Random asset hotspots

Hey all.

Loving the game so far tonnes of forum input that i can see too, but another idea or 2 cant hurt can it?

I know that there is a significant amount of random stuff loaded in the latest few builds, but i was thinking that a few invisible overlays could be made for each tileset that uses some form of loading an asset from a pool of assets(to further randomise) to make the maps even more varied. This could also be used indoors to turn houses into shops, shops/houses into warehouses/storage etc.

It would basically dynamically load pre-made assets over the tiles using what should be a super-easy to produce colour map(which is obviously invisible to the player)

These assets would also have various states of destruction, such as fire hydrants spraying water constantly when shot up, road lights no longer illuminating light missions.

As the image attachment thing shrunk my file to buggery, ill put the legend here

Blue - road lights/power lines/road lights & power lines

Red - North-west road crossing

Yellow - garbage cans, post boxes, fire hydrants, etc.

Green - North-east road crossing

Purple - 4-way traffic lights

Cyan - Random trash? 10%? chance of appearing (Can move over with TU penalty if exists)

Olive - Flowers/weeds asset pool (% chance of appearing )

I'll have to grab my gold pre-order medal thing too sometime now that I have finally registered on the forum again.

And hopefully the 10 or so "Xenonauts" games in my windows games folder will dissappear too someday too...

Anyways thanks for reading;)

Each building, road section, field etc is a submap.

Those submaps are randomly selected from a list of available submaps in the correct folder.

For example you might place 'factory10x10' on the level designer and then every time that level is loaded it will randomly choose a submap from the 'factory10x10' folder to place there.

One could be a single story printshop, another a three floor factory complex, or maybe a garage.

The road section your ferret is parked on in that screen shot is also done the same way.

There could be twenty different road options there to choose from.

One may have a broken down car on it, another may have a hydrant, a drain cover, a waste bin etc.

That isn't very apparent atm but that is due to the limited numbers of submaps available.

You can randomise your maps more by copying all submaps with the same base size (5x5, 10x10, 15x15 etc) and place them all in each others folders.

It throws up some odd things like doors opening onto walls sometimes but that shouldn't be a problem once there are more submap options.

Each tile of each submap also has a normal, damaged and destroyed state.

You can see it on the walls or barrels as you shoot them.

I understand how the system works. I am suggesting that rather than make a large volume of "factory10x10" tiles that you only have a few of them with relatively minor differences and large open spaces, then use a random invisible colour map that can be transposed over the "submap" to load random/pseudorandom sprites from a large pool in place of the static ones available now.

It could effectively take a lot less time to make a large volume of these overlays for each submap set than making a whole new submap (or a lot of submaps) that pretty much looks the same.

They could even, if the engine can handle that many "units", be loaded as static non-AI controlled units or some such. You must have some way that defines that the players units are spawned in a specific area, well this would pretty much be the same thing, just on a different tile, and with random things loaded.

It is a 2 second job to copy a submap and maybe 10 seconds on top to alter it.

Each one is stored as a small text (well xml) document so file size isn't much of a problem either.

It would seem to be easier to make a variation of submaps rather than having to make alteration to the game engine in order to allow a new system to be used to make the same small alterations to submaps.

It also means that you would have to have the same open spaces on each 'factory10x10' submap you created in order to use these overlays.

You aren't limited in the same way with the current system.

If every submap has the same basic layout with a few minor changes in the open areas then that is actually less variation than the current system allows.

I only pointed out how the submap process works because it is already easy to make the sort of changes you mentioned in your original post without needing to code a whole new map handling mechanic.

Excellent news, if its so easy then i cant wait to see them in the game.

Realism is always a good thing, and roadlights and pedestrian crossings and such, being so easy to place into the map is brilliant. All i ever wanted was to increase realism a little bit more, and maybe add a bit of realistic randomness.

Do the level and submap editing tools come with the KS demo version?

Have a play with those if you have them and you can see how easy it can be.

Plus the more submaps and levels people make the better for me.

Nothing worse than playing on the same maps over and over.

So then is there no way to store some sort of randomisation for a singular tile in the XML file, editor and engine? It's just that even though it is apparently so easy to create submaps it might still be nice to leave some minor architectural features random. And I have no idea if the is demo comes with that stuff, but desura has them, and while the level editor is easy the submap is a pain in the ass.

The submap editor isn't too bad once you get used to its quirks.

Oh and get a good windowed resolution for it to run in.

It helps having two monitors as well.

I would like to be able to select a tile though and move it backwards or forwards instead of having to delete all of the ones around it so it sits at the right level sometimes.

As far as I know individual tiles can't be randomised.

The game needs to know what they are and how they respond to too many actions.

It would be nice if you could do the same with the images associated with tiles as you can with submaps but that is beyond the game at the moment, from what I have seen in my experimentation with the editors at least.

Well if you want to randomise a particular tile, you just do two versions of the same submap, one with it and one without and then add it to the level. The game will randomly choose one.

Yes, we could add more props to the maps to make it more realistic, but that's more tileset polish rather than anything else - we need to finish all the tilesets first in their basic form before we go back and start revising them. The Farm tileset in particular needs more props in it right now, as it doesn't have any.

Tractors and haybales? Will the haybales have any damaged type tile or will they go directly to destroyed? (I'm assuming a haybale would be incinerated instantly and completly when hit by laser and plasma )

Oooh please tell me there will be cow props!!!

Oooh please tell me there will be cow props!!!

The more important question is will there be female cows. Oh wait...

The more important question is will there be female cows. Oh wait...

Yes but they will use the same sprites and armour...

Uh oh I gave away the secret cow level.

take the leg bone of a Caesian and put it into your backpack. Then go to the square just below the stairs in one of the farm map tiles. Place 2 medipacks and 1 rifle ammo in your backpack. Click kneel rise 4 times and the secret portal will appear.

that was the 9.1 version on the extracted files anyway...

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/Honourable+Ninja+Farm+3/

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/Honourable+Ninja+Farm/' rel="external nofollow">

Hee hee. I saw Cat face too. Hee hee many thanks for that Gauddlike.

I'm hopeful of a number of alien looking artefacts. Things that could possibly be used to create mission objectives etc later on down the road.