Do you mean that fires a laser? Or has a targetting laser?

If the former, this certainly is possible, though haven't done it in a while and would need to review one of my maps. The latter might not be possible with Vanilla GoldSRC.

NPCs can be triggered to move at any point, you don't need to see them.

Dayum. That looks pretty nice.

Gonna have to check that out.

Yeah, as Jessie said, func_pushables will fall when the object below is broken. What you could do is make the top crate pushable and slightly embed it into the crate below which is a standard func_breakable. It will still be pushable once it drops to the floor though, so your options are indeed fairly limited.

Might be an issue with your JACK setup? Personally I've never run the game through the compiler. I always just compile and then run the map via the console in-game. The command is "map mapname" but I assume you've already figured that out.

So, just to confirm, your compiled map file (start.bsp?) is present in the D:\Sierra\Half-Life\valve\maps directory? That's where hl.exe will be checking for it.

If so, does the game also freeze if you fire up Half-Life as normal and try to run "map start" via the console?

D:\Sierra\Half-Life\gearbox\maps\start

Your map appears to be saving in the gearbox directory. Are you mapping for Opposing Force?

D:\Sierra\Half-Life\hl.exe

If so, you will need to launch Opposing Force to play it. It seems your setup is incorrectly launching Half-Life. It won't be able to find the map in the gearbox directory.

if anyone wants to take over the world, I need to know very quick

Well, it seems that a lot of people still like the mini-competitions. Very well. As mentioned on Discord, I will aim to keep them coming and possibly extend them by a week or two, but I'm unlikely to enter them myself.

As you know, I've run the last couple of competitions on the site. Mini competitions that tend to span no more than four weeks. Both of these have had a moderate turn out and produced some fun little maps, and even introduced some new members to the community, some of whom have stuck around.

You may also remember TWHL Tower, a collaboration project which I also headed up back in February 2015 and released a year later.

Both of these have their pros and cons and I was just curious as to what people would be interested in seeing more of in the future. Would you want to see more quickfire themed competitions which can be hammered out within a month or are you on board for more collaborations, ultimately much longer in development but releasing in a much more polished format and more easily shared with other mod sites?

Competitions

Pros

• Shorter development times
• Freedom of choice for engine and base game
• Single, multiplayer or coop
• Little expectation for plot
• Potential prizes!

Cons

• Limited time for testing and polish
• Entries will be lost in time (like tears in rain?) after the voting period is over

Collaborations

Pros

• Plenty of time to developer and polish your contribution
• Testing and feedback from everyone involved in the collab
• A full mod/map pack release, shared across multiple sites and communities

Cons

• Overall plot can mean a stricter focus on consistency.
• Limited to a single engine or base game
• Singeplayer only (a pro in my eyes, but not everyone is experienced with SP mapping)
• Internal debates regarding plot, theme and individual entries

I was just curious what you guys and gals think. I personally enjoy working on larger collaborations, but my time to manage such a project can become very limited (which ultimately lead to the death of TWHL Pockets last year). Also, bear in mind that if I were to head up another collab project, it would be limited to GoldSRC as I do not work with Source. That still leaves things fairly open in terms of the game, be it Half-Life, Opposing Force, even a Sven-Coop entry we can all play through together when it's done.

You may prefer the simple and more rapid fire nature of the mini competitions, and that's fine too. As I said, I'm just curious.

I always figured that this was just to emphasise the gauss gun's experimental and unpredictable nature? More hilarious than annoying to be honest. I wouldn't say this needed to be fixed in Half-Life, but I can see why modders might not want it to work this way.

Those poly counts are incredibly low by GoldSRC standards these days, so that shouldn't be an issue. As Admer has said, and based on your screenshot, it looks like your paper cup model is essentially inside out. GoldSRC culls backfaces, so you won't see the models if their polys are inverted.

As for the model that doesn't appear at all, it's not really much to go on. There could be any number of reasons why this is the case. I'd need to actually see and test the model file itself.

This is done by lighting the train in a separate room outside the map and controlling switchable lights with the "Target on pass" keyvalue in the func_tracktrain.

I never knew that... How delightfully hacky. Haha! Well played, Valve.

For the rotating blocks, you will need to create your block, create another block with the "origin" texture to act as the point of rotation and then turn it into an func_rotating entity. You can see an example of how to do that in this tutorial.

For the pistons, there are a number of ways of doing it. The simplest method would be to use func_train. Check BrattyLord's response in this thread.

Very cool!

Lots of good looking stuff in here from the last couple of days. Bravo everyone.

Note: The competition has been extended by a day in order to take advantage of the whole of the last weekend, rather than cutting it short for some people.

Here are some more shots from my attempt at an entry. I have absolutely no hope of finishing it by the deadline, so nobody besides me is likely to ever play it... so enjoy the screenshots I guess...

Have you tried in a different editor, such as Sledge or JACK? VHE is pretty damn dated and has all sorts of quirks. Hell, 3.4 isn't even the latest available version if I recall.

While I enjoy sniping in videogames, for multiplayer I much prefer a higher skill requirement. One thing that is annoying about the crossbow in HLDM is the complete lack of travel time, despite it existing in singleplayer, and the ability to kill players with a single body shot. Therefore it requires very little skill needed to kill players with it. It's just "click on enemy player to win." It's almost as bad as the egon gun and I basically consider it a troll weapon, going as far as inconveniencing a player greatly in my maps, having it spawn far from any ample sniping positions.

It's the same reason I dislike the AWP. Counter Strike has even less mobility compared to HLDM, and you don't even have to score a headshot to get the kill.

Games such as Battlefield require you to lead your target based on distance and their movement, and you have to score a headshot for a one shot kill. Same with even arcade shooters like Unreal Tournament. The sniper rifle was an instant hit, but you had to hit them in the head for a quick kill, otherwise it required three body shots.

I shall flesh this out later

The one weapon that comes to mind is the bolt action hunting rifle from new vegas. I enjoyed it so much I made a video about it 8 years ago. I preferred to use it without a scope, even though the ironsights on the model weren't lined up correctly. Made me feel more badass about my long range headshots.

You'd be hard pressed to find anything "up to date" with GoldSrc. A lot of the apps mentioned in the tutorials are no longer available or updated beyond the realms of 1998

I could be wrong, but I think you might just have to work with the older tutorials as best you can. I've never really made a custom skybox from scratch, instead resorting to taking the existing ones and combining / colour swapping them. Heh.

Hey! That's awesome. Congratulations.

That's the one.

The player would indeed get the usual array of pistols, rifles and explosives, but as JeffMOD correctly pointed out, no bullets. The player might get their hands on a classic handgun of some kind, but this would be a powerful one off pickup with very limited ammo.

Something else I thought up yesterday was a poster for lab grown food stuffs.

"From Hydroponics Lab 3, the people who brought you Basically Beef and Practically Pork."

"It's FUNDAMENTALLY FISH!"

"Everything tastes better when you don't think about it!"

Should give you an idea of the kind of tone the series would go for.

Well, the idea is that humanity is largely spread throughout the galaxy by the time of the first mod, so it's likely that in the following mods you would hear about the previous protagonists rather than actively bumping into them.

That said, I'm not ruling it out entirely by any means.

The only solution I know wouldn't work for your specific situation.

I made a map where a ladder lowers down from the ceiling. The func_ladder brush entity is always there, but it's inside a null textured func_door entity that is using the exact same dimensions. When the actual ladder descends, the null door also moves down through the floor and the ladder becomes usable.

The issue with your setup is that there would always be some invisible brush blocking the area where the rope would appear later.

That's got it. Works a treat again.

Welp... AVG hates it. It throws out a warning each time so that I have to say I trust it, and then I get a permissions error anyway...

I really should back things up before I overwrite them.

The Twitter poll agrees that a new protagonist each time would be best.

I'm not saying that every single one would be killed or stranded, but it's an option. And it's not as if they just die at the hands of an enemy, maybe they sacrifice themselves for the greater good and so on.

So I put a poll out on Twitter, but in the interest of getting the input from TWHL peeps, I will put the question here as well.

Should this become a series with more than one entry, what would be your preferred approach to the protagonist(s).

Different protagonist each time
Your adventures among the stars are short lived and often involve you becoming stranded or killed. Each new release follows the story of a different individual, with occasional references to previous fallen heroes.

Same protagonist (legendary)
Following your first contact with the Vull, you become something of a legend. Friendly NPCs will adore you and your enemies will be very wary you. NPCs will use you to solve any and all problems they face, and will announce your presence to strike fear into the hearts of the opposition.

Same protagonist (bad omen)
You have a reputation for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite your ability to take on the Vull and survive, the trail of bodies you leave in your wake leads people to find ways of getting rid of you. Friendly NPCs are often on edge in your presence, and quick to blame you when the shit hits the fan. Your enemies see you as something of a bargaining chip, encouraging your friends to give you up so that they can be spared.

Same protagonist (nobody)
Despite your legendary acts of heroism in the past, nobody seems to recall your face or name. People will speak of the incredible things you have done, misty eyed and full of adoration. However, when dealing with you, they will doubt your capabilities and often mockingly compare you to... yourself. Same goes for your enemies.

Lookin' good.

I think I said on Discord that sven coop would be fine, but bear in mind that a lot of people are going to be playing these maps solo... and regardless of the features it includes, the maps would be based on the use of teleportation/warping.

That's actually something that Archie and I use frequently in The Core. That works wonders and prevents a lot of fiddling

I stand corrected. Thanks Bru-ski

I would also recommend you use JACK's texture lock setting, but only when using the skew contact points. Don't use it with vertex manipulation. That goes very wrong very quickly.

This is caused by the vertices being off grid. They are moved during the compile to the nearest grid point. You can get around this by using HLFix when you compile, but personally I found this caused issues elsewhere in the map. I would recommend instead that you zoom right in and do the required vertex manipulation yourself.

Well, that's why things are kept to a very short time limit. You have to work with what you have, with very little time to customize. It's all about planning your time carefully. All of the RTSL competitions were strictly SP only, and had similar time limits, yet people were able to put out some fantastic, often memorable stuff. Yes, there was the occasional dud, but again, that goes with the territory.

This one is fairly open ended. All forms of entries are allowed. Yes, personally I would prefer that they had a singleplayer focus, and mine will, but some people don't like SP mapping.

Judging is done by the community. You can include anything you want, so long as the entry is centered around teleporting or otherwise transporting the player.

Once again I totally should be spending my time elsewhere and shouldn't be entering this competition...I can't help myself.

Another new mini competition is up and running! As the brief states, your goal is to make a map or mod that makes heavy use of teleportation or some other form of warping the player around.

As this is a mini competition, you must manage your time effectively. Don't bite off more than you can chew, and leave plenty of time for testing. Good luck and have fun!

Well... this is a game changer. I never played the original, but I know it's reputation as a reactive RPG and the fact that Chris Motherfucking Avellone (actual full name) worked on it is a very positive thing.
Trailer is a pre-rendered time waste, but as least it confirms that the game is coming.

Also I don't think your implementation of laser projectiles would be difficult... Pretty sure we can steal the crossbow code for that.

That was my thought too. That or the hivehand secondary fire.

Here is a list of the planned enemies so far. Some of these are easy to implement and shouldn't require any coding (outside of .qc manipulation, skill.cfg and modelling). Some of the other points I would need to enlist a developer, or at least somebody to guide me on where to make the changes.

Bestiary (part 1)

Crew Member

Base: Scientist
Requirements: Reskin/Voice Acting
Implementation: Very easy. Behavior would not need to change at all.
Description: The run of the mill crew member. Unarmed walking plot device, target and/or meal.

Security Guard

Base: Barney.
Requirements: Reskin/Voice Acting/Coding
Implementation: Hard. Behavior would not need to change at all. Weapon would need to fire laser projectiles.
Description: Faithful security officer. Armed with a laser pistol, a can do attitude and security clearance that outranks the player’s.

ESPO Team

Base: HGrunt.
Requirements: Reskin/Voice Acting/Coding
Implementation: Hard. Behavior would not need to change at all. Weapon would need to fire laser projectiles.
Description: The Elite Security and Planetside Operations team are hot-headed and dim-witted. Months cooped up on a ship with nothing to shoot has driven them to near breaking point. With one order, they would willingly turn to the ship into a warzone.

Vull Rat

Base: Headcrab.
Requirements: Modelling.
Implementation: Very easy. This would simply be a new model, otherwise it would basically act like a standard headcrab.
Description: Offspring of an lab rat escapee, infected by the Vull. These creatures scuttle through the various pipes and ventilation shafts, spreading the alien plague to crew members.

Vull Afflicted

Base: Zombie.
Requirements: Modelling.
Implementation: Very easy. This would simply be a new model, otherwise it would basically act like a standard zombie. Alternate heads based on the model can easily be changed with minor .FGD changes. Blood would need changing to Human/Red.
Description: Having come into contact with the Vull, this individual has become corrupted. All traces of their humanity stripped away, they take up the nearest weapon they can get their hands on and bludgeon anything living they can find.

You have my attention...

(Have you considered using the "constant glow" FX setting for your light glow sprites? It would stop them being clipped by the brushwork

Blimey. I don't think I've played Quake coop since I did on a LAN with my dad. I have Quake on Steam so might see if I can get in.

As for Half-Life Deathmatch, I think Archie's server is also up and running indefinitely.

Shouldn't take too long at all. In fact here they are!

Finally got around the playing the entries. All certainly unique, even the two build within the same game felt vastly different to one another. Put my vote in for the one I felt had the edge. A few more hours and the results will be in