Jailbreak Development

[Pyro]

Quick note - the file from your website doesn't seem to include anything you have mentioned (it is an older one - waited a little while and force-refreshed the page, no difference).

Edit - got the new file last night, thanks!

[BenMillard]

File now uploaded - good thing I checked back!

[Pyro]

Alrighty done some more editing of the diner area. The only thing left standing from my original design was the basic car shops! Either way, added on to what you did with the notes you made about it. Some screen shots:

The "motel" looking NE. Animated a nice buzzy sign for it too. Added fire escape and a bus stop (I didn't think a bus stop in the car park looked good, and besides, it would cause major havoc for a bus actually trying to get in there!). Thought about extending the building out over the chequered yellow tiles but looks quite nice. Will possibly add some benches or a bin or two outside it or something.

You can also see the Wang Cars sign on the garage for east-bound traffic. Did also think about putting it on the edge of the motel but looked really strange (and out of place!).

North view. Figured a tower clock would be a fitting addition to the area (with sound!). Made the 7-11/bar a little larger with one bit having two stories (there is roof access behind it). On the left of the picture I extended the motel out a little and made a 1-cube walk through (you can still walk on the grass with the tree if you like) and added a few balconies/railings to the motel. You can also see a number of parked GT-A1's here too, all colour-coded and numbered (red is 1, orange is 2 etc all the way up to black is 6). They are out of the way of the car shop entrances as well as not being "perfectly" parked!

West view. Shows the added door on to the walkway (bottom of picture) and the roof access. Also this is where the molotov is. You can then jump from this roof over to the diner fan and then to diner roof to get to the flamer. Moved the health over to the brothel (obvious reasons - and also didn't want it too close to the molotov/flamer) as well as adding some well-themed "music" to it!

Overall, added a number of sound objects (brothel music, fans, bar noises, diner noises etc) and even used the "PYLON" sound to imitate neon sign noises, and works really well! It is just loud enough to hear when you are close to them while still hearing the other noises and ambient background city noises. Hard to explain it in words, but combining the city noises with bar sounds and stuff really makes it feel alive! When you try it you'll see

A few more things to think out (especially the diner sign on the roof) but almost there with it. That reminds me, on my third picture what is the 4 white lines on the road for?

PS - Finally decided to put the GTA2 music into the directories so will probably have to add radio stations if needs be. Also playing in dusk is rather interesting (and seeing the dark path for the jump back into prison car park is really hard to see!). Also you'll be pleased to know Vike has fixed our friendly Road Block Tank Man (and other stuff, even warp from car to point!) so I see interesting times ahead

[BenMillard]

Great stuff, loving the clocktower idea and most of the detailing work. Really adds some atmosphere.

Please attach most recent files so I can briefly get at them over the weekend. Have move to London but not Internet yet and most my time at home this weekend will go on errands, paperwork and logistics. So might not get to Jailbreak at all.

Want to re-release Army Base with max wanted level and ROAD_BLOCK_TANK_MAN instead of rocket guards as a priority for GTA2 v11.40. (Basically the setup from Army Base 1 Player.) And play-test it a bit, of course.

[Pyro]

Alright then, here's the latest stuff (updated GMP, MIS and SCR).

Jailbreak-Pyro10.7z

(52.73 KiB) Downloaded 717 times

I added one bus stop zone in the diner area but no buses show up - probably because there are no others yet. Other than that, my previous post lists the changes and stuff.

I can imagine your eagerness to update Army Base with the new changes I've already got some ideas for the new working commands for multiplayer

Edit - just a suggestion for your Army map is the way the bil mission ('Tanked' I think it's called) has the RBTM - it does a check to see if an empty tank is on screen, then it adds a RBTM as a driver (and also the car collision is set to off). Basically stops the tanks firing epicly long range until you see them!

[BenMillard]

Awesome, cheers Pyro. Have uploaded new version with maximum wanted level so you get National Guard, tank roadblocks, everything.

Task List
It's just a hobby but easy to lose track of what the active areas of effort are.

1. Minimum wanted level kept after death/arrest but which allows level to increase while alive.
2. Basic test train system, as previously outlined. Route will be a rectangle using:
   1. Central North-South overground.
   2. Central West-East underground.
   3. Hydro train station, one side passengers one side slow freight.
   4. New rough tunnel going North from Hydro, along East edge of level.
   5. Turn to West, along North edge of level.
   6. Turn South and rise to join central North-South overground.
   7. Maximum length of coherent trains.
3. Level crossing can wait for now. If you do start it:
   1. Long road in far West is fine location, on a flat bit.
   2. 2-lane track like Hydro, one side freight other side passenger.
   3. I expect trains might drift out of sync so might need one invisible timer per track and feed that into some sort of control system.
   4. Totally fine to test with a single freight track for now, just to test the concept.
4. Check scripted order of shops matches visual order.
5. After completing Chapter 1, respawn at the Prison hospital car park using newly supported WARP_FROM_CAR_TO_POINT?
6. Passenger truck experiment, following theory we roughed out a while back.

That's a lot of fairly boring script and zone work. I'll stick to buildings and terrain next week, so GMP can be merged.

New Buildings
You suggested where we each get a general area to build something in. This is a co-operative project so I'd like as much of the work to be used in the final level as possible. Maybe I can think of a building for you to work on.

Hmm, you could sculpt the East cliff around Prison in the style I've started. That would be helpful but sucks an epic amount of time. Can be a bit tedious but looks so much more natural and interesting afterwards.

I'll work on the Army Armoury at my flat this week. Probably take next week as well. Am still offline there, one of the many errands I still have to sort out.

[BenMillard]

I've uploaded some new files to the Jailbreak download page. Hundreds of building and road details have changed. There are some huge areas I've roughed out the shape and surfaces for, too.

There are just a couple of mission script changes. Outermost army guards and barricades are 2 blocks further West as the Prison bridge is a bit longer. Think that's it.

(EDIT) Couple of new screenshots, including an aerial view which someone requested ages ago:


You can also use TM's Viewer and go File > Save > Minimap to get a complete overview of the level.

(EDIT) Added some slight map and script tweaks this morning. Barge now has the DESTRUCTOR below it and that area is, set to Field so you die if you fall down there. Death only happens if you try to move after falling. Better than being stuck in the hull and only able to move by jumping, from my tests.

(EDIT2) I now have Internet at my flat! Am doing social stuff and errands for most of this week but might be around on Saturday afternoon. Was able to join but not host, tried a few things, few more things to try.

Speed was brilliant with DrSlony and stability was impressive! I'd only switched it on for the first time a couple of hours earlier.

[BenMillard]

New version uploaded. This has all the changes from my previous message. The preview image is now a 400x300 version of the aerial screenshot.

Pyro and I tested a fast passenger train and a slow freight train into this but it was a different version. Both can be ridden around the temporary route. I've given the route a service path and walls around the outside, so you can drive in it like MultiSlayer's subway.

Pyro, please merge the train stuff into this version of the map. Remember the freight zones use trak1* to be separate from the trak0* passenger route. Oh, I moved the cheat weapons but didn't test their positions in-game. Should be like the Army Base weapons hoard.

[BenMillard]

I'm actually doing a lot of train development now, so you don't have to merge. You can do it for your own enjoyment, naturally, but my jailbreak.gmp is now the authoritative one.

(EDIT) I've done a total rebuild of Hydro to test an L-shaped platform. Translated all the car crusher bonus and weapons stuff, all works fine. Here's a screenshot, a lot of details like pipes and stuff will be added:



I have a sequence of 6 screenshots from same angle:

1. Starts at your newest Hydro.
2. Bulldozed with main access road.
3. (Opps, seems like I saved over this one!)
4. Entrance footbridge and foundations of main building.
5. Adds turbines, cranes, building walls and rooftop access, plus front entrance build into the cliff face.
6. Refinements, added barge, re-arranged crane stuff so it's all in range, H2000 sign, first overhead cable.

I'll upload it once I've rebuilt the train zones, maybe tomorrow evening. Pyro's Hydro gave me a great starting point for putting this together, the inspiration grew from there.

(EDIT) Uploaded new version with train test track set up. Freight train goes full speed (0.400) below ground and uses station approach speed (0.200) above ground. Both trains have 8 carriages plus the engine and can be fully accommodated at either station.

Passenger train catches up with freight train after a few full circuits but they stay overlapped for a couple more. My trains race each other! They avoid contact even when turning sharply together, too. I'm so pleased with it!

I added a third crane to Hydro. This takes cars from the platform (theoretically from the freight train, too) and puts them in the car park. Then the first crusher crane grabs it and runs it through the crusher! Wasn't sure this would work but it does! Guess you could make chains of cranes which pass stuff along? Maybe I'll use that in the quarry, as the only way to retrieve a bomb-proof miner's Jeep...or something.

Freight doesn't call at central station but maybe it should. Other two lines could be "express" trains. They would seem to go through the level without stopping at any stations. One passenger express and one freight express, using the speed difference Pyro pioneered.

(EDIT) Uploaded with a few more refinements.

[BenMillard]

Jailbreak: Army Base has been released as a very early test version.

Andrej, Jedras and Sequential have all tested it with me so far.

The first gate is now in place and can be destroyed with a carbomb. The carbomb is fitted when you park close enough to the gate.

It's stable but the gate will sometimes get destroyed even if the bomb doesn't go off. Object recycling and my very simple bomb detonation check are probably causing this.

Once I code the inner gate, you will have access to the whole base in multiplayer. You can teleport around it in Play Alone mode until then.

[BenMillard]

Both the first gates are playable! Only player 1 can open them, at the moment.

I'll allow player 4 and 6 to open them once I start seeing enough testers are available.

[Pyro]

Nice to see you've gone back to this I've not done any scripting or mapping for months now

[BenMillard]

• You can now play through 4 objectives to complete the level.
• Respawn points now advance into the base after both gates have been destroyed.
• At some point I will make them advance to the ship area after the mountain RADAR array has been reached.
• A pro attacker could just about beat two new players before I did the respawn point change.
• Oh there are now 2 respawning Tanks and 2 respawning Army Jeeps.

[BenMillard]

Not finished but this is my first pass at the scenery. A big military compound using Residential's ste.sty.

[BenMillard]

Development of this is will slow down for a while as I have lots of lovely Summery vacation stuff lined up!

1. I'll be at a festival in South Wales until next week. W00t! Should be back on 19th August 2013.
2. From Sunday 25th to Wednesday 28th August 2013 I'll be out of town again.
3. On Thursday 29th I shall mostly be unpacking and re-packing ready for yet another festival!
4. Friday 30th August to Monday 2nd September 2013 is when the festival is on.
5. Friday 13th to Sunday 15th September 2013 I'll be staying at a cottage in Dorset.

That's all, folks!

(EDIT) Tonight I built some crates where a Counter-Strike style objective could take place:

1. Attackers place a bomb to destroy the new tanks in their crates.
2. Bombs detonate 5 seconds after being placed.
3. Defenders can defuse the bomb by touching it but only if no defender is on it.
4. You do this 3 times to pass the objective.

Tank battle is a must-have feature in this level so it might become part of this stage. Attackers respawn quite far from the crates and defenders could have some tanks which are already out of their crates.

We'll see...possibly next weekend!

[BenMillard]

Back from festivals, family and so forth! Looks like the original power cord for my laptop is nearly dead. Luckily I got another one at Xmas for work, so I've switched to that. All working again.

Now starting a full backup of the laptop, just in case!

Speaking of the case, I took it all apart while looking for loose wires. When I put it back together I fixed a wobbly Esc key, levelled all the keys and stuck down an end which had started to lift up. That's now working much better.

I use Esc quite a lot and also use the other keys from time to time. So this is a big relief and also a small improvement. Hoorah!

[elypter]

>tidy input devices

[Sektor]

Good that you're back Ben, now get to work. Laptops can be tricky to put back together. Backup early and often and do as I say, not as I do.

That guy definitely wins the filthiest keyboard award. That keyboard really needs to quit smoking.

[BenMillard]

OK, OK! Tank battle objective is ready for testing. It's stage 3, after you blow up both the gates.

It is combined with the Counter-Strike objective, where you place a bomb with a 10 second fuse. Defenders will be able to defuse the bomb by touching it at any moment during the count-down. Once this code is proved stable I'll add that.



The missile objective will be stage 6. I've built a second ship far to the East. Attackers will be shooting missiles at the East ship. Defenders will be on the East ship, like a Task Force sent to stop the terrorists who have taken over the base.

Between the ships will be a canyon system with multiple routes through. Eventually. At first it will just be open water.

(EDIT) Oh the slow camera after death in vehicle bug is also fixed. I re-used my delayed warp workaround from MultiSlayer BUSTED.

(EDIT 2) Counter-Strike bomb placement and defusing works great! Had some heart-pounding games through this stage of the level.

The mode could be applied to any level, a bit like my Domination script from MultiSlayer. Gustavob's 9/11 map should of had this gameplay years ago but he never built it.

[BenMillard]

Sorry to double-post but look! There is now a video showing the tactical craziness of a 4 player game:



(Seems the yt button produces code which doesn't work.)

Playing this 1 attacker versus 2 defenders is so intense...my heart was pounding and I tried everything but couldn't quite do it. So I didn't record that game.