Toby Haynes
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Posts posted by Toby Haynes
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I wonder if DTs import is faulty - I get the same issue (inverted normals) when I export OBJs from Blender for use in DropTeam. I usually flip the normals just before export to get the right effect.
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Congrats IG! I'm sitting at the keyboard typing one handed with my 4 week-old son on my left arm so I empathize with you! Give it time and windows will open in your schedule again,
In the mean time, my Blender skills are being polished when I get a smidge of time. Expect some new models soonish.
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While I remember, budding Blenderites should take a look at the four (so far) video tutorials on Blender Underground. These explain, at a manageable pace, many of the core features of Blender.
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Poesel71 - upgrade to blender 2.45. 2.44 had tons of plugins missing, including the .cob import/export scripts.
I've used Blender for all my models. If I can sort them all out, I might release a tarball of the blend files so that other people can have a hack at them. I still have that incomplete Icarus gunship to reveal, amongst other files.
I will reappear on the forums a little more in the coming weeks - we've survived the first few days and things are settling down. I may do a bit more modding work though - it's easier to leave Blender in a hurry if I hear crying than it is to go afk in the middle of a Dropteam assault.
That does mean you might see the Crystal landscape level before Christmas
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Hi folks - just a quick word.
I think, given the demands of the new arrival, that it would be better for the tournament if I bowed out at this point and let ThePhantom go through in my place against Redcon.
I'll be online sporadically (when not sleeping, watching baby, panicking, etc...) but I really can't commit to a 1.5 hour match at a specific time right now
So good luck to ThePhantom in his battle.
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I'm around, sporadically. I've just become a Dad, so time, sleep and other such matters are going to be erratic
Do people want the 1-on-1 matches recorded for posterity (or laughter if I pull another tank flipping special
)? If so, how do I do the recording stuff? I seem to have missed out how this actually works... -
Redcon - drop me an email to tjwhaynes at gmail dot com and we can work out when we wish to get cuttering...
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You might consider having creating various mods for experiment. Then you could have mod-of-the-week on Creature Zoo and we can comment on each variant.
For example:
David vs Goliath mod
Blood has Thors and a few Apollos, Water has an even balance of Paladins and Apollos
Light entertainment mod:
Flying vehicles, paladins, shrikes and infantry
Death from above mod:
No Thors at all. Fit out both sides with more Mortar units, flying units and maybe extra EWV.
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Ah - that would be my tinfoil hat working againOriginally posted by __Yossarian0815[jby]:On slugfest we (the attackers) were sort of in disagreement on which way to attack. Unfortunatley both our initial attacks were covered by AA. a known unknown, but a bit of bad luck that both groups got completely vaped. still, our maneuvering battle in the SW of the map at the end was very WWIIish,lots of fun. Except for one moment were I had Nexus´ turret side in my sights and the round bounced off :mad: :mad: :mad: , 1 in 99% chance that that should have happened, but thats war for you.
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Actually, I think that the unseen scoring vehicle trick (or the Troll Bridge technique as I like to call it) is completely valid. Partly because you have to protect all approaches to the objective and partly because the score is a good indicator that there is something out there in scoring range. Just because one side can't see it is no excuseOriginally posted by Junglist:Nexus is downright tough to beat. That said, I've gotta have two cents about the old vehicle under the bridge trick: it's a cheapo way to win and should be trumped by any vehicle in position on top of the actual bridge itself.
It goes without saying that I usually put mines and turrets under the bridge on this level
Which reminds me - are we going to switch map for the next round of the 1v1 tournament? We've all shown some of our strategies for Gulch - how about we switch scenarios? SlugFest is a good Objective map. So is SeaCliffs (although I think I'm disqualified from suggesting that one).
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The more I play this game, the more depth there is in the strategies available. In some respects, it's like rock, paper, scissors. EWV trumps ATGM. Thors crush anything non-Thor. Apollos can crack Thors. ICs can annoy the hell out of anything and can weaken even the strongest tanks to being vulnerable to lesser tanks. Paladins can get into areas fast and gain points. ATGM can knock out heavy tanks from vast distances. Mortar can crush any weaker units and most buildings. EWV trumps Mortar. Mercurys are useless in general combat but can be decisive when used to turret storm or EMP defenders.
Recently, I've become more enamoured of the 90mmAP turrets. These little devils are fabulous anti-Thor units. Stuck in strange places with narrow field of view and jammed, they can surprise many players and blunt attacks.
I had to use most of these tricks against ThePhantom. Great games. We need a way to record these matches for posterity - a replay function would be deeply cool, and would be a fraction of the size of recorded video.
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... but useful.Originally posted by Redcon-5:You can now drive a Thor into Dead Gutch and out the other side. This is wrong.
I think the latest updates have some downforce which stabilizes the tanks. That's why the Shrike no longer flips so easily.
However, it seems a little overdone - I can drive tanks up most inclines without trouble, although the cutter still does backflips climbing steep slopes.
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AAR for Nexus6 vs ThePhantom, as reported by Nexus6.
Two tense, fabulous games where the final ten minutes of each game were nail-biting experiences. These are my recollections - hopefully ThePhantom will correct any errors.
Game 1 : ThePhantom Attacking
I put down a distributed defence across the map, including jammed AA turrets liberally scattered over the northern side of the map. The south side of the bridge was erratically mined, to slow the advance of ThePhantom's tanks and turrets were placed to try and catch the flanks of the advancing forces.
Of course, all good plans go out the window once the game started. Rather than attack from the south, ThePhantom landed in force to the NW and overwhelmed my AA defences. It then became a cat-and-mouse game of trying to flank the attack as it pushed SE to the bridge, which worked fine up to a point but eventually broke down and ThePhantom owned the bridge. With my neat arrangement of forces shattered, I was in deep trouble.
With about five minutes remaining before the game ended, I played my joker. I drove a Hermes down the side of the gorge and parked it right under the bridge. This provided me with anti-missile support and a vehicle in a scoring position. I then switched out into my bots to maximise the damage to ThePhantom's forces and managed to repel the tanks for long enough to scramble for the narrowest of wins.
Result: Nexus6 wins.
Final score: Nexus6 667 - 506 ThePhantom.
Game 2: ThePhantom defending.
Not knowing what lay in wait for me for a Dropship assault, I opted to bring my team in at the deployment zone - three Thor Mortars, one EWV and a Cutter (driven by yours truely). The Mortars immediately went into the attack but I redirected their fire at the nearest SAM base and levelled it.
Meanwhile, after rolling three Cutters trying to ascend the southern slope of the western-most base, I finally made it to the top, took out the three turrets and captured the base. Immediately I brought in Collins in a Thor H to provide cover, and dropped a Thor H for myself. Adopting hull down positions on the base (myself on the wall), Collins and I took pot shots at ThePhantom's forces well deployed below, while the other bots pushed up to south of the bridge to develop a wider field of fire.
ThePhantom had laid a heavy minefield to the NW of the bridge, with turret support around the bridge itself and further jammed emplacements to the north. Tanks were arrayed mostly on the north side of the bridge.
After a few minutes pounding at the forces around the bridge, I realised that it would take a bigger push to seize the bridge in time. Switching to a Mercury, I EMP'd and Fire'd the bridge defences, bringing in a SAM unit to block further Air recovery. I also took the opportunity to lay groups of jammed turrets at strategic points, dropped AA coverage beyond the SAM unit's range and generally went into porcupine mode.
The bots pushed up successfully to the bridge, and the holes made by the earlier artillery bombardment proved useful in digging in with two Thors, an EWV and a ATGM to sit out the final minutes once my SAM support had bought it.
Final result: Nexus6 wins
Final score: Nexus6 1089 - 66 ThePhantom
Nexus6 advances to the next round.
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Just remember your Viking mythology on alcohol... Every drop you spill goes into a barrel. Before you are allowed entry into Valhalla, you are up-ended into your barrel of spilt drinks and forced to drink it all.Originally posted by Junglist:And besides, we are space-vikings, aren't we?
So don't spill Baileys and Bitter Lemon - that's all I'm saying. Stick to beer
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D'oh! The advanced button allows me to reverse the axis and tweak the sensitivity.Originally posted by Toby Haynes:I tried out Dropteam with my racing wheel and pedals. It does work - although aiming and firing while driving is too damn tricky. Being able to accelerate immediately is an advantage, although I need a way to tweak the axis direction - accelerate reverses and brake accelerates.
Actually, it does work as long as the joystick is active before DT is started.Originally posted by Toby Haynes:If I add a second joystick into the mix (the wheel/pedals register as one) I can't get the second joystick to be detected by DT.
One thing I did notice is that a "noisy" joystick axis (ie one that is constantly changing) makes axis selection difficult. DropTeam should probably examine each joystick axis to determine the standard deviation when stationary.
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I did a little experiment with my own kit.Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:Stellar, I'm trying to round up the hardware to be able to actually play with it and see what may be wrong. I'll let you know when I've found some joysticks to try out.
I tried out Dropteam with my racing wheel and pedals. It does work - although aiming and firing while driving is too damn tricky. Being able to accelerate immediately is an advantage, although I need a way to tweak the axis direction - accelerate reverses and brake accelerates.
If I add a second joystick into the mix (the wheel/pedals register as one) I can't get the second joystick to be detected by DT.
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Too much time spent watching the updates on http://www.happypenguin.org/Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:Toby, you always know where to find the most interesting projects! I've enjoyed everything you've linked us to so far.
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Phonan - I bet your base shell has changed from "bash" to "dash". Dash is a faster shell than bash which is used for booting the system more quickly - but it doesn't support all the bash-isms.Originally posted by Phonan:I just downloaded the latest DropTeam update in Ubuntu, and now DropTeam fails to start! First, pushd bin didn't work, but I finally changed it to cd /bin and that's fine. However, when I run the script it tells me that there's "no such file or directory" as ./SpaceVikings. Any help? I'm new to Linux, so if I've been unclear please tell me and I'll try to be more specific.
Changing the first line of your runClient.sh script to
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">#! /bin/bash</pre>
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ThePhantom vs Nexus6 looks to be set for 6pm EDT Saturday (4pm Colorado time). A report on the ensuing destruction will follow ...
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Bot wrangling is a critical skill in 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 battles - if you don't organise the bots, they will either waste the heavy tanks, get all your dropships killed or otherwise ruin your master plans.
Hull-down and Advance are the most useful commands for trying to take a position. Move is critical for placing bots in certain areas (think SAM and EWV units). The others - well play with them and see how things work out.
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That was a beautiful piece of placement. I had my celebratory beer ready to toast Phonan's run in to the flag and end up crying into my pint.Originally posted by Redcon-5:Having only a handful of infantry at my disposal against two Thor’s I hunkered down behind the rocks just outside the lava pool. Ordering my two other troops hold fast and not fire I waited, watching the two heavy Thor trudge toward me there was only one chance to stop them from scoring. The last rock before the ramp gave me the best shot and as Phonan’s Thor rumbled past I fired AT grenade from under 50 meters. One sneaky grunt can ruin everything.
The "turret storm" is a great way to seize an objective. Used at the right time it can be devastating. In this case, it was my only remaining tactic with all the Dropships destroyed. Had you had one surviving EWV or Galaxy on hand, it wouldn't have been an option. Thankfully for me, there wasn't one present before the first AA turret hit the groundOriginally posted by Redcon-5:Slug Fest was all jby. Like my companion I was lead to a relaxing calm when no more dropships fell. That soon turned to panic as more drop pods then I could count fell on to the base. I believe my gun tube would have been white hot by end of that game.
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ThePhantom can contact me at tjwhaynes at gmail.com (which you could probably have guessed from my webpage
) and we can sort out a time. -
JBY was dropping hints to me in another thread. Much as I'd love to compete, I have very little time to play at the moment, due in no small part to house renovations.
Now, if you can cope with me being a little laggardly or difficult to schedule, then that's fine. I don't want to hold up the tournament but if it is straight knock out, maybe it won't be too bad.
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JBY - you should check out some of the Freespace 2 total conversions if you feel the need to blow up other craft in space.
For example, if you like the new Battlestar Galactica series, you could do worse than http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/ . Or alternatively, you could try the Vegastrike-based Wing Command - Privateer Gemini Gold over at http://priv.solsector.net/
roads question
in DropTeam Modding Forum
Posted
Have you tried the software I wrote to create roads for DropTeam? The tutorial is at DropTeam WIki - making roads and the source code is over at Flow motion source code.
I can provide 32 and 64 bit binaries for Linux easily. Windows would be easy enough for someone proficient with a compiler - the sources should be fairly trivially portable.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
P.S. I am slowly regaining some free time now my son is a little older