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View Full Version : Custom Map on working in Skirmish



CoduX
November 23rd, 2016, 14:39
Hi there, great to see people are still playing this amazing game.

I have created a map in the map editor for brother because he boasts that he is 'too good' for the campaign and pre-made skirmish levels so trying to make a really challenging one for him.

I seem to have created the map right and saved it ok. It appears fine in the skirmish menu when searched for maps but when I try to enter the level, the screen crashes and says 'DKII.exe has stopped working, please close the program" every time I try to open the level.
Not sure what is going wrong since I can access other custom maps such as my 'test maps' and another quick one I created without any problems at all.

Is there a limit to how many creatures you can place maybe until the game decides to chuck a fit??

Info: Win 7 Ultimate

Tried:
- Entering and saving in admin mode in DK Editor
- Playing as admin
- Re-copying the whole level on to another level

I will post up the map details once I have been accepted into the mapmaker group here, hopefully someone can find an answer to the problem or fix it :)

tonihele
November 24th, 2016, 17:10
Just out of curiosity... If you can upload this to somewhere or email me it. I can test it in OpenKeeper :) Well you can also, but maybe easier this way, if you are interested.

CoduX
November 25th, 2016, 05:54
Thanks for your reply tonihele,

I managed to fix it. Turns out it starts to crash when you enable 'able to fly' on creatures that usually aren't able to fly and also some creatures (heroes) I put attacks on them that they usually wouldn't be able to do which also partial cause of it.
It's pretty hard level.

Also quick question, how do I disable horny from the level? My brother was spam summoning him to just take out all the heroes I made which took out the challenge part.

I will upload soon and post here

Metal Gear Rex
November 25th, 2016, 20:18
Thanks for your reply tonihele,

I managed to fix it. Turns out it starts to crash when you enable 'able to fly' on creatures that usually aren't able to fly and also some creatures (heroes) I put attacks on them that they usually wouldn't be able to do which also partial cause of it.
It's pretty hard level.

Also quick question, how do I disable horny from the level? My brother was spam summoning him to just take out all the heroes I made which took out the challenge part.

I will upload soon and post here

If you can post the 'bugged' version of the map, maybe someone could look at it. I'm not as sure about flying creatures causing a crash (never played with that setting myself) but adding spells to a unit shouldn't cause a crash in and of itself.

To disable the Horned Reaper, Edit Keeper Properties and, under Spell Availability, there's "Summon Horny". Uncheck it. It can still be enabled via the Skirmish Menu and Cheats, so if you really want to hard disable it, go to Configuration at the top. Under Keeper Spells, find Summony Horny, and on the right there's "Shot Type". Set it to None (probably also set the mana cost to 0 then).

As for your general situation, I'm not sure how old your brother is but conquering DK2 isn't that hard. The campaign is pretty easy, save for 1, maybe 2 levels (10 and maybe 20). The only reason behind those levels' difficulty is that the campaign is not well designed for them. Level 10 needs a player to be more aggressive and actually engage with the enemy in a timely manner, but every other level pretty much doesn't so there is a lack of a learning curve there. Level 20 is similar but to a lesser extent. Neither level is actually that difficult. DK2 is also not as well balanced or designed in general, as there's tons of things to exploit to just completely break the game, both figuratively and literally. Also if you're playing on 1.7, the Keeper AI is braindead.

If you're looking for a more challenging experience, I'd recommend checking out my balance patch (https://keeperklan.com/threads/2530-Dungeon-Keeper-2-Patch-DK2-with-Better-Balance-(And-Pie)), which has revised maps, and Skarok's Kasabian Campaign (https://keeperklan.com/threads/3123-The-Kasabian-Campaign-Episode-1), which uses my patch (the 1.0 first released version). Both contain real challenging maps, although my balanced patch isn't quite finished (never finished the campaign revisions and there's still some balancing things I was still experimenting with around the time I stopped working on it). Both use the 1.3 version, however.

CoduX
November 26th, 2016, 03:24
I agree with the 1.7 Keepers being braindead. It's actually pretty annoying with them doing nothing. They don't even build lairs or hatcheries and since the editor doesn't have a lair or hatchery in the 'Rooms' tab, I dunno how to give it them.

I use 1.7..is there a way you can convert back from 1.7 to 1.3?

Also which is best site to upload maps to so I can post here?

Metal Gear Rex
November 26th, 2016, 04:34
I agree with the 1.7 Keepers being braindead. It's actually pretty annoying with them doing nothing. They don't even build lairs or hatcheries and since the editor doesn't have a lair or hatchery in the 'Rooms' tab, I dunno how to give it them.

I use 1.7..is there a way you can convert back from 1.7 to 1.3?

Also which is best site to upload maps to so I can post here?

You can use the RC3 editor to build Lair and Hatchery tiles. Alternatively, boot up official levels and copy paste terrain tiles.

There isn't really a way to convert back to 1.3 from a later version since it's technically a downgrade, as far as I know. It's really just a matter of having the vanilla installation and not patching the game. Not sure if you can get your hands on that, since I know GOG is only 1.7.

You can upload maps here directly but they'll need approval.

CoduX
November 27th, 2016, 01:29
You can use the RC3 editor to build Lair and Hatchery tiles. Alternatively, boot up official levels and copy paste terrain tiles.

There isn't really a way to convert back to 1.3 from a later version since it's technically a downgrade, as far as I know. It's really just a matter of having the vanilla installation and not patching the game. Not sure if you can get your hands on that, since I know GOG is only 1.7.

You can upload maps here directly but they'll need approval.

That is handy, I never thought about the copy/paste thanks!
Yeah I have the GOG version so I guess stuck with 1.7. I've been mucking around with the AI keepers trying to make them harder and I'm getting there. They aren't just doing nothing now, actually building and stuff and attacking each other, but still sometimes they do nothing..will need to continue the testing. I think the lair/hatchery might help the current testing but we'll see.

I'll upload then :)

Metal Gear Rex
November 27th, 2016, 03:49
That is handy, I never thought about the copy/paste thanks!
Yeah I have the GOG version so I guess stuck with 1.7. I've been mucking around with the AI keepers trying to make them harder and I'm getting there. They aren't just doing nothing now, actually building and stuff and attacking each other, but still sometimes they do nothing..will need to continue the testing. I think the lair/hatchery might help the current testing but we'll see.

I'll upload then :)

The biggest thing is that for some reason, 1.7 AI cannot detect creature threats. Therefore, it won't drop creatures to defend / attack, which is a big one.

damedog
November 27th, 2016, 14:39
And i'm assuming we have no access to the enemy Keeper AI scripts? No way to figure out the problem and alter it on our own?

YourMaster
November 27th, 2016, 16:19
Well, what wyrmcast did seems like a smart move. He made his 'General improvement Mod' where he included the new features of 1.7 into the not so buggy 1.51. He also shared how he did it. version 1.7 has more problems than just the threat detection of the AI.

Eventually he became upset though, and removed his account here and all his posts.

damedog
November 27th, 2016, 18:02
I'm just awaiting the day one can play a non-broken version of this game without being lucky and having an earlier install or finding some obscure and not so very legal download somewhere.

How are they just gonna release a patch that ruins the game instead of fixing it, then wash their hands of it and walk away. Dafuq.

Local company ruins everything

YourMaster
November 27th, 2016, 18:37
Well, in fairness 1.5 also broke more stuff than it fixed compared to 1.3, so I understand they didn't want to release yet another update. ;)
That being said, I think it's also shameful that GOG released it in this stage, for them it should be quite manageable to at least fix this and the creature spawn bug. That latter one is fixed by just replacing the 1.7 maps with the set of corrected maps.

But hey, if you manage to fix the pathfinding bug in KeeperFX you may come and pick up my disk version of DK2 and I'll poor you a beer to go along with it.