Snowplow

CP Snowplow Final Version

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ics

http://ics-base.net
aa
Jun 17, 2010
841
543
Thanks. One more thing, i'm not sure if it's related but crashes seem to happen in the 2nd stage the most. Maybe something to do with the laser burning the train and entities not being removed correctly? Right now:

players : 24 humans, 0 bots (26 max)
edicts : 1910 used of 2048 max

Those go up to 1970 or so time to time. The ducks aren't even created if entity count is high. Console spits out warning: " Warning: High level of Edicts, Not spawning Ducks" so it's (crash) not due to those.
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
aa
Sep 5, 2010
6,394
5,573
Thanks. One more thing, i'm not sure if it's related but crashes seem to happen in the 2nd stage the most. Maybe something to do with the laser burning the train and entities not being removed correctly? Right now:

players : 24 humans, 0 bots (26 max)
edicts : 1910 used of 2048 max

Those go up to 1970 or so time to time. The ducks aren't even created if entity count is high. Console spits out warning: " Warning: High level of Edicts, Not spawning Ducks" so it's (crash) not due to those.

I'm looking into it all now.
 

tom95

L1: Registered
Dec 9, 2014
1
0
We're encountering the same problem on our server. We actually tested it on two different ones since we thought it may be related to configs, but even the one we used to run for a long time crashed very frequently.

If we can somehow help with debugging, please notify me somehow. If you want to take a look for yourself, the new one that we set up is located at 37.59.53.32:27018 and the one we used to run is at the default port, so just 37.59.53.32. The latter resets to hightower after crashing though.
 

ics

http://ics-base.net
aa
Jun 17, 2010
841
543
Just do map mapname, wait for it to load and type status to console. It will show you edicts count X of 2048. If you are below 1600, it's major improvement.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
There are more advanced entdict debugging commands available since a few updates ago.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
Wiki page over here. It would be nice if you'd help add more details. I'd do it myself, but my decompiler seems to hate the file.
 

island55

L1: Registered
Nov 14, 2011
3
3
the refrigerators do not slowly go back up before being dropped again. they drop and sit on the train and when the time limit hits again they get jerked up really quickly and drop again. even when the team caps the point and the train goes to the second point, the refrigerators stay in the down position..

just letting you know
 

Vel0city

func_fish
aa
Dec 6, 2014
1,947
1,589
Ok, couple of things I noticed.

Somehow this map has enormous performance issues when loading certain parts of the map, or by standing in very specific spots. My frame rate tanks from 60 fps (at which I have it capped) to 7 fps for a second before it goes back up again on almost half of the map, and I'm certain it's not my computer (if I uncap the frame rate I can easily get 250 fps +). A couple of those spots include: in front of cp B on stage one, on the bridge in front of BLU's 1st spawn on stage one, random spots around cp B on stage 2, around the final cp in stage 2.

Secondly, I noticed this in the 3D skybox behind BLU's spawn. Somehow the mountain in the background is being told to render in front of the smoke resulting in some pretty weird rendering errors. Notice it's only the mountain, not the skycards that represent the trees, even though they are on the same plane.

And indeed, the refrigerators don't go back up to their initial before-the-drop state.

Love the music building up when the timer hits 30 seconds, but I'm missing quite a few sounds when the train is actually moving from control point to control point. It travels in near silence.

I still don't get why this map was cut. It being too complicated is not an excuse, there must be something going on behind the scenes that neither we nor McVee's team know of. Every TF2 player is missing out on something awesome here.
 
Mar 23, 2013
1,013
347
the map has still over 1600 entities. After my experience this is too much for a 32 player server and likely too cause crashes.

Besides that, the map looks rather blank and empty at some places. It is fun to play on but the design level is just not... offical-map-like :/

Can it be that this are the true reasons that Valve didn't want to make the map offical? But why the hell are they just saying "it's too confusing" instead of explaining the issues?

EDIT: and how did you manage to get a file size of 140 MB? only 30MB of this are custom textures and models. Is it all geometry and lightmaps??
 
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Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,701
2,583
It's a very large map. More than twice the size of Hydro. Basically it's two full-sized Payload maps glued together.
 

RubbishyUser

L7: Fancy Member
Feb 17, 2013
414
488
Could that be why they dismissed it then? I always felt like that was the point - that you're covering a huge amount of ground like the End of the Line.
 

3Dnj

Ducks
aa
Dec 21, 2008
288
638
Just tested it on tf2maps server today after work.

My main concern for a first play is that the timing system looks complicated for something that is not.At first I was wondering how the map was working but at the end, it's just a timer that is not growing after a point captured (right ?) but skinned as a life bar for the train. But each 30 seconds, having the com saying 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 can be confusing.

I understand the choice for the narrative process along the film "end of the line" but it bring to the map a layer of useless complexity. This, plus the train which is a good fun idea but really makes the map not a classic cp map.

I can beileve some people that are not playing really often can be a bit lost with some new stuff like this. For the same reason I don't see a lot of ctf "push" maps in pub because it's not classic ctf how lamba players will think at first.

Eat least the map is decent visualy and it's fun to have one snowed stage only. Just raged a bit with the system that destroy the train making some good cover for snipers.
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
aa
Sep 5, 2010
6,394
5,573
So Crash and Valvetime both have put out videos about the development of snowplow. I'll be adding to this later on in the coming week as I'm compiling up some images and a write up to describe my through process around the design of stage 2.

For links
 
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