ClonesGame.com Forums

[Simon]

Hey,

#1. The cursor's directional force should turn off after a directionally queued assignment; unless you hold the force button, in that case, it should turn off after its release.

#2. Loppers should queue all assignments.

#3. Assume you have a Puffer with another skill queued that he will perform as soon as he is able to. If you assign Walker, the Puffer will turn into a Faller. Maybe the first Walker assignment should just erase the queue? There's no way to do that at the moment.

#4. Other teams' builders shouldn't make warning noises on their last three bricks.

#5. Maybe a different sound should play when the player's clones enter an opponent's exit? Maybe a different, simply more silent sound should play when completely unrelated exiting happens, i.e. neither the clone nor the exit belong to the player?

#6. Server title field should be wider in the lobby. Host's user name might be displayed in addition? Game mode field isn't necessary when you have the level field, player count field and version field can be condensed further.

#7. Rotating the cannons on Wild Goose cause extremely high lag, at least in a few games between geoo and me. We replicated the lag in a custom level with cannons, "Battlefield: Geese Farm".

In addition, there are two problems from the 1.24 thread left over. Keys always get interpreted as Qwerty for Lemmings-style assignment, this is really hard to play with sometimes for me; and many OK klickboxes aren't dismissible with a keyboard key.

I haven't tested the following because of the Qwerty bug from 1.24, but this is how it should work: For Lemmings-style assignment with directional force, you hold both the skill and the directional key at the same time, and click into a crowd a few times.

• Afterwards, directional force is switched off, similar to issue item #1 above.
• When Lemmings-style assigning a skill, clones that are already doing that skill are the least important targets. Rather than assigning all builders to a single clone, clicking on a bunch multiple times should make all different clones builders.

-- Simon

[rt]

#1. The cursor's directional force should turn off after a directionally queued assignment; unless you hold the force button, in that case, it should turn off after its release.

Can you provide an example? I'm not sure if you are talking about Lemmings-style or not, and which key "its release" refers to, the morph key or the directional key?

I'm guessing you want to be able to press and release the directional force key, then press and hold a morph key and click on many clones to select and give the same morph to many clones all facing the same way. The directional force would end when you release the morph key.

#4. Other teams' builders shouldn't make warning noises on their last three bricks.

Why? Have you had times when you heard that sound and were not sure if it was one of your clones or your opponents? I find the sound helpful since it lets me know what's going on elsewhere in the level, and since i know if i've recently given a Mold i'd know if it was one of my clones.

#5. Maybe a different sound should play when the player's clones enter an opponent's exit?

We've added a game mode option to Corral The Clone mode "Silent Steal" which is off by default. The new behavior is to display a system message when your clones are being stolen. v1.27

#6. Server title field should be wider in the lobby.

Fixed in v1.27

When Lemmings-style assigning a skill, clones that are already doing that skill are the least important targets.

Fixed in v1.27

[geoo]

Two more issues:

#8. When having a light clone in a level with a cannon, you can activate the cannon with the light clone without the clone being trapped within the cannon, i.e. you can move freely around the level, but also use the cannon while the light clone is selected. This can be seen in 'Wild Goose' (or the earlier mentioned parody sequel of mine).

#9. In Trillip battle, there's two Qdots between the bunch of red and blue clones, that immediately get collected by them. Therefore it's not possible to collect them with your own clones, and thus it's not possible (at least I see no way) to get all Qdots on this level.

[Simon]

Can you provide an example? I'm not sure if you are talking about Lemmings-style or not, and which key "its release" refers to, the morph key or the directional key?

1. Click clone, 2. tap force (= press and release immediately), 3. tap morph.
Current behavior is to queue morph and leave mouse cursor in directional select mode.
Desired behavior is to queue morph and revert mouse cursor back to normal.

Directional force should always be switched off on release of a morph key, unless the force key is still held down. This rule should cover all cases, I will post in case I find an exception.

[disable opponents' builder sound] Why? Have you had times when you heard that sound and were not sure if it was one of your clones or your opponents?

I tend to ignore it because the sound plays so often, three times per morph unlike anything else, and it plays nearly all the time in >=3 player games. Thus, it doesn't do as good a job for me at the moment as it would otherwise. When I made the proposed change in L++ sometime in the past, I liked it.

I find the sound helpful since it lets me know what's going on elsewhere in the level, and since i know if i've recently given a Mold i'd know if it was one of my clones.

The assignment sound will still play, which is fine and IMO enough.

We've added a game mode option to Corral The Clone mode "Silent Steal" which is off by default. The new behavior is to display a system message when your clones are being stolen. v1.27

Yeah, have to test this. I hope it doesn't generate messages that require the user to read them, and thus take eyes off the regular screen area. The splat alert is solved well because it also plays a unique sound, which can be perceived much faster than a written message.

-- Simon

[rt]

1. Click clone, 2. tap force (= press and release immediately), 3. tap morph.
Current behavior is to queue morph and leave mouse cursor in directional select mode.
Desired behavior is to queue morph and revert mouse cursor back to normal.

That's not the behavior i see in v1.26, this is what i get:
1. Click clone, 2. tap force (= press and release immediately), 3. tap morph.
Current behavior is to queue morph (or do right away if clone is facing force direction) and revert to normal mouse cursor.

Perhaps we have different versions of v1.26? If you have access to the Steam version please try that, as it's guaranteed to be up to date.

[Simon]

I tried it, and whenever I get the problem, it's because I do it so fast that the force key was still pressed. The morph layout which I made really encourages these rolls. I.e., press force, press morph, release force, release morph, while wanting the whole thing to be interpreted as two independent taps.

When I do it slowly and release, it's like you've described.

The fast assign is my default use for directional force though, and I'd really like the behavior of the slow version for the fast one as well. The rule I proposed should cover it, because the force key is released sooner than the morph key is released.

-- Simon

[geoo]

#10. When I try to play Path O' Logical (Wattson's level) with the blue group selected (didn't try any other yet), after the first blue clone gets released into the level, the game hangs and is not reponding anymore, music keeps playing though. Happens on both the Steam and the normal version, and I'm running XP. Checking Server.txt yields the following messages (the usual stuff cropped):

Code: Select all

[...]
NEW CONNECTION DETECTED. Client = 0
Reset Server Session (New netload file)
GameInfo has been loaded
CLIENT geoo[0] - Version ok
OnClientGameVersionOk. Client = 0
LoadLevel took 287 milliseconds
Game Map and Info loaded successfully!
CLIENT geoo[0] - LEVEL LOADED
Requesting Checksum
CheckSum 6302750
HighPriorityParticles: 0
Playback file [D:\Eigene Dateien\Clones\Profiles\geoo\Playbacks\Abnormal\s_tl_pathological24.clones] contains invalid dataBAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:19726792 curr:0
BitmapBaseSurface: WARNING - Could not load the bitmap -
, using default
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:236539391 curr:0
BitmapBaseSurface: WARNING - Could not load the bitmap -
R, using default
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:19726792 curr:0
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:650330367 curr:0
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:19726792 curr:0
BitmapBaseSurface: WARNING - Could not load the bitmap 5, using default
BitmapBaseSurface: WARNING - Could not load the bitmap -
,, using default
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:837149 curr:0
BitmapBaseSurface: WARNING - Could not load the bitmap -
, using default
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:720904 curr:0
BitmapBaseSurface: WARNING - Could not load the bitmap 3, using default
BAD CRC ON BRUSH FILE! net:1769107548 curr:0


#11. The ingame stats menu lists a stamp and a decoration as reward for beating Wattson with all Qdots, however I only get the stamp, while for the decoration it still lists ????? in the lists.

#12. This on has been irking me for quite a while: When drilling on flat surface, and stopping the driller with a walker, frequently the drill will walk out of the hole, while other clones will stay within (this only works within a certain range for the depth of the drilling pit). You can even go as far as drilling near an edge (of a block) leaving a wall of only a few pixels width. The driller, when cancelled with a walker, will walk through the thin wall, not depending on the depth of the pit.
Changing this might invalidate some replays, otoh it's been annoying me in a quite a few instances.

#13. In Checkmate (Octopal's level), the intro texts says save 47, while there's only 37 to be saved.

#14. Minor suggestion, but there's one thing that I liked about the old level gallery view: Failed attempts had a red background. This made especially Freefall look a very imposing.

#15. This has already been mentioned by Simon at one point, but I'd like to state my support of including some more functions to the keyboard mapping menu; off the top of my head I remember firing/adjusting/releasing from cannon, and toggle fullscreen aren't configurable yet. For the cannon it might also be useful to have the possibility overload the keyboard shortcuts with the light clone navigation ones, as their use it mutually exclusive (well, will be once light clone get caught in the cannon).


As a heavy user of directional select, I've been encountering the same problem as Simon described, but couldn't quite put it until Simon figured its exact cause now.
His suggestion of releasing directional select if the directional key is not held and the morph key is released (instead of pressed) should amend this issue.

[CCX]

#12. This on has been irking me for quite a while: When drilling on flat surface, and stopping the driller with a walker, frequently the drill will walk out of the hole, while other clones will stay within (this only works within a certain range for the depth of the drilling pit). You can even go as far as drilling near an edge (of a block) leaving a wall of only a few pixels width. The driller, when cancelled with a walker, will walk through the thin wall, not depending on the depth of the pit.
Changing this might invalidate some replays, otoh it's been annoying me in a quite a few instances.

Ah yes, I remember this one started happening right around beta v1.16 or so, because it broke at least 2 of my replays back then. However, I somehow managed to convince myself that it could just be a subtle effect of the game mechanics rather than a bug, and since I wasn't tasked with beta testing the singleplayer levels I didn't really bother to follow up.

For what it's worth, currently none of my replays rely on this behavior. One of them exhibit this behavior only because I have to stop the drilling at a certain depth, and as a result the driller always walked out (even though I didn't want it to), but the solution remains working even if this behavior is fixed, by having the next lemming released do the drilling instead (like it was before the change in v1.16).

#15. This has already been mentioned by Simon at one point, but I'd like to state my support of including some more functions to the keyboard mapping menu; off the top of my head I remember firing/adjusting/releasing from cannon, and toggle fullscreen aren't configurable yet.

I believe the "firing" and "release" keys are already configurable (it wasn't during beta but it was addressed before official release). In the keyboard remap dialog, go to the "advanced" tab. Near the end there is an entry for "trap action" and "trap release". They take care of firing and release for the cannon. (Note that trap release covers other objects as well, for example release from hoverboard; not sure if "trap action" also covers other objects.)

It is true that there are currently no remapping support for light clone navigation and for cannon adjust, though so far I'm happy with using the arrow keys for those.

[rt]

#10. When I try to play Path O' Logical (Wattson's level) with the blue group selected (didn't try any other yet), after the first blue clone gets released into the level, the game hangs and is not reponding anymore, music keeps playing though. Happens on both the Steam and the normal version, and I'm running XP.

I cannot reproduce this. The level "Path O Logical 2" works fine for me in the current Steam build. Can you verify that you don't have old partial replays from the beta in your profile folder? They would be in the "Abnormal" subfolder under playbacks.

[geoo]

Hmm ok, seems that this was the cause for the problem.
I have replays/partial replays dating back to July for other levels (which I sadly can't view anymore though), which don't seem to cause that problem, so I thought it might have been something different.

For what it's worth, currently none of my replays rely on this behavior. One of them exhibit this behavior only because I have to stop the drilling at a certain depth, and as a result the driller always walked out (even though I didn't want it to), but the solution remains working even if this behavior is fixed, by having the next lemming released do the drilling instead (like it was before the change in v1.16).

I'm pretty certain neither of my replays rely on it either, so I guess it's overall not too likely that there's currently some score that can only be achieved with the use of it.

I believe the "firing" and "release" keys are already configurable (it wasn't during beta but it was addressed before official release). In the keyboard remap dialog, go to the "advanced" tab. Near the end there is an entry for "trap action" and "trap release". They take care of firing and release for the cannon. (Note that trap release covers other objects as well, for example release from hoverboard; not sure if "trap action" also covers other objects.)

It is true that there are currently no remapping support for light clone navigation and for cannon adjust, though so far I'm happy with using the arrow keys for those.

Ah, I didn't know that it was trap action/exit that managed this. For some weird reason, if I map trap exit to the down button, it doesn't work for the cannon (well, it'd clash with the hoverboard anyway), but it works on other buttons. Light clone navigation is actually configurable, I already re-mapped it.
The reason I'd like to remap these is that I use the mouse with my left hand, and thus have to cross my arms if the keys are on the right side of the keyboard; also the arrow keys are pretty isolate, so there's not many keys to use in the vicinity for other related functions.


#16. One minor thing that I'd sometimes wish I could have is being able to load a savestate right when navigating to a level from the overworld. Currently, you have to start playing it from the start, and then load a savestate. It's just a minor thing though that'd save a few seconds here and there.

EDIT: Just wondering, is it intended that for most of the levels (not Wattson's though) I haven't solved yet I get the menu option 'Show Solution'?

EDIT2: I just noticed that in the stats for Project Orion at least mine, Kirp's and CCX' scores (most likely all though) have got added about 2.5 seconds to the clock compared to the last time I checked. Is there any particular reason for that?