am cutting away chunks of UWE code, creating my own code, and intergrating code from other programmers, but I am still a hacker rather than a programmer. As I only began my programming career with NS2 lua, I feel it is time to move up to the next stage and try and create from scratch, although, while typing up the code myself, it will still be largely NS2 code.

As a result, I will tidy up the current version of the mod, and get it uploaded to @Mr.P's server. I am not releasing it through steam workshop yet, I want to wait until the new scratch build version is ready before doing that, so I will upload the files to the Proving Grounds page on ModDB, and include instructions for running the mod. Auto-downloading from the server won't be available as it will not be on the workshop.

I will post when it is all up and running in a day or two.

VonDoom

Good decision @Soul_Rider, I think it will save you and everyone else involved a lot of time. Huge cred to you for doing a thorough job!

VonDoom

I made some terrible spikey chains to make the map nice and cozy. Gonna revise the textures a bit first though.

Soul_Rider

Nice work there @VonDoom. I am struggling at the moment as I am back to using wireless internet instead of wired, so I can't play NS2 or the mod currently. I should be able to run the mod on a local server I believe, but haven't looked at that yet. Once I get that sorted, I can at least test the basics, but I really need to get my internet issue resolved to test the game properly.

Soul_Rider

Ok, back online. Quickly tested mod and it has survived 260 & 261 updates, yay! I hope =Mr.P= wil be able to update his server soon. If you want to host a server the mod id is - "c3adbe6"

If you want to play the mod, either join a server with it on, or subscribe to the mod in the steam workshop - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=205183974

Happy Fraggin' Christmas

VonDoom

Ive been working on some stuff too Gonna be fun to test this crazy mod

Soul_Rider

HaHa, I love it. Looking good. I can't wait for this to all start coming together

All it needs is the pentagram from the old logo stenciled onto the bottom. I need to get the logo redesigned using the font you have there

Soul_Rider

Here is my latest attempt to redesign the logo background. What do you think?



EDIT

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and here is take two.... much improved if I do say so myself



Edit 2

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It seems NS2 build 262 has been released, and it also appears as though the mod made it through. Further testing needed, but all appears well currently.

VonDoom

Thanks, and the bottom one looks good

The font is "return to castle wolfenstein", and i downloaded it from dafont.com, i think there is only two variations, one solid and one outlined. I used the solid one : o