itch.io

4th episode will not involve going to Sirius, nor Sky City. I have other plans. As for vehicles, I thought about it, but I wasn't impressed by them in SS2 and I have no idea how to code something like that, anyway.

Did you update the Atlantis levels? There have been a few updates for those as well.

I don't know. It's that way in the alpha too.

If you're that far behind, then the issue is likely something outdated, or assets conflicting. The best way to proceed is to get the latest update and replace everything. If you get the issue after that, then I might be able to help.

There already are secrets, that encourage exploration. I really don't see the point of score items, since points don't do anything in the game. A life system would be too much hassle and everybody hates lives systems nowadays, anyway. And I kinda hate SS4's upgrades and gadgets system too, so that's definitely not happening. Secrets are a mapper's responsibility to make it worth looking for them. Or making a map that relies more on exploration. I'm not good with making secrets and I prefer classic gameplay, so that's what I'm going to make.

I just think that the mantaman looks good as is. It's got a nice alien design, with good animations, that's not really asking for an improvement. I didn't feel like putting in the effort to redo it as is. (Also, its wings seem like an arse to animate.)

I don't know what's going on with the gnaar boomer. It's literally the same code as the others.

The dragonman is kind of irrelevant, since the devil stallion can already be considered an improvement of it.

Yes, of course!

Will the old comments be back if I revert it?

Yeah, I switched to discussions from the recommendation of a more experienced creator, but now I think I made a mistake. And I'm not sure if the old comments will ever be back.

You like something? You don't like something? Just found this mod and wanted to say your opinion? This is the place.

If you have suggestions for features, then send them here.  This doesn't necessarily mean new feature suggestions, but adjustments to existing features as well.

Find any bugs or issues? Report it here.

The Carcinus Lurker is an enemy from Next Encounter. It shoots a laser in a sweeping motion from left to right and you're supposed to jump over it or duck under it. I did bring back the enemy, but never got that sweeping motion down, so it just shoots towards the player, even though the animation still does the sweeping motion. I was just wondering if that's possible.

Nah, I kinda hate those. The beheadeds are an idea I keep coming back to, but I doubt I'll ever really commit to it.

Hey Cecil, do you think it'd be possible to remake the Carcinus Lurker's sweeping laser attack? Like, the ray casts based on an angle. And then the angle moves in a sweeping motion. How complicated would that be to make?

Do you have a specific Netricsa entry in mind for this, or do I make one myself?

Okay, so after trying to work with the rev sources you gave me, I noticed that its code has been almost completely overhauled. Most notably in the HUD functions. It is completely different, so I can't really replicate the way they rearranged the ammo icons into multiple rows. (Same issue with Cecil's overhaul.)

The attempt to separate the secondary fire from use and Netricsa has been half successful. Finally gotten rid of that annoying bug where you have to wait a moment after firing off a secondary shot, otherwise it'll just keep doing it even though you're pressing the primary. But now the grenade's and cannon's secondaries can't be charged anymore. And judging by traces left for a scrapped idea (grenade spam fire), that might be unfixable. It also broke sniper zooming, making the player unable to fire or switch weapons. Haven't tried the controls yet.

But I did manage to make the sniper scroll wheel change colour! I'm keeping the map for later, because it seems much easier to do once I have all the resources necessary for it.

Well, the only Revo feature that I haven't been able to implement, is the sniper's scroll wheel changing colour according to enemy health. Also the ammo types sorted into multiple rows. Currently it's one single row, which may end up overlapping other hud elements. Also would like to look at how they were able to implement multiple world maps in a single game. I'd like to make a world map for my own campaign and I could use some help with that. Oh, and also separating the secondary fire from use and evoke Netricsa. Not sure what exact files these would require. Player.es, PlayerWeapons.es, HUD.cpp, Map.cpp. Would also be interesting to include the new headman types, though I'm not sure if I'd actually use them.

Ooh, I'd love to see that.

You're gonna be waiting for quite some time. I'm making steady progress, but I still give it about two years.

Also, too late for story modifications. It's already been scripted and voice acted. I thought about making the story continue from the SE rocket, but I already used elements of SS3 and SS4 (some lore pieces, enemies, weapons), plus I needed to explain away the holy grail. But it's not like Sam games aren't already full of wacky time stuff, so a needlessly complicated backstory is on brand for the series, I feel.

There should be an update coming, but I'm not in a hurry. Work has started on the second chapter, so I'm focused on adding new key items. But also trying to improve the Carcinus Lurker and Zorg sniper. For the former, I want to add in the sweeping laser, like in Next Encounter. For the latter, I just want to make it into more than just a mini-reptiloid.

Also, looking at the Cyclops, wouldn't it make more sense for it to be an Albino?

Only problem is that the gunner biomechanoid is also orange. Can yours be black maybe?

Also, I'd like to take a look at the enemy it's supposed to be based on. Just out of curiosity.

Edit: Also, when do you need this?

Sure, just tell me what you need and I'll see what I can do.

I've known about the alt fire issue and frankly, have no idea how to fix it. In fact, I'm pretty sure Revolution has this issue as well, but don't quote me on that. Kinda know about the underwater annoyance as well. I tried working around that and not making those fights too annoying. Homing rockets are really useful there, but the ghost buster is good as well, since the beam lets you track your aim. But if that doesn't feel right, you can actually disable view bobbing in the options. I admit those parts might have been a mistake though.

Hey, I need your help with something. I want the plasma thrower's secondary fire to be more like the Revolution version; a consistent pattern, as opposed to totally random. But I can't find the way to make the projectile launch at an angle.

Btw, you have brought up an idea a while ago, about using player models for enemies. At the time I said no, but lately, I have been thinking about the idea for something like that. Basically, Mental trying to clone Sam to create an elite army.

I have seen it, but haven't played it yet.

Unless there's a source code, it's unlikely I'll figure out how to do any of that. Even then, it's something that would need the game balanced around. Would be cool for a Next Encounter mod. The maps are already being reworked and I ported some of the enemies.

Alright, that's good to know. Weird that it didn't happen before, even though I added a lot of things to Player.es. I guess those additions coincided with changes to GameMP too?

Somebody did a Linux compatible version here, but I don't know how often they update it.

Btw, I should probably add that to the official links.

You're right. I forgot to update that. It should be good now.

Sorry, I have added that now.

Why did I not get a notification for your comment?

Level00.tex isn't even something that's in the mod, that comes with Second Encounter to begin with. And it should be in TexturesMP anyway. Unless you're using Revolution, which relocates all files in MP folders to regular folders. And I don't have a libEntitiesMP.so file anywhere, so I don't know what that is. And why is the menu green?

We're not doing mini versions of bosses. Only reason I did the airman, is because that one was a normal enemy to begin with and I intend it to be more of an environmental hazard anyway. And we already have an enemy that spawns enemies and shoots meteors: the demon summoner. It doesn't teleport, sure, but the editor has the tools to implement that, if you really want.

You can do that here.

By replacing it, I meant taking it out of the maps and putting another enemy in its place. Similar to how the devil stallion replaced the dragonman.

Regarding deathmatch maps, I don't really plan on making any of my own. I don't play deathmatch, so I don't know what makes a good deathmatch map. That's why I'm looking for somebody, who has experience working with them and leave it to them instead.

No, replaced like how the dragonman been replaced by the devil stallion. It's still there, I just use a different enemy in the map.

See, the problem is with these AI upscalers; if it really was that simple, then I would have done it already. There's a lot of fidgeting involved to get the desired result and the graphical update is so marginal, as to not even matter. The only reason I'm bothering to include this one, is because somebody else has done the fidgeting for me, but there's still tiny tedious adjustments that I need to make myself. 

And the alpha models are so low res that I don't think AI upscaling by itself would get us any closer. If you look at alpha models, the textures are badly aligned, they're extremely low poly, they wobble as they animate. The only reason I never updated the Mantaman and the Devil, is because I think the Mantaman looks fine as is and the Devil I don't really plan on using anyway. But if I really wanted to update them, we'd have to recreate the entire model, because like... Their hands are just 4 vertex blocks. A high res texture over that would look even worse.

And I really don't think the mod needs any more enemy variety. We're already almost quadrupled the original roster, some of these are gonna end up being unused. And there's another one coming next update, because I finally figured something out and I need a specific enemy for a future map. I'm already thinking of replacing all cyborgs with something else, anyway.

Okay, so after wrestling with the site's horrible code, that wouldn't let me download the 64-bit plugins quickly (it had a 403 error, had to go to a different site), I was able to finally properly open these files and start editing them. I see now that they're just AI uspcaled stuff, probably with an on-board fully built client, as opposed to some free site or Midjourney. And while I'm not against the use of AI (I have a ton of AI generated textures), it does make quite a few mistakes and I'll have to manually edit some of these. But thanks for showing me this and it's going into the next update.

I did download Paint.net to open them, but there are like 2000 files and they're not properly named.

I do have irfanview. It can't open them.

I don't know if I'm finding the right one. The modeler can't open these files, because they're in some specific dds format. And even it could, they all seem to be mostly transparent for some reason.