Campaign: Nod Mission 16 - Performance Improved image - Twisted Insurrection mod for C&C: Tiberian Sun
Twisted Insurrection is a critically acclaimed, standalone modification based on the Command & Conquer™ Tiberian Sun™ engine. It features a complete redesign of the original game, set in an alternate "what-if?" timeline where the Brotherhood of Nod was victorious during the first Tiberian War. Do you have what it takes to drag the shattered Global Defense Initiative out of ruin? Or will you crush all who oppose the will of Kane and his Inner Circle? The choice is yours commander.
As a lot of you are aware, Nod Mission 16 (Eagles Fall) has been very problematic in the past due-to it having a handful of performance issues caused by various things. As of Version 0.40.18 (available now via the client), we hope to have fixed all of the problems that have been brought to our attention over time. These improvements include:
- Fixed a bug that caused an Internal Error if a specific civilian structure was destroyed
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused friendly units to attack eachother at the start of the mission
- Infector is now elite in starting squad
- Lowered the amount of troops that are spawned in phase 2 of the mission preventing the sudden lag spikes
- Removed tons of civilian prop structures for improved performance
- Removed various invisible light posts for improved performance
- Removed a large handful of trees to help improved performance
- Removed lots of civilian prop vehicles such as cars and trucks for improved performance
We can not guarantee that the mission will work flawlessly for everybody in terms of it's speed and performance, but we have tried our best to improve the mission further.
If you encounter any problems, be they graphical, gameplay or speed / performance related, let us know and we'll keep making improvements or sacrifices until we finally get this working properly!
Ah, the woes of working with a 17 year old engine. :P
Creating something as huge as N16 in a more modern engine could also be difficult. I never saw such huge maps for C&C 3, for example. Generally TS optimization is alright.
As I've only messed with vanilla RA2 maps and have only made small RA2 multiplayer maps, I never actually knew it was possible to run into overall performance issues based on what is physically a part of the map. I just assumed it was always caused by (and only by) large amounts animations with large amounts of units. Learn something knew every day. :)
Every object and terrain obstacle on the map causes it to become heavier. Often it's clearly noticeable that huge maps run somewhat less less smoothly than medium-sized maps with the same amount of players, even if they still run enjoyably well. Animations of course contribute to the slowdown too. We once made a test and added dozens of thousands of animations into a map, it took 7½ minutes to even get past the loading screen (on a modern machine which usually loads maps within 2-3 seconds). =P
What is causing the slowdown for N16 is unknown, but it could very well just be the amount of obstacles (= pathfinding algorithms have a lot of work) combined with all the objects that the game has to update and render. N16 is a 200x200 sized map, and extremely well detailed.
Various fixes are being put into place over the course of time too, such as widening narrow passage-ways to try and prevent possible pathfinding issues like Rampastring mentioned. The map may suffer a large decrease in graphical quality, but of course the global rule is Gameplay over Graphics.
While this has nothing to do with the mission's performance, I encounter an oversight where you destroy the Uplink Centre before capturing the Facility base. Even if you destroyed the Uplink Centre, the GDI will still use the Ion Cannon to destroy the Power Plants in the Vinifera field.
Oh and cheers for the updated Nod 16. Will continue to test it. :]
Is the rendering a problem or do you have to remove details to avoid adding too many obstacles for the path finder?
The main lag spike problem is caused by the rendering indeed. If the large GDI fortress produces too many units, which it normally does, it can cause huge slow downs. Removing a ton of objects helped to improve this quite a lot.
I loved this mission - but is it possible to make a second version were no nod allies attack - or the reinforcements are under your control - maybe hardcore version
I had horrible slow speed playing this mission and then did have an internal error pop up... I found it more funny than annoying though lol, still glad to see changes being made :)
is it just me that the trains armor is somewhat weaker in the updated version?the train gets destroyed instead of critical damage when gets through the defenses or is it just the units are much more than before