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Mapping FAQ and Basics


Chris

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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I may be too optimistic, but would it be possible to create a procedural map generator? While I am in no way familiar with the engine of the game, procedural generation especially for tile based maps is quite easy and beats hand-designing maps when it comes to generic battlefields with no specific plot related requirements fro the terrain.

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I hope that this wasn't already answered and I just didn't look for it hard enough:

When creating custom maps, how can I let the game use them when starting crash site missions?

To make this more clear:

1/. (for me) In your C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets folder, open the levelsetup_quickbattle.xml in say notepad (personally I'd recommend making a backup copy of this file first, in case you stuff it up)

2/. Change <Map tileset="Town" />

to <Map tileset="Industrial" />

or whatever custom map name you want to invoke (e.g. 'farm', 'suburbia', etc)

3/. Save the modified file, and of you go.

Looks like you can play with the types of aliens present here as well (haven't bothered searching for info on this, so apologies if an article on this already)

Edited by gnarly
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That would force the game to select from any map in the industrial tileset folder.

If you want to try out a specific map you also need to specify which one.

For example if you had made an Industrial based level and called it my_level then in your assets/levelsetup_quickbattle.xml file change :

<LevelSetup>

<Map tileset="Town" />

to read

<LevelSetup>

<Map tileset="Industrial" mapname="my_level" />

For different tilesets replace the word Industrial with the corresponding tileset and my_map with the name of the map you want to test.

You can also delete some of the aliens, civilians, and npc troops in that file.

If you are testing a smaller map there are probably too many to give you much chance to walk about without getting shot.

All of this info and more is on the official wiki page:

http://xenowiki.goldhawkinteractive.com/index.php?title=Mapping:_Creating_new_in-game_battlefields

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  • 2 months later...

Are there no water tiles? I can't seem to find them...

Is there a height difference between layers, or it just allows you to put an object on the same space as another object? For instance, I place grass on 0, wall on 1..if I place something else on layer 2 does it render along with the grass and the wall at the same height, or does it place it above (physically above) the other 2 layers?

If it's just rendering, does that mean you can combine various tiles through layering to get different looking objects, or does it screw up all the objects in game?

Where can I find range information on LOS and weapons?

Edited by xcorps
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Things on layer 1 are drawn later/on top of things on layer 0, for excample if a sofa is on layer 1 and floor tile on layer 0, the sofa covers the floor, but of the floor tile is on layer 1 and sofa on 0, the floor covers the sofa. Layers 2 and above seem to cause problems with covering the soldiers. Layers don't affect "height", only how things are displayed. Levels are for Z-axle or height, like for making a house that has multiple floors. Just draw a floor on as many levels as you want, but make sure that each floor is drawn with layer 0. You can make things like furniture that span over several tiles on X- or Y-axle, but not on Z-axle.

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Is this possible to add custom spawn maps(and target maybe) in game? I mean something like "airplane.human.chinook-SE_my" in level editor, something what not be used by default by other maps, only on specific maps where I place it. Specific size, not road, not zero level, map for town for example. If just add it to one of the default folders it will be used by default and didn't fit to other maps.

It's can be usefull for some experiments.

edit: Wait, is there no way to spawn soldiers on not zero level?

And what greater then "1" xenopoints indeces for?

Another question, is this possible, user side, to make placeable sprite to reduce los range, not just boolean "visibility score" thing, I saw this gas_gs, but curious is this possible to add there placaeble sprite entity.

And what is "collapsible tile" and "window" checks? I tryed, but didn't see what they do. Need to update wiki. And what is "elevation" thing, I guess but not sure how it work and it looks not implemented yet

Edited by zzz1010
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You should be able to create your own dropship type spawn point if you add all of the right elements.

Open up the Chinook in the submap editor to see what you need.

If you give it a different name to the default spawns you should then be able to place your own spawns on your own levels.

The down side to this is that I don't think the game will use those maps properly outside of the quick battle mode.

You would not be able to tell the game that zzz1010_spawn was to be used when it was looking for human.chinook.

Incidentally you can set your spawn points at levels above zero if you want to.

Some of the checkboxes are not obvious at all, I have some ideas about their use but nothing firm.

Window checkboxes might be the ones Chris mentioned that tell a tile that a shot can pass through (i.e. breaking the glass on the way through rather than hitting it and stopping).

Collapsible sounds like something to do with tiles that are held up by the tiles around and below them, not played with that yet.

Elevation is likely to be related to the hills and slopes that will be part of the outdoor tilesets.

You could add a graphic that would just make the area look darker, for example a semi transparent grey block but I haven't seen an opposite to the 'lamp' setting to reduce LOS within its radius.

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Did you tryed things you talking about? Because I did, this why I'm asking .

Level editor(not submap editor), for spawn layer painting, only looking for four maps folder of standart directions for standart game dropships, not intrested at all in naming and ignore anything else. Maybe I didn't understand something. Maybe it is somewhere defined, maybe it hardcoded(It can be feature request then).

If you paint xenopoints at any non zero level(I mean level, not layer, elevation above ground) they (xenonauts, I mean)tend to spawn in just west corner of map, at zero level

Collapsible sounds like something to do with tiles that are held up by the tiles around and below them, not played with that yet.

Elevation is likely to be related to the hills and slopes that will be part of the outdoor tilesets.

I guess this from names, my question was more like - how to use them to make them work and is they work at all. elevation is just droplist- how to define tiles with it?

And I not asking for black tiles, I'm asking for placeble "custom picture and stats_smoke-granade_smoke" (and also ability to place fire maybe)

Edited by zzz1010
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I think the spawn/target(alien) submaps work differently from other submaps. With normal submaps that are stored in a same folder the game takes a random one and uses it, but with the spawn/target maps you have to choose which one to use. For example you could have chinook_SE, -SW, -NE, -NW and zzz_spawn submaps and you can choose which ones to use on your level. By not placing the four chinooks, only the zzz_spawn submap your level would always use your custom spawn map. The official levels would never have your custom spawn map becouse none of them have the zzz_spawn submap on them. You could either go and add the zzz_spawn submap to the official levels or oversave it with the same name that is already in use (chinook_SE, -SW, -NE or -NW).

EDIT Ok, this was a lie, different chinook maps are on their own folders and the game randomly chooses one map from the used folder (direction of the chinook). /EDIT

Edited by Raakku
I was wrong
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For example you could have chinook_SE, -SW, -NE, -NW and zzz_spawn submaps and you can choose which ones to use on your level. By not placing the four chinooks, only the zzz_spawn submap your level would always use your custom spawn map. The official levels would never have your custom spawn map becouse none of them have the zzz_spawn submap on them.

This what was my idea, but level editor didn't see any additional folders. Try it.

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