D2X-XL suggestions thread

D2X-XL - Descent II update for modern systems with many new features and enhanced graphics. Home Page

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d3jake
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Post by d3jake »

Could you add a selection in teh controller setup for toggling the gauges? WOudl there be a way to have D2x display BOTH gauges and numbers?
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d3jake
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Post by d3jake »

Hey Diedel.... is this possible? or..?
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Post by Aus-RED-5 »

d3jake wrote:Hey Diedel.... is this possible? or..?
Let us not forget that he is a very busy man at the moment.
Been doing alot of work with fixes to the MAC version and more pressing issues.

Please be more patient. :)

After all... he's pretty much a one man band doing all this work. ;)
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Post by Neumaennl »

suggestion: make the suggestion thread sticky - it's sometimes hard to find - especially since the forum search doesn't work (properly)
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Post by d3jake »

Oh... sorry. I was just afraid that he might've missed it one day, so didn't get a chance to see it...
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Post by Aus-RED-5 »

d3jake wrote:Oh... sorry. I was just afraid that he might've missed it one day, so didn't get a chance to see it...
I don't know about you, but I get e-mail notifications when someone post in a thread I have posted on.
So I'm sure that Diedel does too, and he reads all posts when possible. ;)

Anyways. No big deal.

Its all good bro. 8)
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Post by Diedel »

I don't get e-mail notifications, or my mailbox would be swamped with them. ;)

I read all bug reports, questions and suggestions though, but it's entirely up to my disposition whether and when I will reply or pick them up. ;)
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Post by d3jake »

Oh.... okay.
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Post by simX »

d3jake wrote:Oh.... okay.
Haha. You sound... dissappointed. :P
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Post by Diedel »

I may add a laser level indicator, but not a gaugle toggle hotkey.
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Post by d3jake »

Okay, np :)
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Post by BugSeeker »

What about having the quad laser icon show in the inventory in Descent1?
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Post by Diedel »

Oh, lol, I forgot about that.
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Post by Aus-RED-5 »

Would it be possible to add a spectator mode?

Something like Descent 3. :)

If not.. no worries.


Plus, is it possible to have all the \"Game Play\" options in with the \"Game Host\" options?

I'm not the only one who did this, but the \"always respawn powerups\" option was not enabled when I hosted a game. And I did not know that it wasn't enable untill almost all the powerups where gone.
That option is not listed in the Game Host >>> More Options list when it should be.

Thanks ;)
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Post by Diedel »

always respawn powerups is only for single player. In multiplayer, powerups should always respawn anyways. If they don't -> bug.
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Post by Aus-RED-5 »

Diedel wrote:always respawn powerups is only for single player. In multiplayer, powerups should always respawn anyways. If they don't -> bug.
Then its a bug.
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Post by Diedel »

Aus-RED,

then do me a favor and create a support ticket for this issue.

This system is great: I can close all tickets that have been dealt with, and the open issues will remain visible. Nothing I could easily forget anymore.

I *love* it. :)
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Post by =Tempest= »

I think it would be cool if you had an accessory, like the ammo rack or quad lasers, thats a stereo to pimp out your pyro. You can then select, through an intuitive and friendly GUI what tracks you want to play. Then you and the 'bots can have a dance off! Seriously, I would like a system so that you can tell D2X-XL what music you want. Descent 2 only has 4 tracks, they get REALLY old. (And on a related note: I downloaded the midi soundtracks for both games; Descent 2 had LOTS of music that I never heard ingame, was it an expansion pack or something?)
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Post by Shadowfury333 »

=Tempest= wrote:on a related note: I downloaded the midi soundtracks for both games; Descent 2 had LOTS of music that I never heard ingame, was it an expansion pack or something?
D2 Redbook. I don't know how it was released for PC, but it was included on all of the Mac discs.
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Post by =Tempest= »

Nope, they were MIDIS. The D2 Redbook was all .mp3, right? (Some of those midis were good.)
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Post by DCrazy »

\"Redbook\" refers to the CD-Audio standard (which was bound in a \"red book\"). So the tracks were not WAVs, MP3s, or any format other than uncompressed CD-Audio.
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Post by Duper »

Wasn't the D2 music on Mp3 on PlanetDescent once? If so, it's not there now. It doesn't suprise me however. ... copyright laws etc. ;)
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Post by =Tempest= »

I believe I downloaded those .midis from PlanetDescent.

Well, I checked out planet descent, and only the regular tracks were there. odd. The .midis I'm talking about are called Entropy, Xenia, Elemental, and Pyrocide(4 songs each)-also \"Jofty's cave\"-secret level music.. They were mixed in with the 1,2,3, and 4 tracks you find playing D2. I am starting to really wonder what those midis are...They're unmistakibly Descent style, and lean toward the D2 side of things. Hmm...
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A new suggestion

Post by Dynamite »

Here's a suggestion: triggers that can change cube type. I'm currently working on a level in which a person activates a trigger activating a water valve, and I'm having water cubes among the water to be dumped into another room by a water valve, so I want to generate the effect that all of the water has been dumped into another tank, and not have water still there.
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Post by Diedel »

Good idea, I think I will add that, but it will take a while (4 weeks?)
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Post by Dynamite »

It's all right if it takes a while. I don't mind at all. :)
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Post by SnyTek »

I'm not sure if this already came up or is already implemented and I missed it:

If I design my levels I seriously think about the weapon load. Too much weapons and the level is crap. Or the wrong weapons and the level is unplayable (e.g. too many smart mines or shakers). The problem I have is, that weapons can be carried from one level to another and after you passed to the third level in a hog, you have way too much weapons in it.

I would appreciate an option where you can turn that off for multiplayer games.

Cheers
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Post by Diedel »

Weapon loadout per level? Geez, that would be an effort.

Let's see some good D2(X-XL) levels from you, and then I will think about adding such a feature. ;)
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Post by Dynamite »

Here's one: support for attaching objects to a face, for sort of a \"defense turret\" effect.

Here's another one: reserve shield/energy counters for Trainee. You know how that sometimes, your shields or energy are maxed out, and, after a robot battle, you want to collect shields/energy that spew out of the robot, but can't because your shields/energy are maxed out. So making a toggleable reserve shield/energy counter for lower difficulty levels might help out newbies who are having trouble with Singleplayer; they could just allocate reserve energy to their main energy and they'll be able to fight again.
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Post by Diedel »

A noob who cannot cope with D1/D2 SP on one of the lowest two difficult levels ... well, needs more practise. ;)
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Post by Neumaennl »

you could set the project homepage of D2X-XL on Sourceforge to descent2.de/d2x.html
at the moment it points to d2x-xl.sourceforge.net but there's only an empty directory
you don't even have to build a page that does the referring to descent2.de - you can directly set the homepage to descent2.de at the properties page of your project (I got a project at sourceforge myself)
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Post by Sirius »

Diedel wrote:Weapon loadout per level? Geez, that would be an effort.

Let's see some good D2(X-XL) levels from you, and then I will think about adding such a feature. ;)
Easiest way to do what he's asking would be to strip all weapons from all players on level start (or just reset to level 1 lasers/3-7 conc missiles).
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Post by Diedel »

True Sirius, but I am always shooting for a complete solution. ;) I might however add that as a quick hack until I have time to come up with something better, so: Good idea. :)
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Post by SnyTek »

Sirius, resetting the players weapon at level start is exactly what I was thinking :wink: . I didn't want to push Diedel in a specific direction :P .

What do you mean by 'complete solution', Diedel?

Cheers
SnyTek

PS: Diedel - you won't be able to make a DLE-XP user out of me, but I'll see which level I could release to the public 8) .
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Post by Diedel »

Snytek,

your current D2 levels do not justify any efforts on my side, and if you're not going to use DLE-XP, you won't get any better - and will never build D2X-XL levels.
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Post by AverageJoe »

Note: I browsed through the thread briefly but if I am repeating someone please forgive me.

Personaly, I would love to have a ship reset at the begining of a level as a level designer myself. Say for example I put the player into a position where the warp core can only transport the ship at minimal compliments. Thus as the player moves through the game it adds to the difficulty. But you guys allready knew that.

[Bug reports deleted for dang good reason! - Diedel]

Something I would like to see:
#1 When building levels with D2E-XL, the ability to add lights (instead of the cube vertices) and to precompute the shadow-maps. Precomputing the shadows should reduce loading times drastically and increase detail. A possible option would be to disable dynamic shadows with a certain polygon if it is too detailed. Saving the textures in a .pog file would work, however they would need an overlook-prefix like SHA_CUBE_SIDE.bmp as to not flood the texture directory. (just a suggestion, I have no idea how you have it setup currently)

#2 Ability to precompute shadow-maps with a bump/normalmap. For example to make a rock surface appear more rough.

#3 Ability to change editor keyboard layout.

#4 An object (grid) that changes the auto leveling. This is a bug I have noticed in ultra high reselution maps where cubes are so small that the ship tries to autolevel against nothing and it jiggles around. This object when not in a level just uses the standard autoleveling system.

#5 \"Headlights on\" notification. In some maps the headlight gets automatically turned on but has no appearent effect, then before you know it the primary weapon stops firing from a lack of juice.

#6 A model (.oof, .lwo, whatever) placement object. This way the level designer could create extreamly advanced scenes without the drag of phychotic cube counts. Not to mention the ability to create 3D Doors (would need animation trigger).

#6a Placed model shadow-maps. Seeing as they would be considered as the cubes are it would only make sense.


I don't know if any of these are possible, but if there are and you kindly implement them you'de be seeing many, many new maps from me.
Many new maps.
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Post by Diedel »

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Post by AverageJoe »

Those two bugs seemed fairly insignificant to post logs, demos etc. Besides, they both occured at random, which I stated.


I do have another simple idea: Allow the Descent1 movies to be played from the menu like the Descent2 setup.
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Post by Diedel »

If you think bugs are significant enough to be reported, report them in the proper way! If you don't think they're significant enough to post them the proper way, don't post them at all!

To your suggestions:

D2X-XL will probably never support shadow maps as I am to dumb to figure how to code that, easy as it may be, but the OpenGL docs are crap, the tutorials are worse, and they're all beaten by those people who know enough about OpenGL to be able to help you.

DLE-XP does precompute the level lighting. Or are you mistaking light maps for shadow maps? I will never move lightmap computation into DLE-XP. I will rather remove lightmaps from D2X-XL, as the current implementation is incomplete (no reculcation when light sources change), and I will not improve them.

I will also not support static objects before the regular objects are available and working in hires.

If the headlight is automatically on when picking one up in a level blame it on your settings. If it happens when entering a level, it is probably a bug.
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