[SM] Signals -- The Exploration of Draxis (Final Map Uploaded!)

[NAM]

Yeah, I'm back.  -cricket chirps-  And no one knows who I am! Awesome! Regardless, I'm devising a new hack that I plan to add a simple, yet interesting (In my opinion...) twist to.

So far, I only have a rough idea of the story. Read at your own risk; kinda ruins the first part of my twist.  ;D

[spoiler]Samus Aran is making her way across the galaxy when she receives a very faint signal. Ever on the lookout for danger, our brave heroine quickly deciphers the message to the best of her abilities. All she could get out of it was scrambled code. It seemed to have a pattern to it, but she abandoned the thought only moments after she thought it. The encryption, the coding, it was all Galactic Federation, but someone or something had altered it so as to render it nearly indecipherable.

Samus immediately guns it towards an unexplored planet named only in the last month by the Federation. Draxis was not the tourist destination, its surface being entirely too barren for even the greatest terraformers to alter. Its crust was undeniably thicker than usual, and had thick deposits of heavy and radioactive metals in it. Most all sensors had problems penetrating its crust to see what lay beneath, so the Federation had sent out a research vessel, the G.F. Orion, to perform deep-penetrating crust scans of Draxis.

Apparently, the vessel hadn't made it back. And now Samus makes her way to the barren planet, inadvertently to save those people, trapped there by the same, strange electronic malfunctions that down Samus' ship. They had experienced major difficulties, and crashed hard into Draxis' surface, the ship falling into one of the planets' porous-like caves near the surface. Samus managed all the same and more; her ship was annihilated, the bounty huntress barely surviving. But the Orion didn't vaporize like Samus' ship, and she hoped whatever had activated the Orion's faint signal was friendly.[/spoiler]




__PICTURES__

Rough Area-Map---Updated/Final Area Map Draft
The (Updated) Starting Room
The Completed Map (Pending Changes)



__TEXT__
Detailed Item Progression
[spoiler]Crevasse
*Start

GF Orion
>Morph Ball

Crevasse
(M)Bomb Torizo?
>Bombs

GF Orion
>Missiles

Porous Crust
>Jump Ball
>Grappling Beam

Buried Ruins
>Spazer
(B)Spore Spawn
>Speed Booster

Porous Crust
>Charge Beam

Miasmos
>Hi-Jump Boots

Crevasse
>Ice Beam

Miasmos
>Gravity Suit --> Hazard Suit?
(B)Kraid
>Super Missiles

Quarry
(B)Crocomire --> Mining Robot
>Power Bombs

Buried Ruins
(B)Draygon
>Space Jump
>Varia Suit --> Psy Suit
>Plasma Beam --> Buster Beam?

Quarry
>Wave Beam
(B)Golden Torizo

Cluster
>Screw Attack
(B)Mother Brain
*Modified Escape Sequence; leave
     to teleporter?[/spoiler]



__CURRENT__

--Hack has been successfully restarted; GFX were inserted successfully, IPS patches applied (shadow's Air Tubes and Grime's beam items and beam GFX patches)
--Map finished; available above
--I have to remap the map because areas aren't in the right places....  >_>



Thanks for your time;
--NAM

Engine Works thread here.

[Zhs2]

Awww man. No screenshots? But we lock topics for not having those...

[dark_samus]

Zhs2 don't lock this topic looks like this could be an amazing hack give him some time to get it together sounds like he hasn't even started hacking yet looks like he's still brain storming  on what e wats to do and maybe he wants some feedback on his ideas

[Zhs2]

That's what this topic is for. Please don't beg for a lack of jurisdiction. It only makes you look bad.

[NAM]

Rats! Knew I forgot something! Well, thanks for the help, dark_samus, but Zhs was right.  xD

Regardless, I pushed out this screenie of the starting area. Loading spot is obvious. I plan on messing with the right door so that it's only accessible via Shinespark from the left door (That goes to a nice, long hallway of some such). My mentality before was for them to have to use the Ice Beam, but I may do that for another item, once I decide on item order.

But, enough of that, picture!
Clicky!

The BG is disabled because it doesn't show right. I switched it to the scrolling skies, which I'm ironing out as we speak.

EDIT: Uh... doesn't show enemies. But there's two, er, Shredders on the right between the two rocky... things....

[Quietus]

When posting screenshots, you should either disable the BTS (F3 in SMILE), or ensure that you have not made any obvious BTS errors.  Your screenshot has lots of them.  As for the room's design, it seems OK to me.

[MetroidMst]

What is with all the extra BTS? You need to fix all those numbers in that room and you have slope errors as well. As for the room itself, a bit much on the CRE for me, but otherwise you have a decent amount of slopes to keep it from being flat.

[NAM]

When posting screenshots, you should either disable the BTS (F3 in SMILE), or ensure that you have not made any obvious BTS errors.  Your screenshot has lots of them.  As for the room's design, it seems OK to me.

I'm sure it'd be easy to fix, erm, if I knew what BTS errors were... better to ask in Engine Works than here?

And, stupid question, I'm sure, CRE tiles would be the tiles in nearly every graphic set, right? Like the save station tiles, Chozo statues, and such?

[Charmander106]

CRE (or Central graphics as I like to call them) are the graphics used for Chozo statues, save stations,etc....

BTS are the those green triangles and squares in the level editor. They are what makes the slopes in the game. BTS errors are BTS when used in an incorrect fashion. The red numbers is the value of that tile, also used to define what kind of tile uses with what BTS will be used, making sure you use the correct block type. But those red numbers is what value is being used for that tile.

I hopes this makes sense...  :>_>:

[NAM]

CRE (or Central graphics as I like to call them) are the graphics used for Chozo statues, save stations,etc....

BTS are the those green triangles and squares in the level editor. They are what makes the slopes in the game. BTS errors are BTS when used in an incorrect fashion. The red numbers is the value of that tile, also used to define what kind of tile uses with what BTS will be used, making sure you use the correct block type. But those red numbers is what value is being used for that tile.

I hopes this makes sense...  :>_>:

Made perfect sense, thanks.  :yay:

But I figured it out before checking out your post; all of the BTS errors were fixed, and I adjusted the door. Updated screenie:

Clicky!

[Silver Skree]

CRE (or Central graphics as I like to call them)

Common Room Elements.

[Smiley]

I can see a perma-stuck, on the left, below the door. If you don't have morph, it's possible the jump in that hole and get stuck.
There are also some tiling errors (missing grass next to the door on the left) and some BTS errors.

[NAM]

I can see a perma-stuck, on the left, below the door. If you don't have morph, it's possible the jump in that hole and get stuck.
There are also some tiling errors (missing grass next to the door on the left) and some BTS errors.

Ohh, I was messing around with something and forgot to replace the grass. Oops!  ^^"

And... you mean the piping directly beneath the lefthand door? That isn't a permastuck, they're solid blocks.

Aaaaand update on the area map; this is final, methinks. However, I don't know: Should I make the crashed Orion a separate area like the Wrecked Ship? I was thinking if I did that, I could make it more realistic... I think I WILL do that. 'Cause the Metroid Cluster won't be too large of an area. > Tourian's size. Oh, right, the map:

Clicky!


EDIT: Also, huge-ish spoilers have been added to the main post; detailed Item Progression.

[Quietus]

Just another note about BTS errors.  When you make a ramp, you know that you need to place at least one square BTS block behind it.  You should also do this for ceilings, as players will get stuck on the edges if they jump into the ramp.  Try it, and you'll see what I mean.

[NAM]

Just another note about BTS errors.  When you make a ramp, you know that you need to place at least one square BTS block behind it.  You should also do this for ceilings, as players will get stuck on the edges if they jump into the ramp.  Try it, and you'll see what I mean.

Yeah, I recall that. So, just behind it, that's it?

Aaaand yet another update; my WIP Crevasse map. I wanted to take this map in a Metroid NES/Zero Mission callback, with the vertical shafts and such. The gap in the map is for the G.F. Orion and its map.

V  Image below  V

[Silver Skree]

Don't post BMPs. That's not cool, man.

At least run it through Paint and save it as a PNG first.

(Or run the file through PNGout.)

[NAM]

Don't post BMPs. That's not cool, man.

At least run it through Paint and save it as a PNG first.

(Or run the file through PNGout.)

Uh... okay...?



EDIT: The hack has had to be restarted because I apparently am silly and incapable of doing things right. Progress will occur... soon-ish.

EDIT 2: Real progress! Now that things have been restarted and such, I got the tedious part out of the way first: The map!

HUGE image. Also, it functions as a Wallpaper!

[Qactis]

I use IrfanView it's a very nifty program that is great for pasting screenshots/cropping/batch converting multiple images at the same time.