Ashes Afterglow TC - closing the vault

[Plasmazippo]

Following up on one of the bugs I mentioned in the weapons pack:

Under the AshesFirebomb entry in Actors/Effects/effects.txt, there's the header for the Master Blaster's firebomb:

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ACTOR AshesFirebomb: rocket replaces rocket

If you comment out or delete the "replaces rocket" part, like this...

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ACTOR AshesFirebomb: rocket

... the Cyberdemon will fire normal rockets again, while the Master Blaster remains unaffected since it calls upon the AshesFirebomb actor directly. The only caveat is that the rocket will still look like a firebomb because of the sprites in the pack.

[Plasmazippo]

By the by, guys:

I've seen mentions of Ashes in several pages of TV Tropes (such as here, here and here) and yet the game has no page of its own.

[bouchacha]

This is really such an amazing "mod", and easily one of my favorite games in recent memory. I spent $250 on the Steam holiday sale but all I ended up doing was playing and replaying Ashes 2063 instead. So it's really excellent. I think I was caught off-guard by how much better and bigger episode 2 was, since it was way more than just a continuation of the first episode. Very very impressive work!

I have some suggestions and also some questions.

Suggestions

• I love how interconnected the levels are but it might be useful to have a shortcut from Prosperity to Dome. Granted, you usually don't have a ton of reasons to make that trip, but it couldn't hurt.
• Apocalypse as a difficulty setting was not very difficult, and I often saw myself maxing out on carried ammunition. It might be related to how there tends to be perhaps too big of a gap between the beefier enemies and the cannon fodder. Either enemies go down in 2-3 bullets, or require magdumping.
• Similarly, I ended up with a shitload of scrap throughout the game, despite not really relying on melee much. I liked the leatherworker upgrades option, and maybe some other 'scrap sinks' could be useful.
• Episode 1 had a pseudo hint system for secrets, in the form of the intermission screen stats, so you were at least made aware if you missed out on anything. Afterglow doesn't have anything, and it seems that the secrets stat is hardcoded to be hidden by the engine regardless of the options you choose. Is that intentional? Either way, on my second playthrough I just relied on 'summon allmap' because missing out was too much to miss out on, but that cheat doesn't work for everything. Maybe you can pay scrap for secret hints??
• The gauss junker musket charge-up has an iffy response to holding the fire command. What appears to be required is that after you shoot the musket, you have to let go for a certain period of time, before the musket will charge up again. If you start holding fire too early, nothing happens, but it often takes a couple of seconds to notice this. It would be useful if the musket registered fire button holding no matter when it happens.
• crossing out completed quests on the journal is a far more legible method of signifying that something is completed. Currently the font color barely changes, and you see the 'done!' under each entry.
• I don't know how to say this nicely, but the pitfiend race is really annoying. The fiend is a bit difficult to control since it moves in 'hops', but worst of all, all actions are disabled while you're moving. So if you want to do the leap or spit attack, you basically have to come to a standstill before the command gets registered. Not very conducive to being in a race. And similarly, the hidden racing game is very funny and impressive, but also extremely annoying to control and I can't tell how anyone could beat that. There are no hit indicators (your health goes down silently), and there is no clear feedback on how far or how much damage your own attacks do (I can't tell if the difference between the melee/shotgun attacks is just cosmetic). Both racing games could be really fun with some minor tweaks.
• The laser upgrade on the pistol gets very distracting because of how it is rendered by the engine when you're moving, because you end up seeing a vertical row of 3 lights flickering in the center of your screen from view bobbing. I regretted upgrading my pistol because of that. An option to turn off the red dot completely would be great.

Questions
Re: Smiley

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After getting him out in Prosperity, your journal says "Reminder: Kill Smiley". Can you actually do that? Where?

Re: Dome

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What exactly is that plant with "shaggy hair" that just runs away from you? I couldn't tell if it was a reference I didn't get or some sort of secret.

[AmissaAnima]

To Bouchacha

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It is impossible to kill Smiley in the game as he just disappears when you grab the so called great stash he bragged about. However if you gain access to the second secret map and complete it fully you'll gain an ending slide where Smiley dies

[ButtonBoy]

bouchacha wrote And similarly, the hidden racing game is very funny and impressive

What are you talking about, is there a second racing minigame, I did the Pitfiend racing one but if there is a second racing minigame I must of missed it. Could you please tell me where it is and what it is?

[m8f]

Just finished Ashes Afterglow. Excellent work! It exceeded all my expectations, and bear in mind that the first episode set the bar high already! The setting, the enemies, the weapons, the levels, the story - everything works so nice together.

My only nitpick is dialog font. Not very readable due to all caps, and without an outline it blurs with background sometimes.

[hazzmati]

I agree with m8f the font used in Afterglow is not nice to look at it and difficult to read. The one used in the original Ashes 2063 seemed alot cleaner.

[bouchacha]

bouchacha wrote And similarly, the hidden racing game is very funny and impressive

What are you talking about, is there a second racing minigame, I did the Pitfiend racing one but if there is a second racing minigame I must of missed it. Could you please tell me where it is and what it is?

It's in Nuclear Wasted

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It's a recent addition, and not present in previous versions of the map. At the end of level, when you go through the gates, you should see a room with a safe, and another room with an arcade cabinet, and yet another room with a switch that turns on the cabinet.

[ButtonBoy]

bouchacha wrote And similarly, the hidden racing game is very funny and impressive

What are you talking about, is there a second racing minigame, I did the Pitfiend racing one but if there is a second racing minigame I must of missed it. Could you please tell me where it is and what it is?

It's in Nuclear Wasted

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It's a recent addition, and not present in previous versions of the map. At the end of level, when you go through the gates, you should see a room with a safe, and another room with an arcade cabinet, and yet another room with a switch that turns on the cabinet.

Cool!, Thanks. I totally missed that on my 3rd Playthrough, its little thing like this which keep ashes such a fun and totally "rad" (pun intended) game, it feels constantly fresh and I can't wait for the 2 whole new expansions which are (hopefully) coming soon

[Plasmazippo]

bouchacha wrote And similarly, the hidden racing game is very funny and impressive

What are you talking about, is there a second racing minigame, I did the Pitfiend racing one but if there is a second racing minigame I must of missed it. Could you please tell me where it is and what it is?

It's in Nuclear Wasted

---

It's a recent addition, and not present in previous versions of the map. At the end of level, when you go through the gates, you should see a room with a safe, and another room with an arcade cabinet, and yet another room with a switch that turns on the cabinet.

Oh, that must be a 1.06 (ModDB release) addition, then. Makes sense a few wouldn't know, as Vos hasn't yet updated the changelog in the OP to include that one.

[ButtonBoy]

So I was just mucking about in afterglow this morning and I was curious, so i typed "give all" in the console and got what you expect, all the weapons, money, etc, but in my inventory were items labelled "night vision battery's" and now I wonder where you can get these from, I know you can get the goggles form Larry and you can find a pair in the Array but I don't know where you get the batteries from, does anyone know or have any ideas?
p.s I also remember someone mentioning a second lantern upgrade, I know about the one you get form violet but is there a second, if so, how do I get it?

[AmissaAnima]

I have no idea if this Second lantern upgrade is an rumor or not.
Even though i have played through this mod multiple times it could be possible that i have missed this in some way or another.

[Plasmazippo]

Night Vision Battery is the power unit for the NVGs in DECORATE. If you use the Intelligent Supplies mod, it outright tells you it's what you get from an NVG pickup, which comes with 120 of them. Lovely attention to detail.

At least in v1.05, the one I'm familiar with, there's no mention of a second Solar Lantern state in the DECORATE file. There's the old pre-Afterglow (as in the 1.15 release of 2063) standalone lantern "weapon" as unused code, but that's it.

[ButtonBoy]

I have no idea if this Second lantern upgrade is an rumour or not.
Even though i have played through this mod multiple times it could be possible that I have missed this in some way or another.

Same!, I've heard whispers of it but have let to see it, its funny, Afterglow is so big I'm constantly finding new things and small details, even though I've played through it a bunch at this point, so I hope your as psyched as I am for the upcoming expansions! I just can't get enough of that sweet, juicy, nuclear wasteland

[ButtonBoy]

Night Vision Battery is the power unit for the NVGs in DECORATE. If you use the Intelligent Supplies mod, it outright tells you it's what you get from an NVG pickup, which comes with 120 of them. Lovely attention to detail.

At least in v1.05, the one I'm familiar with, there's no mention of a second Solar Lantern state in the DECORATE file. There's the old pre-Afterglow (as in the 1.15 release of 2063) standalone lantern "weapon" as unused code, but that's it.

Also thank you too, that's pretty interesting, and your right it is great attention to detail, Vos and Joe really did a great job, huh