Hi! I'm working on my first FPS game that's called "hate boat" and is based on a novel i wrote a few years ago. this novel was the reason i started with FSPRC ääähhhm GG because i always wanted to make a game based on this novel (it's about a group of terrorists that take over a cruise ship and a few guys that involuntarily have to free the hostages and fight off the bad guys in a typical die hard- way.

i have a few questions before i can keep on with this project:

i built a kinda big cruise ship with three floors (decks). in the basement i have a big machine room, pipes and machines, then there is a car deck with cars and trucks, then there is a cargo area with boxes and barrels.
in the first floor i have restaurants, cabins (coaches?), supermarket and an outside sundeck.
the third floor is an outside diner and a sundeck with a giant chimney and a few benches and barriers.
the goal in this game is to start in the machinery room and reach the bridge and use the radio to send a help signal. on your way through the ship you have to kill a lot of bad guys.

okay that's the story but i still have a huge problem:

after building the ship with modular walls and door segments, putting up all the entities all over the ship and placing all the bad guys the game is hardly playable because it is too slow and stuttering. it has a delay of up to three seconds. the more bad guys you kill the better it works although it's still slow when all the bad guys are dead. it's a pain [MOD EDIT - Please don't use profanity - even if it is asterisked.] to play this game because it does not run, every three seconds there comes a new picture, everthing is working in slow motion and it's only stuttering, very slow.

i think there is no way to make it better because there are three floors fully packed with objects and bad guys. i put all the options on "LOWEST" and it has no effect, it still doesn't flow. my PC hardware never was a problem before i think it's a memory problem with game guru. i think i crossed the border of what is possible and i might be close to "out of memory".


my idea for solving this problem was to make every floor as an own level and load it with the multi level launcher.
before i start changing this huge boat into three separate games / levels i would like to know if there is another idea how to make it work.

[UPDATE]: after making the basement floor as an own level it runs very nice, i deleted everything that's not FLOOR1 and i did the same thing with floor 2 and 3 so now i have three single games.

is there a way to go from level 1 to level 2 automatically by ending the first level?

thanks for your help !

[if this thread is wrong here, please move it to the right place @moderators]

It started as a WIP thread, but, then tailed off to a question. Haha.

Have you got any in game screenshots to show us? If you can get some screenshots up, the thread can stay here.

With regards to the cruise ship; how big are we talking? It shouldn't be killing the performance that much. I can only assume that you have placed all the enemies on the ship from the start; so all the AI is constantly running from the beginning. If you set the enemies properties to 'spawn at start = no' and use trigger zones to spawn them, you will see a huge difference.

Cheers

Jay.

yes i didn't know if i just want to show you this game or if i want to bomb you with questions i think it's both of it.


yes i can put up a few screenshots from this game in here when i'm home again. yes. but it's nothing surprising


i can not really explain, i think it would be helpful to make a screenshot in the GG editor to show the size of the ship but it's really big and has three levels full of objects.


yes i did that. but without all the enemies it still runs awfully slow.


that sounds very logically to me but i will have to look up how this exactly works, i'm really new and have no further knowledge, i still have to go through more tutorials. but it sounds like a very good idea

Not a problem. Everyone is here to learn and to help each other.



Good man. I am looking forward to seeing the screenshots. I don't think I have seen a game made on a cruise ship with FPSC (GG) before.



What are the specifications of your computer? Can you run other games well?

Cheers

Jay.

about this cruise ship: it's only built from objects that are available, i didn't construct any 3D objects / entities myself. f.e. the bridge is actually the fortress wall with a tower that was new in the version 1.01...

i tried to build this ship with the far cry 4 map editor, but i totally ran out of memory (i uploaded a light version anyway but it was not perfect). then i tried to built this ship with cryengine but i couldn't make a standalone, then i tried it with unreal engine but this was way too complicated for me. that's why i searched and found FPS (GG). so therefor this was my first idea i had to realize.

i don't have the specifications about my pc here (i'll tell you later when i'm home) but it's 2 years old and until now every game has been running without problems. only the cooler becomes very loud when i play FPSCR games... i played all the demo games and the were totally fluently and playable.

I though this cruise ship should be high poly count.

3com

i have a screenshot, the ship, outside...

my pc:
intel core i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz; 8GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX560Ti

until now everything was working alright.

and also: i deleted all the bad guys and testplayed the game. it was running but it had no smooth flow, stuttering a little. it is playable but it could be much better
all the bad guys are away this time, so maybe when i put in 3 enemies it might be stuttering again.

before that i had 10 to 15 bad guys and it was not playable, not even with the lowest settings.

You should call it Ship Island
I mean, it's really a nice idea
But maybe you should try to build the main body of the ship with e.g. Blender or another 3D software and then import the model into FPSCR ... GG... as .x file.

Die Idee ist cool

That's a BIG boat !!

Looks loads of fun though and must have took a while ...
Great work ...

this would be an awesome idea. i got this cruise ship story in my head for years and it's one of the things on my lifetime to do list. the story plays inside the entire ship and the interior is very detailed. i tried to put the ideas from this story into the game / map. i already downloaded blender and in the near future i will start learning or at least give it a try but yes, that would be a dream i have, to build the ship in 3D and put the story into a more customized game. i was on a cruise ship and i studied the ship and put the story inside the rooms of the ship. i'm not experienced enough to build such an object yet.


danke


yes, i told you i guess that's the reason why i can't play it in one single game. i already started cutting it into three pieces.


hours and days. my wife doesn't recognize me anymore.
thanks

If the interior is as detailed as you suggest, I would do just as you're doing and split the levels into, well, levels! If you're using Win whatever 64-bit, you have a 4GB limit (I think that's per map. Each level is a different map) If you are using 32 bit, then the limit is 2GB.



Yes, you can use a trigger zone or do it in Lua. I think Stairwells or elevators as a good place to put trigger zone, or, in the case of an elevator, a script that loads a level based on which floor you select (You'd have to get clever with this, as we only have "E" to play with at this time, unless something's changed in GG) I haven't messed with elevators (or "lifts" for the natives) but I did mess with multi-level a bit when it first became available. Either should be much easier in GG than using Blueprint!:> There is at least one thread around dealing with that, at least if it made the transition to the new server.

i have 64bit. and the ship has three floors wich are very detailed and fully packed with everything i found in the entity bank
yes, i think i will have to make three parts to make run fluently.
how does this trigger zone work? i mean, how can i make that the player enters the trigger zone and is "teleported" into the next level, wich is indeed a new map. does something like this work?

I just tried it...
Basically what should happen is ....
Make your first map called LEVEL1 for instance and place a trigger zone in..... In the "If Used" box type the name of your second level .....LEVEL2

Save that map as standalone...

Create your second map and save it as LEVEL2

save that map as standalone

When you run the first map and hit the trigger zone it should then load in LEVEL2

I tried it 3 times but it only worked once ?

I take it you could a trigger zone at the 'front' of the level that leads to LEVEL 1 and a trigger zone at the 'end' of the level that leads to LEVEL 3 (assuming you are currently on LEVEL 2).

Have we had any word on whether level information will be stored (killed enemies, doors unlocked, items collected), so, upon returning to a level, it doesn't just start that level again, it plays from when you last left?

Cheers

Jay.

I seemed to have some success going forward .. Level 1 to Level 2 but not all the time....
But a trigger from Level 1 to Level 2 ......with a trigger back to Level 1 on Level 2 did not seem to work at all...

It kind of gets confusing and you really need a clear head to do this

Just make sure you don't put the player start markers in the same place as the return triggers! Or you would be stuck in a loop! haha.

Cheers

Jay.

I said trigger zones, but I think I actually used Win zones back when I was messing with them. I don't know if that would make a difference?

in my case i wouldn't need to go back, just forward. level 1 to level 2. level 2 to level 3.
the door that you use to go from 1 to 2 will be sealed in 2 to avoid goin back. not necassary, just move ahead
i'm interested how this works.
i have to repair all the strange things in my three levels, add some locked doors and then i would try to put in these trigger zones.
before i have tried this i'm asking myself how to save these three standalones, in wich folders i have to place it so that it works in the end. but i have not really tried yet, just wondering.
thanks so far, i think this might help me.

I'd also say that you have to model the ship in 3d. Your improvised "lego" method makes it hard to get invested in the story or to take it seriously.

Also a modeled ship with a well managed polybudget will run far smoother!



-Wolf

of course, yes! a 3D model / body would be the perfect solution but i'm still far away from doing that. i will have to get familiar with blender and some fine day i will do that when i know enough. i guess even for an experienced blender user this would be a challenging and difficult project.
so for the beginning i'm actually happy to get this done although it's far from perfect. there is not a single idea from the original story i could build into this map. in a perfect world i would have a much bigger ship with 100% interior, multiple spawnpoints for different missions, multiple extraction- zones and Melee attacks / stealth fighting etc. the plot would be kinda big and challenging. i started to build a 3D ship in unreal engine but i stopped it because i didn't see an end, not even a slight success.
it is not wise to start working with a totally new programm like GG (for me) and the first project i start is such a hard thing like this ship. before i finish the ship i would like to work on another project, just for practising, i would like to call "island hoppers" this is what i needed the beach for and now i'm doing both things at a time because working on this ship is also a little frustrating.

lol, "lego method", that's on point

You just save them as regular maps. When you finally save as stand alone, they will automatically save accordingly. (LOL, assuming there are no bugs! It worked the last time I did it, but that was two betas ago, at least!)

sounds very good, i'll try this. if it works it's exactly what i need for my boat.
but....: how about the weapons? when i got a pistol and i am "teleported" to the next level, do i keep my guns, ammo and health or is everything reset?

actually i'm happy when this boat is finished, it's too much work for a beginner like me

another project from you?
a little tip, focus on 1 project first. or after a while you'll have 2-3 unfinished games. and your motivation will be zero to finish them.

this is because GG is so awesome and i want to try everything and live out all the crazy ideas in my head of course you're right. this is the same with other things
i tried to finish the hate boat and there i found a new strange error (?):

i wanted to try out lightmapping to make it look as realistic like in the "asylum" demo game. i changed the lights and colours and stuff, everything is good. but then i added a white light on the ceiling and did the lightmapping. the result was that the whole corridor was dark and there was a white light on the ceiling, that was how i wanted it.
then i added more white lights but they don't apear when i play the game. i did lightmapping again (twice) but it had no effect. is there something wrong the way i did this?

ok. last night i filled the lowest level of my hateboat with lights and did a lightmapping with F4 (F4 is the only lightmapping that works on my ship?!?) and i was totally happy with the results. looks really nice, i will post a screenshot!
now i have to make the enemies appear by a trigger zone and then level 1 of 3 is finished.
i opened hateboat in GG but some entities and AI were missing completely but maybe i forgot to copy some files from the entity folder into the new one. i hope!!!
does anybody know if some entities are no longer supported by GG?!
f.e. i have a "bench from london" wich i used in a locker room and now it's invisible?!?

hah! i transferred all my entities and stuff into game guru and after a few problems it finally works!
my "hate boat" is almost finished, i have a lot of screenshots! i just need to start working with triggers.

Glad to read this, nice media.

3com

Those shots are awesome.
This man has only been here less then two weeks.

Standing ovation to you.

Great job.

thank you!

now i'm almost finished but now i get an error all the time
Runtime Error 118 - Array does not exist or array subscript out of bounds at line 62425

i had the trigger zones working but something went wrong on the way and i have to go back to an earlier stage of the map. this is very frustrating.

Yes it is, but you had the hind sight to save as. As should every one else.

So now to the issue. If I am correct in reading, and I am very tired. The last thing you did was trigger zone work?
Did you edit them , which should be fine. Or over lap them maybe?

Let me know please.

yes i was reminded again i think it won't happen again, painful learning effect.





the complete history would be:
i put up all entities, then enemies and waypoints. the game worked. then i did the lightmapping, it also worked after that.
everytime i did a big change i saved and played the complete map from beginning to end to find possible errors.
then i named all the enemies so that i could spawn them with a trigger zone. i put up all trigger zones and tested it again. everything was working! all the spawning was alright.
the last thing i did: i put in some walls and a door from the "warehouse" pack to create an exit where i can place the win zone. then i put in two drunk enemies from the medival pack and then i put in the winzone. in the field "ifused" i entered the name of the second map. i wanted to test but it crashed.
after that i had no way to repair this because even if i deleted all the win and triggerzones and the walls and even the enemies it still crashed everytime i started it.
i opened an older version i saved after lightmapping and i can open and play it.
i will start from scratch again but i don't know what i did wrong, what caused the crash


i edited the trigger zones and wrote the name of the enemy wave that had to be spawned ("Feind1", "Feind2" etc.)
the triggers didn't overlay but it overlayed with the checkpoints. but even this was working when i tested it.

thanks for your patience

Very nice work!

Nice screenshots

thank you very much guys, very nice to read this positive feedback but i'm afraid nobody will get to see the final work. both GG and FPSCR are crashing all the time, freezing and bombing me with error windows. last night i wanted to rapair the level, i ended up uninstalling and reinstalling both FPSCR and GG several times and rebooting my PC for 1000 times with no success, this map still won't work with trigger zones, so it will not work at all. very very sad, putting in 5 weeks of daily work just to realize i have to throw it away. i don't know if i have the motivation to start a new project after all of this trouble i had

when i play the map without trigger zones with all of the enemies spawning at the same time the game runs awfully slow, almost not playable because of the memory BUT it works. when i insert the first trigger zone sometimes it works, sometimes it crashes and i have to reboot my system but usually the map seems to be broken once i get that crash because after the crash i can never open the map up again without getting errors and crashes (latest crash was "first person interface is not working"). i used to have a version with all the trigger zones working and all the enemies spawning at the right time but when i wanted to add a win zone i got the crash again and after that i could not open the map with the working triggers anymore. i had to do this all over again, three hours. i did everything exactly like the last time where it worked but then it crashed and freezed again and the map was "broken" again.
this is totally NOT working for me i don't know why. i have made a virus test on my PC but nothing was found, also i have no problems with my PC or other media /programs, everything is running very stable and i have no idea what is going on.

at this point i'm close to deleting it all and stop making maps with GG because i'm so angry that it does not work at all, but it used to work before. very sad


[edit]
calmed down a little, i will need a day to relax and free my stressed mind, maybe then i can try to find a solution again (or someone here has found a solution) with a clear mind. *exhales*

Very nice. You seem better today.

i still have the same old issue but now the enemies are following me, running towards me and stuff. this makes the game more challenging. sad that the only way to play the game is without enemy trigger zones so that all enemies are spawned at the beginning and the game looks like a 56k youtube video
i will take all the good ideas from the hate boat and transfer it to my next map i'm working on. it's an underground tunnel system. this might work as well