What is GorgeCraft?
GorgeCraft is a mod designed for 1-4 (8 if working in pairs) players to build and construct to their hearts content. The aim is to give as much freedom as possible to the players for building, letting their imaginations do the rest.
It takes the Alien builder class from the game Natural Selection 2, and gives it a whole new lease of life, freed from the ravages of battling pesky Marines.
It's a little known fact that the kharaa aliens are completely different races, absorbed by the bacterium in it's quest to grow. Back on their peace-loving homeworld, Gorges love to spend all their time building, playing sports and sliding around on their bellies. It is their calling. GorgeCraft gives you an opportunity to experience Gorges operating in their natural habitat...
GorgeCraft 1.5 Release Notes:
Gameplay:
Doubled Gorge Jump Height
Increased Gorge Base and Belly Sliding Speeds
Added prop 'refinery_crate_02' as building Object 'Crate' to build menu 3
Added prop 'generic_crate_01' as building object 'Box' to complete build menu 3
Massively increased Gorge Build range
Massively increasd Gorge Healspray range, radius and cone
Removed 'buy' menuSpit/Spray is set to weapon 5, although heal spray is always available on right click and will cancel build menu's
Build Menu's on weapons 1-3.
Current Build menu listings (will update with more intuitive groupings over time)
1.1 - Cyst 1.2 - Hydra 1.3 - Clog 1.4 - Crag 1.5 - Shade
2.1 - Shell 2.2 - Veil 2.3 - Egg 2.4 - Harvester 2.5 - Hive
3.1 - Whip 3.2 - Spur 3.3 - Shift 3.4 - Crate 3.5 - Box
Maps:
Created Map gc_pits - a 4 pit building arena
Code:
Removed a lot of unneccesary NS2 Code - e.g. TechData.lua 107KB > 61KB (More to go though!!)
Removed Team 1
Removed Onos
Reduced server code on some current objects
Removed some unnecessary pre-cache effects
Mod is customised to GCGamerules, no longer works with default ns2_ maps.
Overall, between first completing my map on Thursday, and final mod testing on Saturday, my beginning fps in the pit went from 68fps to 91fps. Hives still need optimisation, as they cause a large dip in fps when there are too many!!!
Known Issues:
Hydra's do not build automatically, even on infestation. A crag can get a hydra to 100% but it will not build until hit with a healspray.
Crates and boxes physics objects are not accurate, also they are not stackable, they are supposed to be buildable like the clog, so further investigation required!!
Console spamming "Error: Snapshot Overflow Too many entities" when you have too many entities :P
Gorge can only eat Hydra, Clog, Crate and Box after building, but all buildings immediately after placement.
Mapping:
DO NOT OPEN THIS MAP IN THE EDITOR UNLESS YOU HAVE CREATED A 'GAME' MOD IN LAUNCHPAD THAT IS POINTING TO A COPY OF THE MOD FILES, IS RUNNING THE MOD, AND YOU OPEN THE EDITOR FROM LAUNCHPAD!!
This has to be stressed purely because opening the map to have a look without doing this, will cause the gc_gamerules entity to disappear. Any save will mean the map will just cause your game to crash when you launch the mod.
Creating a map for GorgeCraft is very easy. All you need is a TechPoint entity set to Team 2, and a GCGamerules entity, plus space for the players to build. Please use the GCgamerules entity, there is also a GCFGamerules entity in the editor, but this will currently do nothing. Customised versions of NS2 maps can be very easily made, by opening in you GorgeCraft Mod editor and adding a GCGamerules. Be aware the ns2 maps are very big and can get very overloaded with entities.
A little bit more:
There are big plans afoot!! I have a B.U.S!! A Big Unannounced Surprise!! This surprise will see the mod turn to v2. It's going to be a big jump!
I have an I.T.P!!! Is this possible??
I am also putting in place a sustainable (hopefully) versioning system, as I expect game feature updates to begin to take longer to implement, as I move onto bigger ideas.
Using the same 1.1.1 system as now, first number will be major game features/systems full release, 2nd number will be feature releases in increments up to complete feature release, and the third number will be for releases caused by NS2 updates, and minor feature changes/fixes. This means you may see versions like 1.12.17 if things go badly wrong for me, hahaha!! I am also dropping the alpha bit on the releases, as this mod is in version 1.5, I realised there is no alpha, beta, release for a mod, it's a version from the moment it's created.
Anyway, enjoy it, and if you are, let me know!!! Send me your screenshots/videos whatever. The best/funniest will be posted/linked on our site and maybe even uploaded to ModDB!!
Bugs, comments, ideas and suggestions in the usual places!!! If you find a fix for any bugs or have some code to improve my current implementations, please get in touch, I'd love any help I can get making this bigger and better!!
