ut4_eagle changelog by Grandmachismo/IDRC

Please note: This is a test version intended to be released as an RC1 (public release candidate) in the very near future.  It's currently in the capacity of a test version mod of the original map, though increasingly acceptable playability-wise with each test release version.


Here are some key changes I made in the effort to improve upon an already great map..



 -- Eagle Black Edition Beta 1 - 8/12/13 --

Glitches addressed:
 - Water Tunnel glitch fixed: Players successful in getting through the tunnel wall will be "killed by some well-placed hurt"
 - Train glitch fixed: Players can no longer shoot/see through the train

Ladder issues adressed:
 - Castle front ladder made easier to climb
 - Corner train bridge ladder fixed so players don't get stuck at the top

Telegraph poles - Ladder climable surfaces all raised to the same (for the ladders that matter) so players have to jump a little in order to climb

Railing - All castle railing now allows bullets to pass

Water - Introduced a new shader for clear water

Removed unshootable glass from moving cable car

Added a missing brush that was more visible with the clear water



 -- Eagle Extended Beta 1 changelog - 31/12/2013 -- 

Rear of the West bridgehouse opened up to include a stairway entrance on the right, leading up into a room with a foward-facing (bridge) window and a corridor to the left that connects with the front up-stairs room.  

Added a wine cellar beneath Betok's that serves purely to protect 6 (tdm and ctf) spawns with an exit that leads up into Betok's thru a one-way curtain.  There is another exit via a tunnel that runs under the street and emerges inside the garage opposite.  The garage also has 4 (tdm and ctf) spawns and an auto-close sliding door, only activated by those inside spawn.  

Raised the castle sewer access ladder light to the level of the floor.  

Created one-way clipping on the minor roof-top facing the train bridge, so that a wall-jump on the side with multiple crates will allow a player to get up there.  There are no hinderances to movement from that side - including walking off the front.  However, those trying to climb it from the front will have nothing to grab.

Ramparts:  This alteration allows players to navigate a path via the castle courtyard ramparts from the original inner ramparts to the left and continuing through the towers etc until reaching the far side of the coutyard before heading to the right back into the castle to connect at what was formerly a triple junction.  As a greater degree of spawn protection for red side, I moved 8 of the courtyard spawns (tdm and ctf) upwards to the new embattlements.  

I also provided a 'silent ladder approach' by opening up the castle tunnel (previously barred) on the train tunnel side.  I themed this as what would be a kind of loading area with a crane arm for moving goods off an open carriage I added to the 'end of the line'.  I arranged the goods on the carriage in a ramp fashion, adding an invisible player clip brush in the shape of a ramp so as to provide a smoother path for those wishing to run along that in order to grab the tunnel ledge to the right.  

I added all the surface sounds (possibly some more) back into the map for improved audio detail - very useful during game tactics.  These include: 
Steel (trucks, tracks, containers) clay (roof tiles), plank (flooring, crates, fences), gravel, hardwood (rail sleepers), rock, linoleum (b/w tiles), brick, pavement, rug, cement..

As a bonus the cable car cables can now be traversed.  One can even walk around on the roof at the opposite end.



 -- Eagle Extended Beta 2 changelog - 5/1/2014 -- 

Updated map $locations to reflect additional map areas

Shifted the two sets of red rampart spawns to enclosed areas with one-way door systems: 

 - Castle Tower Access: This section sits on the Eagle's Nest side of the ramparts, which are mostly inaccessible to blue team.  This tower has red spawns (tdm & ctf) inside, at the rampart level and a staircase that winds up one complete revolution to a one-way arched door that enters the Eagle's Nest.  The tower also offers a few windows to survery the surrounding ramparts from a reasonable vantage point.

 - Red Spawn Observation Tower:  This is an enclosed spawn area located inside the train-side tower that overlooks red spawn in the crates area.  One-way Window affords those spawning in the observation tower the ability to take out those camping crates etc..
 
 - The one-way doors cannot be passed/shot through by players outside spawn, and appear dark from outside.  

Added silent (for the most part) ladders.  I found a way of making ladder climbing quiet for ascensions - descending remains the same, however.  You can also shoot from those ladders now!

Added a third cellar exit: an attic level to the garage with two one-way visibility vents for spawn protection - enemies can't shoot, see, or climb through these.  The lagest vent, placed above the garage doors provides the third exit.

New, aqua-colored water shader including fog fx (using orginal eagle color) when viewed under surface and removed qer_trans to improve the aesthetics.  Increased opacity slightly over the old shader.

Full length mirror added to Boat-house 2nd floor.  Tree added near the water's edge, in front of the Bridge-house.  Item of furniture added to the end of the Bridge-house hallway.  Some new textures also utilized.



 -- Eagle Extended Beta 3 changelog - 11/1/2014 -- 

There's a subterrainean passage running from the boathouse to the little shed in the cable courtyard.  I gave this a 1/2 open roller door, with a crate blocking part of the entrance.  The shed also links up to a passage (Betok's Alley) running behind Betok's, and connecting with the wine cellar.  The shed end of Betok's Alley passage is one way, as it is another exit for those spawning around Betok's.  However, the passge running between the shed and boathouse are open to everyone.  

I fixed the 'container of death' by copying the brushes involved, pasting them, scaling by 1.2 for all axis, and using the cushion shader so they surrounded 'killer-brushes'.

Added a missing $location into the water area corner

Created a secret area where you spawn to a room with an LCDLC music track playing, and a greeting from the clan.  The music will play globally across the map, however there is a 5 min cool-down.  The room has a couple of tv screens with cameras displaying their respective teleport locations - one on either side of the map.  The wallpaper is even red & blue respectively.  There's also a picture of [LCDLC]Kalamazoo's cat at the end of the room, and when you approach it a pm will display letting u know the cat is granting you 10,000 points - meow, meow :3  There's a 5 min cool-down for points, and I think that is high enough not to have obscured your real score ;)  

Shifted some spawns from each side's spawn groups so everyone had a fair chance of accessing the new spawn areas I created.

Fixed the water-booth ladder obstruction

Added a decal with a warning to check your corners..

Added $location names for new areas

Raised the light above the entrance to the staircase at the rear of the bridge-house, so it's less of an obstruction to wall-jumpers.

Fixed a transparency glitch at the bridge steps near the water on the castle side.



 -- Eagle Extended Beta 4 changelog - 12/1/2014 -- 

Added cushioning to the castle courtyard for quick exit from the ramparts

Added a mirror of the exitsting secret area, accessible from the red side.  I removed the music track that initially plays upon entering the secret room, changed the points granted to 5, added audio for that context, disabled the points for TS mode.  The spawns for this secret are unique also.

I included Private message triggers for all the one-way spawn exits, so that players understand why they are blocked :)

FINALLY, I made a door system for red tower spawn that allows red to move through the entrance, bringing them into view of those on the other side, THEN they are able to shoot.  This was facilitated by making an invisible door with the weaponclip shader applied and having that slide upwards quickly, based on a trigger on the red spawn side.. this was placed on the black side of a patch mesh wall back from the door.. thus 'bringing the player into view'.  The door also has a chisel shape so that when it slides back down, it reduces the chance of jamming players.

Also added cushioning around the container, as players could still sustain fall damage from the road



 -- Eagle Extended Beta 5 changelog - 21/1/2014 -- 

Fixed fog playing on the junker aircraft model in the water

Made the edge of the boat house roof more reliably grab-able for those jumping across from the Eagle's Nest

Changed the lighting in the cellar to be more realistic with light bulb models that use dual spotlighting - one for light cast upon the floor in a set radius, and one to cast light back at the bulb to illuminate both the bulb and the space above it, beyond the lamp shade, in a tighter radius of light.  I added flares for the bulb filaments and lamp shades of course.

Changed some one-way spawn exits to display a view point set further back from the spawn, which would potentially unnerve onlookers as they saw themselves, and possibly a spawn enemy running toward their player model being displayed!

Improved aesthetics of the tunnel between the boathouse and the cable courtyard shed with lighting improvement and props.  I also made it less likely to get snagged on the surrounding geometry on beams by using invisible angular clips that essentially behave as lateral ramps - much easier to run through there now!

In the rather featureless passage running between the wine cellar and the garage, I added a side-niche with barrels, and a door (possibly a future alternate exit), taking the opportunity to add hoops to all those barrels + existing ones.

Seems that the water glitch has been fixed.. Players could sometimes see bright patches of the water with the hall-of-mirrors effect in the background - this could occur when players panned across the water from certain angles while scoped in.  

Reduced the likelihood of players getting stuck under the invisible weapon clip doors at two of the one-way spawn exits - ie. red spawn tower (Eagle's Nest) and blue spawn (container courtyard shed).  

Added a few model props: a phonograph, an mp40 with nades, & fuse box - created by Valkover

Added cushioning around the red spawn train to prevent the same thing that happened with the container from happening

Changed some textures, and fixed some more alignment issues, funstuff from LCDLC funstuff page



 -- Eagle Extended Beta 6 changelog - 1/2/2014 -- 

Added smoke I generated in Particle Studio 2 to support the active fireplaces

Realigned some more textures

/Most/ surfaces (ie. the ones I apply custom surface sounds to, plus one or two others) are free of fall damage.  I created a lot of duplicate shaders renamed to [whatever]_nodmg to apply surfaceparm nodamage, as the renaming map to q_[whatever] trick only seems to work in urt 4.1, and I really didn't want to cushion every thing manually.  

Completely rebuilt the container that you can enter, to eliminate the weird bouncy-climby physics that was introduced by decompilation of the map - seems that it only happened with some non-axial brush geometry.

I added a balcony to the red spawn tower overlooking the red crates spawn area

I also deleted the timer on the blue secret..

I added two ammo top-up locations to the middle of the map - at either end of the stretch of road running past the boathouse.  Prints player a message and plays an m4 clip load sound, granting x2(primary, secondary and pistol clips, HE & Smoke).  One is located at the back of a truck, and the other is a converted shipping container - the one on the road outside the boathouse - there's a 60 sec cool down for either location.


 -- Eagle Extended Beta 6a changelog - 15/2/2014 --

Quickfix: 

Removed the smoke entity for ammo top-up, due to abuse.

Fixed texture glitch with a couple of the water stairs opposite the booth


 -- Eagle Extended Beta 6h changelog - 9/3/2015 --

Bot support added using a system of ut_info_spawn enities that are suspended above two teleport entities - one with a botclip to prevent bots falling into human designated teleports.  The filter is angled so that bots slide off that and onto a bot designated teleport instead.  Map bot-clipping limits bots to main paths running outside of team spawns.

Secret areas removed

 -- Eagle Extended Beta 6i changelog - 14/3/2015 --

Leaving the blue bot spawns intact (as they seem well enough spread out), I placed 1/2 of the red bot spawns on and to the front of the train bridge.  I also got the bots to properly exit the castle entrance in front of the east bridge, also using a wedge shaped bot clip to stop them temporarily getting stuck around a light fixture on the inside of that entrance.

I removed the patchmesh preventing bots from seeing people on the low roof in front of the train bridge.  

I think I also fixed a weird glitch (would come and go) with one of the water ladders - time will tell.

 -- Eagle Extended Beta 6j changelog - 1/06/2015 --

Removed:

 - Smoke shader from chimneys
 - One-way spawn exits

Opened up bot paths to include traversal of the train tracks and outer castle courtyard.  Also shifted the red bot spawns back to the red base spawn area.

 -- Eagle Extended Beta 6j _CTF version - 1/08/16 -- 

Revived better CTF support by discarding the human/bot spawn filter I created for TDM - original spawns added back in.  

 -- To-do list: --

Add one or two sheets of ice to the river with a slick surface
Ivy to certain walls - some climable
A set of shutters that open for one of the bridge-house room windows
Maybe add some sheets of mist around the castle towers


 -- Compiler settings: -- 

BSP Stage: -meta -skyfix
VIS Stage: -vis
Light Stage: -light -bounce 99 -dirty -fast -samples 4