BETA TEST: Bast Castle SIEGE

[[FotF]Maddog]

NM i got it it took 36mins dunno why though

[monsoontide]

Great!

Let me know if you have any trouble getting it to work.

[TIE-pilot]

can you tell me how to get into the comando central for the fuel pipeline?

 

i tryed it over 2 houers and i fond no way...

[monsoontide]

My appologies, I haven't updated the map/objective screen properly yet!

 

You Need To Complete The Objectives In Roughly This Order

 

After breaking out of the prison cells and making your way into the hanger by breaking one of the three grates, proceed to the lowest level and sever the electrical pipe to open the doors.

Proceed up the elevators and take the ramps to the top level of the main shaft where you will find two control panels.

One opens the door to the turbo laser tower and the other opens the door to the mediation chamber.

You can complete these objectives in any order, but it's probably best to do the turbo laser first.

Go back down the ramps two levels and proceed (quickly) across the bridge into the turbo laser tower. Go up the ramps and turn of the switch which will deactivate the turbo laser towers.

Back inside the castle proceed to the medical center and find the red door. Take the lift up into the meditation chamber and download Vader's data. You can then proceed to the very top room of the tower to send the transmission (by standing on the small pad in the center of the room).

Along the way, jump out the windows (In the room above the medical center) and destroy each of the four power nodes (spikes) This will cut off the power in the labratory allowing you to enter without being hurt.

Go up to the map room and then take the lift with the blue door frame to get to the laboratory.

If you have shut off the power, you can then pick up the Sith Holocron (Pyramid shaped thingy). While carrying it your force powers will regenerate VERY slowly.

 

PICKING UP THE HOLOCRON CAUSES THE LAVA IN THE MAIN SHAFT TO DRAIN.

Return to the hanger and out the lowest door. At the small panel, you can call the lift down to the catacombs. Jump across the lava and on to the gantry. At the end of the gantry you will find the switch to extend the fuel pipe.

Also down here you will find the secret Sith chamber. Force push the rock and then run (quickly) through the flames to destroy the holocron.

Return to the gantry and follow it outside and then take the narrow ledge around the side of the cliff to the now extended fuel pipe.

Running across the pipe allows access to the pumping station. Flip the switch there to complete the objective!!!

Jump out the small window and climb the pipes (Carefully) to reach the switch that opens the main gate and extends the bridge.

Make you way to the shuttle and go to the door leading to the cockpit to complete the last objective (All other objectives must be completed first)

 

Seems a bit complicated but once you practice it a couple of times it's really straight forward and can be completed fairly quickly (Without opposition)

[TIE-pilot]

thx!! but can you make the characters a bit slower please?

the chars are a bit too fast

 

EDIT: and change plz the spawnpoints of the 5th objective. the way is pretty unfair... it too long

[monsoontide]

Which ones are those?

[DG_Thor]

i guess he means the spawn point at the lava well - when you activate the lift, the spawn point advances and if the holocron is returned you have to make all the way up to the lab.

 

I'm gonna add what we have found so far tomorrow

[monsoontide]

Yes the whole spawn point thing gets comlicated very quickly, since this level is not a strictly linear progression! Will look into it though.

[TIE-pilot]

and remove the detonation pack for the defenders plz... the defender do sth like this:

 

 

guy

|l|

|i|

|f|

|t|

| |

| |

| |

me + a deto from the guy|

= boom me dead and ipossible to get up

 

 

i hope you understand this

[DG_Thor]

ok, this what we have found so far (just quoting what has been posted at our forum):

 

Technical Issues (no particular order):

- Occasionally (only found it with luke and mara) after respawning the character looks like he/she is holding a double saber whereas he/she only has a single.

 

- There is a texture error on a rock outcrop on the wall where the blue grills are allowing acces to hangar. it is a see-through patch (on right side of rock outcrop).

 

- Texture error on rock outsrop near the large door where bridge extends from (i think) opposite the shuttle.

 

- Around the main building there are alot of little line texture errors, (show up little yellow lines) on the rock outcrops in general.

 

- The lava streams falling into the lava fall are 2d - look very odd

 

- In the room at the bottom of the shuttle tower, there are lots of small line gaps between the pannels of the room (walls).

 

- Sharp edges in lava cud be made to look better with rock outcrops.

 

- Lava flow from pipes starts abruptly - doesnt flow from the back of pipe.

 

- In the hangar room (with naboo ship) the light panels that go round room show partial light in the corners where a light is just beginning.

 

- In some places there are no lift buttons and they r not used for lift - u just use lift by hitting use in lift - is this meant to be the case?

 

- When an objective is completed the square by the objectives in the Objective Menu are not crossed. Also, if you click on some objectives, the icons on the mini-map vanish, only leaving a red square.

 

- The lifts are very unclear and it is easy to get lost. (maybe numbering or more usage of color codin like e.g. at the lift down to the lab)

 

- The frame around lift entrances looks very blocky and doesnt fit well with the rest of the great texturing.

 

- Some of the respawnin palces seem very difficult to leave from - i.e the lava room, and some spawn points seem very far from where u need to go.

 

- at one of the spawn points (in the "infirmary", below meditation chamber) it is possible that you respawn between two of the "beds". you are then stuck and cant move.

 

- Texture error on pipe near the button to extend the bridge.

 

- the Noghri can see his team mates health and ammo bars although he cannot heal or recharge them

 

- Falling into the lava sounded like falling into water and when died in it looked like water from underneath (blue).

 

- When fell into lava - u landed on it and stood on it - u didnt fall in/get sucked into it - no sinking in lava. Looked weird.

 

- Guardrails on the refueling gangways may be useful as very easy to fall off.

 

- In other palces as well guardrails may be useful to prevent so may accidental deaths.

 

- There are rails missing from the outside of the communication tower, where they should be.

 

- When enabling a lift the sound of Force Healing seems to occur - guess that is intended, though.

 

- Level 3 lighting that is meant to be present with Alora looks as if it is only level 2.

 

- Ladders to power nodes dont act as laders - are they meant to? - Which means that the power nodes are only accessible by characters with level 3 jump. this can be very annoying sometimes.

 

- The is a very high fall death - ie - in some places u can just jump off somewhere to reach a target that may be accessible and the fall scene cuts in (e.g. at the fuel area). So dont have to fall down far to die. Seemed odd although i guess it's intended.

 

- Lift in the lava pit room overlaps with the floor it goes up to - if u are under the part where it hits the floor goin up - it bounces off and goes back down to lava - u do not get hurt.

 

- The power nodes and the power supply for the doors in the hangar cannot be destroyed by demo charges - seems a bit odd. the power supply is also very difficult to hit as it is rather small.

 

- Some small typos etc at the character descriptions (Sith Slicer, Sith Inferno).

 

- There is a second way to get into the castle without having to go through the hangar - don't know whether this is intended. If it is, completing the map can become extremely difficult / impossible if you used that 2nd way, didn't open the hangar doors and lose the holocron. You respawn at the lava well and the hangar doors are still locked - u can't get back up to the lab. The only way to get around this is a quite tricky jump from the bridge extending switch and then going back to the hangar.

 

Gameplay Issues:

1: Definitely the lifts. it takes very long to get up with the long lifts at the bottom of the tower. Also, only one person at a time can use a lift - the others have to stand around and wait Additionally, the lifts allow for some sort of laming because of the way JKA interprets lift behaviour - if you jump on someone's head while he is using a lift, he'll die slowly. All weapon classes (noghri etc) have an easy time camping at the lifts and shooting down the lifts at upcoming attackers. Even jedi (especially those with double sabers can camp the lift entrances and do a kata when an attacker is coming up - the attacker cannot evade.

 

Especially from the red room to the globe room, from the conference room to the communication room and from the lab to the globe room there is only ONE lift. It allows the defenders to hold those lifts indefinitely with 1 demo and 1 tech (as tie-pilot mentioned in the post above), throwing down demo charges.

 

2: The spawn point for the attackers after the holocron has been grabbed is right down in the lava pit. So if the holocron is dropped (which is fairly likely) then the attackers face a marathon to get back up to the lab, literally around 10 lifts.

 

Possible solution:

Add a high-speed express lift from the lava pit up to somewhere near the lab. This lift could be activated at the same time as the lava is drained and the other lift activates.

 

3:The spawn point behaviour for the defenders seems a bit erratic. When the lava well has been drained but the holocron objective has not yet been completed, it is possible to spawn in 3 different places: at the fuel area, at the lava area or at the lab. Somewhat annoying when you try to defend the lab and have to go all the way from the fuel station up to the lab.

 

Still the map is very good and well designed. The ideas are great and alot of the textures and objects are very cool -for example - the spining object in the labotory, the main object in the room wíth blue force field, etc.

 

Sorry for putting up such a long list

[monsoontide]

No, that's great help.

Yes, the lifts are a bit of a pain. I'm quite sure what to do about them, since making them bigger would take a considerable amount of time.

Perhaps if I can put a top or roof/lid on the lift, or doors at top and bottom that only open when the lifts are there.

I'll have to think on it. I only have a few func_brushes left though.

 

Am going to have to re-evaluate the way the spawn points works. As I said it's quite complicated since it's non_linear.

 

What is the other way into the castle?

I can't have it that you can get without going through the hanger!

 

I can't figure out the thing with the map icons. I've made them as they're supposed to be and they're set up in the siege file properly but they still don't work

 

The railing on the viewing platform is supposed to be broken - originally there were func_breakables there but I needed them elsewhere.

 

The lift buttons are for decoration and only at the top of lift shafts. (Since when you use a lift to go up, you are already inside it)

 

I have yet to find a suitable replacement sound for the lift trigger/button active sound but its on the to do list.

 

ALora's lightning should be three - plus she can also do double handed lightning if you put her saber away.

 

Any further feedback/suggestions would be great from everyone!

 

Many thanks!

[DG_Thor]

The 2nd way into the castle (works with all attackers who have jump 3):

 

[removed pic]

 

You jump from "1" to "2", then to "3". Then u only have to slice the door at the sith shuttle and you are in

 

 

 

some small things i forgot to quote:

- The doors at the trophy room have to be sliced each time you want to use them. also, when you have press the use button a bit longer when slicing, it seems like you start slicing again. Maybe the attackers should only have to slice them once and the door opens automatically whenever an attacker is approaching it (e.g. like the infirmary door at Raven's Hoth map).

 

- Maybe you should issue a message for the attackers when the data has been retrieved from the meditation chamber (and maybe for the defenders as well, don't remember whether they get a message). It happened quite a few times that attackers/defenders ran up to the meditation chamber because they didn't know that the data had already been retrieved.

 

- Another objective screen issue The "Done" label only seems to appear on the attackers side (not on both, like at the standard maps).

 

- The lifts in the "infirmary" seem to start when you walk on them while all other lifts require you to hit use.

 

 

 

some suggestions (by Earendil_SMC):

- Maybe using wide, fast grav chutes instead of the lifts.

 

- Somehow adding alternative routes, especially at the top area (transmitter, lab, map room)... if the lab had windows you could probably get to it from the power nodes.

[TIE-pilot]

-and a texture error at the "saber" of darth maul

[[ONE]Mushroom]

Perhaps you should consider using teleporters instead of lifts? Enter bottom, get teleported to top.

 

I dislike teleporters in JA, but in this case it would prevent Sith camping (no warning before Jedi appear), it would be much quicker, and don't need to worry about falling to death onto rapidly descending lift.

 

With teleporters only going straight up or straight down, the radar won't be confused too much.

[DG_Thor]

Just want to notify you that we will need the server for something else tonight from 17:30 till probably 22:00 or 23:00 GMT.

 

When we are finished, i will of course switch the server back

[TIE-pilot]

phew thank you,! i thought the server is away 4 erver

 

@ monsoontie: great map. i love it. do you know a releasedate for the final? a day? a week? a month? a year? two years? i hope it takes not soo long.

 

P.S. my name in game is Dark Fox|MT i think you know me Thor or not... i dont know

[DG_Thor]

The server is back to beta testing

 

i remember that we met a couple of times on our Battlegrounds server and also once on Homestead, tie

[monsoontide]

unlikely as it is (since I always seem to be on by myself) you may see me as Sevis

[OB1 KNOB]

Okay, I've noticed a few little things’ here and there while testing it. Some may be the same as posted above but I thought I'd still mention any just to be sure. Also, I only could only test it by myself so they are mostly technical issues rather than game play.

 

(Oh, and sorry about the darkness on the screenshots. I turned the brightness up all the way in-game and the screenshots still came out dark. Now that I think about it I was trying the map in a separate folder like it was a mod and I changed the brightness from there, so maybe it was using the brightness from the base folder? Hopefully you'll still recognize the locations. )

 

Well, any way’s here they are:

 

Shot I

 

Shot I is just a missing texture, and you can see inside the castle.

 

Shot II

Shot III

 

Shots II and III are the same place. Similar missing texture about 50 feet from the other one.

 

Shot IV

 

Shot IV is just being able to see through the area between the pipe and the bracket.

 

Shot V

 

Shot V is being able to see through a crack there. Facing the trophy hall from the escape ship, it's on the left I believe.

 

Shot VI

 

Shot VI is just the caps on the Noghri. I can't remember if that's one of the models that the caps are messed up by default or not, but I didn't see anything in you pk3 that looked like it's conflicting with the original file or anything. Any way’s if it's Raven's mistake nothing short of reweighting it and fixing the caps would help.

 

Shot VII

 

Shot VII shows Luke's hand in the jar, and his wrist is missing the texture at the cap.

 

 

A few other's without pictures:

 

-Not really a bug, but maybe you should mention in the readme with the release that the lifts are activated by the use key. It's not hard to figure out, but I've seen people ask about lifts that don't move automatically.

 

-The door at the torture room doesn't have a texture assigned to the bottom. Maybe it's caulked. Not a big deal or anything since it's hardly noticeable, but still.

 

-With Team Overlay on the location title for "Fuel pipe control" doesn't have capitals on the last two words.

 

-I know you mentioned that you're still working out the menu stuff, but just to mention it: several of the objective descriptions need spaces between some of the words. (Unless you need to save space so they had to be shortened.)

 

-The order of the objectives should probably be changed around a little bit. I know that for the most part they can be done in many different orders, but, for example, the button to extend the fuel pipe can't be used until the Sith Holocron has been retrieved and the lava drained. That objective should probably be moved down to at least after the Sith Holocron.

 

 

 

Also, to mention a few things about problems posted above:

 

I see where the lifts can be a problem with camping and lids for those would definitely help if they can be afforded. Maybe, giving the Jedi "Force Protect" could help minimize the damage they can receive while riding the lifts. I'm not sure how much that would help, but it's just a possibility.

 

The idea of putting doors on some lifts that only open when the lift is there is a good idea as well. That could be reserved for the lifts at real bottle neck areas like the lab, and meditation chamber where there is only one way in and out. Other lifts should be left without doors, because I like jumping down the lift and grabbing the wall before I hit the bottom. (That's the fast way down.)

 

Also maybe the speed of the really long lifts could be sped up so that there's less time to be defenseless. Especially since you use the lifts from the inside speeding some of them up shouldn't be a problem as far as missing the lift and waiting for it to return. The speed on the smaller lifts should stay as is.

 

I really prefer lifts as opposed to teleporters and air shafts. With teleporters it's real easy to teleport, get disoriented and then get killed by someone waiting near the reentry point. With lifts at least you know where you're going the whole way there, if that makes sense. Gravity tunnels might pose a problem since then it would be harder to get down. Having some gravity tunnels that shoot up and some that are prepared to catch you on the way down, increases the number of bottle neck areas since it would decrease the number of ways to get up.

 

Maybe adding some lifts that run on the outside of the castle would help. (Again, if they can be afforded.) It would increase the number of ways up, which alleviates more bottlenecks and causes the defense to either spread themselves thin or group up closer to the objectives, which would make it easier to have a clean fight rather than the lame camping stuff. If you try to conserve brushes, making simple rails for outdoor lifts would be cheaper than fully enclosed ones. Railing would be necessary, because otherwise it would be really easy to fall off, or get shot off.

 

If you added lifts on the outside that could also help alleviate the need for roofs on the lifts on the inside, again because the defenders would have to spread out more to cover every lift. Then you could use func brushes you would have used for roofs to make entirely new lifts. I say add them to outside since it creates a larger area for the defenders to cover and it takes them longer to get from the top of one lift to the top of another.

 

As far as only one person being able to ride a lift at a time: for the main areas, there are still multiple lifts that go up and down so more than one can be ridden at once. That also forces the defenders to spread out rather than just concentrate on one lift. Without playing with people it's hard to tell how much of a problem that really is.

 

The lifts did seem confusing at first, but one or two play-through's by myself and I knew where everything was and how to get there. The really important lifts are color coded and that's nice. I don't really see a need however to color code them all.

 

I liked Thor_SMC's idea about an "express lift from the lava pit up near the lab. It probably shouldn't go straight to the lab, but the neat its whereabouts’. You don't want to make it too easy to retrieve if it gets dropped on the first attempt down. Maybe make it so that it can be ridden up but not down. Like, when you get out of the lift a door closes and it goes back down. I suppose teammates may be able to hold the lift for each other though so that might not work.

 

If the number of brushes isn't too high, putting "rock looking" brushes near where the lava around meets the skybox would help the lava look less blocky and more realistic. They probably wouldn't need to be too detailed since it's so far away most of the time.

 

Maybe the pipes you walk on near the refueling station could be made a little wider. Guard rails were mentioned, but they would be increasing the brush count. If they were just a little wider, it might make it just a little bit more manageable without to much extra work. I didn't find navigating the pipes all that difficult, but I only had one bot shooting at me as well.

 

Well, that's all for now. I really love this map. It was a lot of fun going through it and I was by myself. I had more fun figuring this out than I did playing Raven's siege levels by myself. (I know that sounds pathetic. The architecture looks great, and each area seems to have its own distinct feel. It's come a long way since its Jedi Outcast counterpart. I'm really glad you decided to convert it to Siege even though it's definitely a lot of work. I like the loading screen as well. Cool little touch.

 

Great Job monsoontide! (Wow that was a long post. )

[monsoontide]

Thanks for the great feedback guys.

 

This forums been down and I've been busy getting my Durge player model ready for release, so haven't YET had a chance to get back to the map, but hope to some time this weekend.

Will take into account all the issues everyone has and try to devise a way to solve/work around them. (It's mainly those lifts!)

 

Thanks again.

[DG_Thor]

No problem

 

If you are heading for another week of beta testing after you have made the changes, we will be glad to help you out

 

Anyway, for now i will switch our server back to Duel/FFA - just tell me if/when you need it again

[TIE-pilot]

any news?

[monsoontide]

No.

[mergatroid]

Sorry, I've been caught up with the Levelsource contes lately.

[[GT]SkylandeR«e]

There is a big problem with your map .

We tested the unexpected EOF thing (what Thor SMC said).

We of the eGamer-Crew found out, that your map isn't compatible with any other downloaded Siege map, just siege_destroyer works with it.

Warehouse, eternal Lair and the Yavin map are causing errors, you can not play any longer Siege maps. But this error is just coming with your beta map, when it is installed in the base folder .

Better you find out where the problem is or many people won't be able to play this map...

greetz

#eGamer-Crew|SkylandeR