Import outdoor section problem

[macman0]

I keep getting error messages when I try to import a different outdoor section. Error numbers, 302 and 307 to be exact.

 

This only happens when I try to import a segment that I have edited or a segment that is next to an edited segment, so it SEEMS to work just fine if I want to import a completely blank section of outdoor land.

 

I thought it might have to do with the fact that my map is 10X10 outdoor squares, but it does the same thing with smaller maps.

 

Any ideas? TIA

[Drakefyre]

First of all, why in the world do you need 100 outdoor sections?

 

Secondly, I don't get the same problem.

[macman0]

Hmm... interesting. Actually, I've messed with it more and it only seems to be caused when you try to load FROM a map that size.

 

As for the size... I'm not sure why I'm trying to do something that big. I doubt I'll ever finish. What started as a simple plot idea turned into a huge 3 act production. I do think I over estimated by 20 or so, but it seems to be a pain to make a map bigger, and I can always write a bigger story.

[the Great Potato]

The largest scenarios out there only have around 30-40 outdoor sections. Most large scenarios have around 15. I don't think you're properly estimating the size of your scenario, and if it is that involved, it will take years to make it any good.

[Alorael at Large]

10x10 is larger than any of the Avernum games. Immensely larger. Trust us, you cannot possibly use all that space, and trying to will only create vast, empty wildernesses that will drive players crazy for no reason.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't really see anything wrong with working with 100 outdoors sections. You'll just find that you can't possibly fill them, and eventually you won't even want to try, so the result will be an unnecessarily bloated scenario file.

[Silent Motion]

But woudn't it be a GREAT punishment for screwing around in a high-level mage's lab - to be teleported to the "ends of the earth!"

[macman0]

Actually OFF the planet.

Well I probably am overestimating. And I will likely scale it down plenty. The problem still does occur though.

Thanks for the tips on size. We'll see how big it ends up being.

[Spidweb]

On one hand, Exile 3 has almost 100 outdoor sections, so it's certainly doable.

 

On the other hand, when I was done, I said "Never again."

 

- Jeff

[Donald Hebb]

Amen to that. 100 outdoors sections is way too many for any scenario. With the 200 town limit, one could feasibly (dare I say it) make At the Gallows in all-towns. My scenarios take place in 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 9, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1 and 1 sections respectively. I'm a reserved designer in that respect.

[Midknight Warrior]

jeff, didnt you have to redo it all over for A3? or did you just port it and edit the bugs?

[void*_dup1]

Since you mention the outdoor sizes, don't you think they are too small? I mean, if you assume the following:

 

a) 5000 ticks/day

10 ticks per tile traversed

c) 24h/day

d) speed of 4Km/h on foot (day average)

 

then you get an outdoor tile size of about 200m or 1/9 mile! The entire outdoors of Avernum 3 would fit easily within New Hampshire, even if you stretch estimations c) and d).

 

Not that it matters much but maybe time should go faster or outdoors should be bigger; otherwise you feel like walking on a park. I do prefer huge outdoors, even if mostly empty

[Kelandon]

The problem may be with assumption c). We don't know how long days are, because this varies considerably from planet to planet. I did a different set of calculations based on the signs in A3, posted here , near the bottom of that page, and came to the conclusion that Valorim is about the size of India and therefore that days on the planet of Avernum are roughly nine Earth days in length. My evidence is certainly not definitive, though...

 

I think it's clear that Jeff didn't intend to be consistent in terms of space and time -- didn't one of those signs say, "Please don't hold us to this"? -- but it's fun to try and work with what he gave us

[void*_dup1]

I agree that time and space have to be somehow abstracted; I don't think it's a problem once you accept the conventions. But I miss some challenge when traversing all those wastelands. You never feel lost outdoors, pathfinding is trivial; for example, you can 'see' distant tiles and monsters regardles of intervening terrain or actual accessibility. I guess this is just to improve gameplay -- so you are not forced to traverse all those tiles to explore them.

[Drakefyre]

1250 ticks of each day (first 625 and last 625) are darkness.

[Kelandon]

Jeez, how might one pull *that* off, astronomically speaking? One quarter of the day cycle is nighttime? I would think that would only be possible if the planet weren't even remotely spherical.

 

Uh oh...

[macman0]

Well... If one was at a sufficiently high enough latitude, and if the planet's axis of rotation was angled away from the perpendicular (like earth's ), AND for some unknown reason the axis processed around in a circle at the same rate that the planet revolves around its star(so that one pole always pointed star-ward), that could happen. I think... That would also make one hemisphere always in summer (which could explain why those trees are always so dang green, course the might be evergreens .) Of course that would make the other hemisphere perpetually frigid. Hmm... that could be fun to create.

[void*_dup1]

Maybe we're in a binary system. Did Jeff ever mention the number of suns? That would help explain the very long days too... the precise astronomic details are left as an exercise to the reader.

 

Scenario authors might as well use the new script calls to manipulate time outdoors if they really cared, but pre-Keplerian speculation is much more fun