PL Rocksalt v7

[Zipfinator99]

Zipfinator99 submitted a new resource:

Rocksalt - Infiltrate Red's quarry and disrupt their autonomous gravel manufacturing.

Rocks. The building blocks of a civilized society. Without rocks you can't make concrete. And without concrete you can't make buildings. At least not a building worth being in.

A quarry has been located that serves as Red's primary source of gravel for concrete mixing. A mostly autonomous facility primarily run by droid labor, the lack of a human presence should make it an easy target. With a forward base set up all that's needed is a well positioned payload pushed along Red's rail lines...

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[Zipfinator99]

Zipfinator99 updated Rocksalt with a new update entry:

Repacked

Updated to use the Repacked map, original upload was accidentally unpacked.

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[Boonie]

May be a good idea to nobuild this upper area.

 

[Zipfinator99]

Zipfinator99 updated Rocksalt with a new update entry:

Rocksalt V2

V2
-Changed A and B gates to be One-Way and useable by both teams
-Adjusted playerclips and collisions
-Added more NoBuild areas on high objects
-Optimized visleafs
-Added additional occluders to improve optimization
-Added additional areaportals to improve optimization
-Added more Bot decals near doorways

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[Zipfinator99]

May be a good idea to nobuild this upper area.

I added some additional player clips and a nobuild to that area in the V2 update! Thanks.

 

[Zipfinator99]

Zipfinator99 updated Rocksalt with a new update entry:

Rocksalt V3

V3
-Added Red forward spawn in the basement of the Main Warehouse. New doors are added that are closed during Point A and B, and doors are opened/close to change routes for C and D.
-Changed configuration of main warehouse floor hatch doors. All hatches begin closed now, shutting off the end of the map. Once Point B is captured, both side doors are opened to allow dropping down into the basement.
-Adjusted cover in all points to reduce the effectiveness of multiple sniper sightlines. New...

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[MM1011]

Hi, been enjoying the map so far! However, V2 and V3 seem to consistently cause crashes for certain players on our server. We're not 100% sure, but we think the common thread is players having low or medium texture quality settings, which would point to a custom prop not being... right? Hoping this report helps somehow.

 

[Zipfinator99]

Hi, been enjoying the map so far! However, V2 and V3 seem to consistently cause crashes for certain players on our server. We're not 100% sure, but we think the common thread is players having low or medium texture quality settings, which would point to a custom prop not being... right? Hoping this report helps somehow.

Thanks for the report! I'll try to optimize some of the custom model textures and see if that helps for V4. My best guess is it's because of the uncompressed normal map used on the rock models, but the texture still is only a 1024. Hopefully reducing some of the textures a bit will help.

 

[Zipfinator99]

Zipfinator99 updated Rocksalt with a new update entry:

Rocksalt V4

V4
-Reduced texture memory used by custom models by nearly half
-Removed a few minor props to reduce model and texture memory usage
-Replaced a few rarely used materials to reduce overall texture memory usage
-Added more Australium pebbles to final point
-Adjusted lighting origin of a few props
-Fixed incorrect vertex on large rock slab models
-Added hazard lines to more drops
-Added missing Exit/Resupply signs to new Red forward spawn
-Other minor fixes

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[Zipfinator99]

Hi, been enjoying the map so far! However, V2 and V3 seem to consistently cause crashes for certain players on our server. We're not 100% sure, but we think the common thread is players having low or medium texture quality settings, which would point to a custom prop not being... right? Hoping this report helps somehow.

I just uploaded a V4 that will hopefully fix the crashing issue! If the map pops up on your server again and people are still having problems on lower texture settings please let me know.

 

[MM1011]

Hi Zip, just did a test run of V4 and the problem still persists for some people using low model detail. I want to say the number of crashers has been reduced, though!

 

[MM1011]

Oops, as soon as I posted that someone pinged me and let me know our server crashed before we could finish a single round. With v2 and v3 we had crashers but we didn't have an issue with completing it.

 

[MM1011]

One more thing, I had asked a mapmaker I know who had a similar issue with their maps, and it boiled down to messed up LODs specifically. That's all he could say, but hopefully that is helpful.

 

[Zipfinator99]

One more thing, I had asked a mapmaker I know who had a similar issue with their maps, and it boiled down to messed up LODs specifically. That's all he could say, but hopefully that is helpful.

I'm not sure why the server would have started crashing with V4 specifically especially after the optimizations... That is unfortunate.

I wasn't using any LODs on the models in V4, but I'm working on a V5 that will add LODs to most of the custom models and remove the rock normal maps on LODs for people on low settings. Hopefully that will help more. I will let you know when it's uploaded.

 

[Zipfinator99]

Zipfinator99 updated Rocksalt with a new update entry:

Rocksalt V5

V5
-Created LODs for all custom rock slab models to reduce resources on Low/Medium model detail
-Set LODs to remove normal maps on custom rock slab models to reduce resources on Low/Medium model detail
-Converted func_brushes to func_details around the map where able
-Converted upper trusses in Red Warehouse from func_brushes to models
-Updated rocks and pebbles in Red Warehouse
-Adjusted lighting in many areas of the level to reduce overal lights used
-Removed many Bot antennas to reduce...

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[Zipfinator99]

One more thing, I had asked a mapmaker I know who had a similar issue with their maps, and it boiled down to messed up LODs specifically. That's all he could say, but hopefully that is helpful.

V5 of the map is uploaded and will at least help out people on low model settings a lot! My best guess at the server crash was the entity limit was reached. I reduced the entities by about 150, so if that was the cause of the crash hopefully it won't happen again. If you test the map again let me know if there are any server crashes and I'll start trying to troubleshoot other causes.

 

[MM1011]

did a full two rounds with no server crash, but we're still seeing the same behavior where the same people will client crash in a wave together.

On a different note, we're a fast respawn server so we make our own bed with this, but on B Red's high ground is annoyingly hard to do anything about it from Blu side. In particular, snipers have free range with little downside.

 

[Zipfinator99]

did a full two rounds with no server crash, but we're still seeing the same behavior where the same people will client crash in a wave together.

On a different note, we're a fast respawn server so we make our own bed with this, but on B Red's high ground is annoyingly hard to do anything about it from Blu side. In particular, snipers have free range with little downside.

I was hoping the optimizations would help the individual crashes more, but at least the server didn't crash!

I'll try to do some more optimizations sometime soon but I'm not sure if I can improve it much more without knowing what specifically is causing the crashes for those players. Does it happen mainly during the last capture point in the Red warehouse?

I can consider some changes to B as well to make it easier for Blu to push the middle section.

 

[MM1011]

I was hoping the optimizations would help the individual crashes more, but at least the server didn't crash!

I'll try to do some more optimizations sometime soon but I'm not sure if I can improve it much more without knowing what specifically is causing the crashes for those players. Does it happen mainly during the last capture point in the Red warehouse?

I can consider some changes to B as well to make it easier for Blu to push the middle section.

Oh people crash a lot faster than that. Generally people start crashing as we get into B. This can take a few minutes the first time, but on rejoining I see people will crash almost immediately as we're still on B.

 

[Zipfinator99]

Oh people crash a lot faster than that. Generally people start crashing as we get into B. This can take a few minutes the first time, but on rejoining I see people will crash almost immediately as we're still on B.

Thanks for the continued feedback and testing! I'll start working on more optimizations for V6.