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Topics - Pliny

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1
Suggestions & Requests / Xabungle- Walker Machine Playertypes
« on: October 08, 2016, 06:00:01 PM »
Haven't played Blockland in some time but whatever.

Basically, playertypes for the various Walker Machines of Xabungle fame. For those who don't know, they're gasoline-powered digger/combat robot combos, usually driven akin to cars by a medley of rough-and-tumble folk known as Civilians and their various subclasses. There are a variety of types, with many mounting turrets or having multiple seats, pretty much all of those things are capable of being done on playertype datablocks, right down to how WMs tend to jump! You can see this in the form of the default Boat, Cannon, and other add-ons, such as Kaje's old Mecha.

The only WMs I'd think would be difficult to make would be the Combat Mecha (except for the Blockary) and Iron Gear, respectively, due to their transformations and how the Iron Gear is loving huge. The Government type WM could have two versions, a regular version and one with the Innocent logo and additional health.

Here are some examples, namely the Dugger, Legg, and Promeus.








Most Walker Machines would simply be fuel jet or jump jet players, with the Doran being the only full jet player since it flies.

I know Bushido at least is a Xabungle fan. Knowing how he built a Gallop a while ago, I find myself wondering why he never decided to make a playertype out of it to boot. If nothing else, the smaller WMs would probably be easy to make, namely the TRAD 11, Gallop, Crab, Legg, Phog, and Burun.

2
General Discussion / SpeedKart Starting zone
« on: December 26, 2013, 03:31:35 PM »
A while ago Badspot n' co released SpeedKart as a gamemode as well as the resources needed to make tracks of your own! Unfortunately there have been only a few custom-made tracks made since then. Now, DaffyTitanic was posting about making a SpeedKart track in this thread here, and it turns out the issue was that he couldn't get the starting zone to work. I've seen some people complain about this before, so I went and got the save and managed to make it even easier to use than it was before.

Done. Turns out the main problem is that it has to be left as unnamed because the save file does not have an assigned name? I dunno. This one works just fine as far as I can tell but I saved over the original with a description. Try it out!

Also, can I put this in General Discussion? There aren't enough Speedkart tracks. Remember to check the original dev topic for how to make the track fully functional!

The original SpeedKart dev thread is here. Make sure to check it to find out how to make functional tracks of their own!
http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=223980.0

Basically a redundant thread but since someone was having trouble with it and there hasn't been much Speedkart development lately I decided to save over the original with a proper name and a description. Thanks.

3
Suggestions & Requests / 'Water' layer for 4x modular terrain?
« on: December 14, 2013, 02:23:54 PM »
Right now the 4x ModTer bricks do not allow for other regular bricks to be placed within, and the regular and inverted type ramps can't be placed on their face which has the ramp. Changing this would allow for far more interesting build stuff. Oh well.

4
Help / File refusing to open?
« on: December 07, 2013, 12:14:43 PM »
So I'm trying to open afile to edit it, but it refuses to open. I've tried setting it to "read n' write", but no dice. Any suggestions?


5
Games / In the Hunt- Submarines!
« on: November 11, 2013, 08:22:33 PM »
HEY YOU!

YA LIKE SHMUPS!? DO YOU ENJOY OVERSTIMULTANEOUSLY DEVASTATING DEEP STRIKING SIMULATIONS OF SUBMAWHEENS? THEN PLAY THIS GAME.



In the Hunt! Originally an arcade SHMUP, then ported to the Playstation and Sega Saturn, it's a game where you blow stuff up. Has a very Metal-Sluggish feel to it (having been made by the same team), and is loads of fun to play n' stuff. An evil corporation/society(???) has used doomsday devices to melt the poles and flood the Earth, and now rules what remains of mankind with an iron fist and massive, massive fleets of deadly superweapons. A resistance group has managed to secretly develop a new weapon of its own: a super-submarine capable of mass destruction the bad guys can only dream of. So limber up, arm the torcreepes, and dive for some ass-kickin' sub-blastin' fun. Did I mention it's fun? 'cus it is. Also, 2-player co-op!

Some game bits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeZvzkdemQ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk95UuZzEBU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4qAYfBN7Jk







S'pretty fun to play. If you try to emulate it I'd recommend going with the arcade version. Ah well. Give it a go, will ya?

6
Suggestions & Requests / Fixed/new setBotLight?
« on: November 11, 2013, 06:25:49 AM »
Now, there currently is a setBotLight event available, made by Chrono, but it was meant for use with Amade's bot events. It can be found here. Since it's currently incompatible with the game as it is, could someone make a new or fixed version of this event?

7
Suggestions & Requests / Ancient add-on begging thread
« on: October 24, 2013, 07:32:32 PM »
A thread to beg for add-ons with. Are you looking for add-ons, too? Can't find the RTB2 archive anymore, or are the links all dead? Well, here's someplace to do the begging in.

I'm looking for any copies of:
-Kaje's dual uzis
-Ephialtes' Flamethrower Found, thanks Khain!
-Solarflare's old Gravity Gun, as seen here.
Found it! Thanks to the hacker for this one.
-Heedicalking's Hydra flak tank
If anyone can scrounge up anything, it'd be appreciated. Thanks.

If you have any old add-ons you might want to ask for, here might be a good place to ask.

8
General Discussion / Random Weapon and Item balancing/selection
« on: October 06, 2013, 06:21:16 PM »
So, how do you choose weapons and items for your server? Are there any themes or ideas you want to follow or find? What makes you choose what you choose? The reason why I'm asking is because weapons balance is a tough job- most weapons are made with their own ideas in mind that make them hard to balance and use together properly. While they can all work as add-ons, as weapons they might tend to throw each other off in minigames. How do you try and judge what to use and what not to use, or what will/won't fit?

I'd also like some advice on my server loadout. I'm trying to get weapons and items that are simply modeled but which have unique roles and functions on the field/server.

I currently have, including defaults:
-880 Rifle (Ridiculously OP but it at least has a cool laser sight)
-Auto Rocket Launcher (Kaje's tri-barreled rocket monster)
-Aim Rocket Launcher
-Bow
-Buster Gun (The first and as far as I know only weapon to have true damage falloff.)
-Chainsaw
-Combat Rifle
-Double Barrel Shotgun
-Deflector (A tiny bit easier to use than the Push Broom Reflector)
-Flak Cannon
-Gravity Gun
-Guided Missile (old V8 add-on, probably won't use as it is ludicrously OP even with its extra slow firing and debilitating immobility)
-Gun
-Guns Akimbo
-HE Grenade
-Homing Rocket (Not going to use in DMs much, I keep it for the projectile and functionality)
-Laser Pointer (Not going to use this in DMs much either, damage to players by the laser ground burn can kill outrageously fast but it's a useful tool for measuring sometimes.)
-Minigun
-Old-School Rifle
-Portal Gun (Might not use in DMs, abusable for escape.)
-Push Broom (with Push Broom Reflector mod, although a bit hard to use)
-Solarflare's Revolver
-Revolvers Duo
-Rocket Launcher
-Shotgun
-Sniper Rifle
-Spear
-Swingable Sword
-Sword (With shield and Riot Shield)
-TF2 Butterfly knife

-Invisibility watches
-Pill
-Pipe Wrench

My main thing about this is that it lacks a weak 'spray n' pray' weapon or variety. While the Guns Akimbo and Minigun can fill the role, they're also both fairly powerful. I'd like to use Tier+Tactical, but it currently has a bug making it impossible to use the midway between full ammo/reloading and ammoless settings. I also can't find a decent flamethrower, and though I've heard good things about Ephialtes' I can't find any downloads.

What do you guys think about weapons and item balancing? Any suggestions?

9
Help / Sports items not working in minigameS?
« on: September 05, 2013, 01:26:05 PM »
For some reason when I try to pick up balls (Soccer ball, football, dodgeball, basketball, etc) in minigames, nothing happens but the item disappears and respawns as if it was picked up. Outside of minigames they work fine. Is this some kind of bug or a feature? Should I post a console log?

10
Piles of suggestions and ideas to make Blockland a little easier or more fun to play. Basically your run-of-the-mill suggestion thread, but bigger! Please tell me if any of these are available or default already.

BOTS
Current bots are pretty great but inflexible in certain respects. Bot combat AI cannot be changed, bots can't operate any kind of bot turret, and bots don't prioritize event commands when hostile in minigames. Bots also fire weapons at fixed rates, cannot be modified in terms of health (thank datablocks for that one), and certain weapons and items do not work with them (granted, this can be seen as a fault of the items themselves). Here's some stuff I thought might help:

-Changeable AI: Bots always behave in a certain way when hostile to anything; they flank and shoot. What I'm suggesting is that there be more options available for aggressive bot behavior. Instead of the constant flank-shoot-flank-shoot of current bots, bots could have eventable-selectable options for how they behave. For example, a spawned aggressive bot could be made to run straight at enemy players while firing as fast as it could, or it could be made to stand still and take potshots at targets. Bots could also hopefully be made to behave in certain manners according to range or health, e.g. how far away a player is for the bot to start shooting (this is different from detection), or how to behave (fight/flight) when on low or high health, or just what to do upon spotting any kind of hostile.
Possible AI choices could include:
-running (towards target(s))
-flanking
-retreating
-jumping (w/ frequency)
-crouching (at what frequency and for how long)
-staying put
-firing (and at what frequency)

-Event/command priority: For the most part this already exists. People tend to complain that bots don't behave properly when in minigames, but that's because they are set to a hostile team, and bots prioritize either running away (to save themselves) or attacking when a hostile is detected. Setting a bot to 'friendly' or 'neutral' in a minigame will make the bot obey its events normally-up until anything the bot identifies as hostile arrives, at which point the bot either tries to attack it or it runs away if it doesn't have a weapon. This would be an event (presumably a checkbox) that determines whether or not the bot prioritizes event orders or its own AI under certain circumstances.

-Extended general events:
 -Swapping seats in vehicles.   
 -Establishing individual players/clients/vehicles/other bots as targets to attack, follow, or run away from, regardless of the bot's team. Kind of doable by default w/ multiple events.
 -When to use jets/jet-button-based abilities, and for how long. (you can kinda-sorta do this with playGesture but it is not as flexible as it could be)
 -An 'onbotreachbrick' extension that would allow bots to behave as if they'd been ordered to the  brick by an event. Useful for if a bot evented to sit wanders off, and then returns and stands up for the rest of its life until respawned. This event would allow you to order the bot to sit down again, without ever having touched the brick.   
 -How to react when a player, bot, or vehicle is detected. Basically just an input for when a player, vehicle, or bot is detected, this would allow players to manipulate what bots actually do when they spot anything. (e.g. bot spots vehicle, plays emote X/goes to vehicle. Could be extended for use on "attack individuals" and whatnot or for forcing bots to stay still when attacking.)
-Bot travel behavior. Also kinda ties in with the AI suggestion: right now, bots now usually try to circle around obstacles when they can't get to something they want to reach. Now you can tell the bot how to try and go about this, via jumping, strafing, walking straight, etc.

-Bot-on-bot action!: Bots now cannot operate bot-based turret vehicles or vehicles with click-based gun functionality, so if there were a way to get bots to behave properly when confronted with these, it might be pretty useful.

-General functionality:
 -Bot inventories and events for management of said inventory
 -Togglable bot zombification
 -Better click-to-charge detection (e.g. always charging the Spear fully)
 -Toggleable bot emotes when hostile in combat/minigames (unless this is already default, hostile bots will emote even if disabled.)
 -An option for server hosts to let player bots stay regardless of whether the owner is present or not.
 -Changeable hard limits for non-admin player bots, to go with the suggestion above, and thus preventing spam.
 -Events for bots in vehicles (handbrake, key functions, etc.). May already be doable via playGesture.
 -Zombie bot variants w/ brick fakekilling capability (V8 bots kill bricks outright).
 -Detection/utility/event input for bots opening doors and similar content (e.g. onBotOpenDoor/onBotActivate), since bots can currently open default doors by themselves. Somewhat already present in onOpenDoor.
 -A general event for bots to board vehicles and non-turret bot vehicles? I'm not entirely sure on this one as you can just order a bot to jump prior to it reaching a vehicle spawn.
 -Outputs for attacking/running away from individual players/bots regardless of team affiliation.
-
Another thing with the bots: Remove some of the checks in the script that search for a spawn brick or a minigame owner.
-
Bots are also dead-accurate with their aiming. You should be able to adjust how good their aim is.
-Events to order bots/bot holes to perform certain actions from non-bot hole bricks?
-Event input to detect what gesture a bot has used last?
-Event to cancel any recent bot orders, similarly to cancelEvents?
-

VEHICLES
Just some suggestions for the community on vehicles. Honestly these aren't very clever or at all necessary.

-Raycast weaponry vehicles: Back a couple versions when the ScatteredSpace dogfight was all the rage, one unique vehicle came from their server: a combat capable mini biplane! It had mounted weapons in the form of two raycast guns that allowed it to effectively engage other targets in the air. Another vehicle like this could be fun for everyone.

-Generic treaded carrier: While its great to have tanks, treads aren't only used on 'em. A generic crawler sort of vehicle (imagine a traditional snow rescue vehicle) could be fun, but god knows what use would come of it besides it existing. On the other hand, it doesn't introduce much new to BL, besides some civilian treads.

-Generic bot boats: We have a rowboat, sure, inflatables of all kinds,, sure, but a true speedboat? Nope. A bot speedboat vehicle would probably be simple to make, just a little faster than the rowboat, with some seats and a motor. That's it. Again this isn't much of a 'new' suggestion and it's basically just a resized and reorganized rowboat.

-

EVENTS
Some event suggestions for all the coders.

-Variable conditional events- again? I have no idea what happened to these, as far as I know Destiny/Zazk0Wack0 was working on another version of 'em, but they seem to have disappeared. Is anything going on? One thing that I would ask for regarding these is a fixed manual and easier use, 'cus VCE was pretty complex.

-Node hiding/unhiding events? I'm not sure whether or not this already exists..
EDIT: See post by Gen. Hothauser

-I know Orion up there wouldn't mind it, is it possible to have a camera brick that pans? Me thinks this would look nice for cutscenes.
-I know this is floating around somewhere in a private folder or whatver, I would love a favorites bar for an event brick. However I know that this is very exploitable to those troublemakers, so maybe a restriction to its availiability. I already am certain an environment favorites bar exists.
-OnVehicleTouch got lost somewhere me thinks, although PlayerEnterZone is an alright alternative. Also I wouldn't mind having a "setvehicle" thingie (excuse my broadness here), I love to make bots transform into vehicles but that's restricted to playertypes.

-


WEAPONS/ITEMS
Some weapon and tool ideas.

-A port of Ephialte's flamethower?

-A proper port of Kaje's AutoLauncher? I managed to get one and fix it up a bit. If you want it shoot me a PM.

-A boomerang? In an attempt to bring something new to the table, this'd basically be a weapon with a projectile that has a pre-set trajectory, moving in only a certain range and then returning to the player (or at least its starting point?). It could probably be picked up and dropped like the sports items.

-More non-generic-generic weapons. C'mon! A machine gun? A rifle? Really? When's the last time any of these brought a mechanic that WASN'T reloading to the table? Look at stuff like the Flak Cannon with its two modes, the Shotgun with its bullet spread, the Old School Rifle with scoping? Don't bring weapons, bring mechanics! For example, take the Buster Gun. Its main thing isn't that it's a shotgun, but that it uses actual damage falloff- the further away the target is, the less damage is dealt. It's introducing a new and previously unseen mechanic. Think about Kaje's Minigun or Double-Barrel Shotgun. When they came out, they were- and still are- unique weapons. Kaje's minigun needs spinup, the double-barrel is a two-stage gun. When's the last time you've seen something with new mechanics? If it's not mechanics, then think about role and purpose- Take Tier+Tactical for instance. However much people don't like it, when you strip away the skins (which Bushido himself said are all basically the same gun), you get a LOT of different weapons in the different tiers, each with a different individual role and purpose on the field. This doesn't just apply to weapons! Think about tools and items! The Hookshot, the Gravity gun(s), the Portal Gun- New stuff! Try it, maybe.

-

THE GAME
General suggestions for the game itself besides bots.

-Support for lights on non-rendered bricks?
-Extended environmental control. See this thread, and this thread by Mr. Nobody.
-A general default events and bots guide. Since people seem to have trouble with both of them sometimes, some guides could be good for everyone.
-More default builds with examples of terrain made with [GSF]Ghost's bricks. Hopefully with more than one type of ramp involved!
 -Default implementation of GSF's 4x terrain bricks?
-More default builds with the Sports items
-Delete keybinds set for add-ons automatically if the add-on is removed from the game. Probably shouldn't when said keybind is shared with a default function, though.
-Even more minigame events (e.g. triggers for when rounds start, end, etc.).
-Support for leaving camera events when used without events to return the player's camera to normal.
-Avatar options for having feet and skirt parts at the same time
-
tutorial should be updated
-
Vehicle physics!
Improved brick physics - stop them from going through things!
Vehicle physics can be improved upon and made a bit better within the engine limitations if people would take the time to adjust the vehicle's datablock properly. Changing even a few of those settings can affect the performance of the vehicle drastically.
Very true. Another thing related to vehicle properties:
http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=201933
- Support for more visible lights. It's been shown that it's possible but it hasn't been implemented.
Bots in vehicles have awkward aim, it seems.  When the BotGoToBrick event is used, they never quite go straight at the brick, and the OnBotArrive event is triggered for bots in vehicles from a grater distance away than when a bot is walking.  Somehow fix this.
-

TL;DR doop doop brockrand suxe hers som sugestons!11!11

A lot of these suggestions may be pretty bad or else generic in the extreme. However, I kinda feel like some just might be useful. Tell me what you think, and leave suggestions of your own, 'cus some of these are suggestions that I'd like added to the game itself. Thanks for reading.
Also, I realize I probably should have said that most of this obviously won't go into the game. If someone picks 'em up, great! If not, then it's still something to discuss.

11
Suggestions & Requests / SolarFlare's Old Gravity Gun?
« on: August 18, 2013, 11:33:01 AM »
Solarflare once made a Gravity Gun before Space Guy. It had the same purpose and general capabilities but unlike Space Guy's it functioned more like the real Gravity gun from Half-Life 2. A guy kinda-sorta ported it in this thread, but all of the links are dead. Does anyone have a copy they're willing to share?

12
Gallery / Mini-Ville: A lil' town. Download too!
« on: June 14, 2013, 05:56:07 PM »
A town that I built and (mostly) finished some months ago. I had made it because I'd wanted to make something nice. Looking at it now it's as crappy as ever, but I'd wanted to give it out, so here it is. Most of the buildings don't have any interior to speak of and the ceilings for many are similarly void and blank. Do whatever you want with it.











Link. Thanks, have fun!

13
Games / Armikrog- A new claymation point n' click
« on: June 01, 2013, 08:08:08 AM »


So, after years of seeming development hell, Doug TenNapel n' co. have opened up with a new clay-based point-n'-click! It's called Armikrog, and it's about a guy named Tommynaut, along with his pal, Beak-beak. It's now on Kickstarter, and has had some significant progress put into its development already, so go and check it out!

Kickstarter page! It's only gotten about one-third of the way to its goal, and it's only got less than a month left to meet it, so show some love if you wanna see it done.

Never heard of the Neverhood? That's okay 'cus this game is still pretty cool. Check out some tidbits from the original.

Sorry if my topics all crappy, I'm kinda new to this.

14
General Discussion / Weird stuff/notes
« on: January 20, 2013, 09:39:09 AM »
(Or just some personal gripes.)

Just a bunch of stuff I found weird/bothersome about BL right now. Many of these may have been stated and adressed before but I'd like to ramble into my screen for a moment anyways.

Playerbase activity
Blockland's been around for a while now and the ID count has hit the 40ks, but severs seem emptier than ever. This has been noted by various people. Some have said that it's because much of the older community has moved on, others have said other stuff, while others have said that it's because servers have become less interesting. Oddly enough, the increased ability to host hasn't helped with this, and may actually be part of the reason for the change.

Server flooding/fun
While player activity has gone down, server count seems to have climbed. Thanks to more porting availability, more people than ever have opened their own servers. However, nobody seems want to join them! Hosting services have only added to this, with at least a dozen or more empty dedicated servers on at any given time. The few servers that do seem to have any good playerbase are usually advertised on the forums (though this isn't always the case).

Add-On/game development vs. community creativity
Blockland's add-on development has taken a great leap for the better, and that's a good thing. What isn't a good thing is that even with all of these add-ons nobody is making anything. Maybe it's just me, but I often don't see many creative or cool deathmatches anymore, or anything special really. Maybe it's because playing is easy but building is hard, but in any case one thing has risen while the other has fallen.

W.I.P./server advertising
This is more of a pet peeve of mine than anything else: advertising! I once didn't understand why people like to advertise servers, until I realized that practically speaking it can be the quickest way to get people to join your server now. It's struck me that players like to join servers based on the amount of people already in the server, so one of the best ways to get people to come (and stay) is to advertise. Still, I find it annoying because I always thought that it'd be better just to finish something before you start trying to show it off. That doesn't mean I'm not guilty of it myself. Even then though, I'd finished my build before posting about it. It can also sometimes be pretty cool to see someone's WIPs, but for me this is only when it's in screenshots. It's just a little bit weird sometimes to see someone make a topic or thread about a project that's less than three-quarters done.

TL;DR
  • There seem to be less people about nowadays.
  • There seem to be more servers even though there's less people.
  • Add-ons seem to be getting better and better but people don't seem to be putting them into use as much
  • I don't like how people advertise servers for traffic or WIPs for attention.

Honestly I just wanted to say what was on my mind about all this. Nothing is going to change anytime soon and I'm not suggesting that it can, should, or will. What do you think?

15
Suggestions & Requests / More extensive environmental control
« on: January 12, 2013, 11:14:02 AM »
I've noticed there's some stuff we used to have in the old maps that we don't seem to have now, or environmental controls we don't have, so I'm just gonna leave this suggestion here. With these kinds of options in the game, players' already extensive control of the default environments would be even more versatile, allowing for a wider array of environments to be created.

-Water in pre-V21 maps or environments could have  a certain "roiling" effect to them, making them look as if waves were moving about in them. This is still evident in the brick based water we have now, but there's no option for it in the environmental options. Water lethality is another issue, as it is bound to the water type selected and it cannot be set to any selected water texture. Damage for lethal water is also fixed.

-Some maps pre-v21 had a "wind", a sort of force that shifted emitters in a certain direction depending on where the wind was headed. It'd be nice if we could have this back for map settings.

-Some pre-v21 maps also had a "default ground effect", for example, the "Grasslands" map had grass already on the ground even with no bricks to speak of. Others had dust effects (which combined with wind made for neat dust clouds!). Having this back would be pretty neat.

-Clouds are currently bound to certain skyboxes, which is kind of annoying as this can ruin or change ambiance. For instance, if I were to try and make a dark map that has rain, I'd have to use the default skybox with rain. However, while I could hide the skybox with a black color, I can't change the color of the clouds. Not only this, but you can't change cloud direction.

-Precipitation, like clouds, is also currently bound to a particular skybox and cannot be used without the effects of that certain skybox. It cannot have its color/size changed or have its direction modified.

-Map ground collision could be taken out of some maps entirely. Of course you'd need to have bricks already placed if you wanted to start building, but it'd still be a fairly cool environment option.

There's other minor stuff too. Changing skyboxes tends to not change "advanced" skybox options, leaving weird behavior when a player wants to start customizing. Having some way of controlling this would be helpful. Direct number inputs for values like sun azimuth and such could also be useful.

Extensive environmental control could allow for much better or more interesting player environments. While what we have is cool now, I think it'd be even cooler if we could crank things up a notch, and be able to create a wider array of scenes to build in. Maybe with new environmental features, it'd even be possible to have map "events", such as intermittent storms, winds, or other stuff.

Thanks.

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