Sticky Fingers on 29/12/2008 at 11:43
Thanx, Yandros, really enjoyed this :thumb: Particularly the gameplay - challenging & more realistic / believable than most (guards switching lights back on, the changing routes & I didn't feel like Garrett was wearing metal-workers' boots). And nice provision of shadowy corners.
Don't often ghost, but did so on Expert. Only broke it when I slashed a banner - very realistic for the 'no-one notice' objective, but I just couldn't help myself!
Shame it missed the TAC deadline - would have placed it in the leading group.
CheeseshireCat on 29/12/2008 at 11:57
Expert, clean sweep, didn't check the thread for hints until now, and those random patrols really kept me on my toes - especially when polishing the floor with my nose to find that last 5 gold coin (45 minutes for 5 short, then fifteen more to find it).
One thing it lacks is guards' reactions to open doors. Would have been way funnier :)
Yandros on 29/12/2008 at 13:35
Good point on the doors. Also, qolelis suggested that if the same AI relighted some certain number of times, they go into search mode (busting the ghost), but I didn't have time to try and implement that.
Esme on 29/12/2008 at 16:54
expert, 1670 loot, 3/4 pickpockets, 3 secrets, good ghost
nice looking mission, the drawers fooled me for a bit until I eliminated every bookshelf
Inline Image:
http://www.vista-software.com/yabbfiles/Smilies/doh.gif, the drawers and bookcases are gorgeous did pinkdot do the small drawer units too ?
nice work on the lights, I did that in my one and only mission and it's not as easy as it looks so :thumb: for that
one thing tho are you sure there are 4 pockets to pick ? I went back round the guards to make sure I hadn't missed one but there wasn't anything left to pick
Yandros on 29/12/2008 at 17:17
That's the traditional bug of the pocket count being one higher than it should be, most FMs have that. I was going to fix it by hardcoding the value into debrief.str, but then I realized the count differs by difficulty and didn't want to figure out how to handle that.
The drawers are by NV, they were made to go with the cabinet that's in the Meeting Hall Records Room (where you find the minutes), but I also used them for file drawers.
Esme on 29/12/2008 at 17:41
you can directly assign to the pick count by referencing it's qvar (DrSPocketCnt) and having a qvar trap set the value explicitly when the mission starts, with a different qvar trap for each difficulty
I've done that to correct a secret counter that wouldn't pick up the right value
best list I know for the stat qvars is this one (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51512) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51512
probably teaching my gran to suck eggs here as you may know all this backwards but you never know
--EDIT--
you need to create a qvar with the appropriate name as it won't be there by default, also you need to be careful with the case, I think the create dialogue forces lowercase but the edit dialogue lets you use mixed case and the case needs to match or dark won't see it
The Phantom on 29/12/2008 at 18:05
Lovely small mission, Yandros! Reminded me of some of your earlier projects.
Took me 1 hour and 4 minutes on Expert, with 1815 loot (+ the missing ring :)) and 2 secrets found.
Beautiful lightning and objects (only the basement ceiling lights seem out of place), good variety of objectives, and enjoyable room-by-room searching.
I had fun avoiding the guard patrols and turning off the lights, often resulting in shouts like "Someone thinks this is funny?" and "Alright, who's the clown!" :cheeky:. As already mentioned, imagine the AI be able to notice open doors and drawers.
There were a few times I got caught because of inpatience, but overall ghosting wasn't that hard after figuring out the (rather complex :thumb:) patrol routes and the dark corners in each room.
The objectives didn't gave me much trouble, except for finding the Feldstone Museum Map. Most time was spent by finding the ring, and searching places on the floor for expecting coins.
I'm glad to have played on Expert at first, because that seems to be the only difficulty worth the challenge.
A few small bugs I found are the 2nd floor guard who ends up standing on the edge in the overlook, the drawer in the Confidential Records room that cannot be re-opened once closed, and one of the guards turning on the lights while being not even near the button.
SlyFoxx on 30/12/2008 at 17:42
That was fun. Exprt/46min/all secrets/about 130 short of max loot/successful ghost.
Will gave me some fits but I managed to get back at him. I had a feeling I was going to get busted in the room farthest from the elevator so I switched off the light. We he got into the room he started bitching about who's the wise guy but I managed to sneek by him and into the storage closet when he turned to switch the light back on. (I just knew Russ would have the guards rigged to throw the switches so I played the whole mission without touching a switch save that one!)
Yandros on 30/12/2008 at 18:04
Actually, you can outsmart my scripting in situations like that.
If you're stuck in a room with the light off and can get behind the guard when he's going to put the light back on, then frob the button as he starts the arm motion reaching out and he'll frob it right back off again. In some cases, he'll also leave the room without frobbing it back on.
Ottoj55 on 30/12/2008 at 22:55
you'll have to write a tutorial russ, explain how that switch trick works, can any guard flip any switch back on, or just ones in there areas, do they actually watch the switch, or are they reacting to its situation in some other way?
