Force a cold start after playing several levels

[Pumo]

Hi everyone.

After some thoughts, I realized that for a section of my Pumo Mines mission to work, it would be desired to force the player to advance to the next level without his/her collected weapons.
That means that the player should realize a cold start for a better flow of the mission (for both story and balance reasons).

However, the only way I can think to force the player to make a cold start, is to destroy the previous level (be it through a boss or reactor) and to NOT place an exit trigger to properly finish the level. But I'm not sure the 'you died in the mine' message would be desirable (I could edit the text of course, but I ran out of ideas of what it should say)

Another idea that came to my mind is to damage the player enough to die on some enclosed space that activates a D2X-XL Spawn trigger, so after losing all the weapons you re-spawn in an area out of the 'damaging' space to prevent you to gather the weapons, so you can advance to the next level without them.

Do you have any other creative idea or another approach to make this work?

[Descer]

Lock the door where player enters te reactor chamber, put another one out, but in the corridor... ...is an ambush. Then make it as a plot twist.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Is there a trigger to lower shields as well as energy?

[Alter-Fox]

I believe D2X-XL has one. I should look through DLE to see what's available before suggesting anything stupid.
Don't have time for that right now though, so the only thing I can think of at the moment is that while the reason you want to be vague about what might or might not happen in this situation with people who don't already know the plot of Pumo Mines is obvious, if you were to send a PM to someone who does already know the story explaining at what point this would happen, that totally theoretical person who's definitely not yellow and spotty and holding a steak in their mouth might be able help a little more than they can right now. Heheh.

[Pumo]

Ok, will sent you a PM with more details.
What I can say for everyone here is that it's because I need to define 'episodes' during the mission, so you start at the middle of the story as if you were starting a new game, to continue the mission as if you were on level 1 once more.

To TRUEpiiiicness:
Yeap, D2X-XL supports both type of triggers, you can find them on DLE.

To Descer:
Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure if it will be suitable for the story. Will think about it.

[LightWolf]

Couldn't you theoretically just do another mission?

[Pumo]

That was the original idea, but then I found a problem.

I want it to use all of Pumo Mines assets for that episode, and if I break it up in another mission, that means you would need to have another copy of the Pumo Mines mod folder for that other mission, and as for now and even if I haven't finished the project yet, the Pumo Mines mod folder alone is almost 3GB in size!

Would be a waste of space to have the exact same assets repeated twice, and also a problem to transport (and eventually upload) them.

[LightWolf]

...How did you get a mod folder that big!?



Anyway, you could make a "limbo world" level with a post-reactor death between episodes with text like "Episode complete. You will continue with default weaponry now." Just make sure to give the player an extra life before any forced deaths.

[Alter-Fox]

I actually like that idea. Like the hub in DI... you could have the player start there before the original mission and then start a new game on it to pick the next one. Then any new Pumo Mines projects that you might or might not end up building could be added to that level as well -- you'd just need to have the player shunted back there after they finish an "episode" and close off all paths to other missions until they start a new game.

Let's say that a little bit less confusingly now...

Okay, so upon starting the mission the player is taken to a hub level. It has two exits, one for each "episode".
On finishing an episode, you are taken back to the hub level only now a bunch of walls have closed off so that the player is trapped in a cage and can't leave it at all (or you can have more fun with this). The point is, the player is forced to begin a new game on the hub level in order to choose the other episode.

[LightWolf]

"Please restart mission to unlock next episode."

I actually like Alter's idea.

Let me know if you want me to make a hub for you so you can focus on the actual Mines of Pumo.

[Pumo]

Indeed, Alter's idea may be the best approach!
Some years ago I thought about some kind of hub (as you can see here: http://descent2.de/forum/viewtopic.php? ... hub#p26672), but it was too complex and too hard to implement, so I had to cancel it.
I like Alter's concept much better (it's easier to make and much more straightforward and to the point).

If you would like to help me with the hub it will be very much appreciated!
As always, make the texturing sketchy, as is the part I may change the most at the end, and be sure to make it more or less in a tech style (like some space station) and very small.

I will divide the mission in three episodes, so be sure to add the 3 gates to access them.