All right! Gear up! Two minutes people. Get HOT!

Offworld Drop Marines... Listen up!

My latest build of Reduction - Version 1-point-6.

(Hoah!)

Changes are:

• Improved the Escape Pod drop sequence... Now you (hopefully) won't be bouncing out of the ceiling as you're being blasted through the floor in an escape pod. But also, now you'll hear the call to get ready...
• Altered the buzzer spawn parameters in Mission 3: fewer buzzers, but each is stronger. There were complaints of lag, and frankly it comes down to the terrible audio coding on this NPC monster: the buzzer. It's audio output is lagging the game servers (sorry mappers: not even setting it go gag works, as the gag ceases when the NPC becomes "angry"). Anyway - I just reduced the number to try to cut down on lag for that part of Mission 3.

Thanks, in particular, to DimedRoll - for your excellent feedback...

Get the download here: http://www.preparetodrop.com/p/downloads.html.

Drake, Check Your Camera... (WHAM!)... That's Good... (Version 1.5 Is Online Now)

Okay, after a bumpy first week, I've uploaded version 1.5. Get it here: http://www.preparetodrop.com/p/downloads.html

Changes since the beginning:

• Fixed lag issues in Missions 4 (the Train Mission) and 5. (Most of this came down to the animated NPC drones skittering along the bottom of the train, in the former case, and the animated Marine "extras" in the latter case.)
• Conformed the bug spawning to the Alien Swarm standard - basically removed the tiers of spawners that activate only higher levels of difficulty. This should cut down on masses of drones being spawned when you play on Insane and Brutal modes (thus reducing lag).
• Raised the ceiling in the larger rooms in Mission 1. (Against my better judgement. Look closely: Can you can see those light fixtures on the invisible ceiling over the Marines head? That means there's a ceiling there. It's invisible not because there is no ceiling, but only so you can see the Marines [it's what is called the "invisible fourth wall" in theatre - so the audience can see the action]. So if there's an implied ceiling there, I'm not sure why anyone would expect a grenade launcher shell would just pass through it as if there was no ceiling... But hey, give 'em what they want...)
• Made the boxcar weaker, so it's faster to cut in Mission 5.
• Fixed a bug that caused the chainsaws to disappear unexpectedly in Mission 5.
• Put in a better sky for the final scene of Mission 5.
• Allowed you to get to the battle scene in Mission 5, sooner. (May switch this back.)
• Fixed captions not showing up (provided YOU have your Game Instructor enabled!).
• Removed the joysticks on the crane prop in Mission 5 (just to make it more implicit how to control the crane: you stand on floor pads, kind of like "dance dance revolution" but for cranes).
• Stripped away a lot of the scrolling scenery in Mission 4 (to cut down on lag).
• Reduced the number of buzzers on Mission 4 (thanks to enex for this suggestion).
• Other minor glitches here and there.

I hope you enjoy this version, and please do send me feedback.

I'm expecting the Kickstarter campaign to start in the next week or so - to make it possible to continue Reduction.

Solid Beta Version (1.5) Coming Online Soon

Folks, either tonight (Friday) or early tomorrow (Saturday) I should have Reduction V1.5 up online.

This will definitively fix the lag issues some of the missions (I know, since I have now identified the exact causes of the problems - which entities were generating the most net traffic and so forth).

V1.5 will also provide a number of game balancing fixes and will make some parts more fun, based on your feedback.

And there'll be some polish here and there.

Primary Coupler's Released... Version 1.4 Is Up!

Just released Version 1.4. Get it here...

Changelog:

• Nuked the f*** out of Mission 4 (the Train Mission). All the treadmilling 3D scenery is GONE! (I told you I nuked it.) Now it's just a flat slab of bsp in a skybox with a scrolling texture (of the same 3D scenery). This should really cut down on the net traffic. It's not quite as pretty, but it gets the idea across: you're on a moving train - now let's get down to killing aliens.
• Reduced the difficulty of spawners in Mission 4 - including cutting down a lot of the buzzers (thanks enex for the suggestion). 

I still have to revise the spawners for Missions 1 and 3, but I'll do that later. For the time being, I suggest you don't go harder than "Hard" - as that is kindof equivalent to regular Alien Swarm "Insane".

Will also raise the ceilings on Mission 1 in some spots, to make them more grenade launcher friendly. (But remember: Mission 1 isn't an outdoors mission - it's a space station. A grenade launcher might not be the best weapon to use inside a cramped space station. I always respect the invisible fourth wall [which is the ceiling in a top-down shooter].)

Anyway, 5 releases in 3 days... I am now going to go take a little time off and watch Prometheus... Finally!

Have fun killing crawlers.

Fix Coming For The Train Mission

I just went in and created a server for Mission 4 (the "Train Mission").

It's still too laggy.

So to fix it I'm going to "nuke it from orbit".

Basically, the scrolling terrain is a treadmill system running in the background. (I wish I could convert all those entities to client-side only, in which case you'd have absolutely beautiful 3D scrolling terrain with no network traffic - but that's something to do if the Kickstarter campaign goes totally incredible.)

Basically, I'm going to rip it all out and just lay in a slab of bsp with a scrolling texture. That way the terrain will generate no net traffic, whatsoever. (Okay, I might put in train lights that whip by now and then...)

This is too bad, because the ending of that mission is actually funny...

Version 1.3 Is Online!

Get the latest version - V1-3 - here...


Fixes:

• Fixed Mission 1 Objectives. (The "Go To The Docking Office" objective wouldn't complete if you cut the Docking Office door down - meaning that you couldn't finish the mission at the end. Now it completes whether you open the door or chainsaw it down.)
• Fixed Mission 4 (the Train Mission) lag. (I mistakenly put up the wrong version of Mission 4 in V1-2. This time I for-real have stripped out most of the entities that are causing lag.)
• FIXED THE DIALOGUE! Now you actually can see the in-game dialogue captions - spoken by the Pilot ("BigDog") and the Marines and so on. This dialogue gives instructions what to do in critical moments - so early reports of players getting lost should be resolved now.

The Difficulty Levels: Something I'm not sure of yet: the difficulty levels:

People are going into Reduction and setting it to play on Insane, Insane Onslaught, Brutal and Brutal Onslaught thinking this is normal Alien Swarm.

One of the complaints of Valve's Alien Swarm was that it was too easy - even on those high difficulty levels.

In Reduction I made it so that "Insane" and "Brutal" are actually and truly insane and brutal. Do not go into those levels thinking they are normal Valve levels - they will eat you alive!

However, this is causing some lag because there are SO many drones being spawned. So I'm still debating what to do about that. Your feedback is welcome.

One last thing: This campaign is still in beta! It's not finished yet, so please weather the glitches and so on.

Have fun and send me feedback!

Thanks to those initial players who are helping out. It's been a bumpy launch - just because it rolled out without any multiplayer playtesting prior to you guys playing it.

Especially thanks to DimedRoll for his demos (totally indispensable feedback), and Victim for his dedicated server.

Version 1.2 Is On The Ready Line

Hopefully fixed the in-mission dialogue from not appearing.

Right now the Commander and other characters talk, but players can't see any of the dialogue (which is relayed as captions). This is leaving players feeling stranded, not knowing what to do next - especially in Mission 5.

I found out that each caption entity - which is normally used only for telling players to press a button or go here or whatever - needs a target entity. Since I was just using those as disembodied captions - instructions and context dialogue from the Commander (and, frankly, backtalk from the Marines!) - I didn't point them to any targets. So I went in and just added a general "target" as a slug. Hopefully, this fix will deal with that. If not, I'll need to use a different caption entity.

(Though the ultimate goal would be to record actual audio captions - that is acted dialogue. But that's a WAYS down the road. If the Kickstarter campaign succeeds, that would make that possible.)

Get it here: http://www.preparetodrop.com/p/downloads.html

And yeah, there's more work to do yet.

Version 1.1 Is Up

Fixed most of the lag in Mission 4 (the train mission).

Get it here: http://www.preparetodrop.com/p/downloads.html

Still have lots of work to do.

We Need To Run A Bypass!

Okay, so Dimedroll sent me a bunch of demos of gameplay (that was amazing feedback).

A lot of you seem to like the look of the levels.

One problem is lag. I'm addressing a lot of that now. Some of that is caused, frankly, by the aliens - the buzzers in Mission 3 have issues which spam the audio engine. That would need coding work to address.

Second problem - which you don't realize - is that none of the dialogue is coming through. The missions are full of hints and instructions for what to do - especially the last mission (Mission 5). They are supposed to appear as pop-up balloons. All those times that the Commander screen comes on, there is dialogue giving you clues what to do next. I used env_instructor_hints all through, and they work in single-player, but they just aren't rendering out in the multiplayer. (What can I say? Argh, Source SDK...)

The other thing is, you're missing the story, too because of this! The Marines talk to the Commander - but you're hearing none of it. (Damn... Very frustrating.) There's a story going on...

My ultimate goal is to turn this into a standalone conversion, so I am interested in hearing from talented Source developers who would like to join the project. I'll probably try to replace those hints with actual recorded dialogue as well - though that will be a lot of work, too.

What I want to do is fund all future development of this - to pay developers - through a Kickstarter campaign. Just because it's a lot of work to do. The plan is for another 8 levels on top of this.

Okay Marines, We're Goin' To Get Some! REDUCTION IS LIVE!

(Please see the Update below.)

Yes, you heard the man! GET ON THE READY LINE!

Get Reduction here now!

(Right in time for Prometheus, too.)

See the installation instructions here...

To those hardcore types who blast through this, give me feedback here:

General Feedback: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2740074

Technical Feedback: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2740072

(And I sincerely hope the crawlers don't tear you too much of a new one...)

UPDATE!

(Friday 8 June 2012) Version 1.1 is coming shortly - hopefully by tonight or tomorrow!

Initial feedback shows that Mission 4 - the "train mission" - is lagging badly. Going back over that, I know the cause of the problem (too many moving entities), and I'll get on that (will remove moving entities and consolidate the moving scenery into fewer entities). It should be fixed with Version 1-1.